What is your client server setup? Need input...

[TBacker]

I'm contemplating reconfiguring my Sage system in the next few months and want to get input from the community toward that end.

Right now, I am running a stand-alone box straight to my CRT HDTV via HDMI:
Intel mobo
Intel Pentium D 3.2 GHz Processor
1 GB RAM
500 GB Storage formatted for large blocks
Win XP SP3
nVidia 9600GT
Sage in service mode + SageMC 16x9
2 Dvico FusionHDTV tuners
1 HDHR on it's own NIC
Cyberlink 8 decoder
VMR9 + Hardware Accelleration + FSE

It works relatively well, but has been a constant struggle to get fluid 1080i, and needs more room so I can put my DVD collection into the system.

I am thinking about going to a server & client system. I would start with 1 client, but may end up with 4 over the long term. I am leaning toward the HD200 clients, but run a custom SageMC theme, so that may affect using the 200 or not.

I do I.T. as part of my job, so this doesn't scare me, but I need more info as video is a demanding beast.

Plan B is to wait for Windows 7 Ultimate x86 (32 bit) this summer for it's stability and EVR capabilities, upgrade the RAM on that machine as high as it will go, and allow it to serve up to 3 secondary clients around the house.

So, my questions if any of you can indulge me (Maybe some of the answers you provide can help others see what works as well):

1. If you run a server, are you using RAID? What level (1/mirrored, 5/striped w/parity)?

2. If you are running RAID, are you using a hardware controller, Windows software RAID, or RAID built into your motherboard?

3. If you are running RAID, are you running it so you can get enough thruput for multiple clients pulling HD video?

4. Server OS? Pleased with that OS?

5. Are you using computer clients or HD200's?

6. If you are using a HD200, are you pleased with it? What are the problems & limitations with it?

7. LAN speed (100BT / 1GIG)?

8. Are you running your system on the same LAN as the rest of your home, or on a separate switch?

9. If you are testing Windows 7 beta, 32 bit, have you had any issues with DirectX codecs or DRM lockouts?

Thanks for any input you can provide!

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by TBacker

1. If you run a server, are you using RAID? What level (1/mirrored, 5/striped w/parity)?

2. If you are running RAID, are you using a hardware controller, Windows software RAID, or RAID built into your motherboard?

3. If you are running RAID, are you running it so you can get enough thruput for multiple clients pulling HD video?

4. Server OS? Pleased with that OS?

5. Are you using computer clients or HD200's?

6. If you are using a HD200, are you pleased with it? What are the problems & limitations with it?

7. LAN speed (100BT / 1GIG)?

8. Are you running your system on the same LAN as the rest of your home, or on a separate switch?

9. If you are testing Windows 7 beta, 32 bit, have you had any issues with DirectX codecs or DRM lockouts?

Thanks for any input you can provide!

