[TV] Timeshift to RAM (not RAMdisk) (1 Viewer)

[doveman]

Whilst using a RAMdisk for timeshifting is, IMHO, much better than using a HDD it would be even better if MP could just allocate a a user selected amount of RAM for timeshifting, either when MP is started or when TV/timeshifting is started (preferable, if possible), as then when not being used the RAM would be available for other apps, unlike with a RAMdisk which locks the RAM at startup and never releases it.

I'm not a coder, but I'd imagine that timeshifting to RAM would be simpler and require less configuration than to HDD/RAMdisk (e.g. I can't imagine it's necessary to specify anything more than the amount of RAM, as writing to RAM there'd be no need to specify number and size of files, etc).

 

[tourettes]

I'm not a coder, but I'd imagine that timeshifting to RAM would be simpler and require less configuration than to HDD/RAMdisk (e.g. I can't imagine it's necessary to specify anything more than the amount of RAM, as writing to RAM there'd be no need to specify number and size of files, etc).

It will be technically quite hard to do with the current MP architecture. TsWriter and TsReader are both running in separate processes (or even in separate physical devices) so it would require inter process communication. Also TsReader and TsWriter are both currently having lot of physical file access based code / logic that would be need to be re-written to allow memory to be used as source & target for the TS data.

In short - better to use RAM disk than wait that some dev picks up the pretty complex feature under development

 

[doveman]

Thanks for explaining some of the difficulties involved. As I said, I'm not a coder so things always seem simpler than they actually are

Nonetheless, I hope the poll will serve to show whether there's much interest in such a feature, for future consideration.

 

[powermarcel10]

hi guys,

I was wondering; what goes exactly faster when using your ram storage as timeshift buffer? Goes chanching channels faster or something like that? I have located the timeshift buffer on my ssd for a while. But I changed that because of the live time of an ssd.. I readed bad stories about that But I also need to say that it wasn't (much) faster than with the normal hdd.. So will this have effect? Will it speed up the whole tv experience? I really like to know the goal about using ramdisk or what ever you call it..

 

[HomeY]

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/15_Customization/TV-Server/Ramdisk_for_Timeshifting

 

[powermarcel10]

http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/15_Customization/TV-Server/Ramdisk_for_Timeshifting

I forgot to say, but I read that wiki allready.. (offcourse I did ) but what is the effect in reality? Can you really see the difference? Offcourse I can try it myself, ans I wil do that but I was wondering what the experiences are from other users.. So, what can I expect with using Ramdisk?

 

[Holzi]

I can see no difference between HDD and RAMDisk!
But I use the RAMDisk also for chromes useless browser cache and it saves the HDD.

 

[HomeY]

I can see no difference between HDD and RAMDisk!

+1 for me.
Tested timeshift folder on SSD, JBOD HDD and RAID5 (where it is as we speak) and didn't see any speed improvements.
The only thing that improved my zapping speeds (very) slightly was changing the 'Zap delay (sec)' (MP Config -> GUI -> On-Screen Display) to 0.

 

[powermarcel10]

Thanks guys, so it doesnt make any sense to use a ramdisk.. Maybe it was usefull in the past where normal hdd's where not as fast as they are now. So the bottleneck isnt the hdd anymore...

Thanks!

 

[doveman]

Actually using a RAMdisk has nothing to do with speed but avoids constantly writing to the HDD throughout the day whilst watching TV. That's why I use it anyway.