[mythtv] New idea for storing recordings to disks

[Randall J. Parr]

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