[mythtvnz] Myth & Raid. SW or HW..

[Toby Mills]

>All storage will die eventually.  Thats why you backup the stuff you can't
replace,

I would avoid raid for mythtv, its just not necessary and can result in
file fragmentation.
I run 5 x 130Gb drives mounted as separate storage groups. That means I can
record 5 programs at once and each is written to a different spindle.
This means the files never get fragmented and the performance is out of
this world.
You can pick up an old DELL server on trademe for a couple of hundred bucks
and build the ultimate mythbackend.
I am running VMWare on mine, so I can also experiment with a non production
version of Myth on the same physical box or other virtual appliances.

Also, if I have a HD failure, I would only lose 1/5th of my recordings, not
really the end of the world given anything important can be downloaded
easily.
This configuration gives far superior performance for mythtv than any RAID
setup ever will and provides adequate redundancy.
it also means if anything goes down, I just slot in a new disk, mount it
and I'm away again in 10 minutes, far quicker than rebuilding RAID arrays.
I backup my OS, database and configuration to a USB flash drive and also
put a whole backup of the boot VMDK file on their every night.
so if I lose the OS, I just reinstall mythbuntu (I leave the disk in the CD
tray) and restore from the backup or I can put in a new disk and copy the
VMDK file across (i boot vmware off a USB flash disk) and I'm away again in
15 minutes.

Sometimes keeping it simple works the best.

Toby
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