[mythtv-users] Hardware for MythTV
Brian Wood
beww at beww.org
Mon Sep 6 21:49:57 UTC 2010
On Monday, September 06, 2010 03:37:35 pm Diego Torres wrote:
> > Think about if you want to use your main machine, or dedicated BE if
> > you go that route, as anything else, like a household
> > NAS server, and how much disk capacity you might need. If you want
> > to run VMs on this machine, take that into
> > consideration as well.
> >
> > I believe in the "central machine" concept, but others like the
> > separate small low-power boxes approach. It's up to you,
> > and highly dependent on your needs and budget.
>
> I too suggest you think about a barebones vm server. Gives you the
> ability to run as many machines as you want, try new things, revert
> upgrades or upgrade the actual server without disturbing anything.
>
> I used to have a separate low power box for firewall, asterisk and
> myth BE. Between the sw and hw upgrades it was a nightmare . With the
> new setup I can upgrade to a whole new physical machine within a
> couple of hours most of which is copying the vms.
>
> You can start with an "entry level" server and then upgrade. I started
> with a $700 (aud) 1.6 ghz dualcore with 1 gb ram and 320 gb hdd.
>
Indeed, you can run a Myth B/E on the bare iron, so you can have PCI and USB capture devices, and run as many VMs as you
like. You could install a graphics card and have it be a combo BE/FE, but most people prefer such machines to not be in
the living room (mine's in the garage), so you could have a frontend or two in your living spaces.
Older servers, Opterons or Xeons, can be had pretty cheaply these days, and they are more than up to the tasks most of us
require. If you plan to use it as a F/E, make sure it has a PCI-Express slot in it, as opposed to PCI-X.
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