The "How" and "Why" of Upgrading My HTPCs

There's a price to be paid; both literally and figuratively, to having lots of computers! It's not a static hobby! There's are constant changes which is both the fun and the frustration of it. Now that my workstation, all of the laptops and the server are either in "good shape" or at least "in process", what about everything else..... my non-personal PCs?

Let's look at what's out there. Other than the server, there are 3 HTPCs and their job is pretty much to run Kodi and to server as the front-end to our media which will reside on the replacement server (aka Globemaster). It's actually a bigger job than it appears since all of our TVs are now at least HD with one that's 4K spec. Pushing pixels to those displays is not nearly as easy of a task at what it used to be! So, let's take a look at the players involved.

 

The whole situation is kind of "a house of cards" really so lets start with the simplest situation. Part of my main A/V system in the upstairs media/game room is the "Hawkeye" HTPC. It's a Asus E350M1-Pro motherboard living inside of an Ahanix D-Vine5 case. That board was AMD's first generation of APUs which combined an actual GPU inside the same die as a CPU. As you can surmise from the bare heat sink w/o fan, it's not very powerful. However, it does the job. If you don't mind the 3 minute boot (on SSD.....ouch) and the 1080p limitation (it's connected to the 55", 4K Sony), then you're good. However, if you compare what those first gen "Llano" chips can do vs. the current ones, it's not pretty. 

The reason all this happened in the first place was that, recently, while looking around at other things, I came across this: a Gigabyte F2A78M-HD2. That's an A78 chipset board with a FM2+ socket capable of taking AMD's then new for 2014 "Kavari" series of APUs. These chips 4 generations down the road from my old one, are built on a 28nm process with a 45w TDP. It was also $20! So, after a month of patient watching and waiting, I was able to nail down an A8-7600 processor for $55. What's so special about the this little "Kavari" chip? Here's the thing. This particular SKU can not only be run at the designed 65w TDP, but also at a 45w low power setting. It has 10 total cores, allocating 4 to the CPU and 6 to the R7 GPU giving it plenty of power. Enough so that AMD advertises as capable of driving 4K specs, but in reality their goal is the HD one, which is 1080p at 30fps while gaming with challenging titles. Given that it's going to be an HTPC, that's more than enough. Warts? I wish it had 4 instead of 2 RAM sockets, and it lacks an optical digital out for sound. I use that to send the audio to my home theater receiver for much cleaner decoding, but hey; I can spring for an stand-alone soundcard for that!

 

What about this? I have 2 other TVs in the house: one in the downstairs living room and one in our bedroom. Our TV watching habits are basically spit between, cable TV, movie watching (via actual media like DVD), and content over the internet. This split varies between the location AND is slowly changing from more cable to more internet with movie watching via media staying the same. Strangely, unlike others, we don't stream Netflix or use Roku, we'll watch TV via the network's sites, Youtube and Kodi (formerly XBMC). So obviously, having a computer connected to these TVs is kind of a need. Some of you might remember my "Viking" build in the Silverstone SUGO SG-08B Lite case. Inside is a very low-powered motherboard, the Gigabyte GA-C847N-D with an onboard Intel Celeron 847 CPU (17w TDP). I do have a DVD drive in there, but not sure why. The onboard graphics seems to do an adequate job, but the engine is the aging "Ivy Bridge" processing. This machine will stay the same.

Last summer, while I was in Taiwan, my brother gave me this. It was one of his spare boards. An Intel DN2800MT mounted in a little plastic generic case. Don't be confused if you've never heard of it, much less seen anything like it. Boards of this type are made for "industry" typically used in computers that run automation of one kind or another, hence the very low-profile everything! Oh, and it's powered by an Intel Atom N2800 which is a dual core processor running at 1.86Ghz drawing 6.5w TDP!!! I've got it running HTPC duties on the 3rd TV, but it struggles some. One of it's issues is that the chipset only allows it to address 4Gb of RAM running on a single channel..... and that's despite the 2 SO-DIMM sockets. It's nice to have versus not having a machine down there, but that's about it.

