Combining multiple external HDDs

[Miner]

I have a collection of external drives, from 200 GB to 1TB can I mount them (to a Linux box) and copy individual folders to a large size drive? Or is my only choice to move to my hopper, then to a larger drive?

 

[Foxbat]

If you have a 2 TB — 7 TB EHD and a compatible enclosure you want to use, the first step is to connect that to your Hopper 3 and let the Hopper 3 initialize the EHD for its use. You can then take that drive, mount it on your PC running Linux, copy the recorded Events files in the old EHD folders using Linux as root, copying them to the empty partitions on the new EHD.

There are threads here that have step-by-step instructions on how to do this. It's been ages since I last consolidated my Hopper 3 EHD drives into one large drive, so I'm sure I skipped some key details.

 

[Strega]

Yep, that works. Each recording is it's own directory. There is a file (.cat I think) which has the show information, and an encrypted video file. The information file can be used to move shows around into categories (if yours got mixed up over the years like mine did.) The information file is not really a human-readable text file but the info is in there. The strings command on most Linux distros will display the readable info (show name, description...) cleanly.

I copied all my stuff accumulated on five drives with a 722K to new drives for a H3.

 

[Miner]

If you have a 2 TB — 7 TB EHD and a compatible enclosure you want to use, the first step is to connect that to your Hopper 3 and let the Hopper 3 initialize the EHD for its use. You can then take that drive, mount it on your PC running Linux, copy the recorded Events files in the old EHD folders using Linux as root, copying them to the empty partitions on the new EHD.

There are threads here that have step-by-step instructions on how to do this. It's been ages since I last consolidated my Hopper 3 EHD drives into one large drive, so I'm sure I skipped some key details.

Thanks very much Foxbat. It has been a long time since I mounted any of my external drives and looked at their structure and figured I'd ask the group. I have 2 or 3 1TB drives, and a couple 500 GBs and probably 2 or 3 smaller drives. I haven't purchased a new drive in years, and was surprised to see 20+ TB drives now, at reasonable prices no less. If the limit with dish is 7 TB, I could at least consolidate all my current material into a single drive.

 

[Bobby]

Thanks very much Foxbat. It has been a long time since I mounted any of my external drives and looked at their structure and figured I'd ask the group. I have 2 or 3 1TB drives, and a couple 500 GBs and probably 2 or 3 smaller drives. I haven't purchased a new drive in years, and was surprised to see 20+ TB drives now, at reasonable prices no less. If the limit with dish is 7 TB, I could at least consolidate all my current material into a single drive.

Keep in mind that consolidating all the drives into a single drive has dangers. As we all know hard drives fail from time to time. If everything you have is on one sigle drive and it fails you lose everything you have archived. If you keep that archive on several hard drives you only lose what is on that drive when it fails.

 

[Strega]

Of course, once you go down this path, you can make backups too. Though I know that "I will always backup" is easier to say than to do.

 

[Miner]

If you have a 2 TB — 7 TB EHD and a compatible enclosure you want to use, the first step is to connect that to your Hopper 3 and let the Hopper 3 initialize the EHD for its use. You can then take that drive, mount it on your PC running Linux, copy the recorded Events files in the old EHD folders using Linux as root, copying them to the empty partitions on the new EHD.

There are threads here that have step-by-step instructions on how to do this. It's been ages since I last consolidated my Hopper 3 EHD drives into one large drive, so I'm sure I skipped some key details.

Thanks very much Foxbat. It has been a long time since I mounted any of my external drives and looked at their structure and figured I'd ask the group. I have 2 or 3 1TB drives, and a couple 500 GBs and probably 2 or 3 smaller drives. I haven't purchased a new drive in years, and was surprised to see 20+ TB drives now, at reasonable prices no less. If the limit with dish is 7 TB, I could at least consolidate all my current material into a single drive.

 

[navychop]

"Place ur bets, place ur bets!"

 

[Almighty1]

I also believe that you can only have so many recordings as the Hopper will only show the first I think 199 or was it 200 titles so you won't be able to playback over that amount?

 

[n0qcu]

I also believe that you can only have so many recordings as the Hopper will only show the first I think 199 or was it 200 titles so you won't be able to playback over that amount?

The maximum was increased, I sm not sure of the exact number but I currently have around 900 recordings on my EHD and they list and playback fine. (Every episode of the Simpsons)