[mythtv-users] Backend machine - Acer Altos G540 Std Server?

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com> wrote:
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> On Aug 6, 2013, at 22:16, Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Does anyone have experience with this or similar machine
> http://www.trademe.co.nz/a.asp?id=624082220 ? Intended use is as a backend
> using HDHR tuners.
>
> Size (WxDxH)mm: 445 (H) x 212 (W) x 550 (D) mm
> Weight (Est): 32 kg
> Processor: Intel Quad-Core Xeon E5420
> Processor Speed: 2.5GHz
> RAM: 4GB
> Hard Drive:3x 75GB (8 hard drive slots altogether)
> DVD-RW
> SAS
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> An E5420 is an old Core 2 Quad.  Aside from having gobs of cache, a modern
> i3 would run circles around it, and 4GB of memory is very cheap to come by
> these days (although much less so than 6 months ago).  The only factors that
> might make that worth $450 are the unmentioned features: high end server
> power supply, high end RAID card, hot swap bays.  Plus, I'm basing this off
> US availability, I don't know what pricing is like in New Zealand.

Agreed on the CPU and RAM comments.

Be aware that depending on the specific RAID card it might have
some limitations with SATA drives, and some require you to run all
the drives in (single drive) RAID0 mode if you want to use JBODs
(although, there are sometimes side-load firmware solutions to that
issue).

Typically, these servers will tend to be noisy because the chassis
fans need to be able to dissipate quite a lot of heat in a fully
configured system.  Same for the power supply fans.

Power wise, this generation of processor is no where near as
efficient as the current Core generations (i.e. i3/5/7).

While it work for a HDHR based BE?  Likely.

Gary