The Corsair Obsidian 550D, the case recommended for the High-End Workstations, thanks to its looks, sound dampening, cooling performance and ease of components installation.
Six reasons to choose HR’s Workstations:
1. Every single part is hand-picked to ensure top-notch reliability and performance.
2. We don’t cut corners by using a no-brand low-quality power supply, cheap sleeve fans or any other parts that are likely to fail early.
3. Designed to run cool and relatively quietly.
4. For the same price, you’ll get more performance out of your custom workstation, or you’ll save money while getting the same performance compared to a retail PC.
5. Longer warranties on individual parts vs a shorter warranty on the whole PC. Parts have 1 to 6 years or even lifetime warranties.
6. No time wasted on uninstalling pre-installed bloatware and useless programs that you didn’t want in the first place.
Stop relying on, overpaying and being disappointing by HP, Dell and other big companies:
Build your own custom workstation today. It’s easier than you think!
This Build includes all the parts/cables that you need and it was double-checked to ensure compatibility. Simply order your parts, set aside some time (a few hours at most), grab a screwdriver, get a table with a lot of light and build the workstation.
Then you’ll be able to say, “See that computer over there? Yeah, I built that.” Talk about being proud of a job well done.
High-End Workstations VS Mainstream Workstations:
The High-End Workstations, compared to the Mainstream Workstation, offer:
Much higher CPU performance thanks to the two physical CPUs with up to 16 cores in total.
The possibility of adding more RAM, up to 128GB, thanks to more RAM slots.
Choose Your Tier, based on your needs:
We offer four different tiers (configurations) in this article, to match different workload requirements. Go right below this section to see our recommendations depending on which program you use.
Tier A: High-End Workstation, with support for up to 4 or 8 monitors.
Tier A is the basic high-end Workstation, equipped with dual CPUs and one or two video cards to handle up to 4 or 8 monitors at once. This Tier is ideal if all you need is a lot of CPU processing power, with support for multiple monitors.
Tier B: For 3D modeling, CAD and the like.
Tier B is equipped with a Nvidia Quadro K5000, in order to handle your 3D, CAD and the like. Supports up to 4 monitors.
Tier C: For more GPU computing performance, with Nvidia Maximus, combining the power of a Quadro card and a Tesla card
If you need strong computing performance for GPU Computing applications (e.g. Seismic processing, CFD, CAE, Financial computing, Computational chemistry and Physics, Data analytics, Satellite imaging, Weather modeling, etc.), Tier C is the way to go.
It supports Nvidia 2nd generation “Maximus” technology, where you combine two video cards: A Quadro card for graphic (display) purposes and a Tesla K20 5 GB GPU Computing Accelerator
Tier D: DAW (Digital audio workstation) for Audio Professionals
Tier D is equipped with dual CPUs, one video card that supports up to four displays and a pro sound card, the ESI juli@ XTE.
Which Tier do you need for your applications?
Based on your comments and requests from the Workstation Builds: Throw in your Requests and Suggestions! post, I’ve come up with a list of recommendations, based on programs and their requirements.
Adobe Applications: Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Lightroom, Illustator, Indesign, Bridge, Bibble, Flash, Dreamweaver, etc.: Tier A. If you have intensive work that brings a modern (Quad-Core and higher) PC that its knees, consider faster CPUs. The faster that your CPUs are, the faster that the rendering/work will complete. Upgrading to more RAM (64GB) would be a good idea if you work with many very large files.
AutoDesk Suite (AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, etc.): Tier B. If your CAD workflow involves a lot of heavy rendering, computing and/or simulation, go with Tier C for higher performance.
CAD: Tier B. If your CAD workflow involves a lot of heavy rendering, computing and/or simulation, go with Tier C for higher performance.
Camtasia: Tier A
Cinema 4D: Tier A, Tier B for higher-performance. While it will run just fine with the High-End Workstation as it is, this is an application which scales very well when you add performance to your PC, meaning that the better that are your parts, the faster that your renderings will be completed. A faster Quadro card will improve performance and so will faster CPUs, especially the 8-core variants.
CorelDRAW Premium Suite X6: Tier A
DAW (Digital Audio Workstation): Tier D
Development (General coding, for web, Oracle, Java, pretty much any computer language): Tier A
FL Studio: Tier D
Microsoft Office Professional: Tier A
Microsoft Visual Studio: Tier A
Nvidia CUDA: Tier B or if you want even higher performance, Tier C.
