What USB HDD works with S10 What FW works w/HDD

[utah2]

Hello All...

No matter what usb drives(other then Flash to small) I tried works with s10. All say speed is to slow & lock up receiver(FW Dec 13th from yojatech) Only had partial success with USB 3.0 toshiba canvio powered from s10. I have 1tb toshiba with external pwer that worked fine with s9(s9 now bricked ) does not work with s10. I am considering buying usb 3.0 cable to use w/1tb toshiba as from what I read & exeperience with partial success on canvio may have been attributable to full power from 3.0 cable . Must be some solution to this problem somewhere ?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

 

[radio]

Funny you should post on this topic just now....

I spent part of this weekend experimenting with updated software for my S10, and trying to get my hard drive recordings to properly "take, save, and replay." I've repeatedly had the "USB connected" then "USB disconnected" warnings. I'm using a Segate Freeagent GoFlex 500gb drive on my S10. When time permits, I'll post the review of the firmware update and other observations if anyone is interested.

CHIP ID 085B
VERSION CHS2-11-10-10:0579CMT
MACHINE: 00-03-00-00-00-00-00-00

Drive is this one: Walmart.com: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB USB 2.0 Ultra-Portable Hard Drive, Black: Computers

In the meantime, the drive is a 2.0 USB. I format it from the receiver, not from a computer, FAT is the format. I have successfully had timer-recordings this weekend on ME-TV including the moving of the dish. I set the timer for 2 minutes ahead of the hour for recording and allowing my slow C-band dish to go, and run it up to :59 past for its stop time (assuming each recording is top of the hour, that way there are no conflicts of end vs. beginning times.)

While I had historically had horrible luck with this same drive on the same receiver, everything worked this weekend. No disconnects, no speed warnings, nothing. And there was ONE variable I removed which was not the fault of the drive nor the receiver. It was a short USB extension I had used to make the drive more accessible. With the extension USB cord inline, nothing but trouble and failed recordings. They'd start, record, stop early, and even "digitize" requiring reboot of the S10. Without the extension on the USB, the drive is doing fine. I've played back recordings multiple times, the directory has remained stable, and the system doesn't have issues.

I know this may not be what you're looking for, but....stay away from ANY extensions or extra cables that are not directly a part of your hard drive. My experience this weekend also tells me that the myth about needing external power is just that, a myth! However, an external powered drive may help keep the S10 cooler when it runs, if the drive's required power is generating extra heat in the case of the S-10.

One other observation is, at least in my experience, the USB socket on the S10 is very touchy! Make sure your connection is in tight, or you could wrongly judge any drive as "bad" when it really may not be.

Just my (long) un-educated 2-cents worth, and....if time permits, and if anyone cares, I'll try to finish the look-see at the software which has been discussed here on the site....mine seems fairly stable now and, is making the S-10 a more tolerable receiver for me until the new one from Satellite AV is released for us!

Edit addition: The USB port on the receiver is definitely, in my case, a weak link. Scary, when you consider "updating" is done through this connection. Likely very cheap part used, will probably look to see if it's able to be bypassed/replaced at some time in the near future for better stability.

 

[xtgold]

I avoid wear and tear on the usb connector by updating via ethernet.
You may find a drive that works fine for sd recording,but fails for hd,especially the high sr feeds.
You might want to try the sept 2 firmware.

 

[radio]

Actually, the HD worked from PBS pretty well with the above mentioned drive, too. I am, however going to experiment later with using a self-powered older external drive from MAXTOR which I have laying around. In short experiments, it seemed to read, write, and respond well! Granted, its only 115 gb, but, for simple time shifting, it may be fine! Since Openbox is by no means perfected, the experimentation and reporting here makes it an interesting "quest" for the ideal working situation.

 

[Tron]

The answer is to use walwart-powered hard drives. The receivers often don't put out enough current to keep the bus-powered drives going.

If you must use a bus-powered drive, use only the short cable supplied with the drive, as Radio suggested.

 

[radio]

Last night, to my surprise, even an OLDER external drive (and it's huge) by Maxtor, probably in the range of 5 years old did well on my Openbox S10. Its powered from the wall. Wondered if the speed would be good enough, and it WAS! Recorded plenty of HD last night with no hiccups, the directory was consistent (meaning it didn't change or disappear after playing repeatedly and searching the content) and the picture was excellent. BTW..the timers on the Openbox seem fine, as long as you check the clock now and then, and as we all know from reading here at satguys....RESET IT after you cycle the power. It works very nicely! Picture shown of the unit from a sales/review site of days gone by. WOW, how things have gotten smaller since then! But........it works!

 

[cyberham]

The answer is to use walwart-powered hard drives...

Interesting since my wall-wart drive has always worked reliably with my S9. Maybe this is why.

 

[xtgold]

Some people claim the old pata drives work fine for hd,I always get the drive speed too slow message.
Transfer rate around 31MB/s.Maybe good drives are 7200 rpm with a decent disk cache?

 

[utah2]

Thanks to all for HDD help

Thank you all for detailed responses to my request for on getting usb hdd to work with s10. I will look for shorter usb cable as my toshiba 1tb does have a particular long cable. Also usb on s10 is probably not the best quality I will look for ways to tighten connector (expand it a liitle) at cable end to fit more snug in s10. Also will try s10 fw versions mentioned in replies. Thanks again... Great forum!

 

[hwm]

I leave a short USB extension cable plugged in at all times to avoid wear on the USB port in the receiver.

I've tried an older 32GB EIDE drive and a 320GB SATA, both in USB 2.0 enclosures with wall-wart power supply. Also tried several USB memory sticks with my S10. Every one of them recorded and played back fine, but the slower USB sticks choked on the high bit rate HD channels.

Using the 10-2011 firmware from Shenzen web site.

 

[Santa Clause]

I never thought of using a USB extension cable for updates, thanks hwm.

 

[skipticum]

Radio, you've mentioned in post #2 above that you have the openbox s10 with VERSION CHS2-11-10-10. Is this FW file name? I do have the same version in my openbox s10 (chipset 1015), but I noticed when I turn the unit off with the remote control, I get a blank LCD at the front, no stanby light nor clock. However, when I set the clock manually (there is no clock settings option for north america time zones in the menu), the clock display does come up after power off with the remote, but once hard rebooted the lcd goes back to blank display. Have you observed similar issues?

 

[radio]

Not really, but I'll give it a look-see. I don't remember ever seeing a "power off" issue (clock or any other issue) except when I got the S10 unit, it literally would not power down at all from remote! The remote would only freeze the video, shut down audio, like it was halfway between on and off status. I try to keep my clock set, and it displays nicely. Quite frankly, I leave the receiver on 100 percent of the time, unless it freezes-up, which it tends to do on HD channels left tuned for a very long time. (like days that I don't have time to watch TV.)

The S10 is an odd box, and like many have observed here, the same software can cause different results depending on the hardware components inside.

Thanks for replying.

 

[xtgold]

some old s10's had a different front panel and I know some old ones had a ethernet card that connected via ribbon cable,it is probably a mismatch of hardware/firmware that may never be resolved with new firmware.
My s10 won't turn off with the remote with old firmware,but was fixed with the may 22 firmware and newer.

 

[rrob311]

I am running a 1tb hitachi on my S9 with no problems and the recent firmware that allows recording of 2 channels while watching another on the same transponder.

 

[xtgold]

old 80gig in a iomagic case actually works better then my 1.5tb seagate