Energy Efficeint SageTV Server

[MavRic]

Hi all,

I know there must already be a thread out there covering this, but my searches have not found it so here it goes.

I am looking to build a SageTV server that is capable of:
- Up to 4 tuners (I have a PVR500 now, so thats 2 SD tuners in one PCI slot) including 1 or 2 HD tuners. I am hopeing somebody will make internal HD tuners soon since i don't like the external boxes.
- Up to 6 Hard disks, 2 in Raid 1 for OS and 4 for video storage
- No local display needed, so i don't think i need a fancy graphics card
- Support up to 4 HD extenders simultaneously
- Be energy efficeint
- Be Rackmountable.

This server will be on 24/7 and will have some very minor other loads running home automation application (HomeSeer, CQC, Girder, Mainlobby or somethign similar) and possibly run iTunes

I am looking for recommendations on:
- Case (rackmountable)
- PSU (considering Antex NeoHE 380 but not sure if that provides enough power)
- Hard disks (WD Caviar Green Power 500GB or 1 TB drives seen to be the choice)
- Video card (if any, likely onboard video is most energy efficient)
- Motherboard (most important of all)
- CPU speed
- Memory Quantity

Any suggestions would be much appreciated...

From what i understand is that with HD extenders not much CPU power is needed at all.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by MavRic

Hi all,

I know there must already be a thread out there covering this, but my searches have not found it so here it goes.

I am looking to build a SageTV server that is capable of:
- Up to 4 tuners (I have a PVR500 now, so thats 2 SD tuners in one PCI slot) including 1 or 2 HD tuners. I am hopeing somebody will make internal HD tuners soon since i don't like the external boxes.
- Up to 6 Hard disks, 2 in Raid 1 for OS and 4 for video storage
- No local display needed, so i don't think i need a fancy graphics card
- Support up to 4 HD extenders simultaneously
- Be energy efficeint
- Be Rackmountable.

This server will be on 24/7 and will have some very minor other loads running home automation application (HomeSeer, CQC, Girder, Mainlobby or somethign similar) and possibly run iTunes

I am looking for recommendations on:
- Case (rackmountable)
- PSU (considering Antex NeoHE 380 but not sure if that provides enough power)
- Hard disks (WD Caviar Green Power 500GB or 1 TB drives seen to be the choice)
- Video card (if any, likely onboard video is most energy efficient)
- Motherboard (most important of all)
- CPU speed
- Memory Quantity

Any suggestions would be much appreciated...

From what i understand is that with HD extenders not much CPU power is needed at all.

It seems you have most of it figured out. If you are going to use all HD Extenders and/or full pc clients (so no placeshifter or MediaMVP's), then I would consider the AMD Athlon X2 4XXXe processors. 45 watts of power max for a dual isn't bad at all.

Memory - Buy whatever amount of memory you want in 2 sticks. You will use a bit more memory if you buy 4 sticks. 2GB is probably enough, but with the additional software you want to run at the same time, you might consider 4GB.

Hard drives - Yes the new WD Green drives are the way to go. I haven't see exact energy savings, but if you are trying to conserver, they would be the way to go

Video - Onboard is the only way to go to save power.

Motherboard - Gigabyte has some mother boards they are touting as low power and I believe so is Asus. Gigabyte has been my favorite for a couple of years now, so I always lean that way. I am not sure if I have seen many articles on what motherboard uses the most/least power. I am sure most of it has to do with the chipset.

Powersupply - You can save a lot of energy with this. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. 380 watts would probably be enough if you are using onboard video, but right now Newegg has the Antec EA430 for 30 dollars after 30 dollar mail in rebate. Would give you a little extra headroom.

Case - Can't make a recommendation. I don't use rackmountable cases, solely because I do not own a rack to mount to!

Just my two cents worth.

[jerryt]

Two energy saving things which are working for me.

