Question about Recordings fragmentation (1 Viewer)

[mrkk]

Is there / has there been any discussion about fragmentation issue.

For example if you record 2 or more simultaneous shows on same partition tvserver records them like RAID 0, it writes a block from another and block from a another. In a few weeks your HD is real mess.

Would it be possible to preallocate the space for example epg-recordings (When you actually know pretty precisely how big is the file going to be.)

And for manual recordings and if upper isn't possible/practical would it be possible to preallocate bigger blocks, say for example 5 minutes a time.

Thnx,
tomppa

 

[Paul Shirley]

Are you seeing problems caused by fragmentation?

MP seems to buffer writes in large enough chunks to avoid bad fragmentation. A few hundred fragments for a 1Gb file should cause absolutely no noticeable slowdowns and its the worst I'm seeing with my massively fragmented drive. I got used to seeing 1000's of fragments with gbpvr and that did cause problems

The log files are more of a problem but easily fixed by disabling logging.

 

[mrkk]

Hi

I still use RC2(multiseat) for my wife's livingroom tv and there i've noticed changes on response times. If I let it fragment on it's own, after few weeks I begin to see the difference on skipping for example and it get's worse and worse. It can't just be a performance issue on my TV-server (dedicated Core 2 Duo with RAID config disks and 1 Gig net) Now I have weekly schedule of defrag and all is good.

Now I know there is a reason for the "block" size or whatever, maybe it has something to do with the streaming. I'm no expert, just wondering...


Thnx


PS. I'm testing RC3 now on separate (identical) config and just checked that after 3 weeks online (about 50gig of 300 gig disk) my normal recording of one hour (1,5gig) is in 800 pieces. And I run Perfect Disk every week on that.

 

[K1lo]

The log files are more of a problem but easily fixed by disabling logging.

I would not recommend this - if something goes wrong, how are you going to submit a bug report Fragmentation is a big issue, particularly if you have small harddrives. I have my machine on 24x7, and I schedule once every couple of weeks a defrag session. The built-in defrag tool in Windows XP (and Vista) is terrible. There are a number of good alternatives, none are free unfortunately. I used to use Diskeeper which is good, but O&O defrag is also excellent.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Smart Defrag is excellent, and its free Defragment Disk | SmartDefrag | Free Defragmenter for Enterprise, Business and Home

 

[K1lo]

Hmm.. all the ads on that site put me off downloading it, although I might give it a go on another system that I was dragging my feet buying a O&O license for.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Hi

What product and which adds are you referring too, none i can see on iobit.com (Firefox3)

 

[jonaskp]

Hmm, I might start defragmenting my Drives. I often have more than one recording going on at a time, so its probably pretty messed up by now .

A question: What happens if I am defragmenting and then a recording/watching of LiveTV starts? Will this cause a big problem?

 

[K1lo]

Hmm, I might start defragmenting my Drives. I often have more than one recording going on at a time, so its probably pretty messed up by now .

A question: What happens if I am defragmenting and then a recording/watching of LiveTV starts? Will this cause a big problem?

Depends on your system, at best you get some slowdown on your defragging, at worst you can cause framerate drops in your recording (i.e. stuttering) or further fragmentation (i.e. you move one chunk out and Mediaportal records the current program straight into that space causing further problems.)

What product and which adds are you referring too, none i can see on iobit.com (Firefox3)

I just followed the link to the page, it has a few google ads and other bits a pieces. Looking again it turns out some of them are simply 'testimonials' and awards but the design is so poor that on first inspection they all looked like ads. The site just feels a bit amateurish... just my opinion.

 

[jonaskp]

Hmm, I might start defragmenting my Drives. I often have more than one recording going on at a time, so its probably pretty messed up by now .

A question: What happens if I am defragmenting and then a recording/watching of LiveTV starts? Will this cause a big problem?

Depends on your system, at best you get some slowdown on your defragging, at worst you can cause framerate drops in your recording (i.e. stuttering) or further fragmentation (i.e. you move one chunk out and Mediaportal records the current program straight into that space causing further problems.)

The framerate problem was the one I was worried about. Further fragmenting wouldn't hurt that much, since this would just get fixed next time it defragged.
The problem would be minor, because I was planning on running defrag at night time where I rarely watch or record stuff´, but sometimes it happens that a show or movies is aired, or if I missed the first airing, the rerun is at some weird time.
Guess I'll just have to try it defragging and then recording something at the same time, to see what happens.