Looking for a new desktop, will be used for some business accounting and record keeping. Will probably go twin drive RAID rather than cloud.

Will also be used for some other stuff, a little bit of gaming but nothing really high end.

Want decent build quality and reliability.

Shall I just go for a Dell or HP or similar?

Any other recommendations?

Check out these guys, probably recommended to me on here and were very helpful and reasonably priced for my custom build desktop. Even down-sold me on something I didn’t really need..

https://www.aria.co.uk/

Another option, I use Ocuk quite a bit, if you don’t want to build your own, they have plenty of configurable prebuilt systems.

They’ll also build pretty much whatever you want if you know what you want.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pc-systems

Why RAID?

RAID is not backup.

I did wonder that.

An SSD as main drive and some backup/cloning software to do a monthly (or how ever often you want) backup image to a mechanical drive would be better. The mechanical drive would have plenty of space to also act as a dumping ground for other nonessential stuff.

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/
https://www.scan.co.uk/
https://www.cclonline.com/

An SSD as main drive and some backup/cloning software to do a monthly (or how ever often you want) backup image to a mechanical drive would be better.

… which you then unplug from the network. TBH, “what backup solution” is probably a separate conversation.

RAID has its advantages of course – high availability primarily, and arguably also performance though SSD is the better option here – but there’s little need for it in a home system. If it’s for business then HA could well be a factor, if you can’t afford to be without the PC for an afternoon then RAID makes sense. But a reasoning of RAID “rather than cloud” concerns me.

Are Chillblast still any good?

Ordered a custom desktop a few years ago – for the price, the spec supplied was much better than the offerings from Dell et al. Used pretty much daily and never had any issues with it.

My recommendation would be to look on yell and pick the closest one. A one man band trading out some forgotten back street will likely provide a great service at a good price and if it goes wrong you don’t have to post it away to some faceless multinational.

OCuk here too since ~2003, they aren’t often the cheapest, but they are usually very good at resolving issues.

I’ve always ordered components/bundles and built them up myself.

Another recommendation for chillblast

I am confused.

if you can’t afford to be without the PC for an afternoon then RAID makes sense.

RAID is not backup.

What is it then?

RAID 1 consists of data mirroring, without parity or striping. Data is written identically to two drives, thereby producing a “mirrored set” of drives

But a reasoning of RAID “rather than cloud” concerns me.

I use Sharepoint at work and used to use Dropbox. I have had a lot of sync issues, not so much with Dropbox but very frequent with Sharepoint/One Drive.

RAID is a performance/availability solution. Assuming RAID 1 ‘mirror’ setup, your PC can now cope with the failure of a single drive.

However, if you get hit with malware, or an OS fault, or you accidentally delete your Work folder, RAID doesn’t help you whatsoever. A nightly/weekly backup to an external disk, or cloud service, does help you.

Have a look into Veeam Endpoint software (free) and a cheap NAS drive or USB external. Very easy to configure and use, works great on a number of standalone machines for me.

I think the issue is having 2 drives in one box is no good as ‘backup’ if that box gets nicked or burns to a crisp.

To me backup means keeping your data in more that one place physically. That increasingly is ‘the cloud’ but for sure that is not the only option.

Having worked somewhere that had a load of PC’s nicked one night, off site backup would be number one on my list.

What’s your budget OP? Given your requirements I’d probably go with Dell and get something with at least a GTX 1060 graphics card if you want to do a bit of gaming.

My previous PC was from OCUK and has been great (original unit was DoA but they replaced it quickly), I recently replaced it and ended up buying bits separately and building it myself (due to the cost difference). OCUK pre-built systems seem pricey at the moment, not sure why (they were among the cheapest 4 years ago).

I ended up buying all the bits from Aria (they were the cheapest for everything bar a couple of items so it wasn’t worth splitting the order, apart from the monitor which I got from eBuyer). Can recommend both Aria and eBuyer for their customer service.

I guess you’re looking at a sub £1k build so it’s probably not worth the hassle of building yourself (I saved around £200 on mine but sub £1k you’re probably only saving £50). Mine nearly all went wrong with it blue screening regularly and swapping bits out to fault find didn’t help find the culprit, it turned out to be not enough voltage to the CPU (still not sure why) so weirdly it was actually overclocking it that’s made it stable (contrary to most people’s experiences). If overclocking it hadn’t fixed it I’d have been faced with trying to return several parts without knowing which was faulty which would probably have been a PITA.

