WHS Recommendation

[gblinckmann]

I'm thinking of changing from Vista for running Sage to WHS. I'd like to keep my two PVR-150's and add an HDHR to get some ATSC HD content. I have two MVP's and I'm planning on adding two of the new HD extenders, too.

My current 2.4 GHz P4 running Vista just won't cut it (at least not if I transcode HD video). The Vista machine is also shared. The WHS would allow me to get the TV recordings off the computer that the kids use .

I've not seen any pre-built WHS systems (yet) that have some PCI slots and at least 4 drive bays with expandable memory and a reasonable processor. I also want to reduce power usage since this computer runs all the time. The P4's draw a lot. If I don't find a pre-built, I'll likely just build my own this Winter.

[Djc208]

You're not likely to find one that will, at least not off the shelf. I'm sure some of the manufacturers will build you a normal system set up for WHS but you can do that too. Since WHS doesn't support media center functions natively (the biggest flaw most people have with it so far) few companies are going to offer anything that will support the tuner cards. In fact many use processors that are at best no faster than your P4.

On the plus side you shouldn't need anything real high end for the system. WHS doesn't have high hardware requirements, it's basically all for Sage. A cheap board with integrated graphics, some value memory will be fine and save money that you can sink into a good CPU. A low voltage or mobil Athlon or Core CPU will help reduce electrical load without killing performance too much, or you can go for a quad core chip to make sure you always have extra HP on tap.

I plan on using my old P4 2.8 for my WHS setup since it runs well and the MB supports 6 SATA and 4 PATA drives. But I shouldn't need much transcoding since I'll only be running an HD extender and sometimes a placeshifter client.


Not to hijack the thread but can you run the Sage support software on WHS like comskip? Since the interface is customized I wasn't sure if you could setup that software or install the web interface on the WHS system.

[gblinckmann]

Thanks. I was afraid that was going to be the case. I think what I'll look at doing is using an off-the-shelf WHS and adding USB-connected NTSC (analog cable) tuners and the HDHR for ATSC. All that should work with not much CPU needed. Although I have two MVP's now, as I switch to the new STX-HD100 extenders I shouldn't need to do any transcoding anymore. This should allow me to run with a very small CPU.

Buying a big CPU and case to reuse some of my parts isn't really cost-effective. Both in cost of hardware as well as the total power consumed.