Media Server

[IronGothicDroid]

Would an X2 3600+ be sufficient for a file/media server? I'd have sometimes 2-3 computers streaming video from it over a gigabit network with jumbo frames. Sometimes installations would also be run from it over the network. Other parts would include a 500GB WD SE16, ASUS M2A-VM 690G chipset, and 512 Kingston ValueRAM PC2-3200. Might also be used rarely as a second rendering comp for 3ds max through BackBurner.

 

[dragonsprayer]

i say 50/50 chance - i would pop the extra cash for a higher end dual core - cpu is not the limiting factor in most cases

 

[IronGothicDroid]

If CPU is not the limiting factor then what would you say is? Network? Router?

 

[grieve]

Bandwidth will matter for sure, you running this over your home lines?

''streaming video from it '' = Bandwidth, lots of it.

 

[grieve]

OMG... lol i shoulda read the second line 'over a gigabit network with jumbo frames'

please disregard my posts here... im a tardo!

 

[echdskech]

I'm pretty sure your CPU won't bottleneck your network transfer as much as your disks will. my underclocked amd64 2800+ @1Ghz only peaks when i transfer over encrypted channels. Otherwise, 40MBps over my gigabit network doesn't even begin to strain the cpu. I'm using linux but i don't know if that even matters.

Given your usage description, your cpu will probably only be a bottleneck during your rendering time.

 

[IronGothicDroid]

Ok thanks echdskech. So in your opinion the SATA2 Interface will likely be the main issue with running all of this? Unforunately because of budget i would be unable to get an SCSI. Thye bottleneck of render times is not a main concern in the overall scheme of things, but for my school projects the more power avalible to me the better.

 

[nh484000]

I run almost an identical box for my Media PC. x2 3600+, 690g chipset, 512 ram. I think that it would be fine for what you are doing aslong as your not running Vista. Another side note though, I would look at the Biostar board with 690G chipset because the HDMI interface is built it. On the Asus board if you want to use it it takes up the PCI16 slot. Just less things in the way IMO.

 

[IronGothicDroid]

nh484000, this media PC what precisely is it for? I try to stay away from Biostar i've had bad experiences with them the dead motherboard hangs on my wall as a reminder. I've had many good experiences with Asus and currently my entire household runs off asus mobos. I'm not actually buying this board for its media features i'm simply getting it because its the best priced AM2 board i could locate.

 

[nh484000]

I use that board for a tivo. I record HDTV and save it to my harddrive. I then watch it on other computers if i feel the need/want. I can tell you this though, i can watch an hd show and listen to music over my network and not have a problem. I do run gigabit lan aswell.

For the motherboards i can say this. I have an Asus (A8N-Sli Deluxe 939) and i love it. I also have that biostar and a few other boards. I havent had a problem with that biostar board not to say i wont. But i just noticed this on newegg. That board that you are looking at does not come with HDMI so you can disreguard what i was talking about before hahah.

 

[MacDuff]

Ok thanks echdskech. So in your opinion the SATA2 Interface will likely be the main issue with running all of this? Unforunately because of budget i would be unable to get an SCSI. Thye bottleneck of render times is not a main concern in the overall scheme of things, but for my school projects the more power avalible to me the better.

I doubt that the actual SATA interface will be the bottleneck, just the drive. SATA2 can do 3GB/s, which is more than your Gigabit network can handle. Your harddrive is likely to handle more like 60MB/s (that's megabytes, not megabits), and if you are trying to manage multiple concurrent streams then it'll be quite a lot less than that because the disk heads will be constantly switching between tracks.

SCSI drives are typically faster but much more expensive - perhaps you'd be better off with some kind of RAID to improve performance (for which you'll have to ask somebody else for advice, sorry).

 

[IronGothicDroid]

Ok thanks MacDuff. Can anyone suggest what type of RAID would be most effective for my purpose? Getting two drives is a definite possibility.

 

[figgen]

I would go with raid 10. it uses more disks but you are getting redundancy along with fast r/w speeds. in a SAN or NAS running a database you usually use raid 10. Raid 5 would work but you will be slower then raid 10, but you would use less disks. Raid 0 is the first part of raid 10 (just stripping) but does not have any redundancy.