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<br><div><div>On Nov 15, 2007, at 8:19 PM, <a href="mailto:mythtv-users-request@mythtv.org">mythtv-users-request@mythtv.org</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Chris Ribe wrote:</font></p> <blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">On Nov 15, 2007 9:50 AM, Mark J. Small <<a href="mailto:msmall@eastlink.ca">msmall@eastlink.ca</a>> wrote:</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 20.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">On November 15, 2007, Tom Dexter wrote:</font></p> <blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 30.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">On Nov 15, 2007 5:39 AM, Mark Small <<a href="mailto:msmall@eastlink.ca">msmall@eastlink.ca</a>> wrote:</font></p> <blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 40.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">In such a system, your biggest bottleneck will likely be bandwidth to</font></p> </blockquote></blockquote><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 20.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">the</font></p> <blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 40.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">hard disk(s).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If you've got 4 folks watching HDTV streams, that's a</font></p> </blockquote></blockquote><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 20.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">TON</font></p> <blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 40.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">of data the gets written and read constantly.</font></p> </blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">While I won't argue that I/O is a potential issue, it not THAT big of an</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">issue.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>4 HD streams only amount to about 7MB/s of data. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If you have 4 HD</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">tuners, you'll probably want more than one disk for storage, but you could</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">get by with a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>single SATA<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>disk.</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">-chris</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> </blockquote><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I don't know where everyone got this number of 4 streams.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The OP said<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">he was going to have 8 clients and 4 tuners.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>That give a possible<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">maximum of 12 streams of data (+ 4 depending on how he sets up<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">commercial flagging).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Disk I/O will be his major concern. And it's not<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">total sustained throughput that will be the issue, it'll be all the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">constant seeking that will be the issue...</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- Wade</font></p> </blockquote></div><br><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Hi everybody, thanks for all of the responses.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>It's clear to me now that I should have mentioned that I am looking at the ASUS P5E motherboard with as many SATA hard drives as i can fit into the case.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>The mobo only supports 6 SATA connections, so i'm guessing that I can only have 6 drives in a RAID configuration via the mobo's native RAID hardware. Since I am planning on using a Chenbro 3U chassis that has 8 drive bays, I would like to be able to support up to 8 drives in RAID, so an external card might be necessary.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>My conclusion based on your input is that with this many drives (and the seek time distributed appropriately, a Core2 processor will be powerful enough to accomplish the task at hand.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Of course, recommendations on a RAID controller or a mobo that supports 8 SATA drives and is linux / core2 compatible would also be appreciated, </div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>To clarify -- Wade is correct in assuming that the server will be dealing with a maximum of 12 streams rather than 4 or 8. Each TV might be viewing some recorded program (8 streams) while 4 separate live broadcasts are being recorded. This is a circumstance that the server must be able to accommodate frequently and efficiently. (honestly, i'm not sure if my client will frequently use that much power often, but i am certain he'll push it to that limit at least once).</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Thanks again, as you all have been profoundly helpful.</div><div>-kevin</div></body></html>