[mythtv-users] Config suggestions for powerful MythTV Backend

[James Robertson]

I have recently aquired a Dell Poweredge 2600 Server with Dual Xeon
X5355 CPU's, 16GB RAM, 6x146GB 15K SAS disks and a PERC 5i RAID
controller.  I have a Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T-500 and 2X1TB Sata disks
to install in it.

I have been contemplating the best ways to configure it as a MythTV
backend, but would love some feedback and suggestions.

My intitial plan is as follows:

OS:  Debian Squeeze AMD64 (netinstall and no GUI)
2x 146GB disks in RAID1 for OS and MythTV Database
4x 146GB disks in RAID10 to host the LiveTV directory (if I was
feeling reckless I could do RAID0 across all of them).
2X 1TB Sata disks in RAID1 to store pictures, movies, music and
general file sharing on the network.
File System:  LVM with XFS.

And what to do with all that RAM!! Could I utilise some of it in a RAM
DISK? as I will probably be hard pressed to push 512MB from the OS and
apps.  Would placing Live TV recordings in a Ram disk provide any real
benefit?  What about giving MySQL more RAM?

I have done a bit of research and I am going to read over the
Optimizing Performance Wiki article again. but would appreciate some
advise from seasoned MythTV users and developers.

Regards,

James