The perfect SageTV server hardware...

[michaeldjcox]

I currently use a Dell Dimension 9100 with Pentium 4 CPU 3GHz and 3.5Gb of RAM and have nearly 3TB of storage in various forms.

This needs an upgrade for SageTV because:

• Its also the family PC and if anything else is going on in the PC SageTV gets really slooooooow.
• Windows XP / Vista etc - they cannot function without regular rebooting. Fact. So viewing is regularly stalled while PC is rebooted.
• If it has to be on all the time it would be nice if it was quiet and eco-friendly.

It would need to be able to do real-time transcoding on it with VLC for WebFeedEncoder so it needs to have some CPU power.

Windows Home Server sounds pretty reliable despite being Microsoft.

Linux I know will be some work to get going and some outlay because it requires a different license for SageTV. But it is lightweight and can do anything so I could consider that.

Can anyone recommend the dream server setup I am looking for?

Michael

[SWKerr]

Budget is always a major consideration here. Are you looking for a dream servers or a cheap as you can do it for the stated task.

Also: Are you willing to build? (really not that difficult) Building allows you to spend money just where you think it is important and will more often leave you with a box that will scale better as you needs grow.

Where will you put it? Big box with lots of space or does it need to fit in a specific location and be relatively small. Quiet seems to infer it will be left out somewhere.

I assume you want to plan for HD playback but what will be the delivery device. Extender, Sage Client, other.

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Budget is always a major consideration here. Are you looking for a dream servers or a cheap as you can do it for the stated task.

Also: Are you willing to build? (really not that difficult) Building allows you to spend money just where you think it is important and will more often leave you with a box that will scale better as you needs grow.

Where will you put it? Big box with lots of space or does it need to fit in a specific location and be relatively small. Quiet seems to infer it will be left out somewhere.

I assume you want to plan for HD playback but what will be the delivery device. Extender, Sage Client, other.

Good questions- thanks. Answers:

• Budget: Don't want to spend much over £500 / $750
• Lives in the study, doesn't need to be small - but quiet/eco-friendly still desirable
• HD will become important soon
• HD200 extenders are the client device
• Not really keen to build or tinker with linux - but will do if I cannot find something off the shelf

Michael

[sic0048]

I think you can easily build a quad core server for less than $750. You can find MB/CPU combos for $250, RAM is cheap - $60 will buy plenty, if you pull most of the drives out of the old machine, you'll only have to buy the system drive - $60. Since you won't be gaming on this system, you can use a MB with integrated graphics or an old card laying around - $0. A green PS (in the 300-500 watt range which is plenty powerful enough) - $100. WHS OS - $125. Case - $100. So that total is only about $600. Adding an optical drive will add to the cost, but still keep you under $750. Looking for specials and sale prices will reduce that number even further.

In February I did the exact same thing you are considering. I was running an old P4 3.0ghz (630 chip) and built a new quad core with an Intel Q6600 chip. 4 gb ram, dual 500gb system drives, green power supply, Antec 300 case, etc for $650 (I already had a copy of WHS so cost doesn't include OS). Prices have continued to drop since then so you should easily be able to build one decent machine for $750.

Just keep in mind that it does not need to be cutting edge. I went overboard even getting a quad core CPU. But I am running other programs on the machine (like my CQC automation software) and I expect to run Comskip on it. I'm glad I got the extra horsepower because now I am running the Playon server on it as well. With quad cores only being slightly more expensive to build than dual cores, I think it is worth the extra money. It will also lengthen the time before the machine becomes outdated and has to be replaced.

Just my 2 cents.

[Clift]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

I currently use a Dell Dimension 9100 with Pentium 4 CPU 3GHz and 3.5Gb of RAM and have nearly 3TB of storage in various forms.

This needs an upgrade for SageTV because:

• Its also the family PC and if anything else is going on in the PC SageTV gets really slooooooow.
• Windows XP / Vista etc - they cannot function without regular rebooting. Fact. So viewing is regularly stalled while PC is rebooted.
• If it has to be on all the time it would be nice if it was quiet and eco-friendly.

It would need to be able to do real-time transcoding on it with VLC for WebFeedEncoder so it needs to have some CPU power.

Windows Home Server sounds pretty reliable despite being Microsoft.

Linux I know will be some work to get going and some outlay because it requires a different license for SageTV. But it is lightweight and can do anything so I could consider that.

Can anyone recommend the dream server setup I am looking for?

Michael

Will the new server continue to be the family PC?

Also keep in mind that, generally, eco friendly (which I assume to mean low power usage) is not going to be achievable with a quad core processor. But that's with my definition of eco-friendly/low power consumption.

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by Clift

Will the new server continue to be the family PC?

Also keep in mind that, generally, eco friendly (which I assume to mean low power usage) is not going to be achievable with a quad core processor. But that's with my definition of eco-friendly/low power consumption.

Hi,

Thanks to you and everyone else for replying.

The new server will be for SageTV only.

I guess I'm thinking silent which can mean low power but the best processor I have seen is dual-core atom 1.6Ghz which doesn't sound like it will be up to transcoding. I'm afraid of buying that and finding its just not up to the job.