Oracle Database: Tier A
Pinnacle Studio 16: Tier A, Tier B for higher performance thanks to Nvidia CUDA
Rhino 5: Tier B
Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate (formerly Sage Timberline Office): Tier A. Go with Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate; Home Premium isn’t supported.
Sony Vegas 12 Pro: Tier A
Sound Forge: Tier D
Other Programs: Got another program that you’d like to know if it would run well on the High-End Workstation or would require upgrades? Leave a comment at the end of this article and I’ll get back to you with my recommendations.
Need a Tier recommendation for your specific workload?
Simply leave a comment at the end of the article. Note that if you want me to recommend to you a completely custom workstation which is different from the four Tiers outlined in this article, I offer consulting services as well. Simply scroll down to the Consulting section towards the end of the article for more information.
Recommended Parts Summary:
Main recommendations, upgrades and alternatives:
1. Recommended Components are in Bold.
2. Suggested Alternatives and Upgrades are in Italic.
3. Some parts can be upgraded on any Tier and some parts can only be upgraded on some Tiers. See the indications below.
High-End Workstations Tiers:
– Tier A: Basic High-End Workstation, with support for up to 4 or 8 displays
- Tier B: For 3D modeling, CAD and the like.
- Tier C: More GPU computing performance, Nvidia Maximus: Quadro + Tesla card
- Tier D: For Audio Professionals, with ESI juli@ XTE sound card
Click on a component’s name (e.g. CPU) to jump to the detailed section of it.
Price
$3932
$5627
$9020
$4179
CPU: Can be upgraded on any Tier without modification
All Tiers: Two Intel Xeon E5-2630 2.3-2.8GHz DDR 1333 Six-Core+HT 95W
Two Intel Xeon E5-2640 2.5-3.0GHz DDR3 1333 Six-Core + HT 95W
Two Intel Xeon E5-2650 2.0-2.8GHz DDR3 1600 Eight-Core + HT 95W
Two Intel Xeon E5-2660 2.2-3.0GHz DDR3 1600 Eight-Core + HT 95W
Two Intel Xeon E5-2665 2.4-3.1GHz DDR3 1600 Eight-Core + HT 115W
Two Intel Xeon E5-2670 2.6-3.3GHz DDR3 1600 Eight-Core + HT 115W
Two Intel Xeon E5-2680 2.7-3.5GHz DDR3 1600 Eight-Core+HT 130W
Two Intel Xeon E5-2690 2.9-3.8GHz DDR3 1600 Eight-Core+HT 130W
-
$1240
$1760
$2200
$2740
$2960
$3100
$3520
$3940
Motherboard
All Tiers: ASUS Z9PA-D8 ATX Dual LGA 2011 Server Motherboard
-
$370
RAM: Can be upgraded on any Tier without modification
All Tiers: 32GB: Two Kingston 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz 1.5v ECC Reg.
64GB: Two Kingston 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz 1.5v ECC Reg.
128GB: Two Kingston 64GB (4x16GB) DDR3 1600MHz 1.5v ECC Reg.
-
$360
$640
$1062
Video Card
Tier A+D: Radeon HD 7770 1GB Flex 3 monitors support, 4 with adapter
*Tier A only: 6 to 8(w/ adapters) monitors:2x Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 1GB Flex*
Display Port to VGA Active Adapter for additional monitor support
Display Port to DVI Active Adapter for additional monitor support
Tier B+C: Nvidia Quadro K5000 4GB Dual-slot
*Tier C*: NVIDIA Tesla K20 5GB GPU for Computing Dual-slot
*With 2 video cards, you can’t install a RAID card. You’ll need a NAS for RAID 6 on hard drives.*
-
$140
$280
$30
$26
$1750
$2870
-
Storage
SSDs: Use the motherboard SATA ports. Can be upgraded on any Tier.
All Tiers: Two Samsung 840 Pro 256GB in RAID 1. Total capacity: 256GB
Two Samsung 840 Pro 512GB in RAID 1. Total capacity: 512GB
Hard Drives: You’ll need a RAID card or a NAS for RAID 6. Upgradable on any Tier.
