Help Spec'ing New Server

[KarylFStein]

With the HD extenders a little out on the horizon, I'm getting an itch to tweak my server a bit. My main reasons are to get a rack mount form factor and to have some fault tolerance on the TV recordings directory.

Inputs: HDHR (QAM), Hauppauge 500 MCE
Outputs: 3 clients (will be the HD extenders if they work out) + 1 placeshifter

My TV recording HD is 250G and I've never had problems with that size. I also have a 40G OS disk and a 500G drive for DVD rips.

Running on my system:
SageTV server
Webserver plugin
Dirmon2 + Showanalyzer
Slimserver
VNC (just for admin use)

Questions:
* I'm planning to move the 500G drive to my Linux NAS for easier backups. Will this cause any performance issues with the clients? Do they pull the data directly from the NAS, or does it have to go through the server? Placeshifter is just for watching TV recordings when on the road.

* I'd like to add some redundancy to the TV recordings disk. I don't want to lose the recordings if there is a drive failure. What's the best way to do this (keeping in mind the server is running Windows XP)? I'm thinking hardware RAID 1, but am not sure if that will hurt things due to slower writes.

* I'd like to add redundancy to the OS disk so I can quickly recover from a failure there. I take snapshots of the disk nightly to the NAS, but that's mainly so I can install and test changes, and easily fall back if needed. That can also help if the entire system goes up in flames. I'm thinking RAID 1 there as well. I'd like some automated email alert when a failure is detected because I rarely log on to the server.

* Is jumbo frame support an issue? I don't think so. That's more for my NAS. It might speed along the OS disk images, but I do that in wee hours and it doesn't matter if that takes a little time. I don't see how jumbo frame support would help stream to the HD extenders or from the HDHR, but am not sure.

* Anyone have suggestions on a rack mountable case? I'd like all my disks accessible from the front (probably 2 OS and 2 TV). There also need to be a front spot for a DVD-ROM drive (for installs) and USB ports (again for installs). It doesn't have to be too quiet because it's in the basement, but you can hear the airplane fans on my current budget case through the vents and I'd like something not too loud. That probably means a 3 or 4U case, which is fine.

* Finally, MB/CPU/RAM recommendations. I currently have a P4 2.4G setup which is fine. However, I'm thinking it's about time to retire that system and use it to upgrade my PIII 1.4G NAS. So, what's a good match for my requirements without going overboard? I have Showanalyzer start as soon as the recording starts and I'd like it to be able to process 2 HD streams at the same time without hurting the system. I don't use Placeshifter all that much, but when I have, it's been almost unwatchable. I'm not sure if that's a network problem or a transcoding issue, though. I get about 334K upload speeds from home.

[evilpenguin]

For the CPU you can't go wrong with a Core2Duo system. They're resonably priced, perform great, and run very cool.

[omega]

My $0.02:

* Whether your clients will connect to the NAS directly or go through the server depends on how you set up your recording directories. SageTV Client will open the files directly from the NAS if it can access them at the exact same file path as the server does (best way to do this is use UNC paths for everything). If the server uses a drive letter and the client doesn't have that exact same drive mapping, then the client will pull the file through the server, effectively doubling the bandwidth requirement. Placeshifter I believe always streams the file through the server - someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that. The current MVP extender has to stream the file through the server as well, but we don't know yet if the new HD extenders will work the same way or not.

* Hardware RAID 1 should not slow down your write speed at all. The hardware should automatically clone the writes to both disks simultaneously. Where you run into possible slow-downs is RAID 5 or 6 because it has to compute parity while writing the data. I'm currently using hardware RAID 5 with no problems, though.

* If you go with a hardware RAID controller, the software it comes with should support emailing about any failures.

* Jumbo frame support might help with the NAS-to-server connection, and if the HD extenders support them it might be useful there, too. The HDHR is a 100Mbps device, so it won't support jumbo frames. I wouldn't go out of my way to get jumbo frame support if your hardware doesn't already have it.

[KarylFStein]

Will a quad core do anything for me? What about if I max out the system, (I could be recording 2 HDHR streams, 2 analog streams, running Showanalyzer on all of them, and streaming to three clients)? Does quad core play into any of that when using XP Home SP2? I have a free license for XP Pro as well. Would that be better? What about the disk? Would having a single disk be an issue?

I don't see maxing out the system, though. At most, I see recording 2 HDHR streams, running Showanalyzer on both, and maybe stream one to a client.

