Recording on NAS or USB drive

[markthulson]

For a long time I've been using an HDHomeRun, recording live TV on a 5TB USB hard drive connected to a Windows 10 computer. I can record or watch with that computer, other Windows 10 and 11 computers, an LG TV with the HDHomeRun app, and my iPhone. All of this works great. I have 1.7TB of recorded TV on that drive that I don't want to lose. All of that is backed up.

I just bought a Synology NAS and would like to record to the same USB hard drive attached either to the NAS or directly to my HDHomeRun FLEX 4k, and still be able to watch my old recordings.

Connecting the USB drive to the FLEX didn't seem to work, I assume because it couldn't read the disk format. I tried connecting an 8GB USB drive to the flex, formatting it via hdhomerun.local. That allows me to record, but I can't figure out add previous recordings. I tried doing that on a linux computer (I understand it's EXT4 format), but linux can't read the drive.

For the NAS, I followed the instructions at https://info.hdhomerun.com/info/dvr:nas:synology to install the Synology app, and that went fine. I had the NAS format the 5TB drive with EXT4 format and used HDHomeRun Setup to point the DVR at the NAS, but I don't seem to be able to either record to to the NAS or watch any old recordings that I copy to it.

When I look at devices in the HDHomeRun app, I see the following:
10A432ED FLEX 4K (0.4% of 0.0TB used) [that's the 8GB drive with a short test recording]
HDHomeRun RECORD (58% of 7.7TB used)
HDHomeRun RECORD

I have no idea what the HDHomeRun RECORD items are. The only thing in "Recorded" is the short test on the 8GB drive.

Can anyone help?

[markthulson]

Clarification: I can read the drive with linux, but the only thing I see is an "HDHomeRun" directory with nothing in it.

[signcarver]

To attach to the flex it must be formatted as XFS and the folder must be HDHomeRun (I believe that capitalization but I'll double check when I get home, its been awhile since I paid attention to such as I just double click it when needed as I access such via a share when I attach it to my NAS, but most users never remove such from the flex). Some NASs will support such drive directly others may need you to install XFS (and doing so sometimes gets reverted on updates to the NAS).

I'm not sure what the new "app" on the NASs work like as I always preferred manual installation but there should be a hdhomerun.conf file that states the RecordPath and you will have to either change it to use the connected USB drive or add the USB drive as an additional path to the line (separate with ; ) then restart the recording engine. Note that only the first will be used to record. There may be some such path configuration in the NAS app.

My typical procedure for using the drive from the flex is to let the flex format the drive and create the required folder, then I attach such to my NAS which auto mounts it properly as a share (not all will... I used to attach it to a linux vm but it is usually easier for me to attach to the NAS) Then I will copy the wanted old stuff to the new drive and re attach it to the flex. If you do decide to use the USB drive as the record drive on the NAS, you still might want to use one formatted by the flex (if your NAS supports xfs) and then in a pinch you can move that drive to the flex if you decide that is the way you prefer to go in the future.

Edit: note that you probably answered the capitalization I wanted to confirm and that the record engine with the most space is typically the record engine that will record.

[rikd]

For the NAS, I followed the instructions at https://info.hdhomerun.com/info/dvr:nas:synology to install the Synology app, and that went fine. I had the NAS format the 5TB drive with EXT4 format and used HDHomeRun Setup to point the DVR at the NAS, but I don't seem to be able to either record to to the NAS or watch any old recordings that I copy to it.

as @signcarver mentioned you will need to modify the RecordPath in the conf file for the package installation to point to the USB drive folder you want to use.
see https://info.hdhomerun.com/info/dvr:advanced
If memory serves it should be in the default RecordPath which on Synology is the HDHomeRun share and called hdhomerun.conf
You will also need to provide permissions to the HDHomeRun to write/read from the USB drive

When I look at devices in the HDHomeRun app, I see the following:
10A432ED FLEX 4K (0.4% of 0.0TB used) [that's the 8GB drive with a short test recording]
HDHomeRun RECORD (58% of 7.7TB used)
HDHomeRun RECORD

I have no idea what the HDHomeRun RECORD items are. The only thing in "Recorded" is the short test on the 8GB drive.

These are the stand alone instances of the record engine
1 of them is likely the Synology - and the other the Windows PC you used to use. (My guess is the second one without space is the Windows 10 one missing a hard drive)
If you have many instances of the DVR engine running (including the 3rd one on the Flex in this instance) then which ever one reports the most amount of free space will record - i.e. the middle one in your example because it has 3TB free (or similar).

