New Server Hardware

[rochurch]

I had a scare this past weekend and ended up missing the first full day of the Olympics. The C drive in my system went bad. Luckily I had a backup, but I don't have spare parts to backup my full system. In the past I usually kept a "box in waiting" that was already configured and ready to go. This was usually the next box I was planning to go to.
Since my old system is several years old, it is only a matter of time before something else in in fails.

Here is the question: Do any of you have MTB, Processor, Memory, HD, and Case recommendations? Looking for best bang for the buck. I think my current MTB is a Gigabyte, but I don't really care as long as it works well. On board HDMI is not necessary since TV is only watched on Extenders. I have had better luck / speed scanning files for commercials with Intel processors than with AMD.

[BobPhoenix]

I got a SuperMicro X9SCM-F and Xeon E31230 (CPU) and virtualized (ESXi 5.0) my SageTV server along with my unRAID mass storage box. I've got 2 HVR-2250s on passthrough along with IBM M1015 SAS controllers - one for Windows7 x64 VM SageTV server and one for unRAID VM. I also have an Intel RES2SV240 SAS expander hooked up to the M1015 on passthrough to unRAID allowing me 24 Sata drives from one M1015 for unRAID. Also on passthrough is one of the USB controllers so that I can use 2 HVR-950Q's to add an additional 2 OTA tuners. One HDHomerun is also being used via network for QAM. I also have my WHS v1 server using RDM'd drives from MB controller for my system backups in a third VM. I can say that ESXi with the V2.0A bios on the X9SCM-F will not recognized AVer Media Duet tuners - they just don't appear in ESXi for passthrough - with V1.0 bios they show up and work fine.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by rochurch

I had a scare this past weekend and ended up missing the first full day of the Olympics. The C drive in my system went bad. Luckily I had a backup, but I don't have spare parts to backup my full system. In the past I usually kept a "box in waiting" that was already configured and ready to go. This was usually the next box I was planning to go to.
Since my old system is several years old, it is only a matter of time before something else in in fails.

Here is the question: Do any of you have MTB, Processor, Memory, HD, and Case recommendations? Looking for best bang for the buck. I think my current MTB is a Gigabyte, but I don't really care as long as it works well. On board HDMI is not necessary since TV is only watched on Extenders. I have had better luck / speed scanning files for commercials with Intel processors than with AMD.

I recommend a quad-core 3.0 gig CPU as your starting point. I think the fast quad core is the best choice because you want Comskip to run fast and not load down your system. I used to use AMD, but switched back to Intel many years ago. Try to find a system board with mostly good reviews on New Egg or other review sites. The system board should have many drive slots. I start with 10 and work down. The system board also needs to have many PCI-E and at least one PCI slot. Sometimes the slots are put in places so certain cards won't fit in the slots due to system board parts too close to the slots. Many USB slots are also helpful. Built-in dual 10/100/1000 NICs are a plus. Built-in RAID is a plus. The ability to match the memory to the manufacturers memory recommendations is a plus, but not essential. The case needs to be large enough to add a lot of drives. If you expand to many TB, then you may need a separate unRAID server for video library files.

If you have enough money to put into the project, buy two identical system boards, CPU, and memory. Build up one as a SageTV computer and the other as a general purpose web browsing computer. If the SageTV hardware fails, you will then have a spare system to replace the SageTV system.

Use disk imaging software, such as Acronis with the plus pack. This will allow to to recover onto different hardware, which gives you more recovery options than using imaging software that forces you to use identical hardware for the recovery. Copy the image files to multiple drives and offsite too if possible. Don't partition the boo/programs drive, unless it is partitioned for a "system partition" and a "C drive". Use about a 128 gig or 160 gig drive for the boot/programs drive. A fast SSD is a better choice than a mechanical hard drive. Some SSDs are not all that fast and not reliable. Like all the other hardware, check the reviews. Even great hardware might have some bad reviews, so use the right judgement about reviews. People tend to post much more negative reviews than positive reviews due to human nature.

Don't forget to include a UPS.

Anything I missed? Post more questions.

Dave

[rochurch]

Great suggestions! I have started using ESXi at work a little and it is nice, except for the fact that you cannot do anything at the console - even pull up a simple browser. I bet most of my stuff would pass through since VMWare is king on allowing that. Funny story about ver 2.0 of your BIOS.
I wonder if I could still purchase the same motherboard I am currently running, or a slightly similar one. I am running an i3, but I'm sure I could put an i5 in the new rig. Great info about Acronis plus pack. Really neat it can restore to different hardware. I have just used the basic free open source ones lately.
Again, thanks for taking the time to send out suggestions.

p.s. Personally I like a really quiet case, since this box sits in my office.

