[mythtv-users] Linux wall wart pulls 5 watts - could make a great master backend

[Brad Templeton]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 02:09:40PM +1300, Nick Rout wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 3:40 AM, Tom Lichti <redpepperracing at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I was thinking about this thing last night, and I don't think I'd want
> > it as a master backend, at least in my case, because my MySQL db is on
> > the master, and I doubt this thing could carry the load of the DB,
> > along with everything else it would need to do. It could slot into my
> > setup very easily, since my master has two HDHR's on it, and two
> > PVR-x50's that I will be de-comming soon, and uses a couple of NAS
> > servers for disk.
> 
> A master backend server does /not/ have to run the database, it can be
> on another machine.
> 
> However that would kind of defeat the purpose of what we are
> discussing, ie having the wallwart as the /only/ 24x7 device.
> _______________________________________________

If you wanted to do way more work than it is worth, you could
mirror the database to your faster, not-always-on servers, and
hack a proxy to use those if they are up, and the slow master only
when they are not.     No reason the small machine can't run
mysql, actually, but you might find slow response to certain
database operations using the frontend.

However, it might make more sense to use an old laptop as your
lightweight tunerless master back end.  Old laptops can be had
cheap, they take about 10-15 watts instead of 5 watts (less
with screen off) and they have a built-in long-lasting UPS.
However, they are hard to upgrade, and many not come with much
RAM, or with usb 2.0 if you want one in the sub-$100 range, and
don't already have one.   If they have USB 2.0, you could even
throw a tuner on one.