HR2x / HR34 External Hard Drive FYI/Support (eSATA)

[vurbano]

So your saying that if you go with the 2 drives (2 750's for example) you cannot put them together so they read as one, making it a 1.5 TB ?

As you can tell I don't know very much about this perticular area.

Jimbo

No that is not what I am saying. Im saying you cant move files around from drive tto drive to get them organized. I currently have 2 servers I can put extracted HDTivo files on via ethernet and keep things like 3 seasons of BSG together in one place instead of spread out over say 3 esata drives that you would have hooked up over the time period of the 3 seasons. Its all a bit of a mess if you ask me. D* is allowing external storage so I do not see the point at limiting it. Why not enable it over ethernet to file servers where we can organize our programs. Otherwise at 8pm on saturday you are going to have remember to "grab the BSG" disk and plug it in and reboot. And if you are recording something on the other tuner at the same time BSG is on that is going to end up on that disk too. But hope springs eternal, the nice people over at dealdatabase have already started a thread on the HR20.

 

[vurbano]

I'm little bit puzzled when some ppl claim there is an enclosures ( actually with HW RAID controller ) what could rebuild partition when you add more drive(s).

Why are you puzzled? They have been around for years.

 

[Smith P.]

Hmm, what models ? I use to replace bad disks and restore RAID health, but not expanding logical partitions. I'm not talking about SAN.
What type of partitions you told me - NTFS, EXT2 ?

 

[vurbano]

Hmm, what models ? I use to replace bad disks and restore RAID health, but not expanding logical partitions. I'm not talking about SAN.
What type of partitions you told me - NTFS, EXT2 ?

Infrant models with XRaid technology Infrant Technologies

They are 4 drive enclosures that let you add disks. They automatically expand the volume and keep your data.

X-RAID is Infrant Technologies patent-pending Expandable RAID technology, allows users to add drives at their leisure. Start with one disk or add a second disk to gain disk failure protection. Add a third to automatically double the capacity while maintaining protection. Finally, add a fourth disk to triple the protected capacity, all without reconfiguring the system and without having to shuffle data in and out of the device.

Its not a solution for the HR20 and eSATA as it operates over ethernet. I have had my Ready NAS600 for a couple of years now. When it came out it didnt have XRaid but that was added with a firmware update I think.

 

[lovswr]

No that is not what I am saying. Im saying you cant move files around from drive tto drive to get them organized. I currently have 2 servers I can put extracted HDTivo files on via ethernet and keep things like 3 seasons of BSG together in one place instead of spread out over say 3 esata drives that you would have hooked up over the time period of the 3 seasons. Its all a bit of a mess if you ask me. D* is allowing external storage so I do not see the point at limiting it. Why not enable it over ethernet to file servers where we can organize our programs. Otherwise at 8pm on saturday you are going to have remember to "grab the BSG" disk and plug it in and reboot. And if you are recording something on the other tuner at the same time BSG is on that is going to end up on that disk too. But hope springs eternal, the nice people over at dealdatabase have already started a thread on the HR20.

Well V this is an "undocumented feature" as of yet. Hopefully when the VOD is officially released, they will(or better yet in beta, say like in the next week ) will enable some kind of "same box" disk management. That is to say, that several drives can be formated & used by the same HR-20 without erasing/duplicating.

I really don't expect that they will allow you to send recorded streams out to your own servers though, as the Hollywood studios are already suing over that

 

[vurbano]

I really don't expect that they will allow you to send recorded streams out to your own servers though, as the Hollywood studios are already suing over that

Yeah probably not. But it will happen anyway in time.

 

[vurbano]

USB Raid array

bllreed said: I also hooked up a SATAII RAID array to the HR-20 USB port. When the unit is plugged back in to power it comes up normally but switches to the external drive. So any recordings you have on the internal drive are lost but the increase in space is well worth it. 5 - 750's gives you 3 TB in a RAID5.

HR20 Networked: DVR playground
​

 

[Smith P.]

RAID-5 would be overkill for a purpose of home DVR.
You'll pay a price of one full size HDD for reliability of what ?

Other guy, IMHO, choose right way - RAID-0 for same config and he got 3.75 TB of space.

 

[Smith P.]

Infrant models with XRaid technology Infrant Technologies

They are 4 drive enclosures that let you add disks. They automatically expand the volume and keep your data.

X-RAID is Infrant Technologies patent-pending Expandable RAID technology, allows users to add drives at their leisure. Start with one disk or add a second disk to gain disk failure protection. Add a third to automatically double the capacity while maintaining protection. Finally, add a fourth disk to triple the protected capacity, all without reconfiguring the system and without having to shuffle data in and out of the device.

Its not a solution for the HR20 and eSATA as it operates over ethernet. I have had my Ready NAS600 for a couple of years now. When it came out it didnt have XRaid but that was added with a firmware update I think.

Well, after reading some chapters from a NAS600 manual, I would say you choose different CLASS of appliance. I did mention HW RAID controller, but you bring whole specialized server with big storage. Nah, too expensive for home DVRs.

 

[vurbano]

RAID-5 would be overkill for a purpose of home DVR.
You'll pay a price of one full size HDD for reliability of what ?

for not losing your data.

Other guy, IMHO, choose right way - RAID-0 for same config and he got 3.75 TB of space.

