362 is here

[Almighty1]

I have no idea, as I've never pulled an internal drive out to peek into, but if it's formatted anywhere close to an EHD, then it is formatted into multiple 500G partitions. This means that the max recording space is limited to the space left on the emptyest partition when it allocates where it will place the recording.

So if most of the partitions are leveled out (which they never are because it writes from inside to outside, higher to lower partition numbers), then the max recording you can fit would be the partition size - the size of any other recordings in that partition as recording cannot span into another partition.
So if each partition was 300G full, 200G is the maximum recording space you can ever have, even though the total free disk space is much more.

At least for the EHDs, the Hopper will not load-level the partitions or do any after recording maintenance or defragmentation on the drive/partitions. Luckily, defragmenting on EXT3 isn't much of a problem as the most the arm can travel is the width of the 500G partition and not bounce all over the drive.

Again, the internal drive can be formatted completely differently or maybe even in some proprietary format, as the recordings on the internal drive are not encrypted. A proprietary format makes sense, in that case, to keep people from removing a drive and copying off recordings before they get encrypted when moved to an EHD.

If someone does have an old internal drive that is still operational, it would be nice to hook it up to a Linux system and see if the file system can recognize it and see how it's physically formatted.

What you say is probably accurate since you know more about how DISH does things than I do when it comes to partitioning but then ofcourse as mentioned in another thread, it appears that even for EHDD and not just on the Hopper 3 but the Hopper 1 aka Hopper 2000 with 2TB drives whether 2.5" or 3.5" formatted from 2012-2016 on the Hopper 1 and from 2016 to yesterday, September 24, 2023, it's not all 500GB partions as it appears to always be in the order of 1GB, 500GB, 500GB, 1TB so it totals 2TB. I also noticed when I select recordings then select transfer to external drive, it does show the Hopper 3's internal drive having 1.2TB as total space so it will be interesting to know how they partition the 1.2TB and the other 800GB remaining since as you mentioned, there can only be 4 partitions so it can't be 500GB + 500GB + 200GB for the usable side and then 500GB + 300GB for the side that is not available for the user as that would already be one partition too many.

Maybe it's not the recordings that get encrypted but instead on the EHDD, the 1GB partition is to hold the authentication information that includes the encryption key that includes account information which would be a WAG. I guess the only way to know how the internal drive is partitioned would be if someone took the internal drive and then get the partition information and also clone the drive to another 2TB drive and then used the new drive in the Hopper 3 to see if it still works. But anyways, in my case, it seems like the uptime since last reboot has a effect to it displaying the full message and then there is a long delay before the receiver itself will detect it has more free space.

Too bad I only have only one receiver being the H3. If I had a second H3, it would be easier to get the partition information and then do the cloning of the internal HDD to see if the newly cloned HDD will still work with all the recordings on it.

 

[Almighty1]

You know, I still have an ASUS Pentium Win/XP system running in my basement that runs my 1st generation home automation system. I reboot it maybe twice a year and just look at it to clear out log files, etc. I did upgrade it to SSD, so for a Pentium system, it's pretty snappy, only running one app. But as it's mission-critical, I did go out and acquire one of everything in the entire beast that might fail. I have extra exact SSDs, an extra motherboard, extra CPU, extra memory, LAN card, an extra old-style power supply, extra fans, etc. So, anything that might fry on it, I can just open it up and replace what has finally died. But I have quite a few fans keeping it as cool as possible.

Of the Windows 10, 11, and Ubuntu servers I have running, the XP box is the reliable pug and chug workhorse that it just makes it not worth my time to upgrade to the newest version of the software (which I also run as a supplement to the XP system as some technologies (Z-Wave, Zigbee, etc) just didn't exist back then so there was no support for those in the XP version of the HA system.

