2016 Hopper3 Press Release

I tried a 64GB usb thumb drive, and it worked. I tried a 130GB SSD in a self-powered USB2 enclosure; it also worked. I tried a 320GB My Passport USB2 drive, and it reliably crashed my receiver during formatting. :crying I also tried a 500GB and a 1.5TB My Passport USB3 drive, and they too both worked. This was in a 612 and a 722.

Interesting, I have a few WD Passport Ultra 2TB's here too but the thing with the external drives from companies is that you really don't know what is inside the enclosure like the spindle speed, etc where with both the external enclosure you get on your own or even using a internal drive meant for notebooks and desktops with the adapter which provides power to the drive as well is you get to know all the specs and 7200rpm 2.5" drives or even 5400rpm Hybrid 2.5" drives or even the Samsung 850 Pro SSD's for example, those are all going to be faster than the ones that comes in a enclosure already. Unitek even makes a USB to raid adapter that basically powers 2 drives at the same time except it will appear as one to the host computer, being the DVR in this case so there will be a real time mirror of the drive so if one drive crashes or something, the other drive will still work and you can just replace the failing drive with a identical drive. I run and own a ISP which is the reason I have all different drives available.
 
...those are all going to be faster than the ones that comes in a enclosure already...

That may well be true, but the disk speed is not needed (not used?) for an EHD. I think, for this application, faster drives such as SSDs, hybrids, or 7200rpm drives are just wasting money.
 
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That may well be true, but the disk speed is not needed (not used?) for an EHD. I think, for this application, faster drives such as SSDs, hybrids, or 7200rpm drives are just wasting money.

It really depends. As for wasting money, I don't pay for my drives so it's $0 cost for me, besides, everything I buy is 100% tax deductible as it's treated as a business expense. SSD's has no moving parts so it will be more reliable than a spinner as I have not really had good luck with spinners as you can name any brand from Priam, HP, DEC, Imprimis, Maxtor San Jose, Maxtor Colorado, Quantum, Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung and even IBM and I will tell you I've had atleast one of each brand that has failed over the last 30 years. Besides, I already have all those drives sitting here collecting dust so it's better using them for something than it sitting here collecting dust. The 2TB 7200RPM drive, I've had for atleast 3+ years and they have been doing nothing but collecting dust. That's a 3.5" drive and the other drives are all 2.5" drives which are lighter in weight and also occupy less space as it's easier to hide in my application than a 3.5" drive. So actually getting drives that works for the application would actually cost money in my case because I have to first go buy the slower drives which would be wasting money as like everything else, it's a two way street since one should always try to use resources already available first before acquiring more resources even when the ones already held are not used.
 
I tried a 64GB usb thumb drive, and it worked. I tried a 130GB SSD in a self-powered USB2 enclosure; it also worked. I tried a 320GB My Passport USB2 drive, and it reliably crashed my receiver during formatting.
Thanks for confirming the USB flash drive option.

Makes sense that the SSD worked even though it's not self-powered. An SSD has pretty minimal power draw compared to a mechanical drive.

The 320gb is also self-powered ?
 
Did Scott ever find out ifthe 4 screens can be used if we don't have a 4k tv???

Thanks and great coverage Scott and satguys as always!!!

Nope because no one could test it, they released new software removing the feature again so they won't be able to retest it again until the feature is added back in.

I do know using a sling box and starting a 4K movie causes the Slingbox (hooked up via component cables) to say there is no video input when the 4K is being displayed.


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Nope because no one could test it, they released new software removing the feature again so they won't be able to retest it again until the feature is added back in.

I do know using a sling box and starting a 4K movie causes the Slingbox (hooked up via component cables) to say there is no video input when the 4K is being displayed.


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Are you confirming that you have been testing a H3? ;)
 
Oh, Almighty1 (I just HAD to say that): With the number of write cycles on a SSD being limited, I'd think them a poor choice for use as a "sort of" DVR.
 
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Oh, Almighty1 (I just HAD to say that): With the number of write cycles on a SSD being limited, I'd think them a poor choice for use as a "sort of" DVR.
That was my concern as well but it appears that even spinners as the traditional HD's are call still have limited load/unload cycles which is 300,000 if you actually read the spec sheets for hard drives and many drives in my experience can fail anytime before that happens. Read this and you will see that a hard drive can have 43,000 load/unload cycles in just 327 hours alone:
http://wp.xin.at/archives/1221

Even the current Western Digital Black Label 3.5" drives has a lifetime of 300,000 cycles. I consider Western Digital more reliable than Seagate drives as even the firmware on Seagate aka Shugart Technology is not reliable. The only reason they are even good is because they bought CDC (Control Data Corporation)/Imprimis which made the best drives on the market and where the Barracuda drives originated from.

