HR20-700 RAID EXTERNAL DRIVES. THIS IS THE ONE.

[ItsMeJTO]

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

Want HUGE external drives, this above link is for you.
A 5 bay, hardware raid-0 (recomended for max storage) or raid-1 mirror for 1/2 the capacity with duplicated data safety (auto rebuild on errors).
Running with 5 Seagate ST3750640as-rk (SATA II) (compusa/bestbuy $319.00) 750GB drives in raid-0 produces a massive 3.75 TerraBytes. Will also work with smaller drives.
now starting to record HD movies as fast as I can, may take a while to see if the HR20-700 can/will address it all.
Setup must be completed via a pc or mac with external E-SATA port so you can choose which raid level before hooking it up to the hr20-700.
So far it seems to support dual recordings and play with no glitches or pixelation.

More info to come later.

[jedster]

What are the acoustics like on that beast? Does it have any sound dampening / anti-vibration properties? If anyone is serious about doing eSATA raids I would strongly recommend using Samsung Spinpoint T 500 (the 166 platter). I have tried several others -- Seagate, Maxtor, WD. Only the WD comes close in terms of noise, but the Samsung seeks are clearly quieter.

If HD idle noise and seeks don't annoy you, then the Seagate would be a good drive (they have excellent performance).

[Cyrus]

ItsMeJTO. are you using the full 3.75TB setup with hr20?

[ItsMeJTO]

ItsMeJTO. are you using the full 3.75TB setup with hr20?

I hope so, still trying to fill it up . pheeeeewww !!! it's gunnah be a while.
Pages and pages of HD recordings and it's only just hit 80% available.
Stay tuned.

[ItsMeJTO]

What are the acoustics like on that beast? Does it have any sound dampening / anti-vibration properties? If anyone is serious about doing eSATA raids I would strongly recommend using Samsung Spinpoint T 500 (the 166 platter). I have tried several others -- Seagate, Maxtor, WD. Only the WD comes close in terms of noise, but the Samsung seeks are clearly quieter.

If HD idle noise and seeks don't annoy you, then the Seagate would be a good drive (they have excellent performance)..

I have the Seagate 750 Barracudas and they are internally dampened so the blurb says, with 5 of em spinning and stepping it's acceptable and can only be heard close up. As they are in a cabinet under the TV with glass doors the only noise i can hear are the extra cooling fans I had to install in the back of the cabinet. Overall, it's acceptable and makes no more noise than the average computer.

[DaHound]

Are you guys with esata having any of the problems others are reporting without esata?

[ItsMeJTO]

Best way to boot with an external drive I've found so far is to plug up everything correctly, then turn off both the drive and receiver (pull the 110 plug) as the receiver never actually powers down with the front switch button or remote off. Wait 15 minutes and then power everything back up at the same time, mine now boots this way every time.

[P Smith]

There is no way to boot HR20 from internal or external disk.
Only from flash - so, no Linux or TiVo ports .:(

[ItsMeJTO]

There is no way to boot HR20 from internal or external disk.
Only from flash - so, no Linux or TiVo ports .:(
I guess I meant to say, the external drives are recognised every time by the IRD if booted this way.

[houskamp]

I hope so, still trying to fill it up . pheeeeewww !!! it's gunnah be a while.
Pages and pages of HD recordings and it's only just hit 80% available.
Stay tuned.

Hows it going? I figuired it would hold 11 weeks on 2 mpg2 hd channels...

[ItsMeJTO]

Hows it going? I figuired it would hold 11 weeks on 2 mpg2 hd channels...

like the energizer bunny.
still going !!

[Cyrus]

like the energizer bunny.
still going !!

That's really cool. One thing to note is if you ever have to reboot and find the playlist empty (hopefully that won't happen), don't reformat. It seems that multiple reboots may fix that problem.

[houskamp]

It's great having too much $$ on hand ain't it :)

[brownram]

[/QUOTE] Want HUGE external drives, this above link is for you.
A 5 bay, hardware raid-0 (recomended for max storage) or raid-1 mirror for 1/2 the capacity with duplicated data safety (auto rebuild on errors).
Running with 5 Seagate ST3750640as-rk (SATA II) (compusa/bestbuy $319.00) 750GB drives in raid-0 produces a massive 3.75 TerraBytes. Will also work with smaller drives.
now starting to record HD movies as fast as I can, may take a while to see if the HR20-700 can/will address it all.
Setup must be completed via a pc or mac with external E-SATA port so you can choose which raid level before hooking it up to the hr20-700.
So far it seems to support dual recordings and play with no glitches or pixelation.

