eSATA - Has been enabled, but....

[sbcale]

What I reeeeaallly want is HMC!! :D

Same here, I can't wait to hear more about the HMC.

[grate88]

Please be aware that there are probably very few external enclosures designed for an always-on duty cycle. The best you can probably do is find one with above-average cooling, and then take it down every six months or so to clean out the crud that the fan has sucked in.

So I picked up a 500gb maxtor sata drive ($162) and an adaptec ACS-300 enclusure ($49.99 after $20 rebate)(no fan)
I was going to fire it up later tonight - now your post has given me 2nd thoughts.
WWMattoD?

Also
if DTV uses 100gb of the drive then we are using 200gb on the internal - with that math we'd get 400gb on a 500, doubling the capacity. Right?

[bbroach]

2nd HR20.... Cheaper then an eSATA drive larger then 500gb
And you get two more tuners ... :) (granted there is the $4.99 fee though)

I think the problem with this for me is having two HR20s in the same HT cabinet, because of the issue of either remote talking to both DVRs at once - not a problem with one HR20 and one HR10. Does the remote continue to transmit IR DVR commands once the HR20 is set to receive RF control? It certainly sends IR to my surround system for volume & mute. This would prevent separating the control streams for the two receivers by setting one to IR & the other to RF.

Do you you have both your HR20s in the same location? If so, how do you control them separately? The only way I could see this working is if the system is smart enough to turn off IR commands from the RF enabled remote when the HR20 is set to RF, or if the remotes are paired to their respective receivers.


regards, billb....

[Earl Bonovich]

I think the problem with this for me is having two HR20s in the same HT cabinet, because of the issue of either remote talking to both DVRs at once - not a problem with one HR20 and one HR10. Does the remote continue to transmit IR DVR commands once the HR20 is set to receive RF control? It certainly sends IR to my surround system for volume & mute. This would prevent separating the control streams for the two receivers by setting one to IR & the other to RF.

Do you you have both your HR20s in the same location? If so, how do you control them separately? The only way I could see this working is if the system is smart enough to turn off IR commands from the RF enabled remote when the HR20 is set to RF, or if the remotes are paired to their respective receivers.

regards, billb....

That isn't a problem. I have two HR20's right on top of one another.
The HR20's have two IR codes they can listen to.
So I have the first on DirecTV and teh Second on AUX2 (Stereo is on Aux1)

[Earl Bonovich]

if DTV uses 100gb of the drive then we are using 200gb on the internal - with that math we'd get 400gb on a 500, doubling the capacity. Right?

Right

[DVRaholic]

It Works!!!!!!

Bottom left of the picture you see the Raid system (Sans Digital $249)
I have 2-320GB hard drives (Western Digital $99 each) running for a total of 640GB.
I estimate this will give me about 105 hrs of MPEG-4
Raid is a bit noisey, I'm going to move it to the rear of entertainment system, Should help :)

[PoitNarf]

It Works!!!!!!

Bottom left of the picture you see the Raid system (Sans Digital $249)
I have 2-320GB hard drives (Western Digital $99 each) running for a total of 640GB.
I estimate this will give me about 105 hrs of MPEG-4
Raid is a bit noisey, I'm going to move it to the rear of entertainment system, Should help :)

Nice!!! :D

[bbroach]

It Works!!!!!!


Bottom left of the picture you see the Raid system (Sans Digital $249)
I have 2-320GB hard drives (Western Digital $99 each) running for a total of 640GB.
I estimate this will give me about 105 hrs of MPEG-4
Raid is a bit noisey, I'm going to move it to the rear of entertainment system, Should help :)

This is good news, especially since I just dropped $900+ on the 1TB version (with two years warranty) of this RAID chassis.


Have you tried going into the system through the serial interface? I think the WD drives have a "quiet" setting, sacrificing a little speed for quieter operation. I'm hoping that the Seagates that will ship with mine will come preset for quiet. The WD upgrade that I put in my SA-T60 has always been noisy, but that box is going away soon.


regards, billb....

[brewer4]

This is so fricken cool!!!! :D :D :)

[Ed Campbell]

It Works!!!!!!

Bottom left of the picture you see the Raid system (Sans Digital $249)
I have 2-320GB hard drives (Western Digital $99 each) running for a total of 640GB.
I estimate this will give me about 105 hrs of MPEG-4
Raid is a bit noisey, I'm going to move it to the rear of entertainment system, Should help :)

Have kids or just a big Mary Poppins fan?:lol:

[DVRaholic]

Have kids or just a big Mary Poppins fan?:lol:
Just cant get enough of Mary Poppins :icon_lol:

[Andrew_J_M]

That isn't a problem. I have two HR20's right on top of one another.
The HR20's have two IR codes they can listen to.
So I have the first on DirecTV and teh Second on AUX2 (Stereo is on Aux1)

O/T I know, but how did you set this up? I assume you are using the RC32RF with the first HR20 using RF and the second IR?

[noobie937]

It Works!!!!!!

Bottom left of the picture you see the Raid system (Sans Digital $249)
I have 2-320GB hard drives (Western Digital $99 each) running for a total of 640GB.
I estimate this will give me about 105 hrs of MPEG-4
Raid is a bit noisey, I'm going to move it to the rear of entertainment system, Should help :)


Now go try one with 3 or more drives. :)

[Earl Bonovich]

O/T I know, but how did you set this up? I assume you are using the RC32RF with the first HR20 using RF and the second IR?

No, both IR.

HR20 #1 is set to DirecTV Mode (The default)
HR20 #2... you go into the REMOTE Control setting mode, and change it to Aux1/Aux2... Then on your remote, either Aux1 or Aux2 you set the code to 00002

Both are controled via IR..

[Marshall]

I am looking at the 750 gb seagate drive. I am a little confused about the interface. 3GB or 1.5GB? What speed is the HR20?

I understand that the unit will currently only support 1 drive. Either external or internal.

The question I have is what happens when the HR20 developers start enhancing the SATA interface. I assume that the goal is to allow both the internal and external drive to work together. Will that change make all the external drive based systems obsolete?

I mean, will they then boot from the internal and use the external for storage. And if they do so, then do all of us that have created an external drive based system have to scratch our hard drive to conform to the internal / external model thereby losing everything we have stored away.

I don't want to go down this path if I have to lose everything in the future.

[Earl Bonovich]

Go with the 3GB drives... as if you ever pull the drive to use it for something else...

I believe the HR20 is only at 1.5GB speeds though.

Yes it will support only "1" drive... note though, on an external solution, you can use an enclosure that can have TWO drives RAIDed together, to act like one very large drive.

As for when the developers start to enhance the SATA feature.
I wouldn't worry about that too much, it isn't going to happen for a good amount of time. But if that times comes... we will have to see then.

If anything, they will ENHANCE the offerings of the external solution.

As for in the future... again, we are looking at a good amount of time.. if ever. eSATA enhancements is closer to the bottom of the list, then it is at the top right now.

[carl6]

No, both IR.

HR20 #1 is set to DirecTV Mode (The default)
HR20 #2... you go into the REMOTE Control setting mode, and change it to Aux1/Aux2... Then on your remote, either Aux1 or Aux2 you set the code to 00002

Both are controled via IR..

And just a tidbit it took me a lot of effort to find out.

The default DTV mode uses the code S1377 (if you are trying to program some other device or remote to work with your unit).

And the part that was so hard to find out: The secondary code is S1378.

Carl

[P Smith]

Sort of sci-fi values - "3GB or 1.5GB"; actually SATA-1 have interface speed 150 MBps and SATA-2 - 300 MBps; and max length is 1m ie 3.3 ft.

If like to see it bigger, then use 0.15 GBps or 0.3 GBps values :D.

[ExUltimateTV]

Personally, I'm going to hold off on using eSATA until it becomes an additional disk, not a replacement for the internal.

Speaking of which, has anybody replaced the internal disk with another one that has a larger capacity? If so, I'd love to hear the steps and risks involved.

[Earl Bonovich]

There have been some that have done it...

Do a quick search, and there is a pretty big thread on it.

[Andrew_J_M]

Personally, I'm going to hold off on using eSATA until it becomes an additional disk, not a replacement for the internal.

Speaking of which, has anybody replaced the internal disk with another one that has a larger capacity? If so, I'd love to hear the steps and risks involved.

It is basically the same as replacing the HDD in an UltimateTV

[F1Fan]

This is good news, especially since I just dropped $900+ on the 1TB version (with two years warranty) of this RAID chassis.


Have you tried going into the system through the serial interface? I think the WD drives have a "quiet" setting, sacrificing a little speed for quieter operation. I'm hoping that the Seagates that will ship with mine will come preset for quiet. The WD upgrade that I put in my SA-T60 has always been noisy, but that box is going away soon.


regards, billb....


My old DTivo R10 originally equipped with 80GB WD HD which was unbearably noisy. When I upgraded (replaced) the drive, I couldn't find 300GB WD HD at a decent price so I went with Seagate ($100 ea.). Glad I did, the noise from 2 Seagate HD was much less than the WD. Good Luck, but both of mine been running for 2 years, no problem.

[RichieE46]

Read through the entire 11 pages and I dont believe I saw the answer. If you were to swap out the 300gb SATA internal drive to say a 750gb drive it works BUT the bar on top still says its 100% full once 30 hours are used. It continues to record but the bar ALWAYS says 100% full and you kind of have to guess when its full.

When using the eSata, does the progress bar actually account for the size of the HDD?

[DVRaholic]

Read through the entire 11 pages and I dont believe I saw the answer. If you were to swap out the 300gb SATA internal drive to say a 750gb drive it works BUT the bar on top still says its 100% full once 30 hours are used. It continues to record but the bar ALWAYS says 100% full and you kind of have to guess when its full.

When using the eSata, does the progress bar actually account for the size of the HDD?
Dont know this yet, only have 9 hours recorded to my 640GB RAID disks. Bar says 86% available.
When I get near 100% I will let you know

[RichieE46]

If you have 9 hours recorded and it says its 86% then its accurate enough.

Im assuming 9 hours of HD? (mpeg2)

But if you have 640gb - 50 gb (for directv) = 590gb

Roughly 6gb for an hour so 590/6 = around 99 hours so you are roughly 86%.

If you recorded 9 hours and the bar was still basing it off a 300gb then it would be more around 65-70% available. Roughly...

Thanks for the quick reply

[grate88]

Okay - So I now have a 500gb esata drive going - It is quieter than before - chirping gone - All seems to be working well - My only concern is the heat issue on the enclosure - It's an adaptec w/o fan and it is very hot to touch after just an hour. What are the experts thoughts on this.. Am I playing with fire? (or just heat :D )

[PoitNarf]

Okay - So I now have a 500gb esata drive going - It is quieter than before - chirping gone - All seems to be working well - My only concern is the heat issue on the enclosure - It's an adaptec w/o fan and it is very hot to touch after just an hour. What are the experts thoughts on this.. Am I playing with fire? (or just heat :D )

Hard drives HATE heat. If it's hot to the touch, then that is NO GOOD.

[grate88]

I had an hour of HD mpeg2 on the buffer and hit record then stop and keep. By doing this repeatedly I was able to fill the h ard drive in a few minutes to see it's capacity. Sadly it only gave me between 36-37 hours of Mpeg2. Not much better than the stated internal drive. I thouht with a 500mb I'd get closer to 50-60 hours.

Is it possible I'm doing something wrong. It is definately using the external drive - I went back to the internal to check it had everything intact,

The only thing i can think of is that the machine hung for 15 minutes when i first turned it on with the new drive. When I reset it came right on - Is it possible that I screwed up the formatting of the drive and didn't get all of the space?

