Server upgrade options and futurproofing

[bbig119]

I've got an old headless server running Windows 7 x 32, that runs Sage and stores music, pictures and movie rips. I've got a HDHomerun to tune the locals, and HD-PVR for everything else. FWIW, we've got FIOS in Long Island NY. Although the server does a decent enough job, its too slow for transcoding and commercial skipping. In the past year, I've had issues with the OS drive crashing and getting corrupted. I've been able to fix this a number of ways, but mostly it requires I restore from an image.

I'd like to upgrade, but its not clear to me what the best strategy is. In particular, I'm also concerned about the future of Sage. I know there are nearly as many questions about the future of Media Center, but I think it would be good to make sure that I can easily transition to another program like MC if Sage ceases to function as it does now.

I'm interested in getting another tuner for encrypted channels. Should I go with a cable card tuner (Ceton, or HDHomerun Prime) or get another HDPVR (or Colossus)? I know FIOS started marking some (or maybe most) channels as copy once, but I haven't read too many people complaining since that happened, so I suspect not too much has changed.

I need to have a minimum of 10 spots for hard drives. As a case, I really like the fractal design define XL. Unless there is a compelling reason, I was going to save some money and not purchase specific server hardware. This means I'm likely going to have 6-8 sata ports on the motherboard. Can anyone recommend a good sata controller card (or maybe port multiplier)? I'm not using any Raid.

I've read through some other threads and I know some of people on the forums here build a powerful server and run virtual machines for Sage. Is this very difficult to setup? I've got the server in my office. I've also got our home desktop there, which also needs an upgrade. If I were to try the virtural machine route, does it make any sense to combine the server and the home desktop duties? i.e. one computer instead of 2? Desktop is mostly used for web browsing, and some basic photo editing.

[osx-addict]

I went through some of this earlier this year.. I ended up buying a system that uses an Intel i5 but for you may want an i7 system if you need the big horsepower setup for fractal stuff..

I've got a similar setup with 3 dual hd-homeruns but don't have cable so I won't comment on that.. Make sure you get something that has a real intel ethernet port -- I've read a bunch of people having issues with the realtek hardware.

I'm sure others will chime in..

[Telecore]

I would recommend an core i3 3220T (35W) for low power and ASRock H77 Pro4-m M/B, Ceton InfiniTV cablecard PCIe tuner. That's assuming you want to go headless to media extenders.

I have FIOS+Antenna with both a SageTV headless server and a Windows Media Center headless server, HD300s and Xbox 360s. The SageTV system uses two HDHRs and two HDHR primes (w/ cable cards). The WMC system uses the Ceton InfiniTV tuner. I've had some network issues on a gigabit wired LAN during high traffic conditions (recording 5 shows at a time) and ended up installing an Intel Gigabit CT NIC card.

Network problems are not an issue for the Ceton because it is inside the box (PCIe). The Server only has to send packets out to media extenders. That, plus the fact that it has 4 vs. 3 tuners makes it a better choice (over HDHR') in my opinion, but both are working well in my house.

By the way, I have NO copy flagged channels on FIOS, but I don't have HBO. From what I have read, HBO/Cinemax are the only copy-flagged channels. Good luck.

[darcilicious]

Not to put too fine a point on it, all your FiOS channels are *encrypted* except for your local station channels and a few other miscellaneous ones. The encrypted channels probably aren't flagged copy-never or whatever it is that prevents SageTV from recording the properly through SageDCT.

[bbig119]

Thanks for the useful replies.

Telecore: If I understand you correctly, you've got a SageTV setup and a Windows Media Center setup. They exist separately though? Do you just use the Xbox for some stuff, and the Sage extenders for other things?

Are you able to use SageDCT? I need to read through that thread to get a better understanding of what constraints, limitations, difficulty, and stability of setting up Sage to use Cable Card.

[Telecore]

Yes - I have two servers. One for SageTV using SageDCT +HDHR/Primes and HD300 extenders. Other is WMC7 using Ceton and Xbox 360 extenders. They exist separately. WMC7 is my backup DVR system and is not used very often but would support copy flagged channels if I received any (I don't).

