# External Hard Drive Advice



## Don M

I am looking at a Western Digital My Book 3.5" 750GB USB 2.0 (WDG1U7500N) to connect to my 622. Should this work when the USB external HD connection is activated on the 15th? Thanks for any advice.


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## ChuckA

Yes.


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## Rob Glasser

Just to reiterate what was said on the tech chat, any high quality USB 2.0 hard drive with a single internal drive, between 40GB to 750GB should work with this feature.


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## TiVoPrince

*Costco*
had the 750GB shown on air locally for $225.00. I'm mighty tempted...


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## Marriner

more tempting....

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8360793&type=product&id=1177113149365


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## TiVoPrince

Marriner said:


> more tempting....
> 
> http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8360793&type=product&id=1177113149365


*For $26.00US*
I think I like the five year Seagate warranty over the one year Western Digital coverage...


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## Marriner

TiVoPrince said:


> *For $26.00US*
> I think I like the five year Seagate warranty over the one year Western Digital coverage...


A hard drive will fail within the first few weeks or after years of service. WD is a solid brand. your observation, however, is well taken.


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## tnsprin

TiVoPrince said:


> *Costco*
> had the 750GB shown on air locally for $225.00. I'm mighty tempted...


Last month my local costco had it under $200. I was there today and they only had the 1T drive for a lot more.


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## jltv

staples.com has the 500 gig maxtor for $130, free shipping (the same case as the on on tech chat - I don't know the size of the one on tech chat)


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## TiVoPrince

Marriner said:


> A hard drive will fail within the first few weeks or after years of service. WD is a solid brand. your observation, however, is well taken.


*It seems*
that I have had a number of 3 year old drives of various brands go wrong lately. This is probably related more to a historical time when hard drive prices dipped than anything else. Generally I like that long warranty on a product I will abuse like a rented mule, or a DVR hard drive...


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## Moridin

Don M said:


> I am looking at a Western Digital My Book 3.5" 750GB USB 2.0 (WDG1U7500N) to connect to my 622. Should this work when the USB external HD connection is activated on the 15th? Thanks for any advice.


I can confirm that this very drive works perfectly. Once activated, the drive format took less than two minutes, and after the reboot I was able to start transferring to the external HDD.

Having used the feature all of once, I do have a feature request: it would be _so_ nice to be able to choose "Move to archive" from within a DVR event itself.


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## Tulsa1

ibglowin said:


> Beware. many of the MyBooks are coming with Maxtor drives installed in them since WD bought them out last year. I have had 3 Maxtor drives fail in the last 3 years. I won't by one of them again. Seagate and Samsung for me these days.


I will second that. Lost 2 Maxtors very quickly in my HDTivos


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## TBoneit

Seagate bought Maxtor. I can not believe WD would use a competitiors drive.

Per this page http://www.seagate.com/maxtor/

"Looking for Maxtor?
You've been redirected to this page because Maxtor has been acquired by Seagate Technology.

Read the press release if you'd like to know more about the acquisition.

Please click the links below for information about Maxtor products, support, and the Seagate Partner Program."


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## ibglowin

I stand corrected.


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## derousse

Anyone else have opinions on the quality of Maxtor vx Western Digital?

Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 External 500GB Hard Drive at Buy.com - $125 free shipping

Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive at Buy.com - $149 free shipping

25 bucks is 25 bucks. . .


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## ChuckA

I have been using external USB Maxtor drives for backing up a number of different machines for many years and have never had a problem with the drives. I use one formatted for Windows and one formatted for LINUX. I have not had one fail in the three plus years I have been using them.


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## BobaBird

What is a "high quality" drive? Or, to ask another way, what is not quality and should be avoided? I assume all the known brands (Seagate, Maxtor, WD, Lacie) are good. I haven't seriously shopped yet, so can I find the noise output level on the box or should I start digging on-line?


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## TBoneit

Generally here at work we prefer Western Digital drives and one of our customers that supplies the parts and we do the labor of assembly for them and sometimes software uses WD drives too.

We've had problems with Maxtor and Seagate. 5 years warranty is nice but when it takes your shows with it will the warranty make up for the loss of your HD events?


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## jcord51

I have a smaller Seagate (160 gb) which I purchased mainly for its reliability and the 5 yr warranty. Been very happy with it! One note on their warranty, is that in the event of failure, they want the HD returned in the original package with no exceptions!


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## Stewart Vernon

I've never had a bad Maxtor or Western Digital, though I mostly buy WD. Only problem I ever really had with either company... years ago they did not play well together. I tried to install a Maxtor in a system that already had a WD drive in it... and no matter how I configured (primary or secondary) they just didn't like seeing each other in the chain. But each one worked fine by themselved or with like-company.


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## elbodude

HDMe said:


> I've never had a bad Maxtor or Western Digital, though I mostly buy WD. Only problem I ever really had with either company... years ago they did not play well together. I tried to install a Maxtor in a system that already had a WD drive in it... and no matter how I configured (primary or secondary) they just didn't like seeing each other in the chain. But each one worked fine by themselved or with like-company.


For those of us with Fry's Electronics....500GB Maxtor for $109 today and tomorrow only.


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## DanoP

Marriner said:


> more tempting....
> 
> http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8360793&type=product&id=1177113149365


I just bought and installed it. Tacked on a $20 coupon to bring it in at $180. Took just a few minutes to format and then the 622 rebooted itself. It's nice and small and quiet.


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## Gary Noonan

Seagate has a 5 year warranty while Western Digital has only 1 year. I bought a western D, the on/off button was defective. Return to Best Buy, tried out replacement in store, it was also defective. Service manager tested a third western digital, same fault with on/off button. Upgraded to a 750 gig Seagate.

Also I have many USB drives (several brands) attached to 3 desktop computers at home because of dgital photography. USB drives often die after year or so because of problems with "tail hook" part (that converts between USB and ide drive). I then have to pay $40 for enclosure that has a new tailhook and drive again works. I use a UPS system to avoid surges but still have USB drives die while internal drives in computers just keep going. So I am happy to now buy Seagate for the 5 yr warranty.


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## Notron Fan

I kinda like the idea of bying a bytecc enclosure from newegg and then slipping in the raw drive of my choice.


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## Volitar Prime

I picked up the WD 500Gb My Book that Best Buy has on sale. I've read a few reviews of this drive and they all mention that there is a power button on the front of it (what the green power light circles). Mine doesn't seem to be a button, it won't push in. Did they change something and remove the power button, or is mine just stuck?


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## guillermopelotas

elbodude said:


> For those of us with Fry's Electronics....500GB Maxtor for $109 today and tomorrow only.


Do you have a link for this? Internal or External?


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## airpolgas

Another option that some of you might consider if you have "old" unused hard drives lying around (provided they are 40+GB)

USB to SATA/IDE Converter


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## Gary Noonan

The 3 problem WD drives that I mentioned above all had buttons that would not press in properly to turn drive on and off. All 3 if you pressed the button in the center, it would not move slightly in to turn drive on or off. Pressing button near edge would result in other edge sticking outward from the drive enclosure. Fortunately the Best Buy service manager also owned a WD drive and saw for himself that the buttons were not working properly. your button may be stuck as were the ones onthe 3 units. Have 4 WD drives connected to my computers, and their buttons all work. Apparently WD has had a batch of drives with bad buttons.


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## Volitar Prime

Gary Noonan said:


> The 3 problem WD drives that I mentioned above all had buttons that would not press in properly to turn drive on and off.


Thanks for the info, I'll try to exchange mine today.


