[mythtv-users] Hardware Suggestions/Sanity Check

Steven Adeff adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com
Wed Apr 12 17:50:32 UTC 2006


On 4/12/06, John Patrick Hoke <john.hoke at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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'm gunna push software. The only downside is rebuilding a drive if
one goes down. This is a CPU intensive task that a hardware controller
can take care of in the background. I don't know what kind of
processing power it would take on a Athlon64 3x00+ processor, which
may cause some down time, but since yours will be a dedicated backend
only, you can forgo the commflag and transcode'ing until the drive is
rebuilt.


> >> 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 ;)

It's in the FCC guidelines/rules, and I believe the FCC has a special
number to use for complaints against FCC regulated companies.


> >> 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 ...

Shorter warranty, and with 500GB, I'd prefer spending a few extra
bucks for 5years. If I had a bunch in a RAID5 array it wouldn't bother
me so much as long as they don't "drop like flies" in a short period
of time. Something to think about...

> >>         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

$75-80 at newegg, amazon, buy.com, etc. The A170 works OTB with
>2.6.15 as well.
The Dvico is a good card though.


> >>         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!

I've got one on my KN1 board.


> >>         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

whatever floats yer boat. there's lots of discussion on NFS/CIFS/SAMBA
on the list to read through as well.



> >>         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 ;)

I'd still put all the tuners on the master BE with the 5 PCI slots.
You could get your 2 PVR cards, 2 HD tuners and RAID if you wanted.


> 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)

Once she realizes how well the system works, she'll want one
everywhere she watches tv =)


> > 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.

--
Steve


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