[spectrumsp]

Earl...

Here's a curve ball...

I understand the discussion regarding the eSATA and the want/need of everyone to use the eSATA to increase storage, but I fear we are missing an item for consideration...the USB 2 port.

On several of my office and home computers, including one file server, I've been running external USB HD storage units...why can't we do the same here???

Will current software allow it? Has D* considered it? Is transfer speed an issue?

[PoitNarf]

Earl...

Here's a curve ball...

I understand the discussion regarding the eSATA and the want/need of everyone to use the eSATA to increase storage, but I fear we are missing an item for consideration...the USB 2 port.

On several of my office and home computers, including one file server, I've been running external USB HD storage units...why can't we do the same here???

Will current software allow it? Has D* considered it? Is transfer speed an issue?

Transfer speed is definitely an issue. USB 2.0 isn't as fast as SATA. It's eSATA or bust for external drives, sorry.

[P Smith]

Lets see: USB2 have total bandwidth ( not a speed ) 480 Mbps, ie ~48 MBps shared between system stream and device(s), when [e]SATA-1 have dedicated ( since only one device per port allowed) speed up to 150 MBps.
Back to HD recording - so far we saw max speed 16 Mbps per one HD channel, ie ~1.6 MBps. Now when you know the diameter of tubes, you could estimate some numbers ;).

[PoitNarf]

Lets see: USB2 have total bandwidth ( not a speed ) 480 Mbps, ie ~48 MBps shared between system stream and device(s), when [e]SATA-1 have dedicated ( since only one device per port allowed) speed up to 150 MBps.
Back to HD recording - so far we saw max speed 16 Mbps per one HD channel, ie ~1.6 MBps. Now when you know the diameter of tubes, you could estimate some numbers ;).

Eh, I'm tired :p

[P Smith]

Drop the mouse and ride your sofa with HR20 remote then :p

[PoitNarf]

Drop the mouse and ride your sofa with HR20 remote then :p

I'm doing both at the same time ;)

[RichieE46]

Earl,

Any "unofficial" updates for eSATA on the new software upgrade?

[Earl Bonovich]

Earl,

Any "unofficial" updates for eSATA on the new software upgrade?

No, no changes to eSATA

[grate88]

I posted this in another thread, but covering my bases -- Any one know how long it should take for the new drive to format? I'm not sure if the system is freezing or just taking over 1 1/2 hours to format.

[mndwalsh]

since adding a external drive would only get you the drive you add and nothing off the internal, wouldn't it be a better idea just to replace the internal drive with something bigger? Seems to me it would be better for cooling than most of the external untis I have seen. Other than voiding the warranty, but I would put the original drive back for any service that was needed.

I just ordered the HR20 and have the install for the 28th

[Earl Bonovich]

I posted this in another thread, but covering my bases -- Any one know how long it should take for the new drive to format? I'm not sure if the system is freezing or just taking over 1 1/2 hours to format.

How large is the drive?
I really don't know how long it shoudl take, maybe some of the people that have set it up already can let us know.

[Earl Bonovich]

since adding a external drive would only get you the drive you add and nothing off the internal, wouldn't it be a better idea just to replace the internal drive with something bigger? Seems to me it would be better for cooling than most of the external untis I have seen. Other than voiding the warranty, but I would put the original drive back for any service that was needed.

I just ordered the HR20 and have the install for the 28th

"Voiding" the warranty is part of the issue, being that all these boxes are leased.

If you have opened up the HR20 (as I have)... there is alot going on in there.. .and you can easily damage the unit. And the Hard Drive is not the "easiest" thing to take out.

Sure the more advanced you are in opening up computers and working with them, those people shouldn't have any issues... but the VAST majority of people would be better served by never opening the unit.

[grate88]

How large is the drive?
I really don't know how long it shoudl take, maybe some of the people that have set it up already can let us know.

Maxtor 500gb sata w/ adaptec enclosure.

[mndwalsh]

"Voiding" the warranty is part of the issue, being that all these boxes are leased.

If you have opened up the HR20 (as I have)... there is alot going on in there.. .and you can easily damage the unit. And the Hard Drive is not the "easiest" thing to take out.

Sure the more advanced you are in opening up computers and working with them, those people shouldn't have any issues... but the VAST majority of people would be better served by never opening the unit.

Thanks, I was just wondering if there is a seal that you need to break to get into the box. I have been in the PC biz for 10 years so I have no problem swapping the drive. Just wondering how they would know I opened it. I do want a bigger drive and not opposed to getting the external enclosure but it would be nice if I could just toss in another drive since it formats automatically.

[Earl Bonovich]

Thanks, I was just wondering if there is a seal that you need to break to get into the box. I have been in the PC biz for 10 years so I have no problem swapping the drive. Just wondering how they would know I opened it. I do want a bigger drive and not opposed to getting the external enclosure but it would be nice if I could just toss in another drive since it formats automatically.

Yes, there is a seal... and it is stubborn...

[mndwalsh]

Yes, there is a seal... and it is stubborn...

!@#$

that answers my ?, on to an external solution

Thanks Earl

[spectrumsp]

Lets see: USB2 have total bandwidth ( not a speed ) 480 Mbps, ie ~48 MBps shared between system stream and device(s), when [e]SATA-1 have dedicated ( since only one device per port allowed) speed up to 150 MBps.
Back to HD recording - so far we saw max speed 16 Mbps per one HD channel, ie ~1.6 MBps. Now when you know the diameter of tubes, you could estimate some numbers ;).

So...if I read you correctly...

Even though the SATA has higher thru put, the USB still has plenty of "hose diameter" to support HD recording...

Under the current circumstances of the D* SATA restrictions, has anyone hooked up a external USB storage unit to see what would happen...would the HR20 recognize the unit, would it be "additional" storage or not, etc???

Seems like it would be worth a try...(if it worked, it sure would be less expensive)

[PoitNarf]

So...if I read you correctly...

Even though the SATA has higher thru put, the USB still has plenty of "hose diameter" to support HD recording...

Under the current circumstances of the D* SATA restrictions, has anyone hooked up a external USB storage unit to see what would happen...would the HR20 recognize the unit, would it be "additional" storage or not, etc???

Seems like it would be worth a try...(if it worked, it sure would be less expensive)

This will not work, and I can pretty much guarantee it never will. D* is HIGHLY unlikely to support USB connected hard drives since they're already providing an eSATA port. It's eSATA or bust. There isn't much of a cost difference, if at all, especially as eSATA becomes more common place.

[Earl Bonovich]

This will not work, and I can pretty much guarantee it never will. D* is HIGHLY unlikely to support USB connected hard drives since they're already providing an eSATA port. It's eSATA or bust. There isn't much of a cost difference, if at all, especially as eSATA becomes more common place.

Yes and no.

On the HR20... eSATA for external storage
On the R15... USB

USB 2.0 as fast it is... you are probably going to have difficulty keeping up with 1x, 2x, 3x, and eventually 4x speeds for the larger MPEG-2/MPEG-4 HD programming..

[grendal_fly]

I think I am going to try this Raid enclosure. It also looks a lot better than some of the other ones.

NewEgg has it . ( I cannot post the URL yet)


With this and a pair of 500gb internal drive I get get 1tb for around $500.

All the other solutions I look edat had a higher cost per gb except for sticking a internal in a cheap enclosure which I think is a bad idea heat wise..

[william8004]

I've been reading the threads and from what I see, you can't use more than two drives on and eSATA enclosure. When I go to Comp USA, I see SKU# 51688670. It says it comes preconfigured for RAID 5. There's no way I can afford it. I'm trying to learn.

But I'm willing to bet that it won't be compatible. Correct?


Will

ps. One more post and I can past links. woo hoo!

[harsh]

Transfer speed is definitely an issue. USB 2.0 isn't as fast as SATA. It's eSATA or bust for external drives, sorry.USB 2.0 is more than fast enough from a data transfer standpoint. Practical USB 2.0 throughput is about half that of eSATA.

The advantage of eSATA is that DirecTV can take over the drive and format it in a way that it cannot be readily accessed by a computer. USB storage is a lot less flexible.

USB will likely be turned on for reading cameras and key drives and writing to DirecTV2Go devices.

[bbroach]

I received & installed my NitroAV RAID yesterday. I must have guessed right when I ordered it with the Red Hat format option - the system booted right up, with no format time required. The CSR at Firewire Direct gave me incorrect information on the drive manufacturer. The box was shipped with WD drives, not Seagate. The drives are quiet, but the fan is fairly noisy; this evening I 'll do an SPL measurement & post the result. I put the enclosure behind the equipment in my open HT center; from a couple of quick experiments with the space, I tihink the noise can be abated sufficiently by installing some acoustical felt on the wall behind the cabinet.

As reported by another user, the disk capacity meter doesn't reflect the increased space. Hopefully this will be corrected eventually. When I get my second HR20, I'll verify that the drive can't be read by another box. It would be nice if the eSATA could be moved between different boxes in the same household. It doesn't seem to me this should be an insurmountable coding job.

I'm recording stuff like there is no tomorrow, in an effort to asses the capacity of this storage option. I'll post that info when I have it. I also notice that the clean drive boot reduces the severity of my MPEG4 woes - only NBC has the blocking & looping symptoms now, with clean FF & FR behavior during recording and buffer playback on ABC & CBS, and no lockups at all. I haven't checked FOX. It seems likely to me that folks with severe 00DC rev behavior might benefit by a forced disk format; a clean start certainly seemed to help my box.


regards, billb....

[harsh]

I've been reading the threads and from what I see, you can't use more than two drives on and eSATA enclosure.That depends entirely on the enclosure. SATA support generally comes in pairs, but there are already RAID cards with dual SATA controllers that support four drives.I'm willing to bet that it won't be compatible.As long as the system appears to be a single eSATA hard drive it should work.

[grate88]

I received & installed my NitroAV RAID yesterday. I must have guessed right when I ordered it with the Red Hat format option - the system booted right up, with no format time required. The CSR at Firewire Direct gave me incorrect information on the drive manufacturer. The box was shipped with WD drives, not Seagate. The drives are quiet, but the fan is fairly noisy; this evening I 'll do an SPL measurement & post the result. I put the enclosure behind the equipment in my open HT center; from a couple of quick experiments with the space, I tihink the noise can be abated sufficiently by installing some acoustical felt on the wall behind the cabinet.

As reported by another user, the disk capacity meter doesn't reflect the increased space. Hopefully this will be corrected eventually. When I get my second HR20, I'll verify that the drive can't be read by another box. It would be nice if the eSATA could be moved between different boxes in the same household. It doesn't seem to me this should be an insurmountable coding job.

I'm recording stuff like there is no tomorrow, in an effort to asses the capacity of this storage option. I'll post that info when I have it. I also notice that the clean drive boot reduces the severity of my MPEG4 woes - only NBC has the blocking & looping symptoms now, with clean FF & FR behavior during recording and buffer playback on ABC & CBS, and no lockups at all. I haven't checked FOX. It seems likely to me that folks with severe 00DC rev behavior might benefit by a forced disk format; a clean start certainly seemed to help my box.


regards, billb....

Let me know how it goes for you - My 500gb sata drive froze the whole system twice in 2 days and not only did the meter not show any additional space - It truly stopped recording at 2% left. If it works for you, let me know what you did. Thanks

[Earl Bonovich]

Let me know how it goes for you - My 500gb sata drive froze the whole system twice in 2 days and not only did the meter not show any additional space - It truly stopped recording at 2% left. If it works for you, let me know what you did. Thanks

You have that Adaptec enclosure right?


