[mythtv-users] advice for frontend/backend

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Thursday, Sep 18, 2003, at 23:28 US/Pacific, Neil Konouchi wrote:

>> I'm rather partial to BYO on a micro-ATX platform myself. My system is
>> here (I'm referring to the 'current production' one):
>> http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=rh9pvr250#hw
>
> Your page has been a frequent visit of mine -- in fact, your mATX setup
> was what got my cogs turning in a direction away from the Pundit. Way 
> to
> confuse me. ;)

Sorry! ;p

>> Yeah, I'm not wild about that either. I've actually got dual HDs RAID
>> striped in my main system now, along with a DVD-ROM, and room for
>> another optical (and another HD, I think). And it all fits nicely in 
>> an
>> A/V rack to boot.
>
> Sounds nice -- I think that kind of expandability is what's so
> attractive about BYO.

No doubt.

>> Having yet another box for a hard drive seems to negate the appeal of
>> the Pundit's compactness. You need more room, and you need more power
>> connections. I'd just assume get a slightly bigger micro-ATX case. 
>> Then
>> you can get a mobo w/GF4MX onboard instead of the Pundit SiS, which
>> could be of benefit.
>
> Do you consider the GF4MX to be that much of an asset, considering all
> the driver work that's been done for the SiS?

I don't actually have any personal experience with the SiS, but it 
seems that many more beneficial hardware acceleration features are 
being implemented for GF4-series cards.

> Another thought I had in
> the case of using a Pundit would be using networked SMB shares, if only
> to avoid using external HDDs. How well would MythTV perform in a
> situation like this (say, 120GB drive in the pundit, another 120GB SMB
> share on a 100Mbps LAN)?

It works well enough. All my movies, music and TV shows I want to keep 
indefinitely are on a remote machine, with the volume mounted on my 
MythTV box via SMB. There's a noticeable difference versus local files, 
but it works.

> I couldn't resist the deal I found today and purchased a Pundit for
> $140. I haven't ruled out the idea of returning it and building a mATX
> system -- the bargain hunter in me just won out today. I know I'll
> agonize over this decision until it's all built and done.

Hey, can't beat that with a stick. For that price, go for the Pundit!

> Oh, and for those keeping score, my rough estimates for building these
> systems are looking around $400 for the Pundit (2.4 Celeron, PVR-250,
> 512 RAM) and $485 for mATX (Athlon 2400+, Leadtek WinFast K7NCR18GM,
> PVR-250, 512 RAM, CoolerMaster 610 case). HDDs are existing. I could
> probably cut costs by going for cheaper processors, but I like having a
> bit more power, just in case.
>
> Any more thoughts?

Nope, sounds good. The CoolerMaster is definitely a bit spendy at 
around $100 for the case alone (I've seen slightly better prices here 
and there, but that seems about average), then tack on another $70+ for 
a good, quiet power supply. You'll have plenty of processing juice, and 
I would guess you'd be okay with the SMB mounts for some of your 
long-term storage. I've really only got 160GB inside my MythTV box, 
with network access to another 480GB (5x120 RAID 5 array in my server). 
No problems whatsoever, and I don't usually come even close to filling 
up the drive in the MythTV box, though I've got a pcHDTV card coming 
that could chew up space in a hurry...

--Jarod

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

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MythTV, Red Hat Linux 9 & ATrpms documentation:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=rh9pvr250