OFFICIAL External Storage Information

[keenan]

So, practically the transfer speed it 3..5 Mb/s. Hmm, it's close to USB 1.1 then to USB 2.0

Now tell me about advantage using USB v2.0 with theoretical speed 480 Mbps .

D* made right choice using eSATA !

It has to be faster than that doesn't it to be able to play back from the external drive, no?

I do agree, eSATA is the way to go though.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

The problem with DirecTV's external storage is it disables the internal hard drive on the HR20. So you lose all that space.

That is what has kept me back from adding storage to my HR20.

BTW I got my external storage up and running!

 

[keenan]

The problem with DirecTV's external storage is it disables the internal hard drive on the HR20. So you lose all that space.

That is what has kept me back from adding storage to my HR20.

BTW I got my external storage up and running!

That's, well, stupid..why did they do that?

The best implementation I've seen so far is with the TiVo Series 3, the external drive is transparent, you just have much more space than with the single internal drive while using all the same menu for recording listings, playback, etc.

 

[mikewaters]

from what I have gathered, this external storage feature will not allow me to transfer files from the external drive to my PC or Ipod or laptop.

Is that correct?

If so, too bad.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Thats correct you can only watch stuff on the hard drive on the 622 or a 722.

 

[KAB]

from what I have gathered, this external storage feature will not allow me to transfer files from the external drive to my PC or Ipod or laptop.

Is that correct?

Yes.

 

[FWGMills]

BEFORE READING THIS: I didn't look through the threads before posting this and it's basically the same as everyone else's experience. Sorry about that.

This morning I checked and I received the L4.41 software last night. I do have the new HD channels and they mapped down properly.

I have a 1TB external hard drive. It's actually two 500MB drives in a case but the "spanning" magic happens in the circuitry of the enclosure because my Windows box saw it as one 1TB drive. I connected it to the 622 and it saw it and said "I need to format" so I said yes. The the receiver rebooted and I navigated the menus to 4-2-1 to manage my external device.

I called the phone number to activate and got "Blue" on the line. He didn't know what I was talking about so I read him the screen number for the message (don't remember it) and he put me on hold for a minute. He found the information and said I was the first person that asked him for this to be activated. I said if he's there all day to expect more. He activated the drive (It'll take 10-15 minutes blah blah) and the $39.95 charge will show up on my next bill.

I've waited some time and now when I click Dish Recordings "Manage Device" it says that I have no events, 930.3 GB Available, 0 Bytes Selected. YAHOO!!

I select Send to Device and get a screen similar to the Priority screen. I can select events on my 622 to move to my external drive. I've selected a bunch of movies and HD stuff I've been saving and the screen says 930.3 GB Available, 94.8 GB Selected and there are three buttons, To Archive, Done and Help. I click To archive and it says Estimated Time to transfer is 6HR 36MIN 45 SEC. WOW, that's alot but I am moving almost 100Gig and the little blue light on the HDD is blinking away. While the transfer is happening I can View TV, Stop Transfer or Help. I choose View TV. WAIT! In two minutes the time dropped to 5HR 25MIN 32SEC so it's using "Microsoft time" to calculate the transfer time.

I started the transfer at exactly 11:55am CT so I'll watch it to see how long it actually takes. I'm not going to mess with it until it's done. Now when I press the DVR key there are 5 options. USB Storage has been added. A second press of the DVR key still takes me to My Recordings (AKA internal HDD) but that's OK since that is where all new material goes anyway.

The events I'm moving still show up in the My Recordings screen but they have a little black icon (a movie camera?) next to them. I don't know what that is but I'm not going to mess with it while it's transferring. I'll watch Eureka I recorded last night...I didn't choose to transfer it.

I can watch a PVR (that I'm not transferring) while the rest of the events are moving.

More later...

UPDATE> The transfer looks like it stopped. HDD light is not flashing anymore. It may have stopped when I started watching the PVR event.
UPDATE> Somehow I managed to kill the transfer so I've restarted it. Continuing to watch Eureka.

 

[mikewaters]

Thats correct you can only watch stuff on the hard drive on the 622 or a 722.

It sounds like the sort of thing that might be hacked at some point (not that I approve or endorse, and noticed the "no hacking discussion" rule here).

 

[8bitbytes]

It sounds like the sort of thing that might be hacked at some point (not that I approve or endorse, and noticed the "no hacking discussion" rule here).

Funny how you are only on your second post and you are already using that word...

 

[mikewaters]

Funny how you are only on your second post and you are already using that word...

LOL. I was asking about the features associated with this on a different board, and someone pointed me here.

I was excited I might be able to watch TV shows on a portable device (like a homebrew pocketdish I guess).

No dice.

 

[primetimeguy]

Just realized no way to "sort" the items on the external drive. It appears they are there in the order I transferred them. Will be a pain when this thing gets filled.

 

[John Kotches]

I called after getting up for work at 4am. It took an hour and 15 minutes to transfer 6 hours of HD to archive. Other than the slow transfer speed, it seems to be working as advertised. I was able to play recordings from archive (SlingBox), and transfering to archive continues uninterupted while the receive is placed in standby (power button). So far, it appears to be working just fine with my Western Digital 500GB, USB/eSata, My Book.

