[mythtv-users] Where to dedicate processing power?

[Anthony Vito]

> Setup a RAID 5 array for recordings (since you'll have 4 tuners total you'll
> want the speed),

This is a common misconception around here. A high bandwidth mpeg2
stream in SD is only 8 M(bits)ps or about .8 M(bytes)ps 4 of them are
a mezzly 3.2 M(bytes)ps. Most modern harddrives can sustain 60
M(bytes)ps. So there isn't much of an issue here. It 'can' become a
problem when a few tuners are writing and a few tuners are reading. (
I would like to find some numbers on how many writing tuners and
reading frontends it takes to max out a single disk. ) I Assume you
didn't mean a hardware RAID 5 solution, and RAID 5 in software will
give about about the same performance as RAID 1 on the read, and much
lower performance on the write.

Back to the OP. Since this lad doesn't have much CPU power to begin
with, I'd suggest a single large disk. If you wish for redundency and
couldn't bear to lose recordings in a crash, or if the single disk
does become a bottle neck, get another identical disk and build a RAID
1. This can be done non-destructively and at any point in the future.

Also, I agree with a previous suggestion to keep the Tuner cards all
in one place, and in the same machine as the drives. This will further
reduce CPU usage and network traffic.

--
Anthony Vito
anthony.vito at gmail.com