SageTV with External USB 2.0 Hard Disk?

[padre]

Is anyone out there recording via external USB (2.0) Hard Disk? I have a need to setup one of my PVRs to record to an external (Maxtor One Touch 250gb 7200rpm/USB 2.0) system, and didn't know if it would be fast enough transfer to keep up with the video recording.

Anyone doing this with a similar setup?

Thanks!

Kevin

[krutaw]

Originally posted by padre
Is anyone out there recording via external USB (2.0) Hard Disk? I have a need to setup one of my PVRs to record to an external (Maxtor One Touch 250gb 7200rpm/USB 2.0) system, and didn't know if it would be fast enough transfer to keep up with the video recording.

Anyone doing this with a similar setup?

Thanks!

Kevin

I've actually thought about doing that, but haven't yet. What I am doing is encoding across the network to another pc just sitting there holding hard drives.

[gplasky]

So I would think you would get a faster transfer rate to a USB 2.0 external hard drive than you would transferring over the network wire. Even if the network speed was 100MB.

Gerry

[krutaw]

Originally posted by gplasky
So I would think you would get a faster transfer rate to a USB 2.0 external hard drive than you would transferring over the network wire. Even if the network speed was 100MB.

Gerry

YUPYUPYUP, that's my bet too.. I just haven't spent the mulah yet.

[Crowdx42]

A really fast hard drive can handle about 75mb a sec , USB has the transfer speeds shown below BUT Firewire in the real world is faster (More constant speeds)
Patrick
serial port: 115kbits/s (.115Mbits/s)

standard parallel port: 115kBYTES/s (.115MBYTES/s)
Original USB: 12Mbits/s (1.5MBYTES/s)
ECP/EPP parallel port: 3MBYTES/s
IDE: 3.3-16.7MBYTES/s
SCSI-1: 5MBYTES/s
SCSI-2 (Fast SCSI, Fast Narrow SCSI): 10MBYTES/s
Fast Wide SCSI (Wide SCSI): 20MBYTES/s
Ultra SCSI (SCSI-3, Fast-20, Ultra Narrow): 20MBYTES/s
UltraIDE: 33MBYTES/s
Wide Ultra SCSI (Fast Wide 20): 40MBYTES/s
Ultra2 SCSI: 40MBYTES/s
IEEE-1394: 100-400Mbits/s (12.5--50MBYTES/s)
Hi-Speed USB: 480Mbits/s
Wide Ultra2 SCSI: 80MBYTES/s
Ultra3 SCSI: 80MBYTES/s
Wide Ultra3 SCSI: 160MBYTES/s
FC-AL Fiber Channel: 100-400MBYTES/s

[rrussell]

I can't speak for USB, but I've been using a firewire external drive since day one, and it works great.

[Crowdx42]

Yep, if I had the options, firewire would be the best solution, USB works mor ein burst modes than firewire which streams more consistant, remember firewire was developed for transfer and streaming of multimedia (Apple developed it, I think) and so it would be much better suited for recording to. If you look at the comparisons above in my previous post, Firewire does 50 mb whereas USB 2 is 480 mbits.
Patrick

[padre]

I already have a couple of USB 2.0 external drives, but use them for file transfer (hook them up to my PVR, copy the files over, and then attach to my DVD burning system).

I'm going to give it a try (direct recording to the external usb) and I'll let you know the results. USB 2.0 (from all I've read) is slightly faster than firewire, and I think it will be sufficient. I guess I'll find out!

Kevin

[Crowdx42]

Peak speeds are faster but continous stream is slower.
You should be fine recording 1 or maybe even 2 tuners to a USB drive though, at 3.2gig settings it should work fine.
Patrick

[jominor]

Maybe not. When I first tried Sage, I ran it off a USB2 drive, a 70 gig partition. But now, it seemed to have problems.

Shrug.

[padre]

I've just run SageTV for a few days, storing recordings on the external drive, and they came out perfectly. Its a Maxtor 250gb, 7200rpm/8mb buffer in a generic USB 2.0 enclosure.

I'd like to just use it as an 'extra' storage area, in case my internal hard disk starts to get filled, but I don't think it'll work the way I want (if I understand SageTV recording method correctly).

From what I heard, Sage will look to see what drive (in it's available list) has the highest percentage of free space, and record to that one. If that's correct, it'll record to the external drive for almost all the time. I'd rather have Sage use the internal drive, then switch to the external when needed. Can anyone confirm Sage's storage handling?

[TunaBoo]

Originally posted by padre
I've just run SageTV for a few days, storing recordings on the external drive, and they came out perfectly. Its a Maxtor 250gb, 7200rpm/8mb buffer in a generic USB 2.0 enclosure.

I'd like to just use it as an 'extra' storage area, in case my internal hard disk starts to get filled, but I don't think it'll work the way I want (if I understand SageTV recording method correctly).

From what I heard, Sage will look to see what drive (in it's available list) has the highest percentage of free space, and record to that one. If that's correct, it'll record to the external drive for almost all the time. I'd rather have Sage use the internal drive, then switch to the external when needed. Can anyone confirm Sage's storage handling?

Seems to be how it works. Sage isn't really made to deal with drives being added/removed, it loses all it's data :/

[Opus4]

Currently, SageTV records to all video directories equally, meaning it records to the one with the most free space. Once that one has less free space than another drive, it records the next show on the next drive with the most free space. (At least that is what I've noticed & others have said too.)

- Andy

[Crowdx42]

Yes, I would think that Sage should have a file where it saves drive info in, after a set period of time it could delete unused drives. Presently it sucks that the minute a drive becomes disconnected over the network and Sage starts, all the info of that drive is lost.
For me it has made using network drives a last resort, I am always messing with routers and configs and so it is not unusual to have the network down and so Sage dumps the stuff recorded there. The only way to view through Sage is to add the drive as a directory and then one just has to figure out from the file name what the show is.
As far as which drive Sage records to, I would prefer a priority system controlled by the user, this way a network or usb drive could be set as a backup drive which would be used when all local drives are full.
Patrick

[jominor]

Originally posted by jominor
Maybe not. When I first tried Sage, I ran it off a USB2 drive, a 70 gig partition. But now, it seemed to have problems.

Shrug.

It was a bad HD. I replaced it and everything works.