# Dish Needs to Update Hopper 3 To Accomodate Larger External Hardrive



## Tobias7985

I upgraded to a Hopper 3. I purchased a 12TB Western Digital External Hard Drive to accommodate recording of 4K movies. I have been a Dish Subscriber for over 19 years and was aware of the 2TB data limit on previous Hoppers but, did not think that the new Hopper 3 would have the same past limitation as being 4K ready I would have thought it would be able to recognize larger external drives. I talked with Dish's Tech as well as his Field Manager during the install and 2 phone Tech's after my install. I asked the Field Manager at the time of install as well of each of the 2 phone Tech's if they would turn in a request to Engineering or Development to please contact me about whether the problem in the Hopper 3 is format or software driven. The WD 12TB External Hard Drive is a My Book Duo and it is shipped with 2 drives working as one drive unless you configure partitions and is formatted for NTFS. At this time I have not confirmed the details above but I assume WD information is correct. It would seem that the Hopper 3 would recognize the hard drive however, Dish may need to provide a software update to provide the necessary link for compatibility with external hard drives larger than 2TB. The problem with the future of recording 4K movies is a 2TB external hard drives will be seriously limited in the amount of hours of movie recording. I only use the Hopper 3 internal 2TB hard drive to act as a holding area for weekly Tv Series recordings and to hold any movies temporarily to later be transferred to the external hard drive for permanent storage. My current external drive is a 2TB Seagate self powered and has been utilized on 2 previous Dish Receivers 922 & Hopper 1 and has worked on every receiver including the current Hopper 3. I have talked with the WD Tech support however, they feel it is the Hopper 3 that is not recognizing the WD HD most likely because of software or the Hopper 3's format to the external hard drive. If Dish monitors this site I ask please to work on a fix/update to cure this problem and if you do have a resolution currently please post details with your contact information so I can resolve my issue. If any of members has recognized and solved this issue please send me detailed information in how to solve my problem. Thank You to All for your Help!!!


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## patmurphey

I read somewhere that 2TB is a limitation posed by The operating system. Some have connected larger drives, but I haven't seen it confirmed that the extra capacity is used. Further, dual disks acting as one are not supported. (RAID 1 mirror discs are,) Backward compatibility is also an issue as the drives must be recognized by any DVR on the account.


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## P Smith

Perhaps 2TB limit has been set before (in old library of HDD i/o) ...
I recall time when e* DVR FW did try follow new biggest HDD on a market - you know what kludge e* SW coders did ?
- they start using nested extended partitions (begin taking one out of 4 max for MBR), but _kEEP_ each separate one to OLD limit 500 GB !!!

It was funny to see how deep nest of extended partitions was when used one 3 TB drive ...
[sharedmedia=core:attachments:21056]


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## camo

I think I'll stick with the smaller 2 gig drives even if they eventually do go with much larger drives. Just the fact these drives rarely rest the life expectancy diminishes. Changing to a new hard drive occasionally keeps the material safe for the future access. 
Cost of multiple drives is a little more but for long term storage safer IMO.


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## nmetro

12TB? Linux, which is the Operating System which runs on the Hoppers, certainly can support a 12TB mount point. But, usually, with that amount of storage, it is done in a RAID configuration. Such that, the mount point keeps running, even if one drive fails, and allows fro replacement. Of course we are talking about full scale Linux servers here. I think Hoppers only support 2TB, as others pointed out. If the idea is to store a lot of content, a single drive is a single point of failure. Have you thought about a network disk storage which you can copy saved content back and forth to a 2TB drive?

By the way, if you ever drop DISh, all that saved content is worthless, as it will not be usable on anything else.


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## lparsons21

Yes, if you drop Dish all that content is lost. With DirecTV though, you lose it all if you just change the DVR.


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## mwdxer

Someone told me that the HDD content that is recorded from a Dish receiver "can" be converted over to a format playable on a computer. Some have done that. Being no tech, I have no clue how one would copy the content. For me, anything I want to save, I just dub to a SD DVD.


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## Stewart Vernon

The content is encrypted and tied to your Dish account. discussion about how to break that encryption would not be permitted here, even were such a thing to be possible.


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## P Smith

mwdxer said:


> Someone told me that the HDD content that is recorded from a Dish receiver "can" be converted over to a format playable on a computer. Some have done that. Being no tech, I have no clue how one would copy the content. For me, anything I want to save, I just dub to a SD DVD.


perhaps it was OTA or FTA content


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## camo

lparsons21 said:


> Yes, if you drop Dish all that content is lost. With DirecTV though, you lose it all if you just change the DVR.


