Change Recording Directory to another drive on the fly?

[desmo]

After 2.5 years of using GBPVR, I made the switch to NPVR a couple of months back. Very happy so far as it's finally allowed me to use my PCH on a 2nd TV - with GBPVR I had to record in DVR-MS format which was not supported by PCH.

The only issue is that my 1TB hard disk very quickly became full. Maybe the TS format takes more disk than DVR-MS format?

I have a 2nd 1TB disk (F drive) in the PVR that I would like to start putting new recordings on. F drive is non-boot, so the whole disk can be used for recordings, instead of sharing with the Windows system files like it does currently on C drive.

So my only question is: can I change the Recordings Directory from C:\somewhere to F:\somewhere and NPVR will seamlessly manage ok? My 2 main concerns are:
a) Recurring recordings should still be listed together even if some are on C: and some on F:
b) Auto delete of recordings will work ok when some are on C: and some on F: (i.e. when deleting an old recording to make way for a new recurring recording)

Cheers.

[sub]

If you change the recordings directory, then all new recordings will be created in the new directory. Existing recordings will continue to point to their old location. ie, recordings have full paths stored, not relative to recording directory. Playing/Deleting etc should all work fine.

[desmo]

Ok, thanks for the quick response.

[toricred]

Is there a way to have multiple recording drives?

[sub]

No, not without manually changing the recording directory.

[toricred]

Rats. I have nine recording drives of varying sizes and ten capture devices in my current SageTV configuration and I'm looking into options since the Google purchase.

[imilne]

You could use a post processing batch file to move each recording (after it's finished) to its final destination, and also update the NPVR database so it knows where it's gone.

Iain

[jcjefferies]

The other solution is to combine the disks in a RAID array. You can buy an external USB multidisk box which can be set up as either JBOD or a RAID Array. Most modern motherboards the SATA controller has the ability to build RAID arays from internal disks. You can just combine the capacity of all the disks to look like one big disk but it is risky because if you loose a disk you may loose everything. Safer to make a RAID 5 array where you can continue working even if one disk fails. This is because extra redundant data is stored over all the disks enableing the data on a missing disk to be read as normal and to rebuild the replacement disk. However because of the extra data stored you loose the capacity of one disk, but you gain on reliability.

[Reddwarf]

The other solution is to combine the disks in a RAID array. You can buy an external USB multidisk box which can be set up as either JBOD or a RAID Array. Most modern motherboards the SATA controller has the ability to build RAID arays from internal disks. You can just combine the capacity of all the disks to look like one big disk but it is risky because if you loose a disk you may loose everything. Safer to make a RAID 5 array where you can continue working even if one disk fails. This is because extra redundant data is stored over all the disks enableing the data on a missing disk to be read as normal and to rebuild the replacement disk. However because of the extra data stored you loose the capacity of one disk, but you gain on reliability.

Or, if you run Windows 7 you can let one volume span multiple disks without the need for RAID support. (this may be possible on Vista too, I don't know for sure)

[BrettB]

Or, if you run Windows 7 you can let one volume span multiple disks without the need for RAID support. (this may be possible on Vista too, I don't know for sure)

This is the method that I used when I last rebuilt my recording volume. I've got 2 1.5TB drives in a volume set. So far, it seems to be working well. And I frequently have 3-4 simultaneous HD recordings plus playing another one back on the PCH.