Thanks guys, I see the point about RAID not being true back up and appreciate the advice.

The file sizes won’t be massive so the RAID option won’t be expensive but I will also back up to One Drive.

I guess you’re looking at a sub £1k build so it’s probably not worth the hassle of building yourself

It will definitely be less than £1000. I’ve built a couple of PC’s in the past but it was never to save money, more for the interest. Didn’t save any significant money then. As this one will be used for business I want to make sure it’s reliable with support.

However, if you get hit with malware, or an OS fault, or you accidentally delete your Work folder, RAID doesn’t help you whatsoever.

I’ve also seen controller issues hose the entire array for fun. Not so much in enterprise solutions but it’s a real risk in cheapass home solutions.

I guess you’re looking at a sub £1k build

For a bit of accounts work?

I guess you’re looking at a sub £1k build
For a bit of accounts work?

About £600 with a new monitor and keyboard.

Are Chillblast still any good?

Damn right they are. Certainly IMHO.

I bought a £1k desktop from them in 2010 and it has literally been bulletproof. Hammered it everyday for 5yrs for production work and it never missed a beat. I added an SSD a while back and naturally that helped with speed. Gets used most days now for kids stuff and generally messing around on, but is still 100% sorted.

FuzzyWuzzy – Member

Mine nearly all went wrong with it blue screening regularly and swapping bits out to fault find didn’t help find the culprit, it turned out to be not enough voltage to the CPU (still not sure why) so weirdly it was actually overclocking it that’s made it stable (contrary to most people’s experiences).

It could be the mobo battery. I would change the mobo battery next time I buy a new mobo.

Mine used to blue screen if I have not used my PC for more than 8 hours. However, if I leave my pc on all the time it never blue screen on me.

I will definitely give that a try next time I build a new PC probably in few months time I hope.

🙂

It could be the mobo battery.

In the list of “things likely to cause a BSoD,” that probably sits between “a full moon” and “I had a cheese sandwich for lunch.”

I bought a £1k desktop from them in 2010 and it has literally been bulletproof.

That IS impressive. The worst that happens to most is a dog pissing on it.

Well when I said sub £1k I was factoring in a decent 27″ monitor or two (two being very useful for accountancy type work, although 24″ for the 2nd would be fine), also allowing for a GTX1060 (or preferably a 1070) but for sure £600 should be enough for a decent desktop and an OK monitor.

I read “business accounting” as “a couple of Excel spreadsheets.” I’m not sure as that’d take five feet of screen real estate. If you’re actually an accountant it might be different though.

I guess what I’m saying is, it’s hard to spec to your requirements if we don’t know what they are.

I was factoring in a decent 27″ monitor or two

How much is a decent 27″ nowadays?

I mean the spec even on the cheap stuff is way better than what was about just a few years ago but does that mean much?

I have a 10 year old Sony 17″ which gives a much “nicer” picture than the low end 23″ Iiyama I bought recently.

I guess what I’m saying is, it’s hard to spec to your requirements if we don’t know what they are.

Not really looking for a spec, more of a general recommendation of a supplier.

I mean there are hundreds of them on Ebay, then the big boys like Dell, HP, Lenovo. Or is the likes of Aria or Scan a better option?

Cougar – Moderator

It could be the mobo battery.

In the list of “things likely to cause a BSoD,” that probably sits between “a full moon” and “I had a cheese sandwich for lunch.” [/quote]

Then why is my PC get BSoD if I don’t use it for a day?

Software conflict maybe but my friend has almost the same set up but he does not get BSoD at all.

I even took my PC to repair and they did not find any problem.

If I don’t use it for a day and then start using it I would get random BSoD.

Similar thing happened to me mate until he changed the battery and everything was fine.

Weird. 😯

Now my PC is on 24/7 and never had BSoD at all.

That IS impressive. The worst that happens to most is a dog pissing on it.

The lead doesn’t stretch long enough to take it to a field.

I will also back up to One Drive.

