New server - what to buy?

[flavius]

My server, now almost five years old, is coming apart. I'm looking for recommendations as to what to buy - I'm thinking about going quad core, since I might be doing some place shifting and video conversions in the future..

Other than that, the only thing I know is that I could get an Antec case.
What have you guys been buying recently?

[davenlr]

I built my server is Asus motherboard, and components from Tigerdirect. I didnt need video, so I just went with a dual core AMD Athlon 64 at 3GHz and 2GB ram, popped in a 500Gig boot drive, and two WD 2TB storage drives. Sage runs on it (and even with the MB video it plays fine). Have fun.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by flavius

My server, now almost five years old, is coming apart. I'm looking for recommendations as to what to buy - I'm thinking about going quad core, since I might be doing some place shifting and video conversions in the future..

Other than that, the only thing I know is that I could get an Antec case.
What have you guys been buying recently?

Five years is pretty old for a computer. I replaced mine about six months ago. Hopefully it will last for a few years. I went from a dual core 3.00 gig to a quad core i-7 950, 3.06 gig. The quad core i-7 is much faster and makes a big difference if you compress videos. I wanted to stay at or above the 3 gig CPU level, but stay below the top of the line to reduce cost. I re-used my full tower Liian Li case. I think it is a good idea to use a full tower so you have a lot of space for drives. I have 12 drives in the system now, and have space for more.

I made the system board decision based on a high number for SATA drives (10) and built-in RAID. Other considerations were a high number of PCI-e slots, and a couple PCI slots, plus a high number of USB connections. Also part of the decision was relatively decent reviews, not too many bad reviews.

There's a lot of decisions, intel or AMD, which OS, RAID, unRAID, WHS, etc. My first and second SageTV systems were AMD. My third system was intel. I decided to stay with intel for the forth system. The reason I've gone through so may systems in five years is because my first AMD XP 2100 failed after two years, which was replaced by a AMD XP 1800 spare computer, which was too slow to playback compressed video to a MVP. That system was replaced by a dual core 3.00 gig right after the price dropped sigificantly. The forth system was a recent change to improve performance with a quad core and a chance to buy duplicate hardware.

I selected RAID 1 drive pairs for the videos, since it is more redundant than RAID 5. I use both Ghost and Acronis imaging to protect the C drive, which does not use RAID. I was going to use WHS, until I discovered it cannot be easily recovered with imaging. I think if the SageTV system is used every day, by multiple people, you have to be able to recover it quickly if it fails.

I built up a general purpose second system with the same system board. If the SageTV hardware fails, I could use that system to replace the system board, CPU, memory, and power supply. It's nice to have spare parts, just in case. Since system boards change so frequently, if you want to have two system boards, you need to make the purchases close together in time.

Dave

[Djc208]

I agree with davephan in that I'd find a motherboard you liked (AMD or intel) and then build from there. Unless you want a monster server like his you can get something very capable from either. The important thing IMO is to have plenty of room on the MB for storage, tuner cards, etc.

I tend to think that bang-for-your-buck wise AMD is probably the best bet right now. They can't compete if you're looking at high-end performance, but you can get quick 3 and 4 core CPUs for cheaper than just about any Intel quad core setup.

[sic0048]

When I built my new server a while back, MB selection was definitely near the top of the priority list. I wanted to stick with a good brand, but outside of that, the number of SATA drives supported was also important to me. I ended up with dual NICs too, because I am running virtual machines too and wanted to be able to dedicate one NIC to the virtual machine.

Don't feel you have to go crazy. Personally I would think a good dual core would work fine for a SageTV server (even doing conversions). But getting a good price on a quad core will allow you to use the machine longer before you have to upgrade again. Of course the energy expense running the quad will be higher than a dual core, so that is something to consider too.

[flavius]

Thanks for all the suggestion. Below is what I ordered:

Antec Nine Hundred Two Gaming Case
Antec TruePower Quattro 850 ATX12V & EPS
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AM3 DDR3 785G
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad-core 965 3.4GHz
2x Crucial 2GB DDR3 1333 Memory Module
WD Caviar Green WD10EARS HD 32MB/Cache
Black LG 22x SATA DVD Rewriter GH22NS30

I will add a a couple more HD's from the old system, and that could be it. If I want to load Windows 7, I probably will have to say bye-bye to my M150 which has been serving me well for like seven years now. But I doubt, I will find fresh drivers for this antique. So, most likely, I will stick with XP Home for now, or replace the M150.-

Edit: Anybody using this Phenom? Am I going to need an aftermarket heat-sink?

[davephan]

I'm using a Zalman CNPS9700 LED on two i-7 950 systems I built recently. The cooler is very nicely designed and pretty quite, but not totally quiet. The sound level is pretty low, but I plan to put the second computer in the basement with the SageTV computer and run long cables up one floor to have total silence, and to free up the clutter in the main floor.

