Video folder on NETWORK drive

[broderp]

Can it be done?

I have a network at home and would like to set up the video storage file to be on a different PC on my network.

The PC will be WIRED to my network hub via a 100MBS connection.


Does anyone have experience with this? I have used my laptop and a WIRELESS connection (54MBS) to watch LIVE TV (client softwware) with NO problems as far as video jerkiness and sluggishness.

[darkside]

while I'm still testing I have been using mapped drives for storage with no issue's. 2 of my servers are only p3 400Mhz systems and I haven't notice any issue in streaming.

Just my .02 worth

[stanger89]

AFIAK, you can make a video directory to be any drive you can access via Windows. Just be aware that in the 1.4 days if the Sage could not find a file it removed it from the DB imediately, which meant if the network died, even for a short time, you'd loose all the info on your recordings on that drive.

However this is supposed to be fixed in 2.0 (there's supposed to be some sort of timeout now - longer than 0). I have no way to test it, but since I don't recall seeing any complaints lately you should be fine.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by broderp
Can it be done?

The PC will be WIRED to my network hub via a 100MBS connection.

Does anyone have experience with this? I have used my laptop and a WIRELESS connection (54MBS) to watch LIVE TV (client softwware) with NO problems as far as video jerkiness and sluggishness.

Yes, it can be done. I currently run a configuration where I have some of my drive space on the local sagetv server, some on a windows box in a closet, and some on a Fedora Linux box in a closet running Samba.

I have also utilized a Tritton NAS device (http://www.trittontechnologies.com/p...TRINAS120.html) but I highly discourage it. It introduced quite a bit of lag in the playback. I think the problem is just that the device just isn't built for large file transfers.

Anyway, yes, it can be done, and I've gone to great lengths to test doing it on several platforms.

[Crowdx42]

The only issue I have had with using drives shared on the network is when using UNC pathnames. This caused screw ups with recordings when the disks got full. The workaround from Sage support was to either assign a certain amount of disk space to Sage (not the use all option) or use mapped drives which makes it a little more sensitive to network changes.
Patrick

[krutaw]

Originally posted by Crowdx42
The only issue I have had with using drives shared on the network is when using UNC pathnames. This caused screw ups with recordings when the disks got full. The workaround from Sage support was to either assign a certain amount of disk space to Sage (not the use all option) or use mapped drives which makes it a little more sensitive to network changes.
Patrick

I personally use mapped network drives because I can always re-map a drive to go wherever I want.

[garyc]

For those of you using network drives to do the captures/playbacks -- have you determined what the simultaneous streaming limits are?

i.e., how many captures can you do at once across the network without dropping frames?

[stanger89]

For 802.11a/g figure about 1, for 100tx it's probably about 8.

Of course it depends on recording quality.

[garyc]

Have you ever done 8 at once? In my experience networks rarely actually achieve the theoretical performance capabilities.
With 8 3GB/hr transfers (high quality), you would be writing over 7MB/sec -- over 57mbits/sec. A 100TX network on Cat-5E is unlikely to sustain this performance.

OTOH I can't imagine having more than 4 or 5 capture cards. I'm just curious what ACTUAL performance anyone's seen using mapped drives for their storage with multiple capture cards and high quality bit streams.

Perhaps someone with a LOT of capture cards can try this out

[mlbdude]

The closest I have gotten is 3 network encoders recording at 3.2GB/hr and two clients accessing the server at the same time. No problems with that.

[garyc]

Thanks -- sounds like a good real world test with 5 active high-quality streams.

One question -- are all of your capture cards on computers other than the server? (i.e. they ARE using the network when they capture??)

[tlimon]

I'm interested in this as well. I have an office computer with gobs of free space and have mapped a drive on the sageTV PC. What happens when I shut down the office PC? Will the next recording automatically move back to the SageTV PC, or will it error out and not record at all?

[mdmint]

Even if 100Mb network became a bottle neck Gb NICs are under $30 and Gb 5port switches around $80. If you used Cat5e wiring it fully supports copper Gb.

[tlimon]

I've used iperf.exe in the past to test maximum network throughput. You run one as a server and one as a client. Each reports the maximum value continuously. Great for burning in a new router or switch!

http://dast.nlanr.net/Projects/Iperf/