Are you sure this is true for all owned equipment? My portable setup 211K had been disconnected for some time and I was still able to watch DVR recorded material on my own hard drive. I don't remember the time frame but do recall watching previous recordings and was even curious if it worked and it did. 
I would only subscribe (pay as you go) occasionally, having separate homes in Nebraska and Arizona plus 2 week hunting trips during the fall I would subscribe for football and world series. 
Could be the VIP 211K is different. I sure don't recall it not being able to watch previous recorded hard drive material even unhooked.


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## P Smith

patmurphey said:


> I read somewhere* that 2TB is a limitation posed by The operating system*. Some have connected larger drives, but I haven't seen it confirmed that the extra capacity is used. Further, dual disks acting as one are not supported. (RAID 1 mirror discs are,) Backward compatibility is also an issue as the drives must be recognized by any DVR on the account.


then why EHD could be bigger ? so, it's supporting by OS - see my post above with a ref to XiP813 3TB HDD partitioning


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## tcatdbs

Just curious if there hopper 3 treats ehd organizing any differently than older hoppers (no folders or any way to organize shows). 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


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## patmurphey

tcatdbs said:


> Just curious if there hopper 3 treats ehd organizing any differently than older hoppers (no folders or any way to organize shows).
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


The same - indexing, etc., needs to remain compatible.


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## CoriBright

Western Digital no longer makes the 2TB Elements or My Book versions. Is Dish now going to enable the Hopper 3 to accept 3TB drives? Our old 2TB is now full and I wanted to get a second drive, but they aren't available.


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## P Smith

where is the 2TB limit came from ?!
so far it's internal HDD size and old e* models support EHD bigger then 2 TB - see my post how old XiP813 manage it


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## jhsanchez

On my H3, there is no option to record content on an external drive. Please tell me how you do it. I also cannot find any way to backup content to an external drive only settings and timers. Am I missing something here?


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## P Smith

any word in the DVR's manual ? I can't believe if not


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## tcatdbs

External Hard Drive Diagram and Support | MyDISH | DISH Customer Support

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


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## normang

jhsanchez said:


> On my H3, there is no option to record content on an external drive. Please tell me how you do it. I also cannot find any way to backup content to an external drive only settings and timers. Am I missing something here?


You cannot record to an EHD (external drive) , but you can move existing recordings to an EHD. Follow the instructions at this link that should walk you through it

Transfer Recordings to/from External Hard Drive | MyDISH | DISH Customer Support


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## jhsanchez

normang said:


> You cannot record to an EHD (external drive) , but you can move existing recordings to an EHD. Follow the instructions at this link that should walk you through it
> 
> Transfer Recordings to/from External Hard Drive | MyDISH | DISH Customer Support


Thanks, I had never seen that before

Sent from my SM-T377V using Tapatalk


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## jhsanchez

I can confirm that a 3TB drive will not be recognized by the H3. I have one and it is not


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## P Smith

jhsanchez said:


> I can confirm that a 3TB drive will not be recognized by the H3. I have one and it is not


Would you like "to open all your cards" ? Your post doesn't have relevant info.
I'm 100% sure, you didn't connect just the _HDD_ to H3.

Perhaps it was 3 TB HDD_inside_ of an enclosure ? What model of HDD and the enclosure it was?


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## jhsanchez

P Smith said:


> Would you like "to open all your cards" ? Your post doesn't have relevant info.
> I'm 100% sure, you didn't connect just the _HDD_ to H3.
> 
> Perhaps it was 3 TB HDD_inside_ of an enclosure ? What model of HDD and the enclosure it was?


Certainly, I purchased a Seagate USB drive specifically for backup. I connected it via its included cable. While I can backup the settings it does not know the drive is connected so I can only assume that the settings backup uses the internal drive. With drives getting larger all the time, support for larger drives is way overdue.

Sent from my SM-T377V using Tapatalk


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## patmurphey

Over the years it's been reported on the other site that many have successfully connected larger drives. No one confirmed that they were able to use the extra storage space, whether it was the format or a number of files issue.

If you use a powered hub, there are plenty of 2TB portable hard drives out there. You might also find that the USB3 port on the Hopper3 has enough amperage to run a portable drive. After all, it's designed to charge the HopperGo.