1. Yes, but only for my DVD collection. For recordings I could care less (hard drive dies, I lose a week of shows, I can always get them when they hit reruns or watch via the web).
2. Software: Flexraid. Flexraid is a software solution that allows you to mix and match your hard drives and create a "snap shot raid" in that you schedule it when you want the Parity recalculated (it is not calculated on the fly). It is a great tool and have been using it off and on for about a year now (with the last 6 months using it steadily).
3. The real issue is never about throughoughput. Even MPEG2 1080i only pulls about 2.5MB/s, the real issue is with the amount of streams being recorded. Modern hard drives have a thoroughput of 70MB/s+ sustained reads, but it is the thrashing (reading and writing multiple streams a time) is where it becomes an issue. I always recommend using several smaller hard drives for your recordings (I run 2 - 640GB drives rather than 1 big 1.5TB drive). By using multiple recording drives, it allows you to reduce the amount of read and writes to any given hard drive (not perfectly, but it does the trick). I have written/read as many as 6 streams from my hard drives with no issues.
4. I use Windows XP Pro (I think I am still on SP2), but if I had a license I would have considered WHS.
5. All extenders. I have a mix of 1 -HD200, 2 HD100's, and 3 MediaMVP's. Obviously the only choice is really the HD200's at this point, but I had previously purchased the others. I do occassionally run a full client license on my main PC, but I would never recommend it for your main viewing anymore. I used to use full PC's, but they were just toooo much of a pain. Any little update could throw the whole thing off. Extenders just work.
6. I love my Hd200. I can even watch Hulu via Playon Media Server. I have even tested the ability to do Blu-Ray rips. Seems to work but I haven't the storage space to start using Blu-Ray as my movie viewing choice (5GB on average for a DVD as opposed to 35GB for a blu-Ray...ouch!). Obviously you don't get the ability for some of the plugins that people like and you can't surf the internet, but the last one is why we have laptops in our living room. I prefer to surf on a laptop anyway.
7. I use a mix. My main switch is a 26 port hub that 24 are 10/100mb and there are 2 GB ports. This allows me to hook my Server to GB speeds and all my clients are then running on 100mb connections. Since video streams take less than 25% of the overall bandwidth of a 100mb connection, it doesn't hurt the clients to use 100mb. Your server is another story. If you start serving several HD streams to clients (and especially if you add an HDhomerun), you can end up saturating a 100mb port pretty quickly.
8. All of my house runs thru the 26 port master switch. My router I have connected to the master switch and that is all I use the lan ports on my router for. Generally speaking, consumer routers have terrible switches built in. They generally can not handle streaming video thru its ports reliably. Many have tried and many have failed. Do yourself a favor and get a good separate switch. From there it doesn't matter if all your desktops and Sage clients are on the same switch.
9. Someone else will have to speak to the Windows 7 questions. I haven't tried it yet.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by TBacker

1. If you run a server, are you using RAID? What level (1/mirrored, 5/striped w/parity)?

I have a RAID-5 array in my server, but only for "static" data. Namely my DVDs. Everything else is just on single drives. Oh, and I've got another set of "static" data on my ReadyNAS running X-RAID, which is parity based.

2. If you are running RAID, are you using a hardware controller, Windows software RAID, or RAID built into your motherboard?

I use a 3ware 7506-8 controller in the server. Wouldn't ever want to run Windows software RAID or motherboard RAID, IMO that's asking for trouble.

3. If you are running RAID, are you running it so you can get enough thruput for multiple clients pulling HD video?

Nope, only reason is so that if a drive dies (like has happened) I don't have to re-rip a slew of DVDs. A secondary benefit is organization is easier on one 1.75TB volume than 8 250GB volumes. Though with 1.5TB drives that's less of an issue today.

4. Server OS? Pleased with that OS?

Windows Server 2003, sure, but only using it because I had it free from my college's MSDNAA program.

5. Are you using computer clients or HD200's?

HD200s.

6. If you are using a HD200, are you pleased with it? What are the problems & limitations with it?

It works better than my HTPC client did, at least for playback. It's not quite a snappy at some things, and if you care about customizations that launch other programs you're SOL with extenders but none of that is an issue for me. And the more consistent playback and fewer issues are well worth the small difference in performance.

7. LAN speed (100BT / 1GIG)?

Everything's connected via a Gig-E lan, but obviously the extenders are only 100Mbps connections to the switch.

8. Are you running your system on the same LAN as the rest of your home, or on a separate switch?

One switch.

9. If you are testing Windows 7 beta, 32 bit, have you had any issues with DirectX codecs or DRM lockouts?

DRM "lockouts" are a problem with Windows Media Center, not the operating system (I'm speaking generically). Media Center itself looks at the flags and locks some content, but run SageTV on that same OS and you don't have a problem because it doesn't.]

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by TBacker

1. If you run a server, are you using RAID? What level (1/mirrored, 5/striped w/parity)?

I run WHS with their "Raid" of pooled drives much easier to setup and maintain then raid IMHO for a home enviroment.

Originally Posted by TBacker

4. Server OS? Pleased with that OS?

WHS 99% happy would be 100% if they defaulted to 64k partitions

Originally Posted by TBacker

5. Are you using computer clients or HD200's?

hd200's exlusively 2 currently

Originally Posted by TBacker

6. If you are using a HD200, are you pleased with it? What are the problems & limitations with it?

Native blu ray playback much easier setup then client pc no codec issues. It may have limitations in some areas but none that effect me.

