HR21 eSATA/Vantec Questions

[the_dudeman]

Hello all,

I bought a Vantec Nextar3 eSATA enclosure and plan to hook it up to the HR21 today and had some questions. The manual is lacking as to my questions, and I have also read a lot in these forums, but still need answers. So here goes:

According to one guy who bought the same enclosure from Newegg:

"Pros: Works to greatly increase record times for HD programming with the DirecTV HR21. Why is this important? Because lots of enclosures don't work for this.

Cons: Little cheesy but adequate. Runs a bit warm but it is always on and may depend on what you put in it."

This guys says it works, any of you have experience with this enclosure?

I had previously formatted the HDD (Maxtor 500GB) that's going in this enlosure to NTFS because I wanted to use it on PC as well. So:

Is this the correct formatting or will HR21 format the drive differently once plugged in?

Or should I format the drive to FAT32 before connecting it?

Or should I delete the single partition and let HR21 do what it wants with it?

Should I make a second partition for use with PC or is this unnecessary?

Will I be able to disconnect from HR21 and use on PC and then plug back into HR21?

If answer is yes to use on PC as well, will HR21 see data from PC and reduce usable size accordingly? If so, does this mean that HR21 will not overwrite data from PC?

If answer is yes to use on PC as well, can movies to be backed up onto external drive from PC be watched on HR21 once plugged back in?

I've read that the HR21 will copy O/S onto HDD when plugged in for the first time, is this true?

Will HR21 save onto external HDD the shows already recorded to internal drive?

Will HR21 save my favorite channels and other settings onto HDD, or are those stored in memory chip?

External drive has power switch, can drive be turned off to save power when plugged into HR21 and then switched on when using HR21?

If drive can be switched off, will HR21 switch over and use use internal drive?

When external drive is unplugged from HR21, will HR21 switch back and use internal HDD as normal?

And lastly, am I a bonehead?


Thanks for any help with this, and your answers are greatly appreciated.

dudeman

[the_dudeman]

So as of now 32 people have read this thread and none have posted any comments or answers.

Is there a thread or sticky that will give answers to my questions?

I figured at least V.O.S. would have something to say. Guess I'll just try all this stuff and see what happens.

dudeman

[Davenlr]

The best way to reuse a drive in an eSATA enclosure is to plug it into the PC, and REMOVE all the partitions. It may not be necessary, but the DVR will create its own 3 custom partitions.

Make sure the eSATA is plugged in and powered up, then restart the DVR via the menu. It should come up and say "Formatting drive" for about 3 seconds, then proceed on to boot up.

Turning off or unplugging the eSATA while in use will cause the DVR to crash at best, and corrupt the eSATA drive at worst. It WONT revert to the internal drive until its rebooted with the eSATA turned off. Best way to switch Ive found, is to do a menu restart, and when the lights power off on the DVR, turn the eSATA off, and it will boot back up on the internal drive.

The DVR is ALWAYS using the drive, even when the DVR is in standby. NEVER turn off the eSATA drive while the DVR is turned on.

I also wouldnt plug it into a PC after the DVR has formatted it. First, all the programs are encrypted, so would be useless outside the DVR, and the possibility for the PC to corrupt the file system rendering a loss of programs when you plug it back into the DVR is a possibility.

[the_dudeman]

I also wouldnt plug it into a PC after the DVR has formatted it. First, all the programs are encrypted, so would be useless outside the DVR, and the possibility for the PC to corrupt the file system rendering a loss of programs when you plug it back into the DVR is a possibility.

So if what you say here is the case, then basically there would be no possibility of using the drive on both PC and DVR.

I don't intend on watching what was recorded by DVR onto the drive on a PC as I realize this is impossible because of encryption.

I would however like to be able to store backed up movies from PC on this drive and if they can't be viewed on DVR, that's fine I'll watch them on HTPC.

dudeman

[the_dudeman]

The best way to reuse a drive in an eSATA enclosure is to plug it into the PC, and REMOVE all the partitions. It may not be necessary, but the DVR will create its own 3 custom partitions.


What about if I make say a 100GB partition on the drive? Then would the DVR only "see" the remaining space (400GB) as a drive and do it's formatting and leave the 100GB partition alone?

dudeman

[BattleZone]

You cannot "share" an EHD between a PC and a DirecTV DVR. If the DirecTV receiver detects any changes from its own formatting, it will automatically re-partition and reformat the drive. The DVR uses Linux as the OS, and its partitions are not readable/mountable by Windows.

[the_dudeman]

You cannot "share" an EHD between a PC and a DirecTV DVR. If the DirecTV receiver detects any changes from its own formatting, it will automatically re-partition and reformat the drive. The DVR uses Linux as the OS, and its partitions are not readable/mountable by Windows.

But what if the drive is partitioned before I ever plug it into the DVR? Wouldn't it just do it formatting on the unallocated space left and leave the existing partiton alone?

dudeman

[ajtmcse]

The 1st time the drive is attached to the HD/DVR and the DVR is powered up, the DVR will delete and repartition the eSATA. Each subsequent reboot, the DVR looks for the device, makes sure the drive is associacted with that DVR, and continues booting.

[the_dudeman]

Well I've answered most of my own questions:

OK, so yes if you add an eSATA drive, the HR will format the drive and put the OS and guide info on there. But, it doesn’t copy your already recorded shows onto it. Nor does it copy your favorite channels or other settings. It’s as if you are powering up your HR for the first time except you don’t have to setup the satellite and all that, at least I didn’t have to. You can however do a restart from the menu and when the HR powers down, you can remove the drive and the HR will go back to the internal with all programs/settings saved. The drive also can’t be used in Windows after being formatted by the HR, unless you reformat it. The HR uses Linux and while Windows disk management will see the partitions the HR has made, you can’t write to or read from them. It makes 3 partitions, a small 518MB, a 15GB and a 450GB, on this 500GB drive anyway. A bigger drive may have the same first 2 partitions and then the remainder as storage, but not sure. But I read that the DVR uses 100GB for the stuff it records on its own. But that doesn’t seem to be indicated by the partitions made on this drive.

The Vantec box works flawlessly, so far and seems to be cool but haven’t let it run for a long time, and is quiet.

So, if you want to add storage to your HR it’s easy. But it won’t work as I thought it might to go from HR to PC and back again.

So, going from the stock 320GB drive to 450GGB of usable space is an improvement, I think I will keep this 500GB drive and enclosure to use on PC. And I think that if I add storage to the HR later, it will be a 1TB drive.

So you actually can use both drives internal and external, just not at the same time. And you have to power down to attach/remove the external and go through the boot up process. So I guess you could fill up the internal and then add a drive and record to that, power down, remove, re-boot and watch stuff on the internal. Not sure why you would want to do that though, unless you had recorded stuff you wanted to watch over or was “priceless”.


dudeman