Mailing List Archive

That does, in fact, make a difference.

It really depends on whether your machine has a bus-mastered IDE
controller (most modern boxen do). The distinction is that the ide
controller should be able to handle simultaneous read/write to both
drives.. Two drives is far better than one.

Cheers,
Aaron C:\STEWART>

> Now if they were on separate drivers totally, that would make a
> difference right? And how much is gained from having multiple drives?
>
> --Micah Morton
> --Linux Network Test Engineer
> --Intel Corp
>
>> Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you
>> might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is
>> being used for other things as well.
>>
>> Although I'm not sure why you'd want to separate /mnt/store from the
>> recordings, since you then the drive has to seek out to a different
>> partition to write out buffers (leading to quite a bit of
>> head-banging).. Better off making it one place..
>>
>> Just my 2 bits.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Aaron
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
>> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of John Hurliman
>> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 1:34 PM
>> To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
>> Subject: [mythtv-users] suggested partition size for /mnt/store?
>>
>>
>> What is a good suggested hard drive size for the /mnt/store buffer
>> partition? I will be using a dual-tuner setup with an 80gb hard drive,
>> so two recordings could be running simultaneously. What is the maximum
>> size for each of the ringbuffers (is it configurable?) and are there
>> any
>>
>> other buffers or temporary files that should be taken into account
>> when creating this partition. I want to maximize hard drive space for
>> storage
>>
>> while leaving ample space for buffering. Also, the recordings/media
>> will
>>
>> be stored in /home/mythtv; is it worthwhile from a performance
>> standpoint to make /home yet another partition? Or maybe it makes more
>> sense to put the mySQL database on it's own partition and everything
>> else on the / partition. Samba will be running though and I don't want
>> file transfers to interrupt the recording and/or playback.
>>
>> So we may be looking at /, /boot, /home, /mnt/store, quite the
>> partition
>>
>> table!
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> mythtv-users mailing list
>> mythtv-users@snowman.net
>> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> mythtv-users mailing list
>> mythtv-users@snowman.net
>> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

That does, in fact, make a difference.

It really depends on whether your machine has a bus-mastered IDE
controller (most modern boxen do). The distinction is that the ide
controller should be able to handle simultaneous read/write to both
drives.. Two drives is far better than one.

Cheers,
Aaron C:\STEWART>

> Now if they were on separate drivers totally, that would make a
> difference right? And how much is gained from having multiple drives?
>
> --Micah Morton
> --Linux Network Test Engineer
> --Intel Corp
>
>> Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you
>> might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is
>> being used for other things as well.
>>
>> Although I'm not sure why you'd want to separate /mnt/store from the
>> recordings, since you then the drive has to seek out to a different
>> partition to write out buffers (leading to quite a bit of
>> head-banging).. Better off making it one place..
>>
>> Just my 2 bits.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Aaron
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
>> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of John Hurliman
>> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 1:34 PM
>> To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
>> Subject: [mythtv-users] suggested partition size for /mnt/store?
>>
>>
>> What is a good suggested hard drive size for the /mnt/store buffer
>> partition? I will be using a dual-tuner setup with an 80gb hard drive,
>> so two recordings could be running simultaneously. What is the maximum
>> size for each of the ringbuffers (is it configurable?) and are there
>> any
>>
>> other buffers or temporary files that should be taken into account
>> when creating this partition. I want to maximize hard drive space for
>> storage
>>
>> while leaving ample space for buffering. Also, the recordings/media
>> will
>>
>> be stored in /home/mythtv; is it worthwhile from a performance
>> standpoint to make /home yet another partition? Or maybe it makes more
>> sense to put the mySQL database on it's own partition and everything
>> else on the / partition. Samba will be running though and I don't want
>> file transfers to interrupt the recording and/or playback.
>>
>> So we may be looking at /, /boot, /home, /mnt/store, quite the
>> partition
>>
>> table!
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> mythtv-users mailing list
>> mythtv-users@snowman.net
>> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> mythtv-users mailing list
>> mythtv-users@snowman.net
>> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you
might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is
being used for other things as well.