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## Marriner

airpolgas said:


> Another option that some of you might consider if you have "old" unused hard drives lying around (provided they are 40+GB)
> 
> USB to SATA/IDE Converter


do you have this solution connected to a 622/722 and working? I would be interested to know the performance of USB converters and drive enclosures with the e* ViP DVRs.


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## mwsmith2

Whatever you do, don't buy the Acomdata 500GB drive from frys:

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5030945?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

It's a hybrid drive, and the 622 no likie. You can read up more on what a hybrid drive is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive

Sounds cool, but it just doesn't play nice with the 622. I keep getting "device not supported", then it works, then it doesn't. Pain in da butt. I'm taking it back and getting the Maxtor 500GB.


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## TBoneit

Notron Fan said:


> I kinda like the idea of bying a bytecc enclosure from newegg and then slipping in the raw drive of my choice.


I have several of these at home. I'll be trying the one that goes to 320Gb. Most likely tonight as I'm moving content off right now.

The ones I have were marked ME 320. Full size case with internal power supply which means it takes a standard computer power cord, no external black power brick. Also they take Hard Drives or Opticals.

Hopefully my testing will work and you were looking at the same model as they make many models.

However I have to say I ran out and bought two of the $119 500Gig externals at Best Buy. I couldn't put together a external of that size for that price. I'm just testing the ByteCC externals to see if they work and if so I'll have even more storage.

Maybe we need a thread for what works and what didn't unless one is already started? I haven't look for that yet. Maybe even make it a sticky?


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## Stewart Vernon

TBoneit said:


> Maybe we need a thread for what works and what didn't unless one is already started? I haven't look for that yet. Maybe even make it a sticky?


Isn't that what the topic of this thread is?


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## rtk

do the seagate external "freeagent" USB drives have an orange light when the drive is turned on? I can't tell from pictures if its just orange plastic or if somehow I'll end up with a glowing pumpkin under my tv


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## Moridin

rtk said:


> do the seagate external "freeagent" USB drives have an orange light when the drive is turned on? I can't tell from pictures if its just orange plastic or if somehow I'll end up with a glowing pumpkin under my tv


It does indeed glow orange. There are utilities for Windows that allow configuring the light to be off, but I'm not certain if that setting would remain in effect if the drive were reformatted (as it would be if attached to a 622).


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## Ron Barry

For what it is worth. I am using a WD mybook 250GB drive and it is working well. And to answer the question above of having a thread of what is working and what is not, I would concur with HdMe that this is a good as any thread to have that info of external drives.


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## Charise

Available from newegg.com: Cavalry 500 GB external hard drive for $111.99 + shipping (mine was $7.81) - $22 rebate (from today to 8/23).

Some of the reviewers say they opened it up and it's a WD drive.

FYI, some also say a fan is pictured in the back but there is no fan (older reviews), some say it heats up a lot, and some say the blue light is too bright. Obviously, since I made the purchase, others disagree and/or list other positives. The rating is 4 out of 5 eggs.

I just purchased it, so I don't know if it will work properly with a 622, though if its a WD drive, it sounds like it should.


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## garcher

I just picked up the 500GB Maxtor (Maxtor: Personal Storage 3200) from Fry's in Santa Clara, CA for ~$119 out the door ($109.90 in store price).

The price on the box is $159.99 leading me to beleive that this is not available though their web (www.outpost.com).

For the details -- it does NOT draw power from the USB -- it has a small external brick that is then connected to a short cable that ends in a plug. The brick is about 3"x2"x.1" ad has about 3.5' of thin DC power cable attached to one end. The drive comes with a standard USB 2.0 to mini-USB shielding cable that is about 4' long as it sits lenght wise on the strip.

THe case is a dark grey, with a single green power/activity light at the front.
It can sit flat or it has a small attachable rest allowing it to sit vertical. The drive is a 7200RPM with a 16Meg buffer (at least according to the Fry's sign) -- I have not opened up the unit to get the exact model number off the drive.

There is no power switch -- once you plug it in it is on. There is a built in fan, but it is VERY quiet

The drive is pre-formatted to NTFS, and I've been burning it in with my laptop now at work before I take it home and give it a try with my 622 tonight.

I'll post back later on my experiance in using it with my 622.

Gary

From everything I've seen about it so far, I really like it - it seems very quick and quiet.


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## TBoneit

Charise said:


> Available from newegg.com: Cavalry 500 GB external hard drive for $111.99 + shipping (mine was $7.81) - $22 rebate (from today to 8/23).
> 
> Some of the reviewers say they opened it up and it's a WD drive.
> 
> FYI, some also say a fan is pictured in the back but there is no fan (older reviews), some say it heats up a lot, and some say the blue light is too bright.
> 
> I just purchased it, so I don't know if it will work properly with a 622, though if its a WD drive, it sounds like it should.


The drive IMHO isn't as important as the USB to Drive conversion electronics in terms of compatability with the 622.

USB to IDE or USB to SATA converters have many different chipset makes and models.


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## TBoneit

Well the 500Gig My Book Essential Edition from Western Digital that is on sale thru Saturday at BestBuy for $119 is working. I bought two of them since two cost $238 for 1000 gig (2 x 500Gig) compared to $199 for a 750 Gig WD external.

Moving on, the ByteCC 5.25 external drive enclosure is working as I expected it to. That is the one that has the USB to IDe and the Power supply and a cooling fan in it. Right now it just has a 80 gig WD in it as I wasn't about to buy a 320 just to test. The ByteCC I have has also been sold as a ME320, ME325 etc. Depends on who rebadged it. I have a bunch of these I may recycle to the 622. I settled on these earlier when I needed external storage for the computer as they are slef contained. Just plug in the AC cord and the USB cord and go.

Cheers


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## mwsmith2

garcher said:


> I just picked up the 500GB Maxtor (Maxtor: Personal Storage 3200) from Fry's in Santa Clara, CA for ~$119 out the door ($109.90 in store price).


I did the same thing yesterday evening. I had one of their Acomdata drives, which look very sexy, but don't work worth poop.

If it was possible to give the Maxtor negative points for appearance, I'd do so. It looks very cheap, basically two molded plastic shells snapped together. The "stand" kinda halfway snaps into the bottom. It's a dark grey color, which is pretty much guaranteed to not match much of anything in your stack. This thing is seriously in need of some Krylon Fusion gloss black plastic paint! Once the warranty is up in a year, it's going under the gun. I may change out the color of the LED at that point too. I like blue. :grin:

Performancewise, it's a winner. I plugged it in, it was recognized and made the 622 happy immediately. No "unsupported device" popup like I got from the Acomdata drive. I didn't check it for heat, or much of anything actually. Garcher, I didn't even know it had a fan, haha. I shoulda grabbed ahold of it after it had been moving data for about an hour, but I didn't...I just wandered off to bed.

All in all a good deal. Just needs some paint.


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## jcord51

Moridin said:


> It does indeed glow orange. There are utilities for Windows that allow configuring the light to be off, but I'm not certain if that setting would remain in effect if the drive were reformatted (as it would be if attached to a 622).


That's what they make black tape for!:lol: Sorry, I just couldn't resist:grin:


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## darkstarchuck

Buffalo Technology's DriveStation SATA 500GB USB Hard Drive works fine. It has a cord connected power "brick", no fan, and had no problem being recognized / formatted. $139 @ MicroCenter w/ $30 MIR (I had a $50 gift card )

(it has a green power light and a red "activity" light, neither one is "too" bright)


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## rhorn01

Don M said:


> I am looking at a Western Digital My Book 3.5" 750GB USB 2.0 (WDG1U7500N) to connect to my 622. Should this work when the USB external HD connection is activated on the 15th? Thanks for any advice.


