Using Larger 501 Hard Drives or Swapping new ones in

Inside sources have told me that upgrading to a bigger hard drive is not possible, just like they said the Public Tech Chat.

What they did, was the programed the Software to work only on one set of Hard Drive Size Sectors and Heads (remember those old days when Plug in Play Hard Drives were not out on Desktop PCs?). Back then you had to tell the computer how many Heads and how many Sectors you had on your Hard Drive.

With the Dish 501 you can put in a bigger Hard Drive, but the number of allowed Heads and Sectors will stay the same, thus you get the same drive size back, if it even works at all (sometimes it work work if the Head and Sector count is less than what the new HD is).

You can do Drive Swapping for when you fill up one of the Hard Drives. I have done this with out any problems, after Ghosting to the Exact same Model of Maxtor Hard Drive.

You can also add a Second Hard Drive, once they make the Add-on drive available. That's what the Dimmed out Hard Drive Menu selection is for. You can switch between active Drive 0 and Drive 1. The cable and connector is Proprietary and un-published at this time, they want to make money off of this.

In the future we might see software upgrades that will allow for bigger Head and Sector settings like they have on the new 700 Series PVRs.

Till then we are stuck with Hard Drive Swapping (after you Ghosted the master driver), and using a 2nd Hard Drive, once someone figure outs the Proprietary Cable connection or they start selling the kit.

Currently the 40GIg Maxtor Drives are running about $179.00 for those you want a send, swap out drive. Make sure you get the same model so the Heads and Sectors line up with the software. You can open your Box to get the correct Model number. Mine was a Maxtor 34098H4 with 40GB capacity.

Also, Using Ghost to try to increase the partition on a larger drive does not work as it is not a standard FAT, NTFS, Lunix, or Mac table.

See this site for even more info

www.avsforum.com/ubb/Foru...00114.html (http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000114.html)

Thanks for that info Scott. Can you tell us at least how credible your source is?

That would make sense to me, especially considering all of the problems that dish has had to try to ignore that people have had doing exactly this with their dishplayers.

And add me to the list wondering who your source is ... :)

I am told that one of the issues plaguing DishPlayers is that teh file system is not robust enough when it becomes highly fragmented. This would explain why I have had only a couple of problems with my DP in 15 months I have had it.

I don't do a large amount of recording at a time. At most I will have only 4 or five programs recorded. With the start of the new season, however, I am scheduling my recordings more often and with more shows. I am especially using the weekly record option a lot more. We shall see if I start to have problems with my DP like some other folks have posted.

I know this thread is regarding larger 501 HD's, but anyone have any input, pro or con, about larger HD's in 7100 or 7200 DP's?
There is so much heresay about problems with anything over 45gb, but nobody to step up to the plate to relate either their own success or failure.
I have a Seagate 80gb in my 7200 & so far so good, but have only had it installed for 3 days. I never had erasures before and hope that good fortune continues. ....Jim

Good luck.

After 5709 spools out, you may be able to really give that drive a run for it's money. Until then, I'd take it easy.

Apparently, a table isn't big enough to handle all the fragments which can be created as you record, watch, and delete programs. Although it can happen on any size drive, the larger it is, the more likely it is to happen. Above 45G, it becomes closer to a certainty. This has allegedly been fixed in the long awaited next release.

I use 30G drives, and have only been clobbered once in over a year, but I'm planning on upgrading again when the DP becomes stable with larger drives.

--jbuff

Is it a good idea to occasionally delete alkl recordings to minmize fragments? For fewer bugs?