It looks like it would work according to the link from Zalman for the Phenom.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118019

http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Pr...ad.asp?idx=164

If your not using imaging now, you should start using it. You could then build up the system with XP. Later, you could build it up again with Windows 7. If it doesn't work out, you can recover very quickly back to XP with an image.

I was thinking about switching to Windows 7, but am holding back since some people were having trouble. Although there are some people who say that Windows 7 works great.

I tried Windows Vista Ultimate on a new i-7 950 3.06 gig quad core with 3 gigs of 1333 DDR3 RAM. Vista was about 3 - 4 times slower than XP Pro. It was so annoyingly slow, that I had to start over with XP Pro. Windows 7 might be closer to the speed of XP Pro.

Dave

[flavius]

I have added a zalman today, since I will be tempted to overclock.

[mr_lore]

I just finished out my parts list for possibly combining my whs box and my sage box:


OLD WHS:
Case: Norco RPC-4220 4U Chassis, 20x3.5" bays
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-945GCM-S2 Micro ATX
CPU: Intel E5300 2.6Ghz Dual Core
Memory: 2GB Corsair DDR2 667
PSU: 650W Corsair
Controllers: SuperMicro SASLP-MV8, 2x Silicon image 4 port SATA, 1x silicon image 2 port SATA
OS Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB SATA
Pool Drives: Mix of WD Greens and Seagates
Optical: Donated ATAPI Laptop DVDRW with ATAPI to SATA adapter

OLD SAGE SERVER:
Case: Silverstone LC10B-E
Mobo:Gigabyte 690G
CPU: AMD 4400+ X2
Memory: 3GB DDR
Video: 8500GT
PSU: 450watt Antec
OS: Windows 7 32bit
Capture Cards: 2x Avermedia M780 (security cams), HDHomeRun (OTA), 2x HD-PVR w/serial (DirecTV H21's)


NEW SYSTEM:
Case: Norco RPC-4220 4U Chassis, 20x3.5" bays
Mobo:ASUS P7F-X LGA 1156 Intel 3420 ATX
CPU: Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156
Memory: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
Video: Intel onboard
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V
OS Drive: Intel X25-M SSD 2.5" 80GB SATA
Pool Drives: Mix of WD Greens and Seagates
Non-Pool Drives: 2TB of WD's
OS: WHS PP3
Capture Cards: 2x Avermedia M780 (security cams), HDHomeRun (OTA), 2x HD-PVR w/serial (DirecTV H21's)



about a $1k upgrade, yay tax rebate!

[davephan]

That's a nice looking Norco RPC-4220 4U Chassis! A bit expensive, but nice!

Does it come with the mounting hardware for all 20 drives?

Dave

[flavius]

20 drives? Holy mackerel!

[davephan]

flavius,

How did your server replacement go? I replaced my server a few months ago. I'm on my 4th server now since I started wth SageTV. I think this one is going to last longer...

Dave

[flavius]

Well,

I just finished the migration a couple days ago, here's what went well:

- Replacing M150 with HVR-1600
- Moving Sage, including all meta data

I chose Windows 7 (32-bit) as server OS, and here's what's less than swell:

- Some configuration changes in SageMC can cause server hang
- Can't use service mode anymore it seems

Those could be known issues, I have yet to find that out. The HDHomeRun installation was a pain in the neck, as always. What concerns me most, however, are HD playback issues which I have noticed using Mac placeshifter... unfortunately, I don't have any time to look into this now.

[flavius]

There are no playback issues. It's quite the opposite - the occasional glitches are history as my family is reporting back. Yay!

[dgeezer]

Did you resolve your issues with service mode? I am considering moving from XP to windows 7 for my server also.

Any other issues with Win7?

[flavius]

No other issues so far. UAC, btw is turned off. I still don't know what the deal with the service is.

There ought to be a large group Windows 7 users out there.. I haven't had time yet to get to the bottom of this, maybe this weekend.

[DigitalMan]

I've been using Windows 7 Professional 64-bit for my sage server in service mode for several months and its been working flawlessly.

What problems/errors are you seeing?

[flavius]

So, I found some time to take a closer look. Service mode is fine.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by mr_lore

NEW SYSTEM:
Case: Norco RPC-4220 4U Chassis, 20x3.5" bays

Will I toast something by laying a 4220 on edge with the drive bays facing left or right?

I put this question up over a year ago, but no nibbles - so I bought another box that held far fewer drives.

Now I'm coming to regret that decision and am sniffing around the 4220 again.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

Will I toast something by laying a 4220 on edge with the drive bays facing left or right?

I put this question up over a year ago, but no nibbles - so I bought another box that held far fewer drives.

Now I'm coming to regret that decision and am sniffing around the 4220 again.

Unless you have cables that could fowl a fan you should be fine. Computers generally aren't affected by changes in orientation. Hard drives haven't been adversely affected by changes in orientation for decades now.