[mythtv-users] advice on recording direct to NAS

[Mark Perkins]

> On 27 May 2015, at 12:57 pm, "James Linder" <jam at tigger.ws> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 26 May 2015, at 6:36 pm, mythtv-users-request at mythtv.org wrote:
>> 
>>>> Hi all, looking for advice:
>>>> 
>>>> Background: I?ve just lost a second HDD in 6months and its getting very,
>>>> very, very annoying.
>>>> 
>>>> I have a NAS that would have capacity to record to, but have not done so
>>>> because of concern for failed recordings due to potential inconsistencies
>>>> in network and / or NAS performance. I run 4 HDD in my mythbackend
>>>> supporting 30tuners (nominal worst case 8 recordings at a time due to
>>>> overlap of pre/post roll).
>>> [snip]
>>> 
>>> I?m amazed at the general opposition to the concept. Seagate?s ATA more than an interface paper says that if you have more than 1 disk in a box then you *will* have disk failures,
>>> Does this describe you?
>>> 
>>> If you get NAS with an array and they use commercial not enterprize disks make sure they have vibration resistant mounting for each disk (some do)
>>> James
>>> _______________________________________________
>> 
>> James, I didn't follow your point. Are you saying that having >1 disk in a machine *will* cause disk failures?
>> 
>> I find it hard to believe that a machine with only 1 disk won't have failures. Even 1 disk in a machine *will* cause failures. Eventually. Sometime between now and the year 4020 most likely.
> 
> I don’t say, seagate does, but the Homer Simpson test of 'is it true' says plausable:
> Their argument is Disk1 seeks and the vibration knocks Disk2 off track so Disk2 seeks knocking Disk1 off track ad infinitem
> 
>> Or was your point about resistance to recording direct to a NAS?
> 
> My mate used a WD NAS box without vibration mounting and within 6 months had (dunno the technical detail) enough failures to render the raid array broken. He replaced disks, mounted each disk on 4 small blobs of silicone rubber and years have passed with nary a peep. (archaic english meaning with no problems)
> The *only* issue is that the backend streams to the frontend but if you have (or had ?) local files then frontend plays local (NFS) files.
> He thinks it is a good solution to use NAS+RAID and it works well for him.
> James  
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________

Right, vibration I am with you now. My mythbackend has all the rotating drives mounted with rubber mounts. A few years ago when they were Desktop PC drives they were rubber mounted as well. This Samsung may have been in my prior PC before that as well, it probably was not rubber mounted back that far in time (maybe 2007 or so?)

Interestingly enough my HP N54L microserver does not have rubber drive mounts if I recall correctly. Given the popularity and success of these microservers I would have thought they would all have rubber disk mounts if there was hard evidence it extended drive life.

I was only using rubber drive mounts to reduce background noise levels, not to reduce vibrations between disks.