External Hard Drive on a 722 receiver

[3HaloODST]

I would like to report success with a bus-powered EHD on one of my 612s. I put a Crucial 250GB SSD into a $6 enclosure I bought at Microcenter. It has been working fine for days. I moved HOURS of recordings onto it, and back. Played some directly, too.

I hope you're just using the SSD for testing purposes and not storing videos permanently on that SSD! If so, what a waste! It will have almost no performance increase (other than maybe loading up the list of contents of the SSD.) That SSD should be put to much better use such as booting Windows 7/8 in 15 seconds like mine!

The funny thing is, these SSDs consume almost just as much power as the little 2.5" drives... There have been reports that having a traditional HDD on a laptop actually increases battery life compared to an SSD!

Anyway... So moral of the story is, YES, it's possible to power an external drive via USB on the receivers, but it would make a lot more sense to get a standard self-powered drive, or for the 2.5" drives, a powered USB hub.

 

[TheKrell]

Very true comments 3Halo. It was just a test to show that it could be done. I picked an SSD because I thought it didn't require nearly as much power as conventional disks. I also bought a 320GB WD Passport Elite (for $32!) and it very reliably crashes that same 612. So that's an example (I'm assuming) where the rotating disk sucks much more than the SSD.

 

[revick]

there are two that I am looking at for my 722k

[h=1]Western Digital My Book Essential 2 TB USB 3.0/2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBACW0020HBK-NESN[/h]
[h=1]Western Digital WD Elements 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive[/h]

 

[3HaloODST]

Very true comments 3Halo. It was just a test to show that it could be done. I picked an SSD because I thought it didn't require nearly as much power as conventional disks. I also bought a 320GB WD Passport Elite (for $32!) and it very reliably crashes that same 612. So that's an example (I'm assuming) where the rotating disk sucks much more than the SSD.

Well, to be fair, the HDD can very well consume more power than an SSD at any given moment, mainly during random read/writes. The more the actuator has to move, the more power consumed. What it is with SSD power consumption, is that it is a constant power draw, or on occasion, it is in an idle state and consumes very little power. More often than not, it is in the "active" state consuming more power than an HDD. An HDD on the other hand, can require a fair amount of juice just to spin up the platter(s) and move the actuator. The difference is, that when the drive is doing sequential read/writes, it can very well consume less power than an SSD. The majority of the time the HDD is spinning the platter(s) with minimal head movement, using less energy than an SSD in the "active" state (regardless of whether or not the SSD is doing a whole lot of reading/writing.)

 

[Tecmo SB Guy]

there are two that I am looking at for my 722k

Western Digital My Book Essential 2 TB USB 3.0/2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBACW0020HBK-NESN

I bought this from Best Buy a few weeks ago.

Works great so far. I've already transferred over 100 movies that I recorded from Starz and HBO to it.

 

[Bobby]

and when it fails, as all hard drives do, you will lose 100 movies forever....

 

[Tecmo SB Guy]

and when it fails, as all hard drives do, you will lose 100 movies forever....

Shhhhhhh. Don't jinx me.

I only made that post because revick was asking for an opinion of that hard drive on post #38 of this thread.

 

[3HaloODST]

and when it fails, as all hard drives do, you will lose 100 movies forever....

Seriously... Don't jinx it. I've had tons of HDDs that have been put out of commission by me that have never failed. If anything, if you're so worried about your external drive failing, just use it as little as possible. It's a lot less likely to fail than the HDD in the receiver that runs 24/7 and is allowed to overheat by the mediocre cooling...

 

[Bobby]

I'm not worried because I use my 1TB drive very little. I was only advising that the more you put on a particular drive the more you have an opportunity to lose....

 

[TheKrell]

My receivers never spin down the EHD. I've observed this (always on) behavior on a 722 and a 612 using both a Seagate 5900 RPM 1.5TB drive and a WD Caviar Blue. So I pulled them both and just use WD Greendrives. These aggressively spin down the disk while remaining on in such a state that it does not befuddle the receives once they want to access the drive again. This means that the WD Greendrives are almost always in standby and not spinning. I think they'll last a long long time this way.

BTW - I can't find whoever claimed they could do this in the past. But whenever I am transferring data to or from the EHD on my 612/L642 or my 722/L721, I cannot do anything else with it, INCLUDING accessing it from TV2.

