Can I access a 2nd hd seamlessly in WMC once one is filled?

[Inkidu]

I have a infiniTV and a Echo.
I have a ssd for my os and then set the recordings to go to a separate Western Digital WD AV-GP WD20EURS 2TB.
I always disliked erasing shows.
I like the series recording settings so I could always watch a complete series in any one afternoon.
I have plans for a larger raid setup planned.
Until I spend that kind of money on that setup, will an additional drive set to be the recording hd be seamless accessible as well as the hd that already has the "old" video?
Will the Echo as well be able to access the video from the hd that I already filled up?
I know some hd don't do well in raid will the WD AV-GP work well in raid in this kind of setup?
I have had no problems with the hd as a storage for video (It was designed to work that way)
Thanks for any help.

[Crash2009]

I sure hope so. I will be trying the same thing next week. Haven't decided yet, which drive will be the recording drive. I was thinking I could use either one.

[olyteddy]

yes. It's called 'Spanning' http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 72180.aspx

[foxwood]

You can only record to a single drive, but you can add as many folders on as many drives as you like to the Recorded TV library, and everything will show up in Recorded TV.

In short, Yes.

[Inkidu]

Thanks for the replies
Until I get the redundancy of raid to protect my video library a new hd to fill up will work
Still curious on my next hd purchase.
They still sell the WD AV-GP but the Western Digital Red WD30EFRX 3TB is tempting especially if I am working toward a multiple drive raid setup.
This topic might be worth another post or more research.
Thanks again.

[Inkidu]

yes. It's called 'Spanning' http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 72180.aspx

Thanks for the link.
Still reading it over and I haven't tried it yet i.e. need a second hd.
Can you use this method for more than two drives?
I guess where I am going with this is that instead of raid, have 3 or 4 spanned drives. (still unsure that this method can handle that well)
Sometime being able to handle/work and working well are two different things.
I am assuming that different makes of hard drives won't have any adverse affect on each other.
What I have to work with is an AMD SB950 for raid, eventually will work up to a dedicated RAID card.
What I am realizing now is that my sata ports need to be all raid or not (outside of having a port setup to be AHCI/optical drive)
Might still be able to use usb 3.0 with my ssd/os and therefore use the SB950 exclusively for a WMC raid storage. (SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC128N/AM 2.5" 128GB)
Until I actual plug things in to test them I can't verify.
Ideally won't to use the full capacity of the motherboard with out adding complexity. (things that can break or need constant individual updates)
Thanks for any help.

[foxwood]

There's no need to add the complexity of Spanning. When your first drive is full, change the Recorded Storage location to the second drive, and then make sure that both "C:\Recorded TV" and "D:\Recorded TV" are in the Recorded TV Library. You only record to one location, but you can read content from many locations.

You can make it as complicated as you like, but you'll be adding a point of failure, and won't be adding any functionality, because WMC can do what you want to do without Spanning or Raid, just a little manual intervention every year or two, when you decide to add a new drive.

will an additional drive set to be the recording hd be seamless accessible as well as the hd that already has the "old" video?

In a word, Yes.

[Inkidu]

There's no need to add the complexity of Spanning. When your first drive is full, change the Recorded Storage location to the second drive, and then make sure that both "C:\Recorded TV" and "D:\Recorded TV" are in the Recorded TV Library. You only record to one location, but you can read content from many locations.

You can make it as complicated as you like, but you'll be adding a point of failure, and won't be adding any functionality, because WMC can do what you want to do without Spanning or Raid, just a little manual intervention every year or two, when you decide to add a new drive.

Thanks for the reply
I think you are right on with where I want to go with this.
I don't want to add failure points by making it more complex than it needs to be.
Want to keep cost down.
If I lose any one drive as I add them, it won't be a complete lose in my video library.
Looking down the road I might continue to add WD red and start my library over once I get 3 or 4 hd with a decent raid card.
Those new Western Digital RE WD4000FYYZ 4TB (for an eventual raid system w?5 yr warranty ) are tempting but the over $400 price is not.
I might be better off taking the path you seem to be leading me on i.e. buy a new hard drives (then setting it to the Recorded Storage location for WMC),
and make sure they are all "C:\Recorded TV" and "D:\Recorded TV" in the same Recorded TV library.
Thanks for the help.

[foxwood]

buy a new hard drives (then setting it to the Recorded Storage location for WMC), and make sure they are all "C:\Recorded TV" and "D:\Recorded TV" in the same Recorded TV library.

When you set a new Recorded Storage Location, WMC automatically created the "Recorded TV" folder on that drive. Once you move that location to the 2nd drive, you could rename the Recorded TV folder on the first drive if you wanted, as long as you also updated the Recorded TV Library.

[Inkidu]

I am kind of getting what you mean foxwood.
Once I get a second hd (for video storage) I will know what you mean.
When I do access my hd that is setup for storage, the only file is Recorded TV
I will learn by doing once I add a second hd.
Thanks

[epayson85]

2 issues here... one is just switching one over to recorded storage which is great and all except then you don't record to it anymore when you free up space as you delete shows. Unless you aren't going to ever delete them and just keep them forever. If you are going to do this though I suggest getting some automated software to at the very least compress them down to something smaller and even remove the commercials. If you go down the spanning route you have to use unallocated drives so you would have to delete everything on your hard drive. Spanned drives also doesn't do anything to even out stress on the drives. It fills the first one you select and once its full it goes to the next. If one drive were to die the odds of you losing everything are pretty good. Its not easy recovering data from a hard drive crash using spanned drives. Your best bet is to use drive pooling software. I use flex raid which is virtual raid and it works incredibly well. I have a drive pool for my DVR that uses two 2tb hard drives. You still see both drives completely separate then there is a virtual drive that is the two of them combined. The software automatically balances both of them. If one were to die the other that still holds half of our recordings is still intact. Also I have created a virtual raid for my movie and tv series library. Unlike other raids where you will see slow downs in reads/writes these drives act just like completely normal drives. Then the drive parity is synced once a week at night. (you can schedule it to happen as often as you would like) When setting this up there can still be files on the drives and you wont lost anything. The only problem I found so far is since the virtual drive is created each time you boot up the computer sets your live TV buffer to C:\ everytime because it cant find that virtual drive instantly during bootup. Once the drive is found it goes back to the correct drive EXCEPT FOR EXTENDERS. So on the main HTPC the live tv buffer will go right back to your virtual drive however extenders will record on your C:\ drive which is a big issue if you have a solid state drive. The only thing I have found to fix this is set the recording drive to one of the actual hard drives not the virtual drive before rebooting. Even if you edit the registry it doesn't take effect until you reboot so this has been the only down side to this setup. Luckily I almost never have to reboot my HTPC.

[richard1980]

http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ ... agePooler/

[Inkidu]

Thanks for the replies.
I still have yet to get my second drive
Newegg does have a promo for appox $130 3tb red western digital drive
Pooler link is interesting and appreciated.
I don't pretend to be an expert but my thoughts still go to a hardware based raid setup for a number of reasons.
Obvious concerns are certainly cost.
Thanks for any help.