I purchased this drive the other day from Best Buy for $199.00.
When I connected it to my 622 I got an error message stating I had connected an unsupported device. I turned off the dvr and reconnected the drive and got the same drive and got the same message. I then connected the drive to my other 622 and still got the unsupported drive message. I then called Dish to verify that the USB port(s) had indeed been activated. They also verified I had the latest software and said I'd be contacted by a tech.
I then connected the drive to my media PC to see if it would work, it didn't.
Wouldn't load at all DOA. I had never bought a WD drive before and the only reason I did was BB didn't have any Maxtor 750's and apparently no longer carries Maxtor drives at all. They did have Seagate, which I think, now owns Maxtor but doesn't carry 750's off the shelf. You have to order them on line.
I have never, ever, had a problem with Maxtor. Have several connected and
they just keep on humming along, never turn them off. One 500 I use for music on my media pc. Guess I'll either order the 750 or try Fry's in Concord, CA.
And I hate Fry's.
Just my $O2.


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## Zvi

So, 1Tb drives are not an option?


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## darkstarchuck

Zvi said:


> So, 1Tb drives are not an option?


No, Not per DishNetwork, I've been reading as many of the new posts as possible, and haven't yet seen anyone post success or failure with the >750MB drives. Maybe you could try and let us know?


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## DoyleS

I also bought the Fry's 500 GB Maxtor drive for $109 + tax. Nice compact drive. Very quiet. No power Switch but most of the drive wear apparently occurs during spinup and spin down so I will probably just leave it on. It is sitting in my equipment closet on the top of the rack so it is completely unseen. Plenty of air around it so it should be nice and cool. The DVR recognized it immediately and it formatted in a couple minutes. I am pretty happy with it. I would have like having an indicator of how much storage was left in terms of hours or disk space without having to check all of the recorded items. 

..Doyle


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## Zvi

darkstarchuck said:


> No, Not per DishNetwork, I've been reading as many of the new posts as possible, and haven't yet seen anyone post success or failure with the >750MB drives. Maybe you could try and let us know?


I guess I will. I have 750gb drive. I'll get 1tb and see if it works with dvr. If not I'll use it as my backup drive and connect the other one with dish...
I don't really see a technical reason to limit 750gb.


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## aginzu

garcher said:


> I just picked up the 500GB Maxtor (Maxtor: Personal Storage 3200) from Fry's in Santa Clara, CA for ~$119 out the door ($109.90 in store price).
> 
> The price on the box is $159.99 leading me to beleive that this is not available though their web (www.outpost.com).


I purchased this same drive via a price match at Circuit City who had it on sale for $119. They refunded $11 (110% of the difference). It seems to work fine. frys.com still has it for $109 and it's likely that CC will still match it.

I had also purchased the Acom from Fry's and will be returning it tomorrow since it didn't work.


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## Zvi

Actually did anyone try to connect more exotic solutions like USB raid array?


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## Marriner

The Maxtor 500 Gb drive from Fry's (model no. in signature) works well. Nice and quiet. Trick mode works like it should. Very satisfied.


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## rfowkes

I purchased a 750gig Seagate Free Agent Pro USB 2.0 drive from Amazon and so far, so good. Amazingly simple setup and extremely sleek looking in black along side my new 722. Yes, there is an orange glow (not orange plastic) but I've positioned it so it doesn't interfere with viewing. Without the Windows software option I'm assuming you can't turn the light off (unless you power down which would be an option when not using it). But I've only had the drive for a day so I haven't really looked into it much since it's not an issue with me.


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## rhorn01

Zvi said:


> So, 1Tb drives are not an option?


According to the Tech Chat 750 is the largest supported.
Nor are daisy chaining or hubs but may be later.


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## mwsmith2

FYI, the 500GB Maxtor (Maxtor: Personal Storage 3200) _does_ sleep. I had it on since last night when I was moving about 40GB of content. I came in today to find the green light on, and the drive quiet. 622 was still on, so yep, it does sleep after a while. I'll be leaving it plugged in and on for sure now.


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## Stewart Vernon

If this wanders into hack talk feel free to delete...

But with the enabling of external hard drives... I'm curious about not just the DRM but the "limit of 3 moves" thing.

Taking apart your leased (or even owned) ViP receiver is one thing... but an external drive? It occurs to me that once you format and move stuff to that external drive, even though you can't access or play it on your computer... what's to prevent you from cloning/ghosting that drive image?

It wouldn't be useful anywhere except as connected to a Dish ViP receiver... and you wouldn't be hacking or stealing anything you weren't already entitled to do... but it seems to be if you wanted a backup, you could move content to an external drive then clone that drive and the clone would be your backup if your main external drive failed.

I can't think of a reason why this wouldn't work. I also can't think of a reason why it would be wrong to do it, since none of the wrong/illegal things would be possible... just the ability to backup existing content and also connect the same content to more than one ViP receiver in the house.


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## twindaddy

rfowkes said:


> Yes, there is an orange glow (not orange plastic) but I've positioned it so it doesn't interfere with viewing. Without the Windows software option I'm assuming you can't turn the light off (unless you power down which would be an option when not using it). But I've only had the drive for a day so I haven't really looked into it much since it's not an issue with me.


I got the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500 GB from Best Buy for $150. Actually, I got two, one for backing up my PC and the other for my 622. The one for my 622 works great. The orange glowing light stays on 24/7. After formatting on the 622, I hooked up the drive to my Windows box and used the Seagate tray utility to turn off the Orange glow. However, when I plugged it back into the 622, the glow was back. It seems this setting is not written to the drive's firmware. So, I plan to just put some black electric tape over the orange light (not that the glow isn't neat looking, I just want as little light in my home theater as possible).

A few more notes during my drive experimentation:

* I bought and returned a 750 GB Western Digital "book" external drive. I don't know how anybody can tolerate these. It was very loud (fan/blower noise) plus had a high pitched sound. It was so loud, I could easily hear it OVER my 622's noise from 10 feet away.

* The Seagate FreeAgent is QUIET. When it's running, I can only hear it with my ear 6 inches away. It has no high pitch whine, just a very subtle and acceptable hum which you'll never hear once seated on the couch.

* The FreeAgent runs cool -- much cooler than the 622.

* The FreeAgent goes to sleep after 15 min which I think is ideal. When this happens and you access the recordings from the 622, there's a 5-10 second pause while the drive spins up -- fine by me, but people should be aware of this. Like the orange glow, although you can adjust the spin down condition from Windows, I don't think it sticks once plugged back in the 622 (I didn't actually try this since I like the spin down).


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## TBoneit

I didn't get the Seagate drive although I wanted one for the 5 year warranty, BB was out of them. I ended up with two WD 500 Gig. They run cool and quiet, it sounds to me as if you may have gotten a bad 750Gig EHD. New does not equal good. 

I just decided if it was something that I didn't want to lose I would just setup the DVR to get two copies and put them on two different drives. Even TV Series come round more than once.


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## eatonjb

forget all that

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119018

and then just buy Hard drives and swap then real EASY like!!

i have one of these (somethign like it) just change the hard drives if i run out of space.. got about 10 300's around!


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## TBoneit

I just ordered a couple of those for stock here at work from one of our Wholesalers. We sell them for Computer use. One thing to watch out for is cooling and shorts as the drive works are exposed. 

If it were me I'd put 4 screws in the holes on the bottom ti lift it up and allow air flow all around the drive. And I'd be wary of using these around kids or pets myself.


