HWS external hard drive questions

[Mike1951]

Was talking to DISH today and neither she nor I could find the ubiquitous requirement for externally powered hard drives. My last one was nearly impossible to find. I've been keeping an internal drive and enclosure in my Amazon cart waiting for the inevitable.

Now the DISH site shows a maximum of 7TB for the Hoppers. With the HWS or a later upgrade to a Hopper 3, can I count on reliable behavior powered by the USB 3.0 connection?

Amazon's current selections are 5TB and 8TB at similar prices. Could I expect 7TB to be recognized and used without problem or would formatting the 8TB be an issue?

The option of using a larger internal with enclosure is still an option.

Thanks

 

[KAB]

No, you should not rely on Hopper's USB power. Best thing to do is buy a Dock/Cradle and a bare bones drive. Personally, I would never go more than 2 T because you stand to lose more if it would bite the dust. I have two of these, one with 1T, the other 2T.
Amazon product ASIN B00LS5NFQ2

 

[Mike1951]

My 2TB external is at 91%, the internal stays at about 85%. Plus, I'm considering switching to the Hopper 3, which means even more recording. More storage is a given. Last year, most of the stuff on the Hopper got overwritten while in the hospital due to recurring timers. Much as I hated losing some of it, I did survive. It's just movies and TV shows.

Definitely leaning toward the AC enclosure since others have had issues.

Thank you for responding

 

[TheKrell]

I have a 6TB Seagate on my H3 and it is working well. The only problem: I can't simultaneously plug in my 1.5TB EHDs that I had before.

 

[Mike1951]

I have a 6TB Seagate on my H3 and it is working well. The only problem: I can't simultaneously plug in my 1.5TB EHDs that I had before.

I definitely appreciate the response even if I may be leaning toward not trusting DISH' utilization of the USB just yet.

Not totally certain, though.

Thank you!

 

[brice52]

I definitely appreciate the response even if I may be leaning toward not trusting DISH' utilization of the USB just yet.

Not totally certain, though.

Thank you!

I have total of 4 2 TB drives and connected to an usb 3.0 automatic switch, 2 of these are on a USB 3.0 AB switch and only 3 are connected at same time to the automatic switch .

The automatic switch also has an OTA tuner attached to it , all to 1 USB port on HWS

 

[Mike1951]

I have total of 4 2 TB drives and connected to an usb 3.0 automatic switch, 2 of these are on a USB 3.0 AB switch and only 3 are connected at same time to the automatic switch .

The automatic switch also has an OTA tuner attached to it , all to 1 USB port on HWS

Wow! That sounds like the switch arrangement I have for my ham station, two radios going to four antennas.

Could you pare it down to just what it would take for two drives? Would there be any way to accomplish remote switching?

Or at least, using longer cables, allow switching away from the receiver?

 

[TheKrell]

Could you pare it down to just what it would take for two drives? Would there be any way to accomplish remote switching?

You don't need to switch at all as long as you keep the total number under 4 and the total storage under 7TB. Note that the H3 has 2 USB ports on the back (one of which is USB3) and another on the front.

If you really don't want them all on at once, you could just connect up the power supplies to a remote power control, and pull the plug on your EHDs remotely.

 

[bookworm370]

Interesting initial question. In reading all the previous threads on the new EHD capacity, I haven't run across anyone that mentions that they have used a 8TB drive, even though that 7TB might only be formatted and recognized.

The reason I ask is that there are NO 7TB drives to be bought. You can buy 6TB and 8TB, etc. But 7 seems to have been skipped.

I'd like to get 2 larger HD's and use them in a Raid 1 enclosure, but also use the max capacity. With a 6TB drive, I can't hook up my other 1TB drive as it seems that some total goes over some magic 7tb 734343232? Level?

