System Maintenance

[mightyt]

Hmm ... I just thought of something ... I have gotten so used to my PVR being another part of my entertainment center that I forgot it was a computer. Surely a dumb question ... I suppose it's important to do a Defrag, Disk Clean up, etc. just like any other PC ... Correct?

[heffe2001]

I think if you're running your video storage drive with 64k clusters, defragging isn't as important, but I'm sure it coudln't hurt. Disk cleanup should also not be an issue. But I'd definitely run some sort of low memory footprint antivirus on the system and keep it updated, since the PC does connect to the net to at least get programming updates...

I plan on doing a reformat of my PVR drive when I move my 120g into that box this weekend, and move all my downloaded stuff to that drive (mp3's, video stuff, etc), then my 200g will be specifically set for show storage. I may even stick a 40g in there just for my music collection (it's a bit over 22g now, 40g should hold me for a long time). Then I'd have movie storage on the 120, tv storage on the 200, and mp3 on the 40 (possibly picture storage too). Then I can take the Snap server off the network until I get a chance to stick a 120g in that box as well .

[mightyt]

Thanks a lot ... makes sense ... and reading what you are about to do makes me wonder ...

I have (2) 120gb Serial ATA HD's. One is the boot drive (C is for OS and software and the other (D is for recording TV, Music and Pictures. The boot drive also serves as overflow if I fill up the oter drive.

So, the question is this ... would it be better to have a small 40gb HD with just OS and software with the default cluster size and the larger drive for recordings with 64k clusters?

Or ... does it even matter?

[stanger89]

mightyt,

I would never defrag unless you have to, it should not be necessary with 64k clusters. And if you do decide to defrag do it manually, I vaguely recall problems being caused by defrag running while Sage was trying to record.

As for HDD setup here's what I do, I'm somewhat of a partition maniac:
200GB WD
C: Windows/Apps ~4GB (HTPC, not much installed) - standard 4k clusters
D: Sage recordings - the rest ~180GB - 64k
160GB Seagate - Replaced my RAID array (3ware 6400, 4x40GB - 120GB total)
E: Misc crap (installers, drivers, download, C: Images) ~ 25GB
X: Pictures ~25GB
Y: Movies (DVD rips, trailers, HDTV clips) ~50GB
Z: Music (Monkey's Audio collection) ~50GB

I always install my OS to a small partition, 4GB has proven to be more than enough for my HTPC install. It's not necessary that it be a separate physical disk, a separate partition is plenty. That makes it real easy to nuke and pave if necessary. What I do is right after I install Windows I make an image* of the C: drive, then after each major install (Service packs, drivers, apps), or before the next, I create a new incrimental image. That way if something gets FUBAR'd with the install I can be back to my old config in about 2 minutes.

*I use Acronis True Image for creating my images, FWIW

[mightyt]

Stanger! Thanks, that helps a lot ... I may rebuild this puppy and
I've gotten so caught up in inatlling Sage, Remote, MlbDude, Weather and tweaks that I haven't backed up an image. I'll be ticked if it crashes and burns ... Gotta get on it ...

I've have used Drive Image 7 and assume it doesn't matter.

And OK, I'll X the Defrag ... recording and deleting shows made me wonder.

[heffe2001]

After looking at my case, and the heat it's already got in it, I may just stick the 120 in there, and partition the 40g that's in it now for os & music on seperate drives. Eventually I'll most likely move all the storage into my Poweredge server, and stick all my tuners in that box with a Sage recorder license on it, and use it as a network encoder, since it's tucked away in a closet and put a small client at the TV that's as noise free as I can make it (that's why I'm playing with the Via ITX board & stuff in my Minuet case). Eventually I want to mount my HD Projection TV behind the wall with just the screen showing, but that's going to be a while before I can arrange it .

[salsbst]

Your other option is to put SageTV on your PowerEdge and put SageTVClient on your actual viewing machines. Might be more straightforward that way (at least to my mind... that's what I've done... though mine isn't a PowerEdge ).

[DFranch]

I have my defrag scheduled only on the weekends, between 3 AM & 5 AM. I have not had any problems.

[heffe2001]

Well, it's only a 4200 Poweredge, with I believe either dual 700's or 1ghzs. It currently has around 72g of storage in it (hot-swap raid bay drives). The only drawback I can see at all is the need for a PCI IDE card of some type, as I don't really enjoy the idea of trying to put 320+gb in that thing with HS Dell drives . I'm really looking for a external box for it that uses either regular IDE or SATA and has a card for the PC. I've looked at a couple, just havent' found what I'm looking for yet (I'd like to be able to put at least 4 drives, if not more in it.