All Tiers: Four Western Digital Red 1TB in RAID 6, Total capacity: 2TB
Four Western Digital Red 2TB in RAID 6. Total capacity: 4TB
Four Western Digital Red 3TB in RAID 6. Total capacity: 6TB
RAID card or NAS for RAID 6:
Tier A, B and D: ARC-1213-4I-MS PCI-E 4x drives SATA RAID Controller Card
Required cable for RAID card: HighPoint Mini-SAS to 4SATAx 3 feet Cable
Tier C + A (for 2x video cards setups only): Qnap TS-469-PRO-US NAS
-
-
$502
$968
-
$320
$468
$588
-
$370
$17
$815
Optical Drive: Can be upgraded on any Tier without modification
All Tiers: Lite-On SATA 24X DVD Burner
Pioneer Black 15X SATA Blu-Ray/CD/DVD Burner
-
$24
$70
Power Supply: Can be upgraded on any Tier without modification
Tier A and D: Seasonic X-850 850W 80 PLUS Gold Modular 5yrs war.
Tier B: Seasonic X-1050 1050W 80 PLUS Gold Modular 5yrs war.
Tier C: Seasonic X-1250 1250W 80 PLUS Gold Modular 5yrs war.
UPS/Surge Protector:
Cyberpower PP1500SW-T2 UPS 1000W PureSine 7-Outlet
Cyberpower PP2200SW UPS 1500W PureSine 8-Outlet
-
$160
$205
$300
-
$311
$441
Case
All Tiers: Corsair Obsidian 550D
-
$130
Cooling: See full section for where and in which direction to install the case fans.
All Tiers: Two (2x) Noctua NH-U12S CPU Cooler
All Tiers: Two (2x) Noctua NF-P12 120mm Case Fan
Tier A and D: Four (4x) Noctua NF-A14 FLX 140mm Case Fan
Tier B and C: Six (6x) Noctua NF-A14 FLX 140mm Case Fan
-
$140
$36
$80
$120
Sound:
Tier A, B, C: SIIG IC-510111-S2 DP 5.1 PCI-Express 1x Sound Card
Tier D: ESI juli@ XTE PCI-E 1x
-
$43
$290
Network
All Tiers: Onboard 3x Gigabit LAN RJ-45: 2 x Intel® 82574L + 1 x Mgmt
USB Wireless network adapters:
Rosewill RNX-N180UBE Wireless USB 2.0 802.11b/g/n with 5 dBi Antenna
ASUS Dual-Band Wireless-N900 USB-N66
-
Free
-
$20
$65
Trying to reduce the price of your Workstation?
Here are a few things that you can do to cut down on the total cost:
Remove both SSDs (-$500) and only use the hard drives. Sure, the OS, programs and files won’t load as fast, but this won’t affect the processing/rendering speed much, if at all.
Go from two SSDs in RAID 1 to a single SSD (-$250), where you lose both performance and redundancy.
Buy only one CPU and 16GB of RAM (4x4GB, just get a single kit) instead of two CPUs and 32GB (8 x 4GB) of RAM, to save $800. Needless to say, this involves a massive performance hit. Not recommended unless you intend on adding the second cpu/set of RAM later on, otherwise the Mainstream Workstation will offer more performance at an even lower price point.
Building this System, Got a Question, Need Help?
Computer Builds FAQs:
I often get questions such as:
Who are you to tell me which parts to choose?
Can you suggest me a step by step guide to build a computer?
And many more…
You will find the answers to all of these questions and more in this article: FAQ: How to Build Your Own Computer
Also, if this is your first build, here are 10 Quick Tips for 1st Time Builders to get you started.
Finally, if your newly built computer won’t start, I invite you to read Help me: Why won’t my newly assembled PC start or boot?
Have questions, need to consult with an expert?
I offer consulting services if you require my help. Simply scroll down toward the end of the article, to the consulting section, for more information.
High-End Workstation Hardware parts recommendations, detailed version:
Motherboard:
All Tiers:
$370 – ASUS Z9PA-D8 ATX Dual LGA 2011 Server Motherboard
What makes this motherboard great is the fact that it features two LGA 2011 sockets, allowing for a Dual-CPU setup, on the practical ATX format, allowing you to use a regular power supply and case, instead of far more expensive server parts based on far less common standards.
- It supports two Xeon 26xx series CPUs with a TDP of up to 135W for each CPU.
- It supports up to eight RAM sticks, with a frequency up to 1600MHz (depending on the CPU, see the CPU section for more info). I recommend filling them all, in order to get as much bandwidth as possible by taking advantage of quad-channel RAM (quad-channel: 4 RAM slots per CPU x 2 CPUs).
