[mythtv-users] RAID 1 mirror with mythtv backend???

[Jay Foster]

On 1/23/2019 8:31 AM, James Abernathy wrote:
> I know others have used RAID mirrors on their mythtv backend. I have 
> had my latest system running with 2 RAID 1 mirrors (4 drives) for 
> about a year. Besides general file serving I have /mnt/recordings-tv1 
> on one mirror and /mnt/recordings-tv2 on the other. I have both the 
> /mnt/recordings-tv1 and 2 defined in the volumes section mythtv-setup.
>
> I had a drive fail last spring and replaced it and added the new one 
> back into the mirror with no problems after recovering.
>
> But lately I've started to have a mdadm failure about every 2-3 
> weeks.  At first I thought it might be the fact that my latest batch 
> of drives were Toshiba P300 desktop drives.  Once I remove the drive I 
> ran Spinrite 6 on them that reads and writes every sector on the 
> drive.  It found no errors.
>
> This has happened twice with the Toshiba drives.  I order some Seagate 
> Iron Wolf server drives made for NAS usage. In fact I had to put one 
> into service today.  I'm recovering the mirror now.
>
> What are the opinions on using RAID mirrors for mythtv recordings. 
> Does that cause more problems than it's worth?? I'm debating going 
> back to a 2 drive mirror for general NAS usage just for home data 
> storage where the activity is very low. And then having a mythtv box 
> just for backend with 2 drives just for recordings.
>
> I'm getting tired of replacing drives.  I'm am grateful about not 
> losing any data so far, but it's becoming a pain.
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
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I do not use RAID, but I do backup my data onto another machine about 
once a week.  For recordings, videos, music, (data files), I use rsync 
to mirror the drives.  I only perform the mirroring when MythTV is not 
recording on the drive, so there is no impact on recordings.  At most, I 
should only lose a week of recordings, assuming both the MythTV drive 
and the backup drive don't fail at the same time (two drives could fail 
in a RAID at the same time too).  For OS file systems, I use 
rdiff-backup, and keep about 1 year's worth of backups
Jay