Portable Hard Drive without External Power works on Hopper

[coinmaster32]

There is alot of things "they say". But I'm more of a "I will find out for myself" type of guy.

I was actually the 1st person to discover that a USB mouse works with the hopper. I have also discovered that a USB flash drive works as a EHD in an emergency situation.

The EHD I got today requires 900ma, and it's working fine. I bet the hoppers USB port puts out 1000ma.

Now, you don't HAVE to get a powered hard drive if your old external does not have a power port. You can purchase a powered USB hub.

 

[TheKrell]

I agree with John and disagree with you.

It's nothing to do with USB compliance.

I'm pretty sure that it has everything to do with USB compliance. Older bus-powered drives, even if they only drew 0.5 amps when idle, sucked well over that amount during read/write or during spinup. I have a 320GB USB2 WD My Passport that reliably crashes my 612 when I plug it in and try to use it. I also have a new 500GB WD My Passport w/USB3 interface that has worked GREAT for months. No issues, ever. I'm pretty sure that the PS inside our receivers is meaty enough to power a mere 0.5 amps out their USB ports. But more? I don't think they will surge like a PC USB interface typically will.

 

[coinmaster32]

Maybe if someone has a spare usb cable they wanna chop up, and a multimeter, they could put a 1 amp load on the usb port, and measure the amp draw.

 

[3HaloODST]

I agree with John and disagree with you.

I'm pretty sure that it has everything to do with USB compliance. Older bus-powered drives, even if they only drew 0.5 amps when idle, sucked well over that amount during read/write or during spinup. I have a 320GB USB2 WD My Passport that reliably crashes my 612 when I plug it in and try to use it. I also have a new 500GB WD My Passport w/USB3 interface that has worked GREAT for months. No issues, ever. I'm pretty sure that the PS inside our receivers is meaty enough to power a mere 0.5 amps out their USB ports. But more? I don't think they will surge like a PC USB interface typically will.

I'm not talking about USB compliance of the drives, I'm talking about the PSU being barely able to cope with the demand. The receivers run hot enough as is. I personally wouldn't put anything I wanted to keep safe onto an unpowered drive without at least using a powered USB hub. I have tested and used unpowered drives successfully before, doesn't mean I trust that it isn't a potential cause of otherwise-avoidable issues.

Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner

 

[John Kotches]

If the power supply doesn't have 2.5 watts of head room, that's terrible design.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 using Tapatalk 2.x

 

[3HaloODST]

If the power supply doesn't have 2.5 watts of head room, that's terrible design.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 using Tapatalk 2.x

Bean counters don't care about the design, apparently. That's fine if you want to risk it, nobody's stopping you. Just my opinion. Why spend more $$$ per GB anyway for the 2.5" drives?

Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner

 

[lucky86]

Maybe they didn't want to push a bunch of extra power through the usb port because it would cause the receiver to work harder and produce more heat. Maybe they also realized that most of the EHDS out there have power supplies, so why force the receiver to provide the power when the majority of larger EHDs have their own? I'm not sure how much more strain and heat this would create, but it sounds logical to me.

 

[3HaloODST]

Maybe they didn't want to push a bunch of extra power through the usb port because it would cause the receiver to work harder and produce more heat. Maybe they also realized that most of the EHDS out there have power supplies, so why force the receiver to provide the power when the majority of larger EHDs have their own? I'm not sure how much more strain and heat this would create, but it sounds logical to me.

Yeah, the receiver design is already hot enough as-is. Tiny little fan blowing the wrong direction at an extremely low speed, heh.

Speaking of which, does the HwS put out about the same amount of heat and noise?

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[coinmaster32]

If the power supply doesn't have 2.5 watts of head room, that's terrible design.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 using Tapatalk 2.x

At 5 volts, 1 amp is 5 watts, 2 is 10 watts.

I'm sure the PSU has plenty of power, but, it all depends on how much power is granted to the usb port. A computers power supply is 10-20 amps, but most usb ports are .5 amps. Some are more if the motherboard has a "super charger" function built in.

 

[coinmaster32]

Tiny little fan blowing the wrong direction at an extremely low speed, heh.

Your right there. They design things to be very quiet. Unfortunately that also equates to slow fan speeds.

All the heat in the hopper comes from it's power supply. The power supply itself is a very poor design. They should of put a dedicated fan for the hopper.

 

[lucky86]

I don't notice any noise from either of my Hoppers. Both of them feel somewhat warm to the touch but definitely not hot.

 

[3HaloODST]

I don't notice any noise from either of my Hoppers. Both of them feel somewhat warm to the touch but definitely not hot.

2 of my Hoppers emit a small amount of noise (about as loud as a needle dropping though.) One is totally silent, as is the 722k. As for heat, pretty warm on the outside, nice and toasty on the inside. So the new one is about the same?

Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner

 

[3HaloODST]

Your right there. They design things to be very quiet. Unfortunately that also equates to slow fan speeds.

All the heat in the hopper comes from it's power supply. The power supply itself is a very poor design. They should of put a dedicated fan for the hopper.

Yep and if they sped the fan up, I bet they'd get plenty of calls about it.

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[doctorwizz]

Hottest part of my H2 is the right side close to the front by the vents: 107.0F
Top cover right front: 95.8
Top cover left front: 86.6
Top cover rear: 82-84 L-R

Ambient temp: 71.1

 

[3HaloODST]

Hottest part of my H2 is the right side close to the front by the vents: 107.0F
Top cover right front: 95.8
Top cover left front: 86.6
Top cover rear: 82-84 L-R

Ambient temp: 71.1

Looks about the same temps as H1.

Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner

 

[coinmaster32]

Heres the inside of the H2. Notice the large transformer. Next to it is a heatsink with a transistor. There is also one between the transformer and the capacitor. This is the main source of heat.

Heat is bad for capacitors, it dries them out. You can see they mounted 3 capacitors right next to the larger heatsink. There is also a large cap next to the small heatsink.

This is a very poor design. Heat is bad for electronic components. As you can see, they placed the hard disk far away from the power supply.

IMO, they would of been better off using an external power supply. The xbox 360's power supply is external, and is 10 watts more than the hopper. No fan is needed at all. As I said, poor PSU design.

ALSO, note the fan direction. It's blowing air OUT. So it's sucking air from the power supply side, drawing the hot air across the mainboard. Dumb!

 

[navychop]

I'd like to think the Dish engineers know better than you and I, but I sure can't argue with your logic. When/if I move to Hopper, I'll have to run a fan onto it.

 

[lucky86]

I haven't heard of too many people with hopper hard drives fail or overheating problems like the VIP models and there are a good number of hoppers out there so it must not be too bad of an idea if it works.

 

[coinmaster32]

I'd like to think the Dish engineers know better than you and I, but I sure can't argue with your logic. When/if I move to Hopper, I'll have to run a fan onto it.

It's all about cost.

It probably costs dish 1 dollar to add a fan. On 10,000 units, That's 10,000 dollars. But if 1 unit in 10,000 fails from overheating, replacement cost is probably around $200-$300. That's a lot cheaper than 10 grand.

The Joey DOES have a external power supply. They should of done so with the hopper. They could of made a much smaller receiver, the same size as Directv's HDDVR, or even smaller.

 

[navychop]

I haven't heard of too many people with hopper hard drives fail or overheating problems like the VIP models and there are a good number of hoppers out there so it must not be too bad of an idea if it works.

TIME will tell.