Disk rollover...

[YodaMann]

I wish that BTV would use another disk when the primary is full, but it doesn't, so I have to rearrange things. But here's the question. Can I just use Windows Explorer to move recorded programs or do I have to go through the Library function to "move a show" one at a time?

Thanks

Steve M.

[optikhog]

Show info is store din the file, so you can simply drag-n-drop the files. You can also set Showsqueeze to 'Copy' and the file will move from the original location to the target when you choose to Showsqeeze from the UI.

[not_Shorty]

you could always combine the drives into one

[YodaMann]

I will on my next box but if I recal the drives have to be empty to span them.

Thanks for the info

Steve M

[not_Shorty]

just the second one does, you expand the first one to include the second one. So, if you have enough room to shuffle all your stuff onto the first, even if it means it is temporarily bursting at the seams, you can get the job done. Converting to dynamic disks does not require the drive to be empty, so you can convert your existing drive without losing everything on it. The only caveat is your boot partition can't be expanded, so you may have to partition the thing if it currently only has one partition, and then do a bunch of shuffling around. Can be done, though.

[MickP]

All good fun until somebody loses a drive

Just remember that if you do decide to extend a volume to a second disk and either of the drives dies then you've lost the lot.

The last time I did this everything worked fine for the first two days. Then unfortunately the new the new drive began making clunking noises (kinda like the ballbearing in a shaken can of spraypaint) and I lost ~200gb of recordings that I was rather attached to. This may be okay with you but you should at least consider that according to Sod's Law this will result in you losing all of your existing data. If you can live with this then go for it.

Another alternative might be to check out Stephane's superb alternative/suplemental web guide here. One of it's many features is the ability to load balance your recordings between folders. I'm suprised that ss hasn't made this part of the product yet.

Here's a picture:



Mick.

[not_Shorty]

bah, if you've got anything you want to keep *only* on a HD, you're a freakin' moron to begin with. ALWAYS assume your HD will die tomorrow. You're not much better off not having them spanned. You're still going to lose all that data. Acting like having a couple of drives spanned is *SOOOO* much more dangerous is just ludicrous. In reality, it's just as safe/dangerous, and if you want to keep anything, you damn well better have it backed up. Spout statistics all you want about how two drives setup like that is twice as likely to fail, I couldn't care less. A failure is a random event. You can't plan on it, other than planning for it to inevitably happen to every single hard drive in existence. Back it up if you want to keep it. I've got a couple drives spanned using dynamic disks, works great. I'm not worried, cuz IT'S JUST TV SHOWS, and if I actually want to keep any of it then it already has been backed up.

[spyboy]

You can always spec where each show will go, I do that with my "junk" shows (old syndicated sitcoms)

go into the web interface and select "settings"
then select "video folders"

create a new video folder on another drive.

then in BeyondTV, go into your show schedule and select the show you want to modify, and set the destination to that new path.

I dropped in a 320gb sata drive and made my old recording drive (250gb IDE) the e: drive, so I put older sitcoms onto that drive.

Or, you can set it to showsqueeze and then save the .avi's to the 2nd drive.

It's not a perfect solution, but it does work.

[Bigbird999]

Yodda
Why complicate life, everything does not have to be automated. Like optihog says: In windows explorer use Shift + Drag 'n' drop to move the files (10 seconds to manually execute this task and windows does the rest).

Set up the new folder(s) in web admin and you can see all of your shows by all, folder or series from the Recordings screen. In the screen shot below, my folders are on 2 different computers and a NAS box.

BB

[MickP]

Originally Posted by not_Shorty

bah, if you've got anything you want to keep *only* on a HD, you're a freakin' moron to begin with. ALWAYS assume your HD will die tomorrow.

Meh. As I said "If you can live with this then go for it". I only mention this because people may not realise that spanning a drive incurs this risk.

As for being a "freakin' moron" it's not always easy to keep up with the burning schedule. If it were there wouldn't be much benefit in adding additional drives.

Mick.