More info to come later.[/QUOTE] i thought that you could only use an enclosure with hardware raid built in. the enclosure you have listed has port multiplication built in. if you have this working that means the esata port on the hr20 supports port multiplying. if it didn't the hr20 would only run 1 of the 5 drives can you confirm that all 5 drives are active

[GollyGee]

i thought that you could only use an enclosure with hardware raid built in. the enclosure you have listed has port multiplication built in. if you have this working that means the esata port on the hr20 supports port multiplying. if it didn't the hr20 would only run 1 of the 5 drives can you confirm that all 5 drives are activeThe enclosure has the Sil 4726 chip, which is both a port multiplier ("JBOD") and hardware RAID controller ("BIG", "SAFE", or "FAST").

I successfully used one with four concatenated 250 GB drives and it worked. The four drives appeared as a single terabyte drive. I'm going to try larger drives in a day or two. But you're right that, if you use the enclosure in "JBOD" mode, the DVR will only recognize the first drive.

I don't think that RAID striping offers any advantages over concatenation, in this kind of case.

[P Smith]

'striping':
- in RAID-0 decrease access time (good), no safety (minus)
- in RAID-5 increase acc. time (minus), but add a protection in case of one disk failure (big plus), same time you'll lost 1/n user space (minus) and need 3+ disks same size (not a model !)

So technically speaking RAID-O does have advantage over concatenated disks.

[GollyGee]

RAID-O does have advantage over concatenated disks.You're right, except, in this case, I don't think the additional speed of RAID-0 is used. Another benefit of concatenation is that the drives don't have to be the same size. For example, you could probably pull the internal 250 GB drive out of the DVR and use it in your array, even if your other drives are different.

Future DVR's may be "concatenation-aware", and operate seamlessly when additional concatenated storage is added, but that's not the case with this DVR.

[ItsMeJTO]

Sorry I didn't see this thread was expanding with interest.
I'll keep it short. The drive enclosure with 5 - 750gb drives and the silicon image 4726 chipset as in the above mentioned 5 bay case, does work with the hr20-700 in true raid-0 mode. I have sucessfully filled the drive to 1% available now with a whole shootload of data/movies. The setup utilities must be used connected to a pc or mac to initiate the raid-0 modes, but then just disconnect and fire it up on the hr20-70. Power everything down for 15 minutes, attatch all cables etc, then power everything up at the same time.
Yes it's expensive, but you get oodles of space (3.75TBytes)
You could start with two drives and build up as you need it (loosing all data if you add a drive)

http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/SiI4726_Manager_User's_Guide_v2.6.pdf

[Spanky_Partain]

Sorry I didn't see this thread was expanding with interest.
I'll keep it short. The drive enclosure with 5 - 750gb drives and the silicon image 4726 chipset as in the above mentioned 5 bay case, does work with the hr20-700 in true raid-0 mode. I have sucessfully filled the drive to 1% available now with a whole shootload of data/movies. The setup utilities must be used connected to a pc or mac to initiate the raid-0 modes, but then just disconnect and fire it up on the hr20-70. Power everything down for 15 minutes, attatch all cables etc, then power everything up at the same time.
Yes it's expensive, but you get oodles of space (3.75TBytes)
You could start with two drives and build up as you need it (loosing all data if you add a drive)

http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/SiI4726_Manager_User's_Guide_v2.6.pdf

Thanks for the update. I have been watching for this post!

[GollyGee]

Sorry I didn't see this thread was expanding with interest.
I'll keep it short. The drive enclosure with 5 - 750gb drives and the silicon image 4726 chipset as in the above mentioned 5 bay case, does work with the hr20-700 in true raid-0 mode. I have sucessfully filled the drive to 1% available now with a whole shootload of data/movies. The setup utilities must be used connected to a pc or mac to initiate the raid-0 modes, but then just disconnect and fire it up on the hr20-70. Power everything down for 15 minutes, attatch all cables etc, then power everything up at the same time.
Yes it's expensive, but you get oodles of space (3.75TBytes)
You could start with two drives and build up as you need it (loosing all data if you add a drive)

http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/SiI4726_Manager_User's_Guide_v2.6.pdfHow is Fast Play working for you? I tried switching from Concatenation to RAID-0 (Fast), and Fast Play looks much smoother to me.

