[mythtv-users] Storing TV on a NAS (centralised storage)

Johnny jarpublic at gmail.com
Wed May 13 07:20:25 UTC 2009


> I haven't been able to find much on using MythTV with a NAS but I assumed that it could be done. I haven't bought the NAS yet but I got close.
>
> I figure you could mount the NAS share and assign it as a storage group but when I thought about it I wondered if the frontends would then have to connect to the NAS via the backend or if they could connect to the NAS directly.
>
> I have been debating whether to use a NAS or just attach lots of HDD space to the MBE but I figure that using a NAS should improve network traffic and reduce power consumption.
>
> Any thoughts? Can I specify a purely network resource as storage or does it have to be a mounted share? How would you do it?
>

This is done frequently. I think the most straightforward way to do it
is to mount the NAS shares on your master backend. Then create a
storage group and add the mounted folders to the storage group. Then
on all of the slave backends and frontends mount the NAS drives in the
exact same mount points that were used on the master backend. Also you
need to make sure that there are no storage groups defined on the
slave backends (I believe a default storage group is created
automatically and may need to be removed). This way the slave backends
will automatically use the same storage groups that were defined on
the master backend, otherwise any storage groups defined on the SBE
will over ride the MBE definitions for that machine. Each SBE/FE will
check the local mount points first during playback and only if they
aren't available will it then request to stream from the MBE.

> For some more background my ideal setup is outlined below...
>
> With 0.22 coming soon promising smarter backend features (dynamically waking and suspending secondary backends) I figured that I could have an ultra low powered, always on, master backend (maybe ATOM or VIA, maybe even ARM), a NAS (with sleep mode) and two MicroATX systems (2 pci slots each) that would only switch on when needed. The lightweight MBE would allow constant remote access to MythWeb (and any other services I would like to install) while having only a small 'carbon footprint'. The NAS would provide shared general storage and MythTV storage and low power consumption since the DLink NAS systems power themselves right back when not being accessed. The two MicroATX system are powerful and quite efficient but would still use the most power because of the capture cards, those things get quite hot! I would also plan to make them diskless if possible, booting them from the network. All devices are connected with a Gigabit LAN so there is plenty of bandwidth to play with.
>
> If all the cards are being used then all systems would be on but they would also all share the commflagging jobs (etc.) and get to an idle state sooner. The MicroATX boxes are the systems we generally use to watch TV on anyway so if we are watching TV the cards in that box would be made available to the MBE. Unless TV is being watched in multiple rooms it would be rare that both MicroATX boxes are running.
>
> I would probably even let the MBE turn itself off over night if not needed unless I was overseas (GMT n+12) and wanted remote access to my network periodically. My other thought is that I could run my website from the always on box further justifying my decision to leave it on 24/7.


This type of ideal setup has been discussed few times on the list. One
hitch is the a tunerless backend isn't currently supported. You can do
it but it may complain or may break at some point since the devs don't
test/support that configuration. However, I vaguely recall someone
saying there was some discussion about supporting tunerless backends
for these type of low power networked setups. Some one with more
accurate information may be able to let you know if that is true or
not.


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