Live TV buffer/recording location + HDD life span

[dannieboiz]

in my living room, I have my recording going to a 2tb Sata drive and my main drive is a SSD. I'm reading that the live tv buffer actually decrease the life span of the HDD, which I don't want since I have other data on the 2tb hdd the recording and buffer is going to.

In my bedroom I just finished setting up my HTPC using an older laptop. I had horrible Guide speed and my live tv would skip and freeze all the time, so I did the Mklink trick to move my temprec to an 8gb HDD which greatly improved my guide and surprisingly my live tv skipping issue was greatly reduce.

Different issues but similar end result:

1st. in the BR, can I map my live TV recording folder from the livingroom and record over the network and keep my buffer on the USB flash drive? This way I have one central location for my recordings that I can watch from both places?

2nd. If I can do option 1, then since having the buffer on a HDD would reduce it's life span and I have a spare 16gb USB flash drive, is it worth while to do the same and move the buffer to the USB drive since the price of these things are so low they're almost disposable rather than losing 2tb worth of data.

[kingwr]

Hopefully your backing up you precious data -- no hard drive, whether you are using it for the recording buffer or not, is fail-proof.

That said, everytime I have investigated the issue it has always come up that the best performance is obtained by placing your OS on a storage device with high random read performance and putting your buffer/recordings on a storage device with high serial write performance. When I built my last HTPC five years ago, that was an Intel SSD for the OS and a WD Caviar Black for the buffer/recording storage. Unless technology has some how turned these numbers upside down (which I am pretty sure it hasn't), this is still the best way to go. The WD Caviar Black spun 24x7 for 5 years (the warranty period) recording 1000s of hours of television without a hiccup. This drive had all of our TV, movies, music, and pictures on it and was backed up weekly. I doubt a USB stick could stand up to it.

EDIT: Actually the OCX Agility 3 is in my desktop computer.

[richard1980]

While it is true that the live TV buffer decreases the lifespan of the HDD, it is also true that reading/writing other data from the drive also reduces its lifespan. Simply put, if you do anything with a mechanical drive, lifespan will be reduced. To protect your data, you'll want to use redundancy (either in the form of backups or RAID). You may also want to consider organizing your data in a different way. Try putting like kinds of data together and separate from other kinds of data.

I do not recommend using a flash drive for the live TV buffer only because I do not recommend watching live TV. Watching TV live is the "old" way. The "new" way is to record everything and watch it whenever you want. If you consume TV content the "new" way, your live TV buffer concerns are moot, therefore, there is no benefit to moving the live TV buffer to a flash drive. However, if you watch live TV, there really is no reason why you can't move the live TV buffer to a flash drive. You just have to be aware that the flash drive probably won't last as long as the HDD.

I disagree with the recommendation to use a HDD with high serial write performance, and recommend the use of a HDD with sufficient serial write performance instead. There is really no reason to spend extra money buying additional performance (or adding additional heat to the system) if that performance is never going to be used. It's only in "high use" cases where a high-performance drive is warranted, and even then a high-performance drive may not be able to deliver the required performance. But in the average HTPC, a green drive is more than sufficient. Take my setup for example. I have a single 2TB Caviar Green, which I have confirmed as being able to handle 8 simultaneous streams without exceeding the drive's capabilities. There is additional headroom for more streams, but 8 is the maximum I can test at this time. That said, I don't think there's very much headroom available...maybe enough 2 or 3 additional streams, but that is pure speculation that I am unable to confirm.

[dannieboiz]

I think we're going a little off subject here.

While I understand what you guys are saying and I appreciate the feedback. I'm old fashion. I spend a lot of time "channel surfing" my recording is mainly for the kids and I'm not looking for most reliable HDD feedback.

A little bit about my system so you can understand where I'm coming from.

My livingroom HTPC is a core i7, 16gb ram and a Corsair Force 3 SATA III 90gb HDD for the OS, so speed isn't an issue. There's an incremental backup that runs nightly to another internal drive. The internal drives consist of a 1x 1tb, 2x 2TB HDD and 2x 3Tb USB 3.0 external . Data on these, I can afford to lose but would rather not. However it's not worth it to drop then in a RAID. Hence, this question came up. I can lose them but I would like to be able to retain them for as long as possible and if the drive fail, then be it.

On the other hand, I have a Synology NAS with 2x 2TB in a raid that does an additional backup to a 2TB USB external drive attach to it. So technically, I have identical data written 3 times over. Not including the additional upload of most of the photos to store on the web. This is where I store family photos and all of my important digital items that I can't afford to lose.

[adam1991]

but that doesn't change the fact that if you're watching TV as its being broadcast by the broadcaster, on their schedule, then you're doing it wrong.

I agree with Richard 100% on this.