Have you noticed this improvement?

[P Smith]

RAID-0 by definition decrease access time.

[ItsMeJTO]

I have only configured for raid-0. It seems to handle 2 simultaniuos recordings in HD while playing another HD recording, F/F etc seems to work smoothly, I have not noticed any dropouts in any modes. Using Seagate fast h/d's which use large hardware memory bufering.

[mwg47x]

Too bad that puppy can't do a Raid 5 array. :(

[pmagiera]

I just bought a 1T LaCie esata drive and connected it to my HR20 per previous posts on this board. It quickly formatted and I was ready to go, no problems.

[lorick]

What is the model number on the unit you are using?


I just bought a 1T LaCie esata drive and connected it to my HR20 per previous posts on this board. It quickly formatted and I was ready to go, no problems.

[GollyGee]

RAID-0 by definition decrease access time.I don't believe this is correct -- certainly not in the case of a DVR, which reads and writes extremely large, mostly sequential files.

What I've observed is that when I used this enclosure with RAID 0, performance is better. That may be due to the RAID chip itself; I cannot analyze the exact cause.

But, I can observe the fast play is much better with the RAID unit than with the built-in drive. The FF-1 playback is smooth and fluid; there's no jerkiness or hesitation. My guess is that the device has to pull the file off the disk more quickly during a fast play.

You might calculate and tell me that, theoretically, no difference should exist. But I can see the difference with my eyes, and I encourage others to try this as well.

[P Smith]

Try to read Wiki for start, by using your own eyes. ;)

[Don't tell me about RAIDs, I'm full of the info starting work with it in late 80s]

[John4924]

I have only configured for raid-0. It seems to handle 2 simultaniuos recordings in HD while playing another HD recording, F/F etc seems to work smoothly, I have not noticed any dropouts in any modes. Using Seagate fast h/d's which use large hardware memory bufering.
I am considering purchasing the setup that you have. Can you please give us a further update as to how things are going? It has been a month since your last post. Is everything still working smoothly?:)

Cheers,
John

[GollyGee]

RAID-0 by definition decrease access time. Try to read Wiki for start, by using your own eyes. ;)I apologize, decrease access time means increase performance... I see. What I meant was that access time isn't as important, because it's transferring very large files... the disk head doesn't seek a whole lot. I think we're having a non-argument. :)

I set the array up in RAID 0 "FAST" mode, and the fast playback is very fluid and smooth. Much better than the internal disk was.

I tried the same with with a TiVo Series III, and didn't get the same fast play effect -- on the TiVo, fast play remained jerky.

[P Smith]

Well, you sould take the bow ;) - I wrote "decrease access time".
Told yea - I did this things _before_ Wiki.

[coondogg97]

I was very reluctant to get rid of my HD10-250 for the HR20-700 until I started researching the HDD upgrade options.. Now im sold!! Before I make the plunge I just want to verify what drives will work in this enclosure. I would guess any SATA drive would work since the DVR will format the drive on boot. Will ANY SATA drive work?


Thanks,

Brian

[P Smith]

Are we going circles ?

Check out those posts - http://dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=66201.

[Drew2k]

How about a 2TB Raid array for $999 from Costco?


Cavalry 2TB
Personal Disk Array
External Hard Drive 4 Drives SATA RAID
0 to RAID 5 System

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11212408&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=

[schult]

How about a 2TB Raid array for $999 from Costco?


Cavalry 2TB
Personal Disk Array
External Hard Drive 4 Drives SATA RAID
0 to RAID 5 System

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11212408&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=



Looks like the RAID is done on the controller card (that is inserted into a computer)not inside the enclosure, this will not work with the HR20 in RAID mode.

[seanmcgpa]

Any updated on your raid enclosure? I'm interested but would like to hear how things went after a full year of recording?