The Sports Photo Guy

Computers are clearly becoming tools that are almost as important as cameras and lenses to the modern photographer.  This page contains a summary of some of the systems and technologies I am using today.

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Desktop System.  I have been tinkering with and building my own PC-based systems for nearly 20 years, and thus most of my desktop systems are custom built.  I tend to look for bargain components and mix-and-match features striving for a reasonably high level of performance.

My current desktop workstation consists of the following components:

• AMD Phenom 9500 2.2GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Processor : powerful quad-core multi-tasking on a budget.
• ECS A770M-A ATX AMD Motherboard : feautre-rich AM2+ motherboard allows for future processor upgrades.
• Western Digital Raptor 74GB 3.5″ Serial ATA150 Hard Drive : very fast drive for operating system & programs.  I use two additional Raptor drives for swap files, keeping my Windows pagefile.sys and PhotoShop scratch disks on separate physical drives for greatest speed.
• Lexar Professional UDMA CF Firewire 800 Reader : Fast, stackable CF reader supporting UDMA cards.
• SYBA PCI 32-bit Firewire 1394b Controller Card Model SD-FWB-32B : Provides inexpensive Firewire 800 (and 400) capability.  Few motherboards support Firewire 800 directly today.
• BFG Tech GeForce 8500GT BFGE85256GTE Video Card: Bargain 256MB video card with excellent performance.
• COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Computer Case : A very sleek-looking case with great airflow and lots of room in a fairly small package.
• Thermaltake A2309 iCage 5.25″ bay convert to 3 x 3.5″ HDD Module : This inexpensive little cage converts three external 5.25″ bays into 3.5″ bays cooled by a wild-looking blue-LED illuminated 120mm fan.  Great for RAIDs and high-performance drives (it holds my three Raptors).
• Westinghouse L2410NM Black 24″ 8ms Widescreen LCD Monitor Built in Speakers : This is a bargain-priced 24″ monitor with an MVA panel, which means better colors than discount monitors with TN panels, though not as good as premium monitors with S-IPV panels.  (All the lingo is explained nicely at Anandtech.)  Mine cost $360 after a $50 rebate, with free shipping.
• VANTEC NexStar NST-D100SU Hard Drive Dock : I recently ditched my motley collection of external drive enclosure for one of these units.  Since my external drives were only for backup, I never really need more than one at a time, and this dock fits the bill nicely.  I can now swap out my backup drives easily and simply, and store them away safely when not in use.  Much faster than USB/FireWire external drives and only takes up one SATA connection.
  
• BOSE® Companion® 3 Series II multimedia speaker system : These are some awesome speakers, turning my PC into an excellent sound system.  You won’t regret a Bose purchase and these are amng their most reasonably priced speakers.
  

I use Nero 8 Ultra Edition for all my disc mastering & audio/video needs

Laptop.  My last two laptops have been Toshibas, that I’ve purchased from my local BestBuy.  My current model is an M300-ST4060, my third Toshiba, this one purchased direct.  Equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (2.4 GHz), 4GB of RAM (upgraded from stock), a fast HITACHI Travelstar 7K200 200GB hard drive (also an upgrade), and DVD SuperMulti Drive, this laptop is a decent mobile workstation.  I opted for a smaller 14.1″ screen and am glad I did; it’s not much smaller than the ubiquitous 15.4″ screens and a whole lot lighter than a 17″ model.   The built-in wireless 802.11b/g/n support is great for transmitting on-site at events.  Do yourself a favor and upgrade your notebook hard drive to a 7200 RPM model like the Travelstar above; this makes a big difference in system performance.

File Server.  I maintain a dedicated file server on my home network which basically serves as a home for my photo and document backups, although it can serve as a backup workstation in a pinch.  It is equipped as follows:

• Basic components: AMD Athlon 3200+ single-core processor; 1GB dual-channel (2×512) RAM; Windows XP Professional.
• Foxconn 6150BK8MC-KRSHN2 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard : This very inexpensive motherboard provides two essential components for a file server: gigabit (1000 mbps) LAN and RAID 5.  I recently had to rebuild my RAID 5 array and the system handled it without a hitch.
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive : My RAID 5 array is built with four of the very similar 7200.10 Maxtor-branded Barracuda drives (STM3500630AS) which provide a sustained throughput of 187 MB/sec in my RAID.  I use the Seagate-branded IDE version of this drive (ST3500630A) as my system drive and for additional backup storage, which by contrast achieves sustained throughput of about 65.4 MB/sec.
• Thermaltake Xaser V Damier Silver Computer Case : The server is housed in this massive case, which features great fan and temperature monitoring capabilities.