Originally Posted by TBacker

7. LAN speed (100BT / 1GIG)?

GB all the way must have if you are going to have multy clients and hd IMHO

Originally Posted by TBacker

8. Are you running your system on the same LAN as the rest of your home, or on a separate switch?

Same

[lfilomeno]

Regarding LAN speed, he will be running fast ethernet, not GB ethernet. The network will run as fast as its slowest device; being the HD-200 the slowest device within the network; It can only run at 100 mbit. Despite that fact, I am running one in the living room thru a Netgear Wireless Access point and it works well and solid without skipping frames (SD only). In the master bedroom the HD-200 is wired to a 10/100 hub/router and I play HD/SD files with no problems at all.

[PiX64]

1. If you run a server, are you using RAID? What level (1/mirrored, 5/striped w/parity)?
I do not run RAID on my Server, but do run a NAS server (freenas) with RAID

2. If you are running RAID, are you using a hardware controller, Windows software RAID, or RAID built into your motherboard?
For freenas i use a PERC5i card runnig 3x1 TB drives on RAID 5 which works exceptionally well

3. If you are running RAID, are you running it so you can get enough thruput for multiple clients pulling HD video?
With my current setup i am able to record 2 HD and 2 SD shows cimultaneously on the server (HD comes from HDHomerun network encoder) and watch a seperate dvds on each client. All dvd's are stored on freenas server

4. Server OS? Pleased with that OS?
Xp Pro 32bit. Im moderalty happy with it but would probably try out the linux distro if i were doing a complete rebuild.

5. Are you using computer clients or HD200's?
1 x hd200
1 x client pc
1 x client running off of Server

6. If you are using a HD200, are you pleased with it? What are the problems & limitations with it?
I am extremely happy with the Hd200 and am thinking about going headless and purchasing 2 more HD200's.

7. LAN speed (100BT / 1GIG)?
server is 100Mb conncected to 1 gigbit dwitch.
hd200 is 100Mb connceted to 1 gigabit switch
client is 100Mb connected to 1 gigabit
Freenas is gigabit connected to gigabit
gigabit router is uplinked to a 10/100 Mbps router which is connceted to 22Mbps Comcast Cable Modem

8. Are you running your system on the same LAN as the rest of your home, or on a separate switch?
All video is on a seperate gigabit switch which is uplinked to the home lan for internet access

9. If you are testing Windows 7 beta, 32 bit, have you had any issues with DirectX codecs or DRM lockouts?
Not testing

~Mike

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by lfilomeno

Regarding LAN speed, he will be running fast ethernet, not GB ethernet. The network will run as fast as its slowest device; being the HD-200 the slowest device within the network; It can only run at 100 mbit. Despite that fact, I am running one in the living room thru a Netgear Wireless Access point and it works well and solid without skipping frames (SD only). In the master bedroom the HD-200 is wired to a 10/100 hub/router and I play HD/SD files with no problems at all.

Not true at all. The whole network will not slow down to 100mb speeds just because you hook a 100mb device to it. Only that "node" will run 100mb. If your server has a gb network card hooked to a gb router, it will still have 1000mb to play with. Only the bandwith between the server and that client will be slowed to 100mb, but this still leaves 900mb available for the server to connect to other devices on the network. This is why the recommendation is always to use a gb network switches with your server connected with a gb nic so that even though your clients may not have a gb nic, at least you won't max out your network. This is especially true if you are using an HDHomerun as that alone can take half the bandwidth of a 100mb network.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by TBacker

1. If you run a server, are you using RAID? What level (1/mirrored, 5/striped w/parity)?

See my sig for some of these questions, but I run RAID 5 for my data and a single drive for the OS.

2. If you are running RAID, are you using a hardware controller, Windows software RAID, or RAID built into your motherboard?

Highpoint 2320. Quasi-hardware RAID, and more than enough power for Sage. Cheaper than high-end workstation boards.

3. If you are running RAID, are you running it so you can get enough thruput for multiple clients pulling HD video?

No, just availability protection. It helps me with speed too, but that has not been a problem. I also backup to a 2TB USB hard drive (new Western Digital model).

4. Server OS? Pleased with that OS?

Windows 2003 Server.

5. Are you using computer clients or HD200's?

A couple HD200's, but I'm going to build a client HTPC too for my main HDTV. I miss Netflix, web surfing and some other non-Sage activities.

