Recordings on Network Share?

[ottoguy]

I have a couple of hard drives that have been in use for awhile but are 500 Gig each. I was thinking of making a Raid 0 array out of them on my linux server and then sharing it across the LAN to my GB-PVR box. I don't have room in the GB-PVR box to mount the drives. Would the speed on this be acceptable for Live TV or Recording Playback?

Anyone done a remote network shared recording drive?

[psycik]

I think it's possible, you need to set the recording service to a named account rather than localsystem, and it should be fast enough. HD Material tends to run at 10mbps. I guess it's try it and see.

[gf404]

Another option would be to record to the local HD and then use the Archiver Utility to move the recordings to your RAID array either in PostProcessing.bat or as a nightly schedule. This setup works well and the Archiver utility will update the database to point to the moved recordings.

[pBS]

you could also hook it up as an external usb drive,works for me..
[faster than network and more relaible..]
external boxes w/o a drive in are pretty cheap..i get them for 20$.

[Flash_]

I'm also having difficulty recording onto a network share (XP, remote is vista, full permissions)

On psycik's hint I've changed the gbpvr recording service to run as a local user and am using the password. GBPVR is still recording fine to any local drive but won't record to any mapped network share.

There's nothing that I can see in the logs to indicate why it's not producing any files. GBPVR proceeds as if it was recording fine and the logs say it's opening files to the correct place.

I can create files on that mapped share using the same user that gbpvr is now set to use so it's not a write permission issue, unless services do something different.

Does anyone have any ideas on why it's not working? Or any kind of howto or guide?

[Flash_]

Some progress..

I setup a samba share through a debian vm on the same vista machine and Gbpvr happily records to that. (By the way, it's easier to use the "NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService" user with no pass to Log On in services, that way you don't need to setup a user password)

Of course, the downside of running as a named user is that webadmin doesn't work since it can't "interact with desktop"

So the problem is narrowed down to a Vista server issue and most likely is permission based, despite being able to view the share fine in Explorer. Yay, vista.

[Flash_]

Okay - to finish this off. I haven't got it working as I initially wanted it, despite several hours work. I cannot get an XP service to write to a Vista network share. Can do it in usermode no problem, but not as a service.

There's also the possibility that recording 3 or even 4 mpeg2 streams at a time might saturate the 100mbit network resulting in bad recordings.

I'm moving my dvr from my main desktop/server which is on 24/7 onto a little shuttle XP box that has been used solely for playback under the telly. Since the shuttle will be turning itself off when not in use, and because I play recorded tv's from the desktop and a couple of laptops too, I needed the files available.

So - Plan B.

Wrote a PostProcessing.bat file which at the end of a recording simply transfers the recorded program across to the server's network share. Still in testing, but if that suffers from the same permissions issue as above, then I'll just get it to create a batch file with the move commands which can then be called by windows scheduler every five minutes or so.

[HarryH3]

... GBPVR is still recording fine to any local drive but won't record to any mapped network share. ...

IIRC, GBPVR doesn't like mapped drives. It needs full UNC paths. Instead of pointing to a remote drive with a mapped drive letter such as "G:\remote videos", you need to use the full UNC path such as "\\RemoteServer\remote videos".

[martint123]

IIRC, GBPVR doesn't like mapped drives. It needs full UNC paths. Instead of pointing to a remote drive with a mapped drive letter such as "G:\remote videos", you need to use the full UNC path such as "\\RemoteServer\remote videos".

That's right - mapped drives are not known by the system user that the recording service is running as.