Areca raids card, which spins down the drives (12 Seagate 750GB) that are not in use (MAID).

and Gigabyte's Dynamic Energy Saver, uses 11 watts instead of 40 for the CPU.

Wake on lan would have been nice but my server goes into a continuous reboot when it awakes from sleep (Gigabyte issue? or Vista?).

[MavRic]

I am leaning towards the Antec HE380 not only because it is 'HE' but also because it has detachable cables which should make for a much cleaner install which results in better airflow.

I woudl think that with low power hard drives and on board video 380w shoudl be enough...if not i guess i sell it and buy another...if it works then i get a really efficeint machine..

Looking into the gigabyte mobo's now..

Would onboard graphics still do most of all the stuff a dedicated card would do if/when it needs to. E.g. for testing i may want it to play back dvd's, etc.

I am a bit partial to Intel for CPU's. The AMD's i have had have always run a bit too hot for my liking...heat means waste of energy..

Looking a gigabyte offerings it seems it's not possible to have many SATA and PCI slots, the latest energy savings features AND on board video.

Is the onboard video really that big of a deal? Does the video card shut down when you have the energy management turn of the monitor? This server will be in the basement and although it will have a screen it would seldomly be used. I plan to do most work on it from the living room/office via remote desktop anyway..

[jrog]

Originally Posted by MavRic

Whats a good efficeint mobo with many SATA and PCI slots, for intel CPU and onboard video...sounds like i'm definetely looking at a board designed to be a server..

You might want to check into that more carefully. I just moved my system from a XEON based server class motherboard to a quad core 6600 desktop family card, and I'm much better off. Quieter (if that matters) and way less power consumption for the same if not slightly better performance.

The server class box would never spin down the fans, even with software that guaranteed to spin down the fans, it would not do speedstep and lower the voltage on the CPU. It just ran and ran all the time. I had it installed in my garage, and I could hear it through the floor upstairs while watching TV!

The Desktop board slows the CPU when not under load, and is much more efficient, in fact, I put in a decent graphics card so I could use it to watch HD if I wanted, hooked up a few extra USB drives and large internal drives, all my USB tuners, and the Comcast boxes, measured the power draw of the entire system, and at full power, with everything, it's the same as the server was all by itself. Basically get the power of the entire rack for free.

[bastafidli]

I can only recommend to take a look at http://silentpcreview.com/ and especially their forums.

[Djc208]

For your power supply take a look at http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/ they have some very good PSU reviews. The effeciency curves should help you size the PSU properly, as well as show you how stable they are.

I don't know that onboard graphics would be a huge savings over a low end discrete graphics card but it also frees up one more slot on the MB for something else and is one less component dumping heat in the case or obstructing airflow.

[rtengvad]

Since your system will run 24/7 you should focus on minimizing the idle power consumption. I would consider an AMD CPU in combination with a 780g AMD chipset. I belive that combi is the king right now.

You might check out these two articles for inspiration:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ergy,1934.html

and

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...pset,1785.html

Rasmus

Rasmus

[CollinR]

If you used network encoders or the HD PVR you might be able to pull it off on an Intel little valley. I have been playing with one pretty extensively on other DVR systems but haven't gotten to Sage yet.

Mine currently for 6 channels software to MPEG4 at CIF and 2 software MJPEG 1500p to MPEG4 plus decoding for on the screen. The little CPU is pegged but it's doing very well and the complete system is around the total wattage of the AMD CPU mentioned above.

The downfall is only 1 PCI slot which in your case would need to be a gigabit NIC (or multiple) and only 2 SATA devices. It also has an IDE bus and has special options for booting odd devices like USB sticks and compact flash cards. The on board video works fine for testing and configuring it, same for sound.

I am unsure if this board support SATA port multipliers, if so it could go to 8 drives. Which combined with a gigabit or better NIC would make for a killer NAS.

It can probably handle CQC as well but I dunno about the terminal services most of you guys run. This is an issue most from this forum are going to have troubles in their opinions. CQC users often use remote desktop connections from touch interfaces around the house. Sage dang sure will not function correctly in that case and the overhead of the terminal server can be high especially with many interfaces. Same can go for MainLobby and to a lesser extent Girder's Netremote.