I have an E4300 and 2x512M RAM that I could reuse in the server. Would that be able to keep up with the "standard use" scenario?

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

Will a quad core do anything for me? What about if I max out the system, (I could be recording 2 HDHR streams, 2 analog streams, running Showanalyzer on all of them, and streaming to three clients)? Does quad core play into any of that when using XP Home SP2? I have a free license for XP Pro as well. Would that be better? What about the disk? Would having a single disk be an issue?

I don't see maxing out the system, though. At most, I see recording 2 HDHR streams, running Showanalyzer on both, and maybe stream one to a client.

I have an E4300 and 2x512M RAM that I could reuse in the server. Would that be able to keep up with the "standard use" scenario?

Just FYI:

This weekend I noticed my server (a Linux box with a 2.2G P4) was simultaneously recording one HD stream and 3 analog streams, with an MVP viewing a show and a Placeshifter viewing a show, and also doing a video conversion at the same time. (The latter being similar to the load you would see with Showanalyser or Comskip, I suspect.)

This machine has a single 500G PATA disk, and seemed to be keeping up just fine.

Assuming that all of your video sources are MPEG streams (i.e. ATSC/QAM or Hauppauge 150/250/350/500 for example) the CPU requirements for recording and playing back video are pretty light, since mostly it's just I/O.

The things that benefit from lots of CPU horsepower are Showanalyser/Comskip, transcoding shows on the fly (to the MVP or PS clients) or running lots of video conversions.

For me, on the fly transcoding seems to be the thing that would be helped the most from a faster CPU. Comskip and video conversions essentially run in the background, so if they slow down because the system is under load, you don't really notice much. Delays in on the fly transcoding because of CPU load are very noticable because you are watching the transcoded stream.

Hope that helps,

--John

[KarylFStein]

OK, I'm leaning toward a G965 MB paired with the ICH8R chipset (maybe the Intel BOXDG965WHMKR). That should let me create two RAID 1 arrays. I'll reuse my current client's 2x512M RAM and E4300. I can upgrade the processor and RAM if I notice problems, but if they keep up fine, then no money lost. The only thing I don't know is if you can make the Intel management software send an email notification on a drive failure. I rarely log in to the server, so wouldn't see the taskbar notification. Anyone know if this can be done?

Now I just have to find a case...and a decent PSU that's not overkill.

[Crashless]

FWIW, I have the same tuners as you're looking at (HDHR &PVR500) and I had to go with a RAID 0 setup for my recordings in order to get acceptable performance when all the tuners were recording and I wanted to play back more than one client.

RAID 5 with 3 drives would probably be OK too, but definitely more than just one drive, or two with RAID 1. RAID 5 sounds like it fits you best.

The newer Intel P35 motherboards (I have a Gigabyte one) have a decent controller on board, and I believe they support RAID 5. You will want to check me to be sure though, some might not have that capability.

[KarylFStein]

OK, the ICH8R does RAID 5. It also does RAID 0+1 on 4 drives, which should give even more performance. But, this is starting to look like overkill...

Anyone using RAID 5 that can comment on what it can handle?

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

OK, the ICH8R does RAID 5. It also does RAID 0+1 on 4 drives, which should give even more performance. But, this is starting to look like overkill...

Anyone using RAID 5 that can comment on what it can handle?

Software RAID under windows is pretty unreliable. IE don't count on it to deal with problems well.

Thanks,
Mike

[CollinR]

You don't want RAID5, the parity just adds fragmentation to the large continous files normally generated. I am pretty sure the ICH8R also supports RAID 1+0, this is pretty ideal if you can afford it.

Then just get a regular 20GB (or whatever is cheap) drive for XP Pro and SageTV to run on and you are set.

I personally only use drives from my CCTV DVR systems, as they are specifically designed for 24/7 video capture.

Format your video drives 64k NTFS

When XP asks to press F6 to install SATA/RAID drivers, do so. You cannot fully fix that after the fact.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

OK, I'm leaning toward a G965 MB paired with the ICH8R chipset (maybe the Intel BOXDG965WHMKR). That should let me create two RAID 1 arrays. I'll reuse my current client's 2x512M RAM and E4300. I can upgrade the processor and RAM if I notice problems, but if they keep up fine, then no money lost. The only thing I don't know is if you can make the Intel management software send an email notification on a drive failure. I rarely log in to the server, so wouldn't see the taskbar notification. Anyone know if this can be done?

Now I just have to find a case...and a decent PSU that's not overkill.

