Dish Hopper 4 with much larger Hard drive???

bwexler

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Nov 29, 2007
749
270
San Marcos, CA
When will Dish offer a much larger hard drive, like 10 or 20 TB?
It only takes me about a month to fill a new Hopper HD. Yes I know about external HDs and have many.
Last night my Hopper 3 hit 100% full and started acting weird. When I hit the DVR button it went to black screen for 15-20 seconds, then flashing white vertical bars, finally the DVR menu.
I deleted a few groups of shows that I had never watched and were of marginal interest. Then I rebooted the Hopper 3 and that seemed to fix the problem. I will find out tonight. By the way that got me down to 85% full, the lowest number I have seen in years.

I do remember when going from a 30 MB to a 40MB drive was a big deal and also when going above 512 MB was beyond the ability of Windows/DOS.
 
I've never really figured out why the 2G internal HD is partitioned into two 1 Gig partitions.

One is to store the programs and recordings and prime-time any-time. The other is for Dish On Demand and other loaded shows.

After all this time, I think that Dish would look at the stats and see that about .0001% of its user base has more than 15% (max) of the DOD stuff used, considering that most are auto-expiring.

For us who already have a 2G drive, it's a bit late to repartition the internal drive, considering its EXT-3 format and the internal software is just a subset of Linux, not full Linux. But that doesn't stop Dish from shipping new units with maybe 1.5 Gig as user recording space and 5 Gig for DOD.

Maybe someone who can do the math and user utilization experience better than me might be able to explain it. A wrong decision at H3 release time doesn't justify not correctly fixing it in future ship units.

My 2 cents.
 
  • Like
Reactions: charlesrshell
I've never really figured out why the 2G internal HD is partitioned into two 1 Gig partitions.

One is to store the programs and recordings and prime-time any-time. The other is for Dish On Demand and other loaded shows.

After all this time, I think that Dish would look at the stats and see that about .0001% of its user base has more than 15% (max) of the DOD stuff used, considering that most are auto-expiring.

For us who already have a 2G drive, it's a bit late to repartition the internal drive, considering its EXT-3 format and the internal software is just a subset of Linux, not full Linux. But that doesn't stop Dish from shipping new units with maybe 1.5 Gig as user recording space and 5 Gig for DOD.

Maybe someone who can do the math and user utilization experience better than me might be able to explain it. A wrong decision at H3 release time doesn't justify not correctly fixing it in future ship units.

My 2 cents.
My understanding when it was released was the prime time anytime is its own partition, and everything else is on a separate partition.
 
  • Like
Reactions: charlesrshell
I've never really figured out why the 2G internal HD is partitioned into two 1 Gig partitions.

One is to store the programs and recordings and prime-time any-time. The other is for Dish On Demand and other loaded shows.

After all this time, I think that Dish would look at the stats and see that about .0001% of its user base has more than 15% (max) of the DOD stuff used, considering that most are auto-expiring.

For us who already have a 2G drive, it's a bit late to repartition the internal drive, considering its EXT-3 format and the internal software is just a subset of Linux, not full Linux. But that doesn't stop Dish from shipping new units with maybe 1.5 Gig as user recording space and 5 Gig for DOD.

Maybe someone who can do the math and user utilization experience better than me might be able to explain it. A wrong decision at H3 release time doesn't justify not correctly fixing it in future ship units.

My 2 cents.
It hasn’t been divided into 2 1gig partitions for years.

Years ago they moved PTAT to the user partition and went to 1.25 & .75 gig partitions
 
Thanks, but I assume that they did not update any existing in the field. So if I got the H3 the year it came out, yes, it still works just great, then can I assume I'm still on 1+1 format?
I think your assumption would be incorrect. They can do those updates via satellite or internet downloads.
 
DiSH has always leaned heavily into PPV. Whether or not it's a huge revenue stream, they've always wanted it to be. So they're not doing actual-use hard drive math, they're simply pushing out PPV (VOD) as always.

Back when DiSH first launched they were pushing it. The receivers would readily allow viewing PPVs, at least up to a certain point, and then if no ph. line was connected (to upload to the bill), it stopped letting any more be viewed. I had customers who ate it up, activated PPVs until it wouldn't let them anymore and then just forgot about it, then later when a ph. line got hooked up all of the old PPV use was uploaded and they got an astronomical bill and either canceled or were shut off for nonpay.

I didn't connect ph. line on installs because of this- folks running up big bills and then losing their service to shutoff. Not unless they expressed that they wanted to do PPV, which were few or none. Then DiSH started pushing ph. line hookup hard, to the point where they actually charged an extra monthly fee for not having the connection. Talk about greed!
 
DiSH has always leaned heavily into PPV. Whether or not it's a huge revenue stream, they've always wanted it to be. So they're not doing actual-use hard drive math, they're simply pushing out PPV (VOD) as always.
If it was a big money maker, it no longer is.

PPV revenue is down about 80% from a few years ago, because people have learned that it will not be long for a movie to premiere on a Streaming Service.

The old days, movie opening date, then 6 months later, on PPV and Disc, then about another 6 months later, on a service like HBO.

The new world, movie opening date, then 14 days to 3 months, PPV or Buy Digital Copy, then, roughly, about a month later, premiere on streaming service and Disc is for Sale around the same time.

For example, Dune 2, opened at Theaters March 1, PVOD April 16, on MAX May 21, less then 3 months since it started at Theaters, disc came out 2 days ago.