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## ericw2000

twindaddy said:


> A few more notes during my drive experimentation:
> 
> * I bought and returned a 750 GB Western Digital "book" external drive. I don't know how anybody can tolerate these. It was very loud (fan/blower noise) plus had a high pitched sound. It was so loud, I could easily hear it OVER my 622's noise from 10 feet away.


I bought the 750 GB Western Digital "My Book" HD last night and hooked it up. Mine is very quiet. I didn't hear any noise, and the only way I could tell it was powering up (other than the light) was the small vibration when I held it in my hand. The light flashes slowly when the 622 is accessing it. I think you may have got a bad one.

I transferred a bunch of Soundstage episodes that my wife has been complaining about and played one back, and everything works fine. It took over 3 hours to transfer the programs, and during that time there was no noise from the HD. The drive does appear to sleep when it's not needed.

Another thing I love is the "groups" setting in the DVR. My son loves to tape old sitcoms, and my daughter has a bunch of Disney stuff, and I hated scrolling through all that to find my shows (they learned early on that Dad deletes their timers when they don't delete their shows after they watch them). With Groups on, all the shows are organized into folders, much like Windows File Explorer.


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## gnm313-1

Has anyone seen official release notes for the external HD? Everything I know is from this site. As far as I can tell, they haven't put the 722 manual online yet.

Questions like: How do I disconnect my HD? Can I just unplug it or is there a menu option? Can I take my HD to my other 622 and download/upload content. Dish told me I could hook it to up to 4 receivers. I thought I read here that it isn't supported yet. Their information seemed awful specific.

I would love to see it in writing how they think it should work.


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## ChuckA

There is no menu to disconnect the EHD. Just pull the plug. I don't think you will see that sort of documentation at this point. The software still seems to be a work in progress.


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## Ron Barry

The official word is that you should not be moving your USB drives from one of your 622 to another. Yes it can be done and will work, but right not the official word is that it should stay with the 622/722 it is hooked up to. 

If you go and move it around and find it works, don't be surprised if one day it decides to stop working and no body to blame but yourself.  There is talk that they will be adding a home account key but right now it is not supported and above is the advice that was mentioned on the tech chat and I believe Rob confirmed it.

Oh.. Looks like ChuckA answered the question on turning it off. The other thing is you can just turn it off.


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## DanoP

ericw2000 said:


> I bought the 750 GB Western Digital "My Book" HD last night and hooked it up. Mine is very quiet. I didn't hear any noise, and the only way I could tell it was powering up (other than the light) was the small vibration when I held it in my hand. The light flashes slowly when the 622 is accessing it. I think you may have got a bad one.


Same here. The only possibly annoying thing about this drive is that the circular light in front draws attention to itself when it is moving programs. It is extremely quiet.


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## SandiaMan

I am interested in activating the EHD option on my 622. Is there a site that explains ...

1. a charge from Dish to turn this on.
2. the operation details
a. is it just for archiving or can I play a program from the EHD
b. can I had other stuff on the EHD or does everything on it need to be 
dedicated to the 622
c. I assume if you archive a program you then have to transfer it back to the
622 if you want to play it back again

I just found this link explaining the program. Not excited to have to pay $40 to enable this feature.

http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/our_products/dish_hd/external_hd/ExternalHDDStorage.pdf


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## ChuckA

Yes, read the postings on this forum and all your questions will be answered.


----------



## SandiaMan

Is there a good site for reviews of external hard drives? There is a Cavalry 400g drive for $70 (free shipping) from Buy.com and was wondering how good this drive would be.


----------



## hdaddikt

TBoneit said:


> Generally here at work we prefer Western Digital drives and one of our customers that supplies the parts and we do the labor of assembly for them and sometimes software uses WD drives too.
> 
> We've had problems with Maxtor and Seagate. 5 years warranty is nice but when it takes your shows with it will the warranty make up for the loss of your HD events?


How interesting. I've had the opposite experience with name-brand drives in general at work (retired now) and at home. 
Rarely though, overall any HD I've had has been very reliable.
Hard to validate the significance of any one failure without data to back it, of course.


----------



## David-A

When I connected the 750 GB WD My Book Essentials to the 622, I got a message that the drive was not supported. There was no sign that the drive was running other than the green ring. I took it back to Best Buy and got another one which works fine. I like how quiet it is, doesn't get hot, and automatically spins down after a few minutes of non-use. The only down-side to the spin-down is that it takes a couple seconds for it to come back up when you go to play a recording if the drive was sleeping. To me that's a trivial issue. Other than a possible quality control issue, I'd recommend this drive.


----------



## eatonjb

i just picked up a WD Essential 500, lets see if that works.. pretty cheep, 2 500's are less then 1 750!


----------



## kckucera

elbodude said:


> For those of us with Fry's Electronics....500GB Maxtor for $109 today and tomorrow only.


For those like me who do not have a Fry's within reasonable distance Best Buy has a 500 G UBS 2 from SimpleTech at $119.00 It seems to work fine thus far.


----------



## gweempose

David-A said:


> I like how quiet it is, doesn't get hot, and automatically spins down after a few minutes of non-use. The only down-side to the spin-down is that it takes a couple seconds for it to come back up when you go to play a recording if the drive was sleeping.


Does anyone know if WD has some sort of utility that allows you to disable spindown on these drives?


----------



## eatonjb

I think they do.. sorry don't know where, prob on there website.. Does the spindown cause issues? or is it just an annoyance.. (slow to respond wile spinning up?)


----------



## Bagman

eatonjb said:


> I think they do.. sorry don't know where, prob on there website.. Does the spindown cause issues? or is it just an annoyance.. (slow to respond wile spinning up?)


I also have the WD MyBook Essential 500gig EHD. How can you tell that it spins down. Mine just sits there when not in use; the light glows constantly and does not blink (like the Maxtor when it goes into sleep mode) except when it is transfering data.


----------



## kckucera

Bought a USB.2 500G SimpleTech at BestBuy for $119. Will have to see about reliability but the price was sure right.  and it seems to be working fine transfered 10 HD movies, all test out well.


----------



## AVJohnnie

Though there have been numerous posts and a message thread started regarding "issues" with the Seagate FreeAgent drives, I've yet to see any negative reports on the Maxtor OneTouch drives. I find this a little interesting because Maxtor was acquired by Seagate a short while back.

http://www.seagate.com/maxtor/

In a back-handed sort of way, this is good news for Maxtor users since the indicators at this point would be that the usual technology mingling that happens under such mergers may have not yet afflicted the Maxtor product line.


----------



## jimmino

Okay...sorry I'm a bit lame here. I read somewhere that if you lose power to your ext. drive or 622, once you restart it all you'll need to format the drive again losing all recorded programing? Please set me stright here before I go buy a Ext. Drive.

Thanks!


----------



## Ron Barry

This is not the case. If this is happening there is something wrong in terms of an incompatibility issue or a USB HD defect. This is not common operating behavior.


----------



## ChuckA

My Maxtor 750 gig drive has been rock solid for me. No issues at all.


----------



## hdaddikt

jimmino said:


> Okay...sorry I'm a bit lame here. I read somewhere that if you lose power to your ext. drive or 622, once you restart it all you'll need to format the drive again losing all recorded programing? Please set me stright here before I go buy a Ext. Drive.
> 
> Thanks!


One of the great myths! Based on that every power outage will reformat your drive.

You can power it off and on as you need, and if a FreeAgent you may need to in order to catch it before spin-down in order to delete events. 
That is until 'they' get this incompatibility fixed.