Although I'm not sure why you'd want to separate /mnt/store from the
recordings, since you then the drive has to seek out to a different
partition to write out buffers (leading to quite a bit of
head-banging).. Better off making it one place..

Just my 2 bits.

Cheers,
Aaron

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of John Hurliman
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 1:34 PM
To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
Subject: [mythtv-users] suggested partition size for /mnt/store?


What is a good suggested hard drive size for the /mnt/store buffer
partition? I will be using a dual-tuner setup with an 80gb hard drive,
so two recordings could be running simultaneously. What is the maximum
size for each of the ringbuffers (is it configurable?) and are there any

other buffers or temporary files that should be taken into account when
creating this partition. I want to maximize hard drive space for storage

while leaving ample space for buffering. Also, the recordings/media will

be stored in /home/mythtv; is it worthwhile from a performance
standpoint to make /home yet another partition? Or maybe it makes more
sense to put the mySQL database on it's own partition and everything
else on the / partition. Samba will be running though and I don't want
file transfers to interrupt the recording and/or playback.

So we may be looking at /, /boot, /home, /mnt/store, quite the partition

table!

_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@snowman.net
http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

John Hurliman wrote:
> What is a good suggested hard drive size for the /mnt/store buffer
> partition? I will be using a dual-tuner setup with an 80gb hard drive,
> so two recordings could be running simultaneously. What is the maximum
> size for each of the ringbuffers (is it configurable?) and are there any
> other buffers or temporary files that should be taken into account when
> creating this partition. I want to maximize hard drive space for storage
> while leaving ample space for buffering.

While MythTV settings allow for a different path for the
ringbuffers, it makes more sense to point them to the same
directory as the recordings to consolidate your free space.

> ... Also, the recordings/media will
> be stored in /home/mythtv; is it worthwhile from a performance
> standpoint to make /home yet another partition? Or maybe it makes more
> sense to put the mySQL database on it's own partition and everything
> else on the / partition. Samba will be running though and I don't want
> file transfers to interrupt the recording and/or playback.

I assume you are planning to put these all on the same 80GB
disk? Realize that as you place things on different parts
of the disk, the heads need to make longer seeks to read and
write. It wouldn't help to put mysql on a different partition
than /usr and /var of the same disk but it may not really hurt
much.

If you have another smaller disk, you may want to put the OS
on that and mount the whole 80GB disk as your file repository.
That way the heads on the big disk can stay positioned to
stream the recordings while the other disk does most of the
seeking.

> So we may be looking at /, /boot, /home, /mnt/store, quite the partition
> table!

Not really ;-) Traditional UNIX commonly used /, /tmp, /usr
and /u for home directories. Sun made /home, /var, and /opt
standard partitions choices. I'm used to seeing 6 or 7 different
partitions on UNIX systems. There were good reasons for this
for the hardware of the day but most of these reasons no longer
apply.

The /boot normally is unnecessary unless you have / on some
odd disk and need to put /boot on /dev/hda. With all due
respect to the authors, I don't think /mnt should have
permanent mounts but should be left as a convenient place
for temporary mounts.

So, if you want to put your recordings somewhere under
/home/mythtv and point your ringbuffers to the same dir.

small disk /, swap, /home
big disk /home/mythtv

or

small disk swap, /
big disk /home

or for just the one big disk

/ (3 or 4GB), swap, /home

If you are using Samba on your home directory, the first
scheme (or variation) prevents Samba from impacting your
recordings.

-- bjm

Now if they were on separate drivers totally, that would make a difference
right? And how much is gained from having multiple drives?