My point was he used the USB connection, anyone tried that yet here?

 

[vurbano]

Well, after reading some chapters from a NAS600 manual, I would say you choose different CLASS of appliance. I did mention HW RAID controller, but you bring whole specialized server with big storage. Nah, too expensive for home DVRs.

Not if you already own a box it isnt. LOL. But Im not sure it would work with the HR20 anyway.

 

[Smith P.]

for not losing your data.


My point was he used the USB connection, anyone tried that yet here?

- Too expensive solution, waisting space/recording time - nothing important to go for high reliability that way.
- No, you can't use USB for HR20 ( that's Dish 622 suppose to do ).

 

[Brewer4]

Ok here are some notes for my eSATA installation.

I ordered the Hard drive from Fry's. Its sold out and was a great deal for $179. It was free shipping but got to CT from Ohio in 2 business days. I ordered the enclosure from NewEgg. $29.99 with 3 day free shipping. Got to CT next day from NJ. Love NewEgg. I was also impressed with Fry's so I will try them again.

Enclosure: ESATA NEXSTAR3|VANTEC NST-360SU-BK
Hard Drive: WD7500AAKS 750GB SATA SATA/300 HARD DRIVE

The Vantec case is sleek, black and not bad construction. I am a bit nervous with the internal wires as they have to be pushed when putting the drive in the dock but seemed to conform well when the drive got in its final position. The front light is exact same blue as the HR20. You have option of not plugging in light if you don't want it. Overall, I like the case. Very slick.

No comments about hard drive specifically. I reset receiver, unplugged it after its shutdown, turned on hard drive enclosure, plugged in eSATA cord, plugged back in the power on HR20, and normal boot. Took a few minutes. I am on CE from July 13th, 0x17d. This is original HR20-700 from September 2006.

Here is the rub when doing this. It reset my network connection, favorites, scheduler, and To Do List. It kept satellite configuration, OTA markets, Display Preferences including GUIDE Keypress selection, HDTV options including TV resolutions and Native off for me, and selected OTA channels. It seems to have no problem with OTA channels and channels subscribed to.

Here is my first test. I recorded a program and saved it. I stopped it, reset the receiver, unplugged the power, unplugged the eSATA cable, shut down the eSATA drive, then rebooted. I want to see if it would reinitialize the programs stored on the internal drive. After a typical reboot, it remembered everything like nothing happened. I shut down and put back the eSATA.

HERE IS CORRECTION. It wiped out the recording on the eSATA drive. Hmmmmm. So the internal stays intact but you lose eSATA on flipping around. Not what I wanted to see. Lets see how it does over the next week.

 

[vurbano]

HERE IS CORRECTION. It wiped out the recording on the eSATA drive. Hmmmmm. So the internal stays intact but you lose eSATA on flipping around. Not what I wanted to see. Lets see how it does over the next week.

Now that is unacceptable and 180 degrees from what I have heard would happen. They have to fix that.

 

[Brewer4]

Now that is unacceptable and 180 degrees from what I have heard would happen. They have to fix that.

Since I don't have much to lose I am going to do some experiments all week and try again. This is the deadest month for me recording wise as I don't watch the pseudo-reality junk and even sports is dull except Red Sox every now and then. I would rather learn it right now then when I need my recordings.

 

[Brewer4]

Good news!!

I repeated the experiment. Shut down HR20, go to internal drive, check things, close down, go to eSATA drive. This time my programs and settings were still there. I repeated it again since I noticed in the history my previous program was in there as deleted. The drive didnt rewipe itself. Not sure sure what told it to delete but this time around it kept everything including channel favorites, to do and recorded programs. I am liking the eSATA!!

 

[Ramy]

Yeah I think I need to get one of these too at some point before the Fall shows start.

 

[Jimbo]

Good news!!

I repeated the experiment. Shut down HR20, go to internal drive, check things, close down, go to eSATA drive. This time my programs and settings were still there. I repeated it again since I noticed in the history my previous program was in there as deleted. The drive didnt rewipe itself. Not sure sure what told it to delete but this time around it kept everything including channel favorites, to do and recorded programs. I am liking the eSATA!!

You need to document exactly the things you did to get it to work as well as what you did differently the first time, so you don't do it again.

Jimbo

 

[Brewer4]

You need to document exactly the things you did to get it to work as well as what you did differently the first time, so you don't do it again.

Jimbo

The only thing I did differently was pull the power cord on the HR20 a bit quicker after I did a software restart. Maybe it needs to break in and maybe having it try to do the start up too quick caused the issue. But then, the first time I booted up the HR20 with the new drive, it gave that message that I just upgraded to the new White GUI. So I think it might have been due to the newness of it seeing itself and not getting everything down. I don't want to push it that much but it at least acts the way I thought it was supposed to.

There is another benefit. My HR20-700 appears to be a hair faster. Might be since it was a clear drive but even channel navigation and selection is faster. Lets see if it stays that way after a week.

 

[Brewer4]

I guess this is turning into my log. I am watching an MPEG4 HD recording of Red Sox on NESN HD. It was always a bit slow in trick play response and the picture was garbled for a second when you hit play after hitting the 30 second skip 3 times. The eSATA drive is smoother on all accounts and has the Trick Play responding better. Its also not garbling the video on play. Anyone else notice performance improvement with the eSATA setup?