During installation, do note that you need to plug in a 24-pin power cables and TWO 8-pin power cables in order for the motherboard to function properly. Rest assured that the recommended power supplies do come with those power cables.
Back Ports:
On the back, you have two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, one PS/2, a serial port, a VGA output and three LAN ports (Two Intel 82574L 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN ports and one mgmt LAN port).
Expansion ports + Storage Ports on the board:
Two PCI-Express 3.0 16X, three PCI-Express 8X slots, one PIKE slot (Used for Audio Card), two SATA 6Gbps and four SATA 3Gbps ports. Note that the board does not support floppy drives nor IDE-based drives.
In which expansion slots should you install the expansion cards (video, RAID and sound cards):
From top (closest to CPU sockets) to bottom:
Tier A (single video card): Top PCI-Express 8x slot: Sound card, top PCI-Express 16x slot: Video Card, bottom PCI-Express 8x slot: RAID card
Tier A (dual video cards): Top PCI-Express 8x slot: Sound card, top PCI-Express 16x slot: 1st video Card, bottom PCI-Express 16x slot: 2nd video card. No RAID card, make sure to get a NAS for the hard drives in RAID 6 (see storage section).
Tier B: Top PCI-Express 8x slot: Sound card, top PCI-Express 16x slot: Video Card, bottom PCI-Express 8x slot: RAID card
Tier C: Top PCI-Express 8x slot: Sound card, top PCI-Express 16x slot: Quadro K5000, bottom PCI-Express 16x slot: Tesla card. No RAID card, make sure to get a NAS for the hard drives in RAID 6 (see storage section).
Tier D: Top PCI-Express 16x slot: Video Card, bottom PCI-Express 16x slot: sound card, bottom PCI-Express 8x slot: RAID card
Additional information:
Note that the motherboard includes six SATA cables, so you don’t need to buy any additional SATA cable, unless you add a lot more drives, since the build only needs three cables (two SSDs and one optical drive, the hard drives have cables with the RAID card or don’t need any in the NAS).
CPU:
All Tiers:
$1240 – Two (2x) Intel Xeon E5-2630 2.3-2.8GHz Turbo Six-Core + HT 95W
Note that the price is for two (2) CPUs.
The Xeon E2630 is the second lowest-end entry-level Xeon CPU from the E26xx family. It features six cores + Hyper-Threading, so it can handle up to 12 threads. Its base frequency is 2.3GHz but just like the consumer class Core i5 and i7 CPUs from Intel, it can automatically and safely boost its frequency, up to 2.8GHz for the E-2630, when faced with heavy workloads.
Did I say entry-level? That’s relative, considering that this setup will outperform any comparatively priced system. Needless to say, for your workloads, this setup will outperform any single cpu setup, whether it’s from AMD or Intel, in the vast majority of workstation type of workloads. If you need raw CPU power, a dual-CPU setup is a great upgrade from a single-CPU setup.
The dual-socket 2011 platform gives you access to Quad-Channel RAM and also allows you to upgrade to the 8-core Xeon CPUs (See the available upgrades below) if you want even more performance.
Note that no CPU Cooler is included with them, hence why I recommend a CPU cooler further down in this article.
Regarding RAM frequency:
Note that the maximum RAM frequency supported by the E-2630 is 1333MHz. If you want 1600MHz RAM support, you’ll need to upgrade to the E-2650 or an higher-end model. Higher RAM frequency means more memory bandwidth, which can improve performance with some programs.
Available upgrades:
Note that core count and frequencies are compared to the E5-2630.
$1760 – Two Intel Xeon E5-2640 2.5-3.0GHz Turbo Six-Core + HT 95W – Base and Turbo frequency higher by 200Mhz, identical otherwise. RAM will run at 1333Mhz.
$2200 – Two Intel Xeon E5-2650 2.0-2.8GHz Turbo Eight-Core + HT 95W – Two additional cores (8 vs 6 cores), base frequency lower by 300Mhz, Turbo frequency identical. RAM will run at 1600Mhz.
$2740 – Two Intel Xeon E5-2660 2.2-3.0GHz Turbo Eight-Core + HT 95W – Two additional cores (8 vs 6 cores), base frequency lower by 100Mhz, Turbo frequency higher by 200MHz. RAM will run at 1600Mhz.