[video]https://youtu.be/Z49bfaXGX78[/video]
Was forced to use One Drive in my new job – lost two weeks work due to sync issues

🙁

Then why is my PC get BSoD if I don’t use it for a day?

Software conflict maybe but my friend has almost the same set up but he does not get BSoD at all.

I even took my PC to repair and they did not find any problem.

Could be any number of reasons. If it was still doing it I could probably diagnose it. I wouldn’t expect your average repair shop benchmonkey to have that level of diagnostic ability (because they generally don’t need it).

All the battery does is power the CMOS memory where your BIOS settings are stored, once your PC is powered up it’s not used. I suppose thinking about it, this could have an impact; one side-effect it could have is that your time and date would be wrong, and it’d potentially lose hardware settings. Could be something there that was keeling over because it got confused that it was suddenly 1997 again, that’s possible I suppose but it’d be pretty unusual.

If it’s not actually losing the CMOS settings, then it’s akin to suggesting that your car won’t start because you’ve got a flat tyre.

Was forced to use One Drive in my new job – lost two weeks work due to sync issues

Could be a config issue; if memory serves, there’s a problem with OneDrive and offline folders, they don’t (or at least didn’t) play nicely together. If they’d redirected My Documents to OneDrive, that might have got a bit explody.

Still, it’d all have been backed off to tape or something too, right? No sensible company takes a single backup.

Cougar – Moderator
Could be any number of reasons. If it was still doing it I could probably diagnose it. I wouldn’t expect your average repair shop benchmonkey to have that level of diagnostic ability (because they generally don’t need it).

Cost me £50 for them to reformat and to reinstall my system which I could have done it myself but never mind … coz it was me mate’s local PC repair connection and the owner is a nice guy … 😆

All the battery does is power the CMOS memory where your BIOS settings are stored, once your PC is powered up it’s not used. I suppose thinking about it, this could have an impact; one side-effect it could have is that your time and date would be wrong, and it’d potentially lose hardware settings.

Time and date all checked out fine at Bios etc. Checked all Malwarebyte setting so not to conflict with other security software all done properly.

My view is that the battery cannot hold charge so cannot remember where it is … something like that. 😀

The reason is that it always give me BSoD if I don’t switch it on for one day or more than 8 hour which is very weird. 😮

Could be something there that was keeling over because it got confused that it was suddenly 1997 again, that’s possible I suppose but it’d be pretty unusual.

Yes, that’s what I was thinking coz it might have it was in 1994. 😆

If it’s not actually losing the CMOS settings, then it’s akin to suggesting that your car won’t start because you’ve got a flat tyre.

I don’t know coz it is a very intelligent machine like the Borg ….

I am still suspecting either:

1. CMOS battery.

or

2. Security software conflict. (I’ve switched to on-demand now)

😛

Have you looked in the event viewer for clues?

richmars – Member
Have you looked in the event viewer for clues?

Yes, it always come up with “Header something something” … always the header … 😮

What exactly is the header?

Was forced to use One Drive in my new job – lost two weeks work due to sync issues
Could be a config issue; if memory serves, there’s a problem with OneDrive and offline folders, they don’t (or at least didn’t) play nicely together. If they’d redirected My Documents to OneDrive, that might have got a bit explody.

Still, it’d all have been backed off to tape or something too, right? No sensible company takes a single backup.

The issue seemed to be that if files were not able to be saved to One Drive (due to firewall issues at customer site) then when I finally synched any changes since the last save were lost. The workaround was to save with a different filename but should not really have to think about these things. Not had any issues with Dropbox, Box or Google Drive so disappointed that Microsoft fail so badly. Lesson learned and back up everything locally and to a network drive before leaving site.

I just cut and paste the error into google.
Someone, somewhere will have seen it before.

richmars – Member
I just cut and paste the error into google.
Someone, somewhere will have seen it before.

I think I tried that but it is weird because I couldn’t keep up with the error message. i.e. When the system started to give me BSoD it somehow created domino effect with one error follow by another and each one was different.

But I have no BSoD after I keep the system on 24/7. i.e. as long as I don’t switch the machines off it is fine even if I am not loggin. 🙂

I am going to build another system so will see if I can get it right next time.