Slowest Server?

[TunaBoo]

Whats the slowest server anyone is using sage? I am getting my hands on a quad pentium pro 200. I don't trust it to put my recording cards in (so slow), but I am thinking of using it as a network storage beast getting streams from another box, and serving to 2 different boxes.

The main reason is to move my "sage server" out of the client machine and into it's own box, so I can have some massive ammounts of hard drive space available and keep the client a little bit quieter.

[ji0005]

Im running 1 pvr-250 in a p3-700 and it works flawlessly. I have a cheap fx5200 for video out. My processor sits around 30-40% while watching.

[SHS]

If plan use it to encode only with no playback on the same system 166MHz MMX should work fine but key thing UDMA 33 or high and 256MB system memory or better and Win2K OS.

[sleonard]

I run a Sage server with 3 PVR250's on a P3 1000Ghz that has 256 MB RAM. When all 3 tuners are recording CPU runs between 70-90+ %. I am thinking of swapping the MB with another I have with a P3 1.2 GHz that has 1GB of DDR RAM and see if I can get the % CPU down a bit.

[Opus4]

I've got a p2-400 w/384MB mmeory. It has 2 encoders (250 & pvr-usb2) and an xcard for decoding. I added an ATA/133 controller for my new drives. While recording 2 shows, playing one back, and streaming one to my client, it uses very little cpu. (I don't remember the exact % for all 4 actvities, but I could check if someone really wanted to know.)

- Andy

[TunaBoo]

This will do _NO_ decoding. Only saving encoded stuff to HD and pushing out to the network.

It was 768 megs of ram, so it is fine there.

Might be worth a shot to try my 2 PVR 250s. If they work I can fit in up to another 6 for 8 total (8 pci slots woot)

[rrussell]

A quad pentium pro 200? You mean a multiprocessor system? Make sure the OS can do that.

[gplasky]

Keep in mind even if the OS supports 4 processors you won't benefit from an HTPC aspect. Sage will only use 1 processor. Your codecs will only use 1 processor. Like SHS says your bottleneck becomes the drive controller and system memory. 768 MB RAM will be fine but you'll probably want to get a cheap drive controller to drop in there to support UDMA 66-100-133. Also you may want to reconsider 4 processors in your box from a heat aspect.

Gerry

[Opus4]

Someone elsewhere quoted Frey support as saying SageTV would make use of multiple processors. However, I agree that it probably isn't overly important to SageTV & the more important item is the drive controller. I certainly noticed an improvement on my old system when I upgraded that controller.

- Andy

[TunaBoo]

Yes, quad. Its an older server, but it cost prolly $15,000 when new - it is nice and beefy. Dual 450 watt power supplies, etc.

Heat isn't an issue. I will shove it out of the way somewhere on my network. It has really good fans inside.. maybe 8 or 9 120 mm fans. The air moves! (I will be replacing with some quieter ones to make it more reasonable)

I don't care if sage only takes 1 processor. I am just worried if 200 MHz can run sage server. (remember this is pentium pro 200 MHz. Pentium pros 200 MHz are about as fast as a 400 MHz p2 because of the large cache size). The other 3 processors can handel disk IO and the rest of the stuff going on.

It will be win2k advanced server, it can handel up to 16 or so processors.

I will be buying some ATA 100 drive controllers because there is no IDE built into the server. With so many different hard drives, no one drive will be doing that much work at a given time.

[Opus4]

If the cpu is really about as powerful as a p2-400, I don't see why it can't work...

- Andy

[TunaBoo]

I will let you know what happens then.

[rrussell]

Holy smoke, you should have no problems at ALL!

[AndyS]

I'm running Windows 2003 Server with my SageTV Server (no decoding - network streaming only) on a Dual PII-450 machine w/256MB. It runs fine - no dropouts or problems at all. Very stable.

Andy.

[heffe2001]

All this talk makes me wonder if I should drop all my tuners in my Poweredge 2400 dual 733 w/1gb ram and see how she runs, only problem is space, only have about 80gb total space in the box (it's hotswap raid, and those drives are 'spensive ).

[TunaBoo]

Originally posted by heffe2001
All this talk makes me wonder if I should drop all my tuners in my Poweredge 2400 dual 733 w/1gb ram and see how she runs, only problem is space, only have about 80gb total space in the box (it's hotswap raid, and those drives are 'spensive ).

Bah scsi drives are going to be big enough without spending too much money. Here is what I am doing.

Case has 6 hotswap driver slots (made for full height drives). However, I can mount a half height drive in each one with a little room to breathe. Then I am ripping out the backplane that the drives plugged in to. I will then run a cable from them over to my PCI IDE card I have in the server. So no, I won't be able to hotswap them anymore But, they will be very well cooled etc.

On the other side of the server will be a 2 disk 9 gig mirrored partition with the OS and apps on it. I have like 9 of these 9 gig drives, but they won't do me much good

THIS is what my server looks like. It is a beast Along the right you see the hot swap bays. On the left are some hidden internal bays where the OS drive will go. It has like 7 PCI and 6 or so ISA slots. I priced it out new, and I think it actually cost closer to $35,000 the way it is set up. My, how times change

[Grey_Goose]

AndyS, how many tuners & clients are you running? Tha'ts the same hardware I'm looking at using...