Hard Drive Upgrade

[F1Fan]

New to this forum, just signed up with E*, sorry if previously posted. Is it possible to swap the internal hard drive on ViP622 with a bigger one? D*'s HR-20 will take any SATA drive of any size to replace its internal drive. Just curious, 250GB won't go too far I think.

[Rob Glasser]

No, you can not swap out the internal hard drive. However, DISH is working on support for adding a USB Hard Drive. This feature has not been released yet so it's unknown how exactly it is going to work but when it is released it should take care of your concern over the size of the internal drive. Also, I believe it's a 320GB HD in the 622, you get about 30 hours of HD recording with some space reserved for Video on Demand content.

[F1Fan]

Thanks Rob. I hope the external will "add" the capacity, not to "replace," like HR20.

[James Long]

All signs point to "add". I've heard it called "archive" more often than anything else.

[voripteth]

Unfortunately the "archive" functionality that I've heard is where you copy a program from your DVR to the external drive and if you want to watch that program you have to copy it back before you can do so.

With a USB 2.0 interface being fast enough, my preferred connection would be to treat the external drive as an extention of the current drive. The 622 would automatically use the external drive for both recording and playback without any special user intervention. (Well, I can dream can't I?)

[James Long]

As demonstrated at the trade shows it could play from the external hard drive.

The actual released feature is yet to come ... be patient!

[jerrynorton]

No, you can not swap out the internal hard drive.Hi Rob. Is that because of warranty concerns or because it just does not work. If not, why?

I understand that the USB storage upgrade option will be enabled in a future software update, but I'm still curious. I guess there's nothing to stop someone from changing out the drive and reporting the results. Did you base your no response on some insider info, the warranty issue or something else?

[P Smith]

Why ? If you will follow many similar threads here and there you'll find by yourself - Dish resticting certain models for each type of their own DVRs.

[Jim5506]

The partition sizes are coded into software, so a bigger HD gives you nothing.

[jerrynorton]

The partition sizes are coded into software, so a bigger HD gives you nothing.Okay, I understand. I wonder why they have a static partition size? I guess they get to control it. Even if you own your own.

[DonLandis]

From what I understand the beta was over last month and they are waiting to release at CES. I hope this is true. Original delay was some disagreement over how it was to be sold. Nobody seems to know yet if it will require a drive from E* $$$ or if you'll be able to buy your own generic drive and have the 622 with updated software format the drive for use. The original demo did not show the field ability to format a generic drive.
I like everyone else am eagerly awaiting for this to be released.

FYI- By comparison the preformatted drives for the HD TIVO were quite expensive compared to stock drives. I would not be surprised if E* requires you to use their preformatted drives. Seems this would be less support issues for them and simpler, yet more expensive for us.

Philosophy- I won't be considering these E* drives as a way to collect programming. But rather it is a good way to have that extra capacity if you find yourself in need of some extra hours for temporary hold time during a busy good week of programming. I learned when I did DVHS recording of all those 500 movies I collected. I record them and never watched them. Too much new stuff to watch, so collecting everything whether on DVHS, DVD, or hard drives, IMO, is pretty dumb. I think I can make do with about 50-60 hours of HD record time.

I have been successfully using my own 250G hard drive on my 921 ( I own it ) The process to format a drive for the 921 is not simple but if done right, it works. It is correct that the max partition size is restricted to a 250G drive. Actually you have to set up several partitions but you can't record more than 25 hours of HD recording time. Paul may correct me on this but the software restricts record time not partition size. Even if your partition is set to larger capacity, the drive will not store more than the 25 hours of HD recordings. Plus, unlike the HD Tivo, swapping out drives on the 921 is much more time consuming for several reasons I won't get into here.

[ssmith10pn]

How about someone trying it and report back? :D

[tnsprin]

How about someone trying it and report back? :D

Someone did. Apparently it formated it for him, apparently to the original partition sizes. See
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=65633&page=5

[P Smith]

He did exactly same procedure - used approved model:
"Connected an unformatted replacement SATA drive (correct model #)"

Don, we're discuss 622, not 921.

[CABill]

My 942 is probably a lot closer to the 622 than a 921 is, but I didn't actually try it with a 622. I do think the 622 would do the same with a drive matching one of its "approved" model numbers. Having the receiver partition and format is more straight forward than using a Linux boot, but it could also probably be done that way as P Smith mentions. It would have been helpful to at least copy the partition with the Timers. My new drive was from someone else posting about doing it to their 942 at http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=69220

[Hall]

Is that because of warranty concerns or because it just does not work. If not, why? I believe some older DVRs (501, 508) did allow you to swap in a larger HDD, but I'm not positive now. I read about it over at Yahoo!'s Groups...

Why does Dish hard-code the partition information ?? Basically, because they can. Then again, apparently even the DVRs pre-522 were setup for VOD, that is, they have a reserved partition. In that case, Dish has a "boot" partition, "system" partition (OS and related files), "user" partition (where our recordings are stored), and the VOD partition. Now, one could argue "make the 'user' partition the last one on the drive and allow it to be as large as possible" and that's certainly a possibility. But, Dish chose otherwise.

As for the 522, 625, 622, etc, etc, you can buy them outright, but Dish's main intention with these was that they would be leased, not bought. If they're leased, they're not "ours" to tinker with.

[David_Levin]

If they're leased, they're not "ours" to tinker with.

Perhaps...
But, once the box is out or warrenty...

I can still do my own maintanence and repairs on a leased car. Just have to put it back to original condition before returning.

I'll change my story if Dish decides to include maintanence on their leased boxes.

[F1Fan]

Damn.... I usually do a DVR marathon every weekend. The only problem is that some of the programs that was recorded earlier (Mon & Tue) are usually deleted on Friday. I really need a bigger harddrive.

Note: 500GB WB internal SATA only $149.99, BestBuy Jan 7-13 2007.

[Zvi]

And seagate announced 1 terabyte drive meanwhile. With HD recordings my primary interest I think even 1tb isn't that much.

[jerrynorton]

With HD recordings my primary interest I think even 1tb isn't that much.Same with me. My interest in blurry TV went out the minute I saw that it was inferior. 500 or 5000 hours of SD doesn't interest me, but 50 or 75 hours of HD does.

Someday we'll just start calling it TV again.

Thanks everyone for the posts. Keep it coming if anyone discovers the Holy Grail. I'm no Linux programmer, but its about time I learned something useful about Linux. Eliminate or trick the Dish on Demand partition into a one byte mode? Terabyte user partition. That would be useful!