[mythtv-users] S-ATA versus plain old parallel

Jon Waite jon at jonwaite.com
Mon Feb 2 02:25:08 EST 2004


There are issues around S-ATA and Linux with older kernels, but any
recent(ish) distribution should be fine. I installed MythTV on an 865G based
Intel board using the Fedora Core atRPMs as per Jarod's guide and have had
no problems running a S-ATA drive as the only drive in the system.

As for performance, I get around 50 MBytes/sec sustained transfer rate
(using hdparm) from the drive which *way* more than Myth is ever going to
need short of multiple (3 or 4) HDTV streams - and that isn't available yet
in New Zealand anyway.

I'd definitely recommend the Intel 865G chipset for a Myth box (but then
again, the only 2 boards I've setup Myth on are that one and my laptop - a
Dell Inspiron 8100), the only thing it's missing is a TV-out (and some
boards include this too - mine didn't so I'm using the PVR350 TV-out). It
has been rock-solid though, no hangs, lockups or other funny hardware
related bugs which it seems like some other chipsets can suffer from. The
onboard audio, USB, video and LAN are all natively supported too.

The other advantage S-ATA *may* give you is given that most HTPC boxes are
small form factor (or small cased), the cabling for parallel IDE can
restrict airflow while the smaller S-ATA cables are less likely to - YMMV.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org 
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Martin Ravell
> Sent: Tuesday, 3 February 2004 3:16 a.m.
> To: MythTV
> Subject: [mythtv-users] S-ATA versus plain old parallel
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm spec'ing up a box for my production Myth machine and was 
> wondering what the deal is with S-ATA versus plain parallel 
> drives. Not being a Linux guru I'm interested to hear from 
> anyone with an opinion on this.
> 
> I guess I just havn't messed around with hardware for a while 
> and am not up on the latest. From my preliminary Myth install 
> (in an old banger PC) and scanning this list it is apparent 
> that HD throughput is of pretty major importance. Does S-ATA 
> give a worthwhile performance boost or does it pose more 
> problems than it solves?
> 
> BTW I'm looking at an Intel D865GLC board and potentially a 
> 200GB Maxtor being fed from my nice shiny new Hauppauge 350.
> 
> 
> Regards
> Marty
> 
> 
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