$2960 – Two Intel Xeon E5-2665 2.4-3.1GHz Turbo Eight-Core + HT 115W – Two additional cores (8 vs 6 cores), base frequency higher by 100Mhz, Turbo higher by 300MHz. RAM will run at 1600Mhz.
$3100 – Two Intel Xeon E5-2670 2.6-3.3GHz Turbo Eight-Core + HT 115W – Two additional cores (8 vs 6 cores), base frequency higher by 300Mhz, Turbo higher by 500MHz. RAM will run at 1600Mhz.
$3520 – Two Intel Xeon E5-2680 2.7-3.5GHz Turbo Eight-Core + HT 130W – Two additional cores (8 vs 6 cores), base frequency higher by 400Mhz, Turbo higher by 700MHz. RAM will run at 1600Mhz.
$3940 – Two Intel Xeon E5-2690 2.9-3.8GHz Turbo Eight-Core + HT 130W – Two additional cores (8 vs 6 cores), base frequency higher by 600Mhz, Turbo higher by 1000MHz (1GHz). RAM will run at 1600Mhz. This is the fastest Xeon CPU available that’s compatible with this build.
Video Card:
Tier A and D:
$140 – Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 1GB Flex 3-4 monitors support
While the motherboard comes with a VGA output, I recommend avoiding using it, as its based on the awful Aspeed AST2050 onboard video chipset with a mere 16MB of memory, which is completely underwhelming and useless for a Workstation.
The video card that I recommend for Tier A and D, the Sapphire Radeon HD 7700 1GB Flex may look like a rather basic video card, but it has the capability of outputting to up to three DVI monitors without any adapters.
It can also output to up to four monitors at once, if your 4th monitor has a Displayport connection or with one of the two following adapter:
- For VGA monitors: $30 – Display Port to VGA Active Adapter
- For DVI monitors: $26 – Display Port to DVI Active Adapter
This is unique to Sapphire Flex video cards, other Radeon video cards support two video cards out of the box or three with an adapter. For more information on Sapphire FleX technology, I invite you to visit this page on their website.
Need support for more than 4 monitors?
If you need support for more than 4 monitors, you can add a second Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 Flex to your system, without any other modification to the workstation. Out of the box, you’ll have support for 6 displays. By adding one or two adapters recommended above, you’ll get support for 7 or 8 displays respectively.
Compatibility notes:
- This option is only compatible with Tier A, as the other Tiers have other video or sound cards that will prevent you from installing two Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 Flex in your system.
- If you use two Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 Flex, you will be unable to install a RAID controller card. To be able to have four hard drives in RAID 6, you’ll have to purchase a NAS (Network Attached Storage). I recommend the $815- Qnap TS-469-PRO-US for its high performance (Dual-core CPU, 1GB RAM, Dual LAN ports), reliability, solid build and top-notch customer support. It will store the four hard drives, will allow you to run them in a RAID 6 array and connects directly to your workstation via two LAN ports. Alternatively, you can connect it to your network, so that other users can easily access it.
Tier B and C:
$1750 – Nvidia Quadro K5000 4GB Dual-slot
Recently launched, the Nvidia Quadro K5000 4GB is the most powerful professional card from the Nvidia Quadro line-up. It will easily take care of 3D rendering, CAD programs and the like, as well as accelerating programs UI and video decoding of course.
It is capable of handling four monitors, with DVI-I DL + DVI-D DL + DP 1.2 + DP 1.2 display connectors.
FirePro vs Quadro:
Performance wise, the latest Quadro line-up (K series, avoid the older non-K series) has the edge over the FirePro series, thanks to superior drivers that simply deliver more performance. Quadro cards are also supported by more applications and finally, their drivers are more optimized for greater performance in some applications.
While the AMD FirePro line-up of cards can be an interesting alternative thanks to their relatively low cost, they are just not supported by as many applications as the Nvidia Quadro line-up cards are.
Considering the cost of this workstation, I’m sure that you’ll want to get top-notch performance all over the place in all apps, including Adobe apps and top-notch drivers, hence why I only recommend Nvidia Quadro cards in this build.
Professional 3D Workstation Video Cards:
What applications benefit from or truly need AMD Firepro or Nvidia Quadro Cards and what’s the difference between consumer cards (Radeon/Geforce) and professional cards (FirePro/Quadro)?
