[mythtv-users] How to add more recording disk space: Christmas is coming !

Christopher McEwan christopher.mcewan at gmail.com
Thu Dec 16 10:23:04 UTC 2004


On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 02:11:20 -0800, Brad Templeton
<brad+myth at templetons.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 07:36:57AM +0000, Terry Barnaby wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Any ideas on how I can extend the recordings directory disk space
> > used by MythTv temporarily?
> >
> > I wish to add an extra hard disk to my server, just for Christmas,
> > to record extra programs.
> >
> > What I would like to do is simply add an extra directory to the
> > "Directory to hold recordings" setup option, like:
> >
> > /data/video:/extra/video
> >
> > Any other ideas, remember this is temporary I don't what to
> > mess around with raid or any other more major schemes ?
> 
> 
> Myth is not great at this.  I symphathise with the need to punt things,
> and so they punted this problem to the lvm system that can be found
> in most modern linux kernels.   You need to have it or install it.
> 
> I think in the long run this is a poor punt because if people did not
> set up their disk with LVM, it's a hard slog to switch things over.
> 
> In addition, LVM won't handle the idea of having some control over what
> disk programs go on, and of storing programs on a network mounted filesystem
> as well as a local one.   This makes some sense.   Also, if you want to
> use hard drives as an archive, you would like to tell it to move files
> to a given filesystem.
> 
> However, I also agree that managing multiple systems, tracking the
> free space on each and figuring the right thing to do is also hard.
> 
> Anyway, as to your problem -- do you have lvm?  (man lvm)
> 
> If you do, did you make your video partition on lvm?  If so, your
> problem is easy, mount your new disk, extend your video partition onto
> it, then after you delete the shows to make your space requirements
> small again, remove the disk from lvm.  It should do it all.
> 
> Alas, it can't really remove the disk full of shows to archive.  That's
> harder and needs an intermediate disk.
> 
> Didn't format with lvm?  There is no quick conversion.   You need
> to have a temporary large space to hold your videos.  You would have
> do this:
> 
> a) Mount your new disk, pvcreate it for lvm.  It has to be big enough to
>     hold your existing library.
> b) Create a volume group and logical volume on the new disk.
> c) Move them all there, make it your new /video.  This will take a long time
> d) Wipe your old video partition and make it lvm.   Add it to your
>    volume group, and grow your logical volume.
> e) Extend the filesystem you made on the logical volume (you can do this
>    with xfs or ext3)
> 
> Now you are in business, and can continue with lvm.
> 
> If your new disk can't hold all your videos and you can't find temporary
> space elsewhere, this becomes harder.  Fortunately new disks are
> often larger.   160gb for $50 after rebate at outpost.com.
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 

I did the same recently. My mythtv recording are stored in a directory
called /video this was mounted on hda.

I moved the video dir to /video2 and mounted hdb as /video then copied
accross the contents, therby increasing the space from 60G to 120G and
also freeing up loads of space on the main drive.


-- 
Regards,


~CM


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