how to add third hard drive ?

[JoeTheZombie]

I don't think the NTFS folders would work for the recording directory, since recording doesn't traverse into sub-directories.

It could work for the video library, since you can traverse into sub directories when selecting a title... but it isn't needed as you can just add new directories/drives to your video library as needed.

[elite]

If you don't want to span your drives you could add your existing recordings directory as a Video Library ('Directories' tab of config) and record new shows to the new drive (change your recording directory to your new drive)

[Ted the Penguin]

personally I would use a raid setup, but that leaves the question of redundancy, now if I am going to use raid I want redundancy so that leaves 1, 0+1, and 5 (ignore 3 and 6).
however I am not doing this because I dont like hardware raid (its really expensive to get hardware raid 5) and I dont like windows software raid (5 is possible btw).
so I just use a local drive for recordings and store everything else I have on my file server (which I will set up in linux software raid 5... when I get around to it).

[djtaylor]

Anybody else have a suggestion?

I'm sure many, if not most, or the hardcore GBPVR users here have had to span multiple drives. What's actually worked in practice for you?

I have 1.1TB set up as follows:-

one disk OS and GBPVR 100GB
two disks hardware RAID 0, 500GB total for daily recordings
two disks hardware RAID 0, 300GB for saved movies
one disk 200GB for ripped DVD's

All but the OS/gbpvr disk are exposed in GBPVR as folders associated to their function. I won't utilise OS spanning or any form of software RAID if I can help it, there's a performance hit and it makes future disk changes bloody difficult. RAID capable SATA cards cost next to nothing.

I had a disk failure of one of the main recording pair the other week. I was working out of the country at the time and I had a phone call from my wife and the kids were in tears because the PVR was out of action - says it all eh?

David.

[Ted the Penguin]

I had a disk failure of one of the main recording pair the other week. I was working out of the country at the time and I had a phone call from my wife and the kids were in tears because the PVR was out of action - says it all eh?

David.

remind me again why you are not using raid 1 then? since that would allow the system to stay up even with a disk failure.

this iullistrates the reason you need redundancy, if you loose a drive in a raid 1 or 5 array you loose nothing(until a second drive dies). in raid 0 if you loose a drive you loose EVERYTHING on both drives.

[jh61408]

I would use a Raid array too. I Have a 5 Bay hot swap tower with a port mutiplier that allows up to 20 hard drives on a pc. You will need to install a Raid card with 4 inputs. I have one unit for videos using the My Video Plugin. Which works Great. I plan to build another For backup of the First. I would agree with Ted the Penguin you need to have a back-up. And it is very
easy with multiple hard drives in a raid configuration.

PS. Check Dat-Optic Site at : http://www.datoptic.com/cgi-bin/web.cgi?category=RAID

[Koenie]

DJtailor. I think you are wrong about OS spanning. I moved my disks recently from my old rig to the new one, installed windows and in the disk management tool simply activated the spanned volume and boom the contents are back.

[Ted the Penguin]

software raid is much easier to recover than hardware raid.
with hardware raid if you loose your controller then you need to replace it with the exact same model or hope something else works because different cards use different raid algorithms and are not necissarily compatible with eachother.
however with software raid it is software dependant, so as long as the OS can see the drives it will be able to restore the logical volume.

[djtaylor]

remind me again why you are not using raid 1 then? since that would allow the system to stay up even with a disk failure.

Simply because we took the view that capacity over redundancy for daily recorded junk was more useful. We use the PVR as much for just recording everything of interest to watch at our leisure. If we miss episode x of Lost Season 42 then i'll just download it from the internet and if it missed recording a film then the film will be on again or it's a rental issue. If it's a one off programme then hey, we've missed stuff before, we can miss it again.

this iullistrates the reason you need redundancy, if you loose a drive in a raid 1 or 5 array you loose nothing(until a second drive dies). in raid 0 if you loose a drive you loose EVERYTHING on both drives.

Agreed but it didn't matter. The only problem was that I was away from home to sort it out, the loss of the recordings wasn't the problem it was the loss of ability to play the movies that are stored on other discs that was the issue.

Given a start again, sure i'd probably do a RAID5 but then i'd need a different controller and for the reasons given, it's actually not required.

David.

[djtaylor]

DJtailor. I think you are wrong about OS spanning. I moved my disks recently from my old rig to the new one, installed windows and in the disk management tool simply activated the spanned volume and boom the contents are back.

I'm glad it worked for you, i've had prior experience where software spanned volumes, given that they rely on implicit OS support, make working with them potentially more problematic.

Simple moving of disks and reloading the same OS as you described are indeed trivial, it's when you try to do much more advanced stuff that it becomes less fun.

With the hardware solution, move the discs and the controller, load the driver for the controller and it will work.

David.