I still have a ASUS P4C-800E Deluxe that is running Windows XP 32bit SP3 just for WinFax Pro because it is a discontinued product that does not work in newer versions of Windows. I have to reboot it every few weeks and I do not know what happened after I moved, the machine without changing or updating any of the software takes forever to do things even though it has virtually no CPU load. I tried to replace the capacitors but messed up so had to find the same motherboard on Ebay but did't touch the capaciors this time around and it has the same problems. About maybe 9 months ago, when I use remote software called anydesk, it would crash the video card driver which I later found out why. The 5VDC power to the video card fell off so it probably fried most of the GPU as right now basically it is causing the video to tear up that even a refresh won't fix in the windows desktop and also freezes the system when that happens. The nvidia video card is a FX5950 Ultra which seems to be hard to find and expensive now so I need to find a replacement that also has DVI out and can support the 1600x1024 60hz timing mode that my SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc) 1600SW 17.3" 16:10 Mitsubishi Industrial Japan display can use. I seem to be able to buy anything else except the video card. My machine also is not reliable either as it will crash within days or weeks. My Windows 11 64bit pro laptop requires rebooting daily because of Dell's poor thermal design that the system will lag and freeze because the cpu goes into thermal protection mode which only a restart appears to fix. I guess one option is I can put it on some mini-PC or laptop that runs Windows XP as well but migrating all the data and going through the apps to determine what I want or not is going to be a big time consuming process which I don't have time for unless atleast when I have more physical space to move around after the house is remodeled when I unpack all the hundreds of 25kg UPS boxes.

 

[jannah]

One thing I noticed with H362 but not for certain if it happened with H358 is last night as I didn't pay close attention with H358 but when the Hopper 3 is rebooted either with the Red Button or using the menu, when it shows the acquiring signal
with the progress bar which may take up to 5 minutes that instead of the progress bar moving, within 2-3 seconds after that message is shown, that screen disappears and shows the Complete Signal Loss screen instead and eventually maybe 8-9 minutes later, the live video will work but before that, all the tuners will just show Acquiring Signal when I click on options.

I have H358 on my Hopper3 and it does the exact same sequence but usually not 8-9 minutes wait time.
I don't recall this happening until the H358 update.
I have to reboot on occasion to get the EHD's to show on the DVR or after a power outage.
I always do an unplug to reboot.

 

[Almighty1]

I have H358 on my Hopper3 and it does the exact same sequence but usually not 8-9 minutes wait time.
I don't recall this happening until the H358 update.
I have to reboot on occasion to get the EHD's to show on the DVR or after a power outage.
I always do an unplug to reboot.

Maybe it's shorter than 8-9 minutes as I never really timed it so maybe this is yet something that H358 brought in that is also on newer versions. For the EHD's, sometimes rebooting doesn't always work as there were times I had to unplug the EHDD's before rebooting if all other solutions fail. And even if it does detect, if it detects the External Drive as 4 and not 1 or 2 or 3, it will still not be seen in the other devices list. The 4 is something I had never seen in versions other than H358 and H362. I don't unplug to do a reboot because my Hopper H3 is plugged into my Panamax M5400-PM Power Conditioner/Voltage Regulator which seems to also help with the power blinks when it happens so I avoid unplugging it unless I had no other choice as last thing I would want to do is damage the outlets.

Max 5400 Power Management | M5400-PM | Panamax

Max 5400 Power Management M5400-PM model is designed with voltage regulation and 11 outlets to provide protection for safe energy distribution. Get it today!

panamax.com

 

[long_time_DNC]

I have my H3 in the battery-backup side of a UPS and it's running 358 as of 8/17/23 when it self updated. I also keep a 4" A/V fan running on it continuously, and a RF temp monitor on top of it to keep track of it's external running temp.

The UPS protects from power blinks (moderate to frequent out here, depending on winds and time of year), and the A/V fan keeps it about 4 degrees cooler than without the fan.

I did the same thing with my 622 and 722k...and both of those lasted way beyond the typical lifespan. I only upgraded to an H3 because I wanted to. My 6-year old 722k was still working just fine...

