My SageTV server died :( Recover it or ?

[Brent94Z]

Hey Guys!

Looks for some recommendations, please!

Well, I screwed up pretty bad... I had thought I had a backup running nightly but for some reason, it stopped a LONG time ago... way before Gemstone even. ARGH! I should have checked it but I didn't. I lost a 1TB drive which had 500gig of recorded shows (not that huge of a deal) and 500 gig of my Operating System drive. I'm getting a SMART error and the drive can't even be read in another computer.

I'm thinking of sending it away to one of those recovery specialist I've heard about. I'd like to get my SageTV folder back and if I could get back the shows, that would be a plus. Does anybody have any recommendations for the different recovery companies out there?

Also, since I'm going to basically have to "rebuild" my server, I'm thinking of going in a different direction. I've been using an OLD computer/mother board because I "needed" to have 3 PCI slots for my Hauppauge tuners and a couple more for sound car and something else. The only motherboards that have 5 PCI slots are the older ones so that's why I never upgraded the old computer. However, since I originally built this, I have added an HDPVR as well as a HDHR. I even have a 2nd HDPVR and 2nd HDHR plus a HDHR Prime that I don't even have hooked up to right now. Basically, it is few and far between when my server has used one of my old Hauppauge PCI tuner cards to record a show.

Since it looks like I'm going to have to rebuild my server from scratch, I'm debating on whether or not this would be an opportune time to upgrade my computer, go to Windows 7, and ditch the PCI standard definition recording cards. I'm thinking I can get a pretty darn good computer for a HTPC for around $500. This is actually a HTPC so I'd need a decent video card (but, anything current would probably be better than my current GT230 card which worked just fine LOL).

What would you guys recommend? I don't mind spending some extra money to upgrade to a different HTPC and think it would be a good time to "start over" so to speak? If I have to spend a day reloading stuff, I'm thinking I'd rather just do it with a upgraded machine as mine is a bit stressed recording 3 high def shows and watching another right now. Then, if I can get my SageTV folder restored, I'd just copy over it in a week or so.

Sucks and I'm bummed but it is my fault and I should have been paying closer attention to my backups. It is easy to let things slide when things are just humming along so nicely

Thanks for any suggestions!

[sumrtym]

I'm wondering about the statement it's an HTPC so you need a decent video card... I'm assuming based on your current specs you aren't gaming on this system.

If that's the case, I'd recommend the i3 3225. It's got HD4000 graphics built-in and should more than suffice UNLESS you want to run MPC-HC with LAV and Madvr with high-end options. If you live near a Microcenter, you can get the i3 3225 for $119 + tax. If you purchase a mobo from them at the same time, you can get $40 off the mobo price as well. They're hard to beat for that reason when it comes to CPU and mobo deals. Unfortunately, they stopped stocking my mobo 2 days before I bought (which cost me almost exactly $40 more for the one I wanted elsewhere). So no, they don't really jack up their mobo prices to make up for that discount.

[Brent94Z]

Thanks for the recommendation! You are correct in that I do NOT use the system for gaming. It is 99% my SageTV server which I use to watch pretty much all the TV and movies that I watch. I use the actual computer and not an extender... I have HD300s in the bedroom and office but rarely use them. I do a little web surfing every so often but that's about it.

Sounds like you are all for the rebuild it bigger and better since I no longer need the PCI slots

Thanks!

[KryptoNyte]

Just a few other things to consider;

If you can afford it, grab a quality 240GB ssd for your operating system, put your older spindle hard drives in behind it. Consider grabbing a couple 2TB hard drives and use something like "Sync Toy" to keep a raw copy of your primary 2TB drive on the secondary 2TB drive. I would shy away from the Western Digital Green drives - I had 3 of these in RAID0 with a 100% drive failure within 4 months of being out of the 2-year warranty. I've turned to Seagates at this point, but even their drives are only warranted for 2 years - I just tend to stay away from the power friendly hard drives, I feel like their power down/up sequence is killing them, and I want drives with 7200 rpm spindles. The 3TB and 4TB Seagates I purchased recently are moving large video files at speeds of 160 megabytes per second, which is quite respectable for a spinner.

CPU - if you're doing any encoding of your video files, or feel that you might do some in the future, grab the Intel Core i7 3770 (true quad, with hyperthreading) or the Intel Core i5 3570K (true quad, no hyperthreading). I'd stay with the LGA1155 socket for now as the 2011 is just too pricey for my tastes. Video is built into the chip as previously mentioned. If no encoding planned, then go with sumrtym's suggestion. If you're running live comskip, then it wouldn't hurt to have the extra horsepower.

