Would You Pay For EXT Storage?

[long_time_DNC]

I won't cancel. I just won't buy a branded drive or pay an additional fee. I'm fed up with been charged a fee for everything. I've posted my opinion in the recap thread. Line in the sand and all that. I simply won't pay them an additional dime for something that shouldn't cost. It's extortion!

 

[BlackHitachi]

I won't cancel. I just won't buy a branded drive or pay an additional fee. I'm fed up with been charged a fee for everything. I've posted my opinion in the recap thread. Line in the sand and all that. I simply won't pay them an additional dime for something that shouldn't cost. It's extortion!

I feel the EXACT WAY!

 

[ChetK]

DAWG! You mad?

You think?! This is a bunch of BS! Tease us like this for over a year, continual delays and then they want to charge us for something the cable companies are giving for free.

Everybody knows that if they plan to charge for hard drives the pricing won't even be close to competitive to internet pricing. How many freakin fees do they expect us to pay? Greedy bastards!

 

[odbrv]

AllIn:

It really boils down to this... how much do you value the content? If you don't care, and you just want a lot o' storage space then find the biggest honkin' storage you can (@ 7200 RPMs of course) and use that.

If you value your content start to think about methods of minimizing the impact of a drive failure. When, not if is the question to be asking.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to mount up a network share from a NAS Device and store it there, but that's asking for way too much from Dish

Lacking that, if there was a RAID5 with USB interface, I'd go for that assuming the price was palatable.

For those who value content, remember Iomega the makers of zip drives. They have an interesting solution see http://download.iomega.com/com/rev/revdemo/iomega_demo.htm . The rev has plug in cartridges that hold 35 GB or 70 GB of data. They also have a Rev loader for their 35 GB cartridges that holds 8 cartridges or 280 GB. Each of these devices have a triple interface that includes USB 2.0. This looks quite similar to the Jazz drives which came in 1 or 2 BG capacities. I still have an old Jazz drive and the data on its cartridges are at least 5 years old and functioning.

Now the sad part , The Rev 70 GB player/recorder and 1 cartridge costs around$450. Each additional cartridge costs around $60. The Rev loader 280 is over $1000 plus $350 for 8 cartridges.

Another solution mentioned was RAID. I found the following http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_details.cfm?sku=SV-2RSA1&cats=167&catid=904,167,131,161,312 . It holds two drives up to 500 GB each. It costs $330. Then you can choose drives from 100 Gb to 500 GB depending on your risk tolerance for failure.

As an FYI, on Black Friday 250GBs will be at Best Buy for $40 (not a misprint) per John Kotches above. So for around $500 you could get 1 TB of storage in 250 GB increments or 30 hours of HD storage on each drive and 60 hours available via the RAID. If you choose to buy the 500 GB drives you could have 120 hours of HD backup available via the RAID.

 

[Allin4greeN]

...Another solution mentioned was RAID. I found the following http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_details.cfm?sku=SV-2RSA1&cats=167&catid=904,167,131,161,312 . It holds two drives up to 500 GB each. It costs $330. Then you can choose drives from 100 Gb to 500 GB depending on your risk tolerance for failure...

Something like that is what I had in mind and I certainly value the content but, like I said, this is not an area where I have any expertise. John also suggested a RAID5 set-up. What would be the advantages of RAID5 over RAID1?

If I understand it correctly, RAID5 would provide for "quicker" reading of data and be "more stable," as a result of more drives and more reliable redundancy. The trade-off, apparently, being a higher cost for the additional drive(s) requried.

...As an FYI, on Black Friday 250GBs will be at Best Buy for $40 (not a misprint) per John Kotches above. So for around $500 you could get 1 TB of storage in 250 GB increments or 30 hours of HD storage on each drive and 60 hours available via the RAID. If you choose to buy the 500 GB drives you could have 120 hours of HD backup available via the RAID.

At $500 it seems like a steal but, we don't know if it would work with whatever E* is planning to roll out?

Silly HD Entertainment Comparison Calculation
Average cost of an HD DVD at ~2 hours per title=~$25.00
Using the above example of ~120 hours of reliable storage/~2 hours per title=~60 titles
Cost to accumulate 60 HD DVD titles*~$25.00 per title=~$1,500.00
Cost to reliably archive HD titles via HDD=~$500

Elementary School math skills=priceless

This all seems a bit more complicated than the average consumer would want to deal with. I'll be interested to see if E* ever gets this off the ground and what the solution will look like!

