WHS SageTV Server Build by Newbie

[nwboater]

Thanks everyone for all their input. A little of it spooked me, but I am just going to go ahead with the specs I showed a few posts back.

I knew I was forgetting something in the list - thanks, it was 'MEMORY'. I sure wish I could add some more to this aging skull of mine! Going to use this:
CORSAIR 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Desktop Memory Model VS2GB667D2 http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16820145180 I assume that the slowest speed memory wont hurt in my application.

I looked into the Athlon II X4 620. Unfortunately it will cost $70 more because I will lose the combo discount on the mobo and everything costs more here in Canada. Since I can wait for Comskip to do it's thing I'm going to stick with the Athlon II X2 240 Regor. Also power consumption should be lower with the X2.

Re the case and ATX board. I was originally going to go with a huge case and full ATX board. Since it's probably going to be at least 2 years before we have HD, and since hard drives are going to get more dense in that time, I'm going with this more moderate setup for now. If we outgrow it, I'll replace my 7 year old P4 desktop with it, give mine to my wife ( who has an even older machine) and build a big sucker for a server. From what everyone has said this should last us a few years though as a server.

Was glad to hear the 'Kill A Watt" readings. Looks like we should be okay with the Antec 430 watts.

So thanks again for all the tips. It's very reassuring to have this kind of input from people who have built their own! Unless I hear something major in the next few days I am going to order the parts.

Rod

Rod

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by blueroom

I'm using one of the new Gigabyte MA785 boards and the HD4200 video even with the 9.9 ATI drives was very good but the occasional tearing at 1320x780 60Hz drove me nuts. I dropped in a fanless HD4550 and all was well.

In hindsight I should have bought an SageTV HD Theater digital media extender and put the server in the attic with the antennas.

So then what's the advantage to the 785 board, if you're not using the on- board video? Could I save $50 bucks and buy a 780 board if the inevitablity was that you had to put a HD4550 card in it?

I have always had a soft spot for Arctic Cooler cpu fan's: quiet, variable and cheap, so I'll likely add one of those in place of the stock cpu fan

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

So then what's the advantage to the 785 board, if you're not using the on- board video? Could I save $50 bucks and buy a 780 board if the inevitablity was that you had to put a HD4550 card in it?

Yes. Though if you're building this for a headless WHS box then there's no reason to have a graphics card at all, other than during the initial setup.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Djc208

Yes. Though if you're building this for a headless WHS box then there's no reason to have a graphics card at all, other than during the initial setup.

Sorry, my lingo is limited - WHS? What's that stand for?
thanks

[toony]

Originally Posted by nwboater

I am concerned about our future hard drive space requirements.

Sir get a big case, a very big case.
I thought a 10 bay was enough and that was less than a year ago. Now it's full and I'm trying to figure out how to expand in another thread. I full with 1.5 and 1 TB drives.

It's a long sick road of hording and collecting until you have TBs ontop of Tbs of media.

And I do delete stuff.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Sorry, my lingo is limited - WHS? What's that stand for?
thanks

Windows Home Server

Gerry

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by toony

Sir get a big case, a very big case.
I thought a 10 bay was enough and that was less than a year ago. Now it's full and I'm trying to figure out how to expand in another thread. I full with 1.5 and 1 TB drives.

It's a long sick road of hording and collecting until you have TBs ontop of Tbs of media.

And I do delete stuff.

He who dies with the most stuff wins??? Well not really. But I do like my toys.

If you are honest with yourself I bet you can delete a ton of stuff. I went through my music collection and cut it by 1/2 just by deleting the stuff from my past I was ashamed to own. Movies and TV. Would you really watch it again. How much stuff is really watch again material and do you even have that much time.

[toony]

Sir I ask politely that you keep that talk to yourself... delete... such a nasty word.

I do delete allot, but we keep 95% movies and a fair ammount of tv. There is barely a few gigs of music on it. Yes we do watch quite allot of it more than once, and it's nice to have favorites on demand. So I'm not complaining. it's the HD stuff that adds up, but I limit most of that to action / war movies.

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by toony

Sir I ask politely that you keep that talk to yourself... delete... such a nasty word.

I do delete allot, but we keep 95% movies and a fair ammount of tv. There is barely a few gigs of music on it. Yes we do watch quite allot of it more than once, and it's nice to have favorites on demand. So I'm not complaining. it's the HD stuff that adds up, but I limit most of that to action / war movies.

Curious what size your typical HD movie is? And do you compress at all?

Thanks,
Rod

[toony]

Originally Posted by nwboater

Curious what size your typical HD movie is? And do you compress at all?

Thanks,
Rod

Well a 1 hour tv show at 720p is about 2.6gb
at 1080p it's about 5.6gb
a bluray just the main movie is about 18 - 23gb

I don't compress HD.

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by toony

Well a 1 hour tv show at 720p is about 2.6gb
at 1080p it's about 5.6gb
a bluray just the main movie is about 18 - 23gb

I don't compress HD.

Thanks for the info toony. I guess in a few years when 10 tb drives are the norm there will be some new video standards to consume all that space!

Rod

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by nwboater

Djc208 - Thanks for the power supply info - was some good reading. Unfortunately here in Canada we have a limited selection compared to in the US. Was a good tip on the UPS. Please see below for my selection of both items.

So here is what I have come up with for the new server:

1. Antec Three Hundred Black steel ATX mid tower Case with Antec BP430 Supply (430 watt). http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...-065-_-Product

2. GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16813128394

3. AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16819103688

4. SAMSUNG Spinpoint F2EG HD154UI 1.5TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16822152175

5. APC BE550G-CN 330 Watt UPS http://www.apc.com/resource/include/..._sku=BE550G-CN (I recently bought this for our boat but am going to commandeer it for our server instead.)

