+---------+-----------+---------+----------+--------------------------+---------+
| mplexid | serviceid | channum | callsign | name                     | xmltvid |
+---------+-----------+---------+----------+--------------------------+---------+
|       1 |         1 | 760     | TBSHD    | TBS HD                   | 58515   |
|       1 |         2 | 731     | TNTHD    | TNTHD (TNT-HD)           | 42642   |
|       2 |        10 | 736     | HGTVD    | HGTV HD (HGHD)           | 49788   |
|       2 |        11 | 755     | FOODHD   | Food HD                  | 50747   |
|       2 |        12 | 737     | FOXHDNW  | Fox Sports NW Seattle HD | 51505   |
|       3 |         1 | 753     | AETVHD   | A&E HD East              | 51529   |
|       3 |         2 | 754     | HSTRYHD  | History HD               | 57708   |
|       4 |         1 | 746     | HDT      | HD Theater               | 31046   |
|       4 |         2 | 745     | ESPNHD   | ESPNHD                   | 32645   |
|       4 |         3 | 735     | FNCHD    | Fox News Channel HD      | 60179   |
|       5 |         3 | 705     | KINGDT   | KINGDT (KING-DT)         | 19630   |
|       5 |         4 | 84-4    | 1844     |                          |         |
|       5 |        13 | 706     | KONGDT   | KONGDT (KONG-DT)         | 31007   |
|       5 |        14 | 84-14   | 1854     |                          |         |
|       6 |         1 | 707     | KIRODT   | KIRODT (KIRO-DT)         | 20290   |
|       6 |         2 | 86-2    | 1862     |                          |         |
|       6 |         3 | 704     | KOMODT   | KOMODT (KOMO-DT)         | 19629   |
|       6 |         4 | 723     | KIRODT2  | KIRODT2 (KIRO-DT2)       | 49928   |
|       7 |         3 | 722     | KZJODT   | KZJODT (KZJO-DT)         | 30240   |
|       7 |         4 | 89-4    | 1894     |                          |         |
|       7 |         5 | 89-5    | 1895     |                          |         |
|       7 |        13 | 713     | KCPQDT   | KCPQDT (KCPQ-DT)         | 21254   |
|       7 |        14 | 89-14   | 1904     |                          |         |
|       8 |         3 | 709     | KCTSDT   | KCTSDT (KCTS-DT)         | 19631   |
|       8 |         4 | 711     | KCTSDT2  | KCTSDT2 (KCTS-DT2)       | 20206   |
|       8 |         5 | 712     | KCTSDT3  | KCTSDT3 (KCTS-DT3)       | 20303   |
+---------+-----------+---------+----------+--------------------------+---------+

mythtv

If you’re thinking about setting up a MythTV box, understand one thing. It’s a lifestyle not a system.

You’ll love it and it’ll hate you back every day. You’ll buy the best hardware for it and it’ll spit in your face. Then you’ll turn around and spend all weekend trying to gain its favor back. atrpms.net is like her ugly, bitchy, smelly, truly unpleasant BFF. Always working against you, teasing you, making you think you’ve finally built up a relationship with her only to carelessly removes a critical and popular driver in a random build bringing every thing down around you, but only after spending half a day discovering this.

I deleted the old 6.5 TB Volume. That takes balls.

I created a new 1.5TB mirror with two drives and grew the new Volume with the command:

mdadm –create /dev/md3 –level=1 –raid-devices=2 /dev/sd[bc]2
pvcreate /dev/md3
vgextend  RaidDataGroup /dev/md3
lvextend -l +5126 /dev/RaidDataGroup/RaidData
xfs_growfs /Volumes/data

I’m now restoring the data.

fdisk /dev/sdf

# note the mdadm arguments below are prefixed with double dashes.

mdadm –create /dev/md1 –level=1 –raid-devices=2 /dev/sd[fh]1
mdadm –create /dev/md2 –level=1 –raid-devices=2 /dev/sd[gi]1
pvcreate /dev/md1
pvcreate /dev/md2
vgcreate -s 256M RaidDataGroup /dev/md1 /dev/md2
lvcreate -l 14904 –name RaidData RaidDataGroup
mkfs.xfs -i size=1024 /dev/RaidDataGroup/RaidData
mkdir /Volumes/newdata
mount /dev/RaidDataGroup/RaidData /Volumes/newdata