Watching "live" TV via WMC is tantamount to wasting 95% of why you have Media Center in the first place.

[dannieboiz]

but that doesn't change the fact that if you're watching TV as its being broadcast by the broadcaster, on their schedule, then you're doing it wrong.

I agree with Richard 100% on this.

Watching "live" TV via WMC is tantamount to wasting 95% of why you have Media Center in the first place.

Again we're going off topic and I believe you guys are thinking I'm doing OTA contents. Myprimary reason for moving away from a STB and moving everything to my WMC is for one primary reason, get away from the rental fee of the cable provider box.

I pay $15 for a pvr + $10 each for the 2 additional HD box. That's $35/month + tax on rental equipment.

I have an HDHomeRun Prime paid about $130 for it and pay only $1.50 a month for my CableCard. In 4 months time it will pay for itself. So watching Live TV in WMC makes total sense to me.

I know we can go on and argue about electricity cost, equipment cost etc.... but that's another story.

[kingwr]

Trying to get back to your question, I don't think buffering/recording on your HDD will reduce its lifespan anywhere near what having the OS on it will. Buffering TV is large serial writes, OS is A LOT of small random reads with the heads moving all over the place. This type of activity is much more likely to cause a touchdown or thermal event than large serial writes that write track by track. If your going to move anything to SSD (including a USB stick), I would move the OS before I would move the buffering/recording.

[dannieboiz]

Kingwr, thanks for getting on track. No, what I meant was moving it OFF SSD and Disk drive to USB flash

[richard1980]

In your OP, you claimed the buffer was going to the HDD, not the SSD. Are you now saying that the buffer is actually on the SSD? If that's the case, then you should definitely move it. But if it's going to the HDD, there's really no problem. It comes down to your preference. As I said in my initial response, there's no reason why you can't put the buffer on a flash drive, but the flash drive probably won't last as long as a HDD.

[dannieboiz]

In your OP, you claimed the buffer was going to the HDD, not the SSD. Are you now saying that the buffer is actually on the SSD? If that's the case, then you should definitely move it. But if it's going to the HDD, there's really no problem. It comes down to your preference. As I said in my initial response, there's no reason why you can't put the buffer on a flash drive, but the flash drive probably won't last as long as a HDD.

I guess to summarize the question. Would I benefit if I moved my buffer from the HDD to a USB Flash drive? The HDD that the buffer is going to at the moment is used hold data that hardly get used. So if I moved the buffer from that drive to a USB flash drive then I take the stress off of it and increase its life span.

and I believe I found the answer to # 2. I guess I can map the Recorded TV folder to my BR and record over the network but still retain my buffer on my USB flash drive.

[richard1980]

Would I benefit if I moved my buffer from the HDD to a USB Flash drive?

No. It would take several years of non-stop buffering to kill the average HDD, whereas it will only take a few months of non-stop buffering to kill the average 16 GB flash drive. So in the long run, the HDD is the better option.

The HDD that the buffer is going to at the moment is used hold data that hardly get used. So if I moved the buffer from that drive to a USB flash drive then I take the stress off of it and increase its life span.

Create one or more backups of the static data and your problem is solved.

[blueiedgod]

In your OP, you claimed the buffer was going to the HDD, not the SSD. Are you now saying that the buffer is actually on the SSD? If that's the case, then you should definitely move it. But if it's going to the HDD, there's really no problem. It comes down to your preference. As I said in my initial response, there's no reason why you can't put the buffer on a flash drive, but the flash drive probably won't last as long as a HDD.

I guess to summarize the question. Would I benefit if I moved my buffer from the HDD to a USB Flash drive? The HDD that the buffer is going to at the moment is used hold data that hardly get used. So if I moved the buffer from that drive to a USB flash drive then I take the stress off of it and increase its life span.

and I believe I found the answer to # 2. I guess I can map the Recorded TV folder to my BR and record over the network but still retain my buffer on my USB flash drive.

I'll chime in. The HDD that was used exclusivley for TV buffer (750 Gb Seagate PATA drive) since 2007 has just started to "show end of life symptoms" So, 6 years. Yes, it will kill it, but slowly. Usning your math, $35/month that you are saving by not renting boxes ($2520) will buy you lots of hard drives to replace the recording drive ($100).

[wyerock]

I just lost two drives and this has me concerned. I'd had my media center running 24x7 for about 6 months and the recording/buffer drive died. It was a 2TB Samsung Spinpoint that was about 2.5 years old, so it had seen some use already. I assumed it was a fluke (and it was a bummer to lose 1+ TB of recorded TV that wasn't backed up), and I tossed in an older 500 GB Samsung Spinpoint that I had laying around until I could get a proper replacement, but it too died within a month.

