[mythtv-users] Backend/Frontend hardware (new system)

[Mike Perkins]

On 18/09/12 17:07, Damian wrote:
> On 18/09/2012 15:48, jedi wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 12:13:16PM +1000, Michael Watson wrote:
>>> On 18/09/2012 10:58 AM, Nick Rout wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Michael Watson
>>>> <michael at thewatsonfamily.id.au> wrote:
>>>>> On 18/09/2012 9:39 AM, Nick Rout wrote:
>>>>>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 9:36 AM, Michael Watson
>>>>>> <michael at thewatsonfamily.id.au> wrote:
>>>>>>> On 18/09/2012 7:27 AM, Tyler T wrote:
>>>>>>>> Do you still intend to record TV for later viewing? I don't see
>>>>>>>> a
>> [deletia]
>>
>>>> Or are you better to go with the lower power machine if you want to
>>>> look after the environment? We burn coal for electricity after all. I
>>>> simply don't know the right answer here! I doubt that any one answer is
>>>> "right".
>>> Coal is not the only material used to generate power.  There are many
>>> others including Nuclear, Wind, Solar, and Water
>>>
>>> But, back to the original statement.  You do not need a new high priced
>>> machine to run Myth Frontend or Backend seperate or combined. You can do
>>> it quite happily on equipment that is 5+ Years old, for very little out
>>> lay.
>> One of my frontends is an 5 year old tower PC that was trailing edge
>> hardware 5 years ago. Bought it because it was cheap. It does fine though
>> because I put a good video card in it (nv430).
>>
>> I also recently dramatically improved the performance of a similar machine
>> by putting a nv8400 in it. A good video card can go a long way and a good
>> video card can be a relic itself.
>>
>> [deletia] _______________________________________________ mythtv-users
>> mailing list mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>> http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
> I have an old Dell Precision 670 machine (was a high end CG animation
> workstation a few years ago) which I was initially planning to use as an
> 'always on' network server and MythTV FE/BE.
>
> There were 2 problems with this plan: 1) I found out that the machine can not
> take drives bigger than 300 Gig (probably a limit added because of it's high
> end nature .. they are very careful with the spec of these machines) 2) It's
> a complete power hog due to it having 2 separate processors in there.
>
> It's a noisy beast too.
>
> Maybe I can make do with it for the FE/BE system though?
>
> If I get something like a Netgear ReadyNAS (which I have just seen could have
> my Logitec music backend on it) to house a 2 TB hd, then I could just turn
> this old beast of a machine on when we actually want to watch something on
> the projector.
>
> Does that sound reasonable?
>
> It wouldn't feel right to keep this machine on 27/4, so is it possible for
> the machine to turn it's self on and off for scheduled recordings etc? How
> easy would something like that be to set up? Would it need specific
> hardware?
>
> And would it be possible to turn the machine on using something like an app
> on my iphone (to prevent walking through 3 rooms to press the power button)?
>
> That last one certainly wouldn't be a deal breaker. It would just make me
> feel a bit more like James Bond :-)
>
You might have problems with that idea. The problem that I found with a similar 
beast was that the BIOS is pretty restricted... it wouldn't even let me boot 
without a monitor connected, the disk had to be cable select and when netbooting 
used a customized version of Etherboot that didn't talk to anything else I 
had... and still required keyboard intervention to activate.

Good machine, but it's basically a doorstop.

-- 

Mike Perkins