[mythtv-users] Fwd: problems

[Michael T. Dean]

On 08/19/2013 02:58 PM, Joseph Fry wrote:
>>>>>> All the recording go to the SSD when I want them to go to the 3T HD.
>>>>>>    How do I change that.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Go into mythtv-setup, Storage Directories, and give it a path to record
>>>>> to.  "Default" and "LiveTV" are the two built in recording storage
>>>>> groups, or you can define your own that you can specify to use when
>>>>> creating recording rules.
>>>>
>>>> I'm doing this by having everything record to Default which is set to
>>>> my SSD, and then I have another storage group set to /mnt/raid/mythtv
>>>> which is on a different set of HDDs.  I then setup a cron job to move
>>>> any files from my Default location to /mnt/raid/mythtv.  MythTV will
>>>> automatically check through all of your storage groups when looking
>>>> for the file to play it back, or delete it.
>>>>
>>> Unless you are recording insane amounts of simultaneous TV there is no
>>> need for (i) recording to SSD, (ii) moving it to HDD or (iii) RAID for media
>>> storage.
>>>
>>> Hard disks are easily fast enough to cope with all but the most unusual of
>>> configurations, and media storage is not worth the complication, cost or
>>> additional energy usage of RAID.
>>
>> Especially if you have a separate file system--ideally on separate
>> spindles--for each concurrent recording you do and you use an appropriate
>> Storage Group Disk Scheduler (such as Combination or Balanced I/O--basically
>> just never use "Balanced Free Space" or "Balanced Percent Free Space",
>> regardless of how much you think you want to :).
>> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Storage_Groups#Storage_Group_Disk_Scheduler
> This is one thing I think we, as members of this mailing list, need to
> stop doing.  This poor guy clearly stated he is new to linux and
> mythtv.  I don't know if it's really fair to debate Disk Schedulers,
> cron jobs, RAID, or any of that crap... it'll probably scare him away;
> besides these arguments have been done before...at least once a month
> for the last 10 years.
>
> What Ray said was an appropriate response... anything more is advanced
> optimizations that he can worry about when he is MUCH more comfortable
> with what he's doing.  Right now, just telling him to open the
> terminal might be a bit much unless it can't be avoided.
>
> Just my 2 cents.

The problem wasn't the "debate" on Disk schedulers or RAID (and, FWIW, I 
wasn't debating--only stating facts).  The problem was once there was a 
post that could well make a newbie think, "Oh, no, I have to set up some 
means of recording to fast SSD and then moving to RAID, and I don't even 
know anything about RAID?  I thought this was just a DVR!" we could 
either let that stand as the last post or try to a) assure to the OP 
that there's no need for fancy SSD or moving recordings or RAID and b) 
explain why it's unnecessary (for the benefit of the one with the 
complex setup--and, if he wants to read it too, the OP).

And, who knows, maybe the OP was planning to set up everything with 5 
physical tuners with a total of 5 virtual tuners each and a plan to 
record 25 concurrent shows, and have it all written to a single 3TB 
HDD.  If so, the (not-that-complex) idea of scaling the number of file 
systems/disks with the number of concurrent recordings will be /very/ 
helpful to him in getting started.

Mike