Which Home Control PC do you have?

Post by **Niknik** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:01 pm

My "home automation" server is a 1Ghz Intel PC with just 256Mb Ram and 80Gb HD - but it's a small form factor (book PC), makes no noise and uses relatively low power.

My main PC, although it's a couple of years old, is a different affair:
AMD 3500+ using Cool'n'Quiet, 2Gb Ram, and 6xHard disks in dual raid configuration.
http://www.oxiz.net/lj/mypc2005/mypc.html

I'll consider building a new machine when quad cores become more affordable.
At the moment my next "upgrade" will be a 24" TFT monitor.

What are you using in your homes?

I would also like to know what kind of backup plans (if any) you have in place - in case the computer fails.
If your main computer had a serious malfunction how long do you figure it would take to have your house running at full capacity? And how much data would you be able to recover?

If my "home control PC" fails, I have my "main PC" ready to act as home control (just need to change the RFXcom receiver and CM11 usb cables). I also copy a backup data of the sql DB to an external USB disk everyday at 3:00 AM.

Post by **TANE** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:21 pm

My Home automation PC is
1 GHZ eden barbone PC Axis 700 from MSI
1 GB memory
2 X 500 GB HD (NAS)
Power usage about 25 watt per hour

Main system
Imac 20"

MediaCenter
AMD X2 3800mhz
1 GB memory

Backup unit
Maxtor 300 GB NAS box

For external backup I use the online backup services from KPN (5 euro per month)
http://www.kpn.com/kpn/show/id=845904
my backup speed
up +/- 10 gb per day
down +/- 60gb per day

When my home automation system stops working.
1 - Boot from the second disk (10min)
2 - Use the CIX interface from Xanura (10 min)
3 - Restore the backup en restart from MCE (2 hours)

Post by **Snelvuur** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:57 pm

1ghz 350mb memory for home automation, 80gb storage.

work pc is 2.8ghz with 3gb of memory.

backup pc is also a 2.8ghz with 1gb memory windows 2003 (raid 5 for storage, raid 1 for o.s. and very important stuff)
extra backup is www.mp3tunes.com (all you can send for 30 euro's a year i think)

extra storage online, have my own 1u server in a rack space, and another one in a different location (yes geeky, but i have some good friends, which makes its cost less, you know how that goes)

and a question, if your using mysql. Is it not possible to put the whole database in memory.. (should speed things up)

Post by **Digit** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:00 pm

I'll just mention the important ones:

Fileserver/DC/Exchange/Pinnacle Showcenter Streamer:
XP 2000+,
768 MB,
490 GB.

Home Automation PC:
XP 2400+,
256 MB,
120 GB.

Work PC:
P4 3.2 GHz,
1 GB,
820 GB.

Linux router/firewall/postfix/amavis:
Celeron 300,
256 MB,
40 GB.

As backup i use a Iomega REV drive (USB) for the fileserver. Fast and mobile.
Next fall this unit will move to the HA PC and the new fileserver will get a backup unit based on eSata, although i'm not quite sure yet on the how/what exactly.

Post by **Niknik** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:49 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by snelvuur
 and a question, if your using mysql. Is it not possible to put the whole database in memory.. (should speed things up)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">I'm no MySql server expert, but I haven't faced any "performance issues" yet. Even requesting a few dozen queries to draw the graphics happen very fast.
(and I have it configured to use the least possible RAM (as the machine has only 256Mb ram)

Post by **MindBender** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:25 am

Windows 2003 Small Business Server:
Dual Pentium III Xeon 550MHz
1 GiB ECC Memory
30 + 400 GiB Harddisks
Dual redundant hot swappable powersupply
This machine may soon go.

Domotica server:
Via Epia M-1000 (Eden 1GHz)
1 GiB SDRAM
8 GiB 266x CompactFlash card as harddisk replacement
Runs OpenSuse 10.2 for domotica now, but may soon replace the machine above.

Experimental:
Sweex LB000021 broadband router
ADM5120 SoC equiped with a MIPS 4KEc core @200MHz
32 MB RAM
2 MB NOR flash
Running Linux of a USB stick
Uses about 5 Watts of power
This unit may replace the Domotica server eventually.

Domotica clients:
4x Eizo eClient 630LN

Media center:
Dell Optiplex GX280 SFF
Pentium 4 3GHz
1GiB RAM
300GiB harddisk

Storage:
Infrant ReadyNAS NV+
1 GiB RAM
2x 1TB harddisk in raid1
On 1500VA APC UPS
Still in order, may be complemented with a DROBO.