  

Enter the Silverstone SUGO SG-05 and Gigabyte GA-B75TN. What? Another weird board? Yes, a $30 (local Craigs List) complete with power supply case and....... wait for it....... $24 board! Quite often, "weird" means cheap! In this case, this one was brand new even. OK, let's look at this MB. It's LGA-1155 meaning anything from the Sandy/Ivy Bridge generation of processors. This not only gives very decent power, but pretty good onboard graphics if the CPU is chosen wisely. On top of which, it has an onboard mSATA socket thus allowing the primary storage to be right there as well. It doesn't even require a regular power supply, capable of using any barrel-plugged outboard adapter between 12 and 19v. There's even an LVDS connector for driving LED/LCD panels. They were part of a spec designed to fit inside the all-in-ones. 

Appropriately enough, also for $24, I picked up an Intel Pentium G2030T. This 2.6Ghz dual core processor only draws 35w TDP making it very cool-running. This chip also has Intels HD Graphics with 6 execution units. It won't get any gaming done, but that won't be an issue for it's intended purpose. If I want/need more power, I can go all the way up to i7 from this board. 

When you add it all up, I will have spent about $200 total to update 2 of our 3 HTPCs. They'll all be from the "Core" generation of processors with attendant capabilities. I think we're pretty much set to go!

"Globemaster" Server

Much like the gestation period of an elephant, or the development of the actual C17 "Globemaster", the new server build is underway!

In case you're wondering why the home server got a new name...... the size differences makes that pretty obvious. On the floor (on it's side) is the "Spectre" progression of the original C-130 "Hercules" server. It was literally maxed out! All 6 drives spaces had some sort of drive in it. All 6 SATA port on the MB was occupied. I even had to use the IDE (!!!) port for the optical drive! The rather compact Silverstone case was literally stuffed to the brim. It was time.

As I've discuss in earlier posts, I was able to acquire an incomplete Fractal Design Define XL R2 off of Craigs List for $30 a few months ago. In reality it wasn't all that incomplete, just missing the 3 fans, and some screws: items that I have ready replacements, so a non-issue. You can clearly see that sitting next to a regular ATX-sized case like the Define R4, the XL is a beast. 

So much so that it's EATX (Extended ATX) size gave me the option of using full-blown server parts designed to go into "rack-mount" cases. .....which by the way are very cheap to buy on the used market since the demand for them is so limited. I picked up a SuperMicro X7DBE dual processor board for $50 (after shipping). 

It cost me another $30 or so to get the I/O shield and giant heatsinks AND another $10 for the 2 Xeon 5148 processors. Yes, I did say $10! Yup; old server parts are cheap. 

 $30 more for 16Gb (4 x 4Gb) sticks of DDR2 Kingston ECC/FB RAM. 

Why all this trouble? You guys already know that I've convinced myself to go with FreeNAS (especially now that Windows Home Server is dead), but I've also decided to go "whole-hog" and move to ZFS or Zetabyte File System. And after studying up on the subject, I've decided that although I don't need ZFS2 (2 disk failure protection), I'd like to have the highest level of efficiency with ZFS1 (obviously, 1 disk failure protection) which is .8333% space utilization by using 6 drives. That'll give me roughly 10Tb of storage space using 6, 2Tb drives. That's a lot of drives, right?

Oh No, there's more! Since I'd like to use Plex on this machine to serve up the media, I'm going to want to have a caching SSD for that since Plex runs best when transcoding with one of those. Lucky I've already got one, but that's 7 drives!?! I've only got 6 SATA headers onboard!

 

SuperMicro to the rescue.... once again, with a SAT2-MV8, 8-Port SATA controller for another $17.50! Woe is me! It'll give me the ability to add more drives or move to ZFS2 someday if I feel the need.

Hey, at least I don't need to buy another NIC for this thing since it has 2 of those already ..... plus a serial and a parallel port, because everyone needs some of those. 

