Well... I reckon I'm talked into RAID... I will now have four (4) 250GB ATA-100 WD2500JB Drives ... I'll throw them together in a software RAID 5 setup... writing across that many spindles should be fairly nice... I doubt software RAID 10 would work very well... (but might be cute to see)...
<br><br>When you say:<br><br>> (providing your not planning on high def)<br><br>What is it that you mean?...<br><br>Thanks,<br><br>Andy<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/23/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Robin Smith
</b> <<a href="mailto:1canuck2@gmail.com">1canuck2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">AFTER buying my hardware RAID card I read a few things that implied
<br>software RAID may actually be better (at least that hw RAID is not as<br>good as its cracked up to be unless you are buying a real server class<br>RAID controller ($$$). Your choice of CPU and the Gig of RAM should<br>
set you up well (providing your not planning on high def) so I'd think<br>you'll be fine. The PVRs use little to no CPU when recording, so<br>Myth-wise you're not going to be taxing your CPU that much...<br><br>On 9/23/06, Andy Speagle <
<a href="mailto:sidrew@gmail.com">sidrew@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> Ok.. fair enough.. g etting the drives is a trivial matter... and I suppose I<br>> can understand not wanting to lose recordings... I consider the PVR a
<br>> convenience rather than a long term storage system for TV... but setting up<br>> RAID isn't that much of a stretch.<br>><br>> The one caveat to that is that I don't have hardware RAID available to me<br>
> for the ATA-100 drives... and while I've had much fun with linux software<br>> RAID setups... I'm curious if doing software RAID with this system would be<br>> too much...<br>><br>> Does anyone have any insight about performance with linux RAID?
<br>><br>> Thanks,<br>><br>> Andy<br>><br>><br>> On 9/23/06, Robin Smith < <a href="mailto:1canuck2@gmail.com">1canuck2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > I work in IT, so statistically, my odds may be higher. For IBM
<br>> > Deskstar drives (Deathstar's as we used to call them), our failure<br>> > rate was a whopping 9% until they released new firmware. We are on<br>> > Western Digital Caviar drives and the failure rate is still around 4%.
<br>> > My RAID5 array uses four Samsung Spinpoint SATA drives (which are<br>> > quiet). I started out with just two, LVM together as you are<br>> > describing, and one of the bastard drives died! I got it replaced
<br>> > under warranty and then bit the bullet and bought two more drives and<br>> > a RAID card as I was not happy with the risk. The type of failure I am<br>> > describing are happening within the first two months of buying the
<br>> > drive, so I think its an issue with DOA states not lifepsan stats. I<br>> > also have other PCs where I have been running four 80GB drives for<br>> > four years no problem, so I can attest to some drives also having long
<br>> > lifespan. Unfortunately, it seems like its a gamble though. I do not<br>> > buy cheap drives either, these are all high quality brand name drives.<br>> ><br>> > My thought on data integrity versus performance:
<br>> > I'll take data integrity any day. First of all, the performance you<br>> > will get without striping will NOT be poor, so the striping issue is<br>> > somewhat moot as I'd consider it uneccesary, even with four streams
<br>> > recording and one playing back. Data integrity was one of my goals (as<br>> > well as quiet sexy looking HTPC), primarily because:<br>> > 1. It takes a long time to set up a good Mythbox and I don't want to
<br>> > repeat the tasks in a panic when something goes wrong with a disk.<br>> > 2. I don't want to lose my recordings. Sure its "just" TV, but why<br>> > invest the time and effort to setup a PVR and record/archive stuff if
<br>> > you don't mind if it gets lost? I would be pissed if I lost my current<br>> > set of recordings. I don't want to have to archive to DVD in a timely<br>> > fashion because I fear for the loss of data, that's just not
<br>> > convenient for me.<br>> ><br>> > That's my perspective anyway. To sum up, I'd basically challenge you<br>> > with: why stripe and increase your risk of data loss when it is<br>> > completely uneccessary based on your current plans? You don't need the
<br>> > striping performance, so don't bother taking the risk it brings.<br>> > Return one of your PVR350s, spend the money on a third 250GB disk and<br>> > set up RAID5. Four simultaneous recordings sounds cool, but how often
<br>> > are there four things on at one time that you won't get through<br>> > timeshifting? Three is still an awesome number of simultaneous<br>> > recordings...<br>> ><br>> > Robin<br>> >
<br>> ><br>> > On 9/23/06, Andy Speagle < <a href="mailto:sidrew@gmail.com">sidrew@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > > I had the same feelings about drive lifespan... and I agree that the<br>> data
<br>> > > isn't exactly mission critical... anything that I would want to keep<br>> would<br>> > > be exported on DVD or <insert media here>. I'd rather sacrifice data<br>> > > integrity for my media than performance... It's going to be fun to play
<br>> > > with this setup... as I've done this with old bt878 cards on low-end<br>> systems<br>> > > as a test... but never on real production quality equipment.<br>> > ><br>> > > Thanks.