Is anyone planning to try two 750s?
(I know the enclosures have only said that they support 500s)

[bbroach]

Let me know how it goes for you - My 500gb sata drive froze the whole system twice in 2 days and not only did the meter not show any additional space - It truly stopped recording at 2% left. If it works for you, let me know what you did. Thanks

DVRaholic also has this RAID box, with two 320GB drives in it; I haven't seen any update to his recording experiment. I'm not sure any of our experiences will be similar. I had my 1TB delivered formated for Red Hat, which seemed to please the HR20's OS - there was no format time during the initial boot up. I have no idea how all this affects compatibility or record time. We'll just have to wait & see as it fills up. At worst, the RAID could stop recording when the indicator shows full, but I'm not anticipating that; if it did happen that way, a future firmware update would likely fix it. Plenty of time to panic later.


regards, billb....

[bbroach]

You have that Adaptec enclosure right?


Is anyone planning to try two 750s?
(I know the enclosures have only said that they support 500s)

My enclosure supports 2 x 750GB; I'll upgrade next year, when 750's drop to $99. :lol:

regards, billb....

[grate88]

You have that Adaptec enclosure right?


Is anyone planning to try two 750s?
(I know the enclosures have only said that they support 500s)

I returned the adaptec today becasue it was running very hot and the system froze twice.

I am getting ams venus w/fan delivered next week and will tray again with that.

[grate88]

DVRaholic also has this RAID box, with two 320GB drives in it; I haven't seen any update to his recording experiment. I'm not sure any of our experiences will be similar. I had my 1TB delivered formated for Red Hat, which seemed to please the HR20's OS - there was no format time during the initial boot up. I have no idea how all this affects compatibility or record time. We'll just have to wait & see as it fills up. At worst, the RAID could stop recording when the indicator shows full, but I'm not anticipating that; if it did happen that way, a future firmware update would likely fix it. Plenty of time to panic later.


regards, billb....


Thanks Bill, I'm curious to know how others fare with the esata - please keep us posted.

[DVRaholic]

:(
Even though it worked Flawlessly with the recordings I put on it,
I pulled the RAID system after 2 days because of the Noise issues.
It was most noticeable during the morning hours, sounded like a small tornado in my living room. It was driving the wife crazy, also my kids do their homework in that room and without the tv on to drown it out it it was really bothering them too. So I was voted out 3-1 to remove it and replace it back with the Single 500GB Maxtor quickview drive in external enclosure (Much quieter) :(

Ohh well... Luckily I own my own business so I added the RAID drives to my surveillance system to double the recording capacity. So I didn't lose out
Just lost out on 100 Hr recording space for MPEG-4 :(

Hopefully you guys can deal with the sound, or figure some way to drown it out
Good Luck

[P Smith]

USB 2.0 is more than fast enough from a data transfer standpoint. Practical USB 2.0 throughput is about half that of eSATA.
Practically 1/3 of SATA-1 and 1/6 of SATA-2; it will be worst if we will compare sustain speed, but really enough for use it.

The advantage of eSATA is that DirecTV can take over the drive and format it in a way that it cannot be readily accessed by a computer. USB storage is a lot less flexible.
Totally irrelevant for the purpose; both type of interface provide same access to a content, ie sectors.
Matter is only drivers in OS.

USB will likely be turned on for reading cameras and key drives and writing to DirecTV2Go devices.
Dish going to utilize USB interface for external storage; it was demonstrated at CEDIA - Maxtor external USB 500 GB box as ADDITIONAL space for archive and PLAY.:p

[grate88]

:(
Even though it worked Flawlessly with the recordings I put on it,
I pulled the RAID system after 2 days because of the Noise issues.
It was most noticeable during the morning hours, sounded like a small tornado in my living room. It was driving the wife crazy, also my kids do their homework in that room and without the tv on to drown it out it it was really bothering them too. So I was voted out 3-1 to remove it and replace it back with the Single 500GB Maxtor quickview drive in external enclosure (Much quieter) :(

Ohh well... Luckily I own my own business so I added the RAID drives to my surveillance system to double the recording capacity. So I didn't lose out
Just lost out on 100 Hr recording space for MPEG-4 :(

Hopefully you guys can deal with the sound, or figure some way to drown it out
Good Luck


What kind of rec hours are you getting with the 500gb and is the meter accurate? I'm using the same maxtor sata drive w/ new enclosure on the way. Thanks

[DVRaholic]

What kind of rec hours are you getting with the 500gb and is the meter accurate? I'm using the same maxtor sata drive w/ new enclosure on the way. Thanks

My Estimate is 83-85 Hours MPEG-4, and about 50 hours MPEG-2
Meter doesnt seem accurate though, I really cant judge because I only have 8 recordings on it (all MPEG-4) and meter says 83% left, I would think that there's probably really about 90% left

[harsh]

Totally irrelevant for the purpose; both type of interface provide same access to a content, ie sectors.
Matter is only drivers in OS.eSATA doesn't require special drivers as USB seems to.

I'd like to add that while the theoretical numbers are easy to come by, the practical throughputs of both eSATA and USB 2.0 are decidedly lower than the theoretical numbers. The fastest SATA drives are a little over half the speed of SATA 1 with respect to sustained transfer rate.

Finally, we have to remember that USB isn't turned on/implemented yet so all of the USB discussion is academic. USB 2.0 is turned on on the E* receiver to implement their version of DirecTV2Go (PocketDish).

[P Smith]

"USB 2.0 is turned on on the E* receiver to implement their version of DirecTV2Go (PocketDish)."

You're skimming here :p - read a post#310 last phrase.

[harsh]

"USB 2.0 is turned on on the E* receiver to implement their version of DirecTV2Go (PocketDish)."

You're skimming here :p - read a post#310 last phrase.But that feature (whatever it represents) is not enabled at this time. What's you're point?

What a company demonstrates (or illustrates) at a trade show and what eventually makes it to the customer is not always the same thing. Sometimes that product or feature never makes it out of the gate.

[P Smith]

My point it is working feature, it will available when non-technical issues will be eliminated.

[LarryInAz]

Just wondering if this case (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEPDBSATA/) with 2x400gb sata drives would work or not?

[billt1111]

I received & installed my NitroAV RAID yesterday. I must have guessed right when I ordered it with the Red Hat format option - the system booted right up, with no format time required. The CSR at Firewire Direct gave me incorrect information on the drive manufacturer. The box was shipped with WD drives, not Seagate. The drives are quiet, but the fan is fairly noisy; this evening I 'll do an SPL measurement & post the result. I put the enclosure behind the equipment in my open HT center; from a couple of quick experiments with the space, I tihink the noise can be abated sufficiently by installing some acoustical felt on the wall behind the cabinet.

Sorry if I missed it, but which NitroAV enclosure did you get? Just curious if you did the SPL measurement with the two drives on. I was going to put my enclosure close to my HR20 and was wondering what the ballpark noise level would be. My HR20 by itself measures about 51-53 dB in SPL. I assume it is going to increase by at least 50%.

[harsh]

Just wondering if this case (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEPDBSATA/) with 2x400gb sata drives would work or not?It would work, but only with one drive at a time. There is no RAID controller built in; hence the two SATA ports.

[P Smith]

Look how they easy _confusing_ unexperience ppl when play with word "RAID" - the eclosure DOESN'T incuded RAID controller. I wouldn't say cheating, but very close to it :(.

[LarryInAz]

A request.... if you connect an eSATA device... please post your results here...

List the make/model/size of your eSATA device.
Especially if you built it your self (purchased an enclosure, and add a drive).


The bulk of the discussion on this thread appears to about using 2 drives in a RAID enclosure. Although I've not ruled this out I'm wondering if others have put a 750gb sata drive into a esata enclosure and connected it successfully to the HR20?
Most of the enclosures I've seen specs on claim to only work with up to 400gb drives.
However I've found one from Azio (http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=104205) that claims to have no size limitations. (http://www.aziocorp.com/faq_311su31.php#fq8)

[bbroach]

Sorry if I missed it, but which NitroAV enclosure did you get? Just curious if you did the SPL measurement with the two drives on. I was going to put my enclosure close to my HR20 and was wondering what the ballpark noise level would be. My HR20 by itself measures about 51-53 dB in SPL. I assume it is going to increase by at least 50%.

SPL measured 1M away from my cabinet is 51dB; unfortunately, the noise floor in my den is more like 45 dB, and the WAF of the new RAID is therefore quite low. I'm waiting to see what the real capacity is before going to the effort of building a sound enclosure. If the OS doesn't support the full capacity of 1TB yet, I'll put the little devil away until it does. This is the system I bought, with 2 x 500GB drives in a RAID 0 configuration:

http://www.nitroav.com/store/files/images/t_326.gif

http://www.nitroav.com/product/438/


regards, billb....

[flipper2006]

Finally had some time today so I went and got a 750g sata internal from Best Buy (329.00 on sale) then I went to tiger direct and got a Vantec NextStar 3 external enclosure for 45.00. I just plugged it in and followed all the instructions from message #1 but didnt even look at the drive. I need to do some troubleshooting, but im sure i will get it to work. Very cheap price but the enclosure is HQ.

Will report back soon!

Edit: Ok, got it working, for some reason the ext drive didnt spin up the first time, but its formatting now I assume (since the red light is on front of the DVR). I'm already loving it format, the bass sound of the Seagate drive sounds so much more enjoyable then the high pitched sound from the unit. I'm hoping if the ext drive is the main drive, then i shouldnt hear the high pitched drive ever again?

The drive has been on 2 hours or so now and is barely hot, case is working well so far. No issues at all as of this time. Recording multiple programs to see if anything arrises.

PS. Is there any way to see the total number of hours remaining on the drive (other then %)???

[grate88]

Finally had some time today so I went and got a 750g sata internal from Best Buy (329.00 on sale) then I went to tiger direct and got a Vantec NextStar 3 external enclosure for 45.00. I just plugged it in and followed all the instructions from message #1 but didnt even look at the drive. I need to do some troubleshooting, but im sure i will get it to work. Very cheap price but the enclosure is HQ.

Will report back soon!

Edit: Ok, got it working, for some reason the ext drive didnt spin up the first time, but its formatting now I assume (since the red light is on front of the DVR). I'm already loving it format, the bass sound of the Seagate drive sounds so much more enjoyable then the high pitched sound from the unit. I'm hoping if the ext drive is the main drive, then i shouldnt hear the high pitched drive ever again?

Thanks - keep us updated on your progress - I'll be trying again on friday when I get my new enclosure.

[P Smith]

So far anyone could go with RAID-0 enclosure and 2x750 GB is 1.5 TB total.
Any takers ? ;)

[Earl Bonovich]

Heck... hang on for a little while and go with 2 1TB drives for a 2TB

http://news.com.com/2100-1015_3-6105515.html

[flipper2006]

Ok, after fooling around with the Seagate eSATA 750g drive i have a question. Is there any trick (back door or otherwise) to see how much space is available? Its using the drive but after recording 4 1 hour shows tonight (mpeg4), the percentage shows 90%? That means each show is 3% of the drive??????? Something doesnt seem right , there should be like 97 percent of the drive free..

[grate88]

Ok, after fooling around with the Seagate eSATA 750g drive i have a question. Is there any trick (back door or otherwise) to see how much space is available? Its using the drive but after recording 4 1 hour shows tonight (mpeg4), the percentage shows 90%? That means each show is 3% of the drive??????? Something doesnt seem right , there should be like 97 percent of the drive free..

That was my problem as well. It didn't seem to give me any more space than the internal drive.

I watched a movie on HDnet and after an hour on the buffer I kept hitting record then stop (save recording) By doing this repeatedly I filled the drive in a matter of minutes - The end result was 36 hours mpeg 2 on a 500gb drive.

