RecordedTV: Managing Multiple Drives?

[PeteCress]

Can SageTV manage multiple drives for Recorded TV?

Given three 1-tb drives (E: F: & G: for the sake of example):

• If drive E: fills up, will it select another?
• If drive E: is full on, say, Monday... yet has plenty space on it on, say, Wednesday, will Sage know that it can be used?

?

[Fuzzy]

Sage doesn't predetermine which recording path to record to. This is determined at record time. There are two methods it uses to decide where to store the recording, depending on the mode selection made in Detailed Setup -> General.

Free Space mode: When a recording starts, Sage will check the free space on each recording path, and record to the location with the most free space (free space as determined by considering the limits set when the path was configured). If that drive has considerably more space than others, it will end up being used pretty much exclusively until the drives have about equal free space.

Bandwidth mode: When a recording starts, Sage will check the free space on each recording path, and record the unused drive the location with the most free space. If all drives have a recording in progress, it will record the the drive with the most free space that has only a single recording in progress. This will spread the recordings out amongst the drives, to aid in drive performance. The drives will ultimately still remain equalized, as they will still pick the emptiest drive first.

I, personally, see no reason to NOT use the bandwidth mode.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

... There are two methods...I, personally, see no reason to NOT use the bandwidth mode.

That's what I was hoping to hear.... Thanks!

My migration from Windows Home Server to a NAS box hit a little snag when it turned out I was using a little more space than I thought - and Recorded TV is my heavy hitter space-wise.

Seems like keeping RecordedTV on the same PC that it running Sage is a good idea all around....

[Fuzzy]

Yes, local storage is always better... I have never understood the record to NAS idea myself... Of course, I also don't even see the point of a dedicated NAS if you have a SageTV server up and running already.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I have never understood the record to NAS idea myself... Of course, I also don't even see the point of a dedicated NAS if you have a SageTV server up and running already.

For me, the attractions of the WHS box were

• Having everything in one place: No wondering where a file is when trying to access it from one of the other PCs - it's on the server... period.

• The drive pool. Being able to combine many drives into one humongous storage pool is convenient in that there's no worrying about which drive is getting maxed out.
  
  IMHO the ability to combine many drives of different sizes and specs (and read them even when removed from the server) is WHS' killer feature.
  
  OTOH, WHS' poor handling of drive failures/removals is what drove me to a NAS. Desktop-level drives fail on a fairly regular basis - and who wants to have their server down for a day or so while the offending drive is programtically "removed"?
  

Knowing that Sage can manage multiple drives takes care of the drive pool.

Having RecordedTV on the same box as Sage is running is an obvious advantage. With Sage running on the WHS box, that was a given. But with the NAS, RecordedTV needs to move to the box where Sage is running.

So I'm probably at the same place you are: recording to the Sage box instead of across a LAN is a no-brainer.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

For me, the attractions of the WHS box were

• Having everything in one place: No wondering where a file is when trying to access it from one of the other PCs - it's on the server... period.

• The drive pool. Being able to combine many drives into one humongous storage pool is convenient in that there's no worrying about which drive is getting maxed out.
  
  IMHO the ability to combine many drives of different sizes and specs (and read them even when removed from the server) is WHS' killer feature.
  
  OTOH, WHS' poor handling of drive failures/removals is what drove me to a NAS. Desktop-level drives fail on a fairly regular basis - and who wants to have their server down for a day or so while the offending drive is programtically "removed"?
  

Knowing that Sage can manage multiple drives takes care of the drive pool.

Having RecordedTV on the same box as Sage is running is an obvious advantage. With Sage running on the WHS box, that was a given. But with the NAS, RecordedTV needs to move to the box where Sage is running.

So I'm probably at the same place you are: recording to the Sage box instead of across a LAN is a no-brainer.

WHS makes some sense, as it is also the sage server. I was referring to using a dedicated NAS plus a dedicated sage server, on the same network. If you've already got a sage server up and running/available 24/7, you can just as easily add any other shares to it, and have no need for a dedicated NAS device.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

...If you've already got a sage server up and running/available 24/7, you can just as easily add any other shares to it, and have no need for a dedicated NAS device.

Yeah, *adding* drives is a snap. But ref my comments on what happens when a drive fails under WHS. It gets fugly IMHO.

Whether it's fugly enough to warrant the money for a NAS is debatable by reasonable people.

But I wanted to have the NAS experience, so that's where I'm going.

Hopefully it won't be too much like the "Full Whale" experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CfUMyf9x4M

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by PeteCress

Yeah, *adding* drives is a snap. But ref my comments on what happens when a drive fails under WHS. It gets fugly IMHO.

Whether it's fugly enough to warrant the money for a NAS is debatable by reasonable people.

But I wanted to have the NAS experience, so that's where I'm going.

Hopefully it won't be too much like the "Full Whale" experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CfUMyf9x4M

Replacing drives is no more difficult on a windows OS/sage server than on a NAS. Windows dynamic disks are actually very easy to use. Personally, I have no need for most of my data to be redundant (imports/recordings/etc). It's just documents and photos that I want redundant, so I have one pair of 400GB drives in RAID1, with that data also backed up off site (Mozy). If one of the drives fails, I can replace it with any 400 or bigger drive, in any format (IDE, SATA, etc), and tell windows to use that a the replacement in the dynamic volume.

The dynamic disks are also easily moved to any other windows system, and are nearly immediately recognized (you have to go into drive management and re-activate them).