# What is the Actual External Hard Drive size limit for a 722k ?



## Bluelude1 (Dec 5, 2009)

I have been toying with buying an External Hard Drive to increase the capacity of my 722k and I was wondering what the actual size limit was on an external drive. I talked with Dish Tech support and they stated 1TB , but I was wondering if that is accurate or if 1.5 TB and 2TB are also compatible?

BTW - Does Harddrive speed play any factor when used with a DVR as an expansion drive? or is a 5400rpm ~ 7200rpm speed difference negligible ?

Thanks


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## Lostinspace (Oct 25, 2007)

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=160660&highlight=External+Hard+Drive+Limit


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## Bluelude1 (Dec 5, 2009)

Ya i saw that, but the last post was 6 months ago and the discussion never arrived at a definite answer to the question.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Someone reported that they used a 1.5TB with success. IMO, stick with Western Digital My Book Essential drives. The fewer features the better.


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## Bluelude1 (Dec 5, 2009)

Just as a rule of thumb.... if the 722 comes with 500GB and will record roughly 50 hours of HD. Will the addition of a 1TB external drive add 100 hours of additional HD recording capacity?


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## finniganps (Jan 23, 2004)

Bluelude1 said:


> Just as a rule of thumb.... if the 722 comes with 500GB and will record roughly 50 hours of HD. Will the addition of a 1TB external drive add 100 hours of additional HD recording capacity?


 Yes as a general rule. However sport events will take up more space, while non action shows tend to take up less in my experience.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Kent Taylor said:


> Someone reported that they used a 1.5TB with success. IMO, stick with Western Digital My Book Essential drives. The fewer features the better.


I did tests and posted real partitioning of disk those sizes.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Bluelude1 said:


> Just as a rule of thumb.... if the 722 comes with 500GB and will record roughly 50 hours of HD. Will the addition of a 1TB external drive add 100 hours of additional HD recording capacity?


My 750GB external drives allow on average about 110 HD movies or 200± hours (sources vary in compression). The 500 GB internal drive has considerable space reserved for software and for video on demand.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Reserved space is static - same size for all disks. (I recall ~2 GB, check old posts for sure).


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Last I was aware the 1.5TB was the largest anyone (P Smith) had gotten to work and recognize the full size of the drive.

I have to think eventually we'll see a 2TB drive work, but it's most likely a firmware "switch" or something they'd have to specifically rewrite to add the support rather than a drive compatibility issue at this point. P Smith can correct me on that if I'm mistaken in my assumption here... but it seems reasonable based on the various posts I've seen of people trying various drives/sizes.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

STANDARD "BIGGEST DRIVE I CAN FIND" CAVEAT:

Consider buying smaller drives and splitting your collection up between them. If your 1TB drive with ALL your archive on it croaks - there ALL gone, however if one of your 250-320GB drives fails, you lose only say 25% or so of your collection.

Yes, multiple smaller drives is more expensive to purchase, but might not be more expensive when data is lost.


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## Dish97 (Dec 19, 2009)

I believe any size will work as long as the HD is single disc. A 1TB EHD that contains 2 500gb HDs inside will only be recognized as a 500gb HD. A single disc inside a 1.5 TB HD should be fine. I haven't tried since I only use Western Digital and I haven't found a 1.5 single disc WD HD yet. Once I purchased a Seagate 2 Gb EHD. When formatted, only 1TB was recognized. I hooked it up to my mac and found that the 2TB EHD contained 3 discs, 1 1TB, and 2 500Gb.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

_"and found that the 2TB EHD contained *3 discs, 1 1TB, and 2 500Gb*."_

First: what DVR you're using? 622/722 or 722k ?
Second: what SW version on it ?

BTW, those [logical] 'disks' are partitions, not disks.

Last time when I did try one 2 TB drive for 622 I got different result, but you didn't reveal your setup yet.


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