Largest external hard drive = 1TB? Why?

[Snydley]

I bought a new 2TB W.D. hard drive to put in an enclosure and use as my EHD, it works but only 1TB is recognized. I see from Dish Network's site that 1TB is the max size,(I should have checked before I bought it, but I have another use for it ). WHY Dish Network? It's time to roll out an update for the receivers to use 2TB. I know some are gonna say that 2 1TB drives are better than a 2TB drive, in case it goes bad, I don't want to argue that, so don't bother. I just think it's time for 2TB drives, they're affordable, and I don't need 2 enclosures that way.
Thanks,
Snyde

[tnsprin]

I bought a new 2TB W.D. hard drive to put in an enclosure and use as my EHD, it works but only 1TB is recognized. I see from Dish Network's site that 1TB is the max size,(I should have checked before I bought it, but I have another use for it ). WHY Dish Network? It's time to roll out an update for the receivers to use 2TB. I know some are gonna say that 2 1TB drives are better than a 2TB drive, in case it goes bad, I don't want to argue that, so don't bother. I just think it's time for 2TB drives, they're affordable, and I don't need 2 enclosures that way.
Thanks,
Snyde

You can go above 1tb. Because of the way partitions are created you apparently cannot use more than about 1.6. See P Smith's explanation http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=2145329&postcount=17

[P Smith]

Also, would be good to know what model of HDD, what DVR you have and what FW version it's running (press Menu twice for gather the version info).
Last time I checked, 2 TB disk for ViP622 L6.18 didn't accepted al all.

[Jim5506]

The only reason not to use smaller drives for external archiving is the time needed to change drives.

The reason not to use HUGE drives is that if it fails, you lose EVERYTHING.

A new development that partially obviates the large drive problem is a hardware Raid1 setup that uses 2 1T drives that are mirrors of each other. The Dish receiver sees it as one 1T drive but the hardware Raid1 is writing the identical data to both drives. If one fails the other carries the load, and you can replace the bad drive to restore redundancy. Still a bit pricey ($400ish), but I'm sure it will be coming down.

[thorrall]

My understanding was that the 722 officially wouldn't work with RAID devices. However, since some RAID devices have their own drivers on board they must look logically like a single drive as Jim explains above, and I would think they would work.

Has anyone here actually tried it successfully?

I run RAID1 for my computer C drive and for a large 2 X 1.5 TB drive on the network. It's very comforting to know that if anything fails there is automatically a backup and it would be great to have the same thing for the 722 EHD.

[P Smith]

Talking about RAID for DVR: you should understand - only HW RAID could be used there.

[thorrall]

This appears to be a good deal for a mirrored USB RAID1 EHD:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822204072

Hi points, based on user reviews - aluminum enclosure with large low speed fan runs cool and relatively quiet, good overall reviewer satisfaction, uses drives from major manufacturer so should be easy to get identical replacement drive should it become necessary.

Lo point: Comes formatted with FAT32, probably has to be formatted to NTFS for use with Dish receiver - shouldn't be a big deal but will take a little time on a drive this big. Also, price is after $20 rebate, may be available for only a limited time.

If anyone tries it pls post experience.

There is a Cavalry (different manufacturer) equivalent on the same site but its user reviews are decidedly negative.

[RasputinAXP]

Lo point: Comes formatted with FAT32, probably has to be formatted to NTFS for use with Dish receiver - shouldn't be a big deal but will take a little time on a drive this big. Also, price is after $20 rebate, may be available for only a limited time.

Dish uses Linux on their DVRs, so no matter what filesystem is provided on the drive it'll format it with EXT3 (I believe they're using EXT3 anyway)

[quietmouse]

a couple of quick question:

(1) let's assume that the 722k accepts a dual-1TB RAID enclosure, how will I know even
know that one of the hard drives has gone bad? Is there some kind of indicator light on
the USB RAID enclosure? if the RAID enclosure goes bad internally, is it possible to knock
out both drives at the same time?

(2) what are some examples of shows that you must absolutely keep forever?

(3) if I use a 1TB ext drive and it's become full, is it possible to copy the contents to another 1TB ext drive?

[Galaxie6411]

(2) I keep any movie I like in HD on my EHD, lot easier than netflix or an other movie rental service. I also have entire seasons and series stored that I haven't watched yet.

[Kent Taylor]

(2) I also have entire seasons and series stored that I haven't watched yet.

I had that situation as well. Then one day my 722 said it needed to format the drive. There was no way out of it. It was a fairly new 1Tb Western Digital Essential drive. Nothing wrong with the drive; the 722 just refused to access it without reformatting. I lost hundreds of hours of HD movies and seasons of series that I had not watched. I do not save series anymore. Movies get rerun.

