[mythtv-users] Where is that "keep this much HDD space free" setting???

[stuart]

stuart wrote:
> 
> Michael T. Dean wrote:
>> On 12/15/2008 06:51 PM, stuart wrote:
>>> Where is that "keep this much HDD space free" setting???
>>>
>>> I have a MBE and a SBE running.  The SBE is at 100% (again!).  I 
>>> remember setting this "keep free" value on one of the machines (I had 
>>> thought the MBE).  But I don't remember under which menu I found it.  I 
>>> have looked in both the front-end menus and the setup menus.
>>>   
>> In mythfrontend settings:
>>
>> Extra Disk Space
>> Extra disk space (in Gigabytes) that you want to keep free on the 
>> recording file systems beyond what MythTV requires.
>>
>> in TV Settings|General settings under "General (AutoExpire)" (page 2 or so).
>>
>>> Does anyone know where I can set the upper limit of the HDD capacity 
>>> that mythtv will use?
>>>   
>> That's actually a different idea...  You can tell Myth how much space 
>> /not/ to use, but can't tell it how much space to use (other than by 
>> limiting the space available through partitioning--which, IMHO, is the 
>> best way to keep Myth from using all the space, anyway).
>>
>>> Do I have to set this up only on the MBE or do I need to set it on the 
>>> SBE as well?
>> It's global.
>>
>> As a matter of fact, it may be more global than you want.  It applies to 
>> /all/ filesystems used by the directories specified in all the storage 
>> groups you've defined.  So, if you have a 500GB HDD and a new 1.5TB HDD 
>> and you want to make sure Myth only uses half of the 1.5TB, you can't do 
>> so by setting the "Extra Disk Space" to 750GB.  If you did so, Myth 
>> would expire any recording it recorded to your 500GB HDD.
>>
>> So, to keep Myth from using half of your 1.5TB HDD, partition it into 2 
>> 750GB partitions--one for Myth's exclusive use and one for "other" 
>> programs.  No need to commingle recordings and other non-Myth data.
>>
>> Note that you may still want to set "Extra Disk Space" to a few GiB, 
>> just so that you can ride out the period between when new recordings 
>> start and the autoexpire thread runs again.  How many GiB you need 
>> depends on your configuration--number of capture cards and bitrates--but 
>> you should do fine with less than 3, even for a multi-capture card HDTV 
>> setup.
>>
>> Mike
> 
> Thanks for the information Mike, it explains a lot.  But what I found on 
> one of my mythtv boxes is very different.  On my MBE I found that I had 
> 10 GBytes reserved (probably the default).  What was actually free on 
> the partition used by mythTV was very close to that.  On my SBE I found 
> I had reserved 30 GBytes.  However, on this box, the partition that 
> holds the mythtv recordings was at 100%!
> 
> Even if I look for the difference between the size of all the mythtv 
> recordings (285811524) and everything on that partition (289565544) I 
> see less than 4 GBytes not used by mythtv.  That's wayyy short of the 30 
> GBytes that's not suppose to be used.
> 
> And even if the 10 GByte setting on the MBE "trumps" the setting on the 
> SBE like you said above, the 4 GBytes not used by the SBE Mythtv box is 
> still wayyy sort of where it should be.
> 
> Is there somewhere else I should look?  Or is this a bug?
> 
> ...thanks
> 

Following up...

Looks like everything that was recorded on the SBE mythtv box was set to 
never auto expire.  I turned ON auto expire on a number of shows and 
changed the MBE mythtv box from preserving 10 GByte to preserving 30 
GBytes of free disk space.  That matches the SBE mythtv box.  Overnight 
the two boxes have deleted enough auto expire recordings to make 30+ 
GByte head room on each box.

But why do all the recordings on the SBE mythtv box have the auto expire 
turned off?  I'll have to keep an eye on this to see if the trend continues.

...thanks