New Computer Recommendations for SageTV

[Electronicbuff]

I would like to install SageTV on a newer and faster machine.

I'm thinking that building the machine would be my best option but could use some equipment and component recommendations.

I'm thinking of a big tower with fast processor and large RAM that can run:
- Windows 7
- 4 extenders at the same time
- 2 HDHomerun tuners
- 2 DTAs controlled by my USB-UIRT
- DVDFab
- Gigabit networking

What would be some recommendations for:

1. Processor?
2. Motherboard?
3. Power supply?
4. Drives?
5. Video card?
6. Sound card?
7. Case?
8. RAM
9. Would also like slots for future video tuners or other motherboard plug in devices

Finally, where should I look for this stuff?


Any suggestions would be appreciated so I can upgrade to SageTV version 7 and have a system that doesn't give we the scroll wheel of delay as my current processor/setup often pegs at 100% usage under load.

[BobPhoenix]

Biggest recommendation I have is to make your server headless - as in don't do playback on it - just recording. That's worked best for me. So following this plan you could go with an Atom as your server if you didn't need to trans-code anything.

You mention DVDFab so I'm suspecting you don't want a headless server. I have one CPU setup as both a server and client computer with an ASUS P5Q-EM with a Q6600 processor in my living room. I works quite well but it's getting to be very old tech now so will probably upgrade this year or next tax return season. I have gotten a Zotac ID82 book sized barebones as a client to replace an HD200 extender. Just got it setup so don't know yet how I'm going to like it.

[fidget]

Here is what I did for my last build. While it does have a display, i mainly interface to it via VNC.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57546

The purpose of that machine is to sit in my utility room and hold my media collection. I don't use it for ripping DVDs, just holding them. I dual-boot my MacPro to Win7, rip them and transfer them via my GigE network. Going from Win7 to Win7, I see about 60-80% network utilization (far better than with XP).

[panteragstk]

Any i5 will work great for a long time. The server in my sig is more than enough power for all the things I ask it to do. Memory is cheap so don't skimp in that area.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by Electronicbuff

I would like to install SageTV on a newer and faster machine.

I'm thinking that building the machine would be my best option but could use some equipment and component recommendations.

I'm thinking of a big tower with fast processor and large RAM that can run:
- Windows 7
- 4 extenders at the same time
- 2 HDHomerun tuners
- 2 DTAs controlled by my USB-UIRT
- DVDFab
- Gigabit networking

What would be some recommendations for:

1. Processor?
2. Motherboard?
3. Power supply?
4. Drives?
5. Video card?
6. Sound card?
7. Case?
8. RAM
9. Would also like slots for future video tuners or other motherboard plug in devices

Finally, where should I look for this stuff?


Any suggestions would be appreciated so I can upgrade to SageTV version 7 and have a system that doesn't give we the scroll wheel of delay as my current processor/setup often pegs at 100% usage under load.

I have many things to recommend. My older SageTV system used to peg the CPU at 100%. Now, it ever gets very high. Video used to stutter on the old MVP extenders. The stuttering was fixed with more processing power. If you have MVP extenders, I recommend not using them, since their quality is lousy. I retired my two MVP extenders years ago.

I recommend that you go to the Newegg web site and read reviews about system boards. Find a system board that does not have too many negative reviews. Probably all of them will have at least one bad review. Look for system boards with the maximum number of PCI-E slots that are needed for your tuner cards. Watch the reviews for slots that exist, but cannot be used because they are too close to other parts of the system board or other slots. Sometimes those slots can still be used with slot extenders.

Get a quad-core 3.0g gig or higher CPU. Check the system board web site for memory compatibility. If possible, get memory that is listed there for the system board. Use at least 3 gig faster RAM. Use Windows 7 64-bit unless you need firewire, which may still require Windows 7 32-bit. If you use only 1 gig RAM, the RAM will get totally consumed and the whole system will get bogged down. The extra RAM makes a huge difference. The fast quad-core makes a huge difference too.

The stock CPU coolers are usually kind of lousy too. The add on coolers are worth buying. Air cooling is normally OK. Liquid cooling is pretty extreme and can cause you problems if it leaks.

I usually go down about 3 levels from the top CPU and memory.

Get a system board that has as many drive connections as possible and built-in RAID if possible. Try to maximize the number of USB connections too.

Get a power supply with enough connections for many devices. I usually get about a 750 or 850 watt power supply. The 1000 watt power supplies cost a lot more and are not needed.