----------



## hdaddikt

AVJohnnie said:


> Though there have been numerous posts and a message thread started regarding "issues" with the Seagate FreeAgent drives, I've yet to see any negative reports on the Maxtor OneTouch drives. I find this a little interesting because Maxtor was acquired by Seagate a short while back.
> 
> http://www.seagate.com/maxtor/
> 
> In a back-handed sort of way, this is good news for Maxtor users since the indicators at this point would be that the usual technology mingling that happens under such mergers may have not yet afflicted the Maxtor product line.


Assuming it's a defect. I think it is only a compatibility issue. If you go a few posts back someone already used it with their PC as a back up and zero problems.


----------



## dmspen

It's also available at Fry's online which is www.outpost.com. I bought two yesterday. Only about $10 shipping.



kckucera said:


> For those like me who do not have a Fry's within reasonable distance Best Buy has a 500 G UBS 2 from SimpleTech at $119.00 It seems to work fine thus far.


----------



## David-A

gweempose said:


> Does anyone know if WD has some sort of utility that allows you to disable spindown on these drives?


There is a WD My Book spin-down utility. However, since it runs on a PC, I'm not sure if it will work after the 622 has formatted the drive. Use at your own risk. Here's the link

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=18&swid=17

I personally don't find the spin-up time to be a significant issue. In fact, I intentionally bought the WD My Book because it did have the sleep feature. In my case it will be in actual use is about 5% of the time. Why should I add more CO2 into the atmosphere by spinning the motor the other 95% of the time when I'm not using it? Although I don't have any hard data, I also believe a drive will last longer if I use it the way I do which is typically 2 hours on, 46 hours off.

If you don't want or need that, you might be happier with the Maxtor One Touch which I've read doesn't have a sleep mode feature.


----------



## gweempose

David-A said:


> There is a WD My Book spin-down utility. However, since it runs on a PC, I'm not sure if it will work after the 622 has formatted the drive. Use at your own risk. Here's the link
> 
> http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=18&swid=17


Thanks for the link. At first, I though this was exactly what I was looking for. Upon further investigation, it appears that the utility can only be used to manually spin the drive down when it's connected to a PC, essentially putting it into "standby" mode.


----------



## TBoneit

Personally I prefer the drive to spin down since it will run cooler that way and most likely extend the life signifigantly. Same reason I turn off the computer when I'm done with it for the night.

Nothing to do with being green. Everything to do with preventing extra wear on moving parts. Hard drives = 7200 rpm these days. On computers CPU fan, Power supply fan, Hard drives all busy spinning themselves to death. Then there is the fact that turning it off and switching off the AC prevents any power surges from damaging things. Off prevents the heat sink under the CPU fan from clogging as quickly. A computer that is off can't be a zombie, can't be hacked and so on. approx 1 1/2 minutes to start up. Gives me time to hit the button on the remote and switch from VGA (Computer) to HDMI input and browse the guide. Hit enter on the WL keyboard for password after 30 seconds while browsing the guide. Set any timers, switch back to computer and go. Or select videos to send to the EHD while the computer is starting up.

I hit manage the EHD or send to the EHD options on the 622. The EHD hasn't spun up yet so I get the warning. I hit cancel and select again and a few seconds later it has spun up and away I go. a couple of extra clicks on the remote a few seconds delay, no biggie.


----------



## David-A

TBoneit said:


> I hit manage the EHD or send to the EHD options on the 622. The EHD hasn't spun up yet so I get the warning. I hit cancel and select again and a few seconds later it has spun up and away I go. a couple of extra clicks on the remote a few seconds delay, no biggie.


I don't get a warning when the drive is spinning up, just a couple second pause, thankfully. I wonder what the difference is. I'm using the WD My Book Essentials 750 GB. The 622 is running L442.


----------



## TBoneit

I'm not sure what the difference is as I'm using the 500Gig WD that was on sale at BB last week.

I just set up the second one last night to be sure it is OK before the return period expires. Stragely enough It did want to format it. I did not see a reboot warning however. I did reboot just to be sure all was good. 

This morming when I went to send some things to the second EHD same thingselect send. warning, cancel select send a second time and good to go.


----------



## Zvi

I've just hooked up external enclosure with 2 1tb hitachi HDs in it. Configuration is JBOD, not raid. basically 2 drives appear a s1 2tb drive, no data stripping. 
It works, but not completely right  I.e. 750gb limit specified in documentation is perhaps for safety, because 1tb drives weren't tested. Lots of external exclosures are speced as "up to 750gb" for the same reason, even though there is no real reason not to work with 1tb drives. Anyway, after formatting disc shows 999.0 gb available in disc manager menu. I'm transferring 122gb recordings now. So, if after that transfer available space remains unchanged, then we'll know it can use more than 1tb, and 999gb available displayed is just software bug.
Alternatively 1tb might be a real limit, although I have no idea why.

And third and worst case is there is hardcoded limit in dish dvr itself and it won't use more than 750gb despite of what's available. That would suck royally.

I'll post an update once the transfer is done.


----------



## TBoneit

Or it could be that once it gets filled past a certain point it will do something nasty to your files. That could be the real reason for teh 750Gig limit. Going beyond that they couldn't make it stable is a possibility. To me the fact that it can show 999gb means they'd like to but they say 750 because that is a safe and stable size limit.


----------



## darkstarchuck

Zvi said:


> snip I'm transferring 122gb recordings now. So, if after that transfer available space remains unchanged, then we'll know it can use more than 1tb, and 999gb available displayed is just software bug. snip
> 
> I'll post an update once the transfer is done.


So? I'm curious. Any results?


----------



## liferules

Question: does paying the $40 fee allow us to use as many drives to archive our 622's with that we want? Or does it just allow use of one drive and you are locked into using that drive or paying to use another?

i.e. Can I try out an external HD I have at home and then later upgrade to a big Kahuna drive as my needs increase?


----------



## Ron Barry

Yes as many drives as you want liferules. Where the restriction is moving the Drive from one 622/722 to another.


----------



## Zvi

darkstarchuck said:


> So? I'm curious. Any results?


Results were negative  In short DVR doesn't see the space beyond 1tb. But up to 1tb is fine. Like I said having 2tb drive connected to VIP 622 was resulting in 999gb available space displayed in storage manager. After copying 100 gb available space was 899gb.
So, finally I've installed my old 750gb backup drive on DVR and took 2tb enclosure back to my comp. Interestingly DVR formatted that 2 tb drive as 1tb, 500gb, 500gb, even though there were 2 1tb HDDs in the system.


----------



## gregkovacs

So has anybody tried any 1TB drives such as the WD or Hitachi or Iomega? It does appear given the test up to 1TB works...


----------



## moman19

ChuckA said:


> My Maxtor 750 gig drive has been rock solid for me. No issues at all.


Ditto, ditto. ditto. Maxtor 750GB OneTouch. Rock solid. No issues. This is the way to go. Quiet too.

The OneTouch button blinks brightly and is obnoxious. No way to kill it without surgery. Black electrical tape solves that problem.


----------



## Osteoman

gregkovacs said:


> So has anybody tried any 1TB drives such as the WD or Hitachi or Iomega? It does appear given the test up to 1TB works...


Okay I'm dying to know the answer to this as well given my local Best Buy currently has 2 WD My Book Premium Edition III 1TB drives on clearance for $239.

Anybody try it?


----------



## mirkos

FYI-I just picked up a 750G WD my book at BB. They had a clearance rack in the middle of the store. 179.99 + 20% off about 150 with tax out the door.


----------



## cwittig

I recently had the USB feature enabled on the VIP-622. I hooked up a WD 500GB external and it worked flawlessly.

I recently had to have the receiver replaced because of a failure in the external antenna input circuit.