 

[John Kotches]

You would need something to create the RAID 5 array, and the cheapest I recall seeing USB RAID5 was at the $1K price point if memory serves me correctly.

Throughout the section below X refers to the cost per GB of storage.

RAID 0 is striping. It provides no redundancy but provides roughly N the performance where N is the number of stripes. Cost of storage is simply X / GB and scales linearly with the number of drives employed. Faster reads and writes than a single drive assuming you have split the stripe halves across I/O channels.

RAID 1 is mirroring. It provides redundancy by providing a copy of each drive. Cost of storage is 2X / GB. Faster reads, 5-10% slower writes assuming you are spreading I/O across multiple channels.

Raid 0 + 1 is striped mirrors. This is generally used in data centers where you need both performance and redundancy. Cost for storage is still 2X / GB but you get better performance than a straight RAID 1. Obviously you need at least 2 drives per mirror half to pull this off. Faster reads, slightly slower writes (10-15%) depending on how you spread out your I/O load.

RAID 5 is distributed parity via XOR calculations. Here, you have redundancy and can tolerate a single drive failure in your RAID set. The failed drive can be rebuilt from the existing drives and during this time you will be exposed to a second drive failure where you would lose all your data. You need a minimum of 3 drives to create a RAID 5 array with the most common configurations being 4-5 drives. The XOR calculations can be done in software or hardware. Hardware XOR calculations are faster than software. The cost for storage with RAID 5 is (N / N-1) * X / GB. It's somewhere between RAID 0 and RAID 1 in cost. The more drives in your array the closer to RAID 0 your cost will be. With three drives, it works out to be 1.5x per GB, 4 drives, it's 1.33x per GB and 5 drives it's 1.25x per GB etc. Reads are similar to single spindle speed as you only have to check XOR parity, while writes are slower by about 10-15% as you have to calculate and distribute parity.

Some very high end data center applications have RAID 5+1 which is mirrored RAID 5s for the ultimate in redundancy. Think OLTP where neither downtime nor data loss for a drive failure can be tolerated. You would have to have 2 drives on both mirrors failing simultaneously to get an outage caused by a drive failure. Not cheap though, as your storage cost is (N/N -1) * 2X / GB. But in OLTP (like credit card processing) outage time is lost $$$ and that's what you do.

Personally, I'd go for a RAID5 NAS if they'd open up the Ethernet port for network mounts. I know they won't though.

Hope that this helps.

Cheers,

 

[long_time_DNC]

I'm dizzy now.

 

[Allin4greeN]

I think I followed some of that Curse my small brain and weak math skills!

Personally, I'd go for a RAID5 NAS if they'd open up the Ethernet port for network mounts. I know they won't though.

Something like this? http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202308876&loc=10995

 

[John Kotches]

All:

Yes, but don't pay attention to any of the pricing. That list is hyperinflated.

I'd also consider the Infrant ReadyNAS which has the ability to expand the RAID on the fly.

Cheers,

 

[SpenceJT]

I'm already paying a DVR fee. Internal drive, or external drive... the results are basically the same. If Dish trys for any additional fee based service to expand on what I'm already able to do... sorry, NO SALE.

If Dish were to come out with a proprietary drive, even at a "reasonable price"... sorry, NO SALE.

I want to choose the external USB drive of MY liking, be it 250, 500 or a 1TB array! It's that way, or it's NO SALE.

 

[jayn_j]

I'm already paying a DVR fee. Internal drive, or external drive... the results are basically the same. If Dish trys for any additional fee based service to expand on what I'm already able to do... sorry, NO SALE.

If Dish were to come out with a proprietary drive, even at a "reasonable price"... sorry, NO SALE.

I want to choose the external USB drive of MY liking, be it 250, 500 or a 1TB array! It's that way, or it's NO SALE.

I don't see it quite the same. I am willing to pay even a somewhat inflated price for external storage. I figure I am getting some additional capability here.

But...

1. No monthly fee. As stated, i am already paying a DVR fee.
2. I want the thing tied to an account, not a receiver. I would be doing this for archive purposes, and I don't want to lose programming when I chenge receivers
3. Same thing. I'd want the ability to archive in case of a HD failure. Don't care if I can't play it elsewhere, but I want to archive a duplicate copy.

