External Hard Drive Limitations for Hopper

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So I removed it and attached to my Linux box. What I see is unexpected. It appears to have created 1 1.1GB and 5 537GB partitions, with a DiskArc folder in each 537GB partition.

That's exactly what I would expect, although I don't see what happened to the last 135 (?)GB, and I can't explain why it wants to reformat again.
 
Disk manufacturers use powers of 1000 because it looks bigger.
Computer people use powers of 1024. Both are correct in their way.
Thus DM 1 TB drive is 1000^4 = .909 TB by our counting.
A 1GB DM drive would be 1000^3 = .931 GB by our use.
Does this account for your difference?
-Ken
 
Disk manufacturers use powers of 1000 because it looks bigger.
Computer people use powers of 1024. Both are correct in their way.
Thus DM 1 TB drive is 1000^4 = .909 TB by our counting.
A 1GB DM drive would be 1000^3 = .931 GB by our use.
Does this account for your difference?
-Ken

Ken,


With the exception of memory calculations, this "computer person" knows that decimal thousands are used.

Ethernet? Decimal
Fiber Channel? Decimal
Clock speeds? Decimal
Serial port speeds? Decimal
Memory? Binary (2^10)
File system calculations? Binary
Disk sizes? Decimal

You lose more than the differences between the two measurements due to file system overhead.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 using Tapatalk 2.x
 
Hopper files size are in 1024^3 * 3-digit decimal fraction on the Edit screen's GB.
Thus they are numerically smaller than expected on 722, which used 1000^2 * integer MB.
I have to account for this in my 3000+100s of entries spreadsheet with change of hardware.
It makes it difficult to compare Futurama sizes--always looking for the smallest complete show.
The nice thing on the Hopper is you can read the size without requiring an EHD loaded.
I wish that I could get a list of sizes and not just one at a time. Just so much on a line.
The displayed available size is for Hopper's destination instead of always for the internal. Good.
-Ken
 
Disk manufacturers use powers of 1000 because it looks bigger.
Computer people use powers of 1024. Both are correct in their way.
Thus DM 1 TB drive is 1000^4 = .909 TB by our counting.
A 1GB DM drive would be 1000^3 = .931 GB by our use.
Does this account for your difference?
-Ken

Not sure if you are addressing me. My point about 2793GB was to show that the Hopper does support more than 2TB external drives.

I know all about marketing vs "true" space... :)
 
Not sure if you are addressing me. My point about 2793GB was to show that the Hopper does support more than 2TB external drives.

I know all about marketing vs "true" space... :)
I believe he was addressing Krell and his "missing" 135GB comment.
 
I want greater capacity than I currently have and since any recordings I transferring back to the hopper end up corrupt, my only recourse I can come up with is to transfer them from the old drives to the new ones manually.
So, you take your TWO separate drives, then combine them into ONE and then the ONE goes bad...what have you got? This is a situation where bigger is not better.
 
Hopper files size are in 1024^3 * 3-digit decimal fraction on the Edit screen's GB.

Everything in memory calculations (and disk storage is handled this way) is binary. A Kilobyte is 2^10 Bytes which is 1024. Sectors are 2^5 or 512 bytes. Without going into details, they are simply returning the most efficient way they have.

Thus they are numerically smaller than expected on 722, which used 1000^2 * integer MB.
I have to account for this in my 3000+100s of entries spreadsheet with change of hardware. It makes it difficult to compare Futurama sizes--always looking for the smallest complete show.
The nice thing on the Hopper is you can read the size without requiring an EHD loaded.
I wish that I could get a list of sizes and not just one at a time. Just so much on a line.
The displayed available size is for Hopper's destination instead of always for the internal. Good.
-Ken

Given how cheap disk space is these days, wouldn't be easier to just buy a few more disks and segregate based on content? I know that's a radical concept. How much time do you spend tracking all this stuff and what could you be doing with that time? Futurama is a half hour sitcom, if it hits 2GB/episode that's pretty big. So this all fits on an inexpensive 500GB drive. Buy some cloning software and clone the drive on an external machine and have a spare.

We all make choices about things to obsess over. I guess this is just your thing to obsess over.
 
So, you take your TWO separate drives, then combine them into ONE and then the ONE goes bad...what have you got? This is a situation where bigger is not better.

