EHD and my VIP722 - slow restore

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drewh01

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Original poster
Sep 21, 2009
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AZ
I recently purchased a Seagate Desktop Drive - 500GB and connected it to my 722.

I was able to transfer about 200 gigs of programming to it and had some issues with the drive going idle and the 722 not seeing it without a reboot of the drive.

Now, after many other issues (error 855's - USB error) I was able to finally get the 'Restore' function to properly work. The transfer to the EHD took only about 6 hrs. According to the menu notification, the restore (back to the 722) of only 50GB is going to take 20 hours? Is this normal?

I just wnat to get everything back the way it was so I can return this drive as it has been causing me headaches. I guess I am a bit disappointed as I thought I could use this as a backup in case my 722 dies, which appears to not be. Seems like I am only trading one drive for another......and both could fail at any time.

Should I use a different drive? Am I doing something wrong? Is USB2 that slow? Should I keep the 722 off when restoring?
 
Seagate drives need to have their sleep/hibernate mode turned off via software on the PC before you try to put them into service as an EHD. You might try the search mode here to find a few threads on this if you want more detail.

20 hrs for that is NOT normal. There may be another problem, and it may be that your DVR HDD is going bad. But I'd try the disabling of the sleep mode first, then try again. Of course, your equipment must support USB 2.0 but it is unlikely that a recently purchased unit does not.

Yep, the programs can be on one drive or the other- not both at the same time. Quality EHDs may be more reliable. And if you look thru these forums, you may find some information on making backup copies of EHDs.
 
Disable sleep mode? I wouldn't even know where to start to do that one.

What a pain this has been, I should have left well enough alone. Could Dish make this any more of a nightmare.
 
Not a Dish problem. Seagate caused this little problem. Although I do understand Dish is trying to come up with a fix. Just Seagate's way of trying to claim they're green, and saving a watt.

Your drive should have come with some s/w that would allow you to hook it up to a PC to control this feature. If not, so check the Seagate site. I wouldn't have any programs on the HDD at the time, though.
 
Don't blame dish for something it didn't cause. Your lack of knowledge of the HDD and need to disable the s/w to go to sleep is the problem. Not trying to put you down but sound like you didn't do any research before buying the ext HDD. Good Luck on the next one but first find out if it is a good one to hook up to the 722. There is a thread about compatible drives here somewhere.
 
That's nice. First they never mentioned that this would ERASE THE PROGRAMMING from my 722 after the transfer.

Now I have 200gigs of programming that I need back on my 722 and according to the green progress bar, it will take 80 hours! So, I guess fixing the sleep issue is out...of course once I wait 80 hours then maybe. I will probably just forget it and get rid of the drive, I already have 2 hours and 3 separate calls into Dish about this. Oh yeah, those 3 calls were because after an hour of being on hold I got disconnected. Not like I have anything else important to do.....(sarcasm)
 
drewh01 said:
That's nice. First they never mentioned that this would ERASE THE PROGRAMMING from my 722 after the transfer.

Now I have 200gigs of programming that I need back on my 722 and according to the green progress bar, it will take 80 hours! So, I guess fixing the sleep issue is out...of course once I wait 80 hours then maybe. I will probably just forget it and get rid of the drive, I already have 2 hours and 3 separate calls into Dish about this. Oh yeah, those 3 calls were because after an hour of being on hold I got disconnected. Not like I have anything else important to do.....(sarcasm)
Click to expand...
Get on Seagate support and find what you need to disable the sleep mode.
 
Ok not trying to hijack here, but what would be considered a normal transfer time from 722 to ehd for around 200 gb?
 
The initial estimate is a guess, sometimes low and sometimes high. It tends to be corrected as the transfer runs. The guess would be high if you can really transfer faster than most of us. It will be low if there are errors, as in weak cabling, or if the disk is slow or misses the transfer increments. It will be low if there is a large traffic on your busses, as in 2 or 3 recordings while watch live or recorded. So for best transfer time: no recordings, no viewing, and hands off the guide--go away for a few hours.

The important number would be the MB/hour transferred but Dish does slow it to be ready for the other operations. You can look at the number of MB (not just hours) either on new recordings by DVR-4-2 with a disk plugged in or DVR-4-1 for those transferred to HDD.

It is hard to compare to loading/unloading of say a floppy because the size of these recordings is big. A DVD at 2 hour quality is 4000MB. Note OTA HD is often >5000 MB/hr, MPEG-2 is 3000-4000 MB/hr, MPEG-4 HD is 1600 to 3200 MB/hr, and MPEG-2 SD 700 to 900 MB/hr all without commercials. Those are recording times. Transfers are usually several times faster than real time even in the worst case (OTA HD).
-Ken
 
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Transfer means "move." They did not think you would need to be told that. "Duplicate" or "copy" is what you wanted, but for copy protection reasons, they don't offer that. And that isn't a choice by Dish, it is forced on them by content providers.
 

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