April 14, 200917 yr I've been lurking for a while but this is the first time I've had a question I could not find an answer to... I've noticed that while I'm streaming a movie from my array that writes also occur to the array (data drive and parity of course...). Does anyone know what is causing the writes to the drive while watching a movie and is there any way to stop it? I'm not hugely concerned but anything I can do to decrease "wear" on the parity drive, I'm all for. This probably doesn't make a difference but I'm using the Pro version of the latest beta. Thanks!
April 14, 200917 yr It would help if we knew what software was active, in particular, what player software you were using, and any addons you may have running on the server. Normally, something like this is associated with periodic tasks by a backup or sync tool, or by periodic scans or other tasks by a 'media center' type software package, checking various media folders on your server. Have you checked to see what files have times showing the most recent updates? That should provide a good clue.
April 14, 200917 yr Author Thank you for the quick response Rob I'm not currently running any addons to the server. When doing some trials on the disk writes, I close everything but the player which would have access at the time to the drive (including the window with the directory listing...I know a bit overkill...). The files I'm playing are encoded in x264 within an mkv container. I've played the files with WMP, MPC, and video lan. Each player has the same "issue". ffdshow is used to decode audio and video. The writes to the disk do not happen while video is not streaming. Thanks again.
April 14, 200917 yr My guess is that these writes occur because some information was updated about the file because you watched it. If you are using a program that changes access time of the file, then a write would have to occur to update the file with the new access time (like Robj mentioned). also the use of programs that utilize .xml meta-data for video files can cause writes. Often they add variables to these .xml files for each file as it is played or even rated by the user in the program. Not to mention the write of caused by the act of getting the new .xml file for a new video file automatically. There are so many reasons why a small number of writes are produced despite the user thinking they are only reading the file. Cheers, Matt
April 14, 200917 yr Author I was afraid of that Does anyone know if there anyway to turn these writing "features" off? Is there a player which does not utilize them? Like I said before, it's not a huge deal, I'd just like to minimize some wear on things. Thanks!
April 14, 200917 yr I was afraid of that Does anyone know if there anyway to turn these writing "features" off? Is there a player which does not utilize them? Like I said before, it's not a huge deal, I'd just like to minimize some wear on things. Thanks! Export your shares as "read-only." Use read-write for when you are actually writing, or write to the disk-shares (exported as read-write, but hidden, or define a different user for writing. Lots of possibilities. Joe L.
April 14, 200917 yr Author I was afraid of that Does anyone know if there anyway to turn these writing "features" off? Is there a player which does not utilize them? Like I said before, it's not a huge deal, I'd just like to minimize some wear on things. Thanks! Export your shares as "read-only." Use read-write for when you are actually writing, or write to the disk-shares (exported as read-write, but hidden, or define a different user for writing. Lots of possibilities. wow, that is almost embarrassingly easy... looks like I have some reading to do! Thanks! Joe L.
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