Not enough disk space error when changing channels (1 Viewer)

[doveman]

MediaPortal Version: v1.2.2
MediaPortal Skin: PureVisionHD Blue
Windows Version: Win7 Ult 64
CPU Type: Phenom II X4 955
HDD: 2TB Samsung F4
Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz
Motherboard: MSI 990FXA-GD80
Video Card: HD6950 2GB
Video Card Driver: 12.1
Sound Card: onboard Realtek AC97 (ALC892)
Sound Card AC3: no AC3
Sound Card Driver: 6.01.6482
1. TV Card: Hauppauge Nova-T 500
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver: 4.3.27240
MPEG2 Video Codec: Cyberlink PDVD11
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow
h.264 Video Codec: MS DTV-DVD
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case: Custom
Cooling: Scythe 120mm Bottom Intake Fan, TRUE Rev. c CPU HSF
Power Supply: Antec CP-850
Remote: Nova-T 500
TV: Sony XBR800 36"
TV - HTPC Connection: DVI

This seems to have been happening quite a lot since installing 1.2.2. When I try to change channel, I get a "Not enough disk space" error, but then if I try again it works OK, so it seems that MP isn't releasing the disk space from the current channel properly/quick enough. The last time was just before I made the logs, so about 19:56.

 

[elliottmc]

This seems to have been happening quite a lot since installing 1.2.2. When I try to change channel, I get a "Not enough disk space" error, but then if I try again it works OK, so it seems that MP isn't releasing the disk space from the current channel properly/quick enough. The last time was just before I made the logs, so about 19:56.

But you have a 2 TB drive, so why would you not have enough disk space?

I actually have one of those Samsung 2TB EcoGreen drives, and I tried to use it for TV recordings and timeshifting. It seems that it is not fast enough. I switched all TV stuff to my 500 GB system drive and everything was smoother (might be related to your other problems).

As I understand it, the drive spins down to save energy. There is no way to configure when it will do this, so if it gets it wrong, you have to wait, and MP doesn't like to wait (which is reasonable for things like TV streaming).

Mark

 

[doveman]

This seems to have been happening quite a lot since installing 1.2.2. When I try to change channel, I get a "Not enough disk space" error, but then if I try again it works OK, so it seems that MP isn't releasing the disk space from the current channel properly/quick enough. The last time was just before I made the logs, so about 19:56.

But you have a 2 TB drive, so why would you not have enough disk space?

I actually have one of those Samsung 2TB EcoGreen drives, and I tried to use it for TV recordings and timeshifting. It seems that it is not fast enough. I switched all TV stuff to my 500 GB system drive and everything was smoother (might be related to your other problems).

As I understand it, the drive spins down to save energy. There is no way to configure when it will do this, so if it gets it wrong, you have to wait, and MP doesn't like to wait (which is reasonable for things like TV streaming).

Mark

I'm using a 510MB RAMdrive for the timeshifting, so the 2TB drive isn't the issue. I'm surprised you found it no good for recordings/timeshifting though as I've had no problems with recordings and I'm pretty sure almost any modern drive exceeds the bandwidth needed to record TV, although obviously multiple recordings, etc might cause problems at some point.

I've got the RAMdrive set to 6 files of 70MB which equals 420MB, so there should still be enough room for MP to create a new file when changing channel, even if it hasn't released the old files in time (which I'd have thought it should) but I'll try decreasing it to 60MB and see if that helps.

I'm fairly sure there isn't a spindown issue with this drive as I recall getting this instead of a WD drive because that did have an issue, but as it's the only drive it's constantly being accessed by some component of Windows or an app anyway so wouldn't get a chance to spindown. Even when I've tried to manually spindown in the past it comes straight back on again because of this.

 

[elliottmc]

This seems to have been happening quite a lot since installing 1.2.2. When I try to change channel, I get a "Not enough disk space" error, but then if I try again it works OK, so it seems that MP isn't releasing the disk space from the current channel properly/quick enough. The last time was just before I made the logs, so about 19:56.

But you have a 2 TB drive, so why would you not have enough disk space?

I actually have one of those Samsung 2TB EcoGreen drives, and I tried to use it for TV recordings and timeshifting. It seems that it is not fast enough. I switched all TV stuff to my 500 GB system drive and everything was smoother (might be related to your other problems).

As I understand it, the drive spins down to save energy. There is no way to configure when it will do this, so if it gets it wrong, you have to wait, and MP doesn't like to wait (which is reasonable for things like TV streaming).

Mark

I'm using a 510MB RAMdrive for the timeshifting, so the 2TB drive isn't the issue.

You always seem to insist on doing things differently to everyone else

Is there really any benefit to using a RAM drive for timeshifting? Based on the problems you are having, I would say possibly not. You have a serious trade-off of speed versus capacity.