[markthulson]

Thanks for the advice. I found the hdhomerun.conf file, so thanks for that tip.

l I finally got it working, although not in quite the way I want. I created a share on the Synology NAS named "HDHomeRun." In the DVR tab of HDHomeRun Setup, I unchecked "Use this PC for making recordings" and checked "Use Network Attached Storage (NAS) for making recordings". Finally, I put my recorded TV files to that share. Now it's working!

It's fine for now, but I'd rather keep the recorded TV files off my main storage. I want to put them in a USB drive attached to the NAS (as I did on Windows), and haven't been able to figure out how to do that. Creating an "HDHomeRun" share on the USB drive and editing the first line of the hdhomerun.conf file from "RecordPath=/volume1/HDHomeRun/" to "RecordPath=/USB1/HDHomeRun/" doesn't work. I think the problem is that "USB1" is a share on the NAS, not a volume.

Has anyone been able to make this work?

[NedS]

Try this:

RecordPath=/volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/

[markthulson]

Thanks, I think you're on to something. When I right click USB1 in Synology File Station and choose Properties, it tells me the location is /volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun. I should have thought to do that before. Unfortunately, HDHomeRun still doesn't see it.

Here's the entire hdhomerun.conf file I put in that location:
RecordPath=/volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/

Port=50000

StorageID=5B658477-4423-DC16-219C-A50D434F47E7

And here's the hdhomerun.conf file in the original location:
RecordPath=/volume1/HDHomeRun/
Port=50000

StorageID=5B658477-4423-DC16-219C-A50D434F47E7

I didn't change the StorageID value. Should I? Is there something I need to do to get HDHomeRun to look in the USB1 location?

[signcarver]

did you restart the engine?

Also since you have a static port, what does going to that yield ( http://<ip-of-NAS>:50000 , replace <ip-of-NAS> with the ip address of the NAS such as 192.168.0.2 )

Also note restarting the NAS might restart the engine but the USB drive might not be available when it comes up.

[rikd]

Thanks, I think you're on to something. When I right click USB1 in Synology File Station and choose Properties, it tells me the location is /volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun. I should have thought to do that before. Unfortunately, HDHomeRun still doesn't see it.

Here's the entire hdhomerun.conf file I put in that location:
RecordPath=/volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/

Port=50000

StorageID=5B658477-4423-DC16-219C-A50D434F47E7

And here's the hdhomerun.conf file in the original location:
RecordPath=/volume1/HDHomeRun/
Port=50000

StorageID=5B658477-4423-DC16-219C-A50D434F47E7

I didn't change the StorageID value. Should I? Is there something I need to do to get HDHomeRun to look in the USB1 location?

There is ONLY one valid location for the .conf file
Changing the one in /volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun will do nothing since nothing is pointing to it.
- you need to modify the RecordPath in the hdhomerun.conf file in /volume1/HDHomeRun
Then restart the HDHomeRun in AppCenter to pick up the new configuration.

[markthulson]

Restarting the engine (I assume by engine you mean the Synology HDHomeRun app) didn't change anything.
http://192.168.1.208:50000 yields a text box (like I get at http://hdhomerun.local/) with this information:

HDHomeRun RECORD
Version: 20231214
Recorded Files
System Status

I think it may be a permissions issue. When I look at permissions (using the Synology web interface) for /volume1/HDHomeRun/ it shows read and write permissions for administrators and HDHomeRun. I didn't add HDHomeRun as a user, so I assume that happened when I installed the app on the NAS. For /volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/ a different screen appears with check boxes for read, write and execute for owner, group, and others. All 9 boxes are checked.

[signcarver]

It can be a permissions issue but what does the status say? (should be pointing to the new location) and also look at what rikd mentioned which is something I missed that you said you did... the config file to be modified has to be the original one... not put someplace else.

I would start out by moving one file to the new location, then add ;/volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/ to the end of the record path and restart the engine. If it lists that file then you know you have the path correct, then try reversing the 2 entries, restart and see if it actually records to the new location.

[markthulson]

1) With the following line in /volume1/HDHomeRun/hdhomerun.conf (and after restarting the engine), recordings from both shares are visible.
RecordPath=/volume1/HDHomeRun/;/volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/

2) With the following line in /volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/hdhomerun.conf (and after restarting the engine), no recordings are visible.
RecordPath=/volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/

3) With the following line in /volume1/HDHomeRun/hdhomerun.conf (and after restarting the engine), recordings from only the USB share are visible. That's what I want!
RecordPath=/volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/

I'll leave the /volume1/HDHomeRun/ on the NAS just as a home for the hdhomerun.conf file and put all the recorded TV files in /volumeUSB1/usbshare/HDHomeRun/

Thanks for everyone's help