[mythtv-users] Confused about secondary backend storage - howto use it (trunk)?

[Jose Bernardo Silva]

On Dec 28, 2007 4:12 AM, Chris Pinkham <cpinkham at bc2va.org> wrote:
> > 3 - how can I archive on the master files recorded on the slave?
>
> If both backends are running full-time, I'd cross-mount their storage
> directories.  This will give you the most flexibility and allow the
> Storage Group scheduling code to be most efficient.
>
> Here's a sample setup similar to yours.  Each host exports all
> recordings directories via NFS and mounts the other host's directories
> via NFS in the same location as the remote host.
>
> Host1
> /video/host1/dir1 (local)
> /video/host1/dir2 (local)
> /video/host2/dir1 (nfs mounted)
>
> Host2
> /video/host1/dir1 (nfs mounted)
> /video/host1/dir2 (nfs mounted)
> /video/host2/dir1 (local)
>
> Just use the Default Storage Group on the master backend and add all
> three directories to it.  You can delete the 'Default' group on the
> slave backend, the slave will use the dirs from the master's Default
> group if a local Default group does not exist.
>
> This will allow Myth to optimize storage from a disk space standpoint
> as well as utilizing the best spindles when you're recording.

Thanks a lot! This cleared up most doubts for me. There are just a couple left:
- why NFS? My (small scale) tests have shown it to be approximately
the same speed as CIFS (samba), and samba seems safer to me;
- do the remote dirs have to have the same exact path as the local
ones, so that mythbackend can identify them as being the same, or
could I mount a "/myth" dir on the frontend as a "/media/myth" on the
backend?

> You can fairly easily use this 120GB for 'archived' shows that you'll
> probably never want to delete.  Using my above Host1/Host2 notation,
> we'll call this Host3.
[...]

This also makes a lot of sense to me. Once again, thanks for the nice
explanation!