Is SageTV 6 any faster ?

[Ken C]

Andy,

Haven't tried the beta, I'll wait for the release. And the version 6 improvements sound great. But, I'm wondering, have there been any changes to the basic code to increase performance ? I started with version 2.2.7.1 and with every version since, Sage has gotten slower. Now, I realise a lot has to due with the ever increasing size of wiz.bin ( a basic problem ), but we spend more and more time watching the spinning 'flower'.

Any words of wisdom ?

Ken C

[reggie14]

This doesn't really answer your question, but I had much better luck with v5 than v4. v4 did seem a little sluggish at times, and I had a few studdering problems, but it improved after installing v5. Of course, I think I continue to notice Sage eating more and more RAM with each release, but that's not such a big deal to me.

That being said, it certainly is a lot slower and buggier than the version I started on, v1.4. Of course, it does a lot more stuff. For now its certainly a tradeoff I'm willing to accept.

I should note, however, that I'm not even considering installing v6 yet. Maybe when they call something a release candidate, but not before. I admit that I'm a little nervous...

[UFGrayMatter]

Originally Posted by Ken C

Andy,

Haven't tried the beta, I'll wait for the release. And the version 6 improvements sound great. But, I'm wondering, have there been any changes to the basic code to increase performance ? I started with version 2.2.7.1 and with every version since, Sage has gotten slower. Now, I realise a lot has to due with the ever increasing size of wiz.bin ( a basic problem ), but we spend more and more time watching the spinning 'flower'.

Any words of wisdom ?

Ken C

I find that interesting since I almost never see the busy icon. What kind of system do you have? When was the last time you defraged?

[Ken C]

Originally Posted by UFGrayMatter

I find that interesting since I almost never see the busy icon. What kind of system do you have? When was the last time you defraged?

It's an Abit AI7 mb, 2 gb ram, 3gHz P4, ATI X1300 video, running XP Pro. All the video recording drives (total of 2 tb, 2 local, 4 network) are using NTSF with 64kb sectors. The drives are defragged nightly (starting to wonder if defragging isn't just a waste of time, however).

The size of the wiz.bin might be part of the problem, lot's of stuff in there. But, the response is getting more sluggish with every release, at least it seems that way to me.

Typically, we use the system like this; SageTV main menu, select "SageTV Recordings", spinning icon, scroll to recording and select video, spinning icon, watch recording, delete recording, lenghty spinning icon, back to recording list and the process repeats.

Now, we're not likely to give Sage up !! We are hooked. But, it needs to be quicker.

Ken C

[blade]

Originally Posted by Ken C

It's an Abit AI7 mb, 2 gb ram, 3gHz P4, ATI X1300 video, running XP Pro. All the video recording drives (total of 2 tb, 2 local, 4 network) are using NTSF with 64kb sectors. The drives are defragged nightly (starting to wonder if defragging isn't just a waste of time, however).

Personally I think defragging is a waste of time and a lot of unecessary wear and tear on your drives. I've been running Sage for almost 2 years and have never defragged my recording drives. There are many others who've run as long or longer without defragging. I've heard of a few people seeing improvements after defragging 64k cluster drives, which doesn't make much sense to me considering how many never defrag.

The size of the wiz.bin might be part of the problem, lot's of stuff in there. But, the response is getting more sluggish with every release, at least it seems that way to me.

I doubt the wiz.bin is large enough to bog down your system. Mine is around 8.3 mb and my system is an AMD64 3000 overclocked by 47% with 256mb of ram. Up until a couple of weeks ago I was running Sage on a Celeron 366 mhz with 320 mb of ram and Sage is just slightly more responsive than before and I rarely saw the spinning icon with my ancient system.

I wonder if it could have something to do with your network drives. I know many use network storage, but we all know some routers, nics, etc.. perform better than others and Sage does have to periodically check your recording and import drives.

Also what version of java are you running?

[Ken C]

Originally Posted by blade

I wonder if it could have something to do with your network drives. I know many use network storage, but we all know some routers, nics, etc.. perform better than others and Sage does have to periodically check your recording and import drives.

Also what version of java are you running?

Java 1.4.2

Interesting point about the network drives. They were not part of earlier systems. They were added late in SageTV version 4 or early version 5. Sage is looking at the network drives through a Dlink 614+ router and a Netgear switch. The switch is used as a port expander. I'll have to check (a real pia) to determine what's hooked through what. I do know when I added two new network drives, Sage saves everything to the new drives until all the recording directories nearly equal in usage.

Any suggestions on the optimal network configuration ?

Ken C

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by blade

Personally I think defragging is a waste of time and a lot of unecessary wear and tear on your drives. I've been running Sage for almost 2 years and have never defragged my recording drives. There are many others who've run as long or longer without defragging. I've heard of a few people seeing improvements after defragging 64k cluster drives, which doesn't make much sense to me considering how many never defrag.

Depends on the system and how its used. If you only have 1 tuner and 1 client, you could leave the drives for years and never need a defrag. If you've got 5 tuners recording at the same time and are playing back three streams, you'll need your drives to be in good shape.

Start adding multiple HD tuners and its all going to fall to pieces without defragging

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by Ken C

Interesting point about the network drives. They were not part of earlier systems. They were added late in SageTV version 4 or early version 5. Sage is looking at the network drives through a Dlink 614+ router and a Netgear switch. The switch is used as a port expander.

