Yet again ... No Hopper-compatible EHD available

[Luddite by Choice]

I've spent at least 8 hours with the internet, this and other forums, brick & mortar stores, and Dish techs and tech service trying to find an EHD compatible with my Hopper 3 w/Sling. EVERY source says it must be a 2TB, self (110-VAC brick) powered, gen-u-wine spinning-disk hard drive, but NO ONE can actually point to one. Amazon's two-part alternative is no longer available. So how DO we externally archive a buggy Hopper, replace it, and dump the archived content onto the new Hopper?

 

[navychop]

Go bigger. Try 6TB. If you MUST, go bigger. Might not recognize max capacity

 

[Luddite by Choice]

Go bigger. Try 6TB. If you MUST, go bigger. Might not recognize max capacity

Every thread I've seen on this topic has two downsides to that: we have to partition anything bigger into 2TB chunks, and even then the resulting kluge is reportedly highly unwieldy and very unreliable in Hopper-land. People complain of losing part or all of their archived content immediately or within a few weeks.

 

[RTCDude]

I've spent at least 8 hours with the internet, this and other forums, brick & mortar stores, and Dish techs and tech service trying to find an EHD compatible with my Hopper 3 w/Sling. EVERY source says it must be a 2TB, self (110-VAC brick) powered, gen-u-wine spinning-disk hard drive, but NO ONE can actually point to one. Amazon's two-part alternative is no longer available. So how DO we externally archive a buggy Hopper, replace it, and dump the archived content onto the new Hopper?

Yes, self powered hard drives are becoming rare. And the USB ports on a H3 can't supply enough power for most drives (a design flaw in my option). So that leads to the issue you are seeing.

The solution is to get a USB 3.1 or better powered hub. A USB 3.1 hub will give you all the bandwidth you might need. The powered hub provides the power for the hard drive the H3 can't give. Then any USB powered hard drive will work through the hub to the H3 (SSD drives aren't compatible with the H3).

I would stick with 2 TB drives to avoid the partitioning issue. But with a hub (say a 4 or 5 port to keep the cost down), you can have multiple hard drives connected at the same time and switch between them from the H3 UI.

This is the setup I use and it works fine, except for the annoyance of H3 occasionally forgetting it has hard drives connected. Either a H3 reboot or repeatedly unplugging and replugging the hub will remount them.

 

[Foxbat]

I must not be seeing what everyone else is, or I'm just a lucky guy. I got a 6 TB Seagate SATA III drive many moons ago and found a Sabrent powered USB 3.0 enclosure that would see the whole 6 TB drive (my older enclosures did not recognize anything drive over 2 TB). The external drive (just the one) is connected to the Hopper 3's USB 3.0 port direct, no hub. I also have the dual-tuner OTA dongle from AirTV (white plastic instead of black that Dish used on theirs) plugged into the other USB 2.0 port. It's been in this configuration for years. I'm at 55% Full.

 

[Strega]

I plug these into a powered USB hub:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06W55K9N6

 

[TheKrell]

I must not be seeing what everyone else is, or I'm just a lucky guy. I got a 6 TB Seagate SATA III drive many moons ago and found a Sabrent powered USB 3.0 enclosure that would see the whole 6 TB drive (my older enclosures did not recognize anything drive over 2 TB). The external drive (just the one) is connected to the Hopper 3's USB 3.0 port direct, no hub. I also have the dual-tuner OTA dongle from AirTV (white plastic instead of black that Dish used on theirs) plugged into the other USB 2.0 port. It's been in this configuration for years. I'm at 55% Full.

I've had a 6TB Seagate with USB hub for many years working fine with about the same amount full. I had a whilte OTA adapter plugged into the Seagate hub also working fine even when the disk itself was not visible. Then all of a sudden the disk isn't recognized.

I diagnosed on a PC running Linux and it has 12 500GB partitions (in addition to two dinky ones), one of which had a corrupted ext3 file system. I repaired it and repaired it and repaired it, but still the disk was not recognized by the Hopper.

So I bought another 6TB Seagate and it formatted and is visible OK on the Hopper and has been for about a week. I intend to copy the remaining presumably-OK 11 partitions, via Linux, onto the new disk. Wish me luck.

 

[Foxbat]

I diagnosed on a PC running Linux and it has 12 500GB partitions (in addition to two dinky ones), one of which had a corrupted ext3 file system. I repaired it and repaired it and repaired it, but still the disk was not recognized by the Hopper.

So far my Seagate has been fine, I haven't seen any indications that there's a problem. I'd be curious to see if Gibson Research Corp's SpinRite would find something on your hard drive that it could find and repair.

