Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[davidhammock200]

The SCSI RAID controller you have ordered is a software based soultion, that is why it is so inexpensive compaired to the usual $400 to $800+ hardware based solurions. I thought that you knew this.

When running RAID 5 this card will degrade CPU performance as it requires parity calulations to be performed by the CPU, a hardware based solution has an on-board dedicated CPU to do these calculations.

As you are a single user, only planning to run RAID 0 and you have a powerful CPU, I do not think that this would be a problem, however I have never used DNS so I must defer to those who have. If the DNS experts say that this is not a good match with DNS, I'm afraid that we should defer to their judgement.

Now if spending $400+ just for an HDD controller is on the table, IMO we should discuss other options, including a mobo upgrade & SATA II with NCQ.

Dave

[Bryan Crow]

What a great summary, Dave. Short and sweet, yet clear, thorough, and to the point. Maybe you can imagine how reassuring it sounds this morning!

I wouldn't be surprised if the good gentleman I quoted thinks I'm a richer and more advanced user than I am. I didn't even realize that the Adaptec SCSI card depends on the CPU instead of doing the work itself.

Eight hundred dollars blows me away, but $400? With Tennessee tax and shipping, this bugger is going to cost me $309.60. I could go an extra hundred or so if that would buy me a controller with a little brain of its own to do the striping. Steeper than, say, $450, though, and I gotta drop back and punt.

Thank you very much.

[amilian]

Hey Bryan.
I know how this mix up developed! Initially we were talking about a single channel single scsi drive set up. At that point, I was recommending the single channel to give the cheaper solution. I should have probably added the double channel hardware RAID0 controller card option for thoroughness but didn't, so my apologies. I must have assumed we were on the same page about single channel, which just means data being transfered in one lonely channel. With a dual channel RAID0 set up data is being 'striped' or split between the 2 scsi's on 2 channels, which obviously means it's faster. The single channel card I recommended still supports software RAID0 and when you indicated you were going to get 2 drives and RAID0 I didn't recall that I had rec'd the single channel controller, but nonetheless, software RAID0 is still impressive as far as results. As for CPU cycles, DNS really doens't go anywhere close to maxxing out your CPU, and it spends a fair amount of time waiting, working a bit, waiting etc. Run DNS with the task manager (opened with alt+ctrl+del and click performance tab then reduce to get the green box down to the toolbar) and then dictate and you can see that the CPU has plenty of juice left in it. Your A64 chip should be no different. Actually, while I think of your chip and board, remember you are running single channel 754 board (as opposed to 939 which is dual channel). What you're missing out on is the bandwidth that 939 provides. You get half the ram memory bandwidth, but it's really not such a big deal and shouldn't concern you as far as DNS or general performance. Latency is a bigger issue in my opinion, which is why I recommend ram that delivers 2/2/2/5 timings at reasonable FSB speeds, or 2.5/3/3/8 at high FSB speeds. Tighter timings is what I prefer because of the lower latency in reading the data from ram (a biggy for DNS). The lower the latency, the faster DNS will operate. This is a concept you'll discover in overclocking. You will soon know that tight timings with high FSB is what overclockers look for, and will do volt mods to their boards to feed the ram more juice so that the FSB speeds can be raised while maintaining the tight timings. Without the volts, you would have to loosen the timings to get the FSB. The problem that raises its head is keeping the ram cool, making the motherboard chipset run with the higher FSB, and keeping it all stable. Cooling is a big part of overclocking - cooling the chipset, the ram, and the cpu since you're raising the voltages to make it work harder. Honestly Bryan, I've been overclocking for years now, and working with DNS the whole time and can say with confidence that while overclocking your ram to 250+ fsb with 2/2/2/5 timings is a great accomplishment and gives you bragging rights, as far as DNS goes, the difference isn't THAT big. What is more important is getting over the I/O bottleneck I've already mentioned. Your new hardware solution, with fast hard drive access speeds and the superspeed software gets over that hump in a great way. That said, I encourage you to overclock and learn about a very interesting and contageous hobby. It's really cool .

So back to the issue of your single channel controller card on the way, I would advise you do one of 3 things.
1. Keep the single channel card, don't run RAID0 and install one drive for your OS, and put the windows paging file on the second, and use the second for all your backup data. (I'm assuming you can add scsi's to the controller without having to do a RAID0 - David, is this right?)
2. Keep the single channel card, use software RAID0 and back up to an IDE/SATA drive (you have WD800JB right?) note the performance, and if not satisfactory, go to 3.
3. Return the controller card and get the more expensive hardware RAID0 controller.

