Perfect SageTV server MB for basement?

[valnar]

Changed my mind if anybody is still following. I wanted another PCI-E slot for the future. I'll be getting the Supermicro PDSME+ instead for a dedicated Sage Server. It has another PCI-E slot. I will buy a PCI-E RAID card to start with, and can swap it out for a PCI-X later if I need to free up that PCI-E slot. At least this way, I get four potential PCI slots and two PCI-E with enough PCI Express lanes to handle anything. They make high-bandwidth RAID cards in both formats, so I'm covered.

That, plus Supermicro responded to me and said the IPMI board for the PDSMA+ isn't quite as full featured as the PDSME+. The latter supports KVM-over-IP so I'm set if anything happens when I'm out of the house. I'll have full ability to troubleshoot remotely.

So unless for some reason I need a keyboard or mouse attached for it to boot, it should be able to leave all that off and go from the BIOS to Windows remotely.

Robert

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

While I don't have a Raid setup here at home (I don't archive DVD's so if I lose a hard drive, I am only losing recorded tv shows), if you are only looking at a terrabyte of hard drive space, then that could easily be accomplished with 4 SATA 500GB hard drives (each could be purchased for less than 140 bucks) and use RAID 1+0. You wouldn't need to worry about a RAID card since there isn't the CPU overhead. Just my thoughts on the RAID subject. I would start thinking RAID at the 2 TB level any more (500 GB x 5 x 140 = 700 needed for RAID 5, but 500 GB x 8 x 140 = 1120 needed for RAID 1+0).

I like to look at the issue from # of drives needed/wanted. For 1-2 drives RAID-1+0 is definitely practical. For 3+, you're really better off going RAID-5 (RAID-1 is too inefficient, the cost of extra drives tend to outweigh the cost of a card).

2-3 drives is sort of a transition period, by that I mean you can make a 2x 1+0 array out of 4 drives or a 3x RAID-5 array out of 4 drives. Here you have to weight the cost of a good controller vs that extra space gained by RAID-5.

With smaller arrays (up to 500GB drives) it's the card is more expensive than the space gained. However with the larger drives, eg 750's, the space gained with the card is roughly equivalent to the cost of a drive.

[coryking]

"I plan on just using a 40Gb IDE drive with Windows 2003 (running SageTV) and putting all my recordings, DVD's, music and other media on a RAID 5 array with a HighPoint RocketRAID 2220 PCI-X adapter."

You might want to put the SageTV files on your RAID array or make a RAID1 for your system files. Dont want to loose your wiz.bin if your system drive goes tits up.

Also, you might rethink going RAID5 and just do a simple mirror. In most cases, performance-wise RAID5 isn't a very good choice.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paed...are/raid.ars/5

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by coryking

You might want to put the SageTV files on your RAID array or make a RAID1 for your system files. Dont want to loose your wiz.bin if your system drive goes tits up.

But that doesn't help you with probably 99% of failures, which are not HDD failure, but some sort of software failure. For system files, you're much better just doing simple, regular backups. For Sage files, you're best bet is nightly backups.

Also, you might rethink going RAID5 and just do a simple mirror. In most cases, performance-wise RAID5 isn't a very good choice.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paed...are/raid.ars/5

That's only if you use "cheap" cards. With good cards like Areca or 3ware, RAID-5 performance is on par with RAID-0 of n-1 drives.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I like to look at the issue from # of drives needed/wanted. For 1-2 drives RAID-1+0 is definitely practical. For 3+, you're really better off going RAID-5 (RAID-1 is too inefficient, the cost of extra drives tend to outweigh the cost of a card).

2-3 drives is sort of a transition period, by that I mean you can make a 2x 1+0 array out of 4 drives or a 3x RAID-5 array out of 4 drives. Here you have to weight the cost of a good controller vs that extra space gained by RAID-5.

With smaller arrays (up to 500GB drives) it's the card is more expensive than the space gained. However with the larger drives, eg 750's, the space gained with the card is roughly equivalent to the cost of a drive.

I agree completely. If you are planning to use 750GB HD, then the cost fo the controller starts to become less of an issue. My point is that if you are looking at only (for example) 1 TB of space and plan to use 500GB HD, then your total cost is "only" about 560 bucks (possibly cheaper if you catch a hot sale) when you factor 4 drives at $140 each for a RAID 1+0. Using a Raid Card, you are looking at 300-350 for the card. To pull 1 TB of space with Raid-5, you would need 3 drives plus a good card (3 x 140 + 300 for the card) which puts the cost at 720. Performance wise, yes there might be a bit more performance with the RAID 5, but even the 1+0 should be more than enough for what we do.

However, if using the 750GB drives, then things quickly become more cost effective. If shooting for say 1.5 GB TB raid, then the 250 dollar price tag starts becoming the difference. At 250 dollars, you are looking at 4 x 250 = 1000 for RAID 1+0 or 3 x 250 +300 = 1050 for RAID 5 (this would be my recommendation in this scenario as the 50 dollar difference will allow a lot of flexibility if more space needed in the future).

Also using 500 GB drives to accomplish this, would lead to 6 x 140 = 840 for RAID 1+0 and 4 x 140 + 300 = 860. At this price, once again the difference isn't much and the RAID 5 would be a better route for future expandability.

I retract my earlier statement in that RAID 5 is the way to go with 2 TB or more, and change it to RAID 5 being the way to go with 1.5 TB or larger. I still contend though that at 1 TB or less, RAID 5 (at today's prices) is not the best bang for your buck. Another thing to thnk about is that you can do a RAID 1+0 with 4 drives as long as you only need 1 TB and when the need arrises to go to 1.5, then buy the raid card.

This of course is always my .02 worth.