--Micah Morton
--Linux Network Test Engineer
--Intel Corp

> Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you
> might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is
> being used for other things as well.
>
> Although I'm not sure why you'd want to separate /mnt/store from the
> recordings, since you then the drive has to seek out to a different
> partition to write out buffers (leading to quite a bit of
> head-banging).. Better off making it one place..
>
> Just my 2 bits.
>
> Cheers,
> Aaron
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of John Hurliman
> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 1:34 PM
> To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
> Subject: [mythtv-users] suggested partition size for /mnt/store?
>
>
> What is a good suggested hard drive size for the /mnt/store buffer
> partition? I will be using a dual-tuner setup with an 80gb hard drive,
> so two recordings could be running simultaneously. What is the maximum
> size for each of the ringbuffers (is it configurable?) and are there any
>
> other buffers or temporary files that should be taken into account when
> creating this partition. I want to maximize hard drive space for storage
>
> while leaving ample space for buffering. Also, the recordings/media will
>
> be stored in /home/mythtv; is it worthwhile from a performance
> standpoint to make /home yet another partition? Or maybe it makes more
> sense to put the mySQL database on it's own partition and everything
> else on the / partition. Samba will be running though and I don't want
> file transfers to interrupt the recording and/or playback.
>
> So we may be looking at /, /boot, /home, /mnt/store, quite the partition
>
> table!
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

Micah Morton wrote:
> Now if they were on separate drivers totally, that would make a difference
> right? And how much is gained from having multiple drives?
>
> --Micah Morton
> --Linux Network Test Engineer
> --Intel Corp
>
>
>>Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you
>>might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is
>>being used for other things as well.

Micah, of course, anything can be taken a step further but
at what point does the law of diminishing returns come into
effect ;-). Head seeks have the biggest impact on disk
access time. Having the recordings on a separate spindle
is the biggest performance gain. Putting / and /home on
the same disk is a good thing for organization and backups
but won't perform any better than if home was in one big
root partition.

-- bjm

That was my suscpicion. I figured parralelling your drive read/writes
would speed things up as your head doesn't have to beat itself up trying
to allocate data. What about IDE Raid? Anybody using this setup? If so,
how is that going for ya?

I was totally considering getting 2 80gig drives and striping them into 1
160gig partition.. this would allow for a lot of performance gain... Maybe
I'll venture into 2 200gig drives.. man.. 400gigs.. drool.. anyways.


--Micah Morton


> Micah Morton wrote:
>> Now if they were on separate drivers totally, that would make a
>> difference right? And how much is gained from having multiple drives?
>>
>> --Micah Morton
>> --Linux Network Test Engineer
>> --Intel Corp
>>
>>
>>>Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you
>>> might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is
>>> being used for other things as well.
>
> Micah, of course, anything can be taken a step further but
> at what point does the law of diminishing returns come into
> effect ;-). Head seeks have the biggest impact on disk
> access time. Having the recordings on a separate spindle
> is the biggest performance gain. Putting / and /home on
> the same disk is a good thing for organization and backups
> but won't perform any better than if home was in one big
> root partition.
>
> -- bjm
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

IDE Raid doesn't do anything for write performance.. If anything it'll
slow things down (if you do a stripe, then it might be faster, but you
still want to write out parity, which causes a hit again, so it balances
out). Reading tends to be faster, however.

Cheers,
Aaron

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of Micah Morton
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 4:04 PM
To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] suggested partition size for /mnt/store?


That was my suscpicion. I figured parralelling your drive read/writes
would speed things up as your head doesn't have to beat itself up trying
to allocate data. What about IDE Raid? Anybody using this setup? If
so, how is that going for ya?

I was totally considering getting 2 80gig drives and striping them into
1 160gig partition.. this would allow for a lot of performance gain...
Maybe I'll venture into 2 200gig drives.. man.. 400gigs.. drool..
anyways.


--Micah Morton


> Micah Morton wrote:
>> Now if they were on separate drivers totally, that would make a
>> difference right? And how much is gained from having multiple
>> drives?
>>
>> --Micah Morton
>> --Linux Network Test Engineer
>> --Intel Corp
>>
>>
>>>Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you

>>>might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is

>>>being used for other things as well.
>
> Micah, of course, anything can be taken a step further but
> at what point does the law of diminishing returns come into effect
> ;-). Head seeks have the biggest impact on disk access time. Having
> the recordings on a separate spindle is the biggest performance gain.
> Putting / and /home on the same disk is a good thing for organization
> and backups but won't perform any better than if home was in one big
> root partition.
>
> -- bjm
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users



_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@snowman.net
http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

I have raid 0 on 4 40 gig drives (160 gig) and I use it for my storage
under Red Hat 8. I use a seperate drive for the OS. I can not tell of
any differnece but this could be due to the fact that I already have a
dual cpu setup with 1 gig ram and I think it is running as fast as it
can already.