Motherboard - LGA1155, FULL ATX. If this machine is going to run you for a while, avoid the micro-ATX motherboards, the full ATX will give you more options for the future. With hard drive technology making large jumps at this time, it would also be beneficial to find a motherboard with as many SATA 6 ports as you can afford (2 is the norm, 4 or 6 would be nice). Make sure that the SSD gets on one of the SATA6 ports. There should only be (1) device in your computer system that will crush your Sage machine if it fails and [probably] require you to start from scratch, and it's the motherboard, so if you can manage it, grab a high rated Asus or possibly even Gigabyte.

I purchased an Antec three hundred case ($50 at the time) and then added a Corsair H50 retail water cooler to keep noise down. There are cheaper options for CPU cooling that do seem to work just as well - so basically if you would like something powerful and quiet, do your homework and get an aftermarket CPU fan/heat sync. I usually have a tube of Arctic Silver 5 around instead of using whatever crud comes with the CPU fan/heat sync.

Power supply - Corsair, PC power and cooling, maybe even an Antec. Pick one with 5 out of 5 stars - the second most important device in a Sage system.

Memory - pick something compatible with the motherboard that has good ratings. My experiences have been that if a memory chip is bad, it's bad right from the start. I've only had one occurance in over 100 builds where memory was fine initially and then went bad after a couple years. If there is a heat sync sticking up off the memory sticks, be sure that it will clear whatever CPU cooler you picked.

Windows 7 of course, the 64bit version, unless you want to do firewire channel changes on your set-top-box which can only be used with 32bit versions of Windows. For the future, I would go 64bit.

[Brent94Z]

Thank you very much for the thorough reply, KryptoNyte!

I don't do compskip and don't do much video conversions on this machine. However, I do like to buy a little more than I typically need so it lasts me longer. I do definitely want to get a good motherboard with room for expansion. My current HTPC case has 3 hard drives and I have I think 10 external USB drives hooked up right now. LOL The HTPC case takes a special power supply but the power supply went out a few years ago and I replaced it with a standard one and "modified" the case to accept a standard type power supply. I'm thinking I'm going to stick with my current case (which accepts the full size ATX motherboard).

Ugh. I'm just not looking forward to this. All I'm thinking about is all the little tweaks I did to make my SageTV exactly like I wanted it and now I have to learn to walk again. Hahaha Oh well... my fault

I'm still going to see how much it's going to cost me to try and recover my hard drive. It boots partially into Windows then the blue screen of death and it reboots. I can feel it spinning so hopefully I can get the data off it for something less than an arm and a leg. I don't want to go through the hassle of redoing all my favorites then having SageTV re-record a bunch of shows I already watched. Plus, I have so many I don't even know what I have. Hahaha

Thanks again guys! Time to start looking at NewEgg I suppose. Odd how I have a 2 week vacation coming up Thursday... but hadn't planned on doing this for my vacation.

Oh, and I will say... I very much miss my SageTV! I'm lost without it... My relaxation and downtime is mostly spent using SageTV to relax and watch TV. I don't even know what time my favorite shows are on or even what channel they are on! I'm so used to just sitting down and bringing up the menu and picking what I want to watch WHEN I want to watch it that I'm really hurting right now. LOL!

[KryptoNyte]

The other gent mentioned this already, but if you have any access to a Microcenter (www.microcenter.com), you can make it very well with their CPU prices. Unless you found a great mobo/CPU/memory bundle deal at Microcenter, I'd grab everything else from Newegg or Amazon.

On a sidenote, if you're running SageTV version 7, it's far quicker to get your core system back up than it used to be, and then spend the next few weeks tinkering when you have the time. I would say one full day to get the machine built and Sage up and running respectfully.

[Thomas Wischgol]

I recently rebuilt my Sage client in the living room and used one of these AMD APUs for it. I was never a big fan of Intel graphics even though I know they got a lot better. For playback and typical Sage use these APUs from AMD work really well. And since you don't have a dedicated graphics card the power draw is lower.

Paying for professional data recovery is usually pretty pricey. I don't know if you are attached enough to your data for that price. I would try a Linux live CD first to see if you can get a majority of your data off of the hard drive. That worked for the most part for me in the past.

[Fuzzy]

I'll second the move to an AMD APU instead of intel. I've had better results with the lowest end AMD GPU's than with the Intel based ones. I'm pretty sure you can built an A6-5400K system for a LOT cheaper than an i3-3225 as well, or even move to an A8-5500 Quad Core and still be less than the dual core i3.

As for the comment on the SSD - yes, I would also recommend an SSD for your system drive - but I see no reason to throw a ton of money on a 240GB one. My sage Server, which does a lot other than just serve up sage, uses <72GB of my system drive. I'd say a 128GB SSD is more than enough (and about $140 less than a 240GB).