 

[3HaloODST]

Yeah... I never ever buy WD Green drives because I'm not a big fan of anything with the word "green" in it plus I want all of my drives to have the best performance, and never spin down, so I always opt for the Blue and Black drives. Anyway apparently the WD Elements has a Green drive, and I've come to like the fact that it spins down when the DVR doesn't need it.

 

[TheKrell]

...so I always opt for the Blue and Black drives.

Weren't you the one who pointed out that the performance of a SSD was overkill for these receivers? Likewise for those 7200rpm drives.

 

[navychop]

Well, to be fair, the HDD can very well consume more power than an SSD at any given moment, mainly during random read/writes. The more the actuator has to move, the more power consumed. What it is with SSD power consumption, is that it is a constant power draw, or on occasion, it is in an idle state and consumes very little power. More often than not, it is in the "active" state consuming more power than an HDD. An HDD on the other hand, can require a fair amount of juice just to spin up the platter(s) and move the actuator. The difference is, that when the drive is doing sequential read/writes, it can very well consume less power than an SSD. The majority of the time the HDD is spinning the platter(s) with minimal head movement, using less energy than an SSD in the "active" state (regardless of whether or not the SSD is doing a whole lot of reading/writing.)

I want to thank you for posts such as this!

 

[navychop]

and when it fails, as all hard drives do, you will lose 100 movies forever....

Which is why I use a RAID for the more important stuff. Lord knows when I'll have time to watch it all. Reminds me of the days of dBase II and the guys I knew that copied thousands of dollars worth of software and never actually used much of it.

 

[navychop]

Yeah... I never ever buy WD Green drives because I'm not a big fan of anything with the word "green" in it plus I want all of my drives to have the best performance, and never spin down, so I always opt for the Blue and Black drives. Anyway apparently the WD Elements has a Green drive, and I've come to like the fact that it spins down when the DVR doesn't need it.

I use black drives for my RAID and will for other important EHDs, if I get more (got 4 or 5 already!).

BTW (not a response to Halo), I am well aware that HDDs may well have a higher failure rate with "restarts" such as spinning down and up again.

 

[3HaloODST]

Weren't you the one who pointed out that the performance of a SSD was overkill for these receivers? Likewise for those 7200rpm drives.

Well, true. What I meant was I never buy them for my rigs. My (untold) story was that for the longest time I was using drives I had lying around for the DVRs (I upgrade my rig a lot) and they all consisted of Samsung Spinpoints, and WD Blue & Black. I always avoid Green for my rigs, but upon getting a WD Elements (which at the time I had no clue what drive would be in it,) to my surprise it has a Green drive and for the purpose of the DVR I LIKE the Green drive since it spins down and actually wakes up normally (I hear Seagate drives have a problem with that on the DVRs.)

BUT, one advantage the Black would have over Greeen/Blue for DVR purposes, is the longer warranty (5 years vs 3 years.)

I want to thank you for posts such as this!

You're welcome.

I use black drives for my RAID and will for other important EHDs, if I get more (got 4 or 5 already!).

BTW (not a response to Halo), I am well aware that HDDs may well have a higher failure rate with "restarts" such as spinning down and up again.

These days, start/stop cycles only minimally affect HDD life. Modern HDDs no longer park their heads on the disk platters, therefore the next time the disk drive is started, the heads are not scraping against the platter until the platters are spinning fast enough to create an air bearing, as in older drives.

One thing involving start/stop cycles, that can in fact impact HDD life to some significance, is thermal cycling. However at ambient temperatures above 45F, it's not very significant. The platters and other parts shrink/expand ever-so-slightly as the internal temperature changes, as well as the lubricating oil can become too thick at lower temperatures.

 

[TheKrell]

I've got a 1.5TB Seagate greendrive on my 722/L721 that as of yesterday has started going offline until the next receiver reboot. The drive has been working fine for a couple of months prior to this; it never disappeared and never spun down. Is my drive about to crump?

 

[navychop]

Take no chances. Copy everything to an EHD.

 

[TheKrell]

And here the disk is back again after a reboot 3 hrs ago. I really don't think the disk is about to go out; it's on continuously with no significant thermal cycling. I think this is a Dish L721 issue with this particular make and/or my testing DishOnline. I'm going to stay the heck away from DO for now and see if it stays online as before.

Take no chances. Copy everything to an EHD.

You mean to another EHD? Sorry if I wasn't clear; I only wish I had a 1.5TB drive inside my 722!