[Jorge18]

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

[magao]

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.

[Jorge18]

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.

[Croaker]

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.

[HenryFord]

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]

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?

[cruzannavy]

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.

[cruzannavy]

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.

[Jorge18]

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?

[magao]

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.

[cruzannavy]

Wow, that's crazy fast compared to mine.

Does your library have posters/fanart locally?

Nope, i did it from scratch to simulate a fresh noob install, i wanted to see the whole process and the difference between dharma , pre-eden and OE. It did take me a couple head scratches and F@$% You's to OE for not seeing my smb share, but it was windows stopping it , and after read on OE forum and actuall the biggest help was a Samba share guide on xmbc forum to get OE to see my smb shares, but after i shared it, i had OE scrape everything from TMDB and the TVBD and everything ( minus about 6 movies which i knew were going to not scrape) worked perfectly fine in less than 2 hours, i say for each movie i saw it query , resolve a name, fetch info and download fanart, poster and info in about 5-6 sec per movie, some even faster. Are you sure its not your internet connection? or read write speed of your usb thumb drive.

[cruzannavy]

Makes me wonder though has anyone found a micro usb drive with fast read/write speeds?
i know this should prob go in the hardware section but, IRT OE i want to be able to boot a diskless pc via USB ( one of the drives i posted below).. any one have thoughts or comments or has found a better micro usb with faster speeds? I know i could just buy a ssd but im interested in doing this via usb for now..

Micro:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...ZE8GBASBNA #3 choice

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...ve%2097463 #2 choice

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...ZX16GBSBNA #1 choice

but alternatively i want these read/write speeds of a regular usb drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...PEF16GRUSB

[Jorge18]

Alright guys, just wanted to give you an update to my situation...

It WAS the usb stick that was slowing down the process. I slapped in a 500gb SATA drive I had and OpenELEC FLIES with it. My whole library took maybe 20 minutes to build. For comparison, on the USB drive, it took about 30 hours. Yes, that wasn't a mistake, it took 30 HOURS!!

OpenELEC is awesome, boots on my PC in less than 30 seconds from being completely off.

[Ashaneil]

How this looks?

http://openelec.tv/index.php/gallerie.html

Just FYI - the link above is broken. At least, it does not work for me.

[sion28]

Just run it on the harddrive, this way it also creates the folders on your HDD for storing local media and XBMC come presetup with these sources..

some of us have it installed with no hdd at all!

No HDD/SDD necessary:
Foxconn NT-A3500 + 4GB RAM stick + 16GB USB2.0 stick + FLIRC = XBMC set-top box for under $200 *all in* (okay, I'm not counting the cost of the remote, since any old remote you have laying around will work with FLIRC).