[mythtv-users] What's the best HD frontend only hardware?

[Mike Isely]

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008, jedi at mishnet.org wrote:

> > Or if your network is clean enough, network boot the machine and do away
> > with a storage device completely.
> > The video is going over the network anyway, there is little need for a
> > front-end to write to disk heavily unless you are going to do archiving
> > (which I have been experimenting with over the net anyway).
> > Gareth
> 
> Frontends make nice little backup media servers. They are also
> handy for automated backups of the myth database. Having one of
> those setup on one of my frontends saved me a lot of grief when
> I upgraded the backend. (and things became interesting)
> 
> [deletia]

On the other hand, by totally eliminating the disk from the front end:

1. There's less heat and thus existing fans can run more slowly /
quietly.

2. There's no spindle noise - because there's no spindle!

3. Power consumption on the front end is lowered (somewhat).

If you set up the exported NFS root file system as read-only, then you 
also gain:

4. Multiple front ends can share the same network-accessed disk, 
reducing what must be backed up / maintained and making it easier 
(almost trivial) to add more front ends.

5. You can just kill the power on any front end with no ill effects from 
possible inconsistent local file systems.

Until last week I ran a single combined FE/BE sitting in a Shuttle PC 
enclosure.  The internal hard drive was a Seagate 750GB SATA drive.  It 
ran hot enough that I had long ago added 2 fans underneath the drive 
(one of those crappy bolt-on 3.5" plates) just to circulate the air a 
little better.  That box is now one of 2 diskless FE machines with my 
new config and the difference in overall noise level is dramatic.  That 
to me made it worthwhile right there.  Meanwhile the new BE has 3 
Seagate 750GB drives (program storage) and a Maxtor 250GB drive (local 
system + NFS root server), sitting in a mid-tower server case with 6 
noisy fans and 2 CPUs.  But that's all parked in a utility room in my 
basement where nobody has to hear it.

  -Mike


-- 

Mike Isely
isely @ pobox (dot) com
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