HDHR Prime or Ceton for virtual server?

[farscapesg1]

I know the comparison of products has been asked multiple times, but what about in a virtual server environment I've been running a SageTV test box in a VM (on an ESXi) host for a couple months and everything seems to be good. I'm now at the point of getting ready to make the transition from my standalone WHS server with SageTV to a virtualized SageTV setup and want to include Cablecard (Houston Comcast market, theoretically most channels I care about are copy-freely).

Most of the benefits I see are pointing me to the HDHR Prime, namely the network features. My HDHR works great and allows me to vmotion my SageTV VM to another ESXi server if needed since it doesn't require an internal card or direct USB connection. My only concern is reliability. My HDHR has been pretty rock-solid, but I get the feeling SiliconDust is still working out the kinks on their Prime product.

I could use an internal Ceton card in my primary host if the reliability is that much higher. My storage server is located on that host anyways for now, but my eventual plans are to break it out to a seperate SAN server so my ESXi environment can actually use HA/DRS features in the event of a host failure.

Anyone have any experience with the Prime on a virtual SageTV server? Reliability issues with the Prime? Riducule for trying to virtualize

[will]

Originally Posted by farscapesg1

Anyone have any experience with the Prime on a virtual SageTV server? Reliability issues with the Prime? Riducule for trying to virtualize

I don't have experience with it but generally speaking Prime would probably have less issues with your setup because it is network based as apposed to having to use pass through for the Centron.

Personally, I would love to virtualize my entire setup but I am worried about HD-PVRs in ESXi (nothing is marked copy freely where I am so Prime isn't an option).

Report back on how this goes once you get everything setup.

[farscapesg1]

I will

I ended up ordering the Prime this morning and it is on the way. Now I just have to contact Comcast to pick up an Mcard and decide which OS to use. I'm coming from running SafeTV on WHSv1, and trying to decide whether to use WHS 2011 or Windows 7 for the guest OS (have licenses for both). I'm leaning towards WHS since I plan on having a VM anyways for PC backups...

[leagle]

Please keep us posted on your progress. I'm waiting on my second Prime to arrive to replace my last HD-PVR. I have a 2008 Server w/ Hyper-V that runs a couple of other VMs and I would love to get rid of my dedicated Sage server. That was never an option before the Prime and DCT, but I can't see any reason that it wouldn't work now.

[farscapesg1]

Picked up the M-card from Comcast today and the Prime should arrive tomorrow. Still trying to decide if I want to run SageTV on a virtualized WHSv2 system... or on a completely seperate Windows7 VM. The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards the Windows 7 VM since I can then install the WHS client and backup the system, included the SageTV configuration...

[farscapesg1]

Well, it was a late night last night but I got the Prime installed, activated and tested with a Windows 7 VM. Successfully recorded 5 HD shows last night at the same time (3 Prime + 2 HDHR) and don't see any glitches in any of the recordings. It's a beautiful thing to finally see all my TV (Syfy, AMC, History, etc.) in HD goodness and not standard def

The cablecard install was actually pretty painless. After building the Win7 VM and installing SageTV v7.1.9 and SageDCT, detecting the HDHomerun devices, pasting the config information into Sage.properties for the Prime and contacting Comcast to activate, everything just seemed to work. Comcast took maybe 15 minutes total to activate the card before I could successfully tune my basic and extended basic channels via the HDHomeRun setup. Still got to check all my channels (Comedy Central HD says it is copy-once, but I can at least tune the digital SD version of Comedy Central).

Now I just have to finalize my decision on storage. Either keeping my primary ESXi host as an all-in-one or removing my secondary host from ESXi and rebuilding it as a standalone ZFS server.... decisions, decisions. Also need to decide if I want to continue using multiple recording paths for SageTV, or make a single RAIDZ array for recordings. Looks like I'm going to fill up my Norco 4020 a lot faster than I originally planned when I bought it for WHS

Edit - Well, that just solved my dilemma about using two seperate drives or creating a RAIDZ array. Stopped by Fry's at lunch where I picked up a couple Samsung HD103SJ drives for $60 each just after the prices started increasing and now they are $110! I knew I should have picked up 4 at them time, but I wanted to make sure I had enough to order the Prime also and was waiting for it to come back in stock. Looks like I'll be using 2 1TB drives for now until the prices come down sometime next year...

[farscapesg1]

OK, everything looks good... except trying to watch a show while it is recording. Apparently I can record multiple shows without any problems, but when trying to watch a single show while it is recording and running comskip I get pauses and stutters in the playback on my extenders.

For the meantime I've got SageDCT installed on my WHS server and have it recording there (thanks to having an upgrade license as well as a full v7 license). Had to upgrade to v7 on my WHS box, so I'm working on the WAF resulting from the change from SageMC..

I've got to figure out a way to get the playback smooth from the VM in the next couple days if I'm going to get everything migrated during my time off for Thanksgiving It could be caused by sharing the drives via NFS. Gotta try sharing them via iSCSI as an alternative also.

Worst case is I can pass an HBA directly to the VM to test the disks on. I really hate to go down that path thought since it will restrict the VM to the host with the hba and disks, defeating my goal of getting high availability going for TV recording

[farscapesg1]

Finally figured out how to get iSCSI working on OpenIndiana w/ Napp-it and initial tests are much better. Won't be able to really test it again until tomorrow, but bringing up an episode of The Walking Dead in HD didn't product any stuttering. Looks like trying to use a vDisk on an NFS store was causing the issues. I get a lot better read benchmarks via iSCSI also... 102 MB/s vs 48 MB/s.

Setting up some recordings to use all 5 tuners tonight to make sure everything records right. More testing tomorrow night to see if I've resolved the stuttering issue...

[leagle]

Originally Posted by farscapesg1

OK, everything looks good... except trying to watch a show while it is recording. Apparently I can record multiple shows without any problems, but when trying to watch a single show while it is recording and running comskip I get pauses and stutters in the playback on my extenders.

For the meantime I've got SageDCT installed on my WHS server and have it recording there (thanks to having an upgrade license as well as a full v7 license). Had to upgrade to v7 on my WHS box, so I'm working on the WAF resulting from the change from SageMC..

I've got to figure out a way to get the playback smooth from the VM in the next couple days if I'm going to get everything migrated during my time off for Thanksgiving It could be caused by sharing the drives via NFS. Gotta try sharing them via iSCSI as an alternative also.

Worst case is I can pass an HBA directly to the VM to test the disks on. I really hate to go down that path thought since it will restrict the VM to the host with the hba and disks, defeating my goal of getting high availability going for TV recording

I think that there is a conflict between SageDCT and Comskip. I can't remember the details, but I think that I read it somewhere in the long Prime thread in this forum. Try disabling Comskip and see if that clears up your playback.

[farscapesg1]

I hope not because the WAF will take a nosedive if I don't have Comskip.. and more importantly Comskip while watching "almost live" TV...

Like I mentioned, performance seemed much better last night after switching to iSCSI and using the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator to connect directly the SAN instead of messing with setting up vDisks on the datastores to pass to the VM. Will test some more tonight...