Time to update everything - help me plan things out

[Mortanis]

I think it's time to do some hardware updating. My specs are in my signature for my current rig. However, I don't have enough ram right now - I have 512, and my system is peaking at over 600 total neede when i'm fully using everything. Since I am planning on adding a third recorder, I figure I might as well take a few more steps at the same time.

First off, I need more hard drive space. 1TB just isn't enough. I've got 4 hard drives in my current rig, plus a DVD drive. The heat is unbearable and probably highly detrimental, and I have no room for more. I could add in a USB based drive, but that is more of a patch than a fix.

My idea is to break apart my boxes. For one, the current rig is big, ugly and loud, and due to cabling issues sits in a bad place. My idea is to pull that box out of the TV room, and put it somewhere out of the way to do it's job, and put a smaller box in the TV room using Placeshifter. I can use the mini-box to watch TV, then, and have the server doing all the encoding and streaming work.

That doesn't really fix my hard drive issues, though. I'm pretty much at the max for the box. I could build an NAS box to house more drives, I suppose. I have an old Pentium 2 something or other laying around that I could slap 4 300 or 400 gig drives in and throw NASLite on it easy enough. Will it be a problem to stream from multiple recording devices to an NAS? Which brings me to my next point.

Gigabit networking. Currently i'm on a 100mb network. I already stream TV from the sage server to my personal computer using a Placeshifter client. If i'm planning on ALSO placeshifting to a TV box in the other room, PLUS recording from up to THREE streams to a NAS, I'm sure i'll need Gigabit.

Now that the overview is done, let me give a few caveats and ask the specific questions.

1. I don't do HD
2. I don't have a 5.1 setup, so concerns of audio aren't needed
3. I need 3 tuners
4. I need 1.5 TB of space, option to hit 2TB
5. I need to support: 3 Simultaneous Recordings, of which any or all streams might record to a NAS, while also possibly playing 2 placeshifted streams.

Specific questions:

• What type of processor should I look at getting? The one I have currently seems to do the trick, and adding a third tuner shouldn't be taxing. I don't know what level of processing I need for two simultaneous encoding for placeshfting
• Ram. 512 isn't cutting it for 2 recordings + 1 Placeshift + 1 local watch, but only just. 1g should suit me fine for all the needs I outlined above.
• Will Gigabit be sufficient if I have a good switch? The rest of my home network can be stuck on 100mb, but if i'm going to be doing 2 placeshiftings and maybe 3 downstreams to the NAS, I'm sure I'm going to want the full pipe.
• I've never used NAS software. Can anyone tell me if I can slap a Gigabit NIC into my old P2 and have it work as a gigabit, or will drivers be a problem with NASLite+?
• How do I get a remote to work with the placeshifted box? Currently my Sage Server is also what I watch TV on, and the remote I got with my 250 is plugged into said 250. If I'm placeshifting, I'd rather not use a mouse.
• Along the same lines - Placeshifter doesn't do DVD's. I like using Sage for my DVD displaying, and would rather keep DVD's going through the computer and computer audio. Can I make said remote from previous point also work in windows using something like Girder?

Whew!

[valnar]

1) Please read this recent thread on a related question.

2) I'd recommend a new big case for your Sage Server over a NAS, although others may disagree with me. As was stated to me in the above thread, a NAS really becomes a great idea when you need to house 10 or 20 hard drives to store multi-terabytes of data. For 1 or 2 terabytes, I'd stick with a single Sage Server. That's what I do with a RAID 5 card. See my sig.

3) For local (in-home) access, you really want to buy a Sage Client license, not use Placeshifter. This will be for your second PC directly attached to your television.

4) If you can do the cabling, or have CAT5e/6 in place, you'll get no arguement over doing gigabit ethernet. I would assume it's just a switch replacement? However, that being said, you probably don't need it for three SD streams. If you don't build a NAS and let your Sage server record locally, you definitely don't need it.

-Robert

[Mortanis]

My biggest concern with splitting the box from Server/Placeshifter (or client, as the better case may be), is simply a matter of Size/Heat/Noise. The box I've got is really warm inside. Not quite critically so, but warmer than I'd like it to be. The box I have works well, hardware wise, aside from the RAM, so maybe I should just buy a larger case... I'm currently running 4 PATA drives and 1 SATA, with at least room for one more. A larger case plus a SATA controller PCI card might do the trick, then.

