[ale] Home Data Server Project

[Brian W. Neu]

1.  I'm going to second Greg on the RAID 6 or 10.  I've been dealing
with lots of RAID 5 issues lately and I simply won't let clients do it
anymore unless they are perfectly fine risking the downtime and costs of
restoring from a backup.  I too love the 3ware cards, but you might be
be just as good spending a little extra on your processor and going w/
md raid 6.  Also, why limit yourself to one partition?  I'd recommend
using LVM to create volumes large enough for the next year or 18
months.  Then grow the volume and the filesystems as usage dictates. 
It's almost always possible to grow a filesystem, but shrinking them is
more challenging.  Always start small and leave plenty of free space. 
Oh, and why not ext4?  I'd skip the NTFS and just mount ext4 with ACL's
enabled.  Have you considered LVM snapshots, or even btrfs snapshots if
you have a rock-solid backup strategy?

2.  For Home Theater:
    An nVidia card with HDMI that supports VDPAU for MythTV.  My card
doesn't support it, and CPU utilization is high when playing HD content.
       
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/190.53/README/appendix-a.html
    A tuner that supports CableCard, works with MythTV, and has multiple
digital tuners (you might have to wait on this, and it might just never
happen)
       
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/05/cetons-quad-cablecard-tuner-for-windows-media-center-gets-a-pri/
       
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/hdhomerun-developing-a-dual-cablecard-network-tuner-for-249/
        http://www.gearlog.com/2009/09/hauppauge_to_sell_cablecard_tu.php
    (if not sending sound over HDMI) A sound card with a SPIDF output so
you can do a passthrough, and have an A/V receiver.  (There's a MythTV
wiki entry for this somewhere)
    An XFS filesystem just for MythTV, per the MythTV wiki (I have an
LVM volume on top of md raid, which while not ideal, does the job)
    A lot of patience, especially if you have Comcast.  If patience
isn't readily available, make sure alcohol is.

3.  Don't overlook solid backups and the cost of implementing them.  You
might be able to take an older PC (or even a dd-wrt router with USB)
with a bios that allows for scheduled wake-ups, attach an external HD,
and install a wireless card and ask your neighbor if you can work out a
back-up co-op.  If your house burns down (and your neighbor's house
survives, hopefully), or lightning fries all your electronics, or
someone steals them all,  you'll be happy you did.  That last thing
you'd want is to lose all of your possessions AND your business too.

4.  You're already doing it, but keep asking for help.  If I had done
more of that on my MythTV venture, I'd have probably saved myself many
hours.


Good luck, and keep us posted.



On 2/24/2010 5:54 AM, Greg Freemyer wrote:
> Also, you don't discuss raid setup.
>
> I like 3ware hardware raid, but its a few hundred $ or so for a
> controller.  Mdraid also works but takes more skill to work with in my
> opinion.  Regardless I'd avoid raid 5.  Use raid 6 or even 10.
>
> And how are you going to backup that big boy?  Think hard on that
> because it will be a challenge no matter what you do.
>
> Greg
>
> On 2/24/10, Marc Ferguson <marcferguson at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hi Fellas,
>>
>> We're finally making some moves into getting a data server setup at home. I
>> think I'm a little intimidated by it. I've built computers before and setup
>> peer-to-peer networks (with Windows machines). I'm going to do it with
>> CentOS, because I'm a Red Hat fanboy.  Any tips for me?
>>
>> Here's what we plan to do with the data server:
>>
>>    - Terabytes of information
>>       - Wife's a 2d/3d artist
>>       - Security camera footage
>>       - HTPC content
>>    - 2 storage partitions
>>       - NTFS for the wife
>>       - EXT3 for me and EVERYTHING ELSE
>>
>>
>> We plan to store the server in the attic so it'll be connected wirelessly. I
>> plan to get an 802.11n setup. Thanks.
>>
>> --
>> Marc Ferguson
>>
>> Registered User #410978
>> www.fergytech.com | www.digitalalias.net
>>
>> "When life gives me lemons... I make Linuxaide, hmm good stuff!"
>>
>>     
>