Recommended HW for WHS setup

[rykr]

I'm contemplating a WHS setup with sage. Would most likely have 2 hd200 and 2 mvp hanging off it. Will have likely 2 digital and 2 analog tuners. What do you guys think is enough hardware for such a setup?

Thanks
Reggie

[voorhees]

Originally Posted by rykr

I'm contemplating a WHS setup with sage. Would most likely have 2 hd200 and 2 mvp hanging off it. Will have likely 2 digital and 2 analog tuners. What do you guys think is enough hardware for such a setup?

Thanks
Reggie

I built the WHS configuration listed in my signature below about 8 months ago, where it has 3 analog and 2 digital tuners, and 1 HD200 and 2 MVP extenders running off of it. So far it has not hiccuped at anything I have thrown at it, with performance to spare. I highly recommend a WHS server for SageTV. The features WHS brings really help for a SageTV system and for household PC backups. It has greatly improved my WAF over my previous 5.5 year old WinXP P4 3.0GHz system that was definitely underpowered.

[Djc208]

Might want to check out this thread and do a search, lots of discussions. Bottom line is that most dual core machines will do just fine, especially running WHS. With the MVPs it may benefit you to put a faster or bigger (more cores) CPU in the machine to handle transcoding for them, otherwise comskip is about the only thing that would even remotely keep a modern CPU really busy, everything else is just moving data around.

My suggestion is to find a motherboard (Intel or AMD doesn't really matter) that gives you the most bang for your buck and then pick a CPU that fits your budget (both power and cash). Lots of SATA ports, USB ports, expansion slots are always usefull, dual GBE is a nice extra too.

[rykr]

Thanks!

Do either of you have an idea what type of power consumption you are seeing from your WHS setup?

[DMT]

My WHS draws just under 100 watts at the AC outlet (measured with kill-a -watt P3).

All the other gear (2x STB, modem, router, switch, HD PVR) runs 50 watts so 150 watts total which costs approx. $15 per month since everything is running 24/7.

The server is a lowly Intel E2200 with 5x Seagate Barracuda HDD, 2x PCI tuners, 4x Noctua fans (quiet), Seasonic M12 430 watt PSU. The internal Blu-ray drive has since been moved to an external enclosure.

[Protoman]

The server in my signature is running as my WHS system.

One piece of hardware I would recommend is a SATA Backplane. I have one made by Kingwin and it is quiet and keeps the hard drive temps around 90* F or so. Ambient temps get hot in the room it is stored in, upwards of 80* F or so. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-004-_-Product)

There are some nice benefits to a SATA Backplane. You can easily swap hard drives in and out without opening your case. This one in particular does not use any trays and you can take a new hard drive out of the packaging and put it in the backplane with no hassle. Another nice benefit is that you can put 4 hard drives into 3 5.25" bays allowing for more hard drive capacity. The backplane is also hot-swappable so you can pull out har drives if you wish without turning off the server.

There is a nice add-in for WHS called "Disk Management" that shows you hard drive info, but you can also create a wireframe of your computer and can quickly identify which hard drive you are looking for or where it is located in your computer if you wish to upgrade or replace.

I consistently have 1 HD200 connected to my WHS and occasionally will have 2 HD200s connected without issue.

[Djc208]

I think I saw about 65-75w at the outlet idle, about 140w at startup. That's for the server (see my signature) a STB, HD-PVR, router, gigabit switch, cable modem, and the eternal HDD, all plugged into the UPS.

[voorhees]

According to my UPS, my total setup pulls about 160W steady state with the server, 2 STB's, backup external drive, gigabit switch, and cable amp. I believe the server is about half of that steady state.