You might want to kick up the proc a little a bit. For not to much more money you can get a E6550 which is well worth the $40 dollar upgrade.

As for your quad core question, everything you listed (except the encoding) are more hard drive intensive than they are processor intensive so you won't really notice too much of performance gain with the extra cores.

The only situation I could see quad core being worth while are,

a) You do a ton of processor intensive tasks like encoding. (For the most part you'll be running comskip or SA on live recordings so they'll be capped at 30/60fps which will hardly tax your CPU at all)
b) You use your server for other things while Sage is running (gaming, etc.)
c) There's a really good sale

That being said, all 3 were true for me so I did buy a Q6600 recently and absolutly love it

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by CollinR

When XP asks to press F6 to install SATA/RAID drivers, do so. You cannot fully fix that after the fact.

There are currently work arounds. I was able to enable this after the fact on my Vista machine with the ICH9R.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Software RAID under windows is pretty unreliable. IE don't count on it to deal with problems well.

Thanks,
Mike

Well, I'm much more familiar with Linux, but I don't want to deal with the driver issues of running a SageTV server on it--that's why I switched from MythTV. Are you saying that the Intel RAID in the southbridge is unstable? Any experiences with that? If it's FUBAR, I'll just run with single disks in RAID 0 and take daily snapshots like I do now. My goal is to have a server that can lose a disk, but I won't lose a Lions game (hey, they only play 16 a year), or Top Chef episode, (I'd say for my wife, but I watch it too). Football season is when I'm most worried about missing a recording and usually my excuse for making upgrades, (hey, hun, we *really* need that 1080p display to see the game right *cough*!)

So, right now I'm looking at RAID 1+0 on 4 WD 24/7 rated disks for TV and 2 whatever in RAID 1 for OS, a couple Addtonics 3in4 backplanes, (or a case with a backplane), and an ICH8R-based MB. If the ICH8R solution can't survive a disk loss, then I'll just go with 2 disks in RAID 0 for TV and 1 OS disk. Anyone have good or bad experiences with ICH8R RAID recovery from a single disk failure?

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by Crashless

There are currently work arounds. I was able to enable this after the fact on my Vista machine with the ICH9R.

Yes I know you can get it working, however your throughput will be less then half of whats possible. Get a copy of sisoft sandra and test it out, you be at ata133 instead of SATA300.

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by CollinR

Yes I know you can get it working, however your throughput will be less then half of whats possible. Get a copy of sisoft sandra and test it out, you be at ata133 instead of SATA300.

Everything seems to be reporting SATAII (aka 3.0gbps) - I'll have to look at sisoft and see.

I forgot to say:While there are work arounds, it's not ideal, and I don't recommend it to anyone wanting to try it. Things are definitely less of a PITA if you just do it to begin with.

Reference for Vista Solution: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976
Wikipedia article on the issues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance...ller_Interface

Sorry for the thread-jack....

[unkyjoe]

Here are my specs.

I run a Windows 2003 SBS Server for my business, in it I have placed a Addonics 3-5 SATA Drive Bay Unit, this device converts 3 5.25 bays to 5 3.5 bays with serial ata connectors, fans and the works.

I pair this to an Addonics SATA controller.

I use 4 SATA drives formatted with 64k clusters and use mirroring. All of our music, video, dvd's are stored in this drive array.

The server also runs my business, e-mail, website, AV etc, a low end P4 2.0ghz with 1GB ram.

For my Sage server I use an AMD 2.0ghz processor with 1gb RAM. 20GB HD for Windows XP and Sage to run on. I then save all my video etc to the server via \\unc drives.

I have never had a speed issue, of course I use quality switches on the network to assure good throughput. But as you can see this is a pretty hobbled together system.

I use 1 MVP wired client and 1 Windows XP client.

Runs without a hitch, no video audio hiccups etc.

[Crashless]

I was running some tests last night, and though I didn't get to Sisoft, I did find that my Intel 6320 (dual 1.86ghz) CANNOT transcode an HD show using High Quality to my MVP in real time. It seems as though one core gets maxed out and the extender gets studdering making the show incomprehensible.

Setting things to "Standard Quality" fixes the problem, but I thought it would be helpful to Karyl to know that more than 1.86ghz is needed if they're going to go with MVPs.

Going to try some mild over clocking to see what happens...supposedly this CPU can overclock quite a bit...

[KarylFStein]

I'm going HD extenders all the way! Although Placeshifter has to transcode...