U548

[pattykay]

I'm not sure why, but I couldn't get the 1TB + 2TB + 4TB drives to work together. It should have worked with the total storage of 7TB.

Maybe there are more restrictions than that. For instance, if any drive exceeds the original 2TB cap, then you are limited to a maximum of two drives. If every drive stays under 2TB, then you can have three drives. (In that case, the cap for three drives working would actually be 6TB.) I don't know why they would restrict the usage that way. It is just a theory, based on the results people have posted here so far.

 

[TheKrell]

I'm not sure why, but I couldn't get the 1TB + 2TB + 4TB drives to work together. It should have worked with the total storage of 7TB.

Thanks for experimenting Foxbat. Can you detail what happened? Were only 2 drives visible? Only 1? They all disappeared? Did you reboot the H3? FWIW, my 6TB drive continues to function well, all by itself.

Time for U549 to fix this folderol. <-- Did I date myself using that word?

 

[pattykay]

I'm not sure why, but I couldn't get the 1TB + 2TB + 4TB drives to work together. It should have worked with the total storage of 7TB.

If it only found two drives at a time, was it always the smallest two drives, or was it the 4TB plus one of the others?

 

[navychop]

TheKrell: Yes!

549 might fix it, and break something else.

 

[Foxbat]

I was able to see the 4TB and 2TB drives from before, and I was able to see my 1TB drive when I have my normal 6TB drive connected. I was rebooting after I connected the three drives, but I had to reformat the 1TB and the 2TB EHDs (I think because they were installed in different enclosures) and that didn’t happen when they were all connected at once. Using the switched USB was handy as I could remove and connect EHDs as easy as pressing a button.

But even after I had all three drives formatted, I couldn’t see more than 2 EHDs at a time. I wonder if the EHD # is somehow part of the formatting so having two EHDs formatted as EHD #2 might confuse the Hopper. I will try cleaning the three drives I have, connecting them one at a time, letting the Hopper format them, then adding the next EHD until all three are connected. If the last drive isn’t recognized when I connect it, there is some other block (like multiple EHDs over 2TB).

 

[Bobby]

Could it be that each drive is slightly over the drive size, like a 1TB is really 1.068TB. That would make the sum more than 7TB.

 

[pattykay]

Could it be that each drive is slightly over the drive size, like a 1TB is really 1.068TB. That would make the sum more than 7TB.

I would think that the actual cap would account for that. In other words, the actual cap is also more than 7TB, and was rounded down to 7TB in the announcement, in order to "under-promise, over-deliver."

Also, Foxbat did say that it saw both the 6TB and 1TB at the same time:

...and I was able to see my 1TB drive when I have my normal 6TB drive connected. ...

It was just combinations of three drives that add up to 7TB that failed. I suppose that the cap could have been set to account for the overage on two drives, but not the total amount of overage from three drives. If that is the case, then the size of the cap would seem to have been set at that point intentionally, in order to prevent people from using three drives at once and still having access to all 7TB. Or rather, like I said earlier, if you want to use three drives, then you are stuck with a much smaller cap.

 

[Foxbat]

Here’s today’s final update on this EHD situation. With the 4-port USB hub I tried connecting all 4 EHDs at once (to recap, that’s 6TB, 4TB, 2TB, and 1TB) and it wasn’t clear why after rebooting that the only drive visible was the 2TB drive. I shut down the 2TB drive and none of the other drives became visible until I disabled the USB connection and reconnected it, but then it required me shutting down all of the drives before it would see that single drive appear.

So, in conclusion, I could connect my 6TB drive and add the 1TB drive. Or, I could connect the 4TB EHD at the same time as the 2TB drive, the 4TB with the 1TB drive, but not the 4TB, 2TB, and 1TB drives all at once.

Finally, when I rebooted with the 6TB EHD connected with the 1TB drive, the smaller drive showed up as EHD 1 and the 6TB drive as EHD 2. I think that is due to the large number of events present on my 6TB drive which takes a few minutes to index after rebooting. The 1TB drive had one event that I was using for the tests.

Could it be that each drive is slightly over the drive size, like a 1TB is really 1.068TB. That would make the sum more than 7TB.

Earlier in this thread I had documented the reported available sizes for the different EHDs I have. The 1TB drive reported 930MB in the Hopper GUI and the 6TB was 5,585GB; from memory the 2TB was 1,810-ish GBytes and the 4TB EHD was around 3,600-ish GBytes.

 

[Jim5506]

Do you have the ability to attach three drives that are well under the 7TB limit, i.e. possibly a 2TB, and 2 1TB drives. Perhaps there is also a limit of 2 external drives.

 

[Foxbat]

Do you have the ability to attach three drives that are well under the 7TB limit, i.e. possibly a 2TB, and 2 1TB drives. Perhaps there is also a limit of 2 external drives.

Unfortunately, I have run out of usable USB drives at home. I think work might take a dim view if I “borrowed” a few 2TB external USB drives for this experiment.

 

[pattykay]

Do you have the ability to attach three drives that are well under the 7TB limit, i.e. possibly a 2TB, and 2 1TB drives. Perhaps there is also a limit of 2 external drives.

Unfortunately, I have run out of usable USB drives at home. I think work might take a dim view if I “borrowed” a few 2TB external USB drives for this experiment.

If you would like to try it, I have a 500GB hard drive that I could send you. I salvaged the internal drive from a ViP722k and put it in a powered USB enclosure. Just cover the cost of shipping, and it is yours.

 

[JerryDowning]

I have 3 2TB drives attached to my Hopper3 and they work fine. Sometimes when the Hopper reboots at night, one or even all the EHDs do not show up, but usually they are all there in the morning.

 

[pattykay]

I have 3 2TB drives attached to my Hopper3 and they work fine. Sometimes when the Hopper reboots at night, one or even all the EHDs do not show up, but usually they are all there in the morning.

This seems to confirm my earlier theory. If all three drives each stay under the old 2TB cap, then three drives are allowed. If any drive exceeds the old 2TB cap, then only two drives are allowed, up to the maximum total of 7TB.

 

[pattykay]

If you would like to try it, I have a 500GB hard drive that I could send you. I salvaged the internal drive from a ViP722k and put it in a powered USB enclosure. Just cover the cost of shipping, and it is yours.

I have not heard from Foxbat, so I will open up the offer to anyone else who might want this hard drive for any reason.

 

[Foxbat]

If you would like to try it, I have a 500GB hard drive that I could send you. I salvaged the internal drive from a ViP722k and put it in a powered USB enclosure. Just cover the cost of shipping, and it is yours.

I have not heard from Foxbat

I have too much techno-cruff already. Mrs. Foxbat would revoke my breathing rights if I accepted more hard drives into the house.