OFFICIAL External Storage Information

[John Kotches]

Your HDTV numbers are OK but your hard disk ones are a "bit" off

First of all, the 480Mbit rating of USB 2.0 is theoretical. External drives don't come anywhere CLOSE to touching that. The fastest external 2.0's I've used (in very expensive cases with high quality chipsets) can do 25MB/s - roughly 220Mbit, or less than 50% of the "theoretical" rating.

Is there a comprehension issue here? When I typed "This is nowhere near the theoretical limit of USB2.0" were you not reading.

Best I've seen sustained was 20 MB/second. Not that this is toast; but this was over more than a burst transfer.

More common is 12 to 15MB/s (100Mbit to 120Mbit) with several drives closer to the lower side. It really depends more on the chipset used in the external enclosure; The cheap knock-off Chinese ones are dirt slow and often have high error rates; Better name-brand ones like Oxford are much faster and have much lower error rates...Hence, the drive inside doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Any late model 7200rpm spindle drive can do more than the USB 2.0 interface can handle in the first place.

Show me sustained transfer rates that exceed 60 MB/second. Not on a spec sheet; in real world tests.

At any rate, even with a 22Mbit HD stream, and even with a crap chipset in a cheap enclosure, you should have no problems.

Assuming you only want to transfer at 1:1 aka real time. Who wants to transfer at that rate?

 

[odbrv]

I connected a Seagate Freeagent 500GB to each of my 622s. I did not turn the 622s on. I then called to activate and was told it would take 5 minutes to take place. I waited 5 minutes and turned on the 1st 622 and tried to manage device. I received the format screen and answered yes . I then got the format failed screen. I waited 5 minutes again and this time it reformated the device and rebooted the 622. I then transfered 2 SD 1/2 hour shows. It said 10 minutes to complete. I then went to the 2nd 622 and turned it on . I tried manage device and got the format failed screen again. It seems you have to wait 5 minutes from 622 turn on. I waited the 5 minutes again and again the drive was reformated and the 622 rebooted. I then selected one 1 hour SD program and 1 1 hour HD program to send. It said it would take 33 minutes.
I went back to the 1st 622 and brought up the external device and watched and deleted 1 of the 1/2 hour programs. I played great with no loss in PQ. I deleted the show, leaving one on the drive. I went back to the 2nd 622 and all was transferred. I went back to the first to see the 2nd 1/2 hour. When i tried to manage the device I got a message saying I was trying to view a device formated for another receiver. It then erase my stored program and reformated the drive.

 

[Smith P.]

<..>Show me sustained transfer rates that exceed 60 MB/second. Not on a spec sheet; in real world tests.
<...>

Easy. Watch.

Ghost on Dell 690 with two SATA WD 160 GB Raptors.

 

[John Kotches]

OK, lets count random reading/writing speed. And your numbers will be ... ?

Give or take; anywhere from 8-15 MB/second. Sorry, I can't get more specific than that due to some confidentiality agreements.

Don't worry about scattering - DishLinux use 2...4 MB clusters and most of the time they have one stream to write.

Talk to me about this over time; not new conditions. You have free blocks in multiple locations that you're using up.

Let's face it; if you are using the archive feature in all likelihood you're already doing your own content management by deleting programs and reusing the sectors. It's not like this is an unusual occurrence.

A 2-4MB cluster covers no more than 3-4 seconds of MPEG-4 encoding.

If you want real picture of 622 fragmentation, I would propose to run some programs and obtain factual merits for continue the discussion.

See above.

 

[dendavis]

Guess I was luckier in CSR roulette, got a competent one, asked me if I wanted both 622's enabled (curious, since I understood it is the account that is activated for USB, not the receiver). Anyway, took all of 30 seconds. Hooked up the Western Digital 750gB I got at CC, the menu came right up, did its thing viz. formatting. Currently transferring 70 gB of archival stuff, sez it will take 4hr, 55 min, but can watch regular television if I choose. Just like in the video Scott posted. Was concerned there might be a call center overload, this being the first day, but there was no delay getting connected. Curious as to why they don't have an online option to activate.

Going out now to get another WD drive for the other 622. Had been concerned about noise, it is a non-issue. Only thing to consider is how you place the WD, there is an illuminated green circle on the narrow side of the unit that might be spooky in a dark room. This unit is about the size of a thick, almost full-height book, with rubber feet, stands upright, like a book on a shelf, nice unit.

Happy camper here

 

[John Kotches]

Easy. Watch.

Ghost on Dell 690 with two SATA WD 160 GB Raptors.

It's nice that you used 10K RPM drives for this.

You're right; that was easy.

 

[the_pabster]

Best I've seen sustained was 20 MB/second. Not that this is toast; but this was over more than a burst transfer.

20MB/s sustained over USB 2.0 ... yeah, that is at the top of the crop. Most won't be able to do that.

Show me sustained transfer rates that exceed 60 MB/second. Not on a spec sheet; in real world tests.

In a satellite receiver? Or hooked via USB? Not gonna happen.

I have a RAID array with Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 that breaks 120MB/s and yes, that is sustained

Assuming you only want to transfer at 1:1 aka real time. Who wants to transfer at that rate?

I wouldn't

I'm merely stating that even the lowest quality, cheap "junk" external drive laying around in your basement will handle this "Archival" feature just fine. And perhaps saving a few some $$$ who think you can get much better performance with a more expensive drive, which isn't going to happen in this configuration.