I lost access to my copy when I retired. No PC, either.

 

[HipKat]

I've spent at least 8 hours with the internet, this and other forums, brick & mortar stores, and Dish techs and tech service trying to find an EHD compatible with my Hopper 3 w/Sling. EVERY source says it must be a 2TB, self (110-VAC brick) powered, gen-u-wine spinning-disk hard drive, but NO ONE can actually point to one. Amazon's two-part alternative is no longer available. So how DO we externally archive a buggy Hopper, replace it, and dump the archived content onto the new Hopper?

Sigh...

From our Tech portal (meaning for technicians):

EHD sizes for Hoppers

IHS iQ
For Hopper family receivers, here are the External Hard Drive (EHD) size requirements:

• Minimum size: 320 GB
• Maximum size: 7 TB

Important note: If a customer is using more than 1 EHD with their Hopper, they cannot exceed more than 6TB combined total storage.

 

[HipKat]

Every thread I've seen on this topic has two downsides to that: we have to partition anything bigger into 2TB chunks

Wrong. Where the heck are you getting this information?

 

[Luddite by Choice]

Thanks, guys. You have collectively solved my dilemma. If Dish techs, forums like this, upgrading from DVR to mesh network, and other www sites can't clobber the bugs in my Dish system, I'll have them replace the hopper. If I do, it will be with a self-powered hub and quality 2TB EHD.

The only remaining question is whether there's any reason to go with a 3.1 hub and drive. Its only function will be archiving a single Hopper while I switch Hoppers, but can the Hopper take advantage of even a 3.0, let alone a 3.1?

 

[RTCDude]

Thanks, guys. You have collectively solved my dilemma. If Dish techs, forums like this, upgrading from DVR to mesh network, and other www sites can't clobber the bugs in my Dish system, I'll have them replace the hopper. If I do, it will be with a self-powered hub and quality 2TB EHD.

The only remaining question is whether there's any reason to go with a 3.1 hub and drive. Its only function will be archiving a single Hopper while I switch Hoppers, but can the Hopper take advantage of even a 3.0, let alone a 3.1?

A 3.0 would work just fine. I only recommend a 3.1 because that's the most common, high speed hub types these days. There's a cheap 4 port two charging ports 3.0 one I found on Amazon (about $15). Link below.

You don't have to use multiple drives if you don't want to. Using a hub like this is merely a means to power common USB bus powered drives that the H3 can't. If you only use it once for the transfer, just consider it part of the price of using a hard drive transfer process.

Powered USB 3.0 Hub, RAOYI 6 Ports High Speed USB 3.0 Hub

 

[Luddite by Choice]

Wrong. Where the heck are you getting this information?

Dozens of posts in many threads in several forums, plus multiple Dish techs right up to yesterday, over dozens of hours. I'm an engineer and have used computers ever since I coded my first program in 1961, but as my screen name suggests, I am just not interested in the level of detail in this topic many of you guys have mastered. Heck, just switching from Spectrum to Dish took me hundreds of hours over 6 months and counting, because neither of them know what the hell they're talking about, both just make stuff up, and every Dish tech in my home (12-15 and counting) has scratched his head and said he's never seen a setup like my fully integrated, operationally independent 2-Hopper/7-Joey/9-TV system spread over two buildings. Several of my questions and bugs have stumped every one of them.

 

[Luddite by Choice]

1. A 3.0 would work just fine.

2. If you only use it once for the transfer, just consider it part of the price of using a hard drive transfer process.

1. That's where I was leaning at this point.

2. Got no problem with that. I Do.Not.Want. to find out after emptying my buggy(?) Hopper that I can't retrieve my archived shows back onto the new Hopper. Been there, done that, lost a year's worth of unwatched shows in the process even though I had used a new, high-end, highly rated EHD. (I subsequently put a bullet through it.)

 

[HipKat]

Dozens of posts in many threads in several forums, plus multiple Dish techs right up to yesterday, over dozens of hours. I'm an engineer and have used computers ever since I coded my first program in 1961, but as my screen name suggests, I am just not interested in the level of detail in this topic many of you guys have mastered. Heck, just switching from Spectrum to Dish took me hundreds of hours over 6 months and counting, because neither of them know what the hell they're talking about, both just make stuff up, and every Dish tech in my home (12-15 and counting) has scratched his head and said he's never seen a setup like my fully integrated, operationally independent 2-Hopper/7-Joey/9-TV system spread over two buildings. Several of my questions and bugs have stumped every one of them.

