External Hard Drive Limitations for Hopper

[jwestpfahl]

I am wondering if the Hopper still has the 2TB and 1,000 recording show limitations that the VIP series had for external hard drives? I'm looking at upgrading my current external hard drives setup and was considering an external hardware RAID setup for it. Especially with the 3TB and 4TB drives that are available now.

Thanks!

 

[3HaloODST]

Yep.

Sent from my iPhone 4S using SatelliteGuys

 

[dangue]

I am wondering if the Hopper still has the 2TB and 1,000 recording show limitations that the VIP series had for external hard drives? I'm looking at upgrading my current external hard drives setup and was considering an external hardware RAID setup for it. Especially with the 3TB and 4TB drives that are available now.

Thanks!

I'm using a 3TB EHD with the Hopper and it recognizes the entire drive.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[3HaloODST]

Oh, forgot about you doing that. Haven't seen anyone else around here do it, how full is it?

 

[caam1]

You can connect more than one 2TB hard drive. I have 2 EHDs connected to one of my Hoppers.

 

[dare2be]

I'm hoping to find more Black Friday deals again this year. So far, 2 years in a row, I've been able to snag 2TB EHDs for $70 each. After the flooding last year raised prices, I really haven't seen them come back down much yet.

 

[dangue]

Oh, forgot about you doing that. Haven't seen anyone else around here do it, how full is it?

I'd have to check to be sure, but I'd estimate it's about 1/3 full right now.

 

[jwestpfahl]

How long did it take to initialize/format the disk? When I tried it the first time it rebooted the hopper. The second time -- I let it run over night. But this morning it wasn't finished as it wasn't showing up. I gave it a good two hours last night before the update process would have rebooted the hopper. When I tried to re-connect the drive with the hopper this morning -- it rebooted the hopper again.

Thanks!

 

[dangue]

How long did it take to initialize/format the disk? When I tried it the first time it rebooted the hopper. The second time -- I let it run over night. But this morning it wasn't finished as it wasn't showing up. I gave it a good two hours last night before the update process would have rebooted the hopper. When I tried to re-connect the drive with the hopper this morning -- it rebooted the hopper again.

Thanks!

Honestly, it's been months and I don't remember how long it took. Sorry.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[3HaloODST]

The 999 recording limit is still there though, unfortunately. At least that's what I've heard. Haven't tried it since getting Hopper but DIRT said it was still there. The internal drive on the Hopper doesn't have that limit though.

Personally I am sticking with 1-2TB drives because of the recording limit and for guaranteed compatibility. Plus redundancy. As was previously mentioned you can have multiple externals hooked up and powered on at the same time on Hopper.

Sent from my iPhone 4S using SatelliteGuys

 

[seandudley]

I have a 3TB Seagate hard drive connected to my Hopper, and it seems to be working fine.. the problem I am having is that there seems to be a limitation of 2 external drives which can be connected at one time. If I connect more than 2, they will show up in the "Transfer Recordings" section, but only the first 2 drives will show up under DVR as "External Drive #1" and "External Drive #2". If I search for something on a 3rd or 4th drive (4 or more drives requires using a hub), the Hopper finds the recording, but if I select to watch it, it doesn't work. I have reported this to the tech support dept. at dish.. dunno if they will get around to fixing it or not, though. I have 10 external hard drives, and would like the content to always be available without swapping drives.. no one knows of a way to do that with the limitations the Hopper is exhibiting, do they?

Thanks.

Sean Dudley

 

[patmurphey]

I have a 3TB Seagate hard drive connected to my Hopper, and it seems to be working fine.. the problem I am having is that there seems to be a limitation of 2 external drives which can be connected at one time...

The Hopper supports 2 EHDs. It is not a malfunction if something not supported doesn't work...

 

[LotsOfEHDs]

Numerous questions

I've had my hopper for nearly a year. During that time, its had its share of quirks. I still have some lingering issues and was hoping others may have some meaningful advice.

1. If a hopper has 2 EHDs attached, can transfers from the first EHD directly to the second work? I'm curious to know if anyone else has done this successfully.
2. While I have no problems transfering TO an EHD, I find transfering back to the hopper leaves me with a unusable recording, which shows either a blank screen during playback OR reports that files are missing. Do others see this?
3. At 2am the hopper does some system check. The screens says this will take approximately 10 mins, but often time this will still be running upto 10 hours later. What check is being performed that would take this long?

Thanks for your input.

 

[3HaloODST]

No way to transfer from EHD-to-EHD without transferring to the Hopper then to the other EHD.

Yep they need to fix that. I'm afraid to transfer files back to Hopper because of that.

It's performing a filesystem check, which takes a lot longer on EHDs, the more shows are on EHD, the longer, the more EHDs, the longer.

 

[KKlare]

I'm having a problem with transferring PTAT recordings to the EHD.
Non-PTAT recording transfer nicely.
But no combination of save or save series or nil seems to leave the PTAT ones accessible
in the transfer (Menu+EHD) tile. [EHD=2 down+left wraparound in Main Menu.]
The Hopper to External setup goes but only gives individually recorded shows.
So I can only archive Comedy Central, TNT, and PBS?

What am I doing wrong? Is there a different PTAT move to IHD or category change?
-Ken

BTW, I reported that I just pull the USB or power, even during file check to avoid hours of delay.

 

[lucky86]

I believe the ptat events saved on you internal hard drive can not be transferred to an EHD until the event has been deleted from the ptat partition.

In the past ptat was set at 8 days and the event would delete. Even if I saved that event to my internal hard drive, it would be missing from the ehd transfer list until day 8/9.

I'm not sure how that relates now with ptat being customizable. I'm sure you could test it and find out.

 

[KKlare]

Supposition: I'm thinking you have to mark them as save or save series, then when the PTAT time expires you can move them off to the EHD. You can tell they are marked so because they get a badge or black-on-blue letter-S icon on the tile. I will have to wait a few days to find out being away some of that time so I won't set it to happen while I gone. Can't look at them now because I have to catch up, if ever I can.

I hope I get this right because I like to have complete series. I have the manual, but who reads them and they are terse on EHD. All very cleaver but less than transparent.

So when does it break up the stream and store them separately? Found a number of new series in the PTAT list that I will join in progress because they are well rated but had not started. PTAT sure replaces a lot timers but means more work.

-Ken
P.S. it's letter P on badge--so tiny.

 

[LotsOfEHDs]

I'm trying to get a 3TB EHD working. The drive is recognized as unformated and permission to format is asked. However after hours of formatting, the dialog window on the hopper just disappears. Afterwards, the drive does not appears in hopper menus and is unavailable. Power cycling the drive starts the entire process over again. After 4 attempts at formatting, I am thinking this particular Seagate drive (ST3000DM001-1CH166) may not be compatible. For those who have gotten 3TB drives to work, do you recall what brand/model your using?

 

[thomasjk]

2TB is the supported limit. I don't recall seeing anyone say that they have 3TB drives working.

 

[KAB]

Nope, find another use for your 3T, for now.