[mythtv-users] MythTV vs. Windows Media Center

[Reynolds, Brian]

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Rob Smith
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 10:11 PM
To: Discussion about MythTV
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV vs. Windows Media Center

On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Reynolds, Brian
<Brian.Reynolds at fiserv.com> wrote:
> I'm planning to build the machine with two 1TB 7200 RPM drives
> configured in a RAID-0 to maximize throughput on the serial reads/writes
> that will be required for playback/recording.   I'm thinking that this
> will be needed for recording (or watching live TV, with a buffer) so
> many HD streams simultaneously and also the possibility of streaming
> several pre-recorded streams out to the extenders/front-ends/browsers.
> I've chosen a case with enough space for additional drives for more
> throughput/storage-space (just in case it's needed) and/or configuring
> them as a RAID-1+0 for redundancy, although I don't feel that the
> content will really justify a need for redundancy.  As Ben Kamen says...
> television isn't THAT important (but it's a pretty funny thing to say on
> a list that is dedicated to recording TV).

Do yourself a favor and keep the drives separate.

We balance recordings between the drives so you'll get better
performance overall keeping them as fully independent targets.

If you raid-0 them, one recording will stress both drives, you're NCQ
depth is limited at 31 outstanding io requests vs 62 for the two
drives independently.

Another reason, if you lose one, you only lose half your recordings
rather then all of them.

Just as a point, my current usb 2.0 drive handles 10 HD streams at
once just fine (3 writing, 6 flagging, 1 playing).
_______________________________________________

Rob,

Thanks for the advice.  I'll keep that in mind in case I decide to use MythTV.  I don't think MCE will allow me to direct the streams from individual tuners/channels to a specific drive (score one for Myth).  However, in the case of MCE, the effect of NCQ could be minimized (on either OS, actually) if I keep my drives defragmented.  The utility named MyDefrag (free) is excellent on Windows.  I run it on my personal machines every day.  They wake up at a non-peak time each day, run a daily defrag (among other tasks), and then go back to sleep (with a monthly full defrag on a pre-defined date each month).

If I decide to use Myth, I will definitely take your advice into consideration.  It's something that MCE cannot do, AFAIK (and I'm sure there are Linux equivalents to MyDefrag).

Of course, this brings up another topic...  can Myth and/or MCE be setup to go to sleep when nothing is recording and nobody is watching live TV?  I'm sure I can wake-up (either OS) when a scheduled program is about to start... but can they wake up when someone wants to watch a live TV and/or pre-recorded program from a front-end/extender?  I'm thinking that this will require using "Wake-up on LAN".  However, I don't know if the front-end (client/extender) will send the necessary "Wake up" commands.  In order to use this, will I need to setup my own work-around (either OS)?  I really like to keep my machines sleeping when possible.  Each machine costs me $6-10 (in electricity costs) per month when running 24x7.  I'm a cheap SOB. :)

Brian