[mythtv-users] PCI-E Analog Card

[Mark]

Brian Wood wrote:
> You'll want to make disk I/O doesn't become a bottleneck. Certainly don't try 
> to use USB-connected drives. USB may theoretically be able to handle the speed 
> required, but USB systems somehow never live up to their performance claims.
>
> You'll want fast drives, and you may consider a RAID system that will increase 
> performance (RAID0 or a variant thereof that spreads the R/W load over several 
> drives). 
>
> I'd go with a server class motherboard for a system like you describe, or even 
> multiple systems capturing 5 channels per machine.
>
> An older SCSI-based server might work for you, they can be had relatively 
> cheaply these days (at least compared to their original cost). SCSI drives are 
> also available cheaply, but large capacity SCSI drives are expensive. You 
> might look into SAS as well.
>
> Don't try to cheap out, a system like you want will have to perform very well, 
> and you generally have to pay for that. Disk I/O will be more important than 
> CPU power, and that's usually found in server machines.
>   
Those are good points.  I'm guessing you'll want a sata or sas system 
with a pci-e or pci-x controller with as
many ports as you can get.  There's some good threads on this over at 
AVSforums.  media servers.