Tech support assured me that I would be able to archive my HD recordings and restore them on the new receiver. I transferred all of the recordings to the drive, confirmed they were there, disconnected the drive from the unit and replaced it with the new 622. The new receiver recognizes the drive. It also shows "149.7 GB available", which tells me that the receiver knows that 350GB of the drive is not available.

After I called Dish Tech support back and after the Level 1 support gave up and referred me to Level 2, I explained to the level 2 tech everything that I explained to the level 1 tech. After telling me some sort of hog wash about formatting the drive for two different receivers and that my new receiver would not be able to see the recordings made by the previous receiver, he essentially ran out of answers and admitted to me that no one in the level 2 area had training on the new feature and he suggested I contact the drive manufacturer.

So, there are only two possibilities here (as I see it):
1. The drive had some sort of issue during the time it was transferred to the new receiver.
OR
2. There is a glitch in the firmware that could be later addressed via a firmware update.​
If this is not isolated and if it becomes a recurring issue, then Dish is setting themselves up for a raft of crap from users.

Has anyone on this thread moved a USB drive to a replacement VIP-622? If so, did you have any issues or not? I'd be really curius about the answer.


----------



## Rob Glasser

cwittig said:


> Has anyone on this thread moved a USB drive to a replacement VIP-622? If so, did you have any issues or not? I'd be really curius about the answer.


I haven't swapped to a replacement ViP622 but I have swapped from a ViP622 to a ViP722 successfully. I knew it should work, but I also knew it wasn't supported so I took that risk.


----------



## cwittig

Thanks Rob,

If you don't mind my asking, I am definitely not in the loop on current receiver models, but does upgrading to a 722 buy me anything? What improvements or extra features did you get on the 722 in addition to what was on the 622? I can always look it up, but the best way to find out is to actually speak to someone who uses the new system.

Charlie


----------



## Ron Barry

1) Larger harder drive. Go from 30HD hours to 55HD hours (estimated)
2) 722 is VC-1 encoding capability. Though not enabled at some point this might be beneficial. 
3) Black box. 
4) Some reports of it being a little quieter. 

There is some minor internal differences but that is the main bullet points.


----------



## Rob Glasser

cwittig said:


> Thanks Rob,
> 
> If you don't mind my asking, I am definitely not in the loop on current receiver models, but does upgrading to a 722 buy me anything? What improvements or extra features did you get on the 722 in addition to what was on the 622? I can always look it up, but the best way to find out is to actually speak to someone who uses the new system.
> 
> Charlie


Check out this thread, it will show you all the differences: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=94818

Basically it's black, it had a bigger hard drive, and it's supposed to have VC-1 support for HD OnDemand in the future. Other than that it's the same.


----------



## yence99

How much more HD recording space to do you gain by connecting, say a 500 MB external harddrive?


----------



## JudH

For those reporting that the Maxtor OneTouch III 750GB works can you be more specific? There are *3* Maxtor OT III's: The T01H750 with USB2 only, the T01G750 with USB2+Firewire400 and the T01W750 with USB2+Firewire400/800. Do all of these work or just the USB-only model (which appears to be scarce). Frys has the W for $270 and the G for $184 but not the H (which is $210 from Amazon).


----------



## TBoneit

yence99 said:


> How much more HD recording space to do you gain by connecting, say a 500 MB external harddrive?


You don't directly gain recording space since you can not record to the EHD.

However you gain space by moving already recorded to the EHD freeing up space on the internal drive. So in effect if you moved everything to the EHD then you would be back to the original recording hours and still be able to play on TV1 from the EHD.


----------



## yence99

My 622 operates in dual mode and I just noticed that I cannot access recordings saved on the external hard drive from the 2 TV. Is this normal or do I need to change a setting? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.


----------



## TBoneit

Normal. You need to move them back to the DVR to see them on TV2.


----------



## cwittig

Well, for a week I was NOT able to see any of the media previously saved using the earlier 622. Last week I hooked the drive up resigned to having to reformat it and was surprised to see a message telling me that the drive was configured under an earlier receiver and asking me if I wanted to let it run under the new receiver. Lo and behold I had all my recordings available. I did nothing different during the previous week that I plugged and unplugged the drive while spending time with tech support.

I can only guess that Dish may have pushed down some sort of update.


----------



## Ron Barry

L4.45 came out this week. Perhaps that fixed something.


----------



## SteveinDanville

Bagman said:


> I also have the WD MyBook Essential 500gig EHD. How can you tell that it spins down. Mine just sits there when not in use; the light glows constantly and does not blink (like the Maxtor when it goes into sleep mode) except when it is transfering data.


I have the 750 gig version, and I'd like to know the answer too. The WD website said that this EHD would go into sleep mode when the "computer" was turned off and wake up when it was turned on. How do you know if it has indeed spun down? Hours after turning off my 622, the green light on the EHD is on and I hear spinning and feel a slight vibration from the drive. Any help out there?


----------



## TBoneit

The difference is that the 622/722 unlike a computer are never off. Even when it is off, Screensaver mode that is. It is on.

I start sending things to the EHD, Turn off the TV set, Turn off the 622 and it keeps on sending to the EHD... WD EHD activity light blinks until the sending is done.

In a computer the USB goes off when the computer is off, The 622 it is all still working. Timers, guide update, firmware updates and so on....


----------



## SteveinDanville

TBoneit said:


> The difference is that the 622/722 unlike a computer are never off. Even when it is off, Screensaver mode that is. It is on.
> 
> I start sending things to the EHD, Turn off the TV set, Turn off the 622 and it keeps on sending to the EHD... WD EHD activity light blinks until the sending is done.
> 
> In a computer the USB goes off when the computer is off, The 622 it is all still working. Timers, guide update, firmware updates and so on....


Now I get it; thank you very much for the simple explanation.


----------



## guyverdh

Be sure to check to see whether or not the external hard drive automatically spins down to *conserve power*.

Seagate FreeAgent external drives do this after 15 minutes.
Download the FreeAgent software from Seagate, run it, enter utilities, set spin-down timer to "Never". Otherwise you will have all kinds of errors trying to send data to the drive, watching content from the archive drive, etc...

I have sent Dish Network technical information on how to *fix* the receiver's linux system so that it will automatically enable re-start for external drives that have the spin-down feature active. Until this is integrated into a future release, use whatever software is available for your external hard drive to make certain this feature is disabled.

Things that wouldn't work after a spin-down:

Sending recordings to the archive.
Watching an item off the archive, pausing would not show status bar - would require hitting skip forward or skip back to resume play. Hitting play/stop after pause would do nothing. Hitting stop while playing would take you back to a "Start/Done" menu. It never showed "Resume" on the menu.
Restoring items off the archive, would result in items on both the internal hard drive and still on the archive.

Just an FYI.


----------



## guyverdh

Oh - and we need to push Dish network to allow us to see content from the USB archive on either tuner ont the 622 when in Dual mode. I can understand only allowing one tuner to watch from the external at a time, however, it should be able to be used from either. There's really no reason not to be able to - aside from the fact that they didn't take the time to implement it.


----------



## Jim148

Rob Glasser said:


> Just to reiterate what was said on the tech chat, any high quality USB 2.0 hard drive with a single internal drive, between 40GB to 750GB should work with this feature.


I am starting to do the research on selecting an external. If I go large, what are some of the better 750GB HD that are known to be compatible with the 622/722 line?

Also, I thought I saw a list somewhere here of HDs known to work with these, but I can't seem to locate them tonight. Maybe it is just too late and/or I am just too tired.

