[mythtv-users] Shingled (SMR) hard drives

R. G. Newbury newbury at mandamus.org
Thu Feb 3 22:23:56 UTC 2022


On 2022-02-03 11:11 a.m., Steve Greene wrote:
> Given that recordings are using large files accessed sequentially, is 
> the potential slowness of a shingled hard drive a real problem for a 
> backend? Anyone have first hand experience?
> 
> Looking to add storage volume via an upgrade.

I noticed an appreciable difference in the noise that the mythbox made, 
when I changed from ext4 to xfs and set some flags in fstab. That was 
some years ago. The OS is on an SSD but the recordings are on a hard drive.
from fstab:
dev/sdb1 /video xfs nlogbufs=4,noatime,nodiratime,allocsize=1G 0 0

The 'no' switches reduce extra writes to the drive, while the allocsize 
makes the greatest difference: each write chunk is allocated a 
contiguous 1G of write space. The will also affect the available space 
after shows have been deleted, reducing fragmentation.

Probably makes little difference with an SSD but it really reduces head 
hunting on 'revolving rust'.

Not sure at all what difference that would make on a shingled drive, but 
I suspect that it would, for the same reasons.

Geoff



More information about the mythtv-users mailing list