The video and sound are are not important if the system is "headless". Usually the soundcard is built into the system board. Sometimes the video is built-in, but not usually these days. Get a cheaper video card with good reviews. You might be able to get a PCI video card if it does not interfere with the PCI-E slots to maximize the number of tuner cards you can put in the computer.

Get the higher-end USB-UIRT device and maybe a backup unit too if you have set top boxes you need to control. You can control 3 different set top boxes with one USB-UIRT. You can control more than 3 set top boxes if the set top boxes can be configured to use different IR codes or channels. You may need to optically isolate the set top boxes if you have many of them, so the USB-UIRT controls the correct set top box.

Look for dual built-in gig NICs. It is nice to have an extra NIC if your NIC quits working. Always take an image before updating the NIC software. If the update breaks the NIC, then you can always roll back to the image. Otherwise, you need a second computer to go out to the web to try to get the older NIC software. It is much easier to fix that type of problem with an image.

Get dual tuners instead of single tuners to maximize the number of tuners to reduce conflicts. You'll probably record more then, and you will need more disk, unless you delete more programs.

Once you get up to a couple TB disk, you will get to the point where most of what you have recorded or ripped, you will never have time to watch. I have about 20 TB including the unRAID storage for the video library. It's hard to delete programs you think you might want to watch "someday" but probably never will.

I use full tower cases to maximize the number of drives. There are more expensive cases that are made for 24 drives or more. I haven't gone that route yet. Those might be better for a mass storage dedicated computer, such as an unRAID server.

I usually start the whole process by picking out the system board first. You can isolate your choices when you maximize the number of drives and USB connections. You can add more drives and USB with expansion boards for those, but it is better to have the extra ports included on the system board.

DTA's are lousy tuners. Lousy video and auto quality. Maybe they are good enough for kids programs. You can hook both of them up to a capture card that has only one RF input connection. There is a signal combiner box you can buy for about $20 so the channel 3 and channel 4 outputs don't interfere with each other. If you hook them up to a simple, cheap splitter in reverse, the RF signals will cancel each other out, leaving you with nothing. You don't have to waste two capture cards for the two DTA tuners, when a dual tuner capture card will work. I strongly recommend not usings a DTA for a tuner because they are so lousy, although they may be included with the cable package for free.

If the computer is setup "headless", use at least two forms of remote control for redundancy in case one method does not work. Use RealVNC enterprise for Windows 7 and LogMeIn free. There may also be other choices such as Remote Desktop.

Get Ghost 15 or equivalent imaging software. Setup the system to automatically take full images of the system once a month, with daily incremental images. Store the images on a secondary hard drive. Backup the image files to another drive and/or computer with SyncBack freeware. You can then recover to any day in the past if there is a problem.

If you can live with it, be one of the millions that have "cut the cord". Setup the system for only OTA digital. You may be able to record enough content and have Netflix for movies, so you don't need cable or satellite. I "cut the cord" about two years ago and don't miss those extra channels. It feels nice to not get those monthly bills anymore! If you really need those channels, keep switching between the two different satellite providers and cable for the best price. Even if you don't intend to switch, tell them you will switch unless they lower the cost or throw in something for free. When you call in, talk to the "customer retention department" or use the menu options for cancelling the service to route it to that group. That group can offer better deals and prices. If you don't do that, they will be happy to charge you more and not give you the discounts you could get. Record the phone call in case you get a deal and they try to back out, claiming that they never offered the deal. I found it helpful to get them to stick to the offer they made even though I did not have to prove that the call was recorded.

I usually buy most of what I need at Newegg. There might be better places. At least use Newegg for the reviews, even if you don't buy there.

Get the Comskip donation version for commercials. Set up SageTV to only Comskip commercial channels. You'll find that a fast quad-core can get the programs processed quickly with Comskip and won't interfere with other things.

Dave

[Electronicbuff]

Thanks Davephan this really helps give me a great launching point. I appreciate the tips and will start my exploration.

My wife and I really became spoiled with SageTV with the donors version of Comskip. We can't watch live TV anymore so I felt the need to upgrade the SageTV server this Summer to SageTV v7 on a newer and better machine before Sage transitions.

Appreciate the help....

[IVB]

Did you find a mobo that suited you, eb? My two servers are 4-7 years old, and can't run some stuff I want them to. Going to build a single new one, planning on quasi-blowing out the specs. DavePhan's recommendations seem good, quadcore 3GHz, etc. Trying to find one without a ton of negative reviews isn't too easy though.

[davephan]

It's easy to start the system board narrowing process. Use Newegg's web site and narrow the search. Use the drive connections. Only look at 8 or more drives, or maybe 10. I start at 10 and work my way down.

