1st HDD full and now? (2 Viewers)

[mts]

Hi there,

my first HDD is full is there a way to add a second disk now as storage for recordings, without losing my old records?

 

[rekenaar]

I am not sure if it will work, but you can try junctions. It will basically combine two folders (hdd's) into one folder.

If that does not work, you can move all your recordings to the new hdd (providing that it is bigger ), and reinport the recordings to the database (providing you are using TV3).

 

[mruane]

Depending on your operating system - one option could be to investigate Dynamic disks. I have just recently combined 2 x 250GB disks as one 500GB disk by defining them as Dynamic in Vista and then Spanning them together. I thnk it also works under XP. My next step is to take an existing 500GB and add it to the group to create a single 1TB volume from three seperate disks.

Could be worth a look. Only problem from your prespective, was that I needed to delete the existing partitions first which would mean be loosing your existing recording unless you can move them to temporary storage whilst you are creating the dynamic volumes.

Cheers Mike

 

[cheezey]

Take care when combining multiple hard disks into one dynamic volume. If any one of your disks fail then all data on the volume is lost.

 

[mruane]

Hi Cheezy

Are you sure about that in relation to Spanned volumes. I know that you are certainly in trouble with Striped volumes if one volume fails, but does that also apply to Spanned? I would have though you would have lost the file that crosses the spanned volume boundary for sure.

Like all solutions though - there is always a down side.

PS: Today I combined the 2 x 250GB I created under Vista then re-installed XP (just seems to be better for TVE3) and it picked up the Dynamic disk set quite happily and mounted them.

Cheers Mike

 

[mts]

hi,

I have just changed my record-paths .
In the database the old paths are saved, so I can watch my old recordings and my new reocordings.

 

[cheezey]

Are you sure about that in relation to Spanned volumes. I know that you are certainly in trouble with Striped volumes if one volume fails, but does that also apply to Spanned? I would have though you would have lost the file that crosses the spanned volume boundary for sure.

'Fraid so, spanned volumes and striped volumes provide no fault tolerance so if one disk in the spanned or striped volume fails then you've lost the volume.

Spanned volume - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[fairchild]

yup i had 2x250s spanned under xp, one died i lost everything on both (i did run recovery software an retrieved some files but most were far to corrupt), now i am using junctions, works great once setup

all important data is still backed up with raid 1 or dvd

 

[druid9]

This is an issue which often perplexes me.

I have been happily adding 500Mb hard drives to my HTPC for a year now (currently have 4)

MediaPortal lets you see each hard drive as part of its database in most sections. For example in "My Music" you can have files in multiple locations across multiple drives, same in My Videos, same in TV Series. The problem only really arises when folks try to use the Shares view, which of course only lets you look at a specific share.

In my mind Mediaportal is a database application more than anything else. If all we needed was a pretty front end for a Windows explorer alternative, there are plenty of those around, wouldn't need MediaPortal at all.

If we use the database functionality of MediaPortal, you should not need spanning, striping or any other Windoze functionality to achieve what MP does natively.

Just my $0.02, and I might be missing the point.

 

[fairchild]

a question if your using database only mode instead of shares, when you add a new movie how does it go into the database or do you have to rescan and add it through configuration?

i am using a mediacenter only pc with no keyboard and mouse, just the remote and my tv, it never leaves mediaportal and that is the only application running on it

i am using a fileserver which i copy my movies to manually from any pc in my house and add the folder.jpg and rename the folder to match the movie title

i use shares in media portal to view the movie, i honestly dont see the database working in my favor unless there is a solution for movies like tvshows that will allow me to store and edit the database outside of the mediacenter pc, is there a solution?