[mythtv-users] SSDs and Myth frontends ?

Tortise tortise at paradise.net.nz
Fri Sep 17 21:32:29 UTC 2010


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Richardson" <mythtv at derdev.com>
To: "Discussion about MythTV" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 1:26 AM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] SSDs and Myth frontends ?


>> > Anybody see any reasons to not go with an SSD for a frontend? As I
>> > said,
>> > I'm not looking for any great improvement over a
>> > conventional SSD, but my other option is to netboot the frontend,
which
>> > would be even quieter, draw even less power and
>> > make even less heat than an SSD.
>> >
>> > Hmmm, seems like I am talking myself into netbooting :-)
>> >
>> > Although 64Gb is large enough to hold an OS and a Myth B/E, I don't
see
>> > any reason to try the SSD in my BE, it's already
>> > spinning many drives anyway, and is located in the garage so noise is
>>
>> not
>>
>> > a factor.

>  I reasoned
that a) I'd gotten proficient enough with installing from scratch and b)
that SSD media would continue to decline in price such that if I "wore out"
an FE SSD from writes, I'd just replace it and rebuild in an hour.


This was also my reasoning for using 133x 8G CF for FE's also, cheaper, silent, maybe sl slower booting (than SSD but faster than 
HDD) but of minimal significance as I prefer to resume from standby in any event, which seems to take 10 seconds - and most of that 
is regaining the eth0 connection so in this event the SSD has little advantage at all.  IMO using a SSD for a FE is really OTT on 
price and capacity.

When SSD's are robust enough in a repeated write sense (perhaps they are now?) might be best used for the BE OS disk, with media on 
spinning drives, which seems a sensible variation of the preferred BE disk setups.

It would be nice to be able to power down the media HDD in the BE (for power, heat, noise and speculated longevity reasons) however 
I've not seen much on that.

I have found a SSD to be a useful noise reduction in my bedside notebook PC (runs myuthbuntu) which keeps the boss happier.  (Just 
need silent keys now!)

I also agree with the observation that I've yet to have a solid state drive convincingly fail, and wonder how I might confirm it was 
happening!  Cleary a major corruption will be evident with major run issues, however I expect more likely a solid state drive is 
going to fail in parts and not in whole, akin to losing sectors on a HDD so failure might start off very subtly?  I understand that 
reformating a HDD allows for faulty sectors by deducting them out.  Would the same apply to a failing electronic disc if one 
reformatted it?




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