Well, copying the entire programdata folder for Media Browser makes for a decent backup, but you really only need the XML config file, the Cache folder and the ImagesByName directory.

Shared playstate and display is something that has worked better on paper than in reality for me. I’ve tried to get this to work long before it was an added feature and it has never been reliable enough for me to fool with anymore. If you are insistent on trying it, there are a few things that have to be true in order to have any chance. The first is to make sure your share permissions are correct for all systems involved for both read and write access. Second, all HTPCs must have their virtual folders setup identically. If you map drives on one system, map them identically on all others. For example, if your Movies virtual folder is Z:\MOVIE FILES on one HTPC, then it must be the same on all others. Second, set the XML config file element on all HTPCs to the shared settings path \\SERVER\PATH\TO\SHARE. When you set that and run it Media Browser, it will create the necessary folder. I would start with a blank folder and manually set your playstate for your files over again. I know that may not be what you want to hear, but that’s what I had to do to get it to work uniformly for all systems. Finally, don’t use the experimental SQLite if you want to share playstate. It won’t work.

You can use the RAMDisk as your share, but I wouldn’t use a RAMDisk for anything other than local caching. It’s not going to speed anything up over the network as that is where the real bottleneck is.

I use whichever one is linked to @ hack7mc.com but agree on the backup, I have a batch file which copies the contents every night just in case I need to reboot and forget to copy the data beforehand.

I have my whole mb folder there though, should I just have the cache there?

I’m currently trying to get my media browser to share resume capability and play tics across multiple computers which I have had luck with the play tics but haven’t really tested the resume feature yet. But it causes the cache to run extremly slow on my current test machine (which runs slow anyway but not this bad). So I’m thinking I may try making the share on a ramdisk instead and see if it works any faster. Also I’m wondering if the whole cache folder needs to be moved rather then just the actual cache folders or if there’s information in other places that is needed.

on a side not though I just noticed that my xbox and pc aren’t sharing play tics and resume information which I could have sworn they where doing before.

[...] is more of an update to my Fun with RAMDisks post made nearly a year ago.  With the alpha testing for the upcoming Media Browser Firestorm [...]

Thanks for the info! Many are finding this still useful, but having difficulties finding compatible (and free) RAMDisk software.

The ramdata site still has free ramdisks

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk/download-ramdisk

the link may not work as it wanted personal details but you can find it from products / software.

there is a free version for vista and a new beta for w7

I tried this on my HTPC running a dual core processor and 4 gigs of ram, even on a higher end system using Ramdisk for MediaBrowswers cache made a big difference. Great job!

The version I used has since been pulled (it was a time-limited free beta). It had no expiration date, however and I found it on my NAS. You can download here. I really haven’t run it since I posted that as it interfered with the SVN builds I was constantly testing, but I’d be interested in hearing back if it still provides a little bit of a boost for you.

Hi Jon,
I know that this post is dated, but I was hoping you had another link to the RamDisk software you are using. I am trying to do the same thing you have setup. I’ve got 2 HTPCs running off of Penturm 4’s and MediaBrowser is slowing it way down.

Thanks for all the info.