I wonder if the software only allows for the 300gb internal size right now?

[flipper2006]

I hope there isnt a problem with using a 750 drive, i noticed when it formatted, it only took about 2 or 3 minutes which i found sort of quick, but i just figured its doing its own type of linux format.

Earl, can you chime on this?

[hdtvfan0001]

My guess is that the firmware will be updated in the setup menu to reflect available space once eSata is "formally activated".

[Earl Bonovich]

I hope there isnt a problem with using a 750 drive, i noticed when it formatted, it only took about 2 or 3 minutes which i found sort of quick, but i just figured its doing its own type of linux format.

Earl, can you chime on this?

The formats will be very quickly... (In general)... as the drive will allocate and "format" as it tries to use it.

[flipper2006]

The formats will be very quickly... (In general)... as the drive will allocate and "format" as it tries to use it.

But my issue is, it doesnt appear to be using the whole drive. I only recorded 4 1 hour mpeg4 shows last night I was already down to 90%. It doesnt equate. I thought I would get the best space savings using mpeg4. I should still have like 96 or 97 percent left on a 750g drive.

[P Smith]

Do real measure, like Gotchaa did, then do conclusion. BTW, if you'll read his thread, you'll know much more ;).

[Earl Bonovich]

But my issue is, it doesnt appear to be using the whole drive. I only recorded 4 1 hour mpeg4 shows last night I was already down to 90%. It doesnt equate. I thought I would get the best space savings using mpeg4. I should still have like 96 or 97 percent left on a 750g drive.

You are right... something doesn't seem right there.

Try restarting the unit, with the external drive disconnected.
And see if your recordings are still there.

If they are, it is using the internal.

[Thinker3932]

Anyone use this one:

http://www.cooldrives.com/dudralenfors.html

I am a cheapskate and it would seem to be good for a 2x raid.

[Thinker3932]

Which HD channels are MPEG4 and which are MPEG2?

[P Smith]

Check EKB link at top of each page here,
or www.lyngsat.com

[grate88]

You are right... something doesn't seem right there.

Try restarting the unit, with the external drive disconnected.
And see if your recordings are still there.

If they are, it is using the internal.

I can verify this result - I did disconnect and all previous recordings were on the internal and all new recordings remained on the ext. when rebooted again.

I also filled up the whole drive as alluded to in the other thread and did not have decent results.

The mpeg 2 is 70-99 mpeg 4 is locals 2-XX

[mooniac]

Anyone use this one:

http://www.cooldrives.com/dudralenfors.html

I am a cheapskate and it would seem to be good for a 2x raid.

That unit doesn't seem to include a RAID controller so you'll only be able to use one drive.

[Earl Bonovich]

I can verify this result - I did disconnect and all previous recordings were on the internal and all new recordings remained on the ext. when rebooted again.

I also filled up the whole drive as alluded to in the other thread and did not have decent results.

The mpeg 2 is 70-99 mpeg 4 is locals 2-XX

I ment more specifically for that particlar poster to try it (Flipper).
It is possible that his external is not being used, and it is just the internal drive

[grate88]

I ment more specifically for that particlar poster to try it (Flipper).
It is possible that his external is not being used, and it is just the internal drive

Understood - But if he is having the same result, I was wondering if you could inquire with your :) "inside sources" :) to see if this is a glitch or if the external will only handle 300gb no matter how big the drive at the present time?

As to the post about the other thread - I believe his reseults were with a bigger drive attached directly to the interior sata port, replacing the manufacturers drive completely. His results were not with the esata port.

[Earl Bonovich]

Understood - But if he is having the same result, I was wondering if you could inquire with your :) "inside sources" :) to see if this is a glitch or if the external will only handle 300gb no matter how big the drive at the present time?

As to the post about the other thread - I believe his reseults were with a bigger drive attached directly to the interior sata port, replacing the manufacturers drive completely. His results were not with the esata port.

The external will handle ANY size... I have heard the theoretical number that it will max out at... and if anyone tries to get that high... they have WAY too much money on their hands.

The Graphic on the bar is measured at the 300gb metric, and I don't if/when they may be changing that.

[hdtvfan0001]

The Graphic on the bar is measured at the 300gb metric, and I don't if/when they may be changing that.
One would think it will be updated to support the external drive capacity at the same time eSATA is activated "officially". :)

[flipper2006]

I ment more specifically for that particlar poster to try it (Flipper).
It is possible that his external is not being used, and it is just the internal drive

I did do it, and all my old recordings were still on the Internal. The following is possible, either the 750 didnt get fully formatted, the Esata cant handle single drive over X size, or there is some type of drive limitation but the only jumper settings for the drive were for use 1.5 or 3.0 transfer rate. Since you said its only 1.5 for now i left it at the default of 1.5. Thats why i was asking if there is any backdoor to see how much space is available on the drive. It doesnt appear that formatted more then 300g but its hard to pinpoint.

[flipper2006]

The Graphic on the bar is measured at the 300gb metric, and I don't if/when they may be changing that.

Wait a sec, so if i understand what that means, even though we have bigger drives then 300g, the percentage is only calculating at 300G. This would explain why the percentage dropped to 90% with only a few programs on it. However, the next question is, if it only thinks 300g is there, then wouldnt the system think the drive is at 300g of recordings without it allowing to use the other 450g?

I'm just trying to understand if I understand what you said about the 300g metric.

[Earl Bonovich]

Wait a sec, so if i understand what that means, even though we have bigger drives then 300g, the percentage is only calculating at 300G. This would explain why the percentage dropped to 90% with only a few programs on it. However, the next question is, if it only thinks 300g is there, then wouldnt the system think the drive is at 300g of recordings without it allowing to use the other 450g?

I'm just trying to understand if I understand what you said about the 300g metric.

I don't have the answers from the development team... so these could change when I get information.

GRAPHICALLY the unit bases it off 300, and used space.
Internall, the unit basically checks for free space on the hard drive.

So you will have access to more recording space, even if the % fills up.

[bbroach]

Whether the OS is currently able to use an external drive larger than 300GB is not necessarily connected to the report of percent used; there are many ways to write the software modules, and it is just as likely that the two are unrelated. My indicator is approaching 70% now; if it continues to record after it reports "full" (as an HR20 with a larger internal drive apparently does), then we will have the answer. I would expect the system to behave the same way with a large external drive that it would with an internal upgrade drive, but that may not be the case.


regards, billb....

[yamaham]

I have heard the theoretical number that it will max out at... and if anyone tries to get that high... they have WAY too much money on their hands.

I assume 32TB (or 32TiB in binary).

[harsh]

Check EKB link at top of each page here,
or www.lyngsat.comEKB does not contain DirecTV information.

[flipper2006]

I don't have the answers from the development team... so these could change when I get information.

GRAPHICALLY the unit bases it off 300, and used space.
Internall, the unit basically checks for free space on the hard drive.

So you will have access to more recording space, even if the % fills up.

Thanks!!! that is the answer I was looking for. I just wanted to be sure it wasnt an issue where it didnt recognize the drive good, but thats not the issue so thats good. The only other thing will be to wait till you find out from dev team if they can show the percentage based on the drive space remaining instead of 300, otherwise it will be guessing game, but heck, using the HR20 is a guessing game.

[grendal_fly]

Anyone use this one:

dudralenfors

I am a cheapskate and it would seem to be good for a 2x raid.

You will not be able to do raid with this as it doesn't have a raid card and as such you would only be able to hook up one drive.

[nFavor]

Recordings are TIED to the unit that it was connected to. So you can't record on an eSATA drive on one HR20 and take it to another


I'm surprised that no one has asked this yet but suppose you are using eSATA and your HR20 needs to be swapped out (for any reason other than the hard drives), are you forced to loose all your data/recordings or would D* make the eSATA drive work on the replacement unit with existing data intact?

[jgriffin104]

I took my time and ordered all the adapters off Ebay. I have 12 Maxtor 250 IDE gig drives and one external SATA Seagate 300 gig drive. I had to unplug the main SATA cable on the HR-20-700 but couldn't use the external chassis mount SATA cable. Half an inch to short. Story of my Life. So I unpluged it and pluged in my external 300 Seagate drive. It was also new and never turned on or formated. I used a red SATA data cable from the motherboard to the external drive.

The HR-20-700 took right to it and I ran 3 days on recording anything. I then hooked up the orignal 300 gig drive and did the same thing. All recordings worked.

Then I assembled the IDE to SATA adapters and hooked up one of my Maxtor IDE drives formated to NTFS. It spent 14 hours with the blue leds going in circles, before I concluded it didn't like NTFS. I then took the drive and forced a delete partartion in Win XP Pro, and created a new partartion using the entire drive. I clicked no for format and powered down and hooked up the IDE to SATA adapter to the Maxtor 250 gig drive. I pluged the SATA cable into the main SATA connection on the H-20-700 mother board. The power conector was male molex the same as the male conector on the hard drive. So I went over to my PC to make TIVO drives and took the Y IDE power cable and used the two male ends to connect to the mother board and Maxtor drive. The IDE To SATA adapter has a y cable the same as a Floppy and IDE power cable. So when pluged in the female side of the IDE y power cable is not used.

I then powered up the HR-20-700 and crossed my fingers. It went right into boot up with the a few more minutes screen. After live TV popped on, I started
recording on 2 channels and stopped recording with 61% space left. I picked Quick Change with Bill Murry from the middle and watched the whole show. No problems other than a few sparkles, but it rained last night here in Dallas. I than took the Adapter off and pluged in the External Seagat 300 gig and continued recording. I haven't bothered to put the Maxtor in the PC yet. I was just happy to see it work with the adapter.

Now that ESATA is enabled I got a ESATA to SATA cord at Fry's and the IDE to SATA adapters work there too. They make an adapter for IDE to USB that comes with a Power supply with a 4 pin molex that plugs right into the Maxtor hard drive so you don't have to open the box to play anymore. I kept the power supply and put the IDE to USB adapter in the extra box.

I'll play with it some more and figure out how many drives it will record to out of my original 12. Only time will tell.

[Thinker3932]

Check EKB link at top of each page here,
or www.lyngsat.com

I don't see that link. So, but, can I assume everything on the 99* and 103* sats is MPEG4 and the 101, 110 and 119 are MPEG2?

[P Smith]

LyngSat still accessible.

[Earl Bonovich]

I don't see that link. So, but, can I assume everything on the 99* and 103* sats is MPEG4 and the 101, 110 and 119 are MPEG2?

Yes... as of right now that is correct

[Earl Bonovich]

I am going to unstick this one for a while... eSATA is an easy enough search to find.

[bbroach]

Hi, Earl;

My recorded programs now total around 47 hours, and the disk indicator shows 9% space left (you may remember that I have a 1TB RAID 0 hooked up to my HR20's eSATA port). I'm now getting a warning each time I enter the List that my drive is almost full & recordings will cease when it fills completely. Will it simply continue to record, while still offering the warning on entering the List? It's hard for me to imagine the unit behaving differently with an external drive than with an internal upgrade, but I don't remember this warning from the internal swap thread. I should add that I set everything to SUID (save until I delete) in order to force the issue of the drive "filling up" past the stock capacity. Any info you can offer would be appreciated.


regards & thanks, billb....

[Earl Bonovich]

Hi, Earl;

My recorded programs now total around 47 hours, and the disk indicator shows 9% space left (you may remember that I have a 1TB RAID 0 hooked up to my HR20's eSATA port). I'm now getting a warning each time I enter the List that my drive is almost full & recordings will cease when it fills completely. Will it simply continue to record, while still offering the warning on entering the List? It's hard for me to imagine the unit behaving differently with an external drive than with an internal upgrade, but I don't remember this warning from the internal swap thread. I should add that I set everything to SUID (save until I delete) in order to force the issue of the drive "filling up" past the stock capacity. Any info you can offer would be appreciated.


regards & thanks, billb....

