# Why 1 TB external HDD limit?



## RVRambler (Dec 5, 2004)

To quote Dish:

"can now enjoy near limitless DVR storage with the addition of an external hard drive"

IMOH, 1 TB is nowhere "near limitless" storage, 10 or 100 TB you could argue that it is!

I currently have a 750gb drive on my DTV rcvr and it has gotten to within 5% full, and I delete watched shows!! I DO heavily record movies during a free preview, thus the large amount of recordings.

And honestly, I would like to keep a season's worth of several shows (and not have to re-record them to see second time) but am not able to due to the limited HDD size.

So is this a limited time limit and will be upped in future or.....?

Thanks!!


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

You can use multiple external hard drives.


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## l8er (Jun 18, 2004)

I believe the real question is: will the VIP DVR series ever support 1.5 TB or 2 TB drives?


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

I have 4 750GB WD MyBook Essentials, two of which are full of movies. Since I can add more, I figure it's "limitless" as far as Dish marketing is concerned and "limited" only by my budget and how much I'm foolishly willing to risk losing everything because of some change or glitch in the future.:sure:


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

phrelin said:


> I have 4 750GB WD MyBook Essentials, two of which are full of movies. Since I can add more, I figure it's "limitless" as far as Dish marketing is concerned and "limited" only by my budget and how much I'm foolishly willing to risk losing everything because of some change or glitch in the future.:sure:


Why not make a backup ? Ghost, Acronis, etc will help you restore your precious recordings.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Why not make a backup ? Ghost, Acronis, etc will help you restore your precious recordings.


I can "Ghost" a Dish ViP DVR EHD? Any links to how one does that?


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## rocket69 (Oct 27, 2008)

I have a 2 1.5T drives and 4 500 gig drives all full of movies(5Tb tottal) spaned across my 3 722's. Some of them will probly never see on Blu-ray but i have them in hd form Monsters. i wuld consiter it endless as my bank account. 

I use dish more then my direct system as i dont have to worry about having my recordings vanish or not go off due to directs mid day upgrades or just becus the KA bad was a big mistake for direct to use.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

l8er said:


> I believe the real question is: will the VIP DVR series ever support 1.5 TB or 2 TB drives?


To be honest those would probably work now as long as they were single-platter drives. Just are not officially supported at this time. At least from what I understand.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I did test WD 2 GB single *spindle * EHD disk with 211 and 622/722 and posted results. Negative.
["_single-platter drives_" had nothing to Dish single LUN limitation]


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

phrelin said:


> I can "Ghost" a Dish ViP DVR EHD? Any links to how one does that?


I recall someone here or at SG posted the method. You could use Ghost -ir against whole disk/DishArc partition or just do backup/restore only DishArc folder under Linux/ext2fs+Windows.


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## mcutler (Jan 27, 2008)

I've been using a Seagate 1.5 TB drive connected to my 722 receiver for 6 months now with no problem.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

mcutler said:


> I've been using a Seagate 1.5 TB drive connected to my 722 receiver for 6 months now with no problem.


Perhaps it is not a problem for you, but 622/722 using only 930 GB of 1.5 TB disk.


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## l8er (Jun 18, 2004)

FWIW, I tried a WD 2 TB My Book and my VIP722k only "saw" 930 GB as well.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I did that test a while ago and did post same result when WD 2 TB disks become available in local store.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

P Smith said:


> Perhaps it is not a problem for you, but 622/722 using only 930 GB of 1.5 TB disk.


My Seagate 1.5 TB initally "saw" ~1300 GB. After transferring tons of HD movies & some SD shows, I'm down to ~1100 GB.

That's still more than 930 GB!

Granted the Seagate gets "lost" at times (the 622 wants to reformat it, but I say no and just unplug & replug the USB). As a matter of fact those problems seemed to go away with the new software E* recently spooled.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Michael, would you connect it temporary to your PC and check partitioning ? Any windows PC will show you that info under Disk Management.

EDIT:
You're right, Michael. Tested Seagate ST31500341AS disk with L621 - it's formatted OK and do shows ~1.4 GB free. I have a snapshot, but the site doesn't allow to upload it.
Nice, but L618 did not accepted 2 TB disk.
Tested same disk on 211, got error message #955 after successful formating.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I did check partitions, all of them are EXT3 type:
1 - 1 GB
2 - 500 GB
3 - 500 GB
4 ~400 GB (rest of space)

They're still allocating by 500 GB chunks and I see why 2 TB disk failed - you can't have more then 4 primary partitions as Dish FW use it with the limit of 500 GB per one partition. 

So, the answer to OP question - 1.6 TB is the limit of EHD for 622/722 models.


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## CantonCustomer (Jul 6, 2009)

mcutler said:


> I've been using a Seagate 1.5 TB drive connected to my 722 receiver for 6 months now with no problem.


My installer told me that the receiver could handle drives >1TB but only if they were partitioned such that none of the partitions was >1TB. How is your drive partitioned?


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

When you connect a drive to a receiver that has not been properly formatted for use with a Dish receiver it will re-partition and format the drive. Any existing partitions will be removed, so it makes no difference how it was partitioned before bsing used as an EHD.


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## mcutler (Jan 27, 2008)

CantonCustomer said:


> My installer told me that the receiver could handle drives >1TB but only if they were partitioned such that none of the partitions was >1TB. How is your drive partitioned?


I don't know how it is partitioned. I just connected it and let the Dish Receiver format the drive. It currently has 120 movies - almost all HD - and shows 787 gigabytes remaining, so it knows there is 1.5 TB of space on the drive. I don't think I have ever had much more than that on the drive, so far. Do they just stop recording when you reach a TB, even though the screen still shows lots of free space remaining?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Partitioning posted above (post#17).


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