 

[plumfam4]

Since when is it a dirty word to make a profit? I am sure none of us would be employed if the company you worked for lost money!! This is America if you want it and it a value then you buy it if not then dont GET OFF THE FREE LUNCH BAND WAGON!!! What a bunch of whiners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jcrash]

Well so far 131 out of 150 people voted for not GOING to pay for it. This is a clear statement of what the customer wants.

It's not that we won't pay for it. We just don't want to pay DISH. Sure, we will buy the external drive from Walmart at a competitive price, but we won't buy a Dish branded drive using 2-5 yr old drive sizes at 4-5x industry pricing.

 

[plumfam4]

Again then use your power and dont buy but Why would Dish do it then? IF they make no money then why would they? DO you go to work out of goodness of heart and then say thats ok dont pay me this week?

 

[jcrash]

Again then use your power and dont buy but Why would Dish do it then? IF they make no money then why would they? DO you go to work out of goodness of heart and then say thats ok dont pay me this week?

Does microsoft make more money by giving you notepad on your pc?

Why do I get cables in the box with my receiver? Maybe I should have to pay a fee each month for those cables too...afterall, they had to write code to make the receiver output a signal on the cables.

Give me a break, fanboy.

 

[ralfyguy]

I wish I wouldn't have started a poll about this, or at least JUST the poll, without space for discussion. Always those fights about people's opinions. This intolerance is childish.

 

[long_time_DNC]

It's very simple:

Dish charges their long-term, high-end subs for everything. We don't get a break, not a one. Sure, we may occasionally get a coupon for a free PPV movie. Big whoop. That's about akin to throwing your dog a crumb from a dog bone.

Dish is making plenty of money, but that isn't our beef either (at least, it's not my particular gripe).

What the majority of us want, simply put, is the freedom to buy whatever USB drive we want from whatever source we prefer. Whether we want a 160GB drive or a 500GB drive - it should be our choice to be able to buy it at a fair market price. Not at several times the going market price just because it's a "Dish" brand drive. Additionally, we don't want to have to pay an extra monthly fee for the ability to use an external drive. Why should we have to pay extra when Comcast subs don't?

Basically, what it boils down to is that, as high-end subs, we'd like to be thrown a real perk, with no strings attached.

 

[BlackHitachi]

It's very simple:

Dish charges their long-term, high-end subs for everything. We don't get a break, not a one. Sure, we may occasionally get a coupon for a free PPV movie. Big whoop. That's about akin to throwing your dog a crumb from a dog bone.

Dish is making plenty of money, but that isn't our beef either (at least, it's not my particular gripe).

What the majority of us want, simply put, is the freedom to buy whatever USB drive we want from whatever source we prefer. Whether we want a 160GB drive or a 500GB drive - it should be our choice to be able to buy it at a fair market price. Not at several times the going market price just because it's a "Dish" brand drive. Additionally, we don't want to have to pay an extra monthly fee for the ability to use an external drive. Why should we have to pay extra when Comcast subs don't?

Basically, what it boils down to is that, as high-end subs, we'd like to be thrown a real perk, with no strings attached.

Once again AMEN!

 

[BlackHitachi]

I wish I wouldn't have started a poll about this, or at least JUST the poll, without space for discussion. Always those fights about people's opinions. This intolerance is childish.

Why you did a great job! There is nothing wrong with what you did! As you can see there are more people out there that are sick of the nickle and dime tactics.:

 

[plumfam4]

It's very simple:

Dish charges their long-term, high-end subs for everything. We don't get a break, not a one. Sure, we may occasionally get a coupon for a free PPV movie. Big whoop. That's about akin to throwing your dog a crumb from a dog bone.

Dish is making plenty of money, but that isn't our beef either (at least, it's not my particular gripe).

What the majority of us want, simply put, is the freedom to buy whatever USB drive we want from whatever source we prefer. Whether we want a 160GB drive or a 500GB drive - it should be our choice to be able to buy it at a fair market price. Not at several times the going market price just because it's a "Dish" brand drive. Additionally, we don't want to have to pay an extra monthly fee for the ability to use an external drive. Why should we have to pay extra when Comcast subs don't?

Basically, what it boils down to is that, as high-end subs, we'd like to be thrown a real perk, with no strings attached.

Why do you stay then? The greatest power you have is with your bankroll!! Either you are getting value with ur money or have soo much it doesnt matter!!! JMO