Central Storage of TV Shows.

[oosty]

I am thinking of buying a couple T4 barebones units to replace the T3’s I currently have working, but given these units have no storage I am looking to use a NAS to centrally store the atV Shows, so I ask,

1. Has anyone done this and got it working.
2. What issues do you remember having, if any.
3. Did you find using a certain hardware was better than any other,
4. What lan speed and approximate distance from the central storage device.

[MrQuade]

I am thinking of buying a couple T4 barebones units to replace the T3’s I currently have working, but given these units have no storage I am looking to use a NAS to centrally store the atV Shows, so I ask,

This is more of a networking question than relating to Tx hardware.

1. Has anyone done this and got it working.

I believe several people are operating their units like this without any real dramas.
I would recommend that if you want to do any live viewing and timeshifting, that you install a small harddisk in the T4s just for timeshifting. The T series use some cool filesystem tricks that rely on being able to create hard links between files when performing timeshift save operations and such. It's also a good place to store configuration backups. If noise is an issue, then a small SSD may be a good option too.

Someone with some practical experience here can contribute more though.

2. What issues do you remember having, if any.

You may encounter issues if your network is unreliable, or if your NAS units go offline or shut down for any reason when the T4s are trying to use them for recording. I wouldn't allow your NAS to go to sleep and wake on demand....it would want to be left on at all times.
Mostly it will just work though.

3. Did you find using a certain hardware was better than any other,

I personally use a QNAP NAS and rate them fairly well, but I don't use it for recordings, so can't comment on that aspect unfortunately.
If you have the money, I'd be splashing out on something with an Intel processor and 4 disk bays. Processor so that you can run the network at its maximum potential (mine is an ARM based unit and maxes out at about 200 Mbps unfortunately).
4 disk bays allows you to set up your disks in a RAID5 array, which would offer a bare minimum level of safely for any data that you care about. A 5 (or more) disk RAID6 array would be better, but starts getting expensive.

Some others can offer alternatives I am sure We all have our favourites.

4. What lan speed and approximate distance from the central storage device.

I wouldn't look at anything slower than Fast Ethernet speeds (100 Mbps). A full Gigabit network would be better for moving files around if you ever need to though. I wouldn't bother with anything wireless, even if you have a high speed 802.11ac network. It would be fine for file transfers and such, but I wouldn't want to rely on it for real-time recording. You may or may not have success with Ethernet over Power adaptors, depending on how compatible your house wiring is.

Distance won't matter if you are using professionally installed Ethernet cabling. As long as your cabling is decent quality and kept under 100m (I am assuming that most houses will not pose a problem there).

[stevebow]

I have a QNAP TS-509 Pro, which at 9 years old is a little long in the tooth by today's offerings. I have no problems storing or playing back T4 recordings from it via SMB.

Steve