[ANN] OpenELEC.tv - very small and fast booting Embedded Linux Distribution with XBMC

Hm, I have an old 40gig IDE drive lying around, would that improve the speed of it?

Old 40GB hard drives are:

1. Slow;
2. Noisy;
3. Hot;
4. Small (can't store much media);
5. Likely to die at any moment.

You will almost certainly get better overall performance for XBMC with a recent USB2 drive (although if it's storing media, the hard drive might do a better job).

I run OpenELEC on a ~$10 4GB drive and its performance is fine. However, I don't store any media on there - everything is accessed via gigabit network.

Note also that USB2 drives have quite varying speeds. If you're storing media, make sure you get one of the faster ones.

magao Wrote:Old 40GB hard drives are:

1. Slow;
2. Noisy;
3. Hot;
4. Small (can't store much media);
5. Likely to die at any moment.

You will almost certainly get better overall performance for XBMC with a recent USB2 drive (although if it's storing media, the hard drive might do a better job).

I run OpenELEC on a ~$10 4GB drive and its performance is fine. However, I don't store any media on there - everything is accessed via gigabit network.

Note also that USB2 drives have quite varying speeds. If you're storing media, make sure you get one of the faster ones.

I don't store any media on my HTPC, as you do, I access it through a gigabit network.

I'm going to check when I get home if the drive is actually USB 2 or 1.

Will report back.

Kind of off-topic, but not sure where to ask:
Can anybody register over at the openelec.tv forum?

I have trouble with the register form which simply clears all my inputs without registering me or simply giving out an error message.

Tested with FF8 and IE9, same results.

Croaker Wrote:Kind of off-topic, but not sure where to ask:

You could try in the IRC-Channel, maybe they are able to help you out:
http://openelec.tv/find-help/chat

Jorge18 Wrote:I don't store any media on my HTPC, as you do, I access it through a gigabit network.

I'm going to check when I get home if the drive is actually USB 2 or 1.

Will report back.

Alright, so it is a USB2.0 stick. I think I figured out what's going on though. I've been testing it out while it's building my library and I believe that's why it's so slow.

Now another questions, the library building is taking FOREVER. Literally has taken it about 14 hours to build my TV library, and it's not even done...is this normal?

dont think its normal, i too have just began, testing OE vai usb, and yes building your library while doing anyhitng else will slow it down. But i have built my tv shows and movie library relatively fast 2000 tv shows/movies in less than 2 hours, over wifi. But read/write speed of the usb, even if its 2.0 can vary from stick to stick, so you may have a slow 2.0 usb stick.

initially, i was going to ge a micro usb stick , ( the ones were it almost sits flush in the usb port itself) instead of a dongle, but doign a little diggin , i have seen the read/write speeds are much slower and that will affect performance. so i am goign to opt for a usb dongle even though its bigger and sticks out but i havent found a small one , the ones that sit fluch with a fast read/write speed.

cruzannavy Wrote:dont think its normal, i too have just began, testing OE vai usb, and yes building your library while doing anyhitng else will slow it down. But i have built my tv shows and movie library relatively fast 2000 tv shows/movies in less than 2 hours, over wifi. But read/write speed of the usb, even if its 2.0 can vary from stick to stick, so you may have a slow 2.0 usb stick.

Wow, that's crazy fast compared to mine.

Does your library have posters/fanart locally?

Jorge18 Wrote:Alright, so it is a USB2.0 stick. I think I figured out what's going on though. I've been testing it out while it's building my library and I believe that's why it's so slow.

This might be the difference. I don't use the library - just files.