Down sizing - Keep WHS/Client or Sage for Windows???

[sportera]

I'm looking for a little advice here. My kids have moved off to college and now it is just me and the wife at home. My system now has been a WHS machine, in my office, with 2-DTV receivers & 2-HDPVR's. My HTPC machine, in my den, has been a Client PC. I've been getting system drive fail warnings at the WHS which makes me go through the repair disk routine about once every 2 weeks for the last couple months. I've always questioned my gig switch between WHS and client and whether I'm gettng enough data transfer when I see an occasional studder or slow response within the client UI. I've never been able to do anything with Blu Ray playback at the client except shut down Sage and load TMT whenever I get a blu ray disc from Netflix (my blu ray drive is mounted at client).

I'm now considering going to one PC, in my den, running Sage for Windows and doing away with the WHS machine. This would entail replacing the motherboard in my HTPC with the one now in my WHS which is a faster system. It would also mean moving my (2) large audio/video hard drives and 4-port serial board (for DTV serial control) from the WHS to the HTPC. I'd be hoping I could save and move the WHS wiz.bin file to the now client HTPC to keep my "Recorded Shows" list in Sage. I expect to uninstall the Sage Client software at the HTPC and wipe the Sage folder and load Sage for Windows from scratch. I'd try renaming the 2-drive removed from the WHS to same name and drive letter configuration and copying the wiz.bin file from the WHS to the new Sage for Windows HTPC. I wonder if I'd have any licensing problems with v7 at the new HTPC upon restart.

What do you think? I'm wondering if this would make playing a Blu Ray disk at the HTPC from within Sage easier to get working. I'd also expect better performance from my reconfigured HTPC. We do have a 42" LCD in our bedroom we seldom use, but this would also still allow adding an extender in the bedroom if needed.

Feedback???

[JetreL]

I have tried *A LOT* of different configurations for Sage and to be candid Sage works best for me on WHS ran as a service with extenders running to each TV.

The throughput on your Gigabit switch even if you are having collisions and packet loss (highly unlikely in a home environment) still shouldn't cause stutters in playback unless you have bad cabling. With the symptoms that you are talking about, failing drive and stutters in playback it sounds like the drive would be your issue.

There was a post just the other day talking about this same scenario.
Link

I use DVD-FAB to rip DVDs and Blu-Rays to disk and the play them on the extenders. This keeps the noise out of my living room and Bedroom(s) and the power savings compared to running a PC are a no brainer. Not to mention DVD/BluRay playback on a PC is just a hassle. Extenders are just more integrated and easier to operate.

If I were in your shoes, I would replace the failing HD in the WHS server and keep going with what has worked for you in the past.

Hope this helps!

[OneOfMany]

My belief is that having a dedicated box for handling the Sage backend, as well as storage for all media files is the best way to avoid the pitfalls of trying to make one system do it all, and do it all well. To me, who uses clients only (no extenders) the ability to simply rebuild a client system and install the Sage Client software makes it much easier if something goes wrong. Link it up to the WHS, and it's good to go.

Grant

[sportera]

Thanks for sharing. I do understand the convenience of having a WHS machine in the home. But the two following are really pushing me to get rid of the WHS for a dedicated HTPC running Sage for Windows:

1. As I understand it, there is no way to back up a Windows Home Server 2003 system. So therefore, if and when I replace the system hard drive I'll be starting from scratch all over again with that machine.

2. Currently, with only my wife and I living in the house, why would I need more than 1 PC as a media server. The second machine is another point of failure, maintenance, and burns additional electricity continually.

Now if you stating that having the WHS to handle background processing that would hamper the performance of using a single PC for it all, such as comskip processing (can't think of anymore), then maybe that should be an added consideration.

Makes sense?

[SomeWhatLost]

fwiw, I am also a firm believer in the sage server, and one or more HDx00 'clients'

you can have the best of all worlds that way:

• electricity use should be less over all, assuming you build the server with power saving in mind... ie no fancy vid card, processor just big enough to handle the work load, power supply sized for the load, etc... and the little sage HDx00 boxes are what, maybe 7w when fully cranking along?
• stability increases as the server doesn't need to deal with codec's and crap (ie the stuff that makes HTPC's so much fun to keep happy), and the HDx00's have everything built in...
• coolness you just can't beat the coolness of the HDx00's