Mailing List Archive: Initial config and HD setup with PVR-250

Initial config and HD setup with PVR-250

May 11, 2003, 12:30 PM

Post #1 of 4 (1050 views)

I'm currently spec'ing the hardware I'm going to use. Here's what I'm
thinking
Shuttle MN31N mobo nForce2 chipset (ata133, lan, 6 ch audio, firewire,
usb 2.0, etc)
AthlonXP 2500+ Barton
Cooler Master CP5-7JD1B cpu fan
2 X 256MB PC 2700 DDR
Asus V9180 Magic GeForce 4 MX440 8X video card
WinTV PVR-250
Enermax EG365-VE FMA power supply
Seagate 160 GB hard drive
Cooler Master ATC-610-GX1 (after I know everything is working)
Toshiba DVD-ROM drive (maybe)

Q1. How does this setup with the nVidia chipset sound. It looks great
on paper, anyone used a similar mobo?

Q2. I read that the PVR-250 uses about 2 GB/hour. Is this correct and
does it vary much? Would it be correct to assume the 160 GB drive will
hold about 75 hours of video? Seems a little inefficient compared to
tivo.

Q3. I want the option of adding a second Seagate drive later. What
should I do in the initial setup to account for this? RAID? What
level?

Q4. RedHat 8 or 9? Is there any advantage/reliability gains in using
one over the other.

Q5. I just read that putting a ata33 dvd drive on a 133 bus will slow
it down to 33 MB/s max. Is this true and should I skip the dvd drive
and only add the second hard drive to the second ide bus?

TIA

Re: Initial config and HD setup with PVR-250 [ In reply to ]

spin at avalon

May 11, 2003, 2:15 PM

Post #2 of 4 (1005 views)

Permalink

On Sun, 2003-05-11 at 14:30, Vinton Coffman wrote:

> Q3. I want the option of adding a second Seagate drive later. What
> should I do in the initial setup to account for this? RAID? What
> level?

I would recommend LVM, but since I've used it before I may be biased in
thinking it's not too difficult to set up. LVM makes it trivial to add
another drive and extend the filesystem onto the new disk. (Without
needing to recreate the filesystem or back up your data, which you might
want to do anyway.)

No RAID configuration will allow you to simply add a disk later without
re-partitioning or re-installing. LVM does.

Re: Initial config and HD setup with PVR-250 [ In reply to ]

bakker at thorgal

May 12, 2003, 4:17 AM

Post #3 of 4 (1007 views)

Permalink

<snip>

>No RAID configuration will allow you to simply add a disk later without
>re-partitioning or re-installing.

man raidreconf

HTH,

JDB.
[who only found out about raidreconf recently, too]
--
LART. 250 MIPS under one Watt. Free hardware design files.
http://www.lart.tudelft.nl/

Re: Initial config and HD setup with PVR-250 [ In reply to ]

enigma at thedonnerparty

May 12, 2003, 11:43 AM

Post #4 of 4 (1005 views)

Permalink

J.D. Bakker wrote:

> <snip>
>
>> No RAID configuration will allow you to simply add a disk later without
>> re-partitioning or re-installing.
>
>
> man raidreconf

IMHO, raidreconf is useless. It requires that you make a backup. If
you have the means to make a full backup, then why not just backup and
re-create the RAID? It would be faster than raidreconf and safer as well.

>
>
> HTH,
>
> JDB.
> [who only found out about raidreconf recently, too]