Can I, for example, just pick one of the Western Digital External Hard Drives from Wal-Mart and be done with it, or isn't it quite that simple?

http://www.walmart.com/search/searc...tinue.x=16&Continue.y=8&Continue=Find&ic=24_0


----------



## lenny

Jim148 said:


> I am starting to do the research on selecting an external. If I go large, what are some of the better 750GB HD that are known to be compatible with the 622/722 line?
> 
> Also, I thought I saw a list somewhere here of HDs known to work with these, but I can't seem to locate them tonight. Maybe it is just too late and/or I am just too tired.
> 
> Can I, for example, just pick one of the Western Digital External Hard Drives from Wal-Mart and be done with it, or isn't it quite that simple?
> 
> http://www.walmart.com/search/searc...tinue.x=16&Continue.y=8&Continue=Find&ic=24_0


Look at http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=95896
I don't feel the thread starter has been updating his original post so you may want to look at all the posts on that thread to. I personally built my own 750GB drive which is one of the posts in the thread.


----------



## HobbyTalk

Yes, the list is up to date.


----------



## jrb531

FYI I just took an old internal HD I had on the shelf and put it into a $15 USB case and it worked just fine.

I'm going to buy a larger HD now and swap the drives now that I know this $15 el-cheapo USB case works with the 622.

I'm almost thinking this is the better way to go as if the HD ever fails I can just pop in any old HD I have sitting around instead of having to chuck out the entire external HD setup.

-JB


----------



## HobbyTalk

You wouldn't have to chuck it. Just open it up and put in another drive.


----------



## guyverdh

HobbyTalk said:


> You wouldn't have to chuck it. Just open it up and put in another drive.


Many external hard drive chassis come with welded cages around the drive. Getting the drive out ruins this cage making it nearly impossible to re-use.

An inexpensive usb to ide or usb to sata enclosure is definitely a good way to go as they tend to skip implementing features that could potentially cause problems.


----------



## lenny

HobbyTalk said:


> Yes, the list is up to date.


OK, I didn't think it was since I didn't see my configuration of a Bytecc ME-747SATACOMBO enclosure with a WD 750GB drive. I do understand you may not want to put every iteration of self built drives but that may help someone that is interested in building their own drive using that enclosure.

Thanks for taking the time to keep the list updated. I know it's helping many people.

Lenny


----------



## HobbyTalk

Trying to keep track of every enclosure.drive combination would be pretty hard to do so I am just sticking with complete drives.


----------



## lenny

HobbyTalk said:


> Trying to keep track of every enclosure.drive combination would be pretty hard to do so I am just sticking with complete drives.


Totally understand. Since there isn't that many enclosure companies maybe you can think about just placing the enclosures in the list. But, then again most people will not want to build their own drives since they would be uncomfortable with doing that so you're probably right.

Lenny


----------



## ggulch

Fry's has a Maxtor 500 USB/Firewire drive in their ad this weekend for $117. Interestingly, the box lists a 5 year "limited" warranty. I guess the Seagate influence is beginning to show.

Be careful to get the correct box if you want both interfaces, which I do. I had to ask about them at the Fry's in Arlington (TX) this morning, but didn't check the box before checking out. Didn't notice that the one I got was USB only until we got home (150 miles SE), so I guess I'm driving to Austin tomorrow after work to exchange it. I think I'll call to make sure they have some down there before I make that 80 mile round trip.

Ron


----------



## DoyleS

Ron,
Save yourself the drive to Austin.
Not sure why you would want the Firewire interface. The 622 will format the drive with its own unique format and it will not be useable by a PC or Mac via the firewire interface. The drive pretty much needs to be dedicated for use by the 622. 

..Doyle


----------



## TBoneit

Plus my take on the people having problems is that in the main they are the ones that bought EHDs with more than just USB and/or that the drive is SATA. I bought the cheapest WD EHDs and no problem. I have a bunch of Generic EHD cases that can take up to 320Gb and they work OK too. The Generic cases I have a bunch of are USB2, 5.25"/3.5"plastic. I like them because the power supply is built in and uses a standard PC power cable and they have a cooling fan unlike the 3.5" only generics.


----------



## ggulch

DoyleS said:


> Ron,
> Save yourself the drive to Austin.
> Not sure why you would want the Firewire interface. The 622 will format the drive with its own unique format and it will not be useable by a PC or Mac via the firewire interface. The drive pretty much needs to be dedicated for use by the 622.
> 
> ..Doyle


Doyle,

I wasn't planning on using it with a 622, rather to facilitate moving large numbers of video files quickly between several CPUs I have.

In any case it turns out that the ad in the Dallas paper was incorrect in stating that this model was USB & Firewire. They did have the 750 for $180, but I didn't want to spend that much. I found out about the lack of F/W on the 500 when I called the Austin Frys yesterday, so we'll just wait until this weekend to return it.

Another thing I doubt a lot of folks are thinking about, or may not be aware of, is the fact that drives often don't react well to sitting unused for extended periods of time. The drive motors can develop stiction and don't want to spin back up. It'll be interesting to see if this becomes a problem for folks swapping between several drives. However, until HiDef recorders and media become available and reasonably priced, they may be our only option if we want to retain true HiDef programming.

FWIW,
Ron


----------



## rdopso

I called Dish this morning to activate my new external HDD and to also determine what to do about the fact that the HDMI port on my 622 abruptly quit working yesterday. I talked at length with a woman at Dish who was exceptionally helpful and was able to answer all my many questions, and with little discussion authorized sending me a new 622. She activated my external HDD and assured me if I backed up all my currently recorded programs to the new external HDD I would be able to use that HDD to restore them to, or view them with, the new 622. I was concerned that connecting the external HDD to the new 622 would result in a reformat of the USB drive, but she assured me that reformtting of an external drive is not required until after four transfers to other Dish receivers. I had not seen that specified in this forum, and was a bit reluctant to accept it at first, but she assured me it was correct.

I quickly installed the new SeaGate FreeAgent Desktop USB 500-GB drive (this is a USB only drive) and transfered my 622 recorded programs to it with no trouble. I ran a couple of the programs to check that they would run properly -- they did, and all remote operations functioned properly as well. Others have reported that the SeaGate FreeAgent Pro drives had to have a hibernation or auto shutdown feature disable to get them to work correctly with the 622. The FreeAgent Deskop version apparently does not have the auto shutdown or hibernation mode and one only needs to plug in the power cord and the USB cable to initiate formating and setup of the dirve. Mine seems to work perfectly.


----------



## rdopso

rdopso said:


> ..........................I quickly installed the new SeaGate FreeAgent Desktop USB 500-GB drive (this is a USB only drive) and transfered my 622 recorded programs to it with no trouble. I ran a couple of the programs to check that they would run properly -- they did, and all remote operations functioned properly as well. Others have reported that the SeaGate FreeAgent Pro drives had to have a hibernation or auto shutdown feature disable to get them to work correctly with the 622. The FreeAgent Deskop version apparently does not have the auto shutdown or hibernation mode and one only needs to plug in the power cord and the USB cable to initiate formating and setup of the dirve. Mine seems to work perfectly.


I spoke too soon about the SeaGate external drive. After viewing more programs archived to the SeaGate externall HDD, I quickly determined that drive has the same problems reported by others for the SeaGate FreeAgent Pro. I quickly swapped it out for my old trusty Western Digital 500 GB WDGIC500N external USB/Firewire drive. It throws out an error message upon startup stating it is not a USB drive supported by the 622, but it nonetheless works perfectly with the 622 and shows none of the problems of the SeaGate FreeAgent series.


