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

10296 Views 34 Replies 17 Participants Last post by seanmcgpa, Aug 7, 2008

ItsMeJTO

Discussion Starter · Dec 29, 2006

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.

1 - 20 of 35 Posts

jedster

· #2 · Jan 2, 2007

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

· #3 · Jan 4, 2007

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

ItsMeJTO

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jan 8, 2007

Cyrus said:
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

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jan 8, 2007

jedster said:
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

· #6 · Jan 16, 2007

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

ItsMeJTO

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jan 16, 2007

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

· #8 · Jan 17, 2007

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

ItsMeJTO

Discussion Starter · #9 · Jan 17, 2007

P Smith said:
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

· #10 · Jan 18, 2007

ItsMeJTO said:
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

Discussion Starter · #11 · Jan 21, 2007

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

like the energizer bunny.
still going !!

Cyrus

· #12 · Jan 21, 2007

ItsMeJTO said:
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

· #13 · Jan 22, 2007

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

brownram

· #14 · Jan 22, 2007

[/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

See less See more

GollyGee

· #15 · Feb 6, 2007

brownram said:
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

The 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

· #16 · Feb 6, 2007

'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

· #17 · Feb 7, 2007

P Smith said:
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

Discussion Starter · #18 · Feb 18, 2007

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

· #19 · Feb 18, 2007

ItsMeJTO said:
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

· #20 · Feb 23, 2007

ItsMeJTO said:
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

How 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?

1 - 20 of 35 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.