<br>> > ><br>> > > Andy<br>> > ><br>> > ><br>> > > On 9/23/06, Michael MacLeod <<a href="mailto:mikemacleod@gmail.com">mikemacleod@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > > > If these are new drives, I suspect that the lifetime of the drive is
<br>> > > longer than the lifetime of his currect mythtv install. Maybe if you've<br>> been<br>> > > recycling the same drives through systems for the last ten years you can<br>> > > expect them to die on you, but seriously, two new drives are going to
<br>> last a<br>> > > while.<br>> > > ><br>> > > > RAID5 for a bunch of television shows is overkill. This isn't mission<br>> > > critical data here, and the disks in all likelyhood are going to last at
<br>> > > least a few years. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've never had a drive fail<br>> > > inside a desktop system (I've had a laptop drive fail when the laptop<br>> failed<br>> > > to go to sleep when the lid closed and then went for a journey on the
<br>> > > subway, but those are different circumstances). I've been running four<br>> of my<br>> > > drives for over five years now, and they still work fine. Although, at<br>> four<br>> > > years, I did start mirroring the data on another set of drives.
<br>> > > ><br>> > > ><br>> > > ><br>> > > > On 9/23/06, Eric Ladner < <a href="mailto:eric.ladner@gmail.com">eric.ladner@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > > > > On 9/23/06, Robin Smith <
<a href="mailto:1canuck2@gmail.com">1canuck2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > > > > > Yikes! Having been burned by too many dead hard drives in my life,<br>> I<br>> > > > > > would never consider this option... you are essentially double
<br>> your<br>> > > > > > chances of complete data loss.<br>> > > > ><br>> > > > > I agree completely. Either buy another drive and do RAID5, or<br>> mirror<br>> > > > > the pair you have. It might not happen today or tomorrow, but
<br>> > > > > eventually, you'll loose 500GB of data when ONE of your 250GB drives<br>> > > > > fail.<br>> > > > ><br>> > > > > As for throughput, consider that the average show (my average anyway
<br>> -<br>> > > > > I turn my settings up for better quality) is about 2.5 Gig. That<br>> > > > > works out to about 650K per second. I'd figure you'd have to have<br>> > > > > about 8 to 10 streams running at the same time before you'd start to
<br>> > > > > see problems.<br>> > > > ><br>> > > > > My 0.02<br>> > > > > --<br>> > > > > Eric Ladner<br>> > > > > _______________________________________________
<br>> > > > > mythtv-users mailing list<br>> > > > > <a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org</a><br>> > > > ><br>> <a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users">
http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users</a><br>> > > > ><br>> > > ><br>> > > ><br>> > > > _______________________________________________<br>> > > > mythtv-users mailing list
<br>> > > > <a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org</a><br>> > > ><br>> <a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users">http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
</a><br>> > > ><br>> > > ><br>> > > ><br>> > ><br>> > ><br>> > > _______________________________________________<br>> > > mythtv-users mailing list<br>
> > > <a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org</a><br>> > > <a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users">http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
</a><br>> > ><br>> > ><br>> > ><br>> > _______________________________________________<br>> > mythtv-users mailing list<br>> > <a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org
</a><br>> > <a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users">http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users</a><br>> ><br>><br>><br>> _______________________________________________
<br>> mythtv-users mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org</a><br>> <a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users">http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
</a><br>><br>><br>><br>_______________________________________________<br>mythtv-users mailing list<br><a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org</a><br><a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users">
http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users</a><br></blockquote></div><br>