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## P Smith

jhsanchez said:


> a Seagate USB drive


what model ? pictures or URL ?


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## Blowgun

Is it possible that support for a larger single external hard drive is something that the content providers are not in any hurry to see happen?

Also, IIRC there was some discussion as to why DISH stayed with the internal 2TB hard drive in the Hopper 3 when it was released last year. I believe the thought was that the 2TB hard drive can hold 500 hours of DISH quality HD, and with UHD taking up four times the space and with 16 tuners, it seemed the Hopper 3's internal hard drive was intentionally too small to take full advantage of the rest of the hardware. Of course there would have to be UHD content to max it out like that and for the most part DISH has nothing to worry about for quite awhile. 

Maybe by then the discussion will turn to the Hopper 4 or 5, maybe even 6, or why is DISH still using "spinners".


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## Stewart Vernon

I know some would like to see Dish adopt SSD instead of traditional hard drives... but I say not so fast... It's unclear as to how wise that would be. SSD technology has a write limit. The average consumer doesn't hit that in typical use on a home computer, but the average consumer doesn't hit the hard drive failure rate either. DVRs are going all the time, even if it is just the buffering of live/delayed TV... so just like the hard drive in a DVR is spinning all the time... an SSD would be constantly written to during all live TV viewing, in addition to downloading VOD and recording things daily.

Someone would have to do a study to see how typical DVR use of the drives would wear over time to see which one is more likely to fail first. Then you have to factor in the cost of SSD over traditional hard drives... and SSD costs a bit more right now... to see if that higher cost would be worth longer lasting IF it even proves to last longer.

Meanwhile, as to size of drives... I think internal drives in the DVRs are going to have to increase to accommodate more 4K... not just if the need to record more 4K channels comes up... but to have more available VOD for consumers OR if they allow subscribers to sign up, say, for Sony or someone else's direct download of 4K content services in the future... so that seems like it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

But... for the EHD... since Dish supports connecting multiple drives at the same time, and as many as you'd like to have and don't mind swapping connections... Arguably, with hard drive failures over time (regardless of technology) I'm not sure it is wise to have larger and larger EHDs. The larger your EHD, the more stuff you lose when it fails.


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## James Long

I can understand a request for DISH to support the smaller sizes available. If 1TB and 2TB drives become unavailable then perhaps they will need to support 3TB. But I do not expect DISH to support every drive on the market.

DISH has published what they will support. Follow their guidance. Work outside of their support at your own risk.


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## Jim5506

I have several Hard Drive Docks for both of my hoppers that I insert various 250GB internal drives into to save recordings.

MUCH less likely to lose EVEYTHING when a drive fails and it will.


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## Troch2002

jhsanchez said:


> Certainly, I purchased a Seagate USB drive specifically for backup. I connected it via its included cable. While I can backup the settings it does not know the drive is connected so I can only assume that the settings backup uses the internal drive. With drives getting larger all the time, support for larger drives is way overdue.
> 
> Sent from my SM-T377V using Tapatalk


Is it self powered?

Samsung Galaxy S6 Active


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## jhsanchez

Troch2002 said:


> Is it self powered?
> 
> Samsung Galaxy S6 Active


Via the USB port but when I do a self check m the diagnostic screen it says OK.

Sent from my SM-T377V using Tapatalk


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## P Smith

jhsanchez said:


> Via the USB port but when I do a self check m the diagnostic screen it says OK.


If you'll not ignore questions in the thread we will know if the USB enclosure could be better powered. Some enclosure has DC connector (no PSU included in retail box), so you could find +5VDC 1A power supply and solve your problem with the EHD.


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## Troch2002

jhsanchez said:


> Via the USB port but when I do a self check m the diagnostic screen it says OK.
> 
> Sent from my SM-T377V using Tapatalk


Usb Powered are not recommended.
Its needs to have its own power supply.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Active


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## jhsanchez

Troch2002 said:


> Usb Powered are not recommended.
> Its needs to have its own power supply.
> 
> Samsung Galaxy S6 Active


You may be correct but the drive light is on and when you run diagnostics, it says drive OK. If it were not powered, neither of these would be true.


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## P Smith

jhsanchez said:


> You may be correct but the drive light is on and when you run diagnostics, it says drive OK. If it were not powered, neither of these would be true.


same question to you - what exactly model of the EHD ?


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## thomasjk

jhsanchez said:


> You may be correct but the drive light is on and when you run diagnostics, it says drive OK. If it were not powered, neither of these would be true.