I'm surprised you found it no good for recordings/timeshifting though as I've had no problems with recordings and I'm pretty sure almost any modern drive exceeds the bandwidth needed to record TV, although obviously multiple recordings, etc might cause problems at some point.

As I said, it is the drive trying to save energy that is the problem, bandwidth is definitely not an issue.

If I try to play a recording on a networked client, and that recording is on the Samsung drive, there is a significant delay at the start. This is probably a combination of network (gigabit though) and hard disk. The problem does not happen with a 7200rpm drive which is not energy efficient.

I've got the RAMdrive set to 6 files of 70MB which equals 420MB, so there should still be enough room for MP to create a new file when changing channel, even if it hasn't released the old files in time (which I'd have thought it should) but I'll try decreasing it to 60MB and see if that helps.

Either way, it will only just be enough. You should never work on the limit. You have a 64 bit OS, and RAM is cheap. If you really want to go down the RAM disk route, throw in another couple of gigabytes for this purpose. Failing that, look out for a cheap 30 GB SSD drive.

I'm fairly sure there isn't a spindown issue with this drive as I recall getting this instead of a WD drive because that did have an issue, but as it's the only drive it's constantly being accessed by some component of Windows or an app anyway so wouldn't get a chance to spindown. Even when I've tried to manually spindown in the past it comes straight back on again because of this.

I don't know of a way to manually spin down the drive, and there are no options that can be configured for this. The documents relating to this drive are very clear about the lack of configuration. They think they have it right, so we don't need to change it.

In my case it was not the OS drive, so maybe that makes a difference.

Either way, I have a direct comparison between two drives, and this one is great for capacity but not so great for speed.

My experience suggests that with a reasonably quick hard drive, there is no need to timeshift to a RAM disk, even for HD content (which would need a much bigger RAM disk anyway). If you don't want to risk wearing out your main hard drive with constant timeshifting, add a smaller fast drive. Admittedly it isn't the best time to be buying one.

Mark

 

[doveman]

You always seem to insist on doing things differently to everyone else

Is there really any benefit to using a RAM driver for timeshifting? Based on the problems you are having, I would say possibly not. You have a serious trade-off of speed versus capacity.

It wasn't actually my idea, I read about other people doing it and thought it was a good idea. I don't know if they're still using it themselves or not though. Maybe I am the only one left

I'm quite happy with the capacity/time that my current RAMdrive provides and I much prefer not having the drive constantly being written to/read from all the time whilst I'm watching TV, partly for wear and tear and partly for noise reasons. Admittedly other things always seem to be accessing the drive, so it's not idle or completely silent, but timeshifting (or playing a recording) does noticeably increase the amount of activity and noise. I imagine that if I'm recording and timeshifting at the same time with the HDD, it's going to stress the drive out even more as it has to write two files and read one simultaneously.

As I said, it is the drive trying to save energy that is the problem, bandwidth is definitely not an issue.

If I try to play a recording on a networked client, and that recording is on the Samsung drive, there is a significant delay at the start. This is probably a combination of network (gigabit though) and hard disk. The problem does not happen with a 7200rpm drive which is not energy efficient.

Ah, I see what you mean.

Either way, it will only just be enough. You should never work on the limit. You have a 64 bit OS, and RAM is cheap. If you really want to go down the RAM disk route, throw in another couple of gigabytes for this purpose. Failing that, look out for a cheap 30 GB SSD drive.

I've already got 8GB but I don't want to allocate too much to my RAMdrive as then it's not available for games, etc. Ideally, MP would be able to just use a designated amount of RAM for timeshifting without needing a RAMdrive, and then when I closed MP this RAM would be available for other stuff. Perhaps that will be the case one day, but for now I'll just try reducing the amount of space used for timeshifting, as I only really ever need to skip back a few seconds anyway.

I don't know of a way to manually spin down the drive, and there are no options that can be configured for this. The documents relating to this drive are very clear about the lack of configuration. They think they have it right, so we don't need to change it.

You can use HDDscan to manually spindown the drive (under Tasks->Features->IDE Features) and you can also set the Idle Timer there (mine's set to Disabled). HDDScan I think you can also use HDparm hdparm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There was a firmware update for the Samsung which fixed some issue or other. I know with the WD drive I was considering there was a problem with it spinning down and then spinning up again due to SMART polling, which people were worried about but I think even with those the spindown could be disabled.

My experience suggests that with a reasonably quick hard drive, there is no need to timeshift to a RAM disk, even for HD content (which would need a much bigger RAM disk anyway). If you don't want to risk wearing out your main hard drive with constant timeshifting, add a smaller fast drive. Admittedly it isn't the best time to be buying one.

It's not really need so much as preferring the advantages. I do intend to get another drive when the prices come down though, as I never like running with only one drive as it's much slower extracting files, etc when it has to read and write to the same drive.