Combining Homeseer and Neil's webserver would probably be the lightest way to combine the two.

I use HAL (HomeAutomatedLiving) and the SageTV plugin for it, the software although not great provides a huge addition of functionality. The plugin here has turned out to be very stable for me and after a month of two of messing with my system it as a whole has become very stable. Unfortunately HAL has a new version coming and it will most likely break the current plugin, and it's licensesing cost is IMHO too high. Not CQC high though!

It also has 3 additional killer features.

DC>DC power supply! so for an UPS you can simply connect a 12v battery no inverter needed and mine will take inputs from 8-2?VDC and can support 120watt. Normally I use a laptop power brick, 60watt always cool as a cucumber. It's nice to know the feature is there, should you decide to build a megaUPS with golf cart batteries. Or as designed power it inside a vehicle.

You can fit multiple units in a single 4U case if you want!

The damn thing is only $70!

[autoboy]

Motherboard is the most important thing. You want onboard graphics and at least 6 SATA ports. Stability is key.

This board looks awesome cause it has 1 extra eSATA promise port and sideport memory for the onboard graphics so the onboard graphics can support all the AVIVO features w/out using a phenom cpu. You don't really need that for a server but it is still cool.

If you don't want sideport and are cool with 6 SATA ports then this board looks good.

On the intel side I found this board.

But I really prefer AMD for low power and cheaper builds. With Cool and Quiet turned on and your power setting set to laptop or power saver you can get really low power consumption and cheap performance.

Any dual core CPU will do IMO and if you need to upgrade eventually you can. The 45W cpus give basically the same idle power consumption as the 65W cpus and since your system will sit idle for 99% of the time it is not really worth it to me to get the 45W cpus. If you use a program like CrysyalCPUID you can lower the voltage of the 65W cpu to use even less than a stock 45W cpu anyways so they are only for people who run at load for a good portion of time, use small form factor systems, and don't like to undervolt themselves.

[rtengvad]

Interesting CollinR. I didn't know of that solution. But I think, even though Mavric did not mention it, a bit of mp4 h.264 comskip will be needed at a point and im not sure that celeron on the Little Valley can handle that?

Rasmus

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Interesting CollinR. I didn't know of that solution. But I think, even though Mavric did not mention it, a bit of mp4 h.264 comskip will be needed at a point and im not sure that celeron on the Little Valley can handle that?

Rasmus

I'm not sure any processor is currently upto the task of comskip for h.264 videos.....

[autoboy]

Comskip for h.264 is an unknown right now. Thats why i recommended that you get the cheaper processors and upgrade later when it is known. A $50 processor now might save you lots of money later. I don't think I would go with the little valley cause that celeron might not be powerful enough in the future. Your server should be upgradeable. The last thing you want to do is change it out every year.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Interesting CollinR. I didn't know of that solution. But I think, even though Mavric did not mention it, a bit of mp4 h.264 comskip will be needed at a point and im not sure that celeron on the Little Valley can handle that?

Rasmus

I have had mine running since Feb of this year without any issues.

This problem would really only effect the HD PVR solution as the HD HomeRun which also takes no PC slots is MPEG2 but limited in available content.

The bonus mentioned means you could have a second (quite possibly 3-4 depending on HDD arrangement and specific case) little valley in the same 4U case. This would allow for a machine or two dedicated to compression or commskipping or ?.

Also as mentioned the whole dang thing costs about as much as a decent CPU, I would guess running wide open with no HDD it's close to 15-20watts, total not just CPU. So if it doesn't work your only out a mild amount of $ the parts are interchangable with normal sized ATX and mATX mainboards.

I would/am considering it however compression with it is most likely not possible. Transcoding of SD maybe but HD is out of the question.

