[mythtv-users] How much storage do you have for MythTV?

Yeechang Lee ylee at pobox.com
Mon Jan 23 18:26:22 UTC 2006


Ross Campbell <ross.campbell at gmail.com> says:
> My MythTV box is now at around 600gb and that seems like just about
> enough storage for me for now with non-HD recordings,

Indeed. A FireWire capture of a non-HDTV cable channel takes about
19MB/minute. 600GB = 526 hours. HDTV takes up to sevenfold more space
(see
<URL:http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2006-January/118576.html>)
per time period.

> but I can see a day in the not too distant future where the bulk of
> my mythtv expense will be STORAGE, and not computer parts.

I'm already there! That ~$1100 figure I mentioned earlier for my
HD-capable MythTV box didn't include the $2100 I paid for an Infrant
ReadyNAS 600 with 2TB in RAID 0 that I'm solely dedicating to MythTV.

And yet, I haven't gained *that* much with the Infrant in terms of
actual programming length versus the circa-2000 TiVo I upgraded in
2001 to 200GB. That could do 246 hours of the lowest-quality (but
still quite watchable in most circumstances, if you ask me, especially
with movies on TCM) recordings. I figure my Infrant with eight times
the space only gives me about 100 more hours of recording time in HD
(assuming a blend of high- and regular-bandwidth HD channels). In
other words, within mere months I'm going to have to once again begin
the methodical culling process of less- or unwatched programs I became
so familiar with on the 200GB TiVo.

I've used up 741G of it in five weeks of MythTV recording with two
HDTV cable boxes (and now an OTA card for just a few programs a
week). Some of the programs responsible:

* The Untouchables, 125 minutes, 16GB
* St. Elmo's Fire, 120 minutes, 15GB
* Shakespeare in Love, 125 minutes, 16GB
* Ben-Hur, 215 minutes, 15GB
* The Matrix Revolutions, 135 minutes, 11GB
* A Passage to India, 165 minutes, 21GB
* La Bamba, 110 minutes, 14GB

All except Ben-Hur and Matrix are from HDnet Movies, which is an
especial godsend for any movie lover. (I *can't wait* for the day TCM
starts broadcasting in HD!)  My all-time champion, now unfortunately
lost in a box rebuild, was NBC's The Sound of Music annual
broadcast. Four hours, including commercials, and 28GB!

> I'd also be interested to know the % of mythtv users who don't use
> RAID.

By RAID I presume you mean RAID 5. I occasionally wonder whether I
should have gone RAID 5 on the Infrant. However, that'd have meant
giving up 25% or 500GB of space and, as you can see, I can definitely
put the 500GB to use . . . And more! Oh, my wallet is feeling the pain
already.

-- 
Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> | +1 650 776 7763 | San Francisco CA US


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