If it were me, I'd be doing trying 1 and 2 first...but I'm cheap I think no matter which choice you make you will still be VERY happy with the speed DNS will work. You're in a win-win situation, since you don't have the bottleneck anymore. That was solved with the superspeed software and the low ms access speeds. The hardware RAID0 is not a critical thing, which is why I didn't recommend it in the first place.

Best to ya!

[Bryan Crow]

Don't forget I've already ordered two Fujitsu SCSI drives from those thieves and liars. I've already passed my wife's limit and started edging up on my own. More production might justify these expenditures, once I tear myself away from you and amilian!

[Bryan Crow]

Thanks, amilian. I know how this mix of developed. You guys have been talking to a much less experienced hand than you're used to. I can see that overclocking can be contagious, all right. I think I mentioned in my first post that I've never played a computer game and don't intend to. The ancient Greeks were moderate in all things, as Will Cuppy used to say, unless they were crazy about it. I'm an addictive personality in recovery—except that I drink wine with dinner and smoke a dozen cigars a year.

I've already been watching the CPU, and you're right: DNS isn't putting much strain on it. Maybe overclocking would more than make up for the work the SCSI card will ask it to do. And Dave, I won't forget the power supply and cooling, But I get your main point, amilian: the I/O bottleneck. Even though I can't run dual channel memory, the Dragon ought to get well on 2.5 GB, don't you think? Especially with SuperCache II. And with those fantastic SCSI-drive access times, latency should be truly minimal.

I'm glad it's still OK to say FSB instead of HTT. Not that I really understand the difference.

Plan 3? Did I mention my wife wants me to finish out the bonus room over the garage? I like Plan 2 — partly because that's what I thought everybody was recommending, and I had my heart set on it. Besides, I not only already have Norton Ghost, but I told you wrong about the Western Digital. That's my backup HD. The 120 GB Maxtor is my C: drive. There are still 75 unused GB on it, so it'll make a great backup drive, and under RAID 0, the two Fujitsus will give me nearly double what's on the system drive now.

By the way, I e-mailed Newegg this morning and told them I might have to send the Adaptec card back. A few minutes later, they approved the RMA. Hey, Dave, I wonder if DiscounTechnology would've done that? Oh, well. They saved me $140.

Ya know, amilian, I'm already happy. DNS is already working better, even though I don't yet really know how to set SuperCache II; I'm not going to have to send the Adaptec card back, and it and the RAM will both get here today; my wife's going to let me live; I've met some cool clock heads (I just made that up, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what overclockers call themselves); and whole new vistas are unrolling in front of me. I gotta be careful not to step in it.

[davidhammock200]

Adaptec PCI-X to Single-Channel Ultra320 SCSI Card, Model "29320A-R" - Retail
Model# 2060500 Item # N82E16816103172
Specifications:
Interface: 64-bit/133MHz PCI-X
Ports: One 68-pin HD(External), One 68-pin Ultra320, One 68-pin wide Ultra, One 50-pin narrow Ultra
OS Support: RedHat Linux 8.1/9.0, SuSE Linux 8.1/8.2, Novell Netware5.1/6.0, OpenUnix 8, Sun Solaris 9 (x86), SCO / Caldera UnixWare 7.1.3/Open Unix 8, Windows NT4.0/2000/XP/Server 2003
Features: HostRAID RAID 0, 1, and 10 data protection (Windows and Linux); Adaptec Seamless Streaming; 320 MByte/sec performance per channel; Seamless backward compatibility protects legacy devices; Industry-leading compatibility and reliability; Adaptec Storage Manager - Browser Edition to manage HostRAID

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...103-172&depa=1

If this is still the SCSI controller we are talking about,

it will support uo to 16 HDD's or other SCSI Ultra 160/320 devices and it does support software RAID 0.

Dave

EDIT:

Dual channel would allow for up to 32 SCSI devices, however that would need to hardware based.