Post by **Digit** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:37 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by snelvuur
 
and a question, if your using mysql. Is it not possible to put the whole database in memory.. (should speed things up)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">I agree with niknik; never had performance issues before either.

Memory, in theory, is not an option. Using queries that run bad 'on disk' will run bad 'in memory' also, right? So you'll never get the performance you could get. You're faking good performance this way, actually. It's all about optimizing. Compare the queries niknik and i use to the one you (have to) use. That's the problem.

I think....[:I] just don't know enough about xpl and the tables you query to give a really good answer.

Maybe it's time to create another thread about this single issue..

Robert

Post by **Digit** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 2:19 am

Rereading this topic i notice that suddenly RAID is mentioned a couple of times. As if RAID has something to do with backup? Must admit it's becoming a little late, so maybe i'm jumping to the wrong conclusions here... [8D]

Post by **Snelvuur** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:31 am

raid is a good backup solution for a good geek, we are not girls that do a wipe of the whole drive by mistake. (at least i dont) i also scan all my mail that comes in the house, i have a scanner with a feeder on top. Just put it in , press a button then i give it a nice name and done. This is really handy to look things up, and i dont have to go through a lot of papers (which i always loose)

I want to have a backup of my files on another location, but with a 1mbit uplink, using some form of syncing is too slow to be really comfortable.

Post by **Niknik** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:33 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Digit
 Rereading this topic i notice that suddenly RAID is mentioned a couple of times. As if RAID has something to do with backup? Must admit it's becoming a little late, so maybe i'm jumping to the wrong conclusions here... [8D]
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Yes RAID is mostly associated with safety regarding a hard disk failure.
In Raid 1, you need at least 2 disk, and data is written to both at the same time. If one disk fails, the other keeps working (and you can then replace the bad disk, and it will sync the data to the new one)
Of course, that means you have to have twice the space - but is like having a real time, instant backup.
(though it doesn't save your data from virus corruption or accidental deletion - that's the job for "real" backups)

Raid 5 is a more advanced mode, where data is stripped across several Hard disks (minimum 3) with parity, allowing it to recover data if any of the disks fail.

In my case, my work PC is not a "critical" system, and I use RAID 0, which really isn't safe (it just strips the data with no parity - providing nearly twice the disk performance in some scenarios).
(For instance, I can copy a big file from my 1st array to the 2nd at about 110Mbytes/s - and that's because my IDE RAID array is limiting the speed)
But if any of my disks fail - I lose all the data on that array.
It sure is a way to force me to have my backups updated!

Post by **Digit** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:55 am

In my case my fileserver is being used by more then 1 person; even girls [:D]. So i have to have some sort of real backup.

Post by **Snelvuur** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 3:47 pm

A drobo is nice as a extra backup.. you can add more disks , or larger ones and it increases. (without intervention of you the user)

Post by **Niknik** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 4:15 pm

My only concerns regarding devices like Drobo and other RAID NAS, is that it also introduces a single "Point-of-failure".
For instance, if the drobo fails, then we lose all the data in there (until it's fixed) which might take a long time.
That's one of the reasons I prefer to have "standard PC" based solutions... if one breaks down, it's easy to get a replacement, or move the disks to another PC and get the data back fast.
(though this is a bit of "paranoid thinking", I know that NAS are quite reliable and are less likely to fail than a PC

Post by **Snelvuur** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:26 pm

You ever tried replacing a raid 5 onto a new machine?

Thats why i use raid5 for my movies and other crap, and use raid-1 for the important stuff, since raid-1 you can easily use one of the 2 disks to continue, without the hassle of the raid5 setup.

So if your going raid-1 a pc is better, but raid-5 you can still use a nas or drobo because you would have the same issue with a normal pc (in my eyes) not to mention a pc with raid-5 support, you have to have the exact same type in most cases otherwise it cant detect or reconstruct the correct raid.

Post by **Niknik** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:41 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by snelvuur
 So if your going raid-1 a pc is better, but raid-5 you can still use a nas or drobo because you would have the same issue with a normal pc (in my eyes) not to mention a pc with raid-5 support, you have to have the exact same type in most cases otherwise it cant detect or reconstruct the correct raid.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Yes, exactly. That's why I'm using RAID just as a "performance enhancer" and keeping my backups in regular external USB hard drives.

On an unrelated note, I've just finished setting up Apache running asp.net pages!

That was the first step to have my "web interface".
Yes, I could be using php, but I'm an asp kind of guy!
(and besides, it was simpler than I expected using mod_aspdotnet)