Server & HTPC pic's uploaded...

[mdmint]

Click sig line below.

[g808]

Very cool! Can't wait to hear more about your experiences with the MSI 6600GT. Any success running it at 1080i?

[mostlyfodder]

Wow!

1.495TB video storage partition !

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by g808

Very cool! Can't wait to hear more about your experiences with the MSI 6600GT. Any success running it at 1080i?

Truth be told my Toshiba 55HX70 HD Ready is 4:3 screen. It accepts component input of 480p or 1080i, 720p not supported. I'm getting excellent display using 720x480 res output via dongle 480p (not 480i). I changed output to 1080i and by default goes widescreen. My calculations for equivalent to 720x480 480p yields 1620x1080 1080i for 4:3, would this be correct? Yesterday only briefly had it set 1080i and extremely hard to read the NVidia setup selections in that mode. Put it back 480p and left it. Wasn't up to playing with it much, fighting the Flu. (Though the Flu didn't stop me from getting the Server/Client pic HTML put together ) I did forget to take pictures of the CE LABS 6001 PROGRADE 1 GHZ BI-DIRECTIONAL RF AMPLIFIER installed outside in the cable junction box before first split into house. I also replaced the splitter out there with Monster 2-way. From ther splits to 100' feed to AV room into Monster 4-way and other short run to computer station Monster 8-way) The amp is part of the overall Sage system so I'll add it to the html later.

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by mostlyfodder

Wow!

1.495TB video storage partition !

Plus 500GB partition on my workstation RAID5 dedicated for Library space. Dang, just shy of 2TB for Sage!

[stanger89]

Alrighty, finally got the last of my parts, namely my adapter for my notebook drive (more on that in another thread). So here are the promised pics of my HTPC:

The front, you've probably seen this before

The back, here's a good shot of the mod to my case. As you can see, two 80mm fans fit just fine back there, I just wish Ahanix had done that in the firest place

From the side, there's the T-Balancer in front, with my M-Audio Revolution behind it. And you can see a bit of my 6800 too.

Here's an overhead, I think mightyt was asking if it took up the PCI slot next to the AGP.

And one last one, here's my temp sensor instalation on my Zalman CPU cooler.

[stanger89]

Oh, and I had to post one more. Take a good look at this picture....

Did you do it? Did you notice anything? Like the CPU fan NOT moving?

Guess what.... The PC was actually ON, when I took that

[Menehune]

Good job!

[Outvit]

mdmint, where did you pick up the 3Ware RAID controller? How much does it set you back? The drives are something like $180 to $200 a piece...so it's quite an expensive setup. I'm jealous. How is the speed on it? I have built in SATA RAID on my MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. So I’m just curious... though my built in SATA raid is hardly comparable since its only capable of RAID 0, 1 and 0+1.

[ukmgranger]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Oh, and I had to post one more. Take a good look at this picture....

Did you do it? Did you notice anything? Like the CPU fan NOT moving?

Guess what.... The PC was actually ON, when I took that

I have always had problems seeing things moving on still images. I guess it must be my eyes!

I really like the idea of this T-Balancer (I think I'm going to be getting one within the next few weeks). I have to say, it does make a mess inside the case with all the wires everywhere! Never mind - as long as it does the job.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Outvit

mdmint, where did you pick up the 3Ware RAID controller? How much does it set you back? The drives are something like $180 to $200 a piece...so it's quite an expensive setup. I'm jealous. How is the speed on it? I have built in SATA RAID on my MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. So I’m just curious... though my built in SATA raid is hardly comparable since its only capable of RAID 0, 1 and 0+1.

I got my 7506-8 at newegg. As for performance in RAID-0 and RAID-5 read speed is limited by the PCI bus, about 90-100MB/sec, writes seem to take about a 50% performance hit (40-50MB/sec) due to the RAID-5.

ukmgranger,

If I weren't lazy, it wouldn't be a mess

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by Outvit

mdmint, where did you pick up the 3Ware RAID controller? How much does it set you back? The drives are something like $180 to $200 a piece...so it's quite an expensive setup. I'm jealous. How is the speed on it? I have built in SATA RAID on my MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. So I’m just curious... though my built in SATA raid is hardly comparable since its only capable of RAID 0, 1 and 0+1.

Got the 3ware 9500S-8 and 2 Proware MS324A 4-in-3 SATA Raid Cages (identical to and mfg of 3Ware RDC-400-SATA cages just no 3ware stamp) from pc-pitstop.com back in May. Just checked and price was same then as now for 9500S-8, the cages have come down $25 since May. It was my first purchase from them made based on price and availability, no problems. Yeah, with the controller, 2 hotswap 4in3 cages and 8 250GB SATA HDs not an inexpensive storage system. But it IS sweet!