Except for the noise and heat. Noise isn't a *big* deal, but it's still nice to not be a racket. Heat is a big deal since that room is pretty closed off and has little to no circulation.

It does seem like a waste to drop all this money on new hardware when all I really need is a few more hard drives and another tuner. Hrmmm.

[mayamaniac]

Since you are only recording SD, get an MVP Extender. It is a much better solution than a PC client. It produces better picture quality and is completely silent. And you can playback ripped DVDs on your harddrives.

I agree with Valnar with all the other stuffs. Get a better case that can hold more drives. A lot of people like the Coolermaster Centurion case. I own a Thermaltake Armor case, which can hold up to 12 drives.

So yes, save yourself the money and get the MVP extender, a new server case, a stick of 1GB memory, and a few more harddrives with SATA controller. I suggest to go for a dual tuner, it doesn't hurt to have more tuners. Your network speed is fine, but it doesn't cost much to replace the switch or router with a gigabit one.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Since you are only recording SD, get an MVP Extender. It is a much better solution than a PC client. It produces better picture quality and is completely silent.

Well..... almost. Recording is different than viewing. If the OP has an old analog TV that only accepts composite or s-video, then the MVP is a good alternative. But if his TV can do any "higher" form of input such as component, DVI, HDMI or VGA, a PC client will (or can) produce much better video. I use both, depending on the TV.

Robert

Edit: Actually, even with s-video, I could build a PC that kills the MVP, but it requires very special parts, like the Matrox G400 DH 32MB AGP video card with DVDMAX out. But that is more hassle than it's worth unless you want the best analog SD you can get. I built such a PC before the MediaMVP's were around. If it weren't for the WAF, I'd still have it in the bedroom.

[paulbeers]

If all you are doing is SD, then here are my thoughts:

1. Stick to your CPU. Buy more memory (fast though as DDR is only going to go up). Buy a 1 GB stick or a 512 (whatever floats your boat). I find that when running a Sage box, it pretty much needs 768 or better (512 is VERY borderline). I ran an XP2200 for a long time as my server. It wasn't until I wanted to go full guns for HD to my mediaMVP's that I needed a beefier setup. If you are just doing SD there is no need to upgrade.

2. Gigabit is pointless for SD. Here is some math:
DVD quality Recording at 3.2GB per hour x 1024 to MB x 8 to mb / 3600 secs per hour = 7.3 mb/s. You could run almost 14 streams of SD content with a 100mb switch (if your hard drives could do that many seeks per second to feed that many streams).

3. I wouldn't do NAS either. It is one more power hungry box for you to deal with which means higher energy costs. With the cost of 500GB hard drives are as low as 100 bucks (yes I have seen them that low), you are better off just picking up 3 of those and a good ventilated case and power supply and just using one server. I don't know what you are using for controller cards (or if you even are), but the big pain I see for you is running out of ways to connect the hard drives without going to a seperate controller card.

4. I agree with the suggestion of an MediaMVP. The best part (other than completely silent) is that if you upgrade Sage on your server, all you have to do is unplug and plug back in the MVP and the software is upgraded. I hate it when I upgrade my Sage software on my server and then have to go to each client machine and upgrade their software. The MVP's just work and they already come with a remote.

5. Don't use placeshifter at home especially if you want to use DVD's. I use placeshifter on my laptop so when I am on my deck I can watch SDTV, but it has a built in DVD player if for some reason I wanted to watch a DVD on it. For livingroom purposes, your best bet is the MediaMVP or full client software.


Just a suggestion, but if you are adding tuners, I really recommend a dual tuner and not just a single. With the decreasing amount of PCI slots on motherboards, when and if you have to replace your current motherboard and processory, you will find that a Dual Tuner is the way to go. My new motherboard only has 3 PCI slots and the most I have seen in new boards is 4. If you have all single tuners, that means that there aren't any other PCI slots available for anything else you may want to "bring over" from your "old" server. If you have a dual tuner, then you have a lot more options. Just my .02 worth.