[mythtv-users] Storage Groups for Videos - does each host have to have mythbackend?

[Nick Rout]

I currently have random collected video files on three machines. One
only (media) is the master (and only) backend on my network. The
others (storage and elrond) are simple servers running linux and
freebsd respectively. I am running mythbuntu 10.04 with myth 2.3-fixes
on the backend and two frontends.

Currently under the old video system the files had to appear at the
same place in the file structure on backend and each frontend. So what
I ended up doing was mounting everything via cifs, viz;

media (MBE)'s videos are in /var/lib/mythtv/videos/local
media also mounts storage and elrond's video directories as
/var/lib/mythtv/videos/storage and /var/lib/mythtv/videos/elrond
respectively.

The remote frontends mount media's videos directory under
/var/lib/mythtv/videos/local and the two servers as
/var/lib/mythtv/videos/storage and /var/lib/mythtv/videos/elrond.
Therefore any frontend pulling a video from storage will be pulling it
over the network straight from storage to the frontend via cifs.

If I want to move to storage groups I guess I can point a storage
group on media to /var/lib/mythtv/videos, but that will mean something
from storage going to a frontend will get from storage to media via
cifs, and then from media to the frontend via myth protocol, using
twice the network bandwidth.

Alternatively I could make storage and elrond into SBE's with their
own storage groups but that is a major mission as they are old boxes I
haven't upgraded in years (they have no exposure to the intarweb).

Any other suggestions? (I just re-read this email and while it is
clear enough to me, I just pray it is to others).