Accuracy & reliability:
“Exact pinpoint renders for things such as vehicle/building/contraption etc design, think many moving parts working together such as an engine prototype….things where a millimeter or so off could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars or much much more lost or even death…. They are tools for professionals, and if you really need one you’ll know it.
Gaming cards and workstation cards are very similar, but the differences are major. Consumer cards are built for speed at the cost of accuracy, gaming renders need to be fast…not perfect.
Workstation cards are the opposite, they need to be perfectly accurate at all times, speeds good but not priority, major differences in the cards are ECC ram (expensive, but a lost bit could be catastrophic) and very robust and detailed driver support…the drivers are really where the bulk of the expense comes from and , they have to work and have to work well, we gripe and moan about bugs in our games…when the card is holding you back from your livelihood….
It cost money to make money and or move things forward to a large degree, great designs aren’t doodled out on a napkin in a country diner anymore.
Similar to other class of products on the market, i.e consumer vs pro cameras:
There are many products out that scale the same way, look at cameras, a $200 point and shoot for the trip to disney world or the $5000+++ used to shoot what we see in magazines and such, a nice solid sub $500 Asian import guitar vs a $3K+ made in the USA model, the latter has better quality components and much more time and care in construction.
Back to the cards a lot of pro level applications will work to a degree on consumer cards (with some hacking and preening), but thats more like an artists sketch pad….good for practice and education, or proof of concept work but nothing mission critical…for most pro applications key features are disabled and their is no formal support unless a proper card is being used.”
“Workstation card core chips are mostly identical to the consumer grade stuff (except for the memory controller), but everything around it is usually made of much higher quality components. The heatsinks and fans are made of better materials etc. etc.”
Thanks to our reader EBOBO and the folks on the forums of DesktopReview.com for that great explanation.
Other than that, Quadros and Firepros have optimizations in their drivers for various specific applications as well for the usual workload that a Workstation will be used for. These optimizations are only activated when a Quadro or Firepro is detected.
Tier C:
$2870 – NVIDIA Tesla K20 5GB GPU for Computing Dual-slot
Need more computing performance?
If you need strong computing performance for GPU Computing applications (e.g. Seismic processing, CFD, CAE, Financial computing, Computational chemistry and Physics, Data analytics, Satellite imaging, Weather modeling, etc.), Nvidia offers their 2nd generation “Maximus” technology, where you combine two video cards: A Quadro card for graphic (display) purposes and a NVIDIA Tesla K20 5 GB GPU Computing Accelerator card for computing (rendering) purposes. By sharing the loads on two specialized cards, you get better computing performance than using only a Quadro card with your CPU(s).
For more information on Nvidia’s Maximus technology, performance improvements that you can expect and testimonials, visit this page.
If your computing needs aren’t that demanding yet, you can stick to only a Quadro card and upgrade to the highest-end Quadro (K5000) if necessary. If you have a Quadro K5000 already and need more computing power or if you just know that you need as much computing power, then adding a NVIDIA Tesla K20 5 GB GPU Computing Accelerator computing card to your workstation that also contains a Quadro K5000 makes sense.
Note that the Tesla card has no display outputs, so you must have a Quadro card to handle your monitors. As explained above, combining it with a Quadro K5000 is the best and most powerful option, hence why that’s what I’m recommending for Tier C.
Warning about a possible compatibility issue:
The downside of using a Tesla K20 card with a Quadro K5000 card is that due to the dual-slot size of both cards, you will be unable to install a RAID controller add-on card, due to the lack of space on the motherboard to do so.
In other words, you can still have two SSDs in RAID 1 with the Tesla K20 card and the Quadro K5000 card, but four hard drives in RAID 6 (which requires an add-on RAID controller card) won’t be possible, unless you get a NAS (Network Attached Storage), which is an external enclosure that can be connected directly to LAN port(s) to ensure high transfer rates, with four hard drives in RAID 6, along with two SSDs in RAID 1 in the PC case.
I recommend the $815- Qnap TS-469-PRO-US for its high performance (Dual-core CPU, 1GB RAM, Dual LAN ports), reliability, solid build and top-notch customer support. It will store the four hard drives, will allow you to run them in a RAID 6 array and connects directly to your workstation via two LAN ports. Alternatively, you can connect it to your network, so that other users can easily access it.
