[CentOS] inexpensive / reasonably priced workstation / server development box

[Timothy Selivanow]

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