6. Microsoft Windows Home Server.

So my questions now are:

1. How does this selection look?

2. Should WHS be on it's own hard drive? Hate to dedicate a slot for just a small drive, which is all I would need for the OS.

3. Not sure of number of drives to initially get. Seems like I need one for the OS? Another for media storage, and perhaps a third to backup the media storage and three other computers. Might it be better to have my backups done on external USB drives? At least for the media backups perhaps.

4. Would it be advisable to install a CD/DVD for WHS install? Most of the normal file saving will be done from client PCs.

5. This is my first computer build and I'm wondering if typically all needed cables are provided with the parts I'm buying?

6. Anything else to consider?


Thanks very much for all your input on this project.

Rod

So did you go with the Regor 240 - 2.8ghz processor? If so - happy?

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

So did you go with the Regor 240 - 2.8ghz processor? If so - happy?

I just ordered everything a few days ago, including the Regor 240. It will be about a week before it's here - Newegg Canada ships everything here from the States. It will then probably be at least a couple of weeks before I build it and have it up and running due to other commitments. Once it's running I'll post here, and maybe before it is if I need some debug help!

Rod

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by nwboater

I just ordered everything a few days ago, including the Regor 240. It will be about a week before it's here - Newegg Canada ships everything here from the States. It will then probably be at least a couple of weeks before I build it and have it up and running due to other commitments. Once it's running I'll post here, and maybe before it is if I need some debug help!

Rod

SO - how did this work out? It's the Regor I'm the most intereested in hearing about. Was 2.8ghz good enough for what you did?

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

SO - how did this work out? It's the Regor I'm the most intereested in hearing about. Was 2.8ghz good enough for what you did?

I finally got the server built and running. Last night I installed WHS on the server and their 'Connector' software on my desktop. So far everything is running fine, but it will be this weekend before I move my PVR350 card over and start to install Sage. Really not sure how long that will take, as unfortunately I have not documented all the extra stuff I did in Sage. This time need to do better in that regard!

As I understand it, Comskip is one of the most CPU intensive tasks I will be doing. I haven't used it before, so I'm sure it will take some time to get it up and running. Then I'll be able to answer your question much better, but really don't know how long that will be. Will post here once I have some definitive answers.

Good luck,
Rod

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by nwboater

I finally got the server built and running. Last night I installed WHS on the server and their 'Connector' software on my desktop. So far everything is running fine, but it will be this weekend before I move my PVR350 card over and start to install Sage. Really not sure how long that will take, as unfortunately I have not documented all the extra stuff I did in Sage. This time need to do better in that regard!

As I understand it, Comskip is one of the most CPU intensive tasks I will be doing. I haven't used it before, so I'm sure it will take some time to get it up and running. Then I'll be able to answer your question much better, but really don't know how long that will be. Will post here once I have some definitive answers.

Good luck,
Rod

are you doing any HD recording, or just standard def?

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

are you doing any HD recording, or just standard def?

Presently just SD. Plan to have HD in 2-3 years. My understanding from other posters is the HDPVR uses very little CPU. But in that length of time who knows what I might use for HD. Also I'm using extenders - an HD100 & HD200 that do all the heavy lifting.

Rod

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by blueroom

I'm using one of the new Gigabyte MA785 boards and the HD4200 video even with the 9.9 ATI drives was very good but the occasional tearing at 1320x780 60Hz drove me nuts. I dropped in a fanless HD4550 and all was well.

In hindsight I should have bought an SageTV HD Theater digital media extender and put the server in the attic with the antennas.

question about your MB - I too just picked up one of the gigabyte 785 boards, and am having driver troubles.
How are you running audio? My plan was to have 2-channel from the HDMI cable, and 5.1 from the optical out. At the moment, I only got that to work once, for about 5 minutes. Between Sage and the many versions of Realtek / ATI drivers, I haven't been able to make this work.
What are your codecs in Sage, audio and video, as well as Gigabyte driver versions, and do you have audio working well?

Also, what OS are you running.

thanks

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

question about your MB - I too just picked up one of the gigabyte 785 boards, and am having driver troubles.
How are you running audio? My plan was to have 2-channel from the HDMI cable, and 5.1 from the optical out. At the moment, I only got that to work once, for about 5 minutes. Between Sage and the many versions of Realtek / ATI drivers, I haven't been able to make this work.
What are your codecs in Sage, audio and video, as well as Gigabyte driver versions, and do you have audio working well?

Also, what OS are you running.

thanks

Cant help you for several reasons:

1. I have been too busy the last couple of weeks to spend any time on this project. I'm finally back at it now.

2. I'm using Windows Home Server as an OS. It is installed and running on the new computer and that is the only thing installed at this moment. WHS is designed to be run as a "Headless Server".

3. My output will be from 2 extenders only. An HD100 & an HD 200. I am hoping that drivers and codecs are not an issue since the extenders will be doing the decoding.

4. I wont be using the HDMI - it just happened to come with the MOBO.

So sorry I cant be of any help to you, but I sure do wish you luck in solving your problems. Perhaps some of those here much savvier than I will have some ideas.

For those wanting to follow my progress, I have been posting and getting helpful responses on another thread that's about moving Sage to another computer. It's here in the Software Forum: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...262#post388262

Thanks again to everybody here that helped me with the build.

Rod

[nwboater]

It Works!!!

I have Sage running on the new Server. I copied a lot of my settings over by copying my old Sage folder on top of the WHS Sage folder as suggested in the thread I mentioned in my last post. I still have some odds and ends to do including moving old recordings over, but thus far I am very happy. My first computer build and it's doing its thing!

Later I'll install Comskip and let you folks know how it runs on this server.

Thanks again to everybody here for all their great help with this build!

Rod