[mythtv-users] dumb low power backend... questions on proposed setup

[Andrew Wilson]

I'm considering rearranging my setup as follows, and I need some advice.

Currently I have a single box, with 2x DVB cards, which is on all of
the time. In order to reduce noise and power consumption, I want to
build another v. low power backend box to accomodate these cards and
hibernate when not actually recording something. The existing box will
become the frontend, which will get switched off sometimes. This
raises some questions....

- Which box should be the master backend, given that either may be
switched off when the other wants to do something?
- Is it possible to have a distributed master, ie both boxes running
the database and master backend, replicating with each other and
taking over being the master if the other box goes away?
- If this is not possible, How quick / how reliable is Wake-On-LAN?
I've never played with it.
- Is it possible to do WOL using a USB Wifi adapter?

On the dumb backend:
- What is the lowest power (watts not MHZ) PC that would cut it? Not
planning to do any transcoding or anything CPU intensive on this box.
- What is the minimum memory I need in the backend box?  I want it to
be fast to hibernate and wake up, so less is more here.
- Can LinuxBIOS reduce the time to wake from hibernation?
- Would using a flash device for boot instead of a disk speed things up?

Any helpful advice much appreciated.

cheers
Andrew