Upgrading to H3

[KAB]

Sounds good! But I'm really trying to keep costs down. That was my original reason for calling Dish. They can cut my bill in almost half, but they wanted a 2 yr commitment. I said I wouldn't touch that without new equipment. So here I am. I can get an eSATA to USB adaptor for $10. The old 500GB EHD I have is over 10 years old. I used it with a Scientific Atlanta Comcast box - those DVRs were horrible! Should I even trust it? It did power on last night, but nothing to connect it to to test. I know 500GB wouldn't fit everything; I'd have to trim some fat. People say I watch too much tv anyway.

Well, if you want to keep everything, you need to shell out...and the clock is ticking.

 

[charlesrshell]

Sounds good! But I'm really trying to keep costs down. That was my original reason for calling Dish. They can cut my bill in almost half, but they wanted a 2 yr commitment. I said I wouldn't touch that without new equipment. So here I am. I can get an eSATA to USB adaptor for $10. The old 500GB EHD I have is over 10 years old. I used it with a Scientific Atlanta Comcast box - those DVRs were horrible! Should I even trust it? It did power on last night, but nothing to connect it to to test. I know 500GB wouldn't fit everything; I'd have to trim some fat. People say I watch too much tv anyway.

Treat yourself and go with DISH.

 

[Matty_G]

Well, if you want to keep everything, you need to shell out...and the clock is ticking.

Yeah I know...I have today to order something for delivery on Saturday. If I go the route of buying the dock and internal drive is there any special care that needs to be taken with the internal drive being exposed and handling it?

 

[KAB]

Yeah I know...I have today to order something for delivery on Saturday. If I go the route of buying the dock and internal drive is there any special care that needs to be taken with the internal drive being exposed and handling it?

None, short of spiking it on a concrete floor.

 

[navychop]

Don’t touch the inside HDD.

 

[Matty_G]

None, short of spiking it on a concrete floor.

One last question... the link you sent me was for the USB2.0 dock. They do have a 3.0 dock. Should I get that or is the 2.0 fine? doesn't the H3 have a USB3.0 on the back?

 

[KAB]

One last question... the link you sent me was for the USB2.0 dock. They do have a 3.0 dock. Should I get that or is the 2.0 fine? doesn't the H3 have a USB3.0 on the back?

It has been reported that it does not dramatically speed up the time.

 

[navychop]

The software overhead dwarfs any actual transfer speed increase.

 

[Matty_G]

I went ahead and ordered the dock/HD combo. Guaranteed delivery tomorrow. In the end this will also give me some additional storage to archive more shows/movies! I'll give an update after the install.

Thanks for the advice and info!

 

[JSheridan]

I have a tech scheduled to come out on Monday to install a new H3 at no cost to me.

From what I've read it's likely he will have to install a completely new dish? I'm on the east coast in VA.

My biggest concern is keeping the recordings I have on my HWS. It's at 95% and my 2 TB EHD is at 90% I recently read about Oldmuttonhead's very pleasant upgrade experience:

Ack! Shows Missing In Manage Recordings

I assume that's more the exception than the norm. Can I be certain the tech will allow me to keep the HWS to transfer recordings? Will he walk me through transferring the timers? Since I have almost a week to prepare should I transfer the recordings to another EHD myself?

Also, it sounds like it's a very slow process to transfer recordings via Ethernet. If it indeed takes days will I still be able to record programs during the transfer?

Also again, my existing 2 TB EHD should connect and work just fine with the new H3?

Thanks,

Just FYI, I've used the ethernet transfer method and the EHD transfer method and I prefer the ethernet method much more. Using ethernet ALL of your shows are moved including the PTAT shows in one process.

With the EHD method your PTAT shows aren't easily available for transfer and often there are errors while transferring, sometimes shows won't transfer at all. Also, if you want your shows on the new Hopper hard drive it's a long 2 step process. First you have to transfer to the EHD and then you have to transfer to the new Hopper.

When using the ethernet transfer you just start the process and away it goes. All the features of the new receiver including recording, VOD, etc. work like normal while the transfer is going on. You don't even know it's transferring except for the fact that your shows appear on the DVR list.

Both processes take quite a while and I'm sure if you just move your shows to the EHD and don't move them to the new Hopper it's probably quicker, but IMHO the ethernet transfer is much, much better.

 

[david_jr]

I noticed that 2 TB drives are becoming rare. Has anyone been able to use a 3 or 4 TB drive on a Hopper?

 

[navychop]

Some have reported success with some drives, but they operate as 2TB, no larger. Or so most have reported that tried it.

 

[david_jr]

You’d think that Dish would be working on something to increase the limit seeing how scarce 2TB external drives are becoming. I just bought a refurbished one from Newegg. They didn’t have much selection.

 

[navychop]

IIRC, it’s been posted here that it is a chipset limit capping us at 2TB. Maybe the next box won’t have that limit.

 

[david_jr]

Gee, 3 boxes in and they didn't think of that? Hmmf. How long have we had people wondering about it here?

 

[Matty_G]

Well, I had my H3 and Joey installed Monday. Despite not having 4K TVs I got a Joey3 because they were out of 2s. Wow, the Joey3 is thin!

Literally up until the tech arrived around 2 pm I was transferring programs to my EHDs. The new dock/internal HD combo worked great. The dock has a power button - I like that. My external Seagate does not. Install took a few extra minutes because the tech connected the wires incorrectly on the new LNB. He also connected the remote antenna to the sat input and vice versa. Once he fixed the connections it worked fine. The tech was nice though - a bit too chatty however. I DO NOT like the new 54 remote. I guess I could get used to it, but it's missing so many buttons! Good thing I kept the old remote (needed it to restore my timers, etc anyway). I use a harmony remote with the H3. Could pair the old remote with the Joey to avoid using the new one at all. H3 works exactly same, except it's so much faster. I had to be very patient with my H2, especially after the carbon upgrade. I do miss the red record light. It gave me visual confirmation that it was recording.

Since my HDD dock has a power button would it be better to power it off when not it in use? Would disconnecting it from H3 over and over cause any issues? Since, my Seagate EHD has no power button it's always connected and always spinning. It does power down when I occasionally disconnect the USB.

 

[Bobby]

Well, I had my H3 and Joey installed Monday. Despite not having 4K TVs I got a Joey3 because they were out of 2s. Wow, the Joey3 is thin!

Just so you know, the Joey 3 is not 4K capable. You would need a 4K Joey for that....

 

[Matty_G]

Just so you know, the Joey 3 is not 4K capable. You would need a 4K Joey for that....

Ah, thanks for that info. What's the difference then between Joey3 and Joey2? 4K TV is not on my radar right now anyway...

 

[navychop]

Faster. Smaller.

 

[ncted]

IIRC, it’s been posted here that it is a chipset limit capping us at 2TB. Maybe the next box won’t have that limit.

I would find it odd for the limitation to be in silicon. It is possible, but I'd be much less surprised if it is a driver or filesystem limitation. I know they don't use XFS any more, but I don't know what they switched to. If it is a software limitation, they should be able to resolve it without swapping boxes. The other possibility is it is a memory limitation. It kind of depends on how the filesystem they are using is written, but it isn't unusual for more storage to mean more RAM is needed.