My Final SageTV Server Build (probably)

[fidget]

I had my hopes up when Stanger was trying to get SageTV and unRAID playing together in the same PC. After talking with him at work, I realized that it probably wasn't going to happen. Fast forward more than a few months, and I was able to build my next, and probably last, SageTV server.

Rather than start from scratch, I started by looking through the server configuration recommended by unRAID. My server now consists of:

NORCO RPC-4220 case. This is a boat anchor (40 lb), but has LOTS of room. I strongly recommend getting the 120mm fan wall. All fans were replaced with Silenx fans. One warning, I couldn't find a way to mount a slim DVD drive in the case, so I had to use a USB one (which I was lucky enough to already have).

The OS drive is a 250 GB laptop drive (2.5" at 5400 RPM).

My power supply is probably overkill, but it is 80+% efficient over the power range that I expect to be needing.

I got a Z68 motherboard because I wanted something with 6 SATA ports and integrated video. There is 8 GB of RAM on the system so I will have plenty of elbow room.

The processor is an i5 with a 65W TDP. That should be more than enough performance.

The motherboard was the tough part. I didn't want the SuperMicro one recommended by the unRAID community and I needed one with two PCI-E x4 slots. The GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 fit the bill.

The final piece was the drive controllers. For these, I used the recommended SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards (2). Each drive shows up as an individual drive (which is what I wanted) in Windows.

Fortunately, BestBuy was still having sales on 2TB drives from Seagate and Western Digital so I was able to pick up 6 before the prices started to jump. My previous system had 4, 1T drives for recording programming and 2 2T drives for DVD storage, which were able to be installed in the new system.

The biggest problem that I had was moving from 32-bit Windows XP to 64-bit Windows 7. It took me way to long to realize that the old sage.properties file was looking in c:\program files\SageTV for everything rather than c:\program files (x86)\SageTV. Once that was fixed, everything started working.

NAS Software:

I am looking for something that will allow me to represent my multiple drives as a single volume, for SageTV only. This is so that all of my Movies will be in the same folder on Sage. I still want to manage them as individual drives because it will make it easier for me to upgrade the drive sized, as needed. For now, I am looking at FlexRAID. We'll see what happens in the future.

Assembly recommendations:

Use MOLEX extenders to connect to the SAS backplanes. This makes it easier to connect the power supply since the connectors will be on the other side of the fan wall.

Connect the fans to the OTHER side of the fan wall (I didn't do this). There is about 1" of clearance between the fans and the back of the SAS backplanes. There are also 10 tiny screws holding the fan wall and you won't want to be taking that out very often.

Get a modular power supply. This will let you start with a smaller wattage supply and easily replace it should you need to.

Get your cables from Monoprice.com. The SFF-8087 cables needed to connect the RAID cards to the SAS backplanes were half what they were from NewEgg. Unfortunately, they didn't have the reverse breakout cable needed to connect the SATA ports to the SAS backplane.

[Fuzzy]

Sage will already represent the individual video imports as the same 'folder' if you set the video browser in 'Combined' mode (which is actually the default). It will combine the roots of all the import folders (so you can still navigate down through individual subfolder, if you like).

with the following folders:
R:\SageTVVideos\Movies
R:\SageTVVideos\TV
S:\OtherVideos\Movies
T:\YetMoreVids\TV
If the imports are the highlighted parts, Sage will just show two folders in the folder view: Movies, and TV. There's no reason to combine the folders for externally sage. The only reason you might want to combine them would be for other 3rd party programs.

[fidget]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Sage will already represent the individual video imports as the same 'folder' if you set the video browser in 'Combined' mode (which is actually the default). It will combine the roots of all the import folders (so you can still navigate down through individual subfolder, if you like).

with the following folders:
R:\SageTVVideos\Movies
R:\SageTVVideos\TV
S:\OtherVideos\Movies
T:\YetMoreVids\TV
If the imports are the highlighted parts, Sage will just show two folders in the folder view: Movies, and TV. There's no reason to combine the folders for externally sage. The only reason you might want to combine them would be for other 3rd party programs.

I thought that I saw that before, but when I tried it as a permanent solution (I had to split my TV area into two) I saw them as two "TV Shows" folders. Since I have everything on DVD, I don't need the error recovery that RAID gives me.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by fidget

NAS Software:

I am looking for something that will allow me to represent my multiple drives as a single volume, for SageTV only. This is so that all of my Movies will be in the same folder on Sage. I still want to manage them as individual drives because it will make it easier for me to upgrade the drive sized, as needed. For now, I am looking at FlexRAID. We'll see what happens in the future.

I assume you're talking FlexRAID View for the folder merging, just don't try to write to the "view", it will let you but it will not do what you expect. Sounds like you're OK with that, but something to be aware of.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by fidget

I thought that I saw that before, but when I tried it as a permanent solution (I had to split my TV area into two) I saw them as two "TV Shows" folders. Since I have everything on DVD, I don't need the error recovery that RAID gives me.

Maybe you had "TVShows" and "TV Shows" as folders?

[fidget]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Maybe you had "TVShows" and "TV Shows" as folders?

I will do some experimentation tonight (just as long as I don't piss off my wife it doing so ). When I create new directories, I usually copy the old dir name because I tend to be typo happy.

[fidget]

After replacing the fans, this is probably the quietest PC that I have had. Also, I will be hanging it from the exterior wall with this when it gets back in stock.

[fidget]

Setting the mode to "Combined" did the trick. I must have changed that during one of the times I was futzing with the settings.

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by fidget

After replacing the fans, this is probably the quietest PC that I have had. Also, I will be hanging it from the exterior wall with this when it gets back in stock.

One concern I would have about that rack is the case was not designed to move heat in a vertical orientation. Hanging it in such a manner could cause thermal issues particularly with the drives since they will be on top. Most cases if not all server cases move air from FRONT to REAR with the cold air entering the front. Hanging it like that is going to have the fans working against thermal convection not exactly efficient way to cool things.

[Fuzzy]

realy, though, switching the fan direction should be simple enough, and you can draw vertically from the bottom, up through the drives.

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

realy, though, switching the fan direction should be simple enough, and you can draw vertically from the bottom, up through the drives.

Not really because blowing versus sucking are different

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

Not really because blowing versus sucking are different

Blowing or sucking, the results are the same...


In all truth, the common case design that puts the fans pulling out the back of the case is not thermallly ideal. It is most often done so for noise reasons. It is much more effecient to push air into the case than pulling it out. Running the case at a positive pressure not only keeps the case cleaner (assuming you have filters on the fans), but the higher pressure air in the case will actually increase the heat transfer across internal heat sinks.