Thanks for very interesting info. Could you eleborate a bit on 2 servers part - why 2, and what Media Server does in your setup, how its connected to what?
It's much worse than I made it sound. We started out with a Mac server about 10 years ago to serve files, email and diskless clients. That has expanded several times since, but it simply got overwhelmed. So I got a RAID card and decided to add a Linux file server to off-load the Mac server.
That was nearly two years ago and in the process we started with Sage, which works better on Windows than Mac or Linux. I set up a dedicated Windows Sage server and it did fine, but it was immediately apparent it could never keep all the media files it recorded because it was running XP (2 TB partition limit).
So even before it was implemented, the Linux server was rethought and I picked up 12 TB of disks to make it the email, file and archived media server (I used to run a sound business and there is a certain amount of high-def sound recordings in addition to video to store). Media files we choose to keep go there, while the Sage server keeps the recently recorded shows that will be dumped after being watched, or are waiting to be edited to final archive form.
That worked well for a year, but the Sage server needed more local storage than XP could handle. In January I upgraded it to Vista and gave it a local 3 TB software RAID5. That sort of works, but Vista has problems and so does the software RAID. In the meantime I never had a chance to migrate the file serving from the Mac to Linux and the Linux server was getting within striking distance of getting full because of archived media.
The Linux server already had a 16 drive RAID5, and I thought why not add another? The PCIe slots were there, but the cabinet was already full with drives . Properly cabling it over to another 16 drive cabinet was going to cost around $600 alone. I had another motherboard sitting idle, and it turns out to be much cheaper to simply set up another Linux file server.
That will become the archived media server with about 24 TB of RAID5. It will also replace our current standalone backup server. Off-loading archived media from the current Linux server will give me enough space to finally complete the migration of non-media file serving from the Mac. I am rolling the Sage server box back to XP and it will have no local recording storage (its current RAID5 drives go toward the 24 TB). In fact it probably won't even have Sage running on it, because I want to run Sage virtualized on my first Linux server and keep the non-archived media recordings there. The XP box will simply host all the drivers and apps to gather the data and record it to the new Sage server (original Linux server). As I migrate the Sage network encoders to Linux, I hope to eliminate the XP box entirely. Is that convoluted enough?
Thus the final lineup will be:
1. XP box running Sage network encoders for all sources. No local storage. May disappear at some point.
2. Original Linux server hosting non-media user files, diskless boot images, email, web and temporary media files (12 TB). Also will run virtualized XP with the Sage server. In time the network encoders will likely end up here, either virtualized under XP or as native Linux.
3. New Linux server hosting archived media (24 TB). Also the server to handle backups to tape since it has the most data.
4. Mac server, mostly to manage the LDAP directory and oversee diskless clients.
5. Two FreeBSD routers for DNS, DHCP, mail exchange, spam filtering, web proxy and firewalling.
Also, why do you need 4 BUDs, are they different in any way?
This is also partly a story of how we got there. We rescued a horizon-to-horizon 3m and added a dual orthomode feed to get both C and Ku, thinking that would be enough with our existing OTA and DN setup. My wife is from Switzerland and soon she was running C-band a lot on the European channels. So up went a motorized 1.2m dedicated to Ku because I was chasing a lot of fine arts.
That still wasn't enough so I put a 1.8m C-band only on the roof to handle the European stuff to free up the 3m. Then the boys got interested in European soccer feeds they couldn't see on DN, and the 3m was tied up again. We rescued a 2.3m in the spring for them, and I thought I would sidecar a circular C-band feed on it for the eastern birds that use it in addition to its linear C-band feed.
But along the way I was modifying the dual ortho feed on the 3m and realizing that it would never do spectacularly on Ku. That begat the toroid to keep the 1.2m from moving all the time. The 3m is now running a single ortho feed (linear), and I experimented with all the available feeds on the 2.3m before deciding to also go single ortho (linear) there, too.
The dual ortho turned out to work quite well with Ku on the 1.8m as it is my only solid BUD. In fact I just modified it to use a prime-focus universal Ku quad LNB for eastern birds below the frequency range of the 1.2m. That leaves the C-band circular ortho feed homeless at the moment.
On top of this a friend rescued another 2.3m and got a GI 920 4DTV receiver, which he kindly gave to me as thanks. I modified this to work with the Nextcom interface and much prefer the quality of master HD feeds to DN. So part of the DN subscription went over to 4DTV, but that is another demand on C-band dishes.
We then rescued a 3.2m mesh which has yet to go up. That will probably end up with a single ortho feed (linear), with the circular C-band ortho sidecared on the 3m.
Thus we have:
1. OTA VHF and UHF roof antennas.
2. One toroid (probably will become two) to handle all North American Ku band.
3. One 1.2m to handle tough North American Ku feeds, hunting and backup to toroids for rain-fade.
4. One 1.8m with C-band for commonly watched Euro channels and universal Ku reception of Atlantic birds that use the lower frequency range that #3 can't pick up.
5. One 2.3m with C-band for soccer, other sports and likely 4DTV.
6. One 3m with both linear and circular C-band, primarily for circular, but secondary for #5 overflow.
7. One 3.2m with linear C-band for tough feeds, hunting and overflow.
I'm sorry if this was more detail than you need, but it shows how a nice little idea can mushroom into a major headache. I was fortunate to realize beforehand how this might happen and designed in excess capacity along the way. There has been added wiring with each step, but little throwaway of switches, infrastructure or placed cables.