[not_Shorty]

as I said, the risk is meaningless, failures are random. You're contradicting yourself left and right. You say you don't care if a drive fails. You say you do care about drives failing. Make up your mind. Fact is drive failures can't be predicted, and using drives in spanned volumes really isn't that much more risky to worry about it. And anything you actually want to keep, as in keep-keep, you won't have your HD copy as your only copy. I stand by my statement, anyone is a big huge fat stinky moron if their HD copy of something precious to them is their *only* copy. Assuming your HD isn't going to die anytime soon is foolhardy, at best. It will fail. It's only a matter of time. And a random, unpredictable amount of time, at that.

In one sentence you say you're worried about the extra risk involved with spanning volumes on dynamic disks. In another sentence you say you aren't worried about your drives dying before you have the chance to make backups. The 'extra risk' is meaningless. It's like saying your chances of winning the lottery are better if you buy two tickets instead of one. Just doesn't work that way. Yes, a drive might fail. The fact that you're combining two drives into one storage volume doesn't mean the sky is falling. It's virtually meaningless. You get more storage in one drive letter, period. Worrying about the drive failure risk rising in that situation is almost pointless. It works fine, you get more storage in 'one' location. Drive failures are a completely seperate issue, and backups are the solution to that problem, not paranoia.

[karhill]

Originally Posted by not_Shorty

I've got a couple drives spanned using dynamic disks, works great. I'm not worried, cuz IT'S JUST TV SHOWS, and if I actually want to keep any of it then it already has been backed up.

Agreed. If you really want to keep it safe, it has to be backed up. Spanned drives make it easy to pop in an additional disk and just add it to the span, making disk management pretty easy. And since if you want to keep it safe you'd have to back it up anyway, what's the big deal?

[not_Shorty]

exactly. And if I want to drop in another 200-300gig drive, it's a simple matter. Pop it in, tell windows to just add it on to the existing volume, bingo, D: just got larger again.

Originally Posted by karhill

Agreed. If you really want to keep it safe, it has to be backed up. Spanned drives make it easy to pop in an additional disk and just add it to the span, making disk management pretty easy. And since if you want to keep it safe you'd have to back it up anyway, what's the big deal?

[Bigbird999]

A sign in my dentist's office says

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO FLOSS ALL OF YOUR TEETH, JUST THE ONES YOU DON'T WANT TO LOSE"

Applies here

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO BACKUP ALL OF YOUR FILES, JUST THE ONES YOU DON'T WANT TO LOSE"

not_shorty

backups are the solution to that problem, not paranoia

I agree, but you could have made your point without flaming folks. Risk is all about perception and previous experience affects perception.

Lets say you have 4 x 100 GB drives and you are recording 10 GB per hr HD files so 10 files per drive. Which is safer 4 x 100 striped Raid or 4 separate drives? The answer depends on what you mean by "safer".
When, not if, but when, a drive fails:-
1 in striped Raid, you will lose all 40 files - right now
2 in separate drive mode you lose 10 files (25% of your data) - right now while the other 30 files wait to be lost at an unknown time in the future
Most people would perceive #2 to be "safer". But, in reality, no individual file is safer because you don't know what drive will fail. What if the drive that fails contains the only copy of your daughter's solo dance performance that was broadcast on the local cable channel? That is the only file that really matters, and if you only back up 1 file, it should be that one.

Mick's perception of risk is obviously affected by his experience of losing a striped array 2 days after installation and I understand his shying away from striped arrays. In the same way, I understand somebody betting heads on a coin toss when the previous 20 tosses came up tails. Statistically it isn't right but perceptually it is.

So you back it up or you eventually lose it.

BB

[not_Shorty]

exactly, there's no way to now if one drive will fail, or if something will happen that renders all four drives useless at exactly the same time, or anywhere in between. Just to clarify, we're not talking about raid0 here. We're talking about windows' dynamic disks, used to create a dynamic volume, spanning more than one drive, which can have more drives added to the same volume to increase capacity at your whimsy. Although the same results apply as they do in a raid0 setup, one drive gone, whole volume toast.

We must keep in mind, it is only TV shows. Your life isn't going to end because you lost all of this season's American Idol. And if you like American Idol that much, back it up. Hard drives are all about having easy access to something. Not about always having access.