Hmmm...... I don't know.
I will send your post off to my contact and see if I can get some insight before the weekend starts.

[grate88]

Hi, Earl;

My recorded programs now total around 47 hours, and the disk indicator shows 9% space left (you may remember that I have a 1TB RAID 0 hooked up to my HR20's eSATA port). I'm now getting a warning each time I enter the List that my drive is almost full & recordings will cease when it fills completely. Will it simply continue to record, while still offering the warning on entering the List? It's hard for me to imagine the unit behaving differently with an external drive than with an internal upgrade, but I don't remember this warning from the internal swap thread. I should add that I set everything to SUID (save until I delete) in order to force the issue of the drive "filling up" past the stock capacity. Any info you can offer would be appreciated.


regards & thanks, billb....

Very curious to see if it lets you continue to record - I got to 36 hours with my 500gb ext and after the warning would not record once there was only 2% left.

[matto]

it sounds like they did the dumb and lazy thing (shocking) and coded in a constant for drive space instead of figuring it out from a filesystem function.

[flipper2006]

Just updating my info from the past few days. The ESATA 750g is still alive and kicking, no issues. The internal temp is hovering between 111 and 115 which appears to be much lower since the internal drive is not doing any reading/writing. No big issues with the drive in the past 5 days of usage. I have been recording many programs to see how it behaves but all is good. I'm on east coast so im still waiting for the new update but 1 program on wednesday didnt record (said it was cancelled), first time in a while this happend. Havent had to reboot the system at all in 2 weeks+ now.

and finally, we have been getting much better sleep without listening to the internal drive whine and cry all night. The Seagate 750 is much quieter.:sure:

[grate88]

Hmmm...... I don't know.
I will send your post off to my contact and see if I can get some insight before the weekend starts.

Thanks Earl - Let us know what they say - I'm convinced the esata port is only allowing the external drive the same space as the internal right now. No matter what size drive is attached externally.

[hasan]

Thanks Earl - Let us know what they say - I'm convinced the esata port is only allowing the external drive the same space as the internal right now. No matter what size drive is attached externally.

That is what I surmised when I read the very first post about this issue. At least it's fixable, and you know that eSATA works. eSATA needs two things in the HR20:

1. Use all available space.

2. Act as an ancillary drive instead of "replacing" the internal.

I hope they get #1 fixed soon and we can get some reports on these big drives!

[yamaham]

The internal temp is hovering between 111 and 115 which appears to be much lower since the internal drive is not doing any reading/writing.

Whether the drive is reading/writing or not doesn't make a difference. It's still spinning at a constant rate. Western Digital drives specifically get far hotter on the PCB side than from what's going on inside.

[bbroach]

Thanks Earl - Let us know what they say - I'm convinced the esata port is only allowing the external drive the same space as the internal right now. No matter what size drive is attached externally.

My results verify this; after a recording last night, my capactiy was at 2% & the HR20 would not record any more. Gues we'll have to wait for firmware upgrades to utilize monster eSATA capacity. It still seems odd that a larger internal disk will continue to record and the external one will not.


regards, billb....

[Cyrus]

I have some directv contacts so I will try to ask them about this. My understading is that the size of the disk (external or internal) is detected at startup and it's formated accordingly. But maybe the part of the software that's managing the recordings is not using that information yet.


It still seems odd that a larger internal disk will continue to record and the external one will not.

Very odd. Based on the information that I have there should be no difference.

[flipper2006]

In the next day or so i should also "run out of space" on the 750g. Currently I have about 25 1 to 2 hour programs all recorded from mpeg4. I am down to 31% space (or so it says). I think there is a bug. Either it only formatted 300 megs and didnt bother using the rest of the drive (which would totally defeat the purpose). I should find out today with a bunch of football games scheduled and a Heroes marathon on sunday night. It should but it over the limit.


Earl, Did you get to find out anything from any of your sources if this is a bug that forced the format to only 300g or something else.

[Earl Bonovich]

Earl, Did you get to find out anything from any of your sources if this is a bug that forced the format to only 300g or something else.

No, being that it is the weekend... and they busted their humps (long late nights) to get 0xE3... I think most of the team is out of the office this weekend.

[P Smith]

flipper, connect the disk to PC and using Windows with ext2 viewer or simpliest way - Linux PC and tell us what partitions created there

[flipper2006]

flipper, connect the disk to PC and using Windows with ext2 viewer or simpliest way - Linux PC and tell us what partitions created there

2 Issues with that request. 1) I dont know much about Linux, so when you say ext2 viewer, what is that?? and 2) I dont have an external Serial ATA port on any of the machines so that would require opening up the unit and opening a machine just to plug it in. The second request I should be able to do but i cant do it this weekend. I just wish they would add some type of screen in the software to show whats there. Tell me when to do with the linux as far as viewing the partition though.

[P Smith]

be sure your Linux PC discoverd the disk - look for BIOS info
after boot Linux, type df or fdisk -l and c&p results here with 'code' tag
check the post and whole thread Gothcaa (http://dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=648473&postcount=98)

[flipper2006]

be sure your Linux PC discoverd the disk - look for BIOS info
after boot Linux, type df or fdisk -l and c&p results here with 'code' tag
check the post and whole thread Gothcaa (http://dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=648473&postcount=98)

It your referring to me, I dont have Linux on any PC.

[P Smith]

Read Gothcaa thread, man. Ok,cool... DL Knopix or Ubuntu ISO, burn CD and boot from it when the 750 GB disc connected.
Look at that thread - you'll find how-to. This post: http://dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=646914&postcount=79 for you ;).
Found other tool:
explore2fs, the Linux file system utility for Windows NT
Copyright (C) 2000 John Newbigin

[grendal_fly]

Got my THEACUS N2050 raid enclosure yesterday. I had two 500gb WD drive installed and running in about 10 minutes. For around $150 the is a great two drive enclosure for RAID 0 or 1. Not only that is looks great and the power lights for the system and each hard drive are the same blue as the HR20 ( I will post pics tomorrow). Hooked it up to my HR 20 and it formated in about 5 minutes. I am currently recording HD with only Mpeg2 to try to fill it up as fast as possbile. I should know sometime Late Monday night/ Tuesday morning if the system is using more than 300gb on this eSata array. The enclosure came with a PCI eSata card so once my HR20 Stops recording I plan on taking a look at the file system as well.
I will keep everyone updated.

[LarryInAz]

Got my THEACUS N2050 raid enclosure yesterday....

Just wanting to verify, is this the enclosure (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822102002) you got?
Also just a tip to be very careful about the spelling Thecus not Theacus, it helps others when searching for certain words in the forum. :sure:
Thanks for the lead on the Thecus and do keep us up to date on how well the enclosure works and the hard drive "bug" issue.

[grendal_fly]

Just wanting to verify, is "newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822102002" you got?
Also just a tip to be very careful about the spelling Thecus not Theacus, it helps others when searching for certain words in the forum. :sure:
Thanks for the lead on the Thecus and do keep us up to date on how well the enclosure works and the hard drive "bug" issue.

Yes that is the one, and I did get it from NewEgg.

[HDNut]

Fry's Electronics is having a sale of the Maxtor 500-GB SATA drive this weekend for $169.99. The limit is 4 units per person. I wonder how many they have already solt?

[HDNut]

Many single-drive enclosures for eSATA are described on the web as having a limit of 400 GB. Is it true? I want to use a 500-GB drive in one of thouse and was wondering what single-drive enclosure to get.

[grate88]

I would hold off until we find out why bigger drives are not supported by the hr-20 esata port yet.

[HDNut]

I would hold off until we find out why bigger drives are not supported by the hr-20 esata port yet.

I think you are quite right about that. I will take your advice and wait. Thanks for posting a reply.

[flipper2006]

I think you are quite right about that. I will take your advice and wait. Thanks for posting a reply.

Ok, im outa of space on my 750, Obviously now, there is a problem with the firmware. It's only seeing 300g (or less with the overhead).

I hope this gets resolved soon!

[hasan]

Ok, im outa of space on my 750, Obviously now, there is a problem with the firmware. It's only seeing 300g (or less with the overhead).

I hope this gets resolved soon!

This was entirely predictable. Didn't anyone go through the bios update problems based on HD size on their computers? Sheesh!

The eSATA was released to play with, no support, no changes, no nuthin' until much later. They told us this when we were informed of the eSATA minimal functionality. Why is ANYONE surprised that they didn't have dynamic formatting size already functional?

It's there to experiment with, folks and discovering that it won't format larger than the original internal drive is one thing (a good thing), complaining about it and expecting them to resolve it soon is pure folly. They said they WEREN'T going to work on it for quite some time...get it?

[Earl Bonovich]

This was entirely predictable. Didn't anyone go through the bios update problems based on HD size on their computers? Sheesh!

The eSATA was released to play with, no support, no changes, no nuthin' until much later. They told us this when we were informed of the eSATA minimal functionality. Why is ANYONE surprised that they didn't have dynamic formatting size already functional?

It's there to experiment with, folks and discovering that it won't format larger than the original internal drive is one thing (a good thing), complaining about it and expecting them to resolve it soon is pure folly. They said they WEREN'T going to work on it for quite some time...get it?


That is not fair.

As what is the point of having the eSATA enabled if it gives you ZERO benefit over the internal.

I have forwarded on your concerns to DirecTV and they are looking into it.

[grendal_fly]

This was entirely predictable. Didn't anyone go through the bios update problems based on HD size on their computers? Sheesh!

The eSATA was released to play with, no support, no changes, no nuthin' until much later. They told us this when we were informed of the eSATA minimal functionality. Why is ANYONE surprised that they didn't have dynamic formatting size already functional?

?

I think people are suprised that the eSATA port is being handled differently than the internal port. My suprise is based on other tread on replacing the internal drive with a larger HD which was formatted to take advantage of the entire drive. This means that the support for dynamic formatting exisits in the unit today, but not for the eSATA port.

[grate88]

This was entirely predictable. Didn't anyone go through the bios update problems based on HD size on their computers? Sheesh!

The eSATA was released to play with, no support, no changes, no nuthin' until much later. They told us this when we were informed of the eSATA minimal functionality. Why is ANYONE surprised that they didn't have dynamic formatting size already functional?

It's there to experiment with, folks and discovering that it won't format larger than the original internal drive is one thing (a good thing), complaining about it and expecting them to resolve it soon is pure folly. They said they WEREN'T going to work on it for quite some time...get it?

Isn't the whole point of enabling it so that you could use a larger drive. If it was a lateral move, why make it at all, unless your internal stopped working.

edit-Earl basically posted the same thing while I was tying. I wasn't purposely being a parrot.

[matto]

I think people are suprised that the eSATA port is being handled differently than the internal port. My suprise is based on other tread on replacing the internal drive with a larger HD which was formatted to take advantage of the entire drive. This means that the support for dynamic formatting exisits in the unit today, but not for the eSATA port.

i havent seen anyone definitively state that more drive space on the internal is actually recognized either.

[P Smith]

i havent seen anyone definitively state that more drive space on the internal is actually recognized either.

Well, if you did read Gotchaa's thread, you should know the answer.
If not, take a look here (http://dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=647760&postcount=84)

[matto]

i stand corrected.

i really should stop underestimating the idiocy of the hr20's dev team.

