[mythtv-users] Optimal disk configuration for MythTV?

Matt Goebel matt at goebelnet.com
Wed Dec 26 18:43:21 UTC 2012


I run my Myth backend on my home server. Besides myth I have 1 KVM VM on it (personal/family mail server), it's my firewall/router, my torrent server (I send anything I'm downloading there so my other computers can sleep), a myth frontend, and it does a dozen other low impact services. At the moment I have two 2x 1TB drives in Linux software RAID 1's. One pair is the OS install and VM image and MySQL, the 24nd pair is my torrent server/fileshares. I have myth storage groups setup on both and use the combination balancing method. For the most part that works well. I'm able record 2-3 shows in 1080i at the same time while watching another without issue. My system's I/O can get pretty taxed sometimes though. Copying large files around can impact service and I can hear losts of disk activity. I have to be careful in what I'm doing so not to introduce too much I/O wait if live TV is in use in particular. With Fedora 18 coming out in a few weeks I will redoing everything soon anyways, figured I'd go for a more optimal setup. I was thinking something along the lines of: 

1x Samsung 830 or 840 SSD for OS, VM, MySQL. I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable with everything on a single SSD but RAID doesn't seem to be a very good idea with SSD's in general. Even though I back things up it's not fully up to date and backups sometimes fail and /or you forget things. The performance gains are too much to ignore though, plus I'd not had any issues with Samsung so far. 

2x Large capacity hard drives in RAID 1 for Myth Video, torrent server, and fileserver. There is some stuff on here I don't want to lose so RAID is a must. 

2x 1TB drives, just individual drives /w no RAID dedicated to MythTV live TV and recordings (storage groups on both). I really am not too concerned about losing my recordings if a drive fails. I'm not sure how myth behaves in that scenario though and what sort of mess I'd be left with if a drive were to fail. 

1x External 4x 3.5" drive eSATA/USB 3 enclosure with hardware raid built in. I just got this so I don't fully trust it yet. It's replacing a 2x drive USB enclosure that worked fine but was so and would get too hot and go offline and have to be fsck'd if you tried to transfer too much data to it without letting it sit awhile first (I does have a fan). Not sure where this will fit in just yet other than backups and archived stuff for MythTV. 

Does anyone have any comments/suggestions? My case limits me to 5x 3.5" drives but I think I could probably get 4x 3.5" and 2x 2.5" in there too. 


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