Unfortunately, I've run into some road-blocks to finishing this monster! The case is so big, I need extensions for my power supply cables! I also need an adapter to run to an extra 12v header on the MB. Since it has dual Xeons, it not only requires an 8-pin aux plug, but another 4-pin as well! On top of that, there's a little problem of screws! Don't get me wrong; I've got lots of those, but the case comes with drive trays with rubber mounting rings, I need extra-long screws. And since I have 6 of those things......

But these are relatively minor issues to the "Globemaster" taking off! Not a bad upgrade for less than $200.

 

The New Workhorse

A draft/cart/heavy/work-horse is by definition bred to do hard work.

Every few years, in the computing world, a design comes along that is exceptional in not only performance, but longevity. When that's combined with a particularly well-matched operating system of the same characteristics..... it's like, Patton and the tank, Nimitz and the aircraft carrier, Jordan and Pippen, Aikman and Smith and Irvin..... whatever analogy you want to use..... it like magic! 

In this case, it's Microsoft's Windows 7, and Intel's LGA 1155 generation processors. Why not the 1156, or 1150 you ask?

Unlike the 1156 that went before, and the 1150 that came after, this was a relatively long-lived socket. Much like the 775 that was home to the Core Duo/Core 2 Duo family of processors, it defined the DDR3 (vs. DDR2) generation of computers. It was not only powerful but long lasting as as well. Running Windows 7, the processors of that generation still make very viable machines to this day. They're versatile.... and they're cheap! My main workstation runs an i7-3770 on a Z77 chipset, and I've got i5s and i3 as well as Celerons of that generation scattered throughout the house. We recently finished the conversion of our laptop fleet to that generation of machines as well, sending the last of the Penryn C2Ds to retirement.

What brings on this post to extol the virtues of this "obsolete" socket? Price, of course! My bedroom HTPC started acting funny last week, so I've been looking at options versus simply reloading it. While in the midst of looking around to see what's out there, I ran across the above; a Gigabyte B75TN. It's a little bit of an odd duck and not something that most folks would probably be familiar with, even it they build their own machines. It's not "odd" due to the Mini-ITX form-factor. That's pretty mainstream these days. No, this board conforms to a "thin" Mini-ITX form-factor that Intel set forth some years ago. They are really designed to go inside of all-in-one machines. Since the MBs on those things ride "piggy-back" behind the monitor, they needed to be small AND thin, thus the squashed down I/O area and SO-DIMMs. Why this board? They're cheap right now. I am frugal you know! This one is on eBay for $29 (before shipping).  

Anything else about these board? They are designed from the ground up as "low powered". If you look carefully at the image, you'll see that it isn't set up to use a regular power supply. Instead they are spec'd to take "wide-range" DC input. I'm using an old 16v ThinkPad PSU on a similar board right now. So obviously, the perfect match for it would be one of the low-powered i3 or i5 processors from that generation. Besides the 65w "S" spec'd cpus, Intel also created the "T" spec'd processors that have TDPs of either 35 or 45 watts! That's low! If you throw a mSATA on there (boards of this spec have that), these things will make a heck of a small form factor, low-draw HTPC!

When you consider the other end of the spectrum is my workstation residing in the ginormous Cosmos II case, the versatility is undeniable!

New Gen Portable "Workstation".....Workstation

I've had quite a bit of business lately. It's a weird for me since in years past, the month or two after Christmas/New Years has been relatively quiet. This year, I've had a number of my old clients as well as new clients who have contacted me to get replacement machines. Almost every single one of them, have been some sort of "desktop-replacement"/"workstation" machines. You add that to my wife's computer that I recently replaced and the selling off of her old T500, I've had the larger laptops on the mind.

As I've discussed already, her replacement was the ThinkPad T530 which is an Ivy Bridge generation "Core" machine. With ours' and because they are ours', I tend to be more patient and take more time finding that special deal. For one-offs like my wife's T530, you'll have to be VERY patient and/or lucky. I grabbed her's for around $135, and I was lucky, but also had to put up with a shiny keyboard, a cracked bezel and a bad battery on top of the lack of HDD. Today, I'm not really wanting to discuss these unicorns, but the machines that I can find at any time, any day. Yes; I'm aware that I've broached the topic in the past, but this post is about what's out there right now. Hopefully, somebody out there might even be able to use it for their own search!

