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[kstuart]

My current TV recording PC is connected to my router with Gigabit Ethernet.

If I connect a USB external drive to my router (one of its features), will that work reliably, as opposed to recording to an internal drive?

I am asking for any actual experience.   (Because theory might say it would work, but then does not for various unforeseen reasons.)

Thanks !

[mwillems]

My setup is similar to what you're describing.

My main recording PC records to a drive on my NAS via ethernet, and I have experienced no problems with it.  To add a wrinkle: my tuner is a networked tuner (HD Homerun Prime), so it is connected to my router by ethernet as well (not to my PC).  As near as I can tell from watching I/O, the recording PC pulls data from the tuner into RAM and then writes it to the NAS disk, so the data flow is:

Tuner-->ethernet/router-->PC-->ethernet/router-->NAS.

I've had no issues recording HD programming in general.  One in about fifteen recordings might have a little glitch in it, but that doesn't seem to be related to the setup (I see glitches when watching with the cablebox sometimes).

I can't say if your router will work perfectly as I don't have an HDD connected directly to my router, and router's are sometimes a little flaky with "extra" features like that.  Generally speaking though, networked recording and writing to a network-shared drive works for me.

[muzicman0]

I honestly would doubt that it will work.  Most consumer level routers will achieve somewhere between 3-6 GB per second write speed.  This translates to 24-48 Mbps.  Just not enough...at least in my opinion.

Now, if you have a high end router, you might...the best way to tell is to use Windows to write a file to that disk, and see how fast it is writing.

[Yaobing]

Most consumer level routers will achieve somewhere between 3-6 GB per second write speed. 

Did you mean 3-6 MB per second?  (3 - 6) MB * 8 b/B = 24 - 48 Mbps.

[muzicman0]

yes, MB...I mentioned 24-48 Mbps in my post (the very next sentence  )...In my opinion, it doesn't leave enough headroom.  Maybe if you are only recording one show at a time, and not watching something else.  I am not up to speed on bandwidth requirements, but it has to be at least 15 Mbps for a 1080 broadcast, right?  If you do more than one, then you run the risk of not enough disk write speed.

This is one of the reasons I built my own router using ZeroShell, While it isn't as fast as PC to PC, I get closer to 30-45 MB per second write speed (going to the internal SSD) while transferring files.

[kstuart]

musicman0 is right.

Recordings that were < 10 MB/s worked fine, and the first one that was higher, around 14 MB/s, failed.

I did a test write and got around 10 MB/s.

Now I need that feature even more:

* Run a specified command after every recording.  (A freeware TV application has this.)

Then I could record to the small internal drive, and then after completion, copy to the network drive.

[muzicman0]

Don't confuse MB with Mb.  1 MB (mega BYTE) is 8 Mb (Mega bit).  In other words, there are 8 megabits in 1 megabyte.

If you actually truly got 10 MBps, that is 80 Mb's, and should actually be enough to record any show out there...if it doesn't work, then something else might be going on...

[kstuart]

And you are right again.    The HD videos are 14 Mbps and the transfer is 10 MBps.

The plug for the AC-powered TV tuner was not securely seated and had come out, so there was no tuner.

Could still use the command trigger feature when Yaobing has time...

[RoderickGI]

I looked at USB connected hard drives to routers about five years ago, and decided that nearly all consumer levels routers had inadequate processor power to reliably support even writes of large files to the USB drive. I doubt that situation has changed dramatically as the load on router processors has increased significantly with fast wireless requirements at the same time that processors themselves have been improved. As mwillems said, the extra features on routers tend to be flaky.

While a single recording test to such a router attached USB drive may work okay, what happens when you want to record two shows, and play an existing recording?

Personally I wouldn't rely on such a setup. An Ethernet attached NAS would make more sense, as it has the processing power to manage the work load. When I did testing I saw a very inconsistent and broad range of write speeds to the attached drive, and sometimes even complete failures to write, as the connection appeared to be paused.

Perhaps ask about performance on the forum for your router?

[kstuart]

Okay, but I am not going to be recording more than one show at a time.

Also, 5 years is a long time in "processor speed world".  Here are the hardware specs on my router, which was released about 30 months ago, and is commonly known as the "best cheap router" (~$60):


Architecture:    MIPS MIPS 74Kc
Vendor:    Qualcomm Atheros
Bootloader:    U-Boot
System-On-Chip:    AR9344 (MIPS)
CPU/Speed    560 MHz
Flash-Chip:    Spansion FL064KIF docs
Flash size:    8192 KiB
RAM:    128 MiB
Wireless No1:    Atheros AR9340 2.4GHz 802.11bgn
Wireless No2:    Atheros AR9582 5GHz 802.11an
Switch:    Atheros AR8327N Gigabit Switch
USB:    Yes 2 x 2.0 (GL850G chip - 4 ports capable)

[muzicman0]

It's not so much on if something better is available for them to use, it's whether they actually use a better chip!

The easiest thing to do is try...it may work, it may not, but personally, I wouldn't rely on it, but recorded TV is a high priority for me, it may not be as high for you, so if you have the occasional glitch, it may not bother you.

[RoderickGI]

Also, 5 years is a long time in "processor speed world".  Here are the hardware specs on my router, which was released about 30 months ago, and is commonly known as the "best cheap router" (~$60):

Yes, five years is a long time in technology. But not so long in business. Manufacturers will minimise their costs and maximise their margins, and will continue to provide the minimum functionality that "ticks the box" for marketing. So add on functionality like USB hard drives typically are not well supported for most routers. Some brands, or specific models of some brands, do work well though. But it is a bit hit and miss, even within a brand. Firmware changes that improve router performance can steal processor time and memory from attached USB drive support, for example.

Besides, your router is two and a half years old. It is also just a BGNA wireless router, not AC, so not even the latest from back then. While it has a reasonable 8MB of flash, it only has 128MB of RAM, which often has a significant impact on attached storage performance. You didn't mention the brand and model, but at $60 is a very cheap router. So it isn't likely to provide lots of support for the attached USB drive. Basically, consumer routers have gotten cheaper while still providing similar functionality to five or more years ago. Only wireless has been improved really.

So, as I suggested before, do some research on the brand and model of your router, particularly on any user forums for it, and see what people are saying about the attached USB storage performance.