<div dir="ltr">I see no reason to replace your hardware, unless there is a must have feature your lacking. If you have older hardware that works great, most likely it would only work better with a new os on it.<div><br></div>
<div style>If your performance concerns are all you want to address, and you want to see if faster hardware will make a difference here are the things I would look at first:</div><div style><br></div><div style>1: Add more RAM and increase the memory usage of mysql to make DB queries faster (may be able to do this without adding more ram?)</div>
<div style> Why? Because it's possible that your playback problems are the result of slow queries against the seek table.</div><div style>2. Add an SSD as your system/DB drive<br></div><div style> Why? Again, faster DB queries could make playback start more quickly?</div>
<div style>3. Add additional recording drives.</div><div style> Why? If you have more drives, you will decrease fragmentation because they system will not be writing as many streams to the same drive at the same time. Also, it may reduce seek times and general drive thrashing in situations where recording and playback are occurring simultaneously.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>One other thing that you might do, I know I intend to once I have a few bucks to spend, is use an SDD as your primary recording drive, and set a cron job to move recordings to a different drive (storage group) after a few days. The advantage here are:</div>
<div style>1. SSD isn't as effected by fragmentation (no seek time)</div><div style>2. Moving completed recordings to magnetic media prevents fragmentation compared to recording directly to it (filesystem can locate contiguous blocks before writing)</div>
<div style>3. Magnetic drives can spin down because they will only be used when watching shows that weren't recorded recently</div><div style><br></div><div style>You might try something like the above before resorting to major software or hardware upgrades.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>Good luck.</div><div style><br></div><div style><br></div><div style><br></div><div style><br></div><div style><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Allen Edwards <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:allen.p.edwards@gmail.com" target="_blank">allen.p.edwards@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5">On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 10:18 AM, Mike Perkins <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mikep@randomtraveller.org.uk" target="_blank">mikep@randomtraveller.org.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>On 25/02/13 17:18, Allen Edwards wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
I was going to do the new drive update method. I even have the new 2T<br>
drive sitting right here next to me. Then I got thinking about all the<br>
upgrading I would need to do.<br>
<br>
1) The Squeezebox server.<br>
2) The VM Windows server running Windows XP under Linux<br>
3) Fan speed control<br>
4) CPU Power control<br>
5) Custom myth menus to run Chrome and the fire off VM<br>
6) Setting it up so the projector and the TV and the computer monitor all<br>
work<br>
7) Getting sound to both the TV (stereo) and the Surround system (4.1)<br>
8) Setting up the IR remote, which controls the TV, Projector, HiFi, room<br>
lights, and Myth<br>
9) The things I forgot that I did<br>
<br>
Even getting Linux to boot on my MB was a huge pain. I think that took me<br>
about week. At one point I called ASUS and the advice I got was to buy an<br>
Intel MB (I have AMD). The solution was to mess with the order that things<br>
are done in the boot process. I wish I could remember what I did.<br>
<br>
To that I could add the things that are now easy, setting up Myth...<br>
<br>
The bottom line is that the system worked perfectly for several years so<br>
something changed and if I can just fix that, we will be happy.<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div>
Things have moved on, as they say. I suspect that if you decide to upgrade your OS then you'll likely find that things you had to wrestle with back in the day just work 'right out of the box' now.<br>
<br>
My advice: don't upgrade. Take this as an opportunity to rethink your whole setup. After all, the last time you did this was 0.21, right? Look at new motherboards. You'll probably find a new one that will be cheaper and take half the power (or less) while giving you the same (or more) grunt.<br>
<br>
The newest versions of operating system will likely make your life easier as well. Case in point: Xorg, which now does much of the configuration by itself, meaning you don't need to (for most of us.. there's always one or two!).<br>
<br>
You shouldn't even need to set up your remote again, unless it *all* runs through your myth system. The new myth instance is all that should need to re-learn your IR commands, after all. Did I mention that Infra-Red handling is now different in the newer kernels?<span><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
-- <br>
<br>
Mike Perkins</font></span><div><div><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div></div><div>OK, Mike (and anyone else who wants to offer up an opinion)</div><div><br></div><div>Say I follow your advice and replace rather than update. What HW should I buy? What CPU (Intel this time), what MB, what Graphics card (or built in?)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Significant requirements:</div><div><br></div><div>1) As I have two audio sinks, I now have two spdif (analog connector) outputs. One goes to my Surround decoder which is 4.1. The other goes to a decoder and outputs stereo to the TV. Ideal would be a digital output to the surround box and analog outputs to the TV so I could get rid of the decoder. The second spdif output is wired to the second spidf port on the MB, the first one is standard MB output.</div>
<div><br></div><div>2) The Video goes to a TV which is 1080P capable but locked to 720p by XORG.conf so that I can easily switch the output to the projector which is native 720P (I have a DVI splitter that drives the TV and the projector). I can't do auto detect as the projector will report that it can take 1080p but then produces a vastly inferior picture. There is also a third display that is the main desktop. Ubuntu is on the secondary desktop so I can do administrative and system stuff from the second display. Myth is on either the TV or the Projector (or both) but it is duplicated by the splitter.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am always fearful that any new HW will break my video setup and refuse to play with the DVI splitter, or that I won't be able to lock it to 720p.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>
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