[grendal_fly]

I can also now confirm that my 1Tb RAID running off the eSATA port stopped recording with about 35 hours of Mpeg 2 content. :(

[bbroach]

i stand corrected.

i really should stop underestimating the idiocy of the hr20's dev team.

It's easy to criticize when you aren't the one who has to do the work. :ramblinon
I think the programers on the project are doing a good job of steadily working through the bugs.

My 1TB Raid will still be there when the firmware is rewritten to use internal & external drives; then I will have 1.3TB, a 6x improvement in capacity after D* take their 100 Gig byte. No big deal - I would rather have the OTA tuners and dual buffers fixed first.


just my 2cents....billb....

[flipper2006]

That is not fair.

As what is the point of having the eSATA enabled if it gives you ZERO benefit over the internal.

I have forwarded on your concerns to DirecTV and they are looking into it.

Yes, please see what you can do. Even you Earl originaly (if i remember correctly) said that drive will format to whatever the capacity is. I wouldnt have bothered with it if i knew there was nothing to gain (othen then the lower sound level) from the original drive. I knew last week when i installed and after 3 shows I was below 90%, it should have been maybe 95 or more at that time since I'm more then doubling the size.

With all the other issues, if they could fix this, it would help

THANKS!!!

[P Smith]

"said that drive will format to whatever the capacity is" - this statement still not dismissed, because no one of mad scientists :) did post that info about partitions. We need to know partiton's size and how much free blocks/MB/GB left.

[grate88]

Earl. Are you hearing anything from the powers that be about this? Thanks.

[Earl Bonovich]

Earl. Are you hearing anything from the powers that be about this? Thanks.

Funny you should ask... I did just get a PM from a contact.

And it is as we have seen, for what ever reason.

The Drives are formatting correctly... and format to the full usage space of the drive. However, the "free space" monitor, is not detecting the true free space of the drive.

So the other piece of software are seeing the drive as full, when it is really not.

I don't know (And I doubt) this will be fixed in the next release (as it has already entered the testing phase).

But it should be fixed soon, as this is definently one feature they want working, even if it is an unofficial one.

[grate88]

Funny you should ask... I did just get a PM from a contact.

And it is as we have seen, for what ever reason.

The Drives are formatting correctly... and format to the full usage space of the drive. However, the "free space" monitor, is not detecting the true free space of the drive.

So the other piece of software are seeing the drive as full, when it is really not.

I don't know (And I doubt) this will be fixed in the next release (as it has already entered the testing phase).

But it should be fixed soon, as this is definently one feature they want working, even if it is an unofficial one.

Great to hear! I will keep my external drive standing by until we get the go ahead.- And thank you for all you bring to this site - It's a great forum!

[DVRaholic]

Glad to hear this earl :)
Hopefully it will be fixed soon
Thanks for all Info you give us

[DCSholtis]

Ok time for a dumb question...my apologies ahead of time. IF you use an external eSATA drive to you need an enclosure?? What is it used for?? Benefits of? Again sorry for the dumb question. Thanks.

[P Smith]

If you will folow URL what ppl posted here about the RAID boxes, you'll find those 10 reasons. :p

[grate88]

Ok time for a dumb question...my apologies ahead of time. IF you use an external eSATA drive to you need an enclosure?? What is it used for?? Benefits of? Again sorry for the dumb question. Thanks.

An enclosure is only if you have a sata drive that is used internally on a computer. The enclosure makes it an Esata drive (the e stands for external) If you buy an esata drive it will already be in an enclosure,

It is used to add more recording space on your dvr - your hr20 has a 300mb drive - so if you say buy a 500mb you will almost double your space for recordings (yes I know the math looks wrong but you do get twice as much after dtv takes their cut of the drive)

[AlbertZeroK]

not to mention someone has to come off the budget for a big sata drive in the lab. I'm sure that'll take a couple weeks of requests and reasoning with management.

[DCSholtis]

Thanks I understood the part about what the drive does just wasnt sure if an enclosure was necessary as I would just use it for the DVR and not inside a computer.

[flipper2006]

Funny you should ask... I did just get a PM from a contact.

And it is as we have seen, for what ever reason.

The Drives are formatting correctly... and format to the full usage space of the drive. However, the "free space" monitor, is not detecting the true free space of the drive.

So the other piece of software are seeing the drive as full, when it is really not.

I don't know (And I doubt) this will be fixed in the next release (as it has already entered the testing phase).

But it should be fixed soon, as this is definently one feature they want working, even if it is an unofficial one.


Great, this is good to hear they have it on 'the list!' They should just remove the hook in the software that says if ESATA and drive full, ignore space and allow to keep recording.

[flipper2006]

Many single-drive enclosures for eSATA are described on the web as having a limit of 400 GB. Is it true? I want to use a 500-GB drive in one of thouse and was wondering what single-drive enclosure to get.

I did not think there was a limit for eSATA drive enclosures since it's different from the logic used for USB drives. I didnt ever remember seeing any box for ESATA enclosure showing there was any limit.

[grendal_fly]

I did not think there was a limit for eSATA drive enclosures since it's different from the logic used for USB drives. I didnt ever remember seeing any box for ESATA enclosure showing there was any limit.

Since 500gb and the 750gb are recent developments, IHMO they listed the largest drives they tested thier enclosure with to limit liability.

[F1Fan]

I was ready to shell out some $$$ to get an external SATA, until I find out about the issue. I'll wait then.

[HDNut]

I did not think there was a limit for eSATA drive enclosures since it's different from the logic used for USB drives. I didnt ever remember seeing any box for ESATA enclosure showing there was any limit.

Thanks for posting a reply, flipper. I wanted to take advantage of the Fry's sale for a Maxtor 500-GB SATA drive this past weekend, and, when I searched for an enclosure, all those that I found had the limit indicated like this: "can be used with drives of up to 400 GB". I concluded from this statement that there was a size limitation of 400 GB.

[HDNut]

Since 500gb and the 750gb are recent developments, IHMO they listed the largest drives they tested thier enclosure with to limit liability.

I think you are absolutely right! I had a SATA enclosure I got from www.directron.com almost two years ago and I used that one for the 500-GB drive. Guess what? It works flawlessly when connected to my home-theatre PC. Now I am waiting for the good news that the HR20 will one day allow us to utilize capacities in excess of 300 GB.

[rfoley2]

I just bought 2 500 GB drives and an enclosure. I set the RAID to zero. I hooked it up an hour ago, and the blue lights on the front of the HR20 are just spinning around. Blank screen with no message. I assume the drives are in the process of being formated???? Anyone have an idea how long this will take? I figured it would only take a couple of minutes.

[LarryInAz]

I just bought 2 500 GB drives and an enclosure. I set the RAID to zero. I hooked it up an hour ago, and the blue lights on the front of the HR20 are just spinning around. Blank screen with no message. I assume the drives are in the process of being formated???? Anyone have an idea how long this will take? I figured it would only take a couple of minutes.

Before you plugged the drive into the eSata port did you unplug the HR20?

[rfoley2]

Before you plugged the drive into the eSata port did you unplug the HR20?

I did unplug the hr20, then I plugged in the ESATA cable, turned on the power on the enclosure, and then plugged in the hr20. The lights have been spinning ever since. Should I unplug it and start again?

[LarryInAz]

I did unplug the hr20, then I plugged in the ESATA cable, turned on the power on the enclosure, and then plugged in the hr20. The lights have been spinning ever since. Should I unplug it and start again?

Sounds like you did it right from what I've read here.
I'd suggest to double check that both of the sata drives are plugged in to their sata connector AND their power connector properly and then try it again. If that still does not work you might want to try one drive at a time in case one of your drives is bad.

Good luck!

[Earl Bonovich]

I just bought 2 500 GB drives and an enclosure. I set the RAID to zero. I hooked it up an hour ago, and the blue lights on the front of the HR20 are just spinning around. Blank screen with no message. I assume the drives are in the process of being formated???? Anyone have an idea how long this will take? I figured it would only take a couple of minutes.

What kind of enclosure did you purchase?

[rfoley2]

A Sans Digital 2 drive enclosure. I put two 500 GB western Digital drives in it

[Earl Bonovich]

A Sans Digital 2 drive enclosure. I put two 500 GB western Digital drives in it

How long has it been trying to format?

[grate88]

Okay - This is what happened to me as well. After an hour of watching it spin I hit the red reset button and it powered right up.

Then I had the issue of not using the whole drive and thought that perhaps I didn't let if format all the way.

I hooked the esata drive to my pc and used disk manager to see that the drive was partitioned properly (3 partitions on a 500gb drive - 1 a few gigs the second about 60gigs and a third about 420 gigs) so it did format properly.

I then erased the drive and tried again and the same things - spinny blue lights til the cows come home - Reset-boom starts right up.

Now we now that the hr20 isnt allowing the whole drive - so my scientific deduction here is that the spinny blue lights is not the formatting just the machine locking up on the first attempt to use the new drive.

So reset and you should be good to go.

[rfoley2]

It has been trying for an hour and a half

[grate88]

It has been trying for an hour and a half

Hit reset and watch the magic

[rfoley2]

OK - I just tried the red reset button. Now it isn't doing anything. Do I need to hit the power button, or will it cylcle on by itself

[grate88]

OK - I just tried the red reset button. Now it isn't doing anything. Do I need to hit the power button, or will it cylcle on by itself

Give it about 5 minutes to boot up. You can try pushing the power button on the hr20 in a few minutes if it's not lit.

[rfoley2]

Wow - think it worked. My TV came on and the lights on the new hard drive are flashing. There are no shows in My VOD, so i guess it is using the new drives. Since we know that the whole drive is not currently being used, will I need to re-format it once they enhance the capabilities so I can use the whole drive or will it just start working with the whole drive?

[grate88]

Good news!

[grate88]

Wow - think it worked. My TV came on and the lights on the new hard drive are flashing. There are no shows in My VOD, so i guess it is using the new drives. Since we know that the whole drive is not currently being used, will I need to re-format it once they enhance the capabilities so I can use the whole drive or will it just start working with the whole drive?

I don't think any of us will know that until it's fixed. It will reboot itself after the update, so that might get it all on track without us having to do anything.

I'm waiting for the update before I set the esata back up.

[rfoley2]

If I disconnect it now, will it go bacvk to the internal drive and still show the recordings I have on that drive? Is there any downside to switching back and forth?

[grate88]

If I disconnect it now, will it go bacvk to the internal drive and still show the recordings I have on that drive? Is there any downside to switching back and forth?

Just the 5-10 minute wait to re-boot - Other than that all should revert to the internal and whatever you had recorded will be intact.

[P Smith]

Other question - how long it took to create RAID-0 by the enclosure ( read by internal controller ) itself ?

[Cyrus]

Since we know that the whole drive is not currently being used, will I need to re-format it once they enhance the capabilities so I can use the whole drive or will it just start working with the whole drive?

You don't need to do anything. The disk has already been formatted correctly, it's the "free space" monitor that incorrectly thinks the disk is full. Once they release the fix the % available number should be fixed. No reformatting is needed and the existing recordings on eSata will remain.

[hadji]

I just picked up a esata/usb 2.0 enclosure for $25 which includes all the cables and baracket(sata to esata converter). I want to make sure I get the correct size drive to put in it to use with the HR20. Is the consensus that it has to be 300gb plus?

[harsh]

I just picked up a esata/usb 2.0 enclosure for $25 which includes all the cables and baracket(sata to esata converter). I want to make sure I get the correct size drive to put in it to use with the HR20. Is the consensus that it has to be 300gb plus?Since you are trying to "upgrade", it wouldn't make any sense to buy a drive smaller than the internal drive. Swapping out drives is a very clumsy solution to getting more space.

