Best EHD For the Hopper 3

[allargon]

Yep, only 2TB would be usable.

Usable or searchable?

My understanding is that larger drives work, but the receiver still has that annoying 1,000 title limit in the Guide. So, you can only see around 2.5TB of content or so at a time. But, you can still transfer up to the full capacity 3/4/5/6/8 TB of the drive.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Usable or searchable?

My understanding is that larger drives work, but the receiver still has that annoying 1,000 title limit in the Guide. So, you can only see around 2.5TB of content or so at a time. But, you can still transfer up to the full capacity 3/4/5/6/8 TB of the drive.

Haven't tried it so I can't confirm. The spec says the largest drive it can handle is 2 TB.

 

[allargon]

Haven't tried it so I can't confirm. The spec says the largest drive it can handle is 2 TB.

I've used 4TB drives on my Hopper 3 (and previously my HWS). In one case, I had to format the drive externally, but it worked fine. It used the full capacity but only presented 1,000 titles.

 

[navychop]

Didn’t someone post here that the 2TB limit is due to chipset constraints?


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[bookworm370]

I have heard that before, but I have my main PC with two SSD's in a RAID 1 configuration that has been running for over 6 years without incident. This PC in on most of the day, every day. I don't expect any speed increase because of the USB speed limitation. Call it an experiment.

Please don't confuse spinning media with SSD's The only reason you see the life in your PC implementation is that the PC or MAC uses the TRIM command to tell the SSD controller what blocks are really freed up when a file is deleted or rewritten. Without the TRIM command, which the Hopper DOS NOT SUPPORT, then the SSD controller will still think the block is allocated and it will not reuse it and that will burn right through the over-provisioning buffer of the SSD and eventually it will not work even though you might try to delete recordings, the EXT3 directory is updated so show the blocks as free (as on a spinning HD they can then be reallocated by the OS). But on an SSD the directory will be updated but the SSD controller does not know that the actual blocks no longer contain valid data so it will hold on to them.

SSD-HD Class 101

 

[navychop]

And, again, you will see little to no speed increase. And can lose some or all recordings. Why would you do this?


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[dweber]

Didn’t someone post here that the 2TB limit is due to chipset constraints?


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I also had read that the chipset would limit the available drive to 2 terabytes. I challenge someone to disprove that. Record 4K content and the drive space should fill up long before you get to 1000 titles. That is assuming that 1000 titles is a limit. I have not seen any definitive proof that you can fully use drives larger than 2 Terabytes. In fact several have reported that they used 4 Terabyte drives but the Hopper3 only formatted the drive to 2 terabytes.


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[bookworm370]

Take a look at the enclosed link on the EXT3 file system that is used.

If they decided to use 1KB block sizes, there is your 2TB limit. The next time I expand my next EHD, I'll take a look at the actual block size and report back.

How to calculate the file system (and file size) limits of a ext3-formatted disk?

 

[allargon]

I also had read that the chipset would limit the available drive to 2 terabytes. I challenge someone to disprove that. Record 4K content and the drive space should fill up long before you get to 1000 titles. That is assuming that 1000 titles is a limit. I have not seen any definitive proof that you can fully use drives larger than 2 Terabytes. In fact several have reported that they used 4 Terabyte drives but the Hopper3 only formatted the drive to 2 terabytes.

I literally just posted that you can use drives larger than 2TB. I specifically used a 4TB drive. However, the Hopper 3 won't format drives larger than 2TB. (The 722 would.) You have to format/partition the drive elsewhere then attach it to the Hopper 3 which will then re-initialize the filesystem and reboot, finally allowing you to use the drive.

 

[dweber]

I literally just posted that you can use drives larger than 2TB. I specifically used a 4TB drive. However, the Hopper 3 won't format drives larger than 2TB. (The 722 would.) You have to format/partition the drive elsewhere then attach it to the Hopper 3 which will then re-initialize the filesystem and reboot, finally allowing you to use the drive.

So does that mean that you used a 2 KB block size rather than a 1 KB block size when you did the external format? I don’t know enough about drive partitions to know what affect that would have.
I wonder if a smaller Block Size was used to allow multiple read/writes to occur. The Hopper3 has the capability of 16 satellite tuners and 2 OTA tuners. That would be a lot of read/writes if they were all used at once.


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[allargon]

So does that mean that you used a 2 KB block size rather than a 1 KB block size when you did the external format? I don’t know enough about drive partitions to know what affect that would have.
I wonder if a smaller Block Size was used to allow multiple read/writes to occur. The Hopper3 has the capability of 16 satellite tuners and 2 OTA tuners. That would be a lot of read/writes if they were all used at once.

No, it wouldn't. The USB EHD doesn't record live streams. It's only for archiving.

I would have to look at a drive again to remember the block size. It was one of those really funky old school configurations for 64-bit extended over 32-bit to go over the 2TB limit filesystem. It was like a large VFAT/MSDOS (not GPT) style partition, but still formatted as ext3, of course.

 

[Hunter Mackenzie]

So I purchased this hard drive
WD 3TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 - WDBBGB0030HBK-NESN
and I can not get my Hopper 3 to recognize it to set it up..any
thoughts on what to do?

 

[reubenray]

So I purchased this hard drive
WD 3TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 - WDBBGB0030HBK-NESN
and I can not get my Hopper 3 to recognize it to set it up..any
thoughts on what to do?

I believe 2 TB is the max size.

 

[n0qcu]

I will say that the formatted space on my 3TB EHD is 27xx K (don't remember exact number) but it is exactly 6 times the space of my 500 GB drive.

 

[JerryDowning]

I have been tempted to use SSDs since my Hopper3 is too dang fast for my EHDs. Each night the Hopper3 does a system check followed by a reset. The Hopper3 checks for EHDs at the completion of all this but they do not spin up fast enough to be found so there are no drives in my list. In order to get them back, I do a Hopper reset which spins up the drive followed by another reset which checks for EHDs before they have had a chance to spin down from the previous reset. My original Hopper was slower and had no problem finding my EHDs after they had time to spin up.
Is there any way to slow my Hopper3 down to give EHDs time to spin up?

 

[n0qcu]

I have been tempted to use SSDs since my Hopper3 is too dang fast for my EHDs. Each night the Hopper3 does a system check followed by a reset. The Hopper3 checks for EHDs at the completion of all this but they do not spin up fast enough to be found so there are no drives in my list. In order to get them back, I do a Hopper reset which spins up the drive followed by another reset which checks for EHDs before they have had a chance to spin down from the previous reset. My original Hopper was slower and had no problem finding my EHDs after they had time to spin up.
Is there any way to slow my Hopper3 down to give EHDs time to spin up?

Find the utilities from the drive manufacturer and set the drive so that it never spins down.

 

[TheKrell]

Find the utilities from the drive manufacturer and set the drive so that it never spins down.

I never had an issue with all my WD Greendrives, some of which came inside a My Book enclosure.

 

[navychop]

I suggest you do what I do. Leave the drives off until you use them.


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[jerryez]

My home pc has an 1TB SSD drive with win 10 pro on it and a 2TB regular drive for storage of photos and documents, etc. All programs loaded on the pc
automatically go to the SSD. If the writes are limited, how long can I expect it to last considering that I use it 10 hours each day.