SageDCT only supports copy freely marked sources. SageDCT is fairly easy to use and works well.

[bbig119]

Originally Posted by Telecore

Yes - I have two servers. One for SageTV using SageDCT +HDHR/Primes and HD300 extenders. Other is WMC7 using Ceton and Xbox 360 extenders. They exist separately. WMC7 is my backup DVR system and is not used very often but would support copy flagged channels if I received any (I don't).

SageDCT only supports copy freely marked sources. SageDCT is fairly easy to use and works well.

My impression is that I could rebuild my server for use with SageDCT, add a HDHR Prime, and use Sage happily until I decide (or am forced) to change. In that event, I should easily be able to switch over to WMC7, and pick up a couple of Xboxes to use as extenders- correct?

Its strange that my backup software option, as 'futureproofing', would be one that I've be led to believe is also dying a slow death. Kinda sad.

[osx-addict]

Originally Posted by bbig119

In that event, I should easily be able to switch over to WMC7, and pick up a couple of Xboxes to use as extenders- correct

Yes -- that is one route.. Albeit not the one I'm going down -- I will have NPVR playing the role of Sage (talking to triple HD-Home run dual tuners) and streaming to a pair of PC's with HDMI outputs that will work as the HD300 replacements -- those will be running XBMC which in turn will communicate with NPVR.. Very actively developed which is a nice..

[bbig119]

Two more questions:
1. Is there any major reason to pick one cable-card tuner over another? It seems that USB and Ethernet options may be better when using virtual machines. I've seen several threads about this, but most are 6+ months old.

2. Virtual machine install of Sage. Aside from the ease afforded by being able to do snapshots, what is the major benefit of this approach?

[BobPhoenix]

For me it allows me to run an unRAID (Linux OS) server and a Windows SageTV server on the same PC. I run ESXi for my VMs and pass through my tuner cards and USB card to my SageTV VM to record with. Network tuners or USB tuners would work better but for OTA I like my HVR-2250 or AVer Media Duet better. So I use an VM provider that allows pass through of PCI/e cards. Because I'm using pass through I loose snapshot capability. So for me that isn't an advantage but cutting down on the number of PCs running 24x7 is the main reason for my use of VMs. Also I am some what insulated from hardware changes/upgrades and Windows activation when I use a VM.

[david1234]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

So I use an VM provider that allows pass through of PCI/e cards. Because I'm using pass through I loose snapshot capability.

Why does pass through remove the ability to take a snapshot?

[Skirge01]

I don't know the technical reason behind it (assuming there is one), but vSphere tells you as much as soon as you enable pass through on something.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by david1234

Why does pass through remove the ability to take a snapshot?

It is probably because the memory address used to address the device remains in a fixed location and cannot move. With VMs that are not using pass through the devices are simulated and the physical memory address can change even though it remains fixed in the VM's address space. So when you take a snapshot the memory is fixed and the device is simulated in a new physical memory address.

But that is just a guess on my part.

[bbig119]

Thanks again for the helpful replies. I ended up purchasing:

i5 2570K
As rock Z77 pro4-M
16 gig of memory
intel gigabit dual port ethernet card (ebay)
highpoint rocketraid 2310 (4 port sata card) (ebay)
fractal design define XL

I also picked up an hdhomerun prime, but I'm waiting to receive the cable card; hopefully I'll get it this week.

I was toying around with playing with ESXi, but for the time being, I'm going to run everything from windows 7. I'm still getting windows setup and configured before I tear down my old server. I haven't decided on how I want to setup and run SageTV on the new server.

Should I setup Sage within a virtual machine? I've read posts here from people who have done this, and it makes backing up and restoring the server very easy. I don't know if this makes setup more difficult, or if there are any other tradeoffs by running Sage within a VM. In my current setup, I run windows 7 w/ SageTV and rely on Acronis trueimage for periodic server OS backups and more frequent backups of my wiz.bin and properties files.

When I install sageTV, should I copy over my wiz.bin, or start completely from scratch? If I do the latter, I'll need to find a convenient way to export my recordings and then re-import them. I've not done this before, but I believe there is a way to do this (easily?).

