[mythtv-users] Hardware Suggestions/Sanity Check

John Patrick Hoke john.hoke at gmail.com
Wed Apr 12 17:21:49 UTC 2006


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On Apr 11, 2006, at 1:48 PM, Steven Adeff wrote:

> On 4/10/06, John Patrick Hoke <john.hoke at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> <snip>
>
> As well, RAID 5 all your 250GB drives and create folders under that
> for dvd's, videos, etc. Here's why. 1) Speed, the more drives in the
> array the faster. Not necesarily something you will need, but hey, why
> not. 2) flexibility of what you put on, "damn, I've only got 3gigs
> left on the "DVD" drive, but 50 on the videos drive...." 3) With two
> RAID 5 arrays you essentially lose 2 drives to parity, with one you
> lose one drive to parity, and you most likely won't lose 2 drives at
> once, so save some money and RAID5 all 6 of the drives.

Good advice, I am surprised I didnt see that myself. Still not 100%  
sure if I will go hardware or software RAID, but either way it is a  
good idea to ponder...

>
>> I will also be creating a BE/FE system for my living room. This will
>> be for capturing (unencrypted) HD content from cable company and
>> displaying it and other content on the master BE on a Samsung 5078W
>> DLP HDTV over a gigabit ethernet connection in the house. For the
>> record, I have tried via FireWire on my 3250 and cannot get it to
>> work. Blue Ridge Cable said they do not support this (firewire) at
>> this time, and told me the FCC does not require that they do so. (I
>> still have issues with that statement).
>
> They're liars and you should report them to the FCC.

I plan on it, but would like to have supporting documentation prior  
to dealing with the FCC... there is nothing the gov't understands  
better than paperwork ;)

>
>> What I am thinking is:
>>         AMD64 3000+
>
> get at least a 3200+ If you can afford it, jump up to faster. I've got
> a 3200+ and its great, but for an extra $20-50 you can go faster, and
> I think its worth it.

Done. I had the 3000+ handy, but it just got tagged to be put in a  
different box I am building ...
>
>>         KN1 Extreme MoBo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?
>> Item=N82E16813135175)
>
> god do I love this motherboard. I have one in my "fileserver" and  
> its awesome.
>
>>         2GB RAM
>
> you could live with 512MB, 1GB is more than enough, save some money
> here and put it towards the CPU.

The RAM is what I have on hand... I'll probably throw one stick in  
and hold the other "just in case"

>
>>         2x500 GB SATA Drives (via LVM)
>
> Good choice, they're so cheap now. you can find Seagate 500GB SATA
> drives with 5yr warranties and 16MB cache for under $250. I see assume
> this will be your "it can crash" recording drive for both backends?

Exactly. And I saw 500gb WD's on outpost for 229.00 :) While I prefer  
Seagate, I can live with WD ...
>
>>         HD Capture Card:
>>                 Either an AirStar-HD5000AV (http:// 
>> www.cyberestore.com/
>> product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=103)
>>                 or an Dvico FusionHDTV Lite w/Remote (http://
>> www.cyberestore.com/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=192)
>
> Avermedia A180. I've got two, along with my pcHDTV HD3000 card. At
> ~$70 its hard to beat for QAM reception. You could get two for the
> price of the above ;-)

Actually they are both about 99.00US at cyberstore, and I hear the  
Dvico pretty much works outta the box with > 2.6.15  so I will  
probably go that route
>
>>         Video Card: some NVIDIA 6600 card (PCI Express)
>
> You could get away with a FX5300 as well, and no fan! (FX5300 is the
> 5200 for PCIE)
>
That is good to know. I didnt think the 5200 had a PCIE version...  
fanless is a bonus!

>>         Case: Silverstone LC20M ... or possibly LC16M
>
> I LOVE my LC16M. and it can hold 6 drives (mmmm, 6x500GB in
> RAID5...droool...). The 20M is their new case, internally it looks
> like a slightly rearranged 16M, both are gorgous on the outside, and I
> don't know how you'll decide. Let the wife do it....
>

Yup... she said the 20M is nicer looking so.... ;-)


>>         2) As I have always had combined FE/BE I am not sure about  
>> this...
>> the recordings from the HD card, do they get recorded locally on the
>> FE/BE box in the Living room, or can they be pushed over the network
>> to the BE in the basement? If I can push the recordings over the wire
>> to the BE, then I can have less HD in living room, less heat, and
>> less fan noise :)
>
> they will be recorded locally, but locally can be an NFS mounted
> drive. so you could have 1 computer with your recording drives and
> mount the recording drive to all your other BE's. HD streams are
> relatively low bandwidth when it comes to 100/1000bT ethernet so it
> shouldn't be an issue.
>

TY. I will probably use CIFS only because I have found it to be  
faster... but YMMV

>
>>         4) Has anyone had good/bad experiences with this mobo for  
>> MythTV
>> use? Is the CPU powerful enough?
>
> My comments above in this regard (have I mentiond how much I....)
>
>
> So, some thoughts overall. It sounds like you have the option to put
> the existing P4 system somewhere where noise won't be an issue, and if
> I read right, will only be a BE, no FE?
> How many PCI slots are available in this machine?

5 slots, 2 in use for the PVRs. 1 may be for a RAID card if go that  
route...

>
> I'd put all the tuners and harddrives in the backend. Let it worry
> about handling the SW RAID, HD stream processing, commflagging, etc.
> If you put an HD tuner in another BE that BE will be handling the
> stream processing, etc.
>
> this would even let you build a MicroATX based system for the new
> frontend, which the wife may like better. It will also let you get
> away with a slower CPU as it won't be required to do as much.

I like the case size of the 16M/20M it fits well with the rest of my  
AV equipment (Onkyo, Black, well racked and ventilated in room) so it  
will just be another box in the stack... blending in is a huge plus ;)

If I had my druthers, I would probably go microATX and diskless ...  
but that may be for another project ... Bedroom FE (Praying to the  
WAF gods LOL)

>
>
> This is something I've thought a lot about lately as its where I'm
> heading personally as well. I've got about 2TB amongst ~10drives, and
> I'm running out of room (I archive a lot of my recordings, and I've
> got a lot of shows that have yet to come out on DVD archived), so I'm
> looking at building a RAID5 array based on 500GB drives.
>
  Interesting... I have to do some price analysis and "prep" the data  
before I think about spending much more that I have asked for ...  
unless I can take the bundle that she who is in charge has deigned to  
let me spend (LOL) and rearrange it... will follow up this thread  
with more detail once I put the final shopping list together.

> phew... I think thats all I have to say....
>
**Thank you** ... I am very grateful, especially for the MoBo  
validation!

- -John
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