MP3 server hardware

[Jeffrey R. Shenk]

Johan,

I have been looking into using a StongArm SBC as a low power, fanless dedicated machine to run slimserver. Do you mind sharing some of the details of your set up. Thank you...

[Jim]

Jeffrey R. Shenk wrote:
> Johan,
>
> I have been looking into using a StongArm SBC as a low power, fanless
> dedicated machine to run slimserver. Do you mind sharing some of the
> details of your set up. Thank you...
>

I was able to pick up, new from Newegg.com, a Shuttle SS51G with a
2.4GHz Celeron, 256MB of RAM and an 80GB drive for under $400. It's not
silent, but it's very very quiet and takes up very little room.

I've also pondered, though not tried, using a Shart Zaurus. Storage
space would be the big concern there...

[Ho Yin Ng]

What about creating a machine using a mini itx fanless motherboard.

It is tiny and will make zero noise!

I am considering creating one when i have the time.

Ho yin

At 23:16 05/07/2004, you wrote:
>Jeffrey R. Shenk wrote:
>>Johan,
>>
>>I have been looking into using a StongArm SBC as a low power, fanless
>>dedicated machine to run slimserver. Do you mind sharing some of the
>>details of your set up. Thank you...
>
>I was able to pick up, new from Newegg.com, a Shuttle SS51G with a 2.4GHz
>Celeron, 256MB of RAM and an 80GB drive for under $400. It's not silent,
>but it's very very quiet and takes up very little room.
>
>I've also pondered, though not tried, using a Shart Zaurus. Storage space
>would be the big concern there...
>
>

[Jeffrey R. Shenk]

Ho Yin Ng,

Mini itx will be my second choice because of the power requirments. I would
like to make it as low power as possible. It looks like a PC104+ with an
Xscale proccesor might cover all the requirements, low power, fanless and
small. I have to do some more research about compatability though because I
am not very farmilier with PC104 stuff yet.

Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ho Yin Ng" <yahoogroups (AT) hoyin (DOT) co.uk>
To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 6:26 AM
Subject: [slim] MP3 server hardware


> What about creating a machine using a mini itx fanless motherboard.
>
> It is tiny and will make zero noise!
>
> I am considering creating one when i have the time.
>
> Ho yin

[Jack Coates]

> Ho Yin Ng,
>
> Mini itx will be my second choice because of the power requirments. I
> would
> like to make it as low power as possible. It looks like a PC104+ with an
> Xscale proccesor might cover all the requirements, low power, fanless and
> small. I have to do some more research about compatability though because
> I
> am not very farmilier with PC104 stuff yet.
>
> Jeff

with mini-itx or pc104 I think you'll be wanting more CPU power. Any
transcoding work is likely to hurt. This is just a guess though, you might
get lucky.
--
Jack At Monkeynoodle.Org: It's A Scientific Venture...
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -- President Dwight D.
Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

[Jim Noble]

Jack Coates wrote:

>with mini-itx or pc104 I think you'll be wanting more CPU power. Any
>transcoding work is likely to hurt. This is just a guess though, you might
>get lucky.
>
>
An Xscale or similar ARM processor has plenty enough cpu power to do
transcoding so long as you've got a resaonably efficient implementation
of the codecs (they are available...) and a lightweight OS.

The lower end ARM7 based devices can do mp3 decoding with a <50MHz
clock, the more recent cores with DSP-like extensions manage with
substantially fewer instructions (eg. they quote 11% of a 160MHz ARM9E).
mp3 encoding takes about twice the cpu power, and the aac decoder
requires less cycles than the mp3 (IIRC). A ~200MHz StrongARM/Xscale
ought to be plenty...

Now, if only someone made a pc104 board with a META processor on it... ;-)

Jim

[Jack Coates]

> Jack Coates wrote:
>
>>with mini-itx or pc104 I think you'll be wanting more CPU power. Any
>>transcoding work is likely to hurt. This is just a guess though, you
>> might
>>get lucky.
>>
>>
> An Xscale or similar ARM processor has plenty enough cpu power to do
> transcoding so long as you've got a resaonably efficient implementation
> of the codecs (they are available...) and a lightweight OS.
>
> The lower end ARM7 based devices can do mp3 decoding with a <50MHz
> clock, the more recent cores with DSP-like extensions manage with
> substantially fewer instructions (eg. they quote 11% of a 160MHz ARM9E).
> mp3 encoding takes about twice the cpu power, and the aac decoder
> requires less cycles than the mp3 (IIRC). A ~200MHz StrongARM/Xscale
> ought to be plenty...
>
> Now, if only someone made a pc104 board with a META processor on it... ;-)
>
> Jim

I'm sure they do, and I've seen them used to build some pretty cool stuff.
But all that cool stuff was done with older clibs, 2.2 and 2.4 kernels,
ash scripts, busybox, and other tricks to keep the hardware load down.
This is a memory-hungry Perl app we're talking about here, not a svelte
appliance

I'd be happy to be wrong, anyone using an ARM out there? I know there are
mini-itx users who are happy with performance outside of transcoding, and
I know my own mini-itx M10000 is too slow as a desktop for my taste. I
have a more powerful server on which slimserver is usually the number one
consumer of resources, well ahead of zope, dansguardian, spamd, squid and
apache.

--
Jack At Monkeynoodle.Org: It's A Scientific Venture...
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -- President Dwight D.
Eisenhower, April 16, 1953