As I said earlier and which you're merely proving -- it's the spindle aka drive that is the limiting factor; not the interface.

Assuming it's 20 Mbits/second/stream (the upper limit of HDTV bit rates) you are talking about ~80Mbits/second or 10 MB/second of transfer. This is nowhere near the theoretical limit of USB 2.0.

Realistically you are sitting between 50-60 Mbits/second or 6-8(Ish) MBytes/second as most HD sits in the 12-15 Mbits/second or lower.

 

[Smith P.]

As I said earlier and which you're merely proving -- it's the spindle aka drive that is the limiting factor; not the interface.
<...>

Nope. That's not true here, for transfer from/to 622.

We are far far away from internal HDD limitations, especially for the newer 8/16 MB cache 7200 RPM disks.

It is simple DishLinux implementation, as I pointed before - it is PocketDish routines.

 

[kstuart]

When something is transferring to ext drive, there is an icon next to the name of the recording in the DVR list. The icon is there for all recordings that are queued to transfer. The icon is supposed to look like an ext drive, but it actually looks like a film movie camera.

 

[the_pabster]

As I said earlier and which you're merely proving -- it's the spindle aka drive that is the limiting factor; not the interface.

Assuming it's 20 Mbits/second/stream (the upper limit of HDTV bit rates) you are talking about ~80Mbits/second or 10 MB/second of transfer. This is nowhere near the theoretical limit of USB 2.0.

Realistically you are sitting between 50-60 Mbits/second or 6-8(Ish) MBytes/second as most HD sits in the 12-15 Mbits/second or lower.

Your HDTV numbers are OK but your hard disk ones are a "bit" off

First of all, the 480Mbit rating of USB 2.0 is theoretical. External drives don't come anywhere CLOSE to touching that. The fastest external 2.0's I've used (in very expensive cases with high quality chipsets) can do 25MB/s - roughly 220Mbit, or less than 50% of the "theoretical" rating.

More common is 12 to 15MB/s (100Mbit to 120Mbit) with several drives closer to the lower side. It really depends more on the chipset used in the external enclosure; The cheap knock-off Chinese ones are dirt slow and often have high error rates; Better name-brand ones like Oxford are much faster and have much lower error rates...Hence, the drive inside doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Any late model 7200rpm spindle drive can do more than the USB 2.0 interface can handle in the first place.

At any rate, even with a 22Mbit HD stream, and even with a crap chipset in a cheap enclosure, you should have no problems.

 

[JDGJr]

We all know the recommendations for the external hardware <=750G, single disk, etc.

It'd be very handy if people could list the hardware outside of those recommendations that have worked for them. I'd be interested in success with the MyBook 1TB 2 disk units, etc.

tia

 

[ronalr]

The USB wait is over but!!

Well after an hour and 2 phone disconnects I finally have hard drive storage. The CSR that spoke broken English had no idea what I wanted and insisted on activating my Ethernet port for a monthly fee!!!!!. After insisting for a supervisor it took another 25 minutes for her to go back and forth and activate me. She did apologize and said her office or wherever she was had no knowledge of the hard drive support.
Oh well I hope others have a better experience.
The Mybook 500GB was reconised right away and I was asked to format it after I clicked on Manage the drive. Only took a few minutes to format but the first 2 concerts I am moving are taking about 30 minutes.
I wish the support was as good as their equipment and software.

Whew, thanks for the rant!!! I feel better now.
Ron

 

[John Kotches]

Nope. That's not true here, for transfer from/to 622.

We are far far away from internal HDD limitations, especially for the newer 8/16 MB cache 7200 RPM disks.

It is simple DishLinux implementation, as I pointed before - it is PocketDish routines.

Your assumption is a sequential block/block transfer which is only going to be the case on a new disk immediately filled up with content on the 622/722 (doesn't matter which).

It doesn't happen that way in the real world. Files get scattered and sequential transfer rates stop applying.

 

[Smith P.]

Your assumption is a sequential block/block transfer which is only going to be the case on a new disk immediately filled up with content on the 622/722 (doesn't matter which).

It doesn't happen that way in the real world. Files get scattered and sequential transfer rates stop applying.

OK, lets count random reading/writing speed. And your numbers will be ... ?

Don't worry about scattering - DishLinux use 2...4 MB clusters and most of the time they have one stream to write.


If you want real picture of 622 fragmentation, I would propose to run some programs and obtain factual merits for continue the discussion.

Wouldn't be easy to accept own mistake and stop make new arguments ?

 

[StuAV]

New USB HD for VIP622

The new USB HD feature works great. BUT - I had problems initially. I called Dish and they said to do a hard reset (hold down power button or unplug) after setting up the USB ext. HD and after formatting. I did and all is working great!! Can archive to USB HD, play, etc. All functions work after a hard reset after setting up and activating ($39.99 fee). Just FYI - a 2 hr. movie requires about 7.8 GB of space. So - get the largest drive you can afford. I am using a Seagate Free Agent drive - 500 GB. Just bought it at Office Max for $119. That will record over 60 - 2 hr. movies!!!