[mythtv-users] Dual processors -- better than single fastprocessor?

Richard Mixon (qwest) rnmixon at qwest.net
Fri Jul 16 22:35:37 EDT 2004


mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org <> wrote:
>
> The only limitation for me seems to be disk access.  I found out, the
> hard way, that I can't record video and copy files at the same time.
> For some reason this makes for crappy recording.  I'm using a 250GB
> Western Digital IDE Ultra 100 for video storage.  The only thing that
> would make me happier with my system would be using SATA instead of
> IDE for the disks.

Running two disk intensive processes (copying files and recording) will
probably cut your drive performance at least in half, no matter what
technology you use.

Second, be warned - Serial ATA is only incrementally faster than
Parallel ATA - 150MBS (megabytes per second) vs 100MBS (PATA100) or
133MBS (PATA133). Thats either 50% faster or 12.5% faster, depending on
what type of PATA controller and drives you have. Its definitely the way
of the future, but its not an earth shattering improvement. What's
attractive is that: 1) it does not let you put two drives on a single
cable; 2) Manufacturers are making some of their medium performance
drives available as SATA drives, instead of just SCSI drives.

The first thing to check is that your hard drive is on an its own IDE
cable. If not, that will might make a big improvement.

On top of that each drive probably can only handle 30 to 50 MBS,
depending on the drive. As long as you have each Ultra ATA drive on a
separate controller you will not benefit that much by going to SATA.

If you really need great IO performance, get yourself a small SCSI 15000
RPM U320 drive and cheap single channel controller. Use that for your
recording, then move it to a larger cheaper drive. But I'm not sure how
MythTV would handle that at all.

hope this helps - richard



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