[mythtv-users] Thoughts on a reliable (backed up) mythtv system

[Brad Templeton]

On Tue, Jul 18, 2006 at 11:55:38AM -0700, Marco Nelissen wrote:
> >I believe the best form of backup, while more expensive in disk
> >cost than RAID, is remote mirroring.   At least to another computer
> >on the same LAN, and even better to a disk in another building.
> >Mirroring with short-term keeping of deleted files, as well.
> 
> But as you say: the worst consequence of drive failure is missing a
> TV show, so why even bother? TV is not *that* important, is it?

Correct.   But we've seen discussion of people keen to build RAID
arrays for their myth boxes and other forms of backup.

DVRs are of course wonderful but they also create a number of "throw the
remote at the tv" moments because of the way they work.   Things
that were never a problem with live tv -- shows running long, listings
being off in certain ways, lineup changes, downtimes, temporary signal
outages (which could convince myth not to record at all) -- can get
you very mad with a DVR.    And of course  DVR failures, be they
hardware or software caused.

So this is what leads people to look for backup.  The reason I think
RAID is wrong direction is that the vast majority of the problems I
have experienced have been not caused by bad hard disks, even though I
did have a hard disk go bad in my Myth box once (lost a couple of shows,
salvaged the rest.)  Far more shows have been lost to accidental
deletion, bugs etc.