Know that your enclosure is not RAID, so you'll only be able to use one drive at a time. Know also that it is a wash at this time since no more than 300GB will be used.

[grendal_fly]

Other question - how long it took to create RAID-0 by the enclosure ( read by internal controller ) itself ?

My enclosure took under 3 minutes to build the RAID-0 partion with two 500gb WD drives.

[hadji]

Just another couple of quick questions. The esata drive will become the primary drive. When you unplug the esata and power up the HR20, will the original drive still have all information saved? Also, when you plug the esata drive back in, will that also have the data retained? Basically I want to load up the esata drive with recordings and then revert back to the original HD while having the option of swapping between the two when I want.

[Earl Bonovich]

Just another couple of quick questions. The esata drive will become the primary drive. When you unplug the esata and power up the HR20, will the original drive still have all information saved? Also, when you plug the esata drive back in, will that also have the data retained? Basically I want to load up the esata drive with recordings and then revert back to the original HD while having the option of swapping between the two when I want.

Basically think of it as TWO HR20's..

eSATA is HR20 one
Internal is HR20 is the other.

The only problem is that you have to very cautious with that.
If there is a software release... you could get to a point where the software release goes through and updates something with the hard drive structure...

So if that udate does occur... just one of those drives will get updated

[grate88]

Basically think of it as TWO HR20's..

eSATA is HR20 one
Internal is HR20 is the other.

The only problem is that you have to very cautious with that.
If there is a software release... you could get to a point where the software release goes through and updates something with the hard drive structure...

So if that udate does occur... just one of those drives will get updated

Wouldn't you be able to force the update on the unused drive when you plug it back in?

[Earl Bonovich]

Wouldn't you be able to force the update on the unused drive when you plug it back in?

But since the OS is on a Chip on the system, and not the hard drive.

If part of the upgrade does something to the hard drive, unless a re-download runs the same process..... (Which i don't know if it does or doesn't)
....

[grate88]

But since the OS is on a Chip on the system, and not the hard drive.

If part of the upgrade does something to the hard drive, unless a re-download runs the same process..... (Which i don't know if it does or doesn't)
....

Well find out then, would ya? :D

[hadji]

So to be safe, record only as needed to esata and then swap. They really should try to give advanced warning before doing updates. That, afterall, would be a great use of the "message" feature that they so kindly have. Let's say 48 hrs. beforehand. That would give sufficient notice not only in this case, but also those that have recordings lined up during that time etc... Seems like it would be easy enough to do and could be sent out to everyone who owns the HR20 at the same time.

[flipper2006]

But since the OS is on a Chip on the system, and not the hard drive.

If part of the upgrade does something to the hard drive, unless a re-download runs the same process..... (Which i don't know if it does or doesn't)
....

Earl,

Any news on if the next update will have a fix for the space available bug? So we can take advantage of the 'more then 300g' drive's space.

[Earl Bonovich]

Earl,

Any news on if the next update will have a fix for the space available bug? So we can take advantage of the 'more then 300g' drive's space.

I know they have the fix...but I don't know if it is going to make into the next build. I won't know for certain until I see the release notes.

[flipper2006]

I know they have the fix...but I don't know if it is going to make into the next build. I won't know for certain until I see the release notes.

Good to hear that it's close, if nothing else. Do you see the release notes before its 'up'?

[Earl Bonovich]

Good to hear that it's close, if nothing else. Do you see the release notes before its 'up'?

I usually get the release notes about a day or two before the software release starts to roll out.

Also, I got a PM.

What I said before about the drives possible getting out of sync if there is an update to the system..... that isn't so. The system will update the drive if it detects that it needs to be updated.

So other then then the rebooting and the repopulating of the guide (ect).. .there is nothing really stoping you from using multiple eSATAs

[grate88]

I usually get the release notes about a day or two before the software release starts to roll out.

Also, I got a PM.

What I said before about the drives possible getting out of sync if there is an update to the system..... that isn't so. The system will update the drive if it detects that it needs to be updated.

So other then then the rebooting and the repopulating of the guide (ect).. .there is nothing really stoping you from using multiple eSATAs

Good to hear. Thanks again for all you bring to the table Earl! Much appreciated.

[flipper2006]

I usually get the release notes about a day or two before the software release starts to roll out.

Also, I got a PM.

What I said before about the drives possible getting out of sync if there is an update to the system..... that isn't so. The system will update the drive if it detects that it needs to be updated.

So other then then the rebooting and the repopulating of the guide (ect).. .there is nothing really stoping you from using multiple eSATAs

Ok Got it,

Earl, i posted something a few days ago but i dont think you saw it in a different thread. I was wondering if they can make a routine that when the unit is powered off that it could essentially do the same thing as tuning to a non used channel so hard drive sleeps (is quiet) during that time (of course, if it needs to record it will go to the correct channel etc. ). Is something possible? I would think it would be less wear and tear on the drive too since its only going when it needs to be.. You mentioned it needs to update the guides and stuff but as I said a few weeks ago, i just choose a non working station and power off and drive is quiet.. I just want this to happen automatically.. you know what i mean?

[Earl Bonovich]

Ok Got it,

Earl, i posted something a few days ago but i dont think you saw it in a different thread. I was wondering if they can make a routine that when the unit is powered off that it could essentially do the same thing as tuning to a non used channel so hard drive sleeps (is quiet) during that time (of course, if it needs to record it will go to the correct channel etc. ). Is something possible? I would think it would be less wear and tear on the drive too since its only going when it needs to be.. You mentioned it needs to update the guides and stuff but as I said a few weeks ago, i just choose a non working station and power off and drive is quiet.. I just want this to happen automatically.. you know what i mean?

I know what you mean...
I don't know of any plans to do that or not.
Or if it is possible with this current "edition" of the drive.

[hadji]

Just wanted to give a heads up to the early esata testers out there. Amazon.com has the Seagate ST3400633AS-RK 400GB Barracuda 7200 Serial ATA Internal Hard Drive selling in their marketplace for $114 plus a modest $6 shipping. Very nice price for this size and SATA. Just scroll down to see the sellers listed.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000F8L4S4/ref=dp_olp_2/002-9082121-5336043

[Cyrus]

The new update that just came (0xEB) is supposed to have a fix for the current 300GB limit on eSATA. Hopefully the dudes with eSATA will try it out and let us know if it works. I have been holding out on buying eSATA until this is fixed.

[grate88]

I will be hooking it back up this AM - will keep you posted.

[blucas95]

The new update that just came (0xEB) is supposed to have a fix for the current 300GB limit on eSATA. Hopefully the dudes with eSATA will try it out and let us know if it works. I have been holding out on buying eSATA until this is fixed.

Yes! Yes! Someone with one of the eSATA units bigger than 300GB PLEASE (:) ) check to make sure it is using more than 300GB now. I've got two 500GB drives and a RAID enclosure in my shopping basket at newegg.com right now and my mouse finger is starting to twitch in anticipation!!! :D :D :D

[grendal_fly]

I have not yet received the update, but as soon as I do we should find out since I am showing 50% available on VOD and if the update works this should go up to 90+% as I never disconnected my RAID array.

[Cyrus]

I have not yet received the update, but as soon as I do we should find out since I am showing 50% available on VOD and if the update works this should go up to 90+% as I never disconnected my RAID array.

The new update has this "improved accuracy of hard drive usage indicator" fix which seems to reduce the number for those with internal drives by around 10%. So the % number may not go as high as you expect but it still should go up significantly.

[grendal_fly]

The new update has this "improved accuracy of hard drive usage indicator" fix which seems to reduce the number for those with internal drives by around 10%. So the % number may not go as high as you expect but it still should go up significantly.
So if after the update and I had still was using my internal drive then it would be showing around 40% available. Based on current estimate in this and the other tread on drive usage that would mean that I probably have about 100-125 GB of used space ( 300gb less 50-100 reserved for D* showcases etc.) If after the update this is the case and the reserved space stays the same,
It should show that I have about 775-825gb of free space on my array. So probably not 90%+, but close to 86%. Either way the amount of space I have available will have gone up between 3.8 and 4.5 times what I currently have.

[Cyrus]

Based on the info posted in the 0xEB discussion thread (link (http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=715667&postcount=70)), the problem with eSATA is indeed fixed in the new release.

[rod456]

Without reading through all the post, does this feature increase recording on the HR20? That is the main reason why I have not upgraded from my current HR10-250 with increased drive size from weakness.com.

Thanks,

Rod

[Earl Bonovich]

Yes. The is the sole purpose of the eSATA port.
So you can add as large as a disk as you can find (could be RAID).
And just connect it to the back.

No software, No opening up the unit...
Some people have already got a 1TB and possible larger running on their HR20s

[jbart1965]

After sifting thru this entire thread, I wish for one thing. That someday, someone or someplace (Weaknees?) will sell an all-in-one SATA or ESATA drive/box that is easy to connect for anyone who wants to boost the capacity to record.

I've built one of my computers myself with purchased parts, but I still desire a very simple solution even if I have to pay a bit more than I like. Nice to see DirecTV is willing to enable this feature, but at some point it has to become easier for users to take advantage of it.

[rod456]

After sifting thru this entire thread, I wish for one thing. That someday, someone or someplace (Weaknees?) will sell an all-in-one SATA or ESATA drive/box that is easy to connect for anyone who wants to boost the capacity to record.

I've built one of my computers myself with purchased parts, but I still desire a very simple solution even if I have to pay a bit more than I like. Nice to see DirecTV is willing to enable this feature, but at some point it has to become easier for users to take advantage of it.

AGREE!

[Earl Bonovich]

After sifting thru this entire thread, I wish for one thing. That someday, someone or someplace (Weaknees?) will sell an all-in-one SATA or ESATA drive/box that is easy to connect for anyone who wants to boost the capacity to record.

I've built one of my computers myself with purchased parts, but I still desire a very simple solution even if I have to pay a bit more than I like. Nice to see DirecTV is willing to enable this feature, but at some point it has to become easier for users to take advantage of it.

AGREE!


Actually.... They are sold...
http://www.buy.com/prod/Seagate_500GB_eSATA_7200rpm_300MBps_Serial_ATA_300 _External_Hard_Drive/q/loc/101/202636811.html

There is nothing special to it.

I do know there are people working on 750gb versions, 1TB, 1.5TB, and even 3TB versions....

The eSATA solution is as simple as:
Unplug the HR20
Connect the eSATA Drive, power it up
Plug the HR20 back in.

[thumperr]

Part of the issue for simplicity is that eSATA is relatively new for external storage. eSATA has not been around as long as USB and Firewire. You can purchase a seagate 500GB eSATA drive that would be plug and play for you. i believe circuit city carries them.

Past that your kind of on your own to purchase a case and make sure everything works. The difference between SATA-I and SATA-II specs, and the differnces between internal SATA and eSATA, it can get confusing as what you are purchasing. A lot of the online web sites confuse the specifications also making it more difficult.

this was a good read.
http://www.sata-io.org/esata.asp

hopefully seagate releases an eSATA version of their internal SATA 750GB drive.

[jbart1965]

The more I read this thread, Earl, the more daunting it seemed. Now that you've explained it, sounds exceedingly simple. I still plan to wait until more users have done it and reported on their experiences, but now I know I can do it easily enough.

The only thing I dont really get is why the storage space in the an Esata drive would not be fully used, but I wont confuse myself over that. If I buy a big enough hard drive, I'll get plenty of additional capacity even if I dont know all the ins and outs.

[litzdog911]

...
The only thing I dont really get is why the storage space in the an Esata drive would not be fully used, but I wont confuse myself over that. If I buy a big enough hard drive, I'll get plenty of additional capacity even if I dont know all the ins and outs.

