final word on timeshifting to USB (1 Viewer)

[geoffw]

i have tried a few USB Flash drives, with limited success - stuttering etc.

My reserach indicates that some flash drives are much faster than others.

What is the final word for timeshifting to USB, and what is best practice.

Cheers.

Geoff.

I suspect answer is...get a fast one, and in theory it will wear out in the future.

 

[RobNorthcott]

FWIW, I've been using a cheap (less than £5) 4GB flash stick for timeshifting for a year or so. At first I had slight occasional stuttering, then decided to try formatting the stick in NTFS instead of FAT. Since then it's worked perfectly, with both SD and HD DVB-S programmes. It's been discussed in a few other threads, and most people seem to say it won't, or shouldn't, work. It seems like I've just happened across a lucky combination of hardware. But for the price of a USB stick now you've got nothing to lose by trying it - so much cheaper than SSD or even extra RAM for a ramdisk.

As for wearing out - mine's been going for over a year and hasn't died yet. Probably gets used a couple of hours a day.

Rob

 

[Eeyore]

Whilst I agree that this is a great idea to offload the high disk activity to inexpensive hardware, there is an added overhead of CPU load to communicate via USB. Obviously, this isn't an issue for people with new PCs, but for those of us with older PCs, using a USB flash drive, or similar, for timeshifting is not a good idea.

Personally, when I replaced my Compro DVB-T 300 single tuner in November 2008, I also upgraded from 2 to 4 GB RAM. That RAM upgrade was solely for use as a RAMDisk and I think that this was probably the single best performance and stability upgrade to my single seat setup I have ever done.

 

[nikos1671]

The final solution for usb timeshifting is the microsd cards from mobile phones...special the new ones that are high speed with class higher then 4.
i used it with a small adapter usb and i dont have stuttering at all only a 1 second delay when i press stop in remote to close the live tv.
if someone have give a try and post the results.

 

[RobNorthcott]

OK, there are various faster non-hard-drive methods (SSD, RAMdisk, other kinds of flash memory) that should theoretically be better than cheap USB sticks, but what I'm saying is that a cheap USB stick is working perfectly for me (and has been for over a year) and cost hardly anything. And I'm using both DVB-S and DVB-T, SD and HD. Am I really the only one successfully using a cheap stick for timeshift?

And in response to Eeyore, I don't think my hardware is particularly state-of-the-art (Athlon 64 3200 on a cheap motherboard). I'm using PDVD codecs though, so some of the video processing will be offloaded to the graphics card (which is a Radeon 4550, the most modern bit of the system, although not expensive), perhaps making a difference - possibly it wouldn't keep up otherwise.

Rob