A warning message for low disk and other ideas

[ydekmekji]

1. What if a warning message popped up in GBPVR that said something like, "hey you are running low disk space... erase something!" My live tv stopped working yesterday and i realized that i had run out of disk space...

2. Add a function under recording that says something to the effect of, "Keep until more disk space is needed" In other words, give GBPVR the ability to automatically record programs when disk space is low... This could prevent shows being recorded because of lack of disk space.

[ilovejedd]

While this is a good idea, a feature I'd really like to request is the ability to pool hard drives for recording.

[mkenyon2]

While yes, pooling hard drives is more of an OS or hardware issues. If you had a PATA or SATA controller card that offered JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) support, you'ld be all set. There may even be tweaks to Windows to allow that.

Otherwise you're left with setting up multiple shares, let's say, put your movies on one drive, recorded shows on another, but what if your watching habits change and you need more room for recorded shows.

[elite]

While this is a good idea, a feature I'd really like to request is the ability to pool hard drives for recording.

You might want to consider spanning your drives so multiple drives appear as one - I've been running this for about 2 years without issue...

It is worth baring in mind that if you don't have a decent backup strategy in place you would loose all data on the spanned drives is one went down... A more advanced RAID config would sort this...

[ilovejedd]

While yes, pooling hard drives is more of an OS or hardware issues. If you had a PATA or SATA controller card that offered JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) support, you'ld be all set. There may even be tweaks to Windows to allow that.

Otherwise you're left with setting up multiple shares, let's say, put your movies on one drive, recorded shows on another, but what if your watching habits change and you need more room for recorded shows.

From a test set-up of Myth that I did, it has the ability to pool hard drives. I think the same can be done with Vista WMC. I'm not really looking for OS/hardware level pooling. I was thinking something along the lines of setting multiple folders for Recording and GB-PVR records to the folder with the most free space.

Right now, I have the following:

Z:\Shared
-> DVR\ (WD7500AAKS NTFS mount)
-> DVR2\ (WD7500AAKS NTFS mount)
-> DVR3\ (WD7500AACS NTFS mount)

I decided to mount the hard drives into folders and just have one root share, that way, I don't have to deal with multiple shares. What I have done so far is to change the "Recordings Directory" everytime I run out of hard drive space. Unfortunately, by the time I do so, I've usually already missed a recording (or five).

You might want to consider spanning your drives so multiple drives appear as one - I've been running this for about 2 years without issue...

It is worth baring in mind that if you don't have a decent backup strategy in place you would loose all data on the spanned drives is one went down... A more advanced RAID config would sort this...

That's one reason why I didn't span my drives - all the cons of RAID-0 with none of the benefits. What I really want is unRAID on Windows, alas, it seems that such a solution does not yet exist.

I am planning on replacing the server eventually (rackmount w/hotswap bays, RAID5, scalable) but that is quite a difficult, not to mention expensive, undertaking that would take me at least a year to research and implement.

[chewy747]

wow a rackmount server! you're pretty serious about this!

I am planning on replacing the server eventually (rackmount w/hotswap bays, RAID5, scalable) but that is quite a difficult, not to mention expensive, undertaking that would take me at least a year to research and implement.

[ilovejedd]

It's not meant to be solely for GB-PVR (albeit, that is one of its primary functions). I just find myself to be always running out of hard drive space and have come to the conclusion that burning to CD/DVD's, external USB/FireWire/eSATA HDD's and multiple tower servers are not very good storage solutions.

Going rackmount gives me greater storage density and capability for expansion. I actually already have a wish list that's currently being modified pending further research.

iStarUSA WO36AB $450
Supermicro SC846TQ-R900B $1000
Supermicro X7DWN+ $500
2x Intel Xeon E5410 $550
Kingston 4GB KVR667D2D8F5K2/4G $130
Ciprico RAIDCore 5252-08 $250

Unfortunately, it looks like I might need to cancel our phone, cable, internet and electricity to afford this. :o

[Etacovda]

why dont you just get a tower w/ moderately powered hardware + stick a linux distro on it with raid5 - hell, for the price you're talking about you could easily get 5 tb sata drives in raid5....

[ilovejedd]

why dont you just get a tower w/ moderately powered hardware + stick a linux distro on it with raid5 - hell, for the price you're talking about you could easily get 5 tb sata drives in raid5....

I've tried something similar (unRAID, Antec Three Hundred, Abit AB9 Pro, Celeron 430) and the problem with it is expandability. You're limited to whatever you can fit inside the tower. It's also a pain to shut down the PC and open up the case every time I need to add a hard drive.

I considered getting a Lian Li PC-A77B and dumping 4 3-in-5 hotswap bays in it, but that would have cost $720 with no power supply and likely inadequate cooling. That's also just 20 hot-swap bays compared to 24 with the Supermicro. The Norco 20-bay case is a lot cheaper and I considered using that, too, but I've heard from a lot of people that build quality isn't good and it requires a lot of work to get adequate airflow.

The biggest cost of the project is the rack and case. The rack, I might get a cheaper/smaller one. 36U is quite big, after all. After the initial outlay, I expect to just add/replace hard drives. Maybe add another case and controller card if 24 bays still isn't enough (I doubt that, though).

[agidius]

I cant remember what it is called, (and my box is in storage) but I have a small command line program that checks diskspace, and if it is below a preset level, it emails you with a message you create.

I call it from post-processing, so it checks after every show, and the email goes to my cell phone.