[Brent94Z]

Thanks guys! I did not know that about AMD. It sounds like you guys are saying that the AMD motherboards will give me more than adequate graphics for SageTV. How about sound? Does the AMD offer good on board sound as well or do you recommend a different sound card? I have a nice 7.1 setup with a Pioneer SC-07 receiver.

I'm not looking to go bare bones minimum budget on this but don't need the latest and greatest either. Can you recommend a motherboard/processor combo from NewEgg that you think would work good for me... I don't mind spending an extra $100 or $200 to get something that gives me room to expand either.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by Thomas Wischgol

Paying for professional data recovery is usually pretty pricey. I don't know if you are attached enough to your data for that price. I would try a Linux live CD first to see if you can get a majority of your data off of the hard drive. That worked for the most part for me in the past.

Thanks, Thomas! Can you expand on this a little? I did a search for Linux Live CD and it seems like there are many options out there. I'm under the impression that it basically allows me to boot into a different OS directly from a CD or thumb drive... but it seems like there are a lot of different options out there. Could you possible provide a link to the download you have had good luck with? I'd like to get a current copy of my SageTV folder and that would be excellent if I could do that!

Thank you!

Oh, I obviously know very little about Linux. I did play with something similar years ago when a hard drive crashed on a lifetime Tivo box I had and I used Linux (pretty sure) to load a new image I bought of the Internet to a new hard drive. Worked great

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

Thanks guys! I did not know that about AMD. It sounds like you guys are saying that the AMD motherboards will give me more than adequate graphics for SageTV. How about sound? Does the AMD offer good on board sound as well or do you recommend a different sound card? I have a nice 7.1 setup with a Pioneer SC-07 receiver.

I'm not looking to go bare bones minimum budget on this but don't need the latest and greatest either. Can you recommend a motherboard/processor combo from NewEgg that you think would work good for me... I don't mind spending an extra $100 or $200 to get something that gives me room to expand either.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

The sound on my mainboard is perfectly fine. I use the optical out on the board to feed into the receiver. Sounds like your setup is similar. You can also feed it through HDMI to get the uncompressed bitstream HD audio. Since it is all digital there is not really anything that can go wrong.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

Thanks, Thomas! Can you expand on this a little? I did a search for Linux Live CD and it seems like there are many options out there. I'm under the impression that it basically allows me to boot into a different OS directly from a CD or thumb drive... but it seems like there are a lot of different options out there. Could you possible provide a link to the download you have had good luck with? I'd like to get a current copy of my SageTV folder and that would be excellent if I could do that!

Thank you!

Oh, I obviously know very little about Linux. I did play with something similar years ago when a hard drive crashed on a lifetime Tivo box I had and I used Linux (pretty sure) to load a new image I bought of the Internet to a new hard drive. Worked great

Correct, you boot into Linux via the live CD. This way you do not have to change anything on your system at all. So there is nothing to loose. It will run slower since CD drives are not as fast as hard drives. But for backup purposes it is usually not such a big deal as it is mainly slow while booting up or starting up a new program.

Most live CDs recognize everything on your system automatically, including the hard drives. So there will probably be icons on the desktop already with all your hard drives and partitions. You can hook up a USB hard drive as your destination drive to copy everything to it. From that point it works pretty much like Windows: double click the icons and drag stuff over. With hard drives that are failing you may hear quite a bit of grinding and clicking sounds from the hard drives. It may also be pretty slow as it will repeatedly try to get the data out of the sectors on the hard drive. You can open up a shell (press CTRL-ALT-T) and type something like "dmesg" or "dmesg | tail -n 25" and you probably see quite a few of error messages. That is to be expected with a failing hard drive; just be patient.

As far as versions go, I used to use Knoppix as that was one of the first Linux live CDs. Nowadays, Ubuntu does a good job including all drivers and provides a decent user interface. You can download it here: http://ubuntu-releases.cs.umn.edu//p...sktop-i386.iso

There is also some information specifically about data recovery using Ubuntu that may be helpful:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

Thanks guys! I did not know that about AMD. It sounds like you guys are saying that the AMD motherboards will give me more than adequate graphics for SageTV. How about sound? Does the AMD offer good on board sound as well or do you recommend a different sound card? I have a nice 7.1 setup with a Pioneer SC-07 receiver.