My system is based on an i-9 950 3.0 gig quad core. This is a great CPU. My system board has been flawless for several years so far. I bought two identical systems. One system was for an unRAID server, the other for a SageTV computer. It turned out the Gigabyte system board was a bad choice for the unRAID server, so I got a different system board/CPU for the unRAID server. Then I re-used the extra Gigabyte system for my general purpose web surfing computer, replacing an old single-core, slow computer.

The reason I got two identical systems at the same time is for redundancy. If the SageTV system board/CPU/memory went bad, I would swap it out with the identical system board/CPU/memory. Then I would re-build the system with an image.

Since then, I have imaging software that can recover to different hardware, so I don't need identical 'spare' hardware that could quickly replace the SageTV computer hardware if it fails.

I don't think it is necessary to use RAID for the OS/Programs drive. Although, I think it would be a very good idea to use a fast SSD for the OS/Programs drive and protect it with an image. Never partition a large OS/Programs drive and store videos on part of it. It's better to use about a 120 gig fast SSD for the OS/Programs drive and protect it with an image.

The recordings drives could be setup as a RAID 5 drive array, or individual drives. You might loose recordings if they are all independent drives. I had one video storage drive go bad and I lost some short-term recordings. My long-term video library files are moved and stored on the unRAID server where the files are protected by drive redundancy. It would be even better to have a second unRAID server to protect the video files, but it's too expensive for me to setup another 16 TB unRAID server to replicate the first unRAID server. UnRAID is too slow for video recordings, but great for video playback. So, it's a great place to store the long term video library. The main downside to the unRAID server is it is another computer that is running 24 x 7 with it's extra monthly electrical cost. I offset the electrical cost with a "Saver Switch" which lets the utility cycle the air conditioning on and off. The cooling still works fine when it is cycled by the power company. The power company then gives us a discount on all our electricity use for the whole house during four months in the summer.


Dave

[panteragstk]

Power consumption of multiple computers/servers running 24/7. My server costs me about $.30 per day to use. Not a lot of money, and my hardware isn't even all that conservative, but it isn't always at full load either (251w max). The newer (more powerful) Intel i5 and i7 models consume very little power compared to what I have now, but what I have works so why change?

If I were building a new system I'd go with just about any of the higher ghz i5 and i7 cpu's for socket 1155 (sandy bridge or ivy bridge). If you don't need all that much power you can go with one of the S or T models that consume even less power to save on the bills. Memory speed isn't all that much of a concern as the real world benefit isn't worth the extra cost. I wouldn't use over ddr3-1600. As i stated earlier, memory is cheap. I wouldn't use less than 8gb, but 16gb can be had for less than $90 so that's a decision you have to make depending on what you want the server to do, mine is a memory hog, so the more the better.

As for an SSD as the server OS drive. I'm debating on whether or not I want to use my newly acquired Vertex 3 120gb for just that purpose. The things to consider are the fact that I don't use extenders at all. All my clients are very fast computers and have almost no lag in sage whatsoever. The only time I ever have the spinning circle is when I first start playing some of my blu-rays. I'm guessing that is just due to the actual network and not the server. If you have extenders though, I've heard from a few people that DO have extenders have a decent speed increase by changing over to an SSD. I got my 120gb for $70 on sale. Heck, I got 2 for that price. I wouldn't have gotten a Vertex 3 (sandforce controller) due to the BSOD issues, but I would get a Crucial m4 or a Samsung 830 as those are said the be the most reliable drives on the market. Intel drives are great, but are a little higher priced.

Dave is right in saying that imaging software is a must. I make regular images of my computers/servers and they have saved me more than once.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

If I were building a new system I'd go with just about any of the higher ghz i5 and i7 cpu's for socket 1155 (sandy bridge or ivy bridge). If you don't need all that much power you can go with one of the S or T models that consume even less power to save on the bills. Memory speed isn't all that much of a concern as the real world benefit isn't worth the extra cost. I wouldn't use over ddr3-1600. As i stated earlier, memory is cheap. I wouldn't use less than 8gb, but 16gb can be had for less than $90 so that's a decision you have to make depending on what you want the server to do, mine is a memory hog, so the more the better.

I can't say this from experience, but from the reviews I've read over on anandtech.com, if you plan to use the integrated HD4000 graphics on the Ivybridge processors, memory latency and speed can have a measurable effect (not just for games, but also on some HTPC tasks). If you are using a discrete graphics card, I agree that the system memory speed probably doesn't matter. If spending the big bucks to get a good i7 processor and motherboard, it's probably worth it to get at least "mid-range" RAM (not just the cheapest you can find).