Newbie: What happens when hard drive is full?

[Xanderski]

I’m a newbie and haven’t had my hard drive filled up yet. What exactly will happen when my hard drive is full and Sage tries to record a show? If Sage deletes shows, how does it decide what to delete? What happens if I record so much live TV that the hard drive fills up (will it delete record ‘live tv’ or recorded shows)?

I’ll guess I’ll find out soon enough if I’m not careful, but the curiosity was getting to me.

[Opus4]

See Appendix C in the manual (PDF) that is in your SageTV dir. For v2.2, it starts on p. 189. It should cover all those details, but if you still have questions, let us know.

- Andy

[korben_dallas]

And don't let anyone tell you that you need more storage, cause that's just delaying the inevitable.

[Opus4]

Oh -- and I forgot to say that you'll probably find that you need more storage. If you don't buy a new hard drive now, you'll find that you can't store all the shows you want to keep later. So, not buying now is just delaying the inevitable.

- Andy

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Oh -- and I forgot to say that you'll probably find that you need more storage. If you don't buy a new hard drive now, you'll find that you can't store all the shows you want to keep later. So, not buying now is just delaying the inevitable.

- Andy

Propaganda!!!

[dexterdom]

Originally Posted by Xanderski

I’m a newbie and haven’t had my hard drive filled up yet. What exactly will happen when my hard drive is full and Sage tries to record a show? If Sage deletes shows, how does it decide what to delete? What happens if I record so much live TV that the hard drive fills up (will it delete record ‘live tv’ or recorded shows)?

I’ll guess I’ll find out soon enough if I’m not careful, but the curiosity was getting to me.

Wanna know what happens? Sage crashes horribly, that's what happens No message, no warning, no clean exit... just a prompt waiting for you when you get home, asking to send "debug info" to Microsoft, while that sinking feeling washes over you when you realize that you have to explain to your wife that Law & Order didn't record

So I did the most logical thing - I bought a bigger drive, of course!

Should be good for another week

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by dexterdom

Wanna know what happens? Sage crashes horribly, that's what happens No message, no warning, no clean exit... just a prompt waiting for you when you get home, asking to send "debug info" to Microsoft, while that sinking feeling washes over you when you realize that you have to explain to your wife that Law & Order didn't record

To me, that would indicate that SageTV is set up to use more space than is actually available... something which perhaps it should check for if it doesn't already do so. (?)

In Detailed Setup -> General -> Video Directories, select your recording dirs & check that the space they are supposed to use is a valid amount if using "Leave Free" or "Use Only". "Use All" shouldn't be a problem... unless you've got something like Norton Protected Recycle Bin running for that drive. If you do, then it saves the MPG files when SageTV deletes it, the free space isn't reported accurately, so SageTV deletes another file, etc., over & over. Also, sometimes there could be some other process that eats up the last bit of remaining space that SageTV thought it had set aside before the recording started. (Windows swap file suddenly ballooned?)

- Andy

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by dexterdom

Wanna know what happens? Sage crashes horribly, that's what happens No message, no warning, no clean exit... just a prompt waiting for you when you get home, asking to send "debug info" to Microsoft, while that sinking feeling washes over you when you realize that you have to explain to your wife that Law & Order didn't record

I think you were being facetious, but maybe not. Regardless someone just posted in Community forum CCity has 250GB WD PATA for $80 after rebate(s)'till 3/26 IIRC. Unfortunately one set of rebates per person/household.

[bartley9]

Just ordered my fifth 250GB drive...

Has anyone else noticed how important all those old shows suddenly become when you no longer have to go through the rigmarole of programming a VCR?

Sage, please save me a fortune in disks by forcing me to manually enter the start and end times of every show I want to watch.

[dexterdom]

Originally Posted by mdmint

I think you were being facetious, but maybe not. Regardless someone just posted in Community forum CCity has 250GB WD PATA for $80 after rebate(s)'till 3/26 IIRC. Unfortunately one set of rebates per person/household.

Yes, I was being tongue-in-cheek here. I did however buy a larger disk (300GB)... the first time my wife made me go out and buy computer hardware - that speaks a lot to Sage's usability :-)

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by dexterdom

Yes, I was being tongue-in-cheek here.

Well, you got me, then... but it just seemed too close to someone saying that it was actually what happened, so I had to offer suggestions in case it was real.

- Andy

[dvd_maniac]

I am surprised nobody suggested compression to this newbie. I compress most of my shows using AutoGK to 300MB/hr. There are other compression technologies out there as well, if you do not plan on archiving to dvd-r's but do want to keep them you might give this a shot.

[dexterdom]

Originally Posted by Opus4

To me, that would indicate that SageTV is set up to use more space than is actually available... something which perhaps it should check for if it doesn't already do so. (?)

In Detailed Setup -> General -> Video Directories, select your recording dirs & check that the space they are supposed to use is a valid amount if using "Leave Free" or "Use Only". "Use All" shouldn't be a problem... unless you've got something like Norton Protected Recycle Bin running for that drive. If you do, then it saves the MPG files when SageTV deletes it, the free space isn't reported accurately, so SageTV deletes another file, etc., over & over. Also, sometimes there could be some other process that eats up the last bit of remaining space that SageTV thought it had set aside before the recording started. (Windows swap file suddenly ballooned?)

- Andy

I have a very minimal XP setup (no extra stuff like Norton, etc.) with a dedicated disk for videos, separate from the system disk. I use the "leave free" option set to 2 GB (and when I set this up I was careful to ensure I had more than 2GB free at the time). I didn't dig too deeply into the root cause, but I have quite a few favorites set to "don't delete" so I'm pretty sure the restrictions were too tight, which caused the drive to fill up. Still, the lack of a clean error message bothers me...

[Opus4]

Oh. So it _was_ a real error you encountered. I'm so confused today.

There are a few situations where I've wondered what would happen: such as you have _all_ manual recordings, so it can't delete anything to make room, but it wants to record, or the recording starts with enough space but something else eats that space while recording, etc.

If you run into a particular problem, it might help to send a description of it to tech support so they can look into making sure more situations are covered. I think it expects that things won't change once a recording has begun.

- Andy

[dexterdom]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Oh. So it _was_ a real error you encountered. I'm so confused today.

There are a few situations where I've wondered what would happen: such as you have _all_ manual recordings, so it can't delete anything to make room, but it wants to record, or the recording starts with enough space but something else eats that space while recording, etc.

If you run into a particular problem, it might help to send a description of it to tech support so they can look into making sure more situations are covered. I think it expects that things won't change once a recording has begun.

- Andy

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I was a bit too sarcastic for my own good

I recently increased my disk space so I'll pay more attention when I get closer to the limit again. I wonder if Sage checks for space before a recording starts but doesn't take into account the (estimated) space that the actual recording will take. If this is the case then I think I can workaround by setting my "leave free" size to the equivalent of, say, 4 hours (my recordings should never exceed that size).