[amilian]

lol well, if you have an addictive personality and you become interested in overclocking then look out! It becomes an obsession. Hopefully patience is a quality you have strength in (which I suspect you do) otherwise your overclocking journey will be short-lived. While frustrations are many, eventual success is a great feeling. I should probably tell you that if you go the whole hog like I did expect to make mistakes and fry or damage the occasional component. Just about every mistake of mine (fried bios, motherboards and corrupt Windows) have been the result of clumsiness or late-night red-eye, and attempting time-saving shortcuts that have always left me regretting to respect the obvious Fried bios cuz I didn't know entirely what I was doing when flashing (had wrong board bios); fried 2 motherboards when I slipped attempting to measure voltage on a mosfet with a multimeter, and rushed when upping the fsb in the bios that led to windows corruption. Since then I've become slower in movement when working inside the PC, and more patient by testing overclocks using memtest86 and BEFORE I attempt to boot to windows The most rewarding things I've done is repaired a fried mofset on a board by rewiring another one on there - and watched in amazement as the board actually worked! And other one is hitting 250fsb on an NF7-S with BH5 ram after doing my own vdimm and vbt (and psu 3.3 rail) voltage 'mods'. That wasn't easy to do on the NF7 since those boards were so quirky over 230FSB, so I guess I have bragging rights. Whether your journey is as eventful as mine, who knows, but I hope it is. Messing with wiring and voltage mods, and pushing the envelope is good for the soul I reckon Teaches you that fear is merely something that confines the heart and mind like a prison. Freedom and liberation is, in hindsight, so easily achieved, if we can only dare to try! So all you newbies reading this: don't hesitate to buy a multimeter and soldering iron when the need arises for a volt mod! Grab an old worthless motherboard and practise soldering! That high fsb with tight timings is achievable!

Watch out for those vistas Bryan! (whatever that means)

[Bryan Crow]

Great stories! I want to play it conservative when I overclock, but maybe everybody starts like that. The card and the DIMMS came. I'll install them as soon as I get a break. I also intend to respond fully to your last posts when I can. I'm have to take care of family business now.

[amilian]

Hey Bryan,

Thought you'd appreciate this awesome way to defrag specific files (and ONLY those specific files) on your hard drive, instead of defraging the whole drive and having to wait for it to get done to enjoy defragged DNS files

There is a free defrag program available here http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/contig.shtml

I've attached it to this post for convenience. Just extract the contig.exe file to your c:\ folder

Then open notepad and put a list of all the files (or folders) you want defragged. Make sure to precede each file name with "c:\contig.exe" and put the *.* command to do the whole contents of a folder.

Like this:

c:\contig c:\Naturallyspeaking\*.*
c:\contig c:\Naturallyspeaking\program\*.*
c:\contig c:\Naturallyspeaking\users\*.*
c:\contig c:\Naturallyspeaking\users\Gregory\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Users\Gregory\current
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Users\Gregory\current\voice\* .*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Users\Gregory\current\General _\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Users\a\current\voice\enu_nbs _large.usr
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Data\Enx\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Data\Enx\Large_2\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Data\Enx\CandC\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Data\Enx\Dict_2\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Data\Enx\Dict_7\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Data\Enx\Medium_2\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Data\Enx\Small_2\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\Data\NLP\enx\*.*
c:\contig C:\NaturallySpeaking\results\*.*
c:\contig C:\WINDOWS\speech\*.*
c:\contig C:\WINDOWS\speech\Dragon\*.*
c:\contig C:\WINDOWS\system32\*.*

Then save the file as a .cmd or .bat file (something like defragDNSfiles.cmd or defrageDNS.bat) on your desktop and you're done. Just double click that desktop file and boom, your DNS files are defragged in seconds.

Neat huh?!

Note: Make sure to put those windows files, and include all the other files in Version 8.0 in Documents and Settings.

EDIT: I just found it is easier to do it like what appears in the attachment, where you put c:\contig once and every file or folder after that with a space in between each file, and you can save time by using the /s command to specify all subfolders of that folder you're specifying.
Just download that attachment, add your own desired files and folders, and change it from .txt to .bat and it will work.

[amilian]

And speaking of defragging, I use sysinternal's pagedrag to do a boot time defrag at every boot. You can get that one here http://www.sysinternals.com/files/pagedfrg.zip

[Bryan Crow]

Amilian:

Sorry to take so long, pal. We've been tied up in assisted-living arrangements for my mother-in-law. Now that she's moved, she's finding she likes it.

Of all the maintenance software I've ever tried Executive Software's Diskeeper Pro 9.0 has been the most useful. I use it to do boot-time defrags. But to be able to expressly defrag specific files might be even better. I'm going to download the sysinternals program and use the list of files you kindly scraped together and see how it works.

I have to tell you that I've had lengthy posts from Will, and he still thinks I should step up to a Dual-Channel SCSI controller. Even though I don't see DNS challenging this 3400+ very often, he thinks it should be allowed to process DNS without having to do the computations to manage a RAID 0 configuration. Newegg will still take this one back, and they have an Adaptec dual-channel model for $207 more. I haven't discussed this particular card with Will yet. Will it work on my motherboard and use its own chip (Integrated RAID On Chip [ROC] ASIC) instead of tapping into the system CPU?

