[mythtv-users] Storage best practices in 2017

[Will Dormann]

On 3/22/17 12:50 PM, Mark wrote:
> Looking for suggestions on where to go from here, with the following
> assumptions:  Video recordings/dvd rips i want to have some sort of
> protection from a drive fail.  Recordings i don't care as much.  

That's a little confusing.  You care about "video recordings" but not
"recordings" ?


> What's the current thought on best practices for storage?  I had looked
> at ZFS for preventing bit-rot.  Not opposed to Raid still, but probably
> not that interested in the LVM combo anymore.


I'd only consider ZFS if you've got 8GB of RAM or more.  The more the
merrier.


Using ZFS (with more than one drive, obviously) or a RAID (linux md) can
help minimize downtime in the case of a drive failure.   With or without
redundant drives, you'll want two things to be safe:
1) Backups.    RAID isn't backup, yadda yadda...
2) Configure smartd to do scheduled self tests (I do daily short and
weekly long) *and* configure it to email you in the case of a failing drive.

At least with spinning-platter disks, properly-configured SMART will
often give you a warning before the drive dies.  (it will die).  With
SSDs, I'm not completely sure how useful SMART is.



-WD