I'm not looking to go bare bones minimum budget on this but don't need the latest and greatest either. Can you recommend a motherboard/processor combo from NewEgg that you think would work good for me... I don't mind spending an extra $100 or $200 to get something that gives me room to expand either.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

The AMD A-Series APU's are very capable (even decent for gaming actually). The graphics are entirely in the APU, not on the motherboard. All the motherboard contanis is the conenctions between the APU, and the HDMI port. The ideal would be to use HDMI audio, in which case, quality isn't of concern, as it's bit-for-bit. Either way, for the analog outputs, most the boards on the market use the exact same RealTek audio chips as intel based boards. If you've got a 7.1 setup, I'm guessing you'll be using the HDMI anyway.

Since this is going to be a server and client, I would recommend a motherboard based on either the A75 or A85 chipset. Either of those will contain ample SATA ports for expansion, and make sure you get one that has 4 DIMM sockets for memory (RAM is cheap now days, and there is no excuse to use < at least 8GB). With that in mind, looking at Newegg's current combo deals, this one looks the best:
AMD A6-5400K 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 Dual-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with ...
GIGABYTE GA-F2A75M-D3H Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $149.98

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-16GBXL $67.98 w/Promo Code EMCXWWN26 through 1/23

The motherboard, like most of the current generation, does not have a traditional IDE port on it, so if you are currently using an older IDE optical drive, you'll have to upgrade (not that expensive). This board does have 6 SATA3 ports, two PCIe x16 slots, 1 PCIe x1, and a single PCI, and would still have 2 memory slots open.

[Brent94Z]

Excellent! Thanks very much guys! I have to work night shift today and will see if I can do at least a little more looking then

Fuzzy, I was looking at NewEgg earlier and actually looking at the A10 as you mentioned maybe even going up to the A8 and the A10 didn't seem that much more expensive. I was looking at a Gigabyte motherboard too. Is what you are recommending there the "best value" or pretty much all I should need for what I'm doing? I don't mind stepping up a bit and spending some of my beer money if it makes a difference to get something a little better. LOL



Thanks for the assistance guys! Back when there was the P4 3.4 I knew computers and specs and what was better blah blah. Since then, I've not kept up with any of this stuff and have no idea the differences between all the different options.

[Fuzzy]

That board I listed was a great value on a great board. FM1 and FM2 boards aren't that loaded on features, as the point of the APU concept is to minimize component count and cost. There might be a couple full ATX boards on the market, but they would likely sell in lower volumes, resulting in higher prices.

[Brent94Z]

Thanks, Fuzzy! This is my case and it is listed as working with a micro ATX so would work with that board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129162

I also only have SATA drives so no problem there

[rrhorer]

NewEgg currently has sale running on the A8:
http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail...x-_-E0-_-IT#IT

My mistake; I looked at the wrong email from NewEgg.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by rrhorer

NewEgg currently has sale running on the A8:
http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail...x-_-E0-_-IT#IT

My mistake; I looked at the wrong email from NewEgg.

That is a pretty good price for a great chip, and would be a worth improvement over the dual core A6-5400K. Could be a bit more of a power hog though. Just depends on what you will be using the system for. I do like having a quad-core on my server, and I don't even use it for viewing, so it might be worth it, especially if you are looking at running comskip and such.

[Brent94Z]

Well, I looked up that A8 processor and for just $20 more I can get the A10 so what the heck I suppose

As for the motherboard, in looking at them, I like that this one has a bit more expandability and 2 PCI slots (modem in one and room for one of my PCI capture cards too).

What do you think of this?

$140 - ASUS F2A85-V PRO FM2 AMD A85X (Hudson D4) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

$68 - G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-16GBXL

$116 - AMD A10-5800K Trinity 3.8GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 7660D AD580KWOHJBOX

$79 - SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

And might as well get another case and just keep my other HTPC as an extra computer

$81 - nMEDIAPC Black Aluminum / Steel HTPC 2000B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Based on what you guys were recommending, I think I went just a little better (didn't mind spending $20 extra to get the better processor) but without spending too much more. See anything wrong with the above? Should I order it???

Thanks!!!

Oh, here looks to be a good 256gig SSD. It has high ratings anyway. Figure I might as well get the extra room. It is under $100 more than the 128gig models it seems.
$200 - SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

[drewg]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

$79 - SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

620W seems like way overkill for a system without a separate GPU, and using an SSD for storage. My main server (Xeon E31270, Nvidia GPU, 3x 3TB HDD, 1 128GB SSD, BD drive, multiple tuners, 2 24" LCD monitors) pulls less than 100w at the wall in normal use, and I've never seen peaks above 200w. The reason that you do not want to wildly over-estimate load is because PSUs are much more efficient at a large percentage of load (50%) than they are at what I estimate your server would pull (5%).

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

$200 - SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

I've personally had good luck with Crucial M4 SSDs (I have 3 of them now). Newegg has them for the same price as the Samsung.

Drew