I have a new 3TB WD Red to replace it, but I'm afraid it too will get killed. My recording drive sits in with two other 3 TB drive (Red and a Seagate Barracuda) that have not given me any problems, but they didn't see the same workload.

So do you think WMC killed my drives, or just coincidence? Is it because they aren't meant for 24x7 use? We have live TV going probably 8-10 hrs/day plus 6-8 hrs recorded most days.

[STC]

^ That's just bad luck

Always worth checking with the drive manufacturers website to see if the drives have any warranty - some are three years.

[blueiedgod]

I just lost two drives and this has me concerned. I'd had my media center running 24x7 for about 6 months and the recording/buffer drive died. It was a 2TB Samsung Spinpoint that was about 2.5 years old, so it had seen some use already. I assumed it was a fluke (and it was a bummer to lose 1+ TB of recorded TV that wasn't backed up), and I tossed in an older 500 GB Samsung Spinpoint that I had laying around until I could get a proper replacement, but it too died within a month.

I have a new 3TB WD Red to replace it, but I'm afraid it too will get killed. My recording drive sits in with two other 3 TB drive (Red and a Seagate Barracuda) that have not given me any problems, but they didn't see the same workload.

So do you think WMC killed my drives, or just coincidence? Is it because they aren't meant for 24x7 use? We have live TV going probably 8-10 hrs/day plus 6-8 hrs recorded most days.

Seems more like a pattern.

How are these drives cooled? Is there a direct active cooling device?

Heat is what kills most hard drives.

[newfiend]

Ya I also agree that the drive failure back to back like that is a fluke.. I have a western digital black 1TB drive I purchased almost 3-4 years ago that's recorded all my TV and is still working today. Maybe move away from Samsung drives if they aren't lasting for you. I've always had excellent luck with Western Digital and the warranties are excellent. But that's just my opinion.

[barnabas1969]

I just lost two drives and this has me concerned. I'd had my media center running 24x7 for about 6 months and the recording/buffer drive died. It was a 2TB Samsung Spinpoint that was about 2.5 years old, so it had seen some use already. I assumed it was a fluke (and it was a bummer to lose 1+ TB of recorded TV that wasn't backed up), and I tossed in an older 500 GB Samsung Spinpoint that I had laying around until I could get a proper replacement, but it too died within a month.

I have a new 3TB WD Red to replace it, but I'm afraid it too will get killed. My recording drive sits in with two other 3 TB drive (Red and a Seagate Barracuda) that have not given me any problems, but they didn't see the same workload.

So do you think WMC killed my drives, or just coincidence? Is it because they aren't meant for 24x7 use? We have live TV going probably 8-10 hrs/day plus 6-8 hrs recorded most days.

Seems more like a pattern.

How are these drives cooled? Is there a direct active cooling device?

Heat is what kills most hard drives.

Running them too cool will kill them just as fast as too hot. The ideal temperature range, according to Google's study, is 35-45C.

[blueiedgod]

Running them too cool will kill them just as fast as too hot. The ideal temperature range, according to Google's study, is 35-45C.

30°C is 86°F, 35°C is 95°F, and 45°C is 113°F.

Assuming average household maintains 75°F (23.9°C), that that is the lowest that a hard drive without phase change or peltier cooling can get with simple air cooling. I don't think there would be an issue with cooling too much, by placing a hard drive in front of the case fan, or otherwise directing air flow to it.

Sure, if you have your PC in the ice box, or freezer, then you have issues.

On the side note, freezing the hard drive has been my secret to retrieving data from "clicking" dead hard drives. I would place them in the freezer, with the cables attached, and let them freeze for a couple hours. Then retrieve data. Once you take it out of the freezer, especially if it is humid it is definitely dead, because it will become soaking wet pretty fast.

[barnabas1969]

Failure rates went up dramatically starting at 25C (77F) and below. You definitely need a little air flow over the HDD, but not necessarily a fan that pulls room air and blows directly on the HDD. And, just because your room is 23.9C, that doesn't mean that your HDD will run that cool, even with a little air flow over the HDD. You should target 40C. If it runs much cooler than 35 (after an hour of use), you probably have too much air flow over the HDD. And, don't waste your money on any heat sinks for your HDD. They are not necessary. All you need is a little room air being drawn over the HDD.

[STC]

If it's of any help, my case is the Ahanix D4 (ATX full size).
I have a 120mm fan hot glued to the chassis at 45 degrees blowing onto the hard disks and part of the MLB where the tuner card is. What it does is just help balance the hotter areas of the inside of the case with the cooler areas. It turns all the hardware into one heatsink. It spins slow and silent but moves a lot of air around. There are two 60mm chassis fans expelling air, running slow and two 80mm slot blower fans expelling air running slow.
You can hear the drive ticking away more than you can hear the fans.

infiniTV tuner temps don't go above 56C and the ATI GPU never goes above 57C.