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Distributed DVD Back-up Solution?

Posted by Cliff on from the more-processors-are-better-than-one dept.

SoBeIcedT asks: "I just bought the third season of 24 [fox.com] on DVD and have begun to back it up to DVD+R using DVD-Shrink on Windows XP. Being the gadget loving guy I am, it makes sense that I would have multiple computers. The trouble is I can't make use of all of those CPU cycles and they go to waste. Is there a way (perhaps using clusterKnoppix or something of the sort) that I can easily use all of the processor power in my home to transcode the DVDs?" dvd::rip is one option that has clustering support. Are there any others?

2 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Well ... by bryanp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You could take the easy way out. Have each computer rip/transcode a different DVD. Kick them all off at once and walk away.

    --
    "An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
  2. Bandwidth required by this kind of solution... by PornMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    DVD::Rip looks really neat. It mentions that the heavy I/O operations are done on the system with the local disk, and that transcoding is done on the agent nodes... though I'd think there's significant I/O involved in the transcoding... has anyone got data on the point at which adding systems really stops helping unless you've got switched gigE? I would imagine that the NFS mount becomes a bottleneck at some point before you get to a dozen nodes.

    --
    500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo