[mythtv-users] Backend/Frontend hardware (new system)

[Damian]

On 18/09/2012 15:48, jedi wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 12:13:16PM +1000, Michael Watson wrote:
>> On 18/09/2012 10:58 AM, Nick Rout wrote:
>>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Michael Watson
>>> <michael at thewatsonfamily.id.au> wrote:
>>>> On 18/09/2012 9:39 AM, Nick Rout wrote:
>>>>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 9:36 AM, Michael Watson
>>>>> <michael at thewatsonfamily.id.au> wrote:
>>>>>> On 18/09/2012 7:27 AM, Tyler T wrote:
>>>>>>> Do you still intend to record TV for later viewing? I don't see a
> [deletia]
>
>>> Or are you better to go with the lower power machine if you want to
>>> look after the environment? We burn coal for electricity after all. I
>>> simply don't know the right answer here! I doubt that any one answer
>>> is "right".
>> Coal is not the only material used to generate power.  There are
>> many others including Nuclear, Wind, Solar, and Water
>>
>> But, back to the original statement.  You do not need a new high
>> priced machine to run Myth Frontend or Backend seperate or combined.
>> You can do it quite happily on equipment that is 5+ Years old, for
>> very little out lay.
>      One of my frontends is an 5 year old tower PC that was trailing
> edge hardware 5 years ago. Bought it because it was cheap. It does
> fine though because I put a good video card in it (nv430).
>
>      I also recently dramatically improved the performance of a similar
> machine by putting a nv8400 in it. A good video card can go a long way
> and a good video card can be a relic itself.
>
> [deletia]
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I have an old Dell Precision 670 machine (was a high end CG animation 
workstation a few years ago) which I was initially planning to use as an 
'always on' network server and MythTV FE/BE.

There were 2 problems with this plan:
1) I found out that the machine can not take drives bigger than 300 Gig 
(probably a limit added because of it's high end nature .. they are very 
careful with the spec of these machines)
2) It's a complete power hog due to it having 2 separate processors in 
there.

It's a noisy beast too.

Maybe I can make do with it for the FE/BE system though?

If I get something like a Netgear ReadyNAS (which I have just seen could 
have my Logitec music backend on it) to house a 2 TB hd, then I could 
just turn this old beast of a machine on when we actually want to watch 
something on the projector.

Does that sound reasonable?

It wouldn't feel right to keep this machine on 27/4, so is it possible 
for the machine to turn it's self on and off for scheduled recordings 
etc? How easy would something like that be to set up? Would it need 
specific hardware?

And would it be possible to turn the machine on using something like an 
app on my iphone (to prevent walking through 3 rooms to press the power 
button)?

That last one certainly wouldn't be a deal breaker. It would just make 
me feel a bit more like James Bond :-)

Thanks for the thoughts,
Damian