 

[Smith P.]

To John: I have 15K also, but it would be different discussion. Following by signing a confidential agreement.

But anyway - we are far away from spindle/interal limtations of any HDD while using them in 622/722. IRRELEVANT !

 

[John Kotches]

I have 15K also, but it would be different discussion. Following by signing a confidential agreement.

My point is that you haven't shown me 7200 RPM drives -- sorry that the subtlety passed you by.

 

[mike123abc]

My OTA ABC recordings seem to be using about 97.7 megabytes/minute recorded. These are of course 720p recodings.

 

[the_pabster]

Going out now to get another WD drive for the other 622. Had been concerned about noise, it is a non-issue. Only thing to consider is how you place the WD, there is an illuminated green circle on the narrow side of the unit that might be spooky in a dark room. This unit is about the size of a thick, almost full-height book, with rubber feet, stands upright, like a book on a shelf, nice unit.

Happy camper here

How is the heat?

That would be my main concern, as most of the externals have little to no cooling ability of their own...

And we know the 622/722 run hotter than snot the way they are...

 

[John Kotches]

20MB/s sustained over USB 2.0 ... yeah, that is at the top of the crop. Most won't be able to do that.

I was surprised myself. But you take it when it happens for you.



In a satellite receiver? Or hooked via USB? Not gonna happen.

I have a RAID array with Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 that breaks 120MB/s and yes, that is sustained

Sure; but this is quite a bit different in performance for a number of reasons which I'm sure you're well aware. Not the least of which is consumer vs DC grade

I'm merely stating that even the lowest quality, cheap "junk" external drive laying around in your basement will handle this "Archival" feature just fine. And perhaps saving a few some $$$ who think you can get much better performance with a more expensive drive, which isn't going to happen in this configuration.

We don't disagree; perhaps we approach from different points of view though.

 

[John Kotches]

My OTA ABC recordings seem to be using about 97.7 megabytes/minute recorded. These are of course 720p recodings.

That would be about right... Give or take 13 Mbits/second.

 

[pdxsam]

It took me longer to wade through the maze of voice menus today then it did to get the CSR to activate the service.

Some of the CSR's "got the memo" and knew what they were talking about.

As an aside, the CSR I talked to was pleased I knew what I was doing. She said the previous 4 or 5 people had no idea how to hook up the external storage.

 

[Smith P.]

My OTA ABC recordings seem to be using about 97.7 megabytes/minute recorded. These are of course 720p recodings.

Mike, we could compare quickly if we will use same measuring units - Mbps for stream and MBps for disks.

 

[dendavis]

How is the heat?

That would be my main concern, as most of the externals have little to no cooling ability of their own...

And we know the 622/722 run hotter than snot the way they are...

Been running about thirty minutes now, warm but not uncomfortable to the touch. Actually, maybe slightly cooler than the 622 right next to it. Unit is sitting in an open area of the shelf, lots of air circulation, and there is an a/c vent about 18" above it. So, even if it hits 100 again here in SoCal, should be nice and comfy up there.

 

[mike123abc]

Mike, we could compare quickly if we will use same measuring units - Mbps for stream and MBps for disks.

I am just going by what the 622 is reporting on the external drive, recordings transferred from my archived ABC shows, the 30 minute ones (ranging from 30-34 minutes depending on what was available for padding at the time the recording was made) vary from 2857 to 3338 MB (19 recordings of 2 shows). When you go back into manage USB storage it gives the size of each recording, they use MB which I assume is 1024x1024.

 

[nazz]

I just came home this afternoon to check out the big day's happenings. My Wireless-G Game Adapter had been delivered so I hooked it up and it connected immediately to my network.

I called the E* number and the guy said this was his first one. After a very brief hold, he got me activated. All seems well and I'm in the process of transferring 75 GB of HD movies over to the WD 500GB My Book. It said it would take over 5 hours to complete but I don't know how accurate that is.

Now I'm going to kick back and set up some recordings on the new HD channels. I'm not sure if the Voom channels are MPEG4 yet or not?

 

[shortspark]

I called twice this morning and both reps said to call back at 8:00am Eastern as they could not activate until then. About 7:30 I called again and this time they got me going. I came back this afternoon and decided to archive several HD movies including King Kong, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. The screen showed I had 239 gb of storage available and my transfer would take 53 gigs. First, the screen noted a time required for download of 3 hours and some odd minutes but a moment later it switched to 2 hours 47 minutes. It has been 20 minutes into the process now and I just went to check the status bar. It says it is sending my selections to the hard drive but there is no green status bar showing nor is there any time remaining. I know the transfer is not complete but it looks like you have to wait until the hard drive itself stops blinking to know the downloads have in fact taken place. Perhaps too much content thrown at it at once messes up the status indicators. I hope so because we really have to know how much time is left and the status of the download. I'm just going to keep going until I see my WD stop blinking and then see what is on it.

 

[logich]

fast activation success

I had great luck activating the external storage feature. The CSR knew exactly what I was talking about when I referred to the "one-time Archiving Activation Fee" and "DVR External Hard Disk Drive Storage" without having to go to a supervisor.

Great experience and thanks to the group for the detailed information on this service in the past few weeks.