[mythtv] New idea for storing recordings to disks

[Terry Barnaby]

Randall J. Parr wrote:
> Brandon Beattie wrote:
> 
>> Well it happened, one of 5 disks in my LVM setup went bad and the claims
>> of every LVM user I know didn't come true (That if you lose one disk,
>> you can still get to the data of the rest). 
>>
>>> From this I had an idea and wanted to see if it's a good idea for Myth.
>>
>>
>> Recordings would work like this.  Just like in various mythplugins you
>> would be able to specify various locations to store recordings to.  This
>> wouldn't be hard of course.. if that directory doesn't have enough
>> space, use another directory. If no directories exist, expire a file
>> from the directory with the most amount of space in it.  Of course there
>> could be different ways to expire, move files, to balance used space..
>>
>> Comments?
>>
>> The reason I truely like this idea is it takes a lot of complexity out
>> of the picture.  No longer do you need LVM, Raid, or even need to have
>> things setup for one directory to store recordings..  Just tell it where
>> to use space from and it will save recordings to whereever it can.
>>
>> This would also be helpful for adding/removing disks and so on.  Another
>> feature that would be helpful is when selecting a recording in the
>> watch-recordings, is to specify which disk it should reside on.. so
>> maybe store shows you care about to a specific disk (maybe it's raided
>> or something) and kids shows you don't care about would be stored to an
>> old disk that may go out at any time..  You could also move files,
>> reformat disks, repartition, and so on without having to kill your
>> entire recorded shows.
>>
>>  
>>
> 
> I see another "use-case" for this kind of functionality: local vs 
> file-server storage.
> 
> If your storage list went "local-drive-dir: network-drive-dir" the shows 
> could be stored on the network when the local drive filled up.  
> Alternatively, "network-drive-dir: local-drive-dir" would use the local 
> drive only if the network drive were unavailable or full.
> 
> An alternative strategy/use might be to migrate recordings to the file 
> server as the local drive filled up.
> 
> My hope/intention would be to reduce the size, heat, and noise of the 
> local (ie living room) system drives by using/migrating-to the large, 
> redundant storage of my file-server (which is not in the living room)
> 
> R.Parr
> Temporal Arts
> 
> 
> 
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I currently use multiple non raided/non LVM'ed disks in my server
for MythTv using symbolic links to allow MythTv to access the
content. Not very nice.
For me a simple colon separated path of directories to use
for recording storage would be good. All recordings would
be written to the first disk. Any marked as "no expire" would
be moved by a background process to the other disks.

One useful feature of separate non raided/LVM'ed disks that I
use is to power down the disks that are not in use. This
saves power and increases disk life.

Terry