[mythtv-users] Newbie

[Gavin Whitehead]

On 02/12/2011 08:24, Simon Hobson wrote:
> Jarl Friis wrote:
>
>> I am new on the list. New to MythTV
> Welcome - once you get it going, you'll wonder how you managed without it !
>
>> I need a backend. Is that just a plain PC with some of the capture
>> equipment mentioned on the wiki?
> Yes. Just a regular PC or server, loads of disk space, and some
> capture devices appropriate to your location/available services.
> It's worth having a good trawl through the archives as there've been
> some lengthy threads form time to time about "best" backend setups.
> To summarise :
> Ideally you want your storage on separate disk(s) to your OS and DB -
> though many of us manage without. I/O transfer rates are fairly
> meaningless, it is generally seek times that limit performance. If
> you are writing and reading multiple recording streams on one disk,
> eventually the seeks become the limiting factor and you start to get
> problems.
> Multiple recording disks will help with this, Myth will automatically
> attempt to spread recording load across multiple disks.
> Don't raid or stripe your recording disks together, you'll get better
> performance with individual disks.
>
-----------snip------------------------
Simon,

I'm interested by your statement "Don't raid or stripe your recording 
disks together...."

I'm in the process of building a MythTV combined FE/BE and I had thought 
to put in 2 x 2TB SATA disks for the recordings and video/music 
library.  I was going to use RAID1 (mirror) so that a single disk 
failure didn't mean I loose all my recordings and ripped videos/music.

But you seem to be advising against this approach.  How do you protect 
against data lose if not via RAID?

Gavin