Give me a reality check - server rebuild

[Tomahawk51]

So, with SageTV in coasting mode, I'm somewhat leary to mess with my setup. I just started getting Service Won't Start errors though (which I circumvent by just opening the app) and I wonder if I shouldn't rebuild.

I use extenders, Win7 32bit as I have Firewire box control currently. It's an early vintage Core2Duo e4300.

I have a 60gb SSD, and 6gb of RAM not being used (Ram not fully used due to Win 32, due to Firewire not working on 64 bit).

What I'm looking for advice on is whether you elders think I should make the investment to:
1) Reinstall to get off a HDD to the SSD for the OS and Sage
2) BUY a USB UiRT and Ditch Firewire (which is working super well) so that I can use Win7 64 bit and get ~3 extra gb of RAM?

Is this worth it, in relative terms? Or should I just stay in controlled mode and keep it ticking as is? Yes, I realize advice will be very subjective!

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Tomahawk51

1) Reinstall to get off a HDD to the SSD for the OS and Sage

I did this to improve my speeds and it worked for a while. After continued use I noticed access speeds reduced some. It is still faster than most spinners and about equal to my Raptors so while I don't see the same boost in speed as when I first put them in it is still faster then the 7200rpm drives I was using before.

2) BUY a USB UiRT and Ditch Firewire (which is working super well) so that I can use Win7 64 bit and get ~3 extra gb of RAM?

Sage itself will not make use of it. Even with 64 bit OS you can only use about 1Gb of memory in SageTV. It is about all the 32 bit Java VM will be able to allocate without errors and SageTV doesn't run on 64 bit Java. With that said you might find other uses for more memory that can help SageTV. One mentioned in another thread is a RAM disk for the cache files. There is even a plugin for that. So it can be useful to use a 64 bit OS. Just not with 32 bit Java and SageTV directly.

I would probably still be using firewire if my cable company hadn't turned it off on my cable boxes. It was one of the "straws" that made me switch to DirectTV.

[davephan]

Are you planning to use the same hardware or different hardware? How much money do you want to put into it?

I found that a 3.0 gig quad-core CPU and 3 gig RAM works well. My SageTV computer normally runs about 1 gig RAM most of the time, sometimes more. SageTV itself may need only 1 gig or less, but SageTV might not be the only thing running on the computer.

If you want to use Comskip and automatic Comskip processing, then a fast CPU will shorten the time it takes to process programs with Comskip. The quad-core CPU is great for offloading the Comskip processing to other cores.

I think the USB-UIRT is probably the best way to go if you need to use set top boxes. The reason is it gives you the freedom to periodically change between cable/satellite providers. If you stay with the same provider, you will pay more for the service. If you switch around, or at least threaten to switch around, then you will pay less, or get more service for the same cost.

I think the most important part of making any changes to your system is first take an image of the system. There are free imaging programs and pay imaging programs. I use both Acronis and Ghost for redundancy.

You can take an image of your system as it is today. Then you can try rebuilding the system from scratch, taking periodic images as you add more software and do configuration changes. During the rebuild process, if something goes wrong, you never have to start from the beginning. You recover to the last good image and move forward. If you discover you need something from the old computer build, you can recover back to that state, then recover back to your new build.

I think the primary reason to use imaging is because SageTV becomes a critical software package. People in your household expect that it should continue to function at all times, and if it doesn't, then it needs to be fixed as fast as possible. Recovering to a "known good" point in time is the fastest way to fix the system.

I converted my general purpose computer from a standard hard drive to a SSD by applying the image of the standard hard drive to the SSD. It was very easy to make the change. When my SageTV boot/programs drive fails, I'll replace it with an SSD too using an image.

Dave

[Fuzzy]

I've never been happier with my server's performance since putting a massive disc cache on it. The cost of RAM is far cheaper than an SSD, and far faster. If you are wanting to stay with your FireWire setup, I believe some cache software can use out of range memory, which you can use the memory above 4GB for cache space, on a 32bit system. (FancyCache)