What I mean by that is that at a certain price-point, a particular generation of machine is readily available. For me, the price-point is $200.... and the more below that, the better I like it. Right now, in "enterprise class" machines, $200 will buy you a nice Sandy Bridge laptop by one of the Big Boys (HP, Dell, Lenovo). Companies that sell hundreds of thousands of these machines and therefore have lots of inventory out there at the end of their three year corporate lifespan. Right now, it's the Dell E6420/6520, the HP 8460p/8560p, and the ThinkPad T420/T520 machines. These are easy to find and can range as low as $120 on up to $200+. Lower if you're OK to buy without a drive, and higher if it's fully ready to go. 

I probably don't have to tell you that Sandy Bridge generation machine have a lot of life left in them as far as being a viable working machine for an individual on a daily basis. They'll all take the easy to find and inexpensive SATA drives and DDR3 RAM. Although, I'll say that if you want to have lots of RAM, I'd buy it now while it's cheap, because in another year, it's going to be quite a bit more expensive!

 

Is there "anything to give" between them? As far as function, .....no. But other factors come into play. Some people love that their machine seemingly never changes and are OK, with the somber black and the retro buttoned down look. Kind of like the James Bond of laptops ..... and for them, there's the ThinkPad. These things are so traditional, the move to the "chiclet" style keyboard was considered revolutionary. They are kind of the black-tie tuxedo of the computing crowd. 

If you really want a Mac, but have to use a PC, the corporate level HP is for you. Even the touchpad on the 8460p is similar to it's MacBook Pro cousin. Clean lines devoid of superfluous creases and embellishment is the name of the game here. 

 

For those who don't care either way and simply want the same function at the lowest average price, the Dell E6420/E6520 is for you. They are nicely built (not as nice as either the ThinkPad or HP) and decent looking. They will do the job. Traditionally, Dell sells the most out of the big three, so they are the easiest to find and making them the cheapest as well. I've bought these guys for around $125 in nice shape. Peripherals such as docks, power adapters, and drives are cheap and easy to find. 

 

While these machines make nice daily drivers for just about anyone, they are also amazingly adaptable as well. Because they were corporate machines, the list of devices made for them are long and often useful even to us regular people. Just the batteries alone come in an variety of types (typically 5), ranging from 3 different levels of standard batteries, to modular bay battery, to "slice" battery that attaches to the bottom of the machine and functions as an adjunct to the main battery. Typically, there are 2 or more optical drives, and hard drive bay adapters to add more storage. Less normal, but never-the-less sometimes available are devices ranging from numeric keypads, and modular fan units to modular graphic card upgrades! 

And as if that wasn't enough, there always "the dock". Actually, it's not really that; there's often anywhere from 1 to 3 different docks! The simplest being a "port replicator" so that all peripherals can be attached to this thing and thus allowing the user to walk away with the computer by simply pushing a button. Then there are true docks that give the machine more capabilities than the machine by itself had, such as SCSI (back in the old days), drive bays, etc. Sometimes, manufacturers even have "advanced docking stations"..... that is a dock, but it does even more stuff! Things such as expansion slots AND drive bays. I even have an old IBM one with built in speakers. 

I have a client who's about to replace her desktop that's used for work with an HP Elitebook 8460p and since she uses multiple displays, as well as full-sized keyboard/mouse combo on a daily basis, I'm also going to add an HP Advanced Docking Station to her new rig as well. We'll be able to do all this for less than $350!   

The Portable Workstation

Going back to the beginning, my very first laptop computer that is, I've always had a bit of an obsession with "ultra-portability" and the concept of the portable/mobile workstation. I'll define that here as being a computer and peripherals having the capability of doing jobs that are generally considered to be within the province of full-sized desktop computers. I'll have to say that I was able to get started in good style with the IBM ThinkPad 701c (sometimes known as the butterfly). As machine so small that a full-sized keyboard was too large for, and had to be able to fold and unfold into!

