athlon guidance

I am attempting to build a 16-camera surveillance system with 8 2-channel multiplexed frame-grabber channels each.. Each channel is read at at about 5 frames per second, the image converted into JPEG and saved, and an MPEG-1 clip made at the same time (lots of storage, yes). I typically use a small IDE drive for my OS, and a 2-drive RAID-0 built with WD120JB 8-MB cache drives. I have learned the hard way that regular IDE RAID controllers of the Promise type loose interrupts and result in disk corruption, whereas the 3-ware (with its SCSI-like hardware) are reliable. There is a LOT of processing and storage going on here, and I have had good luck on my 8-camera systems using a GigaByte GA7VAXP with AMD2400XP processors, but average about 10% CPU utilization for each active (detected motion, now capturing and encoding) channel. So when all 8 cameras are active, I sustain about 80% or more total CPU loading. Typically never more than 5 are active at the same time. My question is how can I scale up to get 16 camera channels? I use Debian Woody 2.4.19 with Reiserfs (good job Hans!).

The fastest Athlon that I can get is a AMD3200 XP with 400 Mhz FSB. On the other hand, I can use the Tyan 2466 Dual Athlon board, but MP processors only have a 266 Mhz FSB and the fastest speed is the 2800 MP. So, given the nature of the CPU and data intensive application, which is the faster platform: a slower 2800/266 MHZ FSB dual processor or a single 3200/400 MHZ FSB processor?

All suggestions and analysis welcomed.

Joe

I think dual processor system would be a bit faster for your needs. On the other hand it will be cheaper to set up second or even third machine, and split the data channels or processing stadiums between them.

Leonard

"Unix IS user friendly... It's just selective about who its friends are."
                                                       -- Tollef Fog Heen