# Available hard drive space



## Dobe (Mar 5, 2007)

Hi:

I'm really bad with math but the Hopper hard drive info seems wrong. My Hopper says "your hard drive is 21% full with 24 recordings". I thought the Hopper held 500 HD hours? The 24 recordings add up to about 23 HD hours.

If my hard drive was 21% full wouldn't that mean I had 105 (.21 x 500) HD hours recorded?

The Deleted recordings that haven't dropped off add up to 12.5 hours. That's still only a total of 35.5 hours.

Sorry, math is not my strong suit.

Thanks


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

PTAT uses close to 20% by itself if you have that turned on.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Also... those "500 HD hours) is an estimate based upon an average size per hour of programming.

SD doesn't take as much space as HD... and not all HD is created equally. IF you record from the OTA adapter, those HD broadcasts will take more space than the average, and thus less hours available total space. Also, not all HD is created equally... some is 1080, other is 720... and 16x9 programs take more space usually than a 2.35:1 aspect movie... and movies with a lot of action/changes take more space than say a drama with more lingering shots of scenery.

Basically, its an estimate. YMMV in reality.


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## Dobe (Mar 5, 2007)

My recording are all Satellite TV HD. No OTA. No films.

Even it's an estimate it seems to be way off unless what I say below is true.

I thought PTA had its own separate 1 TB hard drive. I thought the other hard drive was also 1 TB which worked out to approx. 500 HD hours of space, in addition to the PTA drive. I know E* saves some of the drive for itself but I don't know why they would report space used used by E* in the drive info.

As I said, the Hopper says I have 24 recordings, which is the # of recording I have on my "no folders" drive. So the info that says I have 24 recordings is correct but I don't understand why I've used 21% of the available space unless the % of used space the Hopper is giving me is counting something else.

I didn't look at the hard drive space used before I started saving recordings.

Maybe with no recordings saved there's already x% of hard drive used? If so, the % of HD space used should go up much more slowly as I continue to save programs.

I guess the bottom line is do I get approx 500 HD hours (taking into account what Stewart said) of space in addition to PTA?

Thanks


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

Dobe said:


> I thought PTA had its own separate 1 TB hard drive. I thought the other hard drive was also 1 TB which worked out to approx. 500 HD hours of space, in addition to the PTA drive. I know E* saves some of the drive for itself but I don't know why they would report space used used by E* in the drive info.


Indeed not. It's 1 2TB drive.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

As RasputinAXP says, just the one 2TB drive.

Some is reserved for Dish use for receiver data, 9-day EPG, housekeeping, and those channel 501 VOD PPV items.

The rest (the part Dish tells you in that % used estimate) is for your recordings, PTAT recordings, and any ordered Dish Online/downloaded content.

And again... it is still an estimate when they say "500 HD hours"... IF you happen to be recording things that are smaller in size, you'll find you get more hours of HD. That's one of the reasons on the 922 and Hopper they stopped counting those estimated SD/HD hours remaining... because you could see when you deleted a 2 hour recording, sometimes you only freed up 1.5 hours... because the estimation system correlating drive space to hours is not a precise thing.

Whereas, saying you have XX% left can be precise... and it is up to you to figure out if that XX% free space is enough for whatever you have plans to record.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Dobe said:


> My recording are all Satellite TV HD. No OTA. No films.
> 
> Even it's an estimate it seems to be way off unless what I say below is true.
> 
> ...


If you're really into deep knowledge of using the internal 2 TB drive by 813's Linux system, find my old post about "QUOTA" file and take a look into it.


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## Dobe (Mar 5, 2007)

Stewart Vernon said:


> The rest (the part Dish tells you in that % used estimate) is for your recordings, PTAT recordings, and any ordered Dish Online/downloaded content.


What I'm wondering is approximately (I understand the variables pointed out above) how many hours of HD programming I can permanently store on the Hopper?

My current 23 hours of programming takes 21% so I guess that means I have approximately 82 more hours of similar type HD programming storage available. But that would leave no more room for recording.

If that remaining space is also used for PTA then that's a problem since PTA is approx. 96 hours every 8 days.

As I recall, the Vip722 stored up to 55 HD hours. So the Hopper doubles that but if PTA is included ...

I've had the Hopper for < 2 weeks and haven't had or heard about any space problems so I must be confused.

Thanks


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## Dobe (Mar 5, 2007)

P Smith said:


> If you're really into deep knowledge of using the internal 2 TB drive by 813's Linux system, find my old post about "QUOTA" file and take a look into it.


 Thanks. I'll look for it


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Dobe said:


> What I'm wondering is approximately (I understand the variables pointed out above) how many hours of HD programming I can permanently store on the Hopper?
> 
> My current 23 hours of programming takes 21% so I guess that means I have approximately 82 more hours of similar type HD programming storage available. But that would leave no more room for recording.
> 
> ...


Keep in mind, though... IF you've had the PTAT enabled for more than a week and assuming you are using it with the default settings of all 4 networks for 8 days retention... Then that stuff is part of your 21% usage.

So... your extrapolation of 23 hours of recordings at 21% to 100% being ~105 hours is flawed.

Consider that the 21% used actually includes those 23 hours that you recorded + another 96 hours at least (4 channels * 3 hours per night * 8 nights)... Sunday is an extra hour and sometimes other nights have an extra hour too... but you'll at least have that rolling 96-hour minimum...

So... that means right now you have 119 hours for that 21%... and that would extrapolate to more than 500 hours of HD recording... though again, it is all estimation.


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