Just to add more to the confirmation of the Mac Mini. I am using a 2012 Mac Mini, cheapest model of that era. I have 3 x 10TB external drives and 2 x HD HomeRun Quatros. It runs pretty well. I just have to manually move recordings to the main drive to the other two when the main one if it fills up.
@scooter_scott -- why not use an external SSD in a USB 3.x case? I think the newer quality SSD could work fine. You'll just want to have realistic expectations of throughput based on the interface and if using USB 3.0 then don't expect more than about 500MBs read / write i/o with an external SSD which is about 4-6 times better than spinning disk i/o on the same USB 3.0 interface. I think some solid advice is don't bother with an external NVMe SSD because while very very fast - it would be bottle-necked by the USB 3.x interface, but any quality SATA based SSD should work fine on the Mac Mini USB ports - it will just be more expensive than HD but it also less likely to have performance issues.
@mjbomar - using the DVR server web interface you should be able to specify where you want the DVR to store or find recordings. Using Windows at one time I was recording to my "C:" drive and then sometimes moving recordings to my "D:" drive - under a mirrored folder structure.
Look for this area of the DVR interface and just add whatever Storage Paths you may need.
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Thanks!
Do you all set your Mac Mini to never let the HD fall sleep and to auto login?
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What thread count would everyone recommend for commercial detection when using the Mac Mini?
I like 800 thread count Egyptian cotton.
(Sorry, I saw "thread count", and couldn't help myself 
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I’d say start with two and see how it goes.
Hey all,
So I decided to go all in. I happened to stop by a local computer store (mom-and-pop place). They had a Synology ds218+ there I was eyeing. But, I look over and they have a Mac Mini M1 for an extremely good price so I bought it. I installed the Channels DVR and set my Commercial Detection threads to 2 (wasn't sure if I could go higher?) I then added an external 4TB USB 3 HHD.
Maybe I'm crazy but when I'm watching TV it seems way snappier. The picture looks better and things load way quicker. Am I imagining that?
I wanted to ask is it bad for the mac mini to not let the HD go to sleep? Won't it wear the Mac Mini faster? And, How many TVs can I stream on at the same time with the M1? Hopefully 2 or 3.
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I've had my 2012 Mac Mini (cheapest model at the time) handle 12 simultaneous recordings, commercial detection processing and streaming to 2-3 devices at the same time. The M1 should be able to handle way more than that.
@mjbomar - if you got the new Mac Mini M1 then you may have the best DVR platform available at this time per a comment from @tmm1 elsewhere in this Support Community.
Yes, you will be able to stream 3+ TVs at the same time as long as your internal / home network can handle it - gigabit is recommended.
You asked about not letting the HD go to sleep -- but I don't think there is an internal HardDrive -- from what I see all new Mac Mini M1 ship with SSDs not HD.
Here are the specs per Apple.
SSD can most certainly handle it. Its the longevity of the SSD. SSDs my nature only have so many read/writes and the nature of a DVR server would do a lot of that making the lifespan of a SSD less than that of a HDD. People do use SSDs...I'm just saying that using an HHD is better for longevity standpoint.
I also don't think you need the SSD speed for a DVR.
Enjoy it! Its a great platform.
Yes set the HD to not goto sleep. That bit me a few times when I first set it up on my mac. That will ensure the external drive doesn't go sleepy.
Adding storage paths doesn't change where the DVR stores new recordings. It will just include the drives listed in the total library. So over time you have to move things from the primary drive to these drives, if the primary drive begins to fill up.
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Unless you're like me... I changed from an external USB3 spinning-platter drive to a USB3 SSD quite awhile and noticed a substantial speedup when skipping forward/back. For the ultimate speed, my current DVR server has a 1TB SSD connected internally to SATA port and the server itself is connected to my WiFi router with GB Ethernet. Everything I do now from the client end has almost no observable latency.
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Its all in the usecase. SSDs are great if they fit your requirements. It can't work for me because I have over 3TB of saved DVR recordings.
I agree not everyone "needs" an external SSD an external HD can work fine, I have an external HD USB 3 attached HD and it works fine, I do notice some slight lagging on skipping forward or backward but it is so much better than the cable set top box that it replaced that it is easy to ignore the slight lag when skipping.
In MacOS how do you prevent an external drive / HD from going to sleep?
So I got everything set up on my Mac Mini M1. I went with an external HD and pointed storage to that. When I watch live TV I've noticed that it is way snappier and quicker moving from channel to channel. And, commercial detection for an hour show took like 5 minutes. I do have gigabit internet as well.
The only issue that I'm seeing is that last night I watched a recording I had made and some of the colors seem pixelated. Would anyone know why this might be? I was thinking maybe it's the network? It says it recorded in HD but it doesn't look like HD. I'm using Locast and TVE watching on an Apple TV 4th gen if that matters.