RAM:
All Tiers:
$360 – Two Kingston 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz 1.5v ECC Registered
Note that you need to buy two (2) of those kits, so that you get a total of eight (8) RAM sticks, to fully populate the motherboard’s RAM slots, in order to take advantage of quad-channel and get as much RAM bandwidth as possible.
32GB of memory: Run lots of programs with many large files with no problem!
32GB of RAM will allow you to run many programs at once, with a lot of larges files open at the same time, with minimum latency.
Kingston RAM: Highly reliable
I recommend Kingston for their high reliability (lowest return rate in the RAM industry, according to hardware.fr who gets their data from a major e-tailer) and compatibility with the vast majority of motherboards.
ECC Memory:
I recommend with ECC (Error-correcting code) memory, which is a type of memory that:
“(…) can detect and correct the more common kinds of internal data corruption. ECC memory is used in most computers where data corruption cannot be tolerated under any circumstances, such as for scientific or financial computing.
ECC memory maintains a memory system immune to single-bit errors: the data that is read from each word is always the same as the data that had been written to it, even if a single bit actually stored, or more in some cases, has been flipped to the wrong state. Some non-ECC memory with parity support allows errors to be detected, but not corrected; otherwise errors are not detected.“
ECC memory may be more expensive than standard memory, but it’s also a lot more reliable and a lot less prone to failure, two highly important factors for a Workstation.
Alternatives: Need more than 32GB?
If you need more than 32GB for your specific needs or just want to future-proof your workstation with more RAM, here’s a 32GB (x2 = 64GB) and 64GB (x2 = 128GB) kit.
Remember that you need to buy two kits, so that you get a total of eight (8) RAM sticks, to fully populate the motherboard’s RAM slots, in order to take advantage of quad-channel and get as much RAM bandwidth as possible.
64GB: $640 – Two (2x) Kingston 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz 1.5v ECC Registered
128GB: $1062 – Two (2x) Kingston 64GB (4x16GB) DDR3 1600MHz 1.5v ECC Registered
Storage:
High-availability solution that ensures that your data is available even with multiple drives failure:
For the High-End Workstations, I’m recommending two Samsung 840 Pro SSDs in RAID 1 and four Western Digital Red hard drives in a RAID 6 array.
The reason for this recommendation is two-fold:
1. The SSDs will give very high performance for the OS, demanding programs and large files that you are currently working on, while the hard drives will provide a lot of storage space to save your projects and other large files for backup.
2. By backing up your SSD content onto the hard drives, you ensure that you have two redundant storage solutions, so if against all odds you get a critical failure on your SSDs, you still have your data safe on the hard drives, which are setup with RAID 6, which allows for two drive failure, so if you lose one hard drive and when you re-construct the array you lose another (more common than you think, especially with large 1+TB hard drives), you will not lose any data, unlike with RAID 5.
In other words, even if you lose both SSDs AND two hard drives, your data is still available.
Here are a few examples of possible failures and the outcome:
- One of the two SSDs in RAID 1 fails: The other SSD still contains all the data from the failed SSD. Simply replace the failed SSD and rebuild the RAID 1 to ensure data availability on both SSDs. No data loss.
- Both SSDs fail: Replace both SSDs and load a saved image of their content from the hard drives. No data loss.
- One hard drive fail: Replace the failed hard drive and rebuild the RAID 6 array. No data loss.
- One hard drive fail and a second hard drive fail during the RAID array rebuild: Replace the faulty hard drive and rebuild RAID 6 array. No data loss.
- Both SSDs fail and two hard drives fail: My, what are the odds of that? Still, replace the faulty hard drive, rebuild RAID 6 array. Then you replace both SSDs and load a saved image of their content from the hard drives. No data loss.
As you can see, this is a solid solution that ensures that your data is safe.
However, if you have a 3 or 4 hard drives failure, you WILL lose your data, so to be certain, backups over other locations (external hard drive, other NAS, online server, optical disks, USB key, etc.), preferably off-site (to avoid data loss in the case of fire or theft) are recommended to be absolutely confident that you will not lose critical data even in the worse case possible.
RAID is NOT a backup solution:
RAID is not a backup solution, all it means is that if a drive fails, the data is available on another drive. However, it doesn’t protect you from an accidental file deletion, viruses, problems with software or OS updates causing issues and the like. RAID is not going to help you with any of those problems, because all drives will have the same problems.
Taking the time to setup a proper backup system is critical to avoid headaches that will cost you precious time and money later.