As cool and interesting as that machine was though, it wasn't really the whole story. I took the concept to another level by finding the IBM 5183 Portable Printer along with the Logitech Scanman II to pair with it. This gave me be the capability of pretty much doing anything I wanted, anywhere I wanted, without even an electrical outlet. If you're unfamiliar with the computer, it's really smaller than what the image would indicate. That screen is only 10.4"! So this whole rig pretty much fit in a regular sized computer bag and weighed no more than just a more normal sized laptop by itself. I was hooked!

In the years after that, my portable machines grew as they progressed from legendary 600, then on to the the "T" Series. I was happy with these machines, but often would lament the lack of extreme portability that the "Butterfly" had given me. Then one day the ThinkPad folks dropped the X300 bomb on us! When the price for them finally came back down to earth, I bought a nice used one several years ago. 

 

This became the core of my "next-gen" portable workstation. It paired nicely with Canon LIDE scanner that I had at the time and I even dabbled in the Pentax Portajet thermal printer (the world's smallest printer). The idea received it's most significant use and "proof-of-concept" when tragically my mother-in-law passed away due a car accident during the holidays one year. I had the whole rig with me at the time since we were vacationing with my in-laws and I was scanning some family photos for them. That scanner got quite a workout putting together a memorial from old photographs for the funeral.

Around that time, I added another element to my little bag of tricks by adapting the recently acquired Android ThinkPad Tablet to work as a secondary screen to the laptop (which had been upgraded to the X301). This gave me a portable multi-monitor setup like I was used to at home. 

The 3rd generation of my portable workstation came about when the X3xx machines gave way to the X1. On one hand, I gave up having a built-in optical drive (which I haven't missed at all), but on the other, I gained a much nicer (and larger at 14.1" vs. 13.3") screen (the X3xx machines had notoriously bad panels), but at a resolution (1366 x 768) much kinder to my aging eyes. Although it's a 2nd gen (Ivy Bridge) Core processor, and has other upgrades such as USB 3.0 as well; it's most important function is as the "core" (forgive the pun) to the new version of portable "eco-system" if you will.

Recently, I was to again add the ability to print on the move with the HP OfficeJet H470 printer. I actually gave about $30 (after shipping) for 2, H470s and 1, H460, along with power supplies for all three as well as 2 batteries. One of the H470s has an unresolved issue, but the other one works as does the H460 that I'll probably sell to defray the cost of the whole thing. A Bluetooth wireless module ($10) is on it's way from China to allow me to go fully wireless printing. 

 

 

Of course there are other smaller items such as the Bluetooth travel mouse, the nVidia Shield tablet and the Wacom Bamboo pen digitizer that gives me other capabilites as well.

 

Those things are great, but the biggest change in this generation has to be the ability to bring massive storage to the portable realm. About a year ago, I picked up the Lenovo F800 "Multi-Drive". Essentially an access point, attached to a lithium-iom "power station", combined with a 1Tb hard drive, it gives me the ability to have a wireless NAS wherever I go. As if that wasn't enough, I picked up a Drobo Mini last summer and populated it with 4 laptop sized (2.5") drives (2, 1.5Tb & 2, 1Tb), giving me the capability to carry 5Tb of USB 3.0 attachable storage with me anywhere. This weekend, I put the 600Gb Intel 320 SSD from my wife's old laptop into the other bay of the X1. This combined with the mSATA, 480Gb SSD, gives me a total of around 1Tb of "onboard" storage, and 6Tb of either attached or wireless storage. If you'd have told me that I'd be able to do this affortably even 2 years ago; I'd have said that it was "crazy talk"!

That's a lot of cool portable stuff right!?! ....but there's more! Oh, I don't own any of it, but ..... one day..... What is it? It's the ThinkPad "Stack". What's the pieces in the Stack? One is a lithium-ion power station, another is a Bluetooth speaker, then you a portable access point, and of course, the last (so far) is a portable HDD. Each is about the size of one of those portable drives you can buy anywhere, but the cool thing about this is that they're all the same footprint and can connect to each other without wires or cables! OK; it doesn't do anything that I can't already do, but it does it in a much nicer way! I can be a little OCD.