Using NAS as Sage's main storage

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I agree with this the only way it would not delete them if they are marked as manual record.... after moving them.

Or if they are archived. SageTV will not delete a recording that has been archived. "Archived" in SageTV GUI by the way.

[hemicuda]

I've tried using a NAS for primary storage, but ran into throughput problems on HD with multiple streams. It works great from a storage standpoint for movie archives. Even streams BD flawless.

[dcardellini]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

Wouldn't this cause Sage to delete the low priority recordings on the destination?

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Or if they are archived. SageTV will not delete a recording that has been archived. "Archived" in SageTV GUI by the way.

I have mine setup as follows:

Local Recording Drive: "Leave 2.0 GB"

Remote Drive" "Use only 1 GB"

The remote drive is a 25TB 16 drive RAID 6 array. 20TB are filled with normal SAGETV recordings. Nothing is "archived." There are manual recordings in this too.

In short, NOTHING gets deleted on the remote drive just because I have it set to "use only 1GB, and I have 25TB on it. SageTV doesn't retroactively delete anything unless there is no room on any one of all available recording drives for a new recording.

[dcardellini]

p.s. There are some other advantages to this method of recording to a NAS (method = recording to a Sagetv local drive and batch moving to a remote NAS drive on some schedule) .

If you are streaming 4+ shows simultaneously to the NAS, the four files will likely be terribly fragmented on the NAS. Batch moving the files at a later date likely lays these files down in a nice contiguous manner. (however, computers not my day job, and I could be all wet on this theory....especially with a RAID 6 array.)

More to the point though, you could store a lot more than a days worth on the local drive, and come up with some other scheme to allow you to not have to run a massive NAS 24/7. As the nest has recently emptied, our usage pattern has changed and the last month's worth of recordings comprises 95% of our use.

I am considering adding Sagetv menu item to "Start NAS" for when I want to delve into the jungle. Not sure how Sagetv will handle a big chunk of database disappearing most of the time...will need to experiment.

And on yet another point, the same scheduled batch file that does the 4:00am transfer, also backs up my win.bin to the remote NAS on a 10 day rotating scheme (each day of last ten days backed up).

...just some thoughts....

[Evil_Attorney]

One annoying issue with the local/NAS setup is that Sage can see your free recording space as a negative value (i.e., you have 1TB of recorded shows on NAS, but only 300 gig of local storage). I like seeing the free space recording bar in Phoenix.

I decided to setup a local recording folder, keep my NAS as unlimited space, but set Sage to "Bandwidth" mode. That way Sage records to the NAS first, and locally second when two shows are being recorded. I'm also using a script to copy those local recordings over to the NAS late at night. I wasn't seeing any issues recording entirely to the NAS, but this will take a bit more load off of things.

[dcardellini]

Neat. Wasn't aware of "Bandwidth Mode."

I could see that the "free space" indicator showing negative could be annoying. In my early days of Sagetv use, with very limited HD space, keeping an eye on this was a daily concern.

With 16 x2TB RAID 6, I do not need to even concern myself with "Drive Space" indicators. However, that is a pretty expensive mitigation of that annoyance

Even with that much space, though, annually, I yell at my son. He obsessively has to record every sports show on every channel, and he never deletes his recordings.

[hemicuda]

Care to elaborate on the "Bandwidth" mode of which you speak?

I use forced recording directory prefixes for my OTA recorders and one of the drives tends to fill up if I don't wipe a few favorites weekly. This eliminated skipping issues I had when I first got into the HD recording area.

[Evil_Attorney]

It was discussed in this post: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...55&postcount=4

In V7 under Setup->Detailed_setup->General there is a property titled 'Video Recording Path Optimization Style' that can be set to optimize for bandwidth or space. If set to optimize for space whenever a recording is started it will be placed in the recording directory with the most free space. If set to optimize for bandwidth, if a recording is started and there is not currently another recording in progress, it will be placed in the recording directory with the most free space. If there is another recording in progress it will be placed in the recording directory with the most free space from the pool of recording directories where the previous recording is not taking place.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

Care to elaborate on the "Bandwidth" mode of which you speak?

I use forced recording directory prefixes for my OTA recorders and one of the drives tends to fill up if I don't wipe a few favorites weekly. This eliminated skipping issues I had when I first got into the HD recording area.

Bandwidth is an option in detailed general setup in Sage. It only works if you have more than 1 recording drive. What it does it will spread multiple recordings across drives regardless of the amount of space on each drive. If only one show is recording then it will use the one with the most space so eventually it balances out.

Hey evil you beat me to it.

[hemicuda]

Oh, it's a v7 option. Dang. Now I guess I'll have to upgrade.

*starts looking around for the time to migrate*