I'd appreciate any other thoughts and comments. I'll want to buy another SATA card in the near future. I have extra hdds sitting around that could be used, but I'm worried that two similar highpoint cards won't play nice with each other. Anyone have experience with this?

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by bbig119

Should I setup Sage within a virtual machine?

The first question should be WHY do you want/need a VM? If you want to run multiple OS's on a single computer, then a VM makes perfect sense.

I'd appreciate any other thoughts and comments. I'll want to buy another SATA card in the near future. I have extra hdds sitting around that could be used, but I'm worried that two similar highpoint cards won't play nice with each other. Anyone have experience with this?

If you're thinking about virtualizing, make sure whatever card(s) you decide on are compatible with the VM software you settle on. For example, some (many? all?) of the cheap Highpoint cards are not compatible with vSphere (formerly ESXi). I needed to switch to the IBM M1015 so that I could use all my drives.

[bbig119]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

The first question should be WHY do you want/need a VM? If you want to run multiple OS's on a single computer, then a VM makes perfect sense.



If you're thinking about virtualizing, make sure whatever card(s) you decide on are compatible with the VM software you settle on. For example, some (many? all?) of the cheap Highpoint cards are not compatible with vSphere (formerly ESXi). I needed to switch to the IBM M1015 so that I could use all my drives.

I still haven't figured out why I would want to VM either. If I ran a separate OS for my file server (unraid, or linux), this would make complete sense. In my case, I'm not planning to use just windows 7, and I think I can get it working just fine without VM (as I have it now, but hopefully with better stability). The main benefit of using a VM for Sage that I can see is making it easy to transport/recover, since its largely hardware independent. That said, I doubt this is a big enough incentive for me to do this, but that's why I posted the question to begin with. I've been very pleased with acronis true image, its literally rescued my current server more than a dozen times in the last six months.

My choice of the unlocked i5, was a poor choice for virtualization (and ESXi). I knew this when I bought it, but Microcenter offered $50 off, and I bit. I did this knowing that I'll be building another computer by Christmas, and if necessary, I can pick up a more appropriate CPU for virtualization and swap them. However, I think sticking with a single OS (win 7) is sufficient for my needs right now. I'm not serving to more than a couple of clients at any one time, or recording more than 3, occasionally 4 shows at once. I know there are more robust ways to build a server, but I think this is good enough for my needs.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

The first question should be WHY do you want/need a VM? If you want to run multiple OS's on a single computer, then a VM makes perfect sense.



If you're thinking about virtualizing, make sure whatever card(s) you decide on are compatible with the VM software you settle on. For example, some (many? all?) of the cheap Highpoint cards are not compatible with vSphere (formerly ESXi). I needed to switch to the IBM M1015 so that I could use all my drives.

I have only used two different Highpoint controllers. But in passthrough the 1742 and 622 highpoint controllers work fine - better than the Sil3132 controller - when using the port multiplier feature.

[m1abrams]

FYI - You can snapshot a vm on esxi 5.1 that has a PCIe deviced pass-thru. You just can not snapshot it while it is running, you must shut the machine down first.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

FYI - You can snapshot a vm on esxi 5.1 that has a PCIe deviced pass-thru. You just can not snapshot it while it is running, you must shut the machine down first.

Good to know. Now if they can put out a patch so that PCI pass through works I would be golden. Haven't looked recently so maybe they already have but I have both PCI and PCIe cards to pass through so I'm stuck on 5.0 until they fix the PCI pass through.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Good to know. Now if they can put out a patch so that PCI pass through works I would be golden. Haven't looked recently so maybe they already have but I have both PCI and PCIe cards to pass through so I'm stuck on 5.0 until they fix the PCI pass through.

Maybe a dumb question, but why are you guys using ESXi? You're like a bunch of battered wives... Have you tried KVM under Linux, HyperV under W2K8, or even VirtualBox?

I can guess why highpoint does not have ESX support -- ESX's developer program does not want to deal with smaller hardware vendors, and makes things as difficult as possible for us with massive amounts of red tape, and the buggiest certification tests I've ever seen. As a driver author for a small hardware company, there is nothing more I would like than to drop ESX support. They are a huge, massive PITA to deal with. About an order of magnitude worse than WHQL.

Drew