Im running UnRAID 5.06 with APCUPS, Dynamix and cache Dirs. Im looking at adding another Openelec box, i5 Intel NUC and the option for using My SQL and possibly PXE boot looks favourable but as I will need to get a SSD for central storage of the My SQL DB and fan art etc Im wondering if I should look at moving to V6 and using the SSD for PXE boot, My SQL DB, docker Apps and fanart storage. I would also move to the XFS file system.

My NUC boots off the internal MSATA disk in 10 seconds so how much slower would it be booting over the network and is the fanart, poster loading etc still fast enough. If not I would stay with just internal NUC storage but use My SQL for central storage of the DB and fanart etc, but is it worth a move to V6 beta at the moment or should I wait. Also how big should the SSD be. I know Peter B has a lot of experience in this area so maybe he could give me a few ideas and answers as it all looks very complicated to setup but having a central storage location for my fanart and DB seems like the way to go as at the moment all my fanart, posters etc is stored in my movie folders except one share on unRAID which stores my movie collection fanart, posters and logos.

I've also been wondering on ways to speed up XBMC/Kodi using centralized databases profiles. In my experience even a wired network connection running XBMC on an Apple TV2 is too slow to load the many small files (Thumbnails) and read the MySQL database entries in an acceptable time frame. Well then maybe something like an Rsync between a central and local thumbnails folder would be a better solution ?

Assuming there is enough local storage available. It seems that the thumbnail folder size can be held in check using the Texture Cache Maintenance utility.

 

If that is no option, I guess we are better off dropping centralized thumbnails all together and only use the MySQL database to synchronize database and profile. No ?

XBMC/KODI caches local thumbnails anyway so centralized thumbnails are not necessary.

 

http://kodi.wiki/view/Thumbnails/Cache

 

Yes, that's right. The central DB contains the thumbnail URL links and each instance caches them locally.