Real simple (to ask) external hard drive question?

coltrane679

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Sep 25, 2007
48
0
What are the LEAST problematic external hard drives to hook up to a 622?

There must be a zillion pages of bug stuff, and I've looked at it, but I am just trying to narrow things down this question. 500 or 750 MBs, I don't care--which ones are most likely to run without a nightmare?

Now, I will climb into my asbestos suit while awaiting replies.....
 
I know I'm gonna get blasted for posting this but my two WD Essential Book 500GB have been working just fine. No need to turn off or on any features on the drive, just plug and play. :)
 
My Freeagent Pro 750gb don't work good at all. I have lost movies off it, you have to unplug and plug it back in to get it to work. I have it down to 440gb and it won't let me down load anymore.

I've had very little trouble with my western digital 500&750gb drives.
 
I know I'm gonna get blasted for posting this but my two WD Essential Book 500GB have been working just fine. No need to turn off or on any features on the drive, just plug and play. :)
LOL RandallA. Why would you get blasted? I even moved one to another DVR and it worked. Sometimes we all have good luck. LOL
 
What is the "watch per gig" ate? IE, how much time do you gain in HD recording ont he 622 on say a 500 GB external?

The problem with switching to the all HD pack is now all the kids' Hannah Montana, Cat Dog etc is taking up ALLOT of space!
 
My WD 750 has had absolutely no problems in the 6 months that I have had it. I highly recommend it.
 
What is the "watch per gig" ate? IE, how much time do you gain in HD recording ont he 622 on say a 500 GB external?

The problem with switching to the all HD pack is now all the kids' Hannah Montana, Cat Dog etc is taking up ALLOT of space!
If the SD mirror channels have finally shown up for the newest added channels, you can force the recording to record the SD channel. Might not be what you want but it will definitely save space!
 
I have 2 500 GB Seagate Free Agent drives (sleep mode off) and a Calvery 1 TB drive, have had no problems with any of them so far.

NightRyder
 
What is the "watch per gig" ate? IE, how much time do you gain in HD recording ont he 622 on say a 500 GB external?

HD recordings vary from 2.5GB/hr to 4GB/hr. Once you record onto the 622, you then have to move those shows over to the EHD. Even at 4GB/hr, a 500GB EHD will hold 125 hours of HD recordings.
 
HD recordings vary from 2.5GB/hr to 4GB/hr. Once you record onto the 622, you then have to move those shows over to the EHD. Even at 4GB/hr, a 500GB EHD will hold 125 hours of HD recordings.

Ok...so it is more of a long term or mid-term storage then right? I assume it would be too nice to have the 622 just auto manage the space.

I did not realize that 500 GB would buy that much time...that may be worth it as the drive have really come down in price.
 
I have a WD 500 GB essential drive that works great.
I also have a 500 GB Seagate in an Ultra case that works ok but the fan in the case is getting loud.
I also have a Seagate Freeagent 500 GB. It goes to sleep and I have to unplug it and plug it in, sometimes I have to reboot the receiver to make it work. Then a couple of weeks ago the 622 stopped reading it and the only way to use it was a reformat. I lost a lot of programing. Now I just use the Freeagent on my PC.

I would never recommend buying a Freeagent for use on dish.

Horseshoe
 
My 722 now has 3 750 GB WD drives connected through the 722-powered USB 4 port (~$6.50). I plug in the correct power supply to the end of a power strip, one at a time. My biggest complaint is that it takes a long time to transfer a number of files, especially painful when I changed my movie rating (IMDB) breakpoint from 8.0 to 8.1, BTW 8.0 is about 4 stars in normal parlance. You have to unload one disk and then load those files/recordings to the other and meanwhile you cannot watch any external recordings. It is helpful that restored recordings are flagged as protect--this prevents overwriting of those just restored. The third drive is for series like The War, Planet Earth, Northern Exposure (3 seasons), Arrested Development, Futurama, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Update: I've add an old IDE/USB 200 GB but now all are full so I should buy another or rethink what I what to save or just see and delete some. The cutoffs are now mid-8.1, mid-7.7, and 7.6 with a few 7.6 and lower on the main drive.

My current desire: "library sort" so that a/an/the are ignored or placed after a comma, guess der/die/das and le ... would also help in comparing the Dish name sort with the IMDb sort except for foreign titles. You can edit the main drive names but the 14-character limit and only initial upper case preempts that. I did this for my Excel sheet so I could compare the top 250 on IMDB with my 1100 or so DVD listings. You really do not want ~20% of them starting with A/An/The. My entries to IMDB are currently only for those on the hard drives--630+ not counting all the series entries.

I also wish they handled a near full disk better. Sometimes I have to unload a bunch and reload them to add a big file.

-Ken
 
Got the WD My Book Essential 500 GB at Circuit City for $119 before a $40 rebate. Seems to work fine, and should be enough for me (for a while). Thanks again, guys.
 
Got the WD My Book Essential 500 GB at Circuit City for $119 before a $40 rebate. Seems to work fine, and should be enough for me (for a while). Thanks again, guys.
Try to get in the habit of turning it off when not in use.
 
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