[mythtv-users] Need advice for storage project

[Nathan Richardson]

I've got two projects for the week - building my Myth TV box (Pundit
Frontend/Backend) and building a 320gb 1394a firewire drive enclosure
out of an old SCSI multibay case.

I'd like to get the storage box set up before the mythTV box, so that
I can do some file transfer and free up the 80gb disk that I am going
to use in the Pundit. Basically, I need to decide how to set up the
storage before really playing around much in Myth. I plan to use the
storage for video and audio, but (if possible) use the drive actually
in the Myth box for recording live TV. Basically, I'll move files over
once they're reencoded to MPEG4.

Anyway, I'll have three PCs in my apartment, 2 of them Windows PCs.
(they have to be running windows, one for games and one because its a
work laptop, so please don't tell me I should switch to Linux on
those. I can't) Anyway, I need to be able to connect to the storage
from all three. I'm not connecting the storage bay to the laptop,
obviously.

The way I see it, I need to decide A) which PC to connect the storage
bay to and B) which filesystem to use. My original plan was to connect
to my main windows PC and use NTFS, then share the drive via Samba. Is
this a bad idea for any reason? Will myth have problems using NTFS or
a shared drive efficiently?

Also, I'd rather not use a RAID-0 array for the 2 160gb drives in the
box. Is there a way either to have Myth use both drives for storage or
to span the drives in software so that they appear as one drive to
myth?

Thanks...