That said, let’s move on to the recommendations.
RAID controller or NAS:
For Tier A (single video card), B and D:
To run RAID 6 on your four hard drives, you’ll want a RAID controller card. I recommend the $370 – ARC-1213-4I-MS PCI-E 4x drives SATA RAID Controller Card – Extra Text.
Note that it doesn’t include the necessary cable to connect the hard drives to the controller card. I recommend the following cable: $17 – HighPoint Internal Mini-SAS to 4SATA(SFF8087 to SATA) 1M (3 feet) Cable
For Tier A with dual video cards and Tier C:
Since you can’t install a RAID controller card due to the lack of space caused by the two video cards, you’ll want a NAS. I recommend the $815- Qnap TS-469-PRO-US for its high performance (Dual-core CPU, 1GB RAM, Dual LAN ports), reliability, solid build and top-notch customer support. It will store the four hard drives, will allow you to run them in a RAID 6 array and connects directly to your workstation via two LAN ports. Alternatively, you can connect it to your network, so that other users can easily access it.
SSDs: All Tiers:
$502 – Two Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SATA III 2.5″ SSD in RAID 1: Total capacity: 256GB
Why the Samsung 840 Pro (not to be confused with the 840 non-Pro series) SSDs?
Two very simple reasons:
1. Reliability: From my research and customers feedback, Samsung produce the most reliable SSDs right now, hence why I recommend them for a Workstation.
2. Performance: The Samsung 840 Pro tops the charts, pretty much all professional reviewers online praise its high performance, even under very demanding workloads.
Samsung 840 Pro SSDs have a SMART attribute “Wear_Leveling_Count” which counts down from 100 to 0 as the drives wear out. This allows you to track their usage and to predict when you’ll need to replace one of them if necessary when the time comes. Note that this is likely to take many many years.
Thanks to RAID 1, if one of them fails, the other one still holds your data.
The case natively supports 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives, so you don’t need any adapter.
The motherboard includes six SATA cables, so you don’t need to buy any additional SATA cable, since the build features two SSD and one optical drive, for a total of three SATA drives. The hard drives are connected to the RAID controller card (which has a dedicated cable to handle the four SATA hard drives) or a NAS, which doesn’t require any cables. In other words, you shouldn’t need any additional SATA cables.
Need more than 256GB of ultra-high-speed storage?
Simply upgrade to: $968 – Two Samsung 840 Pro 512GB in RAID 1, total capacity: 512GB
Hard Drives: All Tiers:
$320 – Four Western Digital Red 1TB in RAID 6, total capacity: 2TB
Why the Western Digital Red series?
1. They are designed for 24/7 usage.
2. They are designed for RAID environments, no dropout after a short amount of time.
3. Three years warranty with 24/7 support.
Simply put, they offer great reliability, can be used in RAID, in a NAS, are designed designed for 24/7 usage and offer a great warranty. Ideal for a workstation.
2TB isn’t enough for you?
No problem, you can stick with the same RAID 6 solution and move up to 4 or 6TB of storage capacity with the following hard drives:
$468 – Four Western Digital Red 2TB in RAID 6, total capacity: 4TB
$588 – Four Western Digital Red 3TB in RAID 6, total capacity: 6TB
Optical Drive:
$24 – Lite-On SATA 24X DVD Burner
This drive is able to read and burn CDs and DVDs. Relatively silent (it obviously makes some noise when reading/burning at high speed), compatible with all major formats including DVD-RAM.
The motherboard includes six SATA cables, so you don’t need to buy any additional SATA cable, since the build features two SSD and one optical drive, for a total of three SATA drives. The hard drives are connected to the RAID controller card (which has a dedicated cable to handle the four SATA hard drives) or a NAS, which doesn’t require any cables. In other words, you shouldn’t need any additional SATA cables.
Upgrades:
If you want the ability to read and burn Blu-Ray disks, then the $70 – Pioneer Black 15X SATA Blu-Ray/CD/DVD Burner is what you want.
Regarding Blu-Ray playback:
As far as I know, you still require a specific software to playback Blu-Ray disks on a PC.
Based on various reviews and feedback on various forums, PowerDVD 12 3D Ultra is the software that I recommend to you. You’ll want at least the professional version for Blu-ray playback.
It is fully compatible with Windows 7/8 and shouldn’t give you any problems.
Case:
All Tiers:
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