721 Hard Drive

[johnsbin]

A couple questions about the 721 hard drive:

1. Does the DishLinux run any kind of defrag on the hard drive?

2. Is there a list of compatible hard drives for the 721 from those who have opened their machines for one reason or another?

I have had E* service since they first added the local channels service. I passed on the DishPlayer when it came out but could not pass up the 721. Mine has behaved well with only a couple of minor hiccups. I did the NVM reset to solve the guide problem and then the next day, the fix was out. I didn't really notice right away because it was the weekend and all my stuff was recording.

Thanks for everyone's input on this forum. It is very informative and sometimes entertaining!

John :)

[Kagato]

It's linux, not a Microsoft Kludge. You don't need a defrag because the FS is well designed from the get go.

Some other Forums have some info about the HD. Just check out google.

[johnsbin]

ALL file systems fragment - even with readahead algorithms in ext2, if you get fragments smaller than 16 blocks, you will see adverse effects on overall performance. In a dynamic system like the 721, I would have expected to see some kind of maintenance run occasionally by the system.

I will search Google again, but 721 info is very very thin. That's why I'm here.

Thanks.

[Randy_B]

I don't think anyone around here has cracked open a 721 yet. With the cost of the 721 I doubt that anyone wants to risk losing the warranty at this point.

There have been some attempts to replace the HD in 501, mostly without success. I would venture that E* has at least put in this same scheme on the 721.

That said, after watching all the discussion on the TurboTax DRM fiasco and how that works, I saw that someone found that TurboTax was actually writing a block of special data in Sector 33 of the HD that constituted a special "signature". Since almost nothing writes in the first track of a HD, I wonder if E* is also putting a "special signature" of their own out in this unused area of the HD that locks the receiver to the HD? It would be interesting if someone with an older 501 (or someone willing to crack open a 721) could look out in the first track of the HD and see if anything is out there other than the partition table. Since the partition table only takes up about the first 512-byte sector of the track, that would leave quite a few sectors left over for E* to use for such purposes.

[P Smith]

Randy_B

It was posted here a few times - PVR50x HDD could be replaced for same size (40 GB) or bigger (80 GB) and a structure of this disk was revealed . As I remember it was on dishrip group.

[Kagato]

I didn't say ext2 or ext3 didn't fragment. Just that it's a well made filesystem. The only time I can recall in my working experience with Unix having issues with fragments is with news servers that had a lot of very small files constantly moving around.

The 721 has been opened before. This really isn't the forum to get into details however.

[Kosh_5x5]

OFF TOPIC

"That said, after watching all the discussion on the TurboTax DRM fiasco"

Randy_B,

Are you referring to the fact that once TurboTax is installed on one computer, the sample version that can be installed on a 2nd computer is virtually worthless? If yes, can you point me to that discussion. I am interested to see if anyone has found a way to work around this. If I can find another tax package that works the way TurboTax used to work, I will never use TurboTax again.

Thanks for any help!

[Randy_B]

Originally posted by Kosh_5x5
OFF TOPIC
If yes, can you point me to that discussion. I am interested to see if anyone has found a way to work around this. If I can find another tax package that works the way TurboTax used to work, I will never use TurboTax again.

Thanks for any help!

There was a very good examination of what TurboTax DRM does at ExtremeTech.com. The link to the test is:

TurboTax: Sector 33 Naughtiness (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,881013,00.asp)

The report does not have specific work arounds, but it certainly sounds as if there are some options from their descriptions.

I have always been very happy with TaxCut.

[P Smith]

Originally posted by Kagato
...Some other Forums have some info about the HD. Just check out google.

can't find anything pertinent by google :(, could you please provide some working links or PM me ? thanks.