Then again I have about 20 devices that it may perform in the future, also it's big brother is now available and it has an Intel north and southbridge plus Intel onboard video.

PS Sisoft sandra rates it's java multimedia capability on par with a 2.0ghz P4D. This is more a bonus for client functionality then anything else though.

[MavRic]

Anybody know if the Antec Rackmount cases can be purchases without power supply? Would like a 4U rackmount with the Antex NeoPower 430 but they don't seem to offer this as a combo.

I want the neopower because of it's detachable cable feature..

The search continues for my server configuration...current thoughts are:
- Case: rackmount but otherwise undecided, i like the Antec take 3/4 but they are awfully pricey, also this server will be in the basement so all the extra money for a quiet case is not justifiable.
- PSU: Antec NeoPower 430 - +/- $110 - http://www.antec.com/us/productDetai...?ProdID=28430# - Selected for efficency, quality/stability and detachable cables
- Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS5 - http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=2837 - Selected for Energy Management features, up 6 SATA connections and many PCI-e/PCI slots
- CPU: Intel Core 2 due E8200 - $159 - Memory: 2GB but not selected yet
- Video Card: Not selected but not important
- Storage: WD Green. 2 of them in Raid 1 for OS, 2 more (expandable to 4) for Video storage (all non raid)
- DVD-RW drive: Not yet selected

Havent priced this thing out yet..things may change..

[mikehaney]

For a case, you might want to look at the Silverstone LC20. It will hold 6 drives internally, and has space for a 92mm fan in front of each bay of 3 drives to keep them cool (very important when you start cramming more than 2-3 drives in a case). The Silverstone cases are very nice looking, and most of their HTPC cases have optional rackmount ears you can purchase, and I know for sure the LC20 supports them.

I recently just went through building a new server and wanted to save energy, so I can share my experience. I started out with 2 machines, one for storage (using Unraid, but I wanted to switch back to WHS now that the corruption bug is fixed) and one for a tv server (first media portal, now moved to Sage). Using a Kill A Watt meter, I found the storage machine was using 160w with all 6 500GB drives spinning, but only 107w when the drives were spun down. The tv server was using 110w all the time.

My ultimate goal was to have a single machine running WHS and the TV server, and I ended up with the following:

- Abit AB9 Pro motherboard - I've had it for awhile, it's a great board and has 9 onboard SATA ports + 1 esata. I saw they are down to $85 now at Newegg - a steal for board with that many SATA ports. No onboard video, but everything else you can think of.

- Intel Core2 E7200 - Fry's lately has been running a combo deal with this chip and a cheap ECS motherboard for less than most places charge for just the CPU. I picked it up and dropped the E7200 in (requires a firmware update on the AB9 Pro) and used the cheap mobo with the old processor I had to build another machine for my son. Anyway, this is an awesome chip for the price ($109 w/ the mobo) and I think is probably the best bang for the buck out there right now.

- NVidia 6600GT - just an old card I had laying around. Just get something old and crappy and as long as you're not running something like Vista and Aero it shouldn't use any of the 3d stuff and therefore shouldn't use a lot of juice.

- 2 Hauppauge capture cards (PVR150 and PVR500)

- 6 500 GB SATA drives added to the drive pool for WHS

- 2 320 GB SATA drives NOT in the drive pool - one for the OS/boot drive, the other just for Sage recordings

The whole thing draws 160 watts at load, that's with all 8 drives spinning. When the drives spin down and everything is idling, it drops to 110w. I would like to get it under 100w at idle, so as funds allow I'm going to start replacing the 500GB drives with 1TB Greenpower drives. I figure replacing the 6 drives with 3 GP drives would probably get me around 120-130w load and well under 100w idle.

One thing to keep in mind is cost vs. what you will actually save in energy usage. I looked at the new Gigabyte boards and thought about buying one to replace my Abit, but figured it would take over 2 years to recoup the cost from the energy savings. Probably not as big a deal if you are buying all new equipment, but worth considering when you upgrade.