Bryan


Adaptec Ultra320 PCI-X SCSI RAID Controller, Dual-Channel, 64-bit/133 MHz, 128MB Cache, Low Profile, Model: 2230SLP
The Adaptec 2230SLP RAID controller features Ultra320 SCSI and data transfer rates up to 320 MByte/sec on each channel. This performance increase is especially significant in storage systems performing large data transfers or connecting many drives on a single channel. Adaptec developed a new technology called Seamless Streaming to optimize Ultra320 performance, maximizing bus utilization and minimizing command overhead as multiple commands are transferred in a single connection and at higher speeds. Part Number: 2120200.
Features: Two-channel Adaptec 2230S Ultra320 PCI-X SCSI RAID controller featuring Adaptec's Seamless Streaming technology. High-performance, Integrated RAID On Chip (ROC) ASIC. Exclusive Adaptec Optimized Disks Utilization allows use of the full disk capacity. Remote storage management through Adaptec Storage Manager software. Low-profile MD2 form factor for high-density servers, PCI-X. Optional lithium ION battery. Intel EM64-T and AMD-64 ready.
Specifications: Customer Needs: Ideal for entry-level to mid-range and high density servers and workstations servers requiring up to 30 disk drives. System Environment: Entry-level SCSI servers and workstations, pedestal and rackmount. Benefits: Low-profile PCI-X MD2 design ideal high-density server & workstation solution, 64-bit/133 MHz. Data Transfer Rate: Up to 640 MByte/sec (across 2 channels). External Connectors: Two 68-pin VHDCI. Internal Connectors: Two 68-pin high-density. Bus Type: 64-bit/133MHz PCI-X, or 3.3 volt only PCI. RAID levels: 0, 1, 10, 5, 50, JBOD. Cache Memory: 128 MByte embedded DDR memory. System Requirements: Available 3.3 volt PCI-X slot. Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, Windows Server 2003 Web Edition, Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 3.0, Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1, SuSE Linux 9.1, SuSE Linux 9.0, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, Netware 6.5 and 6.0, Unixware 7.1.x, SCO OpenServer 5.06 and 5.07.
Package Contents: SCSI RAID 2230S card, One 5-position, Ultra320 SCSI 68-pin high-density LVD Adaptec internal cable with active terminator, Software ((Adaptec Storage Manager - SNMP support, BIOS configuration utility, Command Line Interface (CLI)).

[davidhammock200]

This $585 SCSI controller to run just 2 HDD's?

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...103-327&depa=1

This is for mid-range servers, which would host 50+ clients!

Bryan, that is one of the funniest things that I have ever heard!

[amilian]

Originally Posted by Bryan Crow

..had lengthy posts from Will...thinks I should step up to a Dual-Channel SCSI controller.
Bryan

Yes, that one will work for you. And if money is no object for you, go for it. It's the bomb I'm just having a hard time justifying the extra money, probably because I don't think it will make a whole lot of difference over the single channel software RAID. But I've not used them so I'm speculating. I respect Wizwill's opinion, and he has solid experience with both SCSI and DNS, so I'm prepared to concede that maybe it will have a significant difference. If the extra 200 is worth it for you, don't worry about it being overkill to David You are seeking the fastest DNS setup and that extra 200 will give it to you. Just because that controller is normally used for 50 clients and is amusing to non-DNS users is no reason to shy away from the best solution. If I had the money to burn, I'd buy that setup in a heartbeat.

[davidhammock200]

Originally Posted by amilian

Yes, that one will work for you. And if money is no object for you, go for it. It's the bomb I'm just having a hard time justifying the extra money, probably because I don't think it will make a whole lot of difference over the single channel software RAID. But I've not used them so I'm speculating. I respect Wizwill's opinion, and he has solid experience with both SCSI and DNS, so I'm prepared to concede that maybe it will have a significant difference. If the extra 200 is worth it for you, don't worry about it being overkill to David You are seeking the fastest DNS setup and that extra 200 will give it to you. Just because that controller is normally used for 50 clients and is amusing to non-DNS users is no reason to shy away from the best solution. If I had the money to burn, I'd buy that setup in a heartbeat.

ELL, then lets put that PCI-X 133MHz SCSI controller in a dual Opteron workstation mobo with 4GB of RAM!

Seriously that SCSI controller for only 2-HDD's running RAID 0 is nuts!

[amilian]

So was pumping 2.1 vcore into my 2400m or 3.6 vdimm into my BH5! But then again, this is Extreme Overclocking Forums. The nutsier, the better as far as I'm concerned!