It may have power but the point is Dish does not support USB powered drives. If you have an issue with the drive Dish will not help solve your problem.


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## Blowgun

jhsanchez said:


> You may be correct but the drive light is on and when you run diagnostics, it says drive OK. If it were not powered, neither of these would be true.


I wouldn't base whether or not a drive is receiving enough power from reading S.M.A.R.T. data and illuminating a LED. Also, if DISH recommends not using a USB powered hard drive there is a chance that the USB port is not completely compliant with the USB standard.


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## P Smith

If he would post the model ID we could get power consumption of the EHD and check to see if it fit into dish STB USB power balance


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## patmurphey

The USB3 port on the Hopper3 has enough available amperage to run a USB powered drive, but that is only Dish USB port that can reliably support that kind of Drive. USB powered hubs are inexpensive and allow reliable use of USB powered drives from any Dish USB port.

The USB3 Hopper3 port has the extra available amperage because it supports charging the HopperGo.


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## P Smith

patmurphey said:


> The USB3 Hopper3 port has the extra available amperage because it supports charging the HopperGo


do you have the number ? 500 mA ? 1 A ?


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## patmurphey

Don't have the number at hand, but the charging feature was discussed at Hopper3b rollout. I discussed it with "he who shall not be named". Again, not supported because of compatibility with other ports, but much more likely to work than the USB2 ports everywhere else.


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## jhsanchez

To repeat my initial question which has been lost in the powered/non-powered stuff. Will the Hopper 3 support drives larger than 1TB? That is the question.


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## thomasjk

jhsanchez said:


> To repeat my initial question which has been lost in the powered/non-powered stuff. Will the Hopper 3 support drives larger than 1TB? That is the question.


The official Dish position is 2TB max. See External Hard Drive Diagram and Support | MyDISH | DISH Customer Support


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## Blowgun

jhsanchez said:


> To repeat my initial question which has been lost in the powered/non-powered stuff.


Here is your initial question in this thread:


jhsanchez said:


> On my H3, there is no option to record content on an external drive. Please tell me how you do it. I also cannot find any way to backup content to an external drive only settings and timers. Am I missing something here?


That was already answered.



jhsanchez said:


> Will the Hopper 3 support drives larger than 1TB? That is the question.


It depends on how the 1TB hard drive is powered. And, with that we have now gone full circle.


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## P Smith

Blowgun said:


> And, with that we have now gone full circle.


not yet - he didn't answer to questions about a model of his USB drive 
it could have DC connector to powering it by additional adapter say AC to 5VDC 1A


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## jhsanchez

I finally broke down and purchased a powered USB hub from Amazon. Drive is now recognized and formatted. Interesting the a new icon appears on the DVR page saying that I can select to record on the internal drive or the USB drive. I can also transfer recorded programs to the USB drive - life is good. BTW, this drive is a 2TB Seagate backup drive from Costco.


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## P Smith

jhsanchez said:


> this drive is a 2TB Seagate backup drive


can't deduct what model you got ... Seagate manufacturing a lot of different models


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## patmurphey

jhsanchez said:


> ...Interesting the a new icon appears on the DVR page saying that I can select to record on the internal drive or the USB drive...


No, the DVR page icon only allows you to select the source of recordings to watch. You cannot record directly to the EHD, you can only transfer already recorded shows to the EHD.


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## jhsanchez

You are correct, I misstated.


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## Jim5506

The 2 TB drive limit is caused by the format/boot system placed on the drive. If you exceed 2.2TB you must up the ante to a more sophisticated formatting scheme.

For Dish to make receivers compatible with larger drive would necessitate either completely replacing the drive format, making it incompatible with older receiver EHD's or use up valuable ROM for a more complex OS.

Windows has the same problem, NTFS with its MBR boot has a 2TB limit, so larger drives must be formatted GPT which can define drives larger than 2.2TB.

In order for Linux based OSes to support drives larger than 2.2TB they too must use EFI/GPT partition tables, so I would not look for Dish to support larger drives any time soon.


