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PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:29 pm 
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Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:19 am
Posts: 38
Location: Rockford, MI USA
First- My current setup:

1. FE/MBE - AVBox3
a) 1- 30GB PATA HD for /, 1-750Gb PATA for /myth (only 15% remaining)
b) 4- PVR-150 Tuners, 1 connected to digital STB, 3 connected to cable coax
c) 1Gb ram
d) generic AGP video card connected to 15" CRT
e) Sempron 2500 CPU
f) This machine currently serves all FE machines, but very rarely does live TV watching. Shows are recorded, transcoded to save space, and watched later. This machine can record 4 shows simultaneously with no problems in it's current configuration. The FE portion of this machine is used for maintenance/scheduling tasks only.

2) FE 1 - AVBox1
a) 1- 40GB PATA HD for / and /myth
b) 512Mb Ram
c) Geforce FX5600 256Mb AGP 8X connected via s-video to SDTV.
d) Sempron 2400 CPU
f) Currently used for viewing previously recorded shows, no live TV use.

3) FE 2 - AVBox3
a) 1- 80Gb PATA HD for / and /myth
b) 512Mb Ram
c) GeForce FX5200 128Mb AGP 8X connected via s-video to SDTV.
d) Sempron 2400 CPU
e) Currently used for viewing previously recorded shows, no live TV use.

4) FE 3 - AVBox4
a) 1 - 10GB PATA HD for / and /myth
b) 512Mb ram
c) GeForce MX440SE 64Mb PCI connected via composite to SDTV.
d) 800Mhz Celeron CPU
e) Currently used for viewing previously recorded shows, no live TV use.

Now - the proposed changes

1. FE/MBE - AVBox3
a) new 1TB SATA HD for / and /myth2 , existing 750Gb PATA HD *with existing data* for /myth, add storage groups
b) 2- PVR-150 Tuners, 1 connected to digital STB, 1 connected to cable coax, 1 framegrabber for misc video dubs
c) 1Gb ram
d) Geforce MX440 64Mb AGP connected to 15" CRT
e) Athlon XP 2800 CPU
f) As before this machine would be used primarily for recording shows, transcoding, and serving them up for later viewing. FE only for maintenance/scheduling tasks

2) FE/SBE 1 - AVBox1
a) 1- 200GB PATA HD for / and /myth
b) 512Mb Ram
c) 1- PVR-150 to cable coax
d) Geforce FX5600 256Mb AGP 8X connected via s-video to SDTV.
e) Sempron 2400 CPU
f) This machine would still function primarily for viewing previously recorded shows, but would also record, transcode, and store for later viewing.

3) FE/SBE 2 - AVBox3
a) 1- 300Gb PATA HD for / and /myth
b) 512Mb Ram
c) 1- PVR-150 to cable coax
d) 1- ATI HDTV Wonder for tuning unencrypted QAM 256 channels
e) ATI Radeon 9250 256Mb AGP 8X connected via DVI to widescreen LCD
f) Sempron 2500 CPU
g) Both tuners for this machine to be used primarily for live TV on this machine, with ability to record/trancode for later viewing when live TV is not in use.

4) FE 3 - AVBox4
a) 1 - 10GB PATA HD for / and /myth
b) 512Mb ram
c) GeForce MX440SE 64Mb PCI connected via D-sub to 14' LCD.
d) 800Mhz Celeron CPU
e) To be used for viewing previously recorded shows, no live TV use.

5) SBE - AVBox5
a) 1 - 300GB PATA HD for / and /myth
b) 512Mb ram
c) 2- PVR-150 and 1 framegrabbber to cable coax
d) generic AGP video card connected to 15" CRT *will run headless once configured*
e) Sempron 3000 CPU
f) This machine would be used primarily for recording shows, transcoding, and serving them up for later viewing.

Now, the questions?

1) Is there a way to do a fresh install of R5.5 on all machines, and somehow just add the existing 750Gb with all of it's recordings from the existing R5F27 MBE into the new storage groups setup?

2) What are the latest procedures for setting up multiple SBE's for R5.5?

3) Will the storage capacity of the various SBE's be added to the overall system capacity with the proper configuration of storage groups?

4) Will the SBE's use local storage first, or will they select storage on the MBE unit? *this is sort of related to #3 above*

5) Will the proposed configuration of FE/SBE 2 - AVBox3 (2500 Sempron, 512Mb ram, Radeon 9250 256Mb AGP 8X, DVI to widescreen LCD) be able to handle unecrypted QAM 256 for live TV? Will it also be able to record/transcode from the PVR-150 at the same time as viewing QAM256 live?

6) The current setup also has NFS mounts for a NAS device on each of the FE & MBE for video and music files. Will these still have to be mounted on each machine under R5.5, or will the R5.5 MBE map them back out to the the various FE machines?

Any advice or suggestions on how to best proceed with this admittedly major overhaul of my LinHES *without losing existing recordings* would be gratefully appreciated.

DaveJ45

PS Yes, I know that 10 tuners and 2.5TB of storage seems excessive, feel sorry for me that I live in a household with two TV addicted females!

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:19 am 
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Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2004 7:06 pm
Posts: 690
As far as the migration of you master FE/BE I would recommend you backup and then disconnect your 750GB drive and then add the 1TB drive. Install a fresh copy of R5.5 on the 1TB drive and get it setup so you like it. This way you can make sure it works good with the hardware. Setup your boot drive as the sata drive.

Next, reconnect the 750Gb and then mount it you can then copy all the data and the backup files to your 1TB Drive. You should then be able to restore the backup and it should put your database back in order. This is critical if you want it to be the same as before.

Third, format the 750gb and then create a storage group for that drive called /myth2/tv
if you make the drive XFS format you will be able to defrag it so that's a plus since you are doing a lot of transcoding and that creates a ton of fragmentation.

Fourth, at this point you'll be able to see both drives in mythweb and will also be able to move files from drive to drive and the database will automatically follow without any intervention. This will give you a lot more flexibility than ever before. This is the time to really hammer out where to put video and music. How much space do you need is 1TB enough?

In my case I ended up keeping music and video on drive 1 and then moved all my tv programs to disk 2. I can defrag disk 2 when I do a lot of transcoding and that keeps it running really good.

You might decide to move another one of your larger drives into the storage group and then use the smaller drives on the FE. I like the idea of keeping everything I can in the storage group on the master FE/BE. In my case my diskless FE can see all the files for TV and video
on my master box.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:56 am 
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Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:19 am
Posts: 38
Location: Rockford, MI USA
RacerX-

Thanks for the advice! It gives me a good starting point for what I am trying to accomplish!

1) Can the SBE units be set up so that they store their recordings on the storage groups created on the MBE, and if so, how do I accomplish this?

Since all of my permanent video/music files are currently stored on a separate NASLite2 box, and mapped to the MBE with NFS mounts, the storage groups will be dedicated to tv recording data. All FE units get the same NFS mounts so that they too have access to this permanent data.

How do the SBE's access the storage groups? Do they require additional NFS mounts, or will they simply find the groups when connected to the MBE and store their data there on their own?

Again, thanks for the advice!

DaveJ45

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