It's just because DirecTV wants to "reserve" a portion of the drive space for "Showcases" and future "Video on Demand" downloads.

[Earl Bonovich]

The only thing I dont really get is why the storage space in the an Esata drive would not be fully used, but I wont confuse myself over that. If I buy a big enough hard drive, I'll get plenty of additional capacity even if I dont know all the ins and outs.

And there was a bug in the software uptil the 0xEB release.

[yamaham]

All the eSATA enclosures you could want
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010090092&Submit=ENE&Subcategory=92&Description=esata&Ntk=all

[remlle]

ggo to http://www.pc-pitstop.com he will build the esata cage the way you want so all you have to do is connect it in.
he also has some amazing esata enclosures and good prices on drives.

Edit--- link to enclosures http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_enclosures/

[grate88]

Simple guide for esata -

Make sure your cable from the enclosure is not the L-type sata cable.

Unplug hr20

Plug in esata (I have mine set to 150 mb not 300 - got freezing with 300)

power esata drive

plug in hr20

You will see the red record light and some other lights - when the blue circle starts spinning (It will spin and never stop - don't be fooled into thinking this is the format of the drive)

After a few seconds of spinny blue lights hit the red reset button - Do nothing for at least five minutes. you will see a faint blue light on the power on for a bit then nothing. you may see a flicker of light on the resolution - then nothing.

After about five-seven minutes you can hit the power button and you will see the guide loading screeen.

Then you are good to go.

[gormly]

ggo to ... he will build the esata cage the way you want so all you have to do is connect it in.
he also has some amazing esata enclosures and good prices on drives.


Perhaps I am missing something here? :eek2:

I am not really sure why you guys would send anyone to places like this.. the items on the page for sale are just external storage cages.. anymore than one drive will be ignored as these external "cages" do not do internal raid.

This and other cages like them are a waste of money for the purpose of this thread

Get a single all in one enclosure or a raid based stand alone.
NOT a cage system like this.

if I am wrong enlighten me please. :)

[P Smith]

Part of the issue for simplicity is that eSATA is relatively new for external storage. eSATA has not been around as long as USB and Firewire. You can purchase a seagate 500GB eSATA drive that would be plug and play for you. i believe circuit city carries them.

Past that your kind of on your own to purchase a case and make sure everything works. The difference between SATA-I and SATA-II specs, and the differences between internal SATA and eSATA, it can get confusing as what you are purchasing. A lot of the online web sites confuse the specifications also making it more difficult.

this was a good read.
http://www.sata-io.org/esata.asp

hopefully seagate releases an eSATA version of their internal SATA 750GB drive.

If you did read that page and papers you missed a key - eSATA is a connection standard, not an interface. Seagate don't need to change theyr disks.
You are waiting for eSATA enclosures and eSATA connectors on your PC or DVR - HR20 have it already, not sure about compliance - is there a eSATA logo on its back ?

[Dusty]

I scanned through the thread and didn't see this question answered. Hopefully, I didn't overlook anything.

My understanding is if I connect to an external eSATA, the internal one becomes unused. Would the unused internal drive continue to spin and make noises? Mine is very noisy. I wonder if this can be a way to shut that internal drive up.

[Earl Bonovich]

It still spins as it is powered, but since there is no read/write activity, you shouldn't be hearing it.

[Dusty]

It still spins as it is powered, but since there is no read/write activity, you shouldn't be hearing it.

Thanks for the quick answer! The noise in our quiet bed room is my wife's biggest complaint. The next question is which external SATA drive is quieter.

[mndwalsh]

Thanks for the quick answer! The noise in our quiet bed room is my wife's biggest complaint. The next question is which external SATA drive is quieter.

that is that is my only major complaint on the HR20 is the noise of the drive, since it is RF I may hide it behind my tv (yes there is plenty of open air space).

[grate88]

Just to follow up - I am now getting approx 60 hours of mpeg2 hd with a 500gb esata.

And - Yes It is a great solution to the noisy drive issue - It was the main reason I went esata.

Also - when you unplug it, all of your original setting on the internal drive do remain intact.

[Dusty]

Just to follow up - I am now getting approx 60 hours of mpeg2 hd with a 500gb esata.

And - Yes It is a great solution to the noisy drive issue - It was the main reason I went esata.

Also - when you unplug it, all of your original setting on the internal drive do remain intact.

Which external drive did you go with? Or are you saying anyone is better than the internal drive we all have?

[grate88]

Which external drive did you go with? Or are you saying anyone is better than the internal drive we all have?

I used a maxtor 500gb sata drive with a venus enlosure (which has a fan for cooling) my orginal enclosure w/o fan got too hot.

My internal drive was so noisy that a helicoptor would be quieter, so any esata helped me. But this drive and enclosure is very quiet - I don't even hear the fan.

[P Smith]

EARL, about compliance - is there a eSATA logo on HR20's rear ?

[Earl Bonovich]

EARL, about compliance - is there a eSATA logo on HR20's rear ?

I didn't see one. and the shipping boxes are up in the attic

[remlle]

hhow much recording time did you gain with the 500 gig drive?

[grate88]

hhow much recording time did you gain with the 500 gig drive?

it doubles the capacity

the internal is 300 -- subtract 100 for VOD and you get 200mb to record
the 500 esata - subtract 100 for VOD and you get 400mb to record

[P Smith]

I didn't see one. and the shipping boxes are up in the attic
Then if you'll follow those guidelines from sata-io.org page, are they all requirements full-fitted ? Connector type, shielding, locking, etc ?

[Earl Bonovich]

Then if you'll follow those guidelines from sata-io.org page, are they all requirements full-fitted ? Connector type, shielding, locking, etc ?

I have no idea..... didn't investigate it that much.

[P Smith]

Then the missed logo telling me DTV did cut corners and didn't get official eSATA certification for the HR20. :(

[LoganDzwon]

I have 4 unused 250gig sata drives. Do they make any enclosures that'll let me use them as one big drive for the HR20?

[btmoore]

I have 4 unused 250gig sata drives. Do they make any enclosures that'll let me use them as one big drive for the HR20?

Yes, you need one that supports 4 drives and supports raid 0 or jbod. RAID 0 has a performance advantage on reads so it would likely be the better choice.

[P Smith]

This is not a SCSI or dual channels IDE RAID controller, you can't connect multiple ports SATA config to HR20; we discuss it before in the thread - take a look and pay attention to that requirement.
So far only one type of external 'smart' enclosure what support TWO disks in RAID-0 ( not sure about JBOD mode ) works for HR20.

[bbroach]

I got the opportunity to gauge the capacity of HR20 #1 (with 1TB eSATA RAID), post 00EB, last night:


Deleted 5hrs of MP2, gained 4% disk free space => 1TB (minus D* portion) = ~ 125hrs MP2; roughly consistent with [(1000GB - 100GB)/200] * 30hr = 135hr

Recorded 2hrs of MP4, disk space diminished 1% => 1TB (minus D* portion) = ~ 200hrs MP4; roughly consistent with [(1000GB - 100GB)/200] * 50hr = 225hr

I'm betting that adding/subtracting something close to 10% would give more accurate numbers, but these estimates are precise enough to be very encouraging.

regards, billb....

[taw123]

Anyone done it yet? Thinking a 4 bay enclosure with 1 hot spare would be a good solution and drives are cheap. So far as I know there is no size limitation. Anyone done raid 5 or or know a solution that would work with the HR20? Willing to test a bit in a couple weeks when I get some time.

Thanks.

[P Smith]

If you can tell us what is this enclosure ? What it required from HOST ie HR20 side ? Multiple ports support ?

[bbroach]

Anyone done it yet? Thinking a 4 bay enclosure with 1 hot spare would be a good solution and drives are cheap. So far as I know there is no size limitation. Anyone done raid 5 or or know a solution that would work with the HR20? Willing to test a bit in a couple weeks when I get some time.

Thanks.

Her is a five bay; not cheap, though....

http://www.nitroav.com/product/400/


regards, billb....

[bbroach]

If you can tell us what is this enclosure ? What it required from HOST ie HR20 side ? Multiple ports support ?

This is the setup I bought:

http://www.nitroav.com/product/438/

and here is the enclosure by itself:

http://www.nitroav.com/product/442/

The RAID requires nothing from the host side - turn everything off, hook up the cable, turn on the drive, boot the DVR. The fan is a little on the noisy side, but, after a month, mine has quieted noticeably.

regards, billb....

[P Smith]

Her is a five bay; not cheap, though....

http://www.nitroav.com/product/400/


regards, billb....
Yeah, $1099 is too high and support only ATA-133 disks.
I feel the device will not work with HR20. Don't ask why, but after many years in the fields, I don't trust manufacturer's words - only after real tests !

[remlle]

IF I add this drive what will happen to the recordings on the original drive will they be carried over to the new drive? or will I lose them.

[Earl Bonovich]

IF I add this drive what will happen to the recordings on the original drive will they be carried over to the new drive? or will I lose them.

They will not be carried over.
They are not "lost", they will still be on your internal drive.

But you won't be able to see or watch them, unless you disconnect the eSATA drive.

[remlle]

ok so If I disconnect the esata drive it will revert back to the old drive and all old videos and what not will still be there on the internal drive

[Earl Bonovich]

ok so If I disconnect the esata drive it will revert back to the old drive and all old videos and what not will still be there on the internal drive


Yes... but you will have to shutdown when conecting and disconnecting the external drive.

[remlle]

got ya. thanks.
so I added a drive. I got a 500gb western digital drive link below

http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_hard_drives/

and a IcyDock fanless Esata enclosure. link below.

http://www.pc-pitstop.com/external_enclosures/mb559us.asp

Everything looks like its working good and functioning. I can see drive activity and the unit does operate quieter. When just watching TV the light blinks a little every now and then. but when rewinding and fast forwarding there is alot of action on the lights. It apears to work nice Ill have to watch it a bit and let the recordings go. I have 2 setup to record tonight so we will see how it handles the recordings.

[rfoley2]

This is probably an extremely dumb question, but I am going to ask anyway. I installed an enclosure with two 500 GB drives in it. My intent was to set it to RAID 0. After receiving the new software over the weekend, I noticed the available space wasn't as high as I thought it should be. I went through the settings on the drive and realized I set the RAID to 1. Can I simply change it to 0? Will I loose everything that is currently recorded?

[remlle]

you will loose it all because the way the data is written is different on a raid 1 versus a raid 0. the system will recalculate and change all that is needed. then when you plug it back into the HR20 it will reinitilize the drive again causeing it to blank all that is in there.

[Neil Derryberry]

Actually it depends on the controller.. some can change from one raid level to another pretty handily. I'm not positive a consumer-grade device will do it but you never know.

[grendal_fly]

This is probably an extremely dumb question, but I am going to ask anyway. I installed an enclosure with two 500 GB drives in it. My intent was to set it to RAID 0. After receiving the new software over the weekend, I noticed the available space wasn't as high as I thought it should be. I went through the settings on the drive and realized I set the RAID to 1. Can I simply change it to 0? Will I loose everything that is currently recorded?

Which enclosure did you get? Mine cannot change RAID levels without reformatting.

[grendal_fly]

As promised I wanted to give everyone an update on my 1TB RAID RAID 0 enclosure. After the update I now show 96% available with about 6 hours of HD and 20 SD in my playlist, So capacity is around 4.5 times the original system.
:D

[vegout]

Seagate has just announced drives specifically for DVR usage:

seagate.com/products/consumer_electronics/db35series.html

[P Smith]

The DB35 serie well known at least this year ;).