So, right now I have a 2TB, and 2 1TB drives all on a hub and all 3 are recognized just fine. But, considering that the price difference between 6TB and 8TB isn't all that much, will the Hopper recognize an 8TB drive but only format the max it can use? So, I can use my current 6TB as an expansion drive on one of my servers and buy 2 8TB's and get another terabyte?

Also, if you look at the new EHD support page, dish specifically changed it to say that max is 7TB and only one (1) drive at a time is supported.

See here: EHD Specs . Notice the very last line that only 1 HD is supported. Grummble

Thanks in advance.

 

[TheKrell]

Also, if you look at the new EHD support page, dish specifically changed it to say that max is 7TB and only one (1) drive at a time is supported.

See here: EHD Specs . Notice the very last line that only 1 HD is supported. Grummble

Hell and damnation! I was hoping this was a bug and would be fixed so that I could simultaneously attach both my 1.5TB drives and my 6TB rive.

 

[Bobby]

We have tested various drive scenarios here and the result was that multiple drives are just fine as long as the total capacity of the combined drives don’t exceed 7TB. I think what the EHD specs are referring to is the drive must be single platter.

 

[bookworm370]

Yes, but the base question I was asking is that 'If it's one platter, can it be an 8TB platter (as you call it) yet the Hopper will only format it's maximum of 7TB on the 8TB drive? Or will it reject or not recognize the 8TB drive?

 

[Bobby]

Yes, but the base question I was asking is that 'If it's one platter, can it be an 8TB platter (as you call it) yet the Hopper will only format it's maximum of 7TB on the 8TB drive? Or will it reject or not recognize the 8TB drive?

Until someone tries it we won’t know. Back when there was a 2TB limit we had folks use 3TB EHDs and were able to get them formatted but they only had 2TB usable. This is new though so we won’t know until someone tries.

 

[Bobby]

Heads up, the 8 TB Seagate drive I bought is not recognized by my Hopper 3. So I guess I will be looking for a 6 TB drive next (since I’m not sure 7 TB drives exists, but 5 TB drives do.)

I was hoping it would recognize it even if it could use only 7 TB of the drive.

Looking at a different thread I see that 8TB wasn’t recognized,

 

[bookworm370]

Looking at a different thread I see that 8TB wasn’t recognized,

Thanks, at least it saves me the time of ordering and returning. I looked through most of the threads and missed that one.

 

[olds403]

Hell and damnation! I was hoping this was a bug and would be fixed so that I could simultaneously attach both my 1.5TB drives and my 6TB rive.

I have 2 2TB drives connected to my HWS at the same time and they are both recognized. I believe it means a maximum of 7TB can be used but a combination of drives can be used UP TO 7TB.

 

[bookworm370]

Reporting back,

Well, after three days of transferring four hard drives (500G, 750G, 1TB, 1.5T) to my new 6TB drive I can say that it works. I left my 2TB drive which has the Hallmark Christmas movies alone.

I didn't want to clutter the drive with almost a terabyte of Hallmark Christmas movies, so I'll just swap between drives (it seems that once the Hopper recognizes one drive (either the 2TB or 6TB) it won't recognize the other one without a hard restart. Not matter which order you plug and un-plug them.

• Plug in 2TB drive, recognized
  • Unplug 2TB drive, get the USB disconnected message
  • Plug in the 6TB drive, it just sits there.
• Plug in the 6TB drive
  • Restart
  • Recognizes the 6TB drive (but boy does it spin flash for at least 2-3 minutes while it reads all those partitions, for a 6TB drive it turns out there are 13 500G partitions and one 1G header).
  • Unplug the 6TB Drive
  • Get the USB disconnected message
• Plug the 2TB drive back in and it just sits again without a hard restart

Well, at least I have them separated by seasons and I can worry about it next Christmas unless someone at Dish fixes it.

I have a USB Switch, hoping to just switch one off and the other on to swap between. but no dice.

Well the nice thing, after combining the four hard drives, I found a lot of duplicate recordings that got randomly stored that I was able to reconcile and delete.