I'll concur with Blade that its going to be the network disks causing a problem. That and the fact that you've got 2tb worth of recordings for Sage to scan! How snappy is windows explorer when you try to browse the drives?

[blade]

Originally Posted by Ken C

Any suggestions on the optimal network configuration ?

I don't know all that much about networking and was just guessing. I do know Sage can run pretty smoothly on a very low powered server and I've had some strange network issues before that caused severe slowdowns in various apps.

Your problem may have nothing to do with the network storage, but if you run out of other things to check it might be worth looking into.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

Depends on the system and how its used. If you only have 1 tuner and 1 client, you could leave the drives for years and never need a defrag. If you've got 5 tuners recording at the same time and are playing back three streams, you'll need your drives to be in good shape.

Start adding multiple HD tuners and its all going to fall to pieces without defragging

I disagree. I have 4 SD tuners that regularly record all at once, run 4 instances of comskip as the shows are being recorded, and stream to 2 clients.

I just checked and both of my recording drives are as follows:

Total Fragmentation: 50%
File Fragmentation: 99%
Free Space Fragmentation: 4%

I have no problems with lag in Sage and no stuttering when playing back recordings. I don't run Raid or anything fancy, just (2) 7200rpm ATA100 PATA Drives with 8mb of cache.

I don't do HD, but I don't really see that it would be a problem. I know there are others with multiple tuners who are doing HD without ever defragging.

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by blade

I disagree. I have 4 SD tuners that regularly record all at once, run 4 instances of comskip as the shows are being recorded, and stream to 2 clients.

Well we'll just have to agree to disagree then. If you honestly think it makes sense for your drive heads to work harder than they need to, thats your choice

I don't do HD, but I don't really see that it would be a problem. I know there are others with multiple tuners who are doing HD without ever defragging.

My SD channels are 2mbit/sec, the HD is 20mbit/sec. You do the maths

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

Well we'll just have to agree to disagree then. If you honestly think it makes sense for your drive heads to work harder than they need to, thats your choice

Are you so sure they're working harder? If I were keeping the recordings long term and re-watching them yes I'd agree; however, I watch them once and delete. When people say defragging reduces wear on a drive they always refer to accessing the same files many many times and say defragging reduces the number of seeks to do this. Many if not most of us don't do that with recorded TV. We access it once or twice and delete. Keep in mind your heads are having to jump around as well to access the files before rearranging them. So you're probably going through about as many or more seeks and you're reading and writing to the sectors more often by moving the files. I've always been under the impression that sectors tend to go bad before the drive heads wear out. I don't know because I've never researched it, but I've always heard more about bad sectors than anything else.

My SD channels are 2mbit/sec, the HD is 20mbit/sec. You do the maths

If my drives were being pushed to their limits I'd agree with you. My point is I don't think I'm anywhere near the limits of my drives. Even 20 mbit/sec is nothing when compared to the drives sustained transfer rates and I doubt seek time will be an issue.

I record at 3 mbit/sec, but have no problems if I bump it up to 12 mbit/sec. Like I said before others here are doing HD without defragging and their systems aren't self destructing.

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by blade

Are you so sure they're working harder? If I were keeping the recordings long term and re-watching them yes I'd agree; however, I watch them once and delete. You have to take into account the extra work you're placing on the drive by defragging.

Our usage differs. My recordings drive is 300gb and usually has at least 200gb of content - 10 episodes of STNG, 10 of Voyager, 10 Friends, weeks worth of a couple of soaps for the missus etc etc, you get the picture. So, a defrag once a week consolidates the free space, without it (and NTFS being as daft as it is) each segment of the recording will be written to the first space of suitable size that can be found. On playback your 8mb of cache is unlikely to be of any use on a heavily fragmented drive as read ahead operations are unlikely to grab the next segment you need.

If my drives were being pushed to their limits I'd agree with you. My point is I don't think I'm anywhere near the limits of my drives. Even 20 mbit/sec is nothing when compared to the drives sustained transfer rates and I doubt seek time will be an issue.

I record at 3 mbit/sec, but have no problems if I bump it up to 12 mbit/sec. Like I said before others here are doing HD without defragging and their systems aren't self destructing.

When I've got my system back up and running properly again (dead array last week!), I'm going to monitor the state of the drives as they start filling up again. I do this sort of stuff for a living, you'd think I'd get bored of it but it tickles my interest

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

Our usage differs. My recordings drive is 300gb and usually has at least 200gb of content - 10 episodes of STNG, 10 of Voyager, 10 Friends, weeks worth of a couple of soaps for the missus etc etc, you get the picture. So, a defrag once a week consolidates the free space, without it (and NTFS being as daft as it is) each segment of the recording will be written to the first space of suitable size that can be found.

Doesn't sound all that different. I have (2) 200 gig drives with about 3 gigs of free space right now. By the end of the "off season" when everything is repeats I may have as much as 200-300 gigs free if not more. I just don't watch the same shows repeatedly.

[popechild]

I've got two HD tuners only - no SD. I never had a problem and never defragged until I started recording longer shows (sporting events, etc.). I noticed on anything longer than a couple of hours it would get all screwy on playback (these files are 30-40gb or more). Not knowing whether it would help, I started a regular nightly defrag of the recording drives. No problems since.

So for this HD user, defragging seems to have helped. (Oh, and I'm on 64k as well, local drives, yada yada yada...)