[mayamaniac]

I did the server upgrade earlier this year, and I went the VMware direction. I initially went with ESXi and bought the compatible hardware for it. But after setting it up and running, I was disappointed by the performance, the guest OS was running just way too slow.

So I started over and just installed Win7 64bit, then I installed Vmware workstations and installed Win7 as guest OS, and then I cloned it so I have two guest OSes. I have one for SageTV alone and the other one for everything else (Plex, Air Video, Splashtop, etc). After I configured each guest OS, I did a snapshot backup in Vmware and made a duplicate copy of the guest OSes, just incase. You can schedule auto snapshot backup also.

In the future, should any of my server hardware fail, all I have to do is get ANY working windows 7 64 bit box, install VMware workstation, and run my guests OSes, and my server is back up and running again.

[rochurch]

mayamaniac - I like the idea of the VMWare workstation over ESXi. If I could ask you two questions. What motherboard did you pick and how much RAM?

[mayamaniac]

It was a gigabyte motherboard, don't have the model number right now, but it really doesn't matter. I originally bought it for ESXi, which only runs on certain motherboards, but on the other hand, VMware Workstation will run on most if not all motherboards.

If you want an ESXi motherboard, google ESXi white boxes. If you want to run Workstation, then just get any motherboard you want.

I have 16GB of ram, my guest OSes never use more than 12GB, so plenty to spare.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by rochurch

I had a scare this past weekend and ended up missing the first full day of the Olympics. The C drive in my system went bad. Luckily I had a backup, but I don't have spare parts to backup my full system. In the past I usually kept a "box in waiting" that was already configured and ready to go. This was usually the next box I was planning to go to.
Since my old system is several years old, it is only a matter of time before something else in in fails.

Here is the question: Do any of you have MTB, Processor, Memory, HD, and Case recommendations? Looking for best bang for the buck. I think my current MTB is a Gigabyte, but I don't really care as long as it works well. On board HDMI is not necessary since TV is only watched on Extenders. I have had better luck / speed scanning files for commercials with Intel processors than with AMD.

As my sig shows, I have an older generation (obscure) intel quad that I built in the late summer of 2009. I also have a very basic main board and 2GB of RAM. I run 2-3 analog tuners and 2- to 3 of the 4 hdhr tuners I have while kids watch recorded shows, ripped DVDs, and comskip runs concurrently with live recording and I've never had a single instance of server performance problems or stuttering, etc. In fact, I can't remember a time where I checked the server performance and found the CPU > 40-50% and most of the time its far less than that.

For the Coolermaster case (w/ 400w psu, $30 on sale), and a couple of hdd's, I spent <$450 on the server build. I had an XP home license recycled from a previous build. (all connections are wired cat5).

And frankly, before that I had Pentium 3.2ghz single core processor with 2gb of RAM and a dell mainboard in a Dell sff office desktop and ran 3 analog tuners with kids watching ripped DVDs, comskip etc and still never had a problem.

Perhaps I'm fortunate or lucky, but it seems that if all you're using the server for is SageTV (like me) you can get a lot of performance out of a very small investment.

[fidget]

Originally Posted by rochurch

I had a scare this past weekend and ended up missing the first full day of the Olympics. The C drive in my system went bad. Luckily I had a backup, but I don't have spare parts to backup my full system. In the past I usually kept a "box in waiting" that was already configured and ready to go. This was usually the next box I was planning to go to.
Since my old system is several years old, it is only a matter of time before something else in in fails.

Here is the question: Do any of you have MTB, Processor, Memory, HD, and Case recommendations? Looking for best bang for the buck. I think my current MTB is a Gigabyte, but I don't really care as long as it works well. On board HDMI is not necessary since TV is only watched on Extenders. I have had better luck / speed scanning files for commercials with Intel processors than with AMD.

This is what I put together for my last server. It is probably overkill for what you want to do, but having a quad core processor comes in handy.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57546

[jdc]

I have had great results with the system I built a little over a year ago. I run 4 extenders, 4 OTA feeds from hdhomeruns, transcode everything, and some playon. I agree that if you use your system for sage and HTPC activities only, you really don't need to go too high end. I think one of the keys is to not cheap out on the motherboard, but I don't have any real proof of that other than my experience buying cheapo systems from Dell/HP/etc that generally have crappy components, including mobo.

My system cost about $325 with the following:

Case - Antec 300 ($50)
MOBO - ASUS M4A87TD ($95)
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2GHz ($50)
PSU - OCZ ZT Series 650W Fully-Modular 80PLUS Bronze ($85)
RAM - 4GB DDR3 1600 (patriot I think) ($30)
HDD - WD 2TB Green ($80)

I shopped these items around quite a bit to get the best prices and got about $75 in rebates total. I also had Win7, 5 hard drives, a DVD, and video card on hand that I did not have to buy.