 

[bookworm370]

How'd you find duplicates of the motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU, etc? Or did you buy them at the time you bought the box? It's nearly impossible to find gear that vintage nowadays...

I got a lot of them on eBay about 15 years ago. You could still find the Pentium CPUs, the ASUS motherboards and the DDR memory there. And they were pretty cheap. The hardest thing to find is the RocketPort 8 Channel Serial IO card. Back then, nothing was controlled via USB (USB what?) or network. So, everything connects via a serial port. I needed about six serial ports + 1. The plus one is that my COM2 on the motherboard gave up the ghost a few years back, and with only one UART gone and having extra cables/ports available, I just migrated the Ocelot over to one of the ports on the RocketPort.

I did find a 3rd party driver that patched XP to add the Trim command for the SSD when I got paranoid about my Raid 1 500G WD drives, so I replaced them with a Crucial SSD. That was like kicking in a turbo charger!

I know that with something that old and patched like it is, I'm not about to muck with it at all. I'll post a few pics of the 'data center' in my basement later. Most people will just say 'Holy sh*t'! and they would be right. Call me super geek!

 

[long_time_DNC]

I got a lot of them on eBay about 15 years ago. You could still find the Pentium CPUs, the ASUS motherboards and the DDR memory there. And they were pretty cheap. The hardest thing to find is the RocketPort 8 Channel Serial IO card. Back then, nothing was controlled via USB (USB what?) or network. So, everything connects via a serial port. I needed about six serial ports + 1. The plus one is that my COM2 on the motherboard gave up the ghost a few years back, and with only one UART gone and having extra cables/ports available, I just migrated the Ocelot over to one of the ports on the RocketPort.

I did find a 3rd party driver that patched XP to add the Trim command for the SSD when I got paranoid about my Raid 1 500G WD drives, so I replaced them with a Crucial SSD. That was like kicking in a turbo charger!

I know that with something that old and patched like it is, I'm not about to muck with it at all. I'll post a few pics of the 'data center' in my basement later. Most people will just say 'Holy sh*t'! and they would be right. Call me super geek!

Man, that's like being a computer archeologist! Yes, I have 2 XP boxes in the business because they can run some stuff that Microsoft has made obsolete or eliminated (unfortunately), but I am impressed that you were able to find all those parts. 15 years ago helps in the easter egg hunt though, that's for sure! I'd like to see a few pics of the 'data center'.

 

[navychop]

While we’re playing, I have an old RCA COSMAC VIP computer with an 1802 CPU. And an old reverse Polish notation calculator using Nixie tubes.

Any other players?

 

[Almighty1]

One thing I noticed with H362 but not for certain if it happened with H358 is last night as I didn't pay close attention with H358 but when the Hopper 3 is rebooted either with the Red Button or using the menu, when it shows the acquiring signal
with the progress bar which may take up to 5 minutes that instead of the progress bar moving, within 2-3 seconds after that message is shown, that screen disappears and shows the Complete Signal Loss screen instead and eventually maybe 8-9 minutes later, the live video will work but before that, all the tuners will just show Acquiring Signal when I click on options.

As I did a forced software update on H362 and still ended up with H362, I actually timed it this time around and this is what happens exactly:

1) It shows acquiring signal with he progress bar wich may take up to 5 minutes
2) Instead of the progress bar moving, within 2-3 seconds after that message is shown, that screen disappears
3) Complete Signal Loss 015A is shown for 4 minutes
4) Channel Signal Loss 004 is shown indefinitely as I had waited 30 minutes and it still did not show Live video and appears to be on the correct channel, I had to channel up and then channel down before it worked.

 

[long_time_DNC]

When 362 or 363 shows up on my receiver, that's when it shows up. My receiver is set to reboot at 4am everyday. I tried to force a reboot once and it didn't update, so I haven't tried it since. I'm still at 358 and it's working fine, so when it updates, it updates...