I like a system like that. They're few and far between. But taking on that install and making it work is something I wish I could have done more often.
Like the guy who said Comcast told him his install was too difficult and I got him installed with 4 rooms. And yeah, it was tough.
I know a guy who has a massive house with a large guest house. The guest house has three Joeys connected by coax that runs through buried conduit from the main house, where he has 2 Hopper 3's that can see each other and 7 Joeys.
Almost as nice as the bar I wired one day; 2 Hopper/Slings, 6 Joeys, and 8 mirrors in a huge bar/Live music venue where the real challenge was which TV mirrored which box to not have similar programming right near each other.

 

[RobMeyer1]

External Hard Drive Support says nothing about external power being required. I am currently using a 4 TB WD USB powered portable hard drive plugged directly into my Hopper 3. An unpowered hub has also worked for me.

 

[Luddite by Choice]

External Hard Drive Support says nothing about external power being required. I am currently using a 4 TB WD USB powered portable hard drive plugged directly into my Hopper 3. An unpowered hub has also worked for me.

Your success fits within the wide range of experiences I've seen on this topic. However, far too many other people have had serious problems with it, and Dish in other publications has insisted that we must use external power. I'm going to play it safe (?) and go with a self-powered hub and top-rated (probably WD) EHD. When and if my backup approach fails and I lose everything, I'll want to know I had done the best I could. A hundred bucks means nothing if -- IF -- it avoids the hassles and losses others have experienced.

On that note, Apple, Sandisk, WD, and I have given up trying to get three different Sandisk and WD SSDs to get Apple's Time Machine to back up my Mac properly. Fortunately, they make cute paperweights.

 

[RTCDude]

1. That's where I was leaning at this point.

2. Got no problem with that. I Do.Not.Want. to find out after emptying my buggy(?) Hopper that I can't retrieve my archived shows back onto the new Hopper. Been there, done that, lost a year's worth of unwatched shows in the process even though I had used a new, high-end, highly rated EHD. (I subsequently put a bullet through it.)

Having been through this kind of process many times myself, I recommend that you test drive a couple of less important programs first just to make sure everything works; something you can afford to lose if something goes wrong. When transferring, do only a dozen or so shows at a time. This does make for more tedious babysitting the process, but it means you're less likely to lose a lot of shows if something in any one transfer process goes wrong.

Sometimes you might run across a particular program refuses to transfer without errors. Just leave aside and don't erase it until all of your other programs are transferred. It could contain a bad hard drive sector that causes the transfer error, and you don't want that sector to be put back into the "available" sector pool if new programs are being added.

I learned all of this the hard way when I was rescuing a hundred or so recordings off of an old sick 722 receiver. I was able to save %95+ of all of the recordings. However, it took me three days of on-again/off-again babysitting to complete that. So be warned, this may not be quick.

And be aware that if a H3 is being flaky, it's very likely it's the internal hard drive that is going south. So you're running on borrowed time. The longer you delay transferring everything, the more likely you are to lose them. I've push past that limit in the past and one day the receiver just completely died and I lost everything on it.

 

[Bobby]

Your success fits within the wide range of experiences I've seen on this topic. However, far too many other people have had serious problems with it, and Dish in other publications has insisted that we must use external power. I'm going to play it safe (?) and go with a self-powered hub and top-rated (probably WD) EHD. When and if my backup approach fails and I lose everything, I'll want to know I had done the best I could. A hundred bucks means nothing if -- IF -- it avoids the hassles and losses others have experienced.

On that note, Apple, Sandisk, WD, and I have given up trying to get three different Sandisk and WD SSDs to get Apple's Time Machine to back up my Mac properly. Fortunately, they make cute paperweights.

I've been using a WD Elements 2TB for my iMac Time Machine drive for years without failure.

 

[Luddite by Choice]

I recommend that you test drive a couple of less important programs first just to make sure everything works

And be aware that if a H3 is being flaky, it's very likely it's the internal hard drive that is going south. So you're running on borrowed time. The longer you delay transferring everything, the more likely you are to lose them. I've push past that limit in the past and one day the receiver just completely died and I lost everything on it.

Words of wisdom. Even the Dish tech who installed my system a year or two ago suspected this Hopper was buggy, but subsequent experiments by techs and me lead us to suspect my WiFi, now mesh, system(s) to be my biggest source of bugs. It's mostly odd behaviors rather than lost segments, and my next experiment will be adding another couple of nodes to my Google Nest Pro 6E mesh system. I intend to pursue that approach in time to return them to the sellers for full refund if it doesn't out-perform my TPLink WiFi router-and-one-extender system.