Preparing for External USB HDD support: Best Drives

[SpenceJT]

i think the program providers will hamstring any universal standard.........

If you are speaking of encryption, that is entirely different than hardware standards and drivers for the operation of physical USB device.

As I think I saw Scott post somewhere. Nobody has hacked the encryption on any of Dish's DVRs to date. An external drive 'does' provide easier access to the physical media for those willing to try, but I don't think Dish (or any DirecTV ...any cable company with external storage for that matter) would be going forward with external storage if they weren't supremely confident in their encryption standard.

Time will tell. All I'm doing is providing my advice in purchasing hardware. Better to buy quality components and build your own, than to buy the "deal of the week" and save $20.

 

[Van]

So just exactly how could dish limit a customers options for external storage? I doubt that chuckles will expect people to go out and get anything thats mac branded because of the cost diference, heck he wears sears value clothes most of the time. If Im remember correctly the core operating system on the receivers is linux based or that may be the pocket dish or both but that should have little issue with drive choice so what am I missing?

 

[SpenceJT]

New Egg has a Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA (w/16MB cache & 5 year warranty) for $119.99

...$109.99 with free shipping if you use promo code EMC717HDD03

Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

If I were buying a drive today, I would seriously consider this offer. They've also got a 750GB Seagate selling, but I've read that external storage will only support up to 500GB drives at the current time.

 

[datwell]

New Egg has a Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA (w/16MB cache & 5 year warranty) for $119.99

...$109.99 with free shipping if you use promo code EMC717HDD03

Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

If I were buying a drive today, I would seriously consider this offer. They've also got a 750GB Seagate selling, but I've read that external storage will only support up to 500GB drives at the current time.

Yes, that IS a good deal!

BTW, it has been reported by the beta testers that the feature is good for drives up to 750GB.

Many here are also aware there are USB devices that offer a RAID (sort of) capabilty whereby multiple drives appear as a single logical drive with the total combined storage capacity. Scott probably knows more about this, but I have not seen where this has been tested by the beta testers. I have my own reservations about using such an arrangement anyway. An example would be: Newegg.com - AMS VENUS T4U DS-2340UBK 3.5" USB 2.0 External Enclosure - Retail

----Doug

 

[SpenceJT]

BTW, it has been reported by the beta testers that the feature is good for drives up to 750GB.

Many here are also aware there are USB devices that offer a RAID (sort of) capabilty whereby multiple drives appear as a single logical drive with the total combined storage capacity. Scott probably knows more about this, but I have not seen where this has been tested by the beta testers. I have my own reservations about using such an arrangement anyway. An example would be: Newegg.com - AMS VENUS T4U DS-2340UBK 3.5" USB 2.0 External Enclosure - Retail

----Doug

In that case, NewEgg also has a 750GB Seagate Barracuda SATA drive selling for $214.99 ($209.99 if you use promo code EMC717HDD04).

Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Personally, I am holding off until external storage is made "live", at which time we will know for sure what size drives will be supported and/or if USB arrays would be recognized for use with the DVR.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Rocky (and all),

Great deals on all-in-one externals are a gamble. You can (as in usually "do") end up with crap internals.

Trust me, you are far better off purchasing an external enclosure (with or without

fan) and then purchasing a "quality" drive for it. This is the only way that you can both save money and retain control over the quality of the components within.

For instance - Here is a 500GB SATA from Western Digital for $132 http://http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=35113371

All you would need is a USB 2 enclosure for an SATA drive.

For those who don't want to pay for a SATA enclosure, here is a 500GB WD EIDE drive selling for $148. Depending on the enclosure, you can spend between $30-$50 and you have your own quality solution.
http://http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=36886368

Granted it is a bit more than a generic all-in-one external (containing a drive from an unknown manufacturer), but isn't piece of mind when longevity, stability and data integrity worth an extra $20-$50?

Enclosures with fans;
http://http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=2746420
http://http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=2979865
http://http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=35514968

The links aren't working.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I found this one, by coolmax, which looks pretty good:

3.5" USB 2.0 Aluminum External Enclosure - Black (CD-390B-U2)
With one touch back-up function plus 80mm fan, which is specially designed for high capacity hard drive and its aluminum material design is great for heat dissipation.
Price: $34.23
Availability: In Stock

External Hard Drive - 3.5" USB 2.0 Aluminum External Enclosure - Black (CD-390B-U2) (Coolmax Technology) - eCOST.com - electronics, computers, laptops, mp3 players

 

[SpenceJT]

The links aren't working.

Dang it if I didn't "cut & paste" and end up doubling up on the old "HTTP://".

I have fixed the links. Thanks for the heads-up Rocky!

Sorry

 

[TheForce]

I already have my drive, by circumstance.

Originally I had plans to use a 1TB drive on my Mac for Final Cut Video editing until I discovered what a POS Final cut really is. Then I decided to hire FCP editors and use this drive as a swap drive so they could do their thing in FCP and put it all back on my drive for me to output to tape but then I had problems with all FCP editors all being so slow they couldn't make air time commitments. So now I have this 1TB drive which is a 3x interface. I decided to put it to use on the 622.

IMO, considering I am no expert, Dish would have a tough time restricting the hardware unless they made it so you had to buy a drive with proprietary formatting from them to make it work. But my contact said that is not how it will be done and the hardware will be open, to be formatted by the 622 when you initialize it. As we learned in the 921 days, the Dish system formats a new hard drive including the necessary partitions from ROM. There is one partition that needs some files but that was to make it boot by itself in a 921. You had to install those files in a separate process. Anyway, that's my drive, the 1TB WD, currently sitting on the shelf, waiting.

Now had Dish used a firewire interconnect they certainly could have restricted the hardware as 1394 has a handshake with revocation list set by the designer and this could spell trouble if your hard drive was listed. In addition there was this DRM on the 1394 that makes it copyable at the mercy of the content producer to copy once, copy many etc. Doesn't matter because the 1394 protocol is pretty much history for this sort of application.