On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 3:20 PM, Brian Wood <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:beww@beww.org">beww@beww.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div><div></div><div class="h5">On Thursday, October 07, 2010 01:02:11 pm Gavin Peters wrote:<br>
> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Raymond Wagner <<a href="mailto:raymond@wagnerrp.com">raymond@wagnerrp.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> ><br>
> > What use would a SSD be to MythTV? On a backend, surely you don't intend<br>
> > to record to it, and we don't generate enough database traffic for an SSD<br>
> > to make sense. If you're looking for boot times, just put it in standby<br>
> > instead. On a frontend, the only disk usage is going to be on startup,<br>
> > and if you're looking to just get rid of a noisy hard drive, use network<br>
> > boot.<br>
><br>
> Just brainstorming, but power saving? On my BE, the six drives consume<br>
> 5.5w each at idle, for 33W. Divide by 80%, and we're at 40w or so of<br>
> load, call it 30 kwh/month. If you let the BE drives spin down when not<br>
> in use, and record to SSD, you're likely saving quite a bit of power. You<br>
> can schedule migration of recordings to the spinning disks regularly.<br>
><br>
> Based on my electricity pricing, I'd save about $5/month for this. That is<br>
> $60/yr, and may well pay for a PCI-e SSD; a reasonable one is on newegg now<br>
> for<br>
> <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227596&cm_re=PCI_S" target="_blank">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227596&cm_re=PCI_S</a><br>
> SD-_-20-227-596-_-Product<br>
><br>
> 50 gigs probably fits my OS, database, and enough slop to save recordings<br>
> for a day or so.<br>
><br>
><br>
<br>
</div></div>The "record to SSD and migrate to spinning platters later" idea seems interesting. I wonder how the life of the drives<br>
would be impacted by the repeated spinning up and down, as opposed to just leaving them up all the time.<br>
<br>
In addition to any power savings, you have to factor in the cost of replacing the drives if you are doing anything that<br>
adversely impacts their service life.<br>
<br>
I wonder how much extra you'd be paying for the PCIExpress interface on that SSD, most SSDs have SATA interfaces, and most<br>
machines have a spare SATA connector, and you can stash the drive itself just about anywhere in most cases.<br>
<br>
The problem is that SSD prices vary a lot, as does the quality of the drive itself (wear leveling algorithm etc.), so it's<br>
very hard to tell what, if anything, you're paying for that PCIE interface.<br>
<br>
I wonder if OCZ will have a fight with Acer about the "Revo" name on that drive.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>All excellent points. My presentation was adversely affected by my machine's lack of a free SATA connector.</div><div><br></div><div>- Gavin </div>
</div>