Network Shares as GH Drives & Bandwidth

[olson]

I have a simple/weird question, but first here is some setup info for you.

I have 2 "backend" servers and 2 frontends going:
- MythTV backend (decade old hardward that has been running 24/7 for about 6 years... I'll run it till it dies)
- My Newly created Amahi box
- 2 frontend computers (one old, one newish) that run xbmc/mythtv that play to TV's

My Amahibox is maxed out on drives but I have some old 640gb drives that I want to add to my GH pool. I would like to throw them in one of my frontend boxes.

So here is my question:
If I have a drive on my frontend computer (in my living room) and those drives are part of my greyhole pool (server in my basement), and I play a video file (that is on that frontend's drive) from that frontend... Does that video stream to the amahibox, then back to the frontend? Wouldn't this cause double ethernet bandwidth useage?

Bonus question (this may be more of a mythtv question so feel free to ignore it):
If I have a GH share mounted on my mythtv backend and I play a file from that share on my frontend (streaming to my frontend from my backend), does that video file go from the amahibox, to the mythtv backend, then to the frontend? Wouldn't this cause double ethernet bandwidth useage?

If it is using double the ethernet bandwidth, I don't think I could do much 1080p with that setup... I probably need gigabit (which I will be setting up here soon anyways).

[sgtfoo]

... can help... but is there any way to simplify the explanation??
maybe a map of your networking?

[olson]

... can help... but is there any way to simplify the explanation??
maybe a map of your networking?

Sure, see the attached image.

Setup:
Lets say drives 17, 18, and 19 (I don't really have 20 drives) are all in my greyhole pool. Drive 19 is mounted on amahibox via NFS or samba (I haven't set it up yet).

Lets say that video1.mkv is in the grayhole pool, but actually located on drive 19.

The frontend will be playing video1.mkv from the mounted samba greyhole share location, not from the local drive location. If I play video1.mkv from the frontend, does that video file stream down the ethernet to amahibox, then back up the ethernet to the frontend?

edit: updated the image... I saw an incorrect line that I fixed.

[sgtfoo]

Still a touch confusing, what you're asking...

but I would start with.... it depends how you're mounting the drives.

A video stream will only go thru the devices that it MUST.
If a video resides on a HDA server, it will stream thru your router to your playin device (PC/PS3/TV/etc).

If you mount a remote disk to the amahi machine via nfs, then yes, in order to use the file from that mounted disk, as it is seen thru the greypool, it will double-back, but not really.
The answer lies in more complex routing protocols here... so it's a tough answer.


I would definitely suggest to aim for a more simplified setup

[olson]

Ha, yup... a simplified setup would be the way to go . I've spent my tech budget for the year already though and my wife would probably shoot me if I bought what I really want.

I'll just go gigabit and see how that goes.

Thanks!