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While defrag-ing is a good thing, another option as people move forward is to use an SSD instead of a traditional hard drive. SSDs do not require defrag-ing as you don't have to worry about seek time. They are still a little pricey, but they are getting down there. The capacity is lower, but you really don't need that much storage for a trading only system. The perf is really good, especially if you use two in a RAID configuration. We got our last batch from NewEgg over the holidays. Of course, you still need to back them up though.
But, I am really happy with my setup using a traditional hard drive & a Buffalo LinkStation network drive backed up using Memeo. I also added an APC UPS, with battery backup this week.
Feel this is a really inexpensive solution: All for less than $150. Once a month will do a DVR backup, just in case...
Even with defragging, this process takes less than 15 min a day.
I run NT on a MacBook Pro using Parallels to virtualize Microsoft. The MS side is XP and it is a clean install that is kept up to date. Nothing else is on the XP side but NT which makes XP the most stable XP I have ever used. I never surf the web or load any microsoft based software over there which keeps the regedit clean. I do not have virus protection or active scanning on that side because everything goes through the MAC side which I control. So in essence the virtual XP machine is a dedicated trading machine.
I can surf the net, check e-mail, skype, view omnovia trading rooms, and IM all on the Mac side without any stability issues. This setup runs very well for me.
The crashes I have had with NT occur when I ask for too many days worth of data. But I had different crash issues when I had Tradestation and work arounds with TS so I just accept NTs personality. I'm also guessing the issues that others are having are because they are pushing NT harder than me. I have 3 charts, ES at 3 minutes, NQ at 10 minutes, and ES at 21 minutes and very few indicators and no recording. It is working fine for me but I can understand others frustrations.
The best thing about the MAC for me is that Parallels has a virtual machine image tool. Before MS updates, I take an image. Before I make changes to NT, I take an image. This saved me when I had TS. I had a problem with an indicator from a vendor and just rolled my virtual image backward one step and presto, problem resolved.
Let me just repeat my post #12 in "Traders Hideout --> Platforms and Indicators --> Neoticker charting, NinjaTrader orders" thread, here and as follows;
"I strongly believe that a good quality, efficient, and stable computer hardware and OS software infrastructure is all it takes to run any application (NT, SierraCharts, Multicharts, PointOfSale, Banking Apps, ERP/CRM, etc) efficiently, productively, and crash-less.
I can testify and confirm that I've not had a single crash of my NT since I run it on my MAC OS X VM environment for one and a half years now. When I used to run it natively on a Windows HP and DEL PCs, I occasionally had crashes. When I ran it on a cloned-PC, I had crashes all the time.
So, instead of switching from NT, have a close look at your computer hardware/software infrastructure, and see if you can make changes in this regard."
Andrew, I have the same configuration and discipline on my XP/VMWare Fusion/Mac setup. I even have the Anvira AntiVir antivirus (just in case).
Somebody mentioned on this forum that there is LATENCY issue with VMWare/Mac or Paralells/Mac setup. And that it is better to natively run NT on Windows to avoid this LATENCY issue. I suspect the LATENCY relates to internet connection/transmission issues which may have an effect on data-feed. I'm aware that LATENCY issues can also arise on native Windows, anyway. What is your experience on this ? I've not noticed any LATENCY issue on my internet connection apart from the general hic-cups from my ISP service.
The latency issue is not the ISP, it is because you are running slower in a virtual envir. The current version of parallels is extremely good in this regard, but it is slower than native. The slowdown is very small, but is cumulative, so the harder you are running NT the worse it will get. This really only matters if you are worried about watching a time and sales in real time or reading the L2 in the DOM. If you don't need the ultimate response times, then the VM is an excellent envir, and I have been very happy with it as well.
Regarding latency on the MAC, as stated before, I'm not pushing NT that hard and I don't notice latency. I have tried various trading rooms and my NT Zenfire feed is faster than what I see through the rooms (which I know has latency). I also notice to the second when the market opens and news events occur. So if I have latency it doesn't impact me.
I run Ninjatrader on my MacPro and on my Macbook pro with Parallels too. When I load to many charts too fast , Ninjatrader crashes.
But beside this, it is okay.
I have used Multicharts for some time now on my Macs and never had any problems with it. But having a tradestation with a simulator where I can learn programming in C# sounds interesting. So I am on the other way around. Thinking of switching to Ninjatrader.
I'm new to futures.io (formerly BMT) and was going to spend the day going through this very valuable forum. I came across this post and wanted to share my experience using NT. I work for a medium (1-2B AUM) fund and we use NT exclusively for backtesting and optimization of our trading methods.
On the side, I also consult and do some sidework in NS. I've worked with numerous clients who are extremely satisfied with their indicator and strategy setups. I've been using NT7 beta since inception and have to say that NT7 has come a lonnng way. NT7b11 came out yesterday and it seems like they are now opening up the beta program to everyone very soon.
To me, like many have said before me, the value NT brings at its price point is unmatched. I'm a programmer (C# for the past 7 years), and LOVE the fact that NS is built around C#. I can't find any other platform offering the same. Their user community is also vast and at times their support can be a major PITA, but all in all they come back with sincere efforts to answer customer issues.
With that being said, I do share many of the grievances people have posted. Additionally I cannot stand the internal order routing rules they have. The good news is that they have a work around in NT7, but personally I'd like to use some of their in-built functionality in unmanaged orders. There's probably nothing anyone can do for me regarding that.
I plan on using NT7 in my own trading experience. I'm new to the trading realm (on my own) and might have more to add in regards to my grievances =).
I've never used NT nor C# myself, but perhaps some of you would like to build something on top of the tradelink package if you enjoy Windows/C# and NT is such a PITA.
(Couldn't post a link to it, but they have a google code repository set up if you search for it.)
