How much disk space do you have

[rocksteady]

When I built my PVR machine, I purposely bought a motherboard with a built on RAID controller (a Promise controller in this case). Although you could simply buy a RAID controller card as well.

From that, I put 2 - 250GB WD drives in it, setup RAID0 (striped). So I have a total of 465GB on that drive (after formatting), for recording. I also have a 80GB WD drive, that holds the O/S, apps, etc. I also use this drive for temporary storage, temp files, etc.

I have noticed that I get more than just a big 'ol drive in my system, but the transfer rates to/from the RAID are awesome. It seems like the HDD light on the case hardly even blinks.

However, you can NEVER have enough storage space. I've been doing so much recording that I've brought the available space on that RAID down to about 70GBs a couple of times now!!!

[onestar]

well for a while there I was thinking how bad are we, running out of space when everyone else is running with less space, until the last post

I am running 3xplain IDE drives.
160GB dedicated for recordings
250GB - 230GB dedicated for recordings, 20GB used to copy over the 16GB drive it replaced (apps)
30GB - for OS/apps.

System is dedicated for PVR and one webcam ops. I had thought about moving our DVDs onto this, but the recordings take enough space !!

I would have bought SATA but I didn't realise it had SATA ports until I was adding th 250GB doh! But it seems okay at doing the job. (there's no more bays either)

[Torque]

I watch the Sunday newspaper ads... So far, I've picked up two 80GB 7200 Western Digital special edition drives (8MB cache) for $20/ea and a 120GB for $35 (after the rebates)

[johnburton]

I think the more space you have the more recordings you retain.
I am also using an external 200gb maxtor USB (Firewire connect) to backup my system disk, photos, music, my all time movie favourites and recordings from my video camera.
I haven't configured my raid controller yet, as my focus is on maximising use of space, minimising loss in case of disk failure, theft of PC or house burning down. My performance is more than adequate at present.
Am thinking of hooking in to my wireless network a couple of wireless security cams, anticipate needing to add another 400gb disk for that. Also thinking of setting up another PC as a fileserver sitting in a safe area in the house to reduce of dataloss through theft of PC.