[mythtv-users] Optimal disk configuration for MythTV?

[digid myth]

Matt,

I have evolved my system over the last 5 years, I lean more to power
savings, but performance is a must. I have found that most of my problems
have gone away by using on-board SATA controls for things that get hit
hard, and using add in SATA cards for my videos. Most of my drives are low
power older Samsung 2 TB drives. My drive for recordings spit out a few
pending sectors so I recently replaced it with a WD re4 1 tb. Backups are
to another system and I use a custom written backup system based around
rsync to backup recordings. I did a write up on my system a while back
http://wentztech.com/radio/Myth/Myth-Server.html but the system has evolved
from then.

It is not uncommon for the system to be recording 2 programs OTA and to be
streaming videos to a front end and 2 media boxes. I sleep all the drives,
and the only issue that I have seen is sometime the frontends will timeout
when selecting a video, but hitting play again always brings it up.

My current config is a AMD 6 core server, 8 Gig of ram. It does a lot more
than just myth, including hosting some VM's

Current disk config
2 wd raptor 300 gig drives in raid1 for os and boot, myth db etc.
1 1TB drive for recordings WD RE4.
3 2TB drives for video recordings
2 2TB drives in raid1 for data and file shares, myth db is backed up to
this also.
1 2TB drive to hold backups from our laptops, desktops etc.
This is all tucked in a case I purchased from Micro Center. All drives are
set to sleep 15 min after no use other than the boot/os drives.

I also have a 8 drive Rosewell ESATA case attached that has 2 SATA2
interfaces multiplexed to 4 drives each. (I have had no problem steaming
multiple videos from this case on the same SATA channel, in the past, but
it is used to test drives, etc now.) During the olympics I added a 2 TB
drive via the case so the wife could record what she wanted and not fill
the 1 TB drive.

Again a 2nd system holds drives not in raid to backup the main server, Like
you if I loose my OTA recordings its not a big deal other than my wifes
Soap. But she an watch it on-line if I do not get it for some reason.
Nothing else OTA is that important to us. I have also learned from
experience to not keep backup drives on the same system/power supply as the
drives you are backing up. The backups also need to be easy to restore. I
have lost a video drive in the past, I simply mired the drive from the
backup server to a fresh drive, moved it to the myth box, and all is well.
I try to replace the disks on the server every 3 years. No new disk gets
valid data on it until it has run for 2 weeks actively with dummy data. The
old disks get moved to backup duty. At first sign of a problem (SMART
Errors) the disk gets replaced.

My goal has been to keep the average power to 100 watts for the month. The
current system is running about 95 watt average. I am confident I could get
it down more  by switching to an Intel based system, and tweaking a bit
more, but at some point I have to say its good enough. By my calculations
it is costing me about $9.00 a month to keep this server powered up and
ready 24x7

Hope some of this helps you decide on what you want on your new system.
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