6. If you are using a HD200, are you pleased with it? What are the problems & limitations with it?

Very pleased. For Sage use, I wouldn't do anything else. However, I am happy with the default UI and few customizations.

7. LAN speed (100BT / 1GIG)?

Both. Server is gigabit, Intel NIC (trust nothing else!)

8. Are you running your system on the same LAN as the rest of your home, or on a separate switch?

Same switch.

9. If you are testing Windows 7 beta, 32 bit, have you had any issues with DirectX codecs or DRM lockouts?

N/A

[Skirge01]

1. If you run a server, are you using RAID? What level (1/mirrored, 5/striped w/parity)?
I'm using FlexRAID for my SageTV recordings. WHS duplication for important files and WHS drive pool for everything.

2. If you are running RAID, are you using a hardware controller, Windows software RAID, or RAID built into your motherboard?
I have a Highpoint RocketRaid 2300, but only for more SATA ports, so it's in JBOD mode.

3. If you are running RAID, are you running it so you can get enough thruput for multiple clients pulling HD video?
Solely for a little protection against drive failure of the Sage recordings. I'm running both Samsung Spinpoint F1's and Western Digital Green drives and throughput is not an issue for HD video to my two clients.

4. Server OS? Pleased with that OS?
WHS... and loving it!

5. Are you using computer clients or HD200's?
Computer clients

6. If you are using a HD200, are you pleased with it? What are the problems & limitations with it?
N/A

7. LAN speed (100BT / 1GIG)?
Gigabit

8. Are you running your system on the same LAN as the rest of your home, or on a separate switch?
Simply due to how things wound up, I have the clients and the server on a single switch and two other home computers (non-clients) plus a hardware firewall (IPcop) on a second switch.

9. If you are testing Windows 7 beta, 32 bit, have you had any issues with DirectX codecs or DRM lockouts?
N/A

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Not true at all. The whole network will not slow down to 100mb speeds just because you hook a 100mb device to it. Only that "node" will run 100mb. If your server has a gb network card hooked to a gb router, it will still have 1000mb to play with. Only the bandwith between the server and that client will be slowed to 100mb, but this still leaves 900mb available for the server to connect to other devices on the network. This is why the recommendation is always to use a gb network switches with your server connected with a gb nic so that even though your clients may not have a gb nic, at least you won't max out your network. This is especially true if you are using an HDHomerun as that alone can take half the bandwidth of a 100mb network.

YEs this is true gb is needed for multiple clients if doing blu ray especially some can run 40mbs a second and when you get more than one client demanding that 100mb is not fast enough. Don't know who told you that you are limited by your slowest device.

[heatvent]

Originally Posted by lfilomeno

Regarding LAN speed, he will be running fast ethernet, not GB ethernet. The network will run as fast as its slowest device; being the HD-200 the slowest device within the network; It can only run at 100 mbit. Despite that fact, I am running one in the living room thru a Netgear Wireless Access point and it works well and solid without skipping frames (SD only). In the master bedroom the HD-200 is wired to a 10/100 hub/router and I play HD/SD files with no problems at all.

Yeah, but hopefully it won't be the network lagging things. Also, if using multiple extenders/HD/etc., I would opt for the GB network just to have extra room if you want to surf the net, etc. I don't think there's a big cost difference so why not overbuild for the future.

[valnar]

If you do buy a gigabit switch, I highly recommend that the minimum point of entry be the HP ProCurve 1700 or better. Netgear/Linksys/DLink seem to do fine for Fast Ethernet switches, but fail at gigabit (as in reliability, speed, consistency, etc).

Likewise for NIC's, I recommend Intel or Marvell, over Realtek or Broadcom - if you happen to be motherboard shopping.

All these little things matter. It's the difference between "just works", and visiting these forums for nagging problems.

[dgeezer]

I have a related question.

If I add a gigabit switch to my network, but keep my 100mb router will the devices wired to the gigabit switch operate at gigabit speed?

[valnar]

Originally Posted by dgeezer

If I add a gigabit switch to my network, but keep my 100mb router will the devices wired to the gigabit switch operate at gigabit speed?

If they have gig NIC's, yes.