> That was my suscpicion. I figured parralelling your drive read/writes
> would speed things up as your head doesn't have to beat itself up trying
> to allocate data. What about IDE Raid? Anybody using this setup? If so,
> how is that going for ya?
>
> I was totally considering getting 2 80gig drives and striping them into 1
> 160gig partition.. this would allow for a lot of performance gain... Maybe
> I'll venture into 2 200gig drives.. man.. 400gigs.. drool.. anyways.
>
>
> --Micah Morton
>
>
> > Micah Morton wrote:
> >> Now if they were on separate drivers totally, that would make a
> >> difference right? And how much is gained from having multiple drives?
> >>
> >> --Micah Morton
> >> --Linux Network Test Engineer
> >> --Intel Corp
> >>
> >>
> >>>Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you
> >>> might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is
> >>> being used for other things as well.
> >
> > Micah, of course, anything can be taken a step further but
> > at what point does the law of diminishing returns come into
> > effect ;-). Head seeks have the biggest impact on disk
> > access time. Having the recordings on a separate spindle
> > is the biggest performance gain. Putting / and /home on
> > the same disk is a good thing for organization and backups
> > but won't perform any better than if home was in one big
> > root partition.
> >
> > -- bjm
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users@snowman.net
> > http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

--
Merle Reine <merle.reine@lindows.com>
Lindows.com Hardware Certification

I have a couple of 80 gigs and a 100 gigs strung together via LVM (260
gigs total for /mnt/store) and ext3 filesystem on top of that. Its
working pretty well supporting simultaneous recording of two shows and
playback of one recording. I only have / on another partition and home
is under that.

On Tue, 2003-02-11 at 13:39, Merle Reine wrote:
> I have raid 0 on 4 40 gig drives (160 gig) and I use it for my storage
> under Red Hat 8. I use a seperate drive for the OS. I can not tell of
> any differnece but this could be due to the fact that I already have a
> dual cpu setup with 1 gig ram and I think it is running as fast as it
> can already.
>
> > That was my suscpicion. I figured parralelling your drive read/writes
> > would speed things up as your head doesn't have to beat itself up trying
> > to allocate data. What about IDE Raid? Anybody using this setup? If so,
> > how is that going for ya?
> >
> > I was totally considering getting 2 80gig drives and striping them into 1
> > 160gig partition.. this would allow for a lot of performance gain... Maybe
> > I'll venture into 2 200gig drives.. man.. 400gigs.. drool.. anyways.
> >
> >
> > --Micah Morton
> >
> >
> > > Micah Morton wrote:
> > >> Now if they were on separate drivers totally, that would make a
> > >> difference right? And how much is gained from having multiple drives?
> > >>
> > >> --Micah Morton
> > >> --Linux Network Test Engineer
> > >> --Intel Corp
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>>Depends on how much video you want to store :). For performance, you
> > >>> might want to make /home its own partition, especially if the box is
> > >>> being used for other things as well.
> > >
> > > Micah, of course, anything can be taken a step further but
> > > at what point does the law of diminishing returns come into
> > > effect ;-). Head seeks have the biggest impact on disk
> > > access time. Having the recordings on a separate spindle
> > > is the biggest performance gain. Putting / and /home on
> > > the same disk is a good thing for organization and backups
> > > but won't perform any better than if home was in one big
> > > root partition.
> > >
> > > -- bjm
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > mythtv-users mailing list
> > > mythtv-users@snowman.net
> > > http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users@snowman.net
> > http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
> --
> Merle Reine <merle.reine@lindows.com>
> Lindows.com Hardware Certification
> ----
>

> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users