Michael

[SHS]

My sagetv server has GA-MA770T-UD3P and 6000+ and ATI HD3400 with 2GB ram but want with 5 SATA harddrive and 1 SATA DVD rom with one harddrive partition at 40GB and just for the OS and good Corsair 450VX power supply which also has 1 2250 PCIe, 1 1800 PCIe, 2 1600 PCI but like all things I plan to move server to Windows 64bit which has been rock soild for me on my other PC and add 2 more GB dump older 1800 and 1600 and replace with 2 more 2250.

Being you didn't say what tuner you all ready have here some good option as cheap good way and still upgrade able

Motherboard
1: GA-MA770T-UD3P 6 SATA
2: GA-MA790FXT-UD5P 10 SATA
This sometime you have to watch for is 2/3 16x Expansion Slots there usely only for graphics card I don't if that still ture I have test this with my 1800 and 2250 with my GA-MA790X-UD4P

CPU
1: AMD Athlon II X4 620 $99
2: AMD Phenom II X3 720 $120
3: AMD Phenom II X4 945 $160 AM3 model

Memory
2GB DDR3 1333 or higher speed as starter for WindowsXP

DVD rom
Any cheap SATA drive or even old half a@@ working DVDRom IDE/PATA

Harddriver
That up to you SATA and mix with one IDE as Boot drive

[SHS]

I guess I'm thinking silent which can mean low power but the best processor I have seen is dual-core atom 1.6Ghz which doesn't sound like it will be up to transcoding. I'm afraid of buying that and finding its just not up to the job.

There no that going work well with transcoding
Some day that may happing if and when we get hardware add-on transcoder card or graphics card acceleration with video like with nvidia cuda or ati stream support but most likely it end up going opencl.

[chrisc16]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Hi,
I guess I'm thinking silent which can mean low power but the best processor I have seen is dual-core atom 1.6Ghz which doesn't sound like it will be up to transcoding. I'm afraid of buying that and finding its just not up to the job.

Michael

That's the CPU that I use in my Sage server, but it does not have the horsepower to transcode. It's fairly well taxed just running Sage and comskip (those H.264 videos take a while). The beauty is that the whole server only uses ~40W - far less than the core 2 duo machine it replaced, that was over 140W. With CA electricity rates, it has saved me a bundle. But I do long for that nifty playon plugin over in the customizations forum...

-Chris

[SWKerr]

"VLC for WebFeedEncoder" Are you using this on your server today? It seems like this would not be very cpu intensive based on what it was intended for?

Any comment on how this plug-in uses cpu would be helpful with recommendations.

Also: do you plan to reuse you existing storage on the server or add new and is that part of your budget?

[Fuzzy]

For just a basic file server/sage server, the atom boards are probably the best you can get looking at full-time low power consumption. As mentioned, they do lack horsepower for a lot of video processing (comskip, transcoding, etc). Personally, if I was going to have a full-time server-only machine, I'd be running an atom, and have a more powerful system (my normal desktop) handle the comskip duties when it is turned on.

[SWKerr]

I doubt the Atom would be worth it. With the Intel chipset in most of these canned WHS systems it is not as efficient as people seems to think. The difference between the real power usage at the wall between Atom and the latest AMD\Intel low power rings is just not worth the performance hit.

For the money I would consider a AMD low power offerings if that was really important to you. Even then the server will be idle 95% of the time and the difference in idle power consumption is minor. I would just buy the regular chip.

Might depend on the Brand but the one Atom based box I have seen and touched (HP) is not any more quiet than my AMD 780G\Athlon 5400+ box.

I would definitely build a WHS. Most everything I have seen is not very expandable.

I would also consider building a new destop and running WHS on the existing box. Would it work if you stopped running all the other programs. Have you looked at a cpu upgrade. What is the cpu socket on it?

[michaeldjcox]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I was planning to keep my current Terratec 2400DT dual tuner, move my 500GB SATA drive, and keep my freecom USB drives but plug them into the newserver box.

I take the point that the atoms while great for file serving but are not going to up to transcoding. The transcoding duties need to be there available for real-time use so I cannot really delegate to "sometimes on" additional box. I also feel that the current box is just to noisy to be the "always on" SageTV server.

I think I may have to give a little on my eco-friendly desires until technology catches up. I do really want silent or at least quiet.

I also think - there is no point buying anything but quad-core and the best CPU power I can get. 4Gb of RAM is probably enough but part of me feels I need to keep the option open for this server to address more memory so 64bit is probably desirable.

Windows home server sounds reliable but I'm worried it may not be flexible enough - its intended for file servers my pose restrictions on what can be run and what cards can be driven. So linux is definitely up there still - but also investigating Windows server.

Damn - I want to order it today and have it delivered ready built but I just cannot see what I need or where to get.

Michael

[doc]

Just a few extra thoughts for you.

I have an Athlon x2 5200 - 65 watt version. They run quiet with the stock heatsink/fan. If you get an athlon/phenom consider the 65w versions - it saves a lot of messing about with huge fans to keep it quiet.

I have a couple of HD154UI Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB Hard Drive's (5400rpm) as recording drives. They clunk a bit when you switch the pc on and they spin up but once up they're very quiet.

PSU - I tried fanless ones but they kept blowing up. I now use Antec EarthWatts 380W 80%+ Efficiency PSU's. They're not silent but are the quietest I've found so far. I have 3 hard drives and 4 tuner cards in the PC and it manages happily enough.

My pc sits in the living room. You don't really notice it being on until the rooms quiet.