Question about External Hard Drive

[bobvick]

I am not a Dish customer yet, but I am thinking about moving over from DirecTV.
I have a Western Digital 1TB hard drive that I am thinking about putting in an enclosure. My question is, what is a good enclosure that works well with the 722K, and if I do put an external drive on a Dish receiver, does it disable the internal hard drive (I know that an eSATA drive disables the internal HDD on a DirecTV HR series) also, how much does Dish charge to enable the external hard drive feature, I have heard that there was a fee.

Thanks

 

[rcbridge]

Dish claims a maximum of 750Gb, some have reported using 1Tb drives.

There is a one time fee per account. $39

 

[gbs]

Enabling the external HD drive feature DOES NOT disable the internal HDD on your receiver. I have a WD 1TB HD and a WD 750GB HD that I use (one at a time) with my Dish 622 VIP receiver with no problems. It is my understanding that Dish supports the 1 TB HDs as long as they are single platters. The $39 fee was a one-time charge for the 622 receiver.

 

[mstregamer]

I just finished putting together my seagate 1 tb external hard drive you must use a esata external case though, works just fine, bought my case cheap from shop4tech free shipping! and ordered my drive from newegg.

 

[madailey]

External HD on a 222K receiver

Since we're on this subject, does anyone have any experience attaching an external HD to a 222?

I know that it was suppose to have this ability, I even was told by a CSR at Dish that I could have them activate this feature on my 222 BUT was later told by Tech Support that the feature was no longer available because of software issues. Soooooo, has anyone had any luck getting an external hard drive to work on the 222.

I'd love to have the DVR function on the rare occasion and the 1080p on demand but I don't really think I'd use it enough to pay the DVR monthly fee.

 

[Jim5506]

222 software does not support EHD, never has.

Maybe sometime in the future.

 

[bobvick]

I just finished putting together my seagate 1 tb external hard drive you must use a esata external case though, works just fine, bought my case cheap from shop4tech free shipping! and ordered my drive from newegg.

So, just to clarify, Dish says "officially" that 750GB is the largest supported, but most have had success with 1TB, and the external enclosure that I choose should have an eSATA connector?

Thanks alot for your help,

Hoepfully in the next few weeks I can get everything setteled with DirecTV, and join the Dish Network family. I have a HR21-200 (HR21-PRO) I would like to sell, would you guys recommend the classifeds section here?

Thanks

 

[RickDee]

ViP uses USB, not eSATA

I don't know what you would do with an eSATA connector, the ViP receivers communicate with the EHD via USB.

And, there is nothing you can do with any of the information once it's transferred to the EHD except watch it with a ViP receiver on your account, or move the program back to an internal HD of a ViP on you account.

 

[RickDee]

I just finished putting together my seagate 1 tb external hard drive you must use a esata external case though, works just fine, bought my case cheap from shop4tech free shipping! and ordered my drive from newegg.

You don't need eSATA. ViP receivers use USB only. They don't have an eSATA connector.

 

[bobvick]

You don't need eSATA. ViP receivers use USB only. They don't have an eSATA connector.

I did not think that the ViP series had an eSATA connector, from looking at the rear of the receivers at tech.dishnetwork.com, however from reading the comment about eSATA connectivity, I thought that I was mistaken.

 

[Jim5506]

Get you a Thermaltake BlacX 3.5/2.5 hard drive dock.

It plugs directly into the USB on the 612/622/722/722k and you can hot swap hard drives easily.

 

[DishSubLA]

Since we're on this subject, does anyone have any experience attaching an external HD to a 222?

I know that it was suppose to have this ability, I even was told by a CSR at Dish that I could have them activate this feature on my 222 BUT was later told by Tech Support that the feature was no longer available because of software issues. Soooooo, has anyone had any luck getting an external hard drive to work on the 222.

I'd love to have the DVR function on the rare occasion and the 1080p on demand but I don't really think I'd use it enough to pay the DVR monthly fee.

The 222 never had EHD capability, so I don't know what the tech meant by "no longer available," unless he meant the Dish no longer intends to make the 222 EHD capable. I would really love a clarification from Dish on this. They had said that they intend to make the 222 EHD capable, but after the 211's. They did have demo 222 working with EHD. I hope they are still going to do this.

 

[spec1alk]

So E* charges you $39 to enable the USB EHD feature of the 722? That is stupid.

Side questions. How big are the drives in the 722? What is the rate of programming hour/GB space for SD & HD?

 

[afangats]

Internal HDD on a 722 is 750gb. To OP, the 1TB HDD will work just fine with your receiver, DISH only officially supports up to 750gb (50gb to 750gb) DISH Network charges you a 1 time fee of $39 per account to use an unlimited number of EHDD's with your compatible receivers, it is $39 for archival EHDD, like with the 722 and a seperate $39 for adding an external hard disk drive to a receiver that doesn't already have DVR capabilities, like the 211

To the person who said the activation fee is stupid, no it isn't. DISH network has agreed to provide limited support for the feature and build/code receivers that work with external hard drives. It wasn't free for DISH to do that why should it be free for you to use?

 

[afangats]

The quoted amount of programming storage for a 750gb HDD is 300 hours SD and I want to say 55 hours (maybe 60 if I'm mistaken) HD

 

[spec1alk]

Internal HDD on a 722 is 750gb. To OP, the 1TB HDD will work just fine with your receiver, DISH only officially supports up to 750gb (50gb to 750gb) DISH Network charges you a 1 time fee of $39 per account to use an unlimited number of EHDD's with your compatible receivers, it is $39 for archival EHDD, like with the 722 and a seperate $39 for adding an external hard disk drive to a receiver that doesn't already have DVR capabilities, like the 211

To the person who said the activation fee is stupid, no it isn't. DISH network has agreed to provide limited support for the feature and build/code receivers that work with external hard drives. It wasn't free for DISH to do that why should it be free for you to use?

So I suppose when you want to add a blu-ray drive to your PC you should have to pay the manufacturer of your mobo/PC to *enable* that feature?

Sorry, stupid is probly a poor word choice. It is smart from the E* standpoint, but frustrating from a users perspective.

I feel that if I am purchasing the equipment, I should be allowed to use all features out of the box, without paying an additional fee.

Does your ISP charge you seperately for email and using different services (irc, ftp, etc)? No, you pay a flat fee and get all the functionality of the internet.

 

[BuddyBoy]

I feel that if I am purchasing the equipment, I should be allowed to use all features out of the box, without paying an additional fee.

It's not like this is without precedent. There are numerous examples of devices where the more you pay, the more functionality you unlock. Sun and IBM will sell you systems with extra unused CPUs, and only allow you to use them if you pay extra (Capacity on Demand). Stop paying and those extra CPUs are again disabled. My GPS has a traffic receiver built into it, but I can't receive traffic data unless I pay for it. If you want to make the argument that what I'm paying for is the service and not the hardware, then the same argument can be made for the EHD. The service you're paying for the ability to store Dish programming on the EHD.

Some MBA decided there was sufficient value in the new feature that it was chargeable. Looks like they were right.