Hard Drive Bargain Watch

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Dirtydan said:
I have bought from eCost and earlier I saw this unit, so tell us if this is quite and if the fan needs to be turned on,please.
Click to expand...

The fan is silent, so I generally just leave it on.
It's a metal case so would probably dispurse the heat ok w/o it (assuming a kind environment).
 
Is there any reason to believe that an 8 MB vs 16 MB buffer will make any difference in this application? The La Cie and some of the Seagates are 8 MB buffers. The more expensive WD's tend to be 16 MB. As long as the 622 can play seamlessly off the drive, I don't care. Thoughts on this?
 
redman042 said:
Is there any reason to believe that an 8 MB vs 16 MB buffer will make any difference in this application? The La Cie and some of the Seagates are 8 MB buffers. The more expensive WD's tend to be 16 MB. As long as the 622 can play seamlessly off the drive, I don't care. Thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't think so but I am no expert.

The crucial point and bottle neck is the USB transfer speed. And it seems to be more than sufficient.
 
For people worried about multiple streams on a USB 2.0 device: IMHO, with Dish's "HD" MPEG-2 rates being lowered and MPEG-4 needing lower bitrates on top of that, it would not surprise me if you could be transferring a program to the external HDD while simultaneously TV1 and TV2 watch separate programs from the external drive. 480Mbps far exceeds the bandwidth needed by current Dish HD programming. Whether or not my scenario is supported by the Aug 15th software release depends on Dish more than the external hardware.
 
Foxbat said:
For people worried about multiple streams on a USB 2.0 device: IMHO, with Dish's "HD" MPEG-2 rates being lowered and MPEG-4 needing lower bitrates on top of that, it would not surprise me if you could be transferring a program to the external HDD while simultaneously TV1 and TV2 watch separate programs from the external drive. 480Mbps far exceeds the bandwidth needed by current Dish HD programming. Whether or not my scenario is supported by the Aug 15th software release depends on Dish more than the external hardware.
Click to expand...

The drives seek and random I/O limits are going to play into this far sooner then the USB 2 bus limit will. It won't be anywhere near even the drives maximum spindle rate.

Let's say we have 20Mbits/second for the programs (max MPEG-2 rate) being watched. That's 5MB/second and you're seeking 'tween those two positions to keep those requests serviced. Then you're going to add on to that a copy for N seconds depending on size; that could be minutes long. I really could see this being problematic depending on where these are all coming from on the spindle.

It's a mechanical limit that I'm discussing not interface limits.

Cheers,
 
John, if you'll check Maxtor/Seagate web site you'll find White Paper about video streaming to models with 5400 RPM . I recall they have proof for five of them.
 
And besides, John, those seek issues would be the same whether the drive were internal or external. The internal xfer is faster, to be sure (1.5Gbps vs. theoretical 480Mbps), but the 8MB or 16MB read cache should help out the playback from the drive.

In a little over a week, we'll have the answers.

rdinkel, I got the same unit and posted a picture in the other thread (
attachment.php
) if anyone reading this thread is interested in seeing it next to a 622.
 
redman042 said:
Is there any reason to believe that an 8 MB vs 16 MB buffer will make any difference in this application? The La Cie and some of the Seagates are 8 MB buffers. The more expensive WD's tend to be 16 MB. As long as the 622 can play seamlessly off the drive, I don't care. Thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

All these drives are data drives, not AV drives. Data drives are programmed to perform a different kind of error correction and can hold up the data stream in order to make sure every bit is correct. Because of this, the greater your buffer the better. So 16mb would be an advantage over 8mb. AV drives are programmed differently so that while error correction is performed, it is not done to point where a data stream is delayed. Not every bit has to be correct in a complex video stream playback.

Whether you will ever notice is not known and probably unlikely. I like the AV drives because they can also handle higher average temperatures.

I have two drives to test when the service is turned on. One WD AAKS data drive with 16mb cache and 7200rpm and one Seagate DB35.3 AV drive.
 
Well I just picked up the Seagate FreeAgent 500 GB from Best Buy last night. It's a good deal at $129, and certainly a major trusted brand. Reviewers say it's wisper quiet. I'm pretty sure it's only an 8 MB buffer, but my feeling is that it won't be a problem. Dish's announcement specifically said the 622 should work with all major brand external HDD's up to 750 GB. They did not state any limitations regarding buffer size or whatever. After all the time they took to roll this new feature out, I would have to assume that they tested thoroughly and if there was a noticable drawback to using an 8 MB buffer drive (which is very common for these consumer drives), they would have said so by now.

But I'll keep my receipt handy just in case.
 
Smith said:
John, if you'll check Maxtor/Seagate web site you'll find White Paper about video streaming to models with 5400 RPM . I recall they have proof for five of them.
Click to expand...

Yes they do; and you don't know the conditions under which those were built. But they weren't created through a USB interface. Quite important distinction.

Cheers,
 
My point was to reply to your phrase "It's a mechanical limit that I'm discussing not interface limits."
According to manufacturers their HDD could sustain up to 5 (SD I guess) streams.
 
My WD 500GB My Book, USB HDD arrived today from Amazon. Paid $139 - minus a $5 coupon I had. No shipping, and no tax. Pretty good price. Can't wait to check it out.

But now I want to see if it has a 16 or 8MB buffer. Oh well, I am not returning it in any case. :)

Bring it on Dish network! Lets put this hard drive to the test! :D
 
"But now I want to see if it has a 16 or 8MB buffer. "

At that price, I'm assuming it's the "Essentials" version with the green light.
If so it should be a 16 meg buffer. (that's the one I'm planning on picking up at Circuit City the on sale for the same price).

The more expensive one with the blue lights looks like it might only have an 8 meg buffer.
 
jdr01930 said:
"But now I want to see if it has a 16 or 8MB buffer. "

At that price, I'm assuming it's the "Essentials" version with the green light.
If so it should be a 16 meg buffer. (that's the one I'm planning on picking up at Circuit City the on sale for the same price).

The more expensive one with the blue lights looks like it might only have an 8 meg buffer.
Click to expand...

Its the "essentials" version. I forgot to bring it in from the car gonna check on the buffer right now... :)
 
Just checked it out. 16MB buffer.

One night thing - compared with the My Book Premium I have from last year (320GB), this one has a plastic case, rather than a metal one. The metal one is all tarnished, whereas this one will always look the same.

Its all ready and waiting for Dish... :)

I also noticed that its price on Amazon went up $8 since I ordered it two days ago.

And why do I think I'll eventually have a whole "library" of these things. :)
 

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