CentOS - Aug 2007 - inexpensive / reasonably priced workstation / server development box

We are testing some simple low bandwidth video and audio broadcasting using
real server and client softwares.

So, for quick check and simplicity, we were plunking along TESTING on an
3.2GHz XP box and I noticed frames were getting dropped on the broadcast
just for resizing a window on the screen during the session.

Talk about totally lame...

I know this can be a big deal and start conflicting opinions yet I need some
experienced perspective please?

Can anyone chime in on what they use or what they would buy if they were
going to have a workstation box for development that could double as test
server and have good high speed storage and excellent video and audio etc
etc

Im  thinking of a box that does audio and video development, can easily
handle virtualization, and of course do general work apps plus setting up
various server processes for testing whether intranet or internet etc etc

It can be premade like specific dell or hp (please list component choices
for clarity)

OR

A hand built box with specific list of components that 

Now, I know this has been done in magazines with great expense, and even
with lower expense, yet I trust the list more than a magazine that wants to
sell me advertising etc

Thanks in advance

 - rh

I always look here http://cr.yp.to/hardware/build-20060107.html

He hasn't updated it recently.

But the reasons Dan Bernstein made the choices he did
are mostly still vaiid and it's interesting reading.

On 8/9/07, Robert - elists <lists07 at abbacomm.net>
wrote:
>
> We are testing some simple low bandwidth video and audio broadcasting
> using
> real server and client softwares.
>
> So, for quick check and simplicity, we were plunking along TESTING on an
> 3.2GHz XP box and I noticed frames were getting dropped on the broadcast
> just for resizing a window on the screen during the session.
>
> Talk about totally lame...
>
> I know this can be a big deal and start conflicting opinions yet I need
> some
> experienced perspective please?
>
> Can anyone chime in on what they use or what they would buy if they were
> going to have a workstation box for development that could double as test
> server and have good high speed storage and excellent video and audio etc
> etc
>
> Im  thinking of a box that does audio and video development, can easily
> handle virtualization, and of course do general work apps plus setting up
> various server processes for testing whether intranet or internet etc etc
>
> It can be premade like specific dell or hp (please list component choices
> for clarity)
>
> OR
>
> A hand built box with specific list of components that
>
> Now, I know this has been done in magazines with great expense, and even
> with lower expense, yet I trust the list more than a magazine that wants
> to
> sell me advertising etc
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> - rh
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>


-- 
Drew Einhorn
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On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 09:42 -0700, Robert - elists
wrote:
> We are testing some simple low bandwidth video and audio broadcasting using
> real server and client softwares.
> 
> So, for quick check and simplicity, we were plunking along TESTING on an
> 3.2GHz XP box and I noticed frames were getting dropped on the broadcast
> just for resizing a window on the screen during the session.
> 
> Talk about totally lame...
> 
> I know this can be a big deal and start conflicting opinions yet I need
some
> experienced perspective please?
> 
> Can anyone chime in on what they use or what they would buy if they were
> going to have a workstation box for development that could double as test
> server and have good high speed storage and excellent video and audio etc
> etc
> 
> Im  thinking of a box that does audio and video development, can easily
> handle virtualization, and of course do general work apps plus setting up
> various server processes for testing whether intranet or internet etc etc
> 
> It can be premade like specific dell or hp (please list component choices
> for clarity)
> 
> OR
> 
> A hand built box with specific list of components that 
> 
> Now, I know this has been done in magazines with great expense, and even
> with lower expense, yet I trust the list more than a magazine that wants to
> sell me advertising etc
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
>  - rh
Wow, that list of things you want to run on it sound like it could be
pretty intensive at times.  Your budget for this will definitely affect
what you can stuff into this new box, but I will go from the stand point
of being reasonable yet you have sufficient funds to acquire anything
you need.  For audio/video dev, you will want SAS drives, striped for
increased throughput, and if you *need* data integrity on that box (i.e.
hard to or impossible to backup or just plain paranoid) you'll want
mirroring.  So that means 4x146GB SAS drives, 146GB as raw video tends
to get big in size and you'll have ~292GB of usable space.  Depending on
how big the video files are that you will be working with, you'll want
2GB-4GB of RAM.  I'd go with a Xeon processor, if only so that you'll
have a higher available L2 Cache (4MB), although some Core 2 Duo chips
do have a fair amount of L2.  What kind of virtualization were you
thinking of doing (VMware, Xen, QEMU, etc.)?

This might be a good place to start tweaking the specs:
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/MiddleFrame.asp?page=config&ProductLineId=433&FamilyId=2437&BaseId=23358&oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID
-- 
Timothy Selivanow <timothys at easystreet.com>
Linux System Administrator
EasyStreet Online Services, Inc.  http://www.easystreet.com

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On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 09:42:22AM -0700, Robert - elists
wrote:
> Can anyone chime in on what they use or what they would buy if they were
> going to have a workstation box for development that could double as test
> server and have good high speed storage and excellent video and audio etc
> etc
> 
> Im  thinking of a box that does audio and video development, can easily
> handle virtualization, and of course do general work apps plus setting up
> various server processes for testing whether intranet or internet etc etc
> 
> It can be premade like specific dell or hp (please list component choices
> for clarity)
I've got a box like that. At least I think this is what you need,
without some real data on your video/audio needs.

HP DC5750 (RK466AW#AC4)

and then added a nice NVidia video card.

I have been happy ever since. You might also want to add some memory,
since it comes with 1GB, thou.

This particular model (RK466AW#AC4) might not be avaliable at USA. So,
looking at the HP site, I would say it is a little better than the
RT860UT model you will find there.

Best Regards,

- -- 
Rodrigo Barbosa
"Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur"
"Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)

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