HR2x / HR34 External Hard Drive FYI/Support (eSATA)

[Brewer4]

I like the performance improvements so much on my HR20-700, I decided to buy the exact same setup for my HR20-100. I refused to do NESN games on the HR20-100 since the HR20-700 was a ton faster. $230 total at NewEgg with free shipping. Exact same drive and eSATA enclosure. So I will be ready in the fall with 4 tuners and a total of 150-250 hours of HD bliss.

The eSATA enclosure gets warm but its so quiet with the Western Digital drive. I am very impressed. Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

 

[vurbano]

Good news!!

I repeated the experiment. Shut down HR20, go to internal drive, check things, close down, go to eSATA drive. This time my programs and settings were still there. I repeated it again since I noticed in the history my previous program was in there as deleted. The drive didnt rewipe itself. Not sure sure what told it to delete but this time around it kept everything including channel favorites, to do and recorded programs. I am liking the eSATA!!

So why did it wipe out the eSATA drive the first time you tried to swap it?

 

[Brewer4]

So why did it wipe out the eSATA drive the first time you tried to swap it?

Not sure exactly. I think I might have turned off the hard drive at the wrong time. It might have also happened because it was the first time booting into the eSATA drive. It gave me that warning message that the GUI was updated that you get when you first get the White GUI. Reason why I tested it again is because it didnt wipe the drive. It had the program in history but it was marked as deleted. Second test resulted in all saved programs and favorites. I can only recommend that if you do this, break the thing in before dumping too much on the eSATA drive. The issue was probably user error on my part.

 

[Brewer4]

New Egg is the best. Free 3 day shipping that arrives next day. You gotta love it.

I hooked up the exact same hard drive and enclosure to my HR20-100 and guess what happened. It too is navigating faster and Trick Play is way smoother. I thought it might be a fluke with the HR20-700 but it must be the Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s drive. I am not trying to promote WD, but the drives have IMPROVED the HR20. And not by a little, by a LOT. Amazing. Has anyone else seen a jump in performance improvement using eSATA?

 

[atp1313]

I think I may have missed a post or two along the way, but when you first plug in the new eSATA "box",

1. do you need to do anything?
2. do you need to tell the IRD anything to get it to format the drives?
3. do you need to partition the drives in Linux/Unix to work?

 

[Brewer4]

Here are the steps.

1. Turn off HR20. Do reset and shutdown then yank plug.
2. Put hard drive in enclosure.
3. Plug in eSATA cable to HR20.
4. Turn on eSATA drive
5. Plug back in HR20 power plug

Thats it. It boots like normal. It will reset your favorites, Scheduler or To Do List and you start with no recorded shows. It does not delete the internal ones, you just start from scratch ONLY on those 3 things. Your OTA channels and other settings are actually still intact.

 

[Jimbo]

Here are the steps.

1. Turn off HR20. Do reset and shutdown then yank plug.
2. Put hard drive in enclosure.
3. Plug in eSATA cable to HR20.
4. Turn on eSATA drive
5. Plug back in HR20 power plug

Your OTA channels and other settings are actually still intact.

Thats probably because I doubt that any info regarding guides and OTA and that type of stuff has anything to do with the actual hard drive.
I would that is done internally on the (motherboard ???) ...
The only thing I would expect to be affected would be those dealing with recording
and programs that are already recorded .

jmo
Jimbo

 

[Brewer4]

Thats probably because I doubt that any info regarding guides and OTA and that type of stuff has anything to do with the actual hard drive.
I would that is done internally on the (motherboard ???) ...
The only thing I would expect to be affected would be those dealing with recording
and programs that are already recorded .

jmo
Jimbo

I thought so too but it resets Favorites which I thought a bit odd if it knew to keep your channel mix including OTA.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

When I was at Costco yesterday, the Seagate 750 GB eSATA was under $200, after a discount.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

Thats probably because I doubt that any info regarding guides and OTA and that type of stuff has anything to do with the actual hard drive.
I would that is done internally on the (motherboard ???) ...
The only thing I would expect to be affected would be those dealing with recording
and programs that are already recorded .

jmo
Jimbo

The guide data on the HR20 has been kept on the disk for a month or two now. That way it doesn't need to completely be regenerated after a reboot.

 

[Jimbo]

The guide data on the HR20 has been kept on the disk for a month or two now. That way it doesn't need to completely be regenerated after a reboot.

Well that explains part of it, if thats the case I guess they could put other info there too.

I can't wait for the Costco to open here in town

I wonder if the local BB will match the Costco out of town pricing, they had the Seagate 750 for $279 last week.

I keep debating on buying it now or wait for the 1 or 1.5 TB to come out.

Jimbo

 

[Brewer4]

I battled with waiting for 1 TB or 1.5. In the end it came down to cost and realistic need for more space. I got away with 82 hours total HD on 2 HD Tivos. Now I got 150 to 225 on 2 HR20's and 52 on the HD Tivo. All that with the 750 GB drives. I know there are more serious folks then me that retain programming but I will never need beyond 200 hours of HD. I dont have that time to watch nor do I want to build a catalog. So I figured the 750 GB worked for me for price and recording time.

 

[Jimbo]

I battled with waiting for 1 TB or 1.5. In the end it came down to cost and realistic need for more space. I got away with 82 hours total HD on 2 HD Tivos. Now I got 150 to 225 on 2 HR20's and 52 on the HD Tivo. All that with the 750 GB drives. I know there are more serious folks then me that retain programming but I will never need beyond 200 hours of HD. I dont have that time to watch nor do I want to build a catalog. So I figured the 750 GB worked for me for price and recording time.

The only problem I have is that with the 750 your essentially only gaining 450 (or less) seeing the HR20 has at least a 300 gb HD in it already.

Jimbo

 

[Brewer4]

Very true but I rather look at the ratio. 2.5 times. So you go from 30-50 hours HD to 75 to 125. Thats a pretty good jump.

 

[DVRaholic]

Internal & External...

Want Internal and External to work together to get more recording space ???

Take the Poll at DBSTalk.com


Internal and External Together... - DBSTalk.Com


I need this feature now, My 750GB External hard drive is Nearly Full !!

 

[Brewer4]

Its not critical but I voted they should be together. Its pretty much a no brainer to me. Why waste a 300 GB drive?

 

[tfoss]

TO BREWER4: I ordered the exact same setup for my external storage that you did, but what cable do I order to hook up my encloser to the HR20-700? Thanks

 

[Jimbo]

TO BREWER4: I ordered the exact same setup for my external storage that you did, but what cable do I order to hook up my encloser to the HR20-700? Thanks

Don't the enclosure normally have a cable included ?
The ones I have looked at always do.

From what I could tell you would need the "I" type cable.
Someone correct me if the type is wrong, but from what I have seen, this is what I have come up with.

Jimbo

 

[Brewer4]

The Vantec comes with both USB and eSATA cables so no need for another cable unless you want one longer. The included eSATA is 3 feet.

 

[Jimbo]

The Vantec comes with both USB and eSATA cables so no need for another cable unless you want one longer. The included eSATA is 3 feet.

I or L shaped ?

Jimbo