NAS - what do you use???

[rockinray]

Howdy,

I am just getting going on SageTV and I am not sure my NAS is up to the task.

I am currently using UNRAID and I have the green TB (WD) drives installed. When I watch TV from my MacMini - I get a lot of stutter.... HD is not really watchable!

I am wondering what you all are using - might give something else a try.

Thanks - any feedback would be welcomed!

Ray

[Gog]

I use UnRaid with sage and can't be hapier. The only time I have stutter is when a disk needs to spin up. I use a HS100, a HS200 and a PC client without problem over 100Mb network.

Granted I'm not using the WD green drive (my first is in transit somewhere) but could it be the Mac mini that's not up to the task? Can you play the same files locally ?

Gog

[MacDaddy]

FWIW, I also use an unRaid system to hold my "static" media (DVD rips, music, photos, archived TV -both DVD and on air). I have a separate system to run SageTV for my everyday TV capture to a local disk drive. I have 2 HD200s, 1 HD100 and a PC client that can all playback HD media with no problems (although getting the codec and video driver stack correct was an exercise in frustration on the PC client).

I still have two mac minis that I use for esoteric purposes. I got them because I really liked the small form factor and the great user interface. I was never able to get network HD playback to work. Once I got my first HD200, I lost interest in trying to troubleshoot. I was able to get local HD material to play back on the mini, but nothing networked seemed to work right.

Hope that helps.

[rockinray]

Hi everyone,

On to the next step for me.

Have installed SageTV on my Mini and am testing an UNRAID server as NAS.

I am wondering if anyone has used this setup with success? When trying to watch TV from the Mini, HD content is very jumpy.

With the new version of UNRAID, you can set a cache disk that is outside of the array and it will operate at normal speed. The data on this cache disk is migrated to the array at a specified time.

I will be using the Mini as a server, the array as storage, and I have ordered an HD200 for testing.

Any thoughts on how this might work? I would like to have everything ready so when the HD200 shows up this week I am ready to go.

Thanks for any knowledge!

Ray

* merged *

[Taddeusz]

I have one of the older 1.83Ghz Mac Mini's and I can tell you from experience that they are not up to the task of playing any HD over 720p. Even 720p can be problematic at times. It doesn't matter whether the video is being played locally or from across the network. The processor just doesn't have the power for playback and the integrated Intel video has no acceleration.

Once Snow Leopard comes out in October the 2009 Mini should be able to accelerate all H.264 and MPEG2 video. The older Mini still won't be able to accelerate anything though.