Transferring to EHD

[HighlanderCFH]

I also posted this on the Dish site in hopes of getting an answer as soon as possible.....

My HWS has a defective hard drive and Dish is going to be giving me a new HWS to replace it. In the meantime, I purchased an EHD to transfer tons of recorded programs to save them for the new HWS. I am now in the process of doing the transfers.

The latest batch of programs that I selected for transfer shows that this particular group will take 18 hours to complete. This means it will still be in progress after I go to bed tonight.

My question is on what will happen when the HWS shuts off for the nightly update? Will the transfer be ruined or does a transfer process continue even when the Hopper turns itself off?

 

[thomasjk]

If it reboots your transfer will not complete. I would try shorter transfers.

 

[HighlanderCFH]

Thanks Thomas. Is there any way to interrupt the transfer (it is currently in progress) to shorten the list of programs?

 

[thomasjk]

No. You have to start over.

 

[HighlanderCFH]

No. You have to start over.

Ouch. If I go back to the transfer progress screen and click on STOP, will it ruin whatever has already been transferred? Another worry is what happens to the program that is in the process of being transferred when I hit the stop button?

 

[thomasjk]

What is already transferred should be ok. The one in progress will also be OK.

 

[HighlanderCFH]

Thank you Thomas. I'm gradually getting the hang of this. Looks like it takes about 10 minutes per hour of HD programs that I transfer. I'll calculate how many I can do before the 1:30 a.m. reboot and start it over.

Thanks again,
Chuck

 

[RobMeyer1]

My experience is that it takes about 5 minutes per HD hour to transfer programs to an EHD. If the receiver is active doing multiple other activities, then it may be slower. The estimated time is initially inaccurate, especially for such a large transfer.

Like Thomasjk, I like to make my transfers smaller. Occasionally, you may get transfers that give you an error message at the end, because it did not transfer all the programs. Programs that did not transfer will still be on the Hopper, and will usually transfer if you try a second time.

 

[HighlanderCFH]

Thanks Rob, and everyone.

I've started reducing the size of my transfers. I also realized that, since I'm here while they are taking place, I can make smaller transfers and then simply set up the next small transfer.

Yup, I'm doing some recording with the Hopper as the transfers take place, so it's good to know that this might slow down the transfer rate. When the Hopper is free, maybe I'll get closer to that 5 minute transfer rate.

Thanks again,
Chuck

 

[HighlanderCFH]

I'm just about through transferring. I've noticed that there seems to be a lot more total space on this 2 TB MyBook EHD (1862 total GB) than there is on the 2 TB hopper (1231 GB). Could this be because the Hopper's 2TB internal hard drive has space used up by Dish software, etc, whereas the EHD is pure storage?

Also, as I've been transferring many, many programs, I've noticed that I never get recordings count from the EHD as I do with the Hopper's internal drive. I've been told that the overall storage of an EHD does not matter when compared to the number of recordings -- that the EHD cannot hold more than a total of 999 recordings (presumably even if there is plenty of actual storage space remaining).

Right now, my EHD is showing the 1862 total GB with 798 GB free. But it does not list the actual total of individual recordings. So I'm not sure how many more of the Hopper recordings I can transfer. Because of the many short music clips from SiriusXM, I still have about 808 recordings left on the Hopper's internal drive (even though it is listed as 0 % full). These individual music clips range from a short 3 minute song to 30+ minutes involving a number of songs.

Does anyone have any advice on whether I should try to transfer those remaining 808 recordings. Obviously I would go far over the apparent 999 limit if it applies. So I'm not quite sure whether to proceed or just be happy that all of my movies & TV episodes (and a bunch of the music files) have already been successfully transferred.

Thanks much!
Chuck

 

[navychop]

You can have over a thousand recordings. But only a thousand will be visible

 

[oldengineer]

I'm just about through transferring. I've noticed that there seems to be a lot more total space on this 2 TB MyBook EHD (1862 total GB) than there is on the 2 TB hopper (1231 GB). Could this be because the Hopper's 2TB internal hard drive has space used up by Dish software, etc, whereas the EHD is pure storage?

Also, as I've been transferring many, many programs, I've noticed that I never get recordings count from the EHD as I do with the Hopper's internal drive. I've been told that the overall storage of an EHD does not matter when compared to the number of recordings -- that the EHD cannot hold more than a total of 999 recordings (presumably even if there is plenty of actual storage space remaining).

Right now, my EHD is showing the 1862 total GB with 798 GB free. But it does not list the actual total of individual recordings. So I'm not sure how many more of the Hopper recordings I can transfer. Because of the many short music clips from SiriusXM, I still have about 808 recordings left on the Hopper's internal drive (even though it is listed as 0 % full). These individual music clips range from a short 3 minute song to 30+ minutes involving a number of songs.

Does anyone have any advice on whether I should try to transfer those remaining 808 recordings. Obviously I would go far over the apparent 999 limit if it applies. So I'm not quite sure whether to proceed or just be happy that all of my movies & TV episodes (and a bunch of the music files) have already been successfully transferred.

Thanks much!
Chuck

When the Hopper was originally released I believe the 2TB space was split 50-50 so we had 1 and Dish had 1. In a later S/W update it was changed so that user space was bumped up to 1.25 TB and AFAIK it's that way now.

 

[tallfence]

Get another EHD to use strickly for music. You can leave the music on it and play from there on your new Hopper.

 

[HighlanderCFH]

You can have over a thousand recordings. But only a thousand will be visible

Does this mean they would be physically on the EHD, but that I would never be able to access them?

 

[HighlanderCFH]

When the Hopper was originally released I believe the 2TB space was split 50-50 so we had 1 and Dish had 1. In a later S/W update it was changed so that user space was bumped up to 1.25 TB and AFAIK it's that way now.

Thanks. That would mean that a "90% full" Hopper would still leave a lot of empty space on the EHD if it is all transferred over. But the trick there is that apparently I could not access the ones that are over the 999 limit.

 

[HighlanderCFH]

Get another EHD to use strickly for music. You can leave the music on it and play from there on your new Hopper.

That really is a great idea. I might do that just to keep the music separate from the regular programs.

 

[oldengineer]

I ordered a WD 2TB My Book Desktop from Amazon for $93. I have always had good experiences with them. Have 1TB My Book A/V on each Hopper that run 24/7. This one is for backups and transfers, betting on getting an H3

 

[HighlanderCFH]

That's the same price I got it for, from Amazon. When I have the $$$ I'll get another one. I'll keep it powered up all the time although I probably won't use it on a regular basis, unless I'm watching one of the programs I transferred to it. Having a second one for the music will be nice.

 

[HighlanderCFH]

I'm not sure if I'm seeing things correctly, but I finished transferring all my recorded content (probably almost 2,000 individual recordings) from my HWS to my new 2 TB EHD. But I do seem able to access everything and not just 999 recordings. Could the magic number of 999 refer to individual folders instead of individual recordings? For example, I have about 1,000 recordings from SirusXM 60s on 6. Would this be considered as 1,000 folders -- or as just one folder (under the 60s on 6 umbrella) with 1,000 entrees?

 

[RobMeyer1]

Also, as I've been transferring many, many programs, I've noticed that I never get recordings count from the EHD as I do with the Hopper's internal drive.

You can get info about an external hard drive's number of recordings by Pressing the "DVR" button to get to the My Recordings screen, then pressing the button to the right of the red "My Recordings" button and selecting your EHD, then moving your cursor over the "My Recordings" button, but don't press it. When I just did this for one of my EHD's, I got a message line above the buttons that reads: "External Device 1 is 95% Full with 784 Recordings