[davidhammock200]

Originally Posted by amilian

So was pumping 2.1 vcore into my 2400m or 3.6 vdimm into my BH5! But then again, this is Extreme Overclocking Forums. The nutsier, the better as far as I'm concerned!

Yea! Why not!

[OmgWtfIDiedLol]

Originally Posted by amilian

Watch out for those vistas Bryan! (whatever that means)

Vistas = Views

About that SCSI controller card, are you sure that PCI-X is backwards compatible with PCI?
AFAIK it isnt...

[onewecallgod]

Originally Posted by OmgWtfIDiedLol

Vistas = Views

About that SCSI controller card, are you sure that PCI-X is backwards compatible with PCI?
AFAIK it isnt...

read the previous posts. we already discussed and resolved that issue

[OmgWtfIDiedLol]

Sorry about that, it looked like there was still reasonable doubt.

[Bryan Crow]

I don't ask people for advice hoping they'll back what I'm already inclined to do or to get attention or to create dissension among advisers. I only ask for advice when I'm serious about making a decision and need information to make it.

Amilian urged me to consult a man he knows from another forum because of the man's knowledge of both computers and Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It's hard for me to judge who's right and, consequently, what I should do. The man urging me not to use a single-channel SCSI controller is quite impressive, judging from his writing, but then so are Dave and amilian and the rest of you. I very much respect every person on this forum who has offered ideas, and I'm confident I won't offend any of you by choosing an option contrary to your opinion.

I'm inclined to spend the extra money as insurance. Since I've invested a good deal of money in a pair of very quick hard drives with the aim of unclogging the I/O bottleneck, I want to make sure not to lose the computational power needed to run the speech engine while solving the I/O problem.

And that's exactly what the man from the other forum says will happen. He sounds sure of himself and makes arguments that sound convincing to this uninformed computer user. He has written to me about it at great length. Like you, he's trying to help, so I'm not going to thank him by dragging him into a fight he didn't pick. Naturally, I don't feel free to quote from his e-mail, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I summarize.

He says that if the SCSI card lacks the circuitry to operate the RAID 0 array on its own—if it relies on the CPU instead—it will require so many CPU cycles to run the array that even my 754-pin 3400+ won't then be able to do a satisfactory job of processing speech input. He says the processing the Athlon would have to do to sustain the RAID 0 array would slow down the entire system to an unacceptable speed and negate the advantage we've been hoping the RAID 0 array will provide.

You'll remember that I was prepared along to spend as much as $1500. I think I've been well advised not to spend it on the Athlon 4000+ and a new motherboard. People on this forum and the man from the other forum agree that when it comes to running Dragon NaturallySpeaking, it's more important to free up the I/O bottleneck than to gain more computational power. But that doesn't mean I can afford to sacrifice the power I have.

One reason Amilian has been my most active adviser on this forum is that he's a knowledgeable DNS user himself. He was the first to point out the I/O solution, and no one has dissented. What his friend is saying is that we're not only on the right track, but that we need to take care not to cripple the system while solving the I/O problem.

If I settle for the single-channel card sitting before me, I'll save $207, and I will have spent a little more than $1200. What I can't help asking myself is, "Suppose I undermine the benefit of $1200 worth of stuff trying to save $207?"

Either in my first post to this forum when I kicked off this thread or in one of the earliest ones I wrote, I said I'm not the guy who has to drive a Ferrari because his buddies are driving Corvettes. I also said I'm not the guy who needs a Ferrari to shop for groceries. That's why I forwent the 4000+. A dual Opteron workstation mobo with 4GB of RAM, Dave? If I were truly wealthy or truly reckless with my money, that's just what I'd go for! I also said that I'm not a computer hobbyist—although I find myself getting sucked right into that avocation!

No, I'm a Dragon NaturallySpeaking user who recently gained a big uptick in production by putting together this computer. I waste enough time making mistakes myself without having software force me to spend time making corrections. Speech-recognition software has a long way to go before it's as reliable as Microsoft Word or AutoCAD. I'm trying to use hardware to compensate. AutoCAD, Word, and DNS are the three main programs I use to make money. The new computer has paid for itself, so naturally I'm hoping these improvements will pay for themselves too.

Funny. When I started this post, I admit I was leaning toward stepping up to the dual-channel card, but I honestly wasn't sure I'd do it. Now that I've spelled out my reasoning, that's definitely the way I'm going—profligate or not. If I ever find myself able to step up to that Opteron, I'll already have two 1 GB DIMMs and hard drives worthy of it, won't I?