I've worked in the computer field, primarily hardware service and support, for 2 decades. Primarily Back Office (servers, sans etc) the last decade so. Having a serious Server with good redundancy and hotswap capabilities at home has been something I'd wanted for some time. Sage just gave me the excuse. Speed wise you can read the controller rated spec's of over 400MB/s sustained RAID5 reads and over 100MB/s RAID5 sequential writes but what really counts is what can it do in production of course. All I know is I can concurrently record 5 DVD Std Q streams and playback 3 streams without any hiccups. (DVD Std is my usual record Q, think I'll setup a Max Q test of 5 rec 3 play and see if it still keeps up. I have tested 3 concurrent Max Q LiveTV timeshift sessions okie-dokie. BTW, Max Q is my default Q with Fav's etc. manually set DVD Std. This way if I go to watch LiveTV sports etc. Q is at Max.) I'd try more than 5 record streams but only have 5 PVR250s at the moment. May buy a PVR500MCE (or two) to replace one (or more) of the Server's 250s sometime in the future.

Definitely not cheap setup, hurts the pocket book once, joy of use for long time!

[Outvit]

Originally Posted by mdmint

Got the 3ware 9500S-8 and 2 Proware MS324A 4-in-3 SATA Raid Cages (identical to and mfg of 3Ware RDC-400-SATA cages just no 3ware stamp) from pc-pitstop.com back in May. Just checked and price was same then as now for 9500S-8, the cages have come down $25 since May. It was my first purchase from them made based on price and availability, no problems. Yeah, with the controller, 2 hotswap 4in3 cages and 8 250GB SATA HDs not an inexpensive storage system. But it IS sweet!

I've worked in the computer field, primarily hardware service and support, for 2 decades. Primarily Back Office (servers, sans etc) the last decade so. Having a serious Server with good redundancy and hotswap capabilities at home has been something I'd wanted for some time. Sage just gave me the excuse. Speed wise you can read the controller rated spec's of over 400MB/s sustained RAID5 reads and over 100MB/s RAID5 sequential writes but what really counts is what can it do in production of course. All I know is I can concurrently record 5 DVD Std Q streams and playback 3 streams without any hiccups. (DVD Std is my usual record Q, think I'll setup a Max Q test of 5 rec 3 play and see if it still keeps up. I have tested 3 concurrent Max Q LiveTV timeshift sessions okie-dokie. BTW, Max Q is my default Q with Fav's etc. manually set DVD Std. This way if I go to watch LiveTV sports etc. Q is at Max.) I'd try more than 5 record streams but only have 5 PVR250s at the moment. May buy a PVR500MCE (or two) to replace one (or more) of the Server's 250s sometime in the future.

Definitely not cheap setup, hurts the pocket book once, joy of use for long time!

Holy crap...that setup is at least $2000....for the drives and RAID card alone. I'm jealous... seriously jealous. Though, if I was going to blow that much on storage, I would be buying some 400 gig SATA hard drives with some serious buffers… the 8MB buffers, maybe even the 16MB buffers from Seagate and Maxtor. I've got quite a bit of storage here and I have not even tapped into my SATA. I'm using the ATA133 ports here, 3 hard drives and one DVD+R-R/CD+R-R writer. And of course the floppy disk, but the floppy disk has a ton of memory card readers and two USB 2.0 ports.

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by Outvit

Holy crap...that setup is at least $2000....for the drives and RAID card alone. I'm jealous... seriously jealous. Though, if I was going to blow that much on storage, I would be buying some 400 gig SATA hard drives with some serious buffers… the 8MB buffers, maybe even the 16MB buffers from Seagate and Maxtor. I've got quite a bit of storage here and I have not even tapped into my SATA. I'm using the ATA133 ports here, 3 hard drives and one DVD+R-R/CD+R-R writer. And of course the floppy disk, but the floppy disk has a ton of memory card readers and two USB 2.0 ports.

The Hitachi 400GB SATA had just come on the scene when I was building my Server. Two reasons I didn't go with them. Cost per GB storage and heat. Then the 400 SATAs over $400 or over $1/GB, now only down to starting at $323 as of Pricewatch today. 250GB SATA seemed a good balance between size and GB/$, now down to as low as $0.50/GB. Second reason reviews I read on the Hitachi 400 SATA has it running substantially hotter than other SATA drives. Since running 8 HDs in space of 6 bays didn't want to risk the higher heat, even with the two HD enclosures combined 6 60mm cooling fans, though likely would have been ok. Primarily it was the much higher $/GB.

As far as I know all SATA drives are atleast 8MB buffer and atleast 7200rpm. More importantly from a performance standpoint is having good size RAID controller cache and having write back cache enabled on the controller. 256MB controller cache much much more effective than just HDs onboard buffer. Makes a huge difference in the demanding multiple record and playback Sage might be asked to do. Ran my old Adaptec 2400A PATA controller with it's stock 32MB cache on Debi's PC RAID1 briefly. Performed noticably better than now with "plain jane" RAID1 controller without controller cache. (To me, Debi can't tell the difference for what she uses her PC for. )

(My Server doesn't even have a FDD installed! An PATA HD is in it's bay for Ghosting OS partition, forgot to mention that info when I made the html...)