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## P Smith

Jim5506 said:


> The 2 TB drive limit is caused by the format/boot system placed on the drive. If you exceed 2.2TB you must up the ante to a more sophisticated formatting scheme.
> 
> For Dish to make receivers compatible with larger drive would necessitate either completely replacing the drive format, making it incompatible with older receiver EHD's or use up valuable ROM for a more complex OS.
> 
> Windows has the same problem, NTFS with its MBR boot has a 2TB limit, so larger drives must be formatted GPT which can define drives larger than 2.2TB.
> 
> In order for Linux based OSes to support drives larger than 2.2TB they too must use EFI/GPT partition tables, so I would not look for Dish to support larger drives any time soon.


good essay, but no cigar 
1st - the HDD has no booting code
2nd - MBR or GPT doesn't matter for any Linux, both of them supporting
3rd - new HDD has 4K sectors, so current LBA routines will serve HDD size of "2TB x8"
4th - dish support EHD > 2TB in older H/H2


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## MikeRobertson

A little late to the party on this one, but thought I'd add my experience with EHD's on my H3. First of all Dish seems to have little knowledge of the inner workings. End of last year my H3 stopped "seeing" my EHD. Drive had functioned without a problem on 3 or 4 models of DISH DVR's. Okay, figured drive had finally bit the dust. Bought a new 2TB drive. Didn't see it. Bought a different 2TB drive. Didn't see that one either. Called DISH tech support. Long story short, when through 2 replacement H3's and had a tech come out. No joy. No one could get an H3 to see any of the drives. Left a drive attached (was a WD My Book 3TB drive which was the last one I tried). Three months ago, after another software update, my H3 recognized my EHD. Yes, it's a 3TB drive. When I moved programs off my H3 to the drive it said I had 2792GB available. So my 3TB drive seems to work just fine. At least until DISH screws around with the software. By the way my old 1TB drive that I thought had died (I had over 60 movies recorded on it) was still running just fine. Unfortunately, I had to reformat it test it and lost my recordings. Worked just fine as a Mac OS X boot disk.


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## P Smith

I don't know what to say ! Incompetence over hiding facts...


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## Tu MadRe

I'm on a manhunt for storage but also upgrading but I do have the regular hopper w/ joey's wifi boxs 


but what's a goooooood brand & model if I were to buy a 2TB external hard drive for the hopper 3.. 


(I was going to buy any brand but is there certain brands that DVR can ONLY read? Since I hear about the storage limit).


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## P Smith

Tu MadRe said:


> is there certain brands that DVR can ONLY read?


nope
no such "ONLY read" drives
some does prefer WD [AV type], some Seagate


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## P Smith

Tu MadRe said:


> Since I hear about the storage limit


what ?
what limit ? not again


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## Tu MadRe

P Smith said:


> nope
> no such "ONLY read" drives
> some does prefer WD [AV type], some Seagate


WD or seagate ? Those are the good brands?? But some of the amazon comments bothered me since i don't want to pay for old product


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## P Smith

buy new drives
what other brand you know ?


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## Jim5506

Any external drive that is self powered, single spindle and USB 2.0 compatible (3.0 will work).

I use SATA docks with multiple internal drives that I swap out as needed. The only drawback is the internal drives with no shielding can cause interference with other devices.

I also use smaller drives like 250, 500 1000MB because large drives 2TB, 3TB is just asking for the loss of everything when the inevitable drive failure comes visiting - I speak from personal experience.


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## P Smith

Jim5506 said:


> The only drawback is the internal drives with no shielding can cause interference with other devices.


it has minuscule effect and never been a drawback in real life of PC, DVR, a home, etc


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## z3540

Hello All,
Saw this thread while researching trouble with my EHD. I just upgraded to H3 4 months ago and tried to use a 500GB Maxtor EHD but it would not get recognized. I have used it in several Dish boxes (Vip 622, Dish Hopper with Sling). I have lots of shows archived on it. Anyway, I tried a Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB 3.0(WDBACX0010BBL) using the supplied cable plugged into the USB 3.0 port at the rear. It works plugged into just the USB 3.0 port!
1. Using USB port to power EHD is possible but ymmv.
2. Anyone know why my Maxtor 500GB EDH is not recognized? Have searched many websites and this site but have not found an answer. Apologies to the thread starter for hijacking post but it seems like he got his answer.
3. Agree with Jim5506's suggestion of using smaller Drives to archive. If my EHD is dead then I just lost 500GB worth of shows. :-( Will be using the 1TB for now since that is all that I have atm.


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## P Smith

kinda opposite of the topic ... but giving the answer is not easy; most likely it's your _enclosure_ eg internal SATA/IDE controller, perhaps Maxtor's SMART is not good or not supporting

Do get, install and run GsmartControl program and post its TXT output with SMART data here to continue troubleshooting.