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80570E8500
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive
• ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
• G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
• ASUS EN6200LE/TC256/TD/64 GeForce 6200LE 256MB(64MB on Board) 32-bit DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card
• COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-750-ACAA-A1 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active

Antec Titan 650 Drive View, with Cooler Master Module

Antec Titan 650 Inside

That decision’s been haunting me ever since. Sure I’ve got backups, but it’d take a while to get everything back the way it was…

So I’ve decided to rebuild the storage system using a collection of RAID 1 (mirrored) drives LVM’d together into a single volume. This should be better than RAID 5 in that the chances of a second read error on multiple massive 2GB drives when rebuilding is too great. With RAID 1, the chances of a successful recovery of a drive failure go up, of course, at the cost of more drives. I’ll continue to maintain backups though…

Oh yeah, what’s really driving this is one of my drives is indeed failing and I don’t have a good way of recovering.

So, the Antec 650 has six cooled, hard drive bays. I need a bunch more to maintain the current five drives, and add a bunch of new ones while I rebuild the storage system. So I started with the Cooler Master 4-in-3 Device Module STB-3T4-E3-GP. For $20 from Newegg it’s perfect. It uses three 5.25″ bays in the Antec Titan 650 and provides four 3.5″ cooled hard drive bays. Perfect.

Cooler Master Device Module Hard Drive Chassis Box

Cooler Master Device Module Hard Drive Chassis Packaging

Cooler Master Device Module Hard Drive Chassis Right Side

Cooler Master Device Module Hard Drive Chassis Parts

Cooler Master Device Module Hard Drive Chassis Fan

Cooler Master Device Module Hard Drive Chassis Front

Cooler Master Device Module Hard Drive Chassis With Drives

My motherboard only supported six SATA drives so I had to cheaply add four more SATA Ports. The Rosewill 4 Channel PCIe to SATA II Controller. I think it does some kind of RAID, but I’m just using it for the ports and let md and LVM in Linux to the Raid.

Rosewill 4 Channel PCIe to SATA II Box

Rosewill 4 Channel PCIe to SATA II Packing

Rosewill 4 Channel PCIe to SATA II Card

Everything went in perfectly.

Empty 5.25 Drive Bays in Antec Titan 650

Cooler Master Device Module Hard Drive Chassis Installed In Antec 650

The first two Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ drives have been in the system for a week running badblocks. Two Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard drives will be here next week. I’ll run bad blocks on them, then start rebuilding the storage system. The first configuration will be these four 2GB drives in RAID 0 for 4GB of storage and as I migrate data off the old drives I’ll add another four 1.5 GB drives in the same configuration.

In a day and age when you go to Frys and all the cases look like this:

…us old timers (mid thirties) yearn for a decent server case that doesn’t have neon lights and can hold a substantial number of hard drives. Sure, neon fans were cool when we were 18 and looking for a mate, but when you’ve got a couple terrabytes of “Baby Einstein” and “Wiggles” videos to serve on demand to a 15 month old, you need good case design and capactity.

When selecting the new server case for my MythTV/home server solution, my primary requirements were low cost and lots of hard drive space. This server would not have a CDROM or floppy, just hard drives as it would sit in the shed, spinning away, recording TV shows and serving content.

Several strategic newegg.com queries later I found the Antec Titan650 and purchased it.

It’s a reasonable size. A bit smaller than a mid-tower case, but longer (deeper.) If you’re like me, occasionally you come across some Extended ATX (EATX) motherboards and this case can handle them. Most cases can’t.

Here’s the back. It’s got the one big fan in back that I like.

I really liked the rubber grommits they placed on the drive rails. If you have a bunch of drives they should quiet things down a bit. They also shipped special screws for the rails.

The front door assembly was nice too. Here you can see the drive cage with the two fan mounts below. The front door cleanly swings away from the chassis.

The front drive access door had a cool hinge that allowed it to swing completely out of the way.

The inside, as shipped.

All the great stuff you get including different drive rails for all the 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 drive bays.

Here’s the drive cage with two 750GB drives mounted in it. Note the fan mount swings away and off to allow access to the drives. This case now has four 750GB drives and four 400 GB drives. Six drives in the cage, two more in the 5 1/4 bays.

This is a fantastic case for the money. If you need a server case, buy this without hesitation.

Antec TITAN650 Black Pedestal Server Case Antec TITAN650 Black 1.0mm SECC Pedestal Server Case 650W 4 x 5.25″ (one with 5.25″ to 3.5″ adapter) External 5.25″ Drive Bays