[mythtv-users] Re-doing my backend

[R. G. Newbury]

David Frascone wrote:
> Finally, my last question.
> 
> In an effort to be more green, I'd like to get rid of my two rack-mount,
> server class machines in my basement.  Currently, one is a general purpose
> server, with all my "important" stuff on it (< 80Gb), and one is my mythtv
> backend.
> 
> 
> The general purpose server runs DHCPD, DNS, sshd, samba, http, https,
> mysqld, and anything else I think I need.  It is also the root filesystem
> server for two dedicated frontends.  The mythtv backend has two PVR-500's,
> and accepts video from a hdhomerun.
> 
> So -- to go greener, I'd like to move to a commodity motherboard (just
> depricated one moving to an iMac), in a huge rackmount case.
> 
> Here are the questions:
> 
> I'd like my "important" stuff to be kinda backed up.  Either with raid, or
> maybe just mirror'ed onto the myth video storage -- just to be safe.  I
> think I should not worry about raid 5 here -- what do you think?
> The mythtv video store is not important to me -- I was planning on just
> buying a couple of 500Gb or so disks.  No redundancy.
> 
> Can a normal 2.4Ghz CPU handle the job of those two file servers?  (Video
> traffic + room to spare for other low cpu things)?  Keep in mind, I have 2
> hd tuners, and 4 sd tuners.  Plus, it has to handle serving filesystems and
> video traffic to two dedicated front ends.
> 
> 
> I think I'm going to be ok -- but I wanted to sanity check it with you
> guys.  I'm pretty sure server-class machines suck up WAY more power than
> desktop machines.
> Thanks in advance,
> -Dave
> P.S.  I think that's all of my questions -- for now!

I'm running an Asus P5L-MX motherboard with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo chip as 
a combined BE/FE, with one PVR500 and an HDHomeRun for 4 tuners. I have 
recorded 4 streams, while watching a recorded program, while also ssh'd 
in and COMPILING stuff....All on about (i'm guessing) 65 watts. The LCD 
tv is about twice that.

Ans that was without xvmc running. I did NOT check with top, but none of 
the programs, or the show I was watching seemed to exhibit any errors. 
So I think using you backend as a dual-use BE + file server would not be 
a problem. I do note that the OS is on one drive and the video store is 
split between 2 large drives,

I noticed an incredible difference when I moved to the Core 2 Duo chip. 
Do not leave the store without one!

And yes, I back up the OS settings + mythconverg database, but not the 
TV shows. I save the backups to one of the video disks on the basis that 
I am more likely to lose ONE OF, but not BOTH OF the disks.

Geoff