I'm interested in UnRaid for use with an HTPC system and wondered exactly what I could expect to do in terms of reading and writing files.

 

I read through most of the threads here and in the hardware forum but haven't seen a lot of specific talk about this.  If I missed it or there is some discussion of this elsewhere I'd be obliged for the link to it.

Perhaps this is such an elemental question as to be a non issue since I gather that most here are in fact using UnRaid as a media server......

 

I can currently capture and playback a 20Mbps off the air high definition broadcast stream via firewire from my tuner to a drive in another PC on my 100 Mbps windows network.  I'm not currently using any kind of HTPC software doing simultaneous record/playback of 'live' tv ala Microsoft Media Center Edition or BeyondTV etc. this is just a basic capture first, playback later setup.

 

Can I expect to be able to do the same with an UnRaid server substituting as the drive in another pc and using a nominally functioning 1000 Mbps network infrastructure?

 

If/when I move on to something more elegant such as Media Center Edition or BeyondTV what exactly can I expect to do with one of those in combination with an UnRaid server on a properly functioning gigabit network in terms of simultaneous write/read of one or more high defiinition or standard definition channels?  If simultaneous write/read to/from the UnRaid server isn't possible I presume I'll at least be able to read a 20 Mbps high def transport stream file sitting on the UnRaid server from my HTPC across the gigabit network?

 

Obviously I know that I can use a local drive with the HTPC and simply copy files to/from the UnRaid server but I wanted to know if I could expect to do more than that.

 

thanks for any comments,

 

--Don

 

 

I can tell you that I am not able to do this with my 19Mbps HDTV streams with my UnRaid server.  It just cannot handle that high of a bitrate.  I find that it does well at 5Mbps SDTV streams for me as long as I don't have more than 1 file being written at the same time.

 

 

Just to confuse a little bit more, I can tell you that I do exactly this, streaming 12-18mbps transport streams (1080i) from Unraid, via a Media Cener Edition server, to an Xbox 360 Media Center extender.

 

I was suprised that it works perfectly using Unraid, I never have network delays, and/or buffering issues. All of this, only only 100mbps ethernet between all 3 devices.

 

To make matters even stranger, I can write to unraid (i.e. a <3mbps download stream in the background) with no hiccups at the same time. That is truly bizarre, because if I use any other client on the network (i.e. plain old media player or an XBMC gen 1 xbox playing Divx streams), I get pauses, and it's just plain unteneable.

 

Something wierd is going on with the Xbox 360. It seems to get higher priority on the network or something, but it simply works beatifully, and there are no problems with Unraid whatsoever.

 

I did try throwing a very recent build of Vista in as the Media Center server though. That, on the otherhand was an unmitigated disaster 

Actually it is not too confusing.  UnRaid has a pretty good read throughput, it just is horrible at writing.  I do know there are those that record the show to a local drive, then batch copy the shows to the UnRaid for storage and later viewing.  By doing this you limit when you are writing to the UnRaid and avoid the simultaneous read/write bottleneck.

 

Personally it is not worth it to me, so I just use UnRaid for SD recordings, and a local drive for HD as I can assign each tuner to a specific drive.

 

 

I can stream SD FROM the array no problems. I can stream low bitrate stuff like MP3 and SD at the same time no issues. Writing on a 100meg connection it saturates it pretty good although the feed isn't steady - it comes nowhere close on a Gig connection in my experience. I too would be hesitant to write multiple streams, copying from two machines at once REALLY slows things down For DVDs I rip local and then copy, ripping straight to the array takes like 5times longer than local. <shrug> IMO the array works great for serving up files, could likely serve HD, but serving and writing at once would likely be an issue. Hope to try it soon myself