[P Smith]

a couple of quick question:

(1) let's assume that the 722k accepts a dual-1TB RAID enclosure, how will I know even
know that one of the hard drives has gone bad? Is there some kind of indicator light on
the USB RAID enclosure? if the RAID enclosure goes bad internally, is it possible to knock
out both drives at the same time?

(2) what are some examples of shows that you must absolutely keep forever?

(3) if I use a 1TB ext drive and it's become full, is it possible to copy the contents to another 1TB ext drive?
(1) - depend on the external storage box - ie need to read a manual first;
(2) - that's very personal question; you should make your own decision here;
(3) - why ? Just get another disk and use it. Keep old one the for future play. See BlacX device.
Theoretically/practically you can save all/part of your recordings to any other storage with EXT2/3 format by using Linux machine - just copy whole/part "DishArc" folder from EHD's 500 GB partition(s) to other disk.

[P Smith]

There is tech info of EHD Seagate 1.5 TB formatted by ViP622 (L6.23):
WinHex 15
12/26/2009, 17:00:07

Hard disk 3
Model: ST31500541AS
Serial No.: XXX0XXXX
Firmware Rev.: CC34
Bus: ATA

Total capacity: 1,500,301,910,016 bytes = 1.4 TB

Bytes per sector: 512
Sector count: 2,930,277,168
Windows disk signature: xx xx xx xx
Unpartitionable space: 5,103 Sectors
ATA password protection: not enabled
Frozen: Yes
Internal sector size: min. 516 Bytes
SMART health status: OK
Start count: 7
Power on time: 0
Reallocated sector count: 0
Partitioning style: MBR

Partition 1
Sectors 63 - 2,097,214
Partition table: Sector 0
File system: Ext3
Total capacity: 1,073,741,824 bytes = 1.0 GB
Sector count: 2,097,152
Bytes per sector: 512
Bytes per cluster: 4,096
Free clusters: 249,815 = 95% free
Total clusters: 262,144
No. of Inodes: 131,072
No. of free Inodes: 131,061
No. of block groups: 8
Blocks per group: 32,768
Inodes per group: 16,384
Inode size: 128
Uses sparse superblocks: Yes
Last mount time: 08/01/2008, 12:02:20
Last write time: 08/01/2008, 12:02:20

Partition 2
Sectors 2,097,216 - 1,050,673,215
Partition table: Sector 0
File system: Ext3
Total capacity: 536,870,912,000 bytes = 500 GB
Sector count: 1,048,576,000
Bytes per sector: 512
Bytes per cluster: 4,096
Free clusters: 131,051,199 = 100% free
Total clusters: 131,072,000
No. of Inodes: 128,000
No. of free Inodes: 127,989
No. of block groups: 4,000
Blocks per group: 32,768
Inodes per group: 32
Inode size: 128
Uses sparse superblocks: Yes
Last mount time: 08/01/2008, 12:02:20
Last write time: 08/01/2008, 12:02:20

Partition 3
Sectors 1,050,673,217 - 2,099,249,216
Partition table: Sector 0
File system: Ext3
Total capacity: 536,870,912,000 bytes = 500 GB
Sector count: 1,048,576,000
Bytes per sector: 512
Bytes per cluster: 4,096
Free clusters: 131,051,199 = 100% free
Total clusters: 131,072,000
No. of Inodes: 128,000
No. of free Inodes: 127,989
No. of block groups: 4,000
Blocks per group: 32,768
Inodes per group: 32
Inode size: 128
Uses sparse superblocks: Yes
Last mount time: 08/01/2008, 12:02:21
Last write time: 08/01/2008, 12:02:21

Partition 4
Sectors 2,099,249,218 - 2,930,277,167
Partition table: Sector 0
File system: Ext3
Total capacity: 425,486,310,400 bytes = 396 GB
Sector count: 831,027,950
Bytes per sector: 512
Bytes per cluster: 4,096
Free clusters: 103,860,305 = 100% free
Total clusters: 103,878,493
No. of Inodes: 101,472
No. of free Inodes: 101,461
No. of block groups: 3,171
Blocks per group: 32,768
Inodes per group: 32
Inode size: 128
Uses sparse superblocks: Yes
Last mount time: 08/01/2008, 12:02:22
Last write time: 08/01/2008, 12:02:22

Unused inter-partition space:
Sectors 0 - 62 (31.5 KB)
Sectors 2,097,215 - 2,097,215 (0.5 KB)
Sectors 1,050,673,216 - 1,050,673,216 (0.5 KB)
Sectors 2,099,249,217 - 2,099,249,217 (0.5 KB)
= 33.0 KB