You have to weight convenience (a single drive) vs. inconvenience (multiple drives).

Either way, if a drive fails you lose content. Nothing around that, unless you were to start buying devices that mirror internally which lowers your likelihood of an impacting hardware failure.

Most people, including me for that matter, don't think too deeply on this subject for home use.
 
The quickest thing to do would be to let the receiver format the new 3TB drives, then use a Linux boot CD on your computer to copy the Disharc folder and files from the old HDDs to the new ones. Done.
 
You have to weight convenience (a single drive) vs. inconvenience (multiple drives). Either way, if a drive fails you lose content. Nothing around that, unless you were to start buying devices that mirror internally which lowers your likelihood of an impacting hardware failure. Most people, including me for that matter, don't think too deeply on this subject for home use.
Dealing with more drives that can be attached at one time gets too complicated. For me, I could deal with it, but for the family, how do you create a process of switching between drives? Is that something you want to expose the family too? Not me. I've tried a USB switch, but it still created too much complexity for the others. Having something always attached and accessible reduces things to simply navigating the hopper menus.
 
The quickest thing to do would be to let the receiver format the new 3TB drives, then use a Linux boot CD on your computer to copy the Disharc folder and files from the old HDDs to the new ones. Done.

Our use a *nix based OS as your desktop and you're already booted.

Besides all the variants of Linux there is also Mac OS.

Cheers,


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 using Tapatalk 2.x
 
Our use a *nix based OS as your desktop and you're already booted. Besides all the variants of Linux there is also Mac OS. Cheers
So are you saying I can do everything, the hopper is doing to format the drive, on my desktop myself? I tend to agree with you, but other than the partition sizes and the filesystem used, what other things must I manually do to ensure compatibility?
 
So are you saying I can do everything, the hopper is doing to format the drive, on my desktop myself? I tend to agree with you, but other than the partition sizes and the filesystem used, what other things must I manually do to ensure compatibility?

Let the Hopper Format it, then disconnect it. Move your data. That's it. The files are encrypted, the file system is not.

You might also try this (caveat: I have not) -- a freeware tool for ext2/ext3 for windows:
http://www.ext2fsd.com/
 
I have just connected and formatted a 2 TB hard drive. I have successfully transferred a couple hundred shows. My problem is the transfer from screen only shows about 20% of the the 1200 shows on the Hopper. How do I get to see ALL the shows on the Hopper so I can transfer the ones I choose, rather than a choice from the first 20%?
 
Regarding small drives vs. larger: I use large drives now--I have 12 now. The earliest and smallest is 750GB, 5 times over. I will not buy any smaller than 2TB now. I want larger not smaller. Any loss it still a loss and more drives does not improve the failure problem, it just uses more floor space.

Not in the market right now but the failures (coming back somewhat, sometimes) were the 2 1TB off-brand drives and they are "working" after emptying them, slowly due to error recovery? But they still seem slower. I do segregate the recordings by IMDb rating and certain sources. I should have just added them to the latest drive until full, keeping track of which drive in my spreadsheet. Then you don't "need" to move them when their rating changes.

The problem comes when you replace a recording with a smaller copy or get an HD to replace an SD. It leaves holes and you don't get to use the whole capacity. The way to fix that without a de-frag program is to copy it to another drive but all Dish recorders do not do disk to disk. It is only the Hopper that even allows more than one drive. Maybe 2 722 running copies was faster and more versatile but much harder to keep track off the process.

A GIANT help would be names for the drives when External 1 and 2 can be any of the 3 USB ports. You can keep track of the order you brought them up or if their sizes differ you know which is which. Moving a file/recording to the wrong drive requires moving it back and then out again. It might be better if they did NOT dynamically assign the names. How about upper, lower, and front? Safest is to look at the name of some of the recordings to be sure you have the right drive.

-Ken

I don't have more than say 300 on a drive because most are movies in HD. -K
 
Let the Hopper Format it, then disconnect it. Move your data. That's it. The files are encrypted, the file system is not. You might also try this (caveat: I have not) -- a freeware tool for ext2/ext3 for windows: http://www.ext2fsd.com/
Easier said than done. The format on the hopper runs forever (never completes) on this drive. Unplug and replug restarts the entire process. This is my reason I'm looking for alternatives methods to initialize.
 
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