[mythtv-users] Low Power System

[Kirk]

On 06/03/17 13:54, James Linder wrote:
>
>
> On 6/3/17 10:28 am, mythtv-users-request at mythtv.org wrote:
>>> I have been a MythTV user for over 10 years but haven't kept up with
>>> the changing hardware.  My last iteration was a Zotac Atom 230
>>> combined front/backend which unfortunately died recently.
>>>
>>> We are moving off-grid (solar only) soon so I am looking for a
>>> low-power system to watch TV/videos and listen to mythmusic. That's
>>> basically all we use the Mythbox for.  Tuner is a networked HDHomerun
>>> and there is ~2TB of data (recordings, videos, music).
>>>
>>> Should I be looking at the latest generation of Zotac motherboards or
>>> am I better off looking at a laptop?  I could probably squeeze
>>> everything into a laptop if it had dual HDD slots.
>>>
>>> All suggestions welcome.
>>>
>>>
>> I've just updated one of my MythTv frontends using an ASRock J3710-ITX
>> mini-itx board. This has an Intel Quad-Core Pentium Processor J3710built
>> onto the board and has a power usage of < 6 Watts. It has optical audio
>> out for surround sound amps etc. There is a Celeron version which is
>> slightly cheaper. Teamed with a cheap SSD SATA disk or USB stick to boot
>> from it work well with SD and HD. The video is hardware decoded in the
>> CPU's graphics chip. Using a Fedora 25 installation with the VAAPI
>> drivers uses about 15% of the CPU's watching full HD and is quick with
>> the MythTv menu's etc. Seems to work well so far.
> What I've found is
>
> I use a NUC with a decent processor (i3 v6 or i5)
> The box is not rated for low power in particular but running mythbackend
> on a flash disk actual power usage is a couple off watts only.
> if you use flash then 2 stuff:
>     partition your flash such that (say) 20% is unpartitioned. That
> gives a stock of sectors that trim can claim as sectors get worn out
>     deal with mysql logging. The log will wear out your flash in a year.
>     I run trim as a daily cron task. Recomendation is to not put it in
> fstab.
>     BTW a 2.5" 1T spinning disc adds little to power, but makes life
> much easier
>
> James

Thanks James, I actually do most of that now, with the exception that 
trim is in fstab - any sources on why not?

Do you know of any NUCs that could fit two 2.5" or perhaps 1 3.5" and a 
boot disk?  Probably starting to creep the power up now.

I assume NUC's would typically use a power brick which should be more 
efficient than standard ATX power supply. I may also be able to run it 
straight from our battery bank instead of using an inverter.

I will also be investigating spindown, ACPI wakeup & Mythwelcome, etc..

Thanks,