[mythtv-users] MythTV Hardware Upgrade Questions

[Julius Roberts]

On 28 June 2011 11:01, Gabe Rubin <gaberubin at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you do decide on upgrading your high-performance computer, I am
> happy to take some components off your hand.

:) +1!!!

> But seriously, I am interested in how this affects your performance as
> I have a similar issue.  I am tempted to go with a USB stick or SSD
> for the database, but I am leery of putting that on something that has
> a limited amount or read/write cycles (although that limit may be much
> higher than what I would encounter, but I imagine the db gets a lot of
> writes on a daily basis).

I am not a hardware nerd, but it's my understanding that yes flash
memory sectors(?) die after a certain amount of write cycles. It's for
this reason a usb flash disk wont last forever in that role.  SSDs
however are designed with this deficiency in mind, and fancy
electronics allocates additional "sectors" to replace the aged/failed
ones, thusly increasing the life of the disk.  ie If you had a 64gb
SSD it might ship with more than 64gb of storage onboard, and that
extra is swapped in during the life of the device.

As for performance, ssds are very fast.  I have a "64gb Kingston
SSDnow"  in my desktop which replaced an aged WD Raptor 10,000rpm
disk, and the SSD is faster, quieter, smaller and cooler.  I've had it
for 18 months now and it's still going strong; not sure how long it
will ultimately last however.  Admittedly this role is not as i/o
intensive as perhaps /var on a mysql box might be but for a root disk,
i couldn't go back to a mechanical disk now.

> I am also interested in hearing from others about whether it is
> worthwhile to put on a flash drive, or if that would actually decrease
> my current performance (everything on a single drive).  I do have some
> older drives I could install, but I would want to to keep my current
> drive for recordings as it is 2TB, is my biggest drive, and it would
> be a waste to not store media on it.

I have my myth server setup with everything on a (mechanical) 500gb
sata2 disk, which is not uuber fast by any standards, and the whole of
/var on a 2tb sata2 disk.  This is on a box with a relatively aged
athlon x2 64 and 4gb RAM.  I have no performance issues at all
(although i don't even bother transcoding, with 2tb why bother?) which
is why i think it's interesting the OP is considering retiring his
*ahem* quad core).  I don't see myth being particularly processor
intensive.  i/o is a different matter however, and I think it's smart
to simply split /var off onto a separate disk.  As it happens It's
very easy to retro fit this in to an existing system, so i'd recommend
that to anyone with performance issues, particularly if you have an
otherwise faster box than me.

-- 
Kind regards, Jules

The CLI is everywhere. It's all around us, even in this very room. You
can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your
television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to work,
when you pay your taxes. The GUI is the world that has been pulled
over your eyes to blind you from the truth.