See the spec sheet yourself:
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771434.pdf

Only Hitachi Global Storage Technology which was IBMs storage division has 1,000,000 unload/load cycles but ask all the people with DeskStars who had DeathStars that had their drives died without warning in the last 20 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGST_Deskstar

The drive I have the Samsung Pro 850 SSD has the following specs:
Lifespan with 20GiB of Host Writes per Day with 1.5x Write Amplification 282.74 years
Lifespan with 100GiB of Host Writes per Day with 3x Write Amplification 56.55 years

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8239/update-on-samsung-850-pro-endurance-vnand-die-size

and it comes with a ten year warranty as well plus it's not subject to shocks and vibration or mechanical failure.

MicroSD cards on the other hard is way more risky as I have a SanDisk 200GB MicroSD which is the largest capacity available and the only model available, the card stopped allowing writing after 1.5 months but that's due to the size of the item and they can't put in all the things to make it more reliable. There are always trade offs in all scenarios and this is only a external HDD so unless you use it for buffering, you usually will not have a problem since the 92% capacity of my Hopper 1 for example, the stuff is just things recorded since the last 5 years that I have not watched yet. Once I watch it, it will be archived or deleted.

I deal with 5,000+ servers daily with a 99.6% reliability rate for the last 22 years as I own and run a Internet Service provider so I would know what's reliable and what's not. All you have to do to kill your hard drive or the one in the hopper is while it is on, keep it vertical and let it fall on the hard surface floors, it will kill it immediately as I had done before with a Comcast Motorola/General Instruments DVR accidentally one time. I forgot to mention in 1997, I was the one who ran the home network remotely which had servers running Unix at the home of the founders of Concentric Network Corporation which is now XO Communications and one of the servers was running a Seagate ST41800UW which was basically a 5.25" Full Height 8GB Ultra-Wide SCSI Hard Drive that shook the entire case when it was used. One time someone hacked the system and the next thing we know 30 minutes later, he wrote some software that made the HD spin backwards and kill the drive. Even Seagate was unable to fix it and neither were the Data Recovery companies like Ontrack, DriveSavers, etc.

In the last 7 years I had SSD's, SDCard and MicroSD cards which is in the hundreds, only the one I mentioned had failed and it still allows reading the data, it just doesn't allow formating, erasing or
writing. Yet every hard drive I have bought and used since 1985 which is also in the hundreds other than the 2 x Western Digital 2.5" 750GB 7200rpm Black Label drive has failed atleast once with warranty replacements.

See this review as well:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404258,00.asp

"As far as longevity goes, while it is true that SSDs wear out over time (each cell in a flash memory bank has a limited number of times it can be written and erased), thanks to TRIM command technology built into SSDs that dynamically optimizes these read/write cycles, you're more likely to discard the system for obsolescence before you start running into read/write errors. The possible exceptions are high-end multimedia users like video editors who read and write data constantly, but those users will need the larger capacities of hard drives anyway. Hard drives will eventually wear out from constant use as well, since they use physical recording methods. Longevity is a wash when it's separated from travel and ruggedness concerns."
 
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A 32gb flash drive is in the Hopper as I type this. It recognized it, told me it needs formatted so that it can be used, and asked me to confirm formatting it, which I did. It's now done formatting....

Bummer.... when I tried to transfer something, it told me there's no external HDD connected.

I do think there's a 40gb minimum size requirement though so that could be the problem. Second, it could be that it's not a powered drive, though I am not sure that's the case.
I just tried a USB 3.0 16 GB Sandisk Extreme in my Hopper and it worked. So there does not appear to be a minimum size limit.

USB power may be the determining factor in whether a storage device will work or not. USB 2.0 is supposed to supply 500 mA (2.5 watts). SSDs should fall under this but a 2.5" hard drive may spill over and a 3.5" will take 2-3 times more power. USB power is also supposed to be limited to prevent power supply or other circuit failures when a port is overloaded.

Some older USB flash drives are also very slow and could prevent their use as external DVR storage.

In my test, I transferred 8 GB in 16 minutes which is only about 8.3 MB/s or 66 Mb/s. It's been a while since I timed a transfer to my external hard drive but it really didn't feel that much slower. The flash drive I tested with is faster than the typical hard drive so I doubt it was a contributing factor to the transfer time.

While it appears USB flash drives work, I'd caution against their use since it's not supported. They are also smaller than typical hard drives and SSDs, and more costly.
 
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