[mightyt]

Originally posted by heffe2001
I'm really looking for a external box for it that uses either regular IDE or SATA and has a card for the PC. I've looked at a couple, just havent' found what I'm looking for yet (I'd like to be able to put at least 4 drives, if not more in it.

Hmmm ... Any thoughts on NAS drives? I got a Cat5 Buffalo 120gb Linkstation and love the "on all the time" access. Can SageTV access these drives directly and would it make sense rather than loading up the server with drives??

Also, any throughts on ATA vs. SATA ... Some of you mentioned great sales on 200gb+ ATA drives. I already have (2) 120gb SATA drives and was thinking of buying one of these ATA's as well, but not sure if I would see a visible performance hit on the server.

[briands]

Originally posted by salsbst
Your other option is to put SageTV on your PowerEdge and put SageTVClient on your actual viewing machines. Might be more straightforward that way (at least to my mind... that's what I've done... though mine isn't a PowerEdge ).

If you are using the comercial advance version would putting it on the server cause all of the processing to be done on that machine? Would that same version have to run on the client(s)? Would using it on the clients spread the processing load among all machines????

Are you worried about stability of your server if you introduce the Sage application (either recorder of full version?)

[stanger89]

Originally posted by mightyt
Hmmm ... Any thoughts on NAS drives? I got a Cat5 Buffalo 120gb Linkstation and love the "on all the time" access. Can SageTV access these drives directly and would it make sense rather than loading up the server with drives??

Here's my thoughs on NAS. The idea is great, simply plug some storage into your network. Can Sage use it? As long as you can map it as a drive or access it via a UNC path (eg \\NAS\share).

Now the problem. They are really expensive for their size, >=$1/GB when HDDs are commonly $.50/GB. Further, they aren't big (<400GB usually).

If you have plans for a "server" for which one or maybe 2 NAS would work, then go for it, if you want somehting on the order of 1TB which requires 4+ HDDs, a full-up Server is probably better more economical/simpler (one contiguous storage area).

Also, any throughts on ATA vs. SATA ... Some of you mentioned great sales on 200gb+ ATA drives. I already have (2) 120gb SATA drives and was thinking of buying one of these ATA's as well, but not sure if I would see a visible performance hit on the server.

There really isn't any one compelling reason to go with one over the other right now:

SATA:
Smaller cables
Newer RAID cards (3ware 9500 w/ Online Capacity Expansion)
More expensive

PATA:
Cheaper
Roughly Equivalent Performance

[mightyt]

Thanks Stanger you seem to be a plethora of info ....

Guess you are right ... I probably should reserve the NAS for file sharing across the net and just add a couple ATA drives to my server. Then if I pull the SATA card I can replace it with a WinTV !!! Hmmm

I looked up that Power Supply on the web ... Not bad. Big Fan, Quiet and more Efficient. And $65 ... not sure if it (or something like it) can be had from Fry's for less??

Thanks!!!!

[stanger89]

For a server, my recommendation is for a PC Power and Cooling Super Silencer (server only because they aren't really quiet). $50 - $85

For an HTPC, it would be a Seasonic Super Tornado (I've got a very similar Fortron and the Seasonics are supposed to be quieter.) $65 - $105

Both range from 300W - 400W

[heffe2001]

I'm guessing my poweredge would have plenty of power for running the CA mod, and as for it being stable, I'm guessing that Recorder wouldn't affect it much. I'm running Win 2k3 on it now, with exchange 2k3 (only supporting about 4 people for email, and about 7 concurrent logins). All I can say about this box is it runs like a tank now. I think it's been up about 4 months (since I upgraded from 2k to 2k3), and not crashed or been rebooted. I DO have a problem with my 3rd party pop connector just stopping about once a week, but it's always done that (even back when it was a regular 2k server).

As for NAS storage, you'll see in my sig where I mention 40gb MP3 storage on my network, that's on my Snap NAS server. The only real problem I see with this box is it's terribly slow. I'm talking about 900k/sec, which is way too slow for video. If you really want a large NAS server that runs at a decent speed, get a large multi-bay case, drop a decent mobo with either a raid controller on board or in a PCI slot, and a good amount of memory (for disk cache), and stick it on the network with the drives shared. With the right setup, you could have several terabytes of storage in one machine .

The Poweredge would NEVER be considered a quite machine, at best it's probably 2 times as loud as most home PC's, most likely even louder than most overclocked mega fan cooled PC's. Hopefully at some point I'll move it from my PC room to the basement into one of the closets there, so I don't have to listen to it, and most likely will put my Smoothwall firewall machine down there as well (it's not near as loud though).