# External hard drive on 722



## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

I looked on the Tech Portal for information on connecting an external hard drive and they only mention a minimum size of 50 GBs. What is the maximum size that a 722 can recognize?

I'm thinking of just buying an external enclosure with its own PSU and putting a Western Digital drive inside.

Is there anything technical that I need to know before purchasing? I know it has to be a single drive. 7,200 RPM, I assume, will be fast enough. Any Cache size recommendations or other details to do with the drive itself?

Thank you in advance!


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

Actually 5400RPM will do just fine; the drive inside your 722 is a 5400RPM. 

As long as it's a single drive (or a single LUN) then you'll be in the clear with aything that connects over USB2.


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## bnborg (Jun 3, 2005)

Two terrabytes is the limit.

But I would recomment smaller drives. There is quite a delay opening "My Media" on a two TB drive.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

bnborg said:


> Two terrabytes is the limit.
> 
> But I would recomment smaller drives. There is quite a delay opening "My Media" on a two TB drive.


Last time it was 1.5 TB with 1.4 TB usable. Is there new evidence of 2 TB acceptance ? If you using it, please post partition's info.

Never mind, found your post here: http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=2452318&postcount=376.
Could you post what Linux fdisk reporting about that extension partition ? I feel there are subparttitions by 500 GB max each. Somehow dish developers stuck with the limit of each partition.


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## bnborg (Jun 3, 2005)

Ext2Fsd on Windows did not report anything about the extended partition and showed it as RAW.

I looked at the first sector of it with dskprobe, and it was an additional partition table similar to what DOS/Windows would do.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Thanks for the info guys. I think I'll just stick to a 1 TB drive for now. I appreciate the help.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

OK, here's what I did...

Bought a Rosewill RX358 external enclosure that includes a cooling fan. Bought a Western Digital 1 TB Caviar Black hard drive to put inside.

It's all fired up and running fine right now.

I can turn the drive on and off via the power button on the external case. Do you guys leave your external drives running 24/7?

Disappointments right off the bat:

Can't record directly to the external drive.

Can't create folders on the external drive.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

> Do you guys leave your external drives running 24/7?


Absolutely not. Only if need.


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## Ray_Schwarz (Jan 22, 2003)

Bogey62 said:


> OK, here's what I did...
> 
> Bought a Rosewill RX358 external enclosure that includes a cooling fan. Bought a Western Digital 1 TB Caviar Black hard drive to put inside.
> 
> ...


Try setting folders on in the DVR menu - the external drive will follow whatever you have the DVR set for.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

On the 612/622/722/722k this feature is an archiving feature, copy from the internal drive and playback from external.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Ray_Schwarz said:


> Try setting folders on in the DVR menu - the external drive will follow whatever you have the DVR set for.


"Setting folders on"?

I see no such menu option. I have created folders on the 722's internal hard drive, but I see no way to name a folder on the external drive, i.e., "Bill", "Sally", etc.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Jim5506 said:


> On the 612/622/722/722k this feature is an archiving feature, copy from the internal drive and playback from external.


I just discovered that I can record to the external drive via a timer.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

P Smith said:


> Absolutely not. Only if need.


Yeah, I'm just turning it on/off as needed.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Bogey62 said:


> I just discovered that I can record to the external drive via a timer.


I don't think that means an external hard drive.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Then what is: "Menu/8/5/ERD Setup/Enable recordings to an external device" used for?

It's either the external hard drive I just installed or an external burner (which I find totally impossible due to copyrights).

Also, when you have the above feature enabled, when you set a timer there is an Ext option in the section where you select the timer's destination (DVR, Auto Tune, Reminder, Ext).

I set a timer and used the Ext option, but all it does is Auto Tune to the channel.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

SaltiDawg said:


> When you Enable ERD (External Recording Device) you simply add the Option "ERD" to the choices when you set a timer. Other choices are DVR, Auto-Tune, and Display Reminder. You would enable ERD if you routinely record to a VCR or DVD recorder.


I'm not saying you're wrong, but what you're saying really makes no sense.

If I routinely recorded to a VCR then I'd just select Auto Tune and I seriously doubt Dish allows burning a DVD from their content on an external burner. If that's the case then they might just as well open up the proprietary encoding on their internal/external hard drives and let me dump the digital content to my computer so I can burn an edited DVD.

Also, this option to record to an external device and the Ext choice never showed up until I added the external hard drive to my 722.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Bogey62 said:


> I'm not saying you're wrong, but what you're saying really makes no sense.
> 
> If I routinely recorded to a VCR then I'd just select Auto Tune and I seriously doubt Dish allows burning a DVD from their content on an external burner. If that's the case then they might just as well open up the proprietary encoding on their internal/external hard drives and let me dump the digital content to my computer so I can burn an edited DVD.
> 
> Also, this option to record to an external device and the Ext choice never showed up until I added the external hard drive to my 722.


Have you tried recording directly to your EHD? Wouldn't that answer the question?


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## parlyle (Dec 19, 2003)

If it is at all a viable question, please advise how to go about doing this. I have 2 VIP722's and each have a 750GB WD drive available for recording. I am getting a Western Digital- WDBAAU0020HBK-NESN (2T) drive and wanted to transfer some files from the other 750GB WD drives to the new 2T drive. Sort of using the larger drive an archive drive. How can I accomplish this?
Thanks for the responses:

Lyle


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Just search for "DishArc" and follow those procedure.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Perhaps he could get more knowledge to avoid double work.


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## parlyle (Dec 19, 2003)

SaltiDawg said:


> Why would he do that?
> 
> Simply transfer the titles from your old drives back on to the Dish receiver and then transfer them from the receiver to the new hard drive.


I could do this, but, I have just about maxed the internal and have really no room to transfer the files. I could erase some of them and clear up some space, but I would like to not do that, as I might want to watch some of them in the future.


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## parlyle (Dec 19, 2003)

P Smith said:


> Perhaps he could get more knowledge to avoid double work.


I'm all for getting the most out of anything I do in terms of learning new technology. Please don't use the term "work" tho. It scares me, I just retired earlier in the year.


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## parlyle (Dec 19, 2003)

SaltiDawg said:


> Perhaps. lol


lol......................

I will search for "DishArc"
Thanks for the suggestion.

Lyle


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## parlyle (Dec 19, 2003)

SaltiDawg said:


> Use your head! Transfer some of the files *temporarily* from your internal drive to your new 2 TB drive to free up some space. Then do the transfers.
> 
> You dust off a three month old thread to hijack? lol
> 
> I can't believe that a simple task wants to become a major project. You should hire P Smithy as an adviser.


Well we did give this old thread some new life. Thanks for the suggestions. I guess it just takes some actual thought patterns to come up with the solutions. I can't thank you enough for all that was offered. Now, to transfer those temporary files..................
Thanks:

Lyle


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Adviser ...fine, but your 'method' is lead to waste a lot of SOMEONE time. 
I wouldn't recommend to hire you as an adviser.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I wouldn't and it's based on the posts. Regardless of my wallet size. 

Speaking about trolling - I see you as the troll here.

Instead of support many solutions, giving choices for the OP, you are pushing other opinions out of thread covering by personal sting about hiring or not. Tsk, tsk,tsk.



Someone who knows 5th grade math could calculate a time for transfer N files size XXX GB by using direct copy using Linux PC against double transfer by lowest priority under DVR.

I know the answer and that why I did my answer here.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

parlyle said:


> I could do this, but, I have just about maxed the internal and have really no room to transfer the files. I could erase some of them and clear up some space, but I would like to not do that, as I might want to watch some of them in the future.


Re-reading OP posts is clearly show *your trolling* intention.


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