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## Jim5506

P Smith said:


> it has minuscule effect and never been a drawback in real life of PC, DVR, a home, etc


Try tuning an AM radio with an open drive in a dock nearby.

The dock has a bare drive out in the open with no shielding around the electronics.


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## P Smith

Jim5506 said:


> Try tuning an AM radio with an open drive in a dock nearby.
> 
> The dock has a bare drive out in the open with no shielding around the electronics.


duh? 
my small portable FM radio sit in near proximity of TWO TT docks and have no issue with OTA reception !

if you will think how the HDD electronics working and how the dock pass FCC tests, you wouldn't spread the WAG


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## skc29

Tobias7985 said:


> I upgraded to a Hopper 3. I purchased a 12TB Western Digital External Hard Drive to accommodate recording of 4K movies. I have been a Dish Subscriber for over 19 years and was aware of the 2TB data limit on previous Hoppers but, did not think that the new Hopper 3 would have the same past limitation as being 4K ready I would have thought it would be able to recognize larger external drives. I talked with Dish's Tech as well as his Field Manager during the install and 2 phone Tech's after my install. I asked the Field Manager at the time of install as well of each of the 2 phone Tech's if they would turn in a request to Engineering or Development to please contact me about whether the problem in the Hopper 3 is format or software driven. The WD 12TB External Hard Drive is a My Book Duo and it is shipped with 2 drives working as one drive unless you configure partitions and is formatted for NTFS. At this time I have not confirmed the details above but I assume WD information is correct. It would seem that the Hopper 3 would recognize the hard drive however, Dish may need to provide a software update to provide the necessary link for compatibility with external hard drives larger than 2TB. The problem with the future of recording 4K movies is a 2TB external hard drives will be seriously limited in the amount of hours of movie recording. I only use the Hopper 3 internal 2TB hard drive to act as a holding area for weekly Tv Series recordings and to hold any movies temporarily to later be transferred to the external hard drive for permanent storage. My current external drive is a 2TB Seagate self powered and has been utilized on 2 previous Dish Receivers 922 & Hopper 1 and has worked on every receiver including the current Hopper 3. I have talked with the WD Tech support however, they feel it is the Hopper 3 that is not recognizing the WD HD most likely because of software or the Hopper 3's format to the external hard drive. If Dish monitors this site I ask please to work on a fix/update to cure this problem and if you do have a resolution currently please post details with your contact information so I can resolve my issue. If any of members has recognized and solved this issue please send me detailed information in how to solve my problem. Thank You to All for your Help!!!


I agree, they should provide support for at least 12TB external desktop hard drives, including bigger portable drives. I even tried 8TB single drive(not double), even that was not recognized by Hopper3. In the era of 4K video, it will be very difficult to survive with only 2TB support. Come on Dish, are you listening?


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## P Smith

seems to me dish legacy routines inherit by newest H3 model; if you did read old threads where we dissect the aspect of big EHD, you should remember - dish coders didn't creative in support HDD bigger then 500 GB, they are did choose to make partitioning of 1-2-3-4 TB similar to initial choice: so each big drive divided to 500 GB separate partitions;
perhaps 4+ TB drives have to have a lot of 0.5 TB chunks and exceeded max number of it ...


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## scooper

For larger HD support, Dish (Echostar) would need to change the file system / write some code that goes in the bootsector to fake out the older routines. Or simply not support more than 2TB in older systems. 

Bottom line - there are probably ways to do it, will Echostar invest the resources to do it ?


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## P Smith

scooper said:


> For larger HD support, Dish (Echostar) would *need to change the file system / write some code that goes in the bootsector to fake out the older routines*. Or simply not support more than 2TB in older systems.
> 
> Bottom line - there are probably ways to do it, will Echostar invest the resources to do it ?


Nope. They could continue use partitions for HDD > 2 TB same way, just mod some routines in FW, what formatting HDD and does verification file system, eg accept 2 TB size instead of 0.5 TB current limit.
BTW, "boot sector" is not about boot, but other part of it as sector0, what have a dedicated name MBR and GPT.


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## scooper

P Smith - 

I've learned (and let slip) more on Harddrives and partitioning than anybody besides you and me understand - I used the "boot sector" phrase to express this for the non-tech elites.


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## P Smith

Oh, OK. Got it. My take is use correct naming and let people to learn themselves - search Internet, here or Wiki,etc


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