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## RickPas

I am looking at the WD 750 External HD about how many hours of High Definition will I get on the 750 hd...I was in Target reading the box and it said something like 38 hours of Standard recording, this doesn't seem right, that would not give me probably more than 10 hours of HD recording time on the External drive...I think the 622's drive gives 30 hours if I'm not wrong..
THanks for the help.
Rick


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## JCN

On the AVS site a couple of people have said that a 1TB drive works fine.


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## phrelin

> I am looking at the WD 750 External HD about how many hours of High Definition will I get on the 750 hd...I was in Target reading the box and it said something like 38 hours of Standard recording, this doesn't seem right, that would not give me probably more than 10 hours of HD recording time on the External drive...I think the 622's drive gives 30 hours if I'm not wrong..
> THanks for the help.
> Rick


We have a WD MyBook Essential 750GB. It's tough to tell because every show seems to be different in how much info is in the feed, but it appears it will hold about 100 HD movies of average length (maybe 180+ hours). I can tell you I have over 40 hours on it right now.

Hooked up easy, activated easily. Be sure to avoid the drive that has the extra bells and whistles, like the next level up from the Essential in the MyBook line.


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## HarveyLA

guyverdh said:


> Be sure to check to see whether or not the external hard drive automatically spins down to *conserve power*.
> 
> Seagate FreeAgent external drives do this after 15 minutes.
> Download the FreeAgent software from Seagate, run it, enter utilities, set spin-down timer to "Never". Otherwise you will have all kinds of errors trying to send data to the drive, watching content from the archive drive, etc...
> 
> I have sent Dish Network technical information on how to *fix* the receiver's linux system so that it will automatically enable re-start for external drives that have the spin-down feature active. Until this is integrated into a future release, use whatever software is available for your external hard drive to make certain this feature is disabled.
> 
> Things that wouldn't work after a spin-down:
> 
> Sending recordings to the archive.
> Watching an item off the archive, pausing would not show status bar - would require hitting skip forward or skip back to resume play. Hitting play/stop after pause would do nothing. Hitting stop while playing would take you back to a "Start/Done" menu. It never showed "Resume" on the menu.
> Restoring items off the archive, would result in items on both the internal hard drive and still on the archive.
> 
> Just an FYI.


The spin-down problem with the Seagate Freeagent may have been fixed, but not the other problems that have been documented by others.

I disconnected my new Seagate Freeagent 500 GB (not the Pro model) from Dish about a month ago. It was unusable. I could not reformat the Seagate to use as a backup for my computer (PC running windows XP)."My Computer" would not recognize the drive when I connected it, so I could not reformat it. And I could not find any function on the Dish menu to wipe the Dish formatting. Anyone have any suggestions on this?

I just hooked it up to my VIP622 again (now have L447 software) and found that the Seagate does spin up automatically now, when you try to access a program on the external drive. I left it overnight and tried again, and confirmed this. So it is semi-usable.

However, stop and pause still do not function as they should. You can exit a program by going to "view Live TV." The place in the program where I stopped was not saved, so I could not resume viewing at that spot at a later time. I was able to transfer a program from the Seagate back to the Dish HDD, but the Seagate version remained. I was then able to manually delete the program from the Seagate- at least it looked like it was deleted.

I guess it would be asking too much to expect Dish to notify their customers about this problem, and indicate when and if it will be completely fixed. They did say (before taking our money) that the new feature would work with any external HDD, didn't they?


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## phrelin

> I am looking at the WD 750 External HD about how many hours of High Definition will I get on the 750 hd...I was in Target reading the box and it said something like 38 hours of Standard recording, this doesn't seem right, that would not give me probably more than 10 hours of HD recording time on the External drive...I think the 622's drive gives 30 hours if I'm not wrong..
> THanks for the help.
> Rick


You made me take a little harder look. Actually, I have 54 titles recorded, including 7 SD. The HD is 61 hours 17 minutes, 228.36 GB.


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## TBoneit

HarveyLA said:


> The spin-down problem with the Seagate Freeagent may have been fixed, but not the other problems that have been documented by others.
> 
> Snip......
> 
> I guess it would be asking too much to expect Dish to notify their customers about this problem, and indicate when and if it will be completely fixed. They did say (before taking our money) that the new feature would work with any external HDD, didn't they?


No as I remember it they did not say with any External HDD. I believe the phrase they used was any good quality EHD.

I've had no problems with my Western Digitals at all. I suspect something in the way the Seagate is designed. Maybe some kind of caching software function or some such that works well on a computer but not the 622.

I suspect that many would like to have a drive that they can move the content to, then move it back and still have it on the EHD as a backup. If I want to do that then I have to do two recordings and move one to the EHD.


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## Jim148

With Black Friday right around the corner, is anyone here interested in having a Black Friday External Hard Drive Price Watch? I found this http://bfads.net/Search/750GB/all+all+all/ for the 
Western Digital 750GB Internal SATA Desktop Hard Drive $199.99. It looks like that is a reasonable price, but I'll bet someone can do better.


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## HarveyLA

is anyone using the LaCie 500 GB with VIP 622? Any problems?


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## SaltiDawg

HarveyLA said:


> is anyone using the LaCie 500 GB with VIP 622?  Any problems?


Is there any problem with using two 500Mb drives rather than one 750 Mb drive at roughly the same cost? Can I not simply swap the 500 mB drives in and out as desired? Can I have one 500 Mb simultaneously mounted on two different 622's? Interchange them (the 500Mb drives) as desired?


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## BobaBird

You can swap as many drives as you like on the same 622.

A drive can be moved between receivers only 3 times before it gets locked to one. Dish will eventually lift that restriction by adding an account key.


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## audiomaster

You will have to move fast on this one. I just got a 500gig Maxtor  OneTouch USB only at Staples for $119.98 less a 40.00 mail-in rebate. I think this is good on-line as well but only till the end of 11-23.


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## erasmu

Today Amazon.com has the WDG1U7500N MyBook Essential 750GB for $169.99 with free super saver shipping. I don't know how long that price will be good.


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## cshaws

anyone know if these drives once formatted for Dish can be reformatted for
PC use again? Have a Seagate 250 which doesn't work effectively and just ordered
a WD 500 GB from Amazon.

Had a 120 Maxtor which I thought was a 250 and hooked it up to the Dish, now that one also is not recognized by the computer either.

Any suggestions or do I have a pile of junk now

thanks


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## Grandude

audiomaster said:


> You will have to move fast on this one. I just got a 500gig Maxtor  OneTouch USB only at Staples for $119.98 less a 40.00 mail-in rebate. I think this is good on-line as well but only till the end of 11-23.


I tried but got an out-of-stock message. Now they don't even list it on their web site.

I already have a Maxtor OneTouch III drive which works really great and wondered if this newer drive works as well.

Can you report back here how it works and if any problems?


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## Bill R

cshaws said:


> Anyone know if these drives once formatted for Dish can be reformatted for
> PC use again?


Any drive that has been used with another O/S (such as the one that the the ViP receivers use) can be re-formated so that it can be used on a PC. It is just a matter of knowing how to do that in XP or Vista. Use a search engine and you will find sites with step by step instructions to do that.


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## Jim5506

cshaws said:


> anyone know if these drives once formatted for Dish can be reformatted for
> PC use again?


In Windows, delete the partition, create a new partition and format.


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## cshaws

Worked great. thanks for your help

At least they are now useable. Very annoying to have bought the Seagate 250GB and then to find out it doesn't work. I remember talking to the tech support and they said "just go buy any hardrive"

The joys of new technology


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## tm22721

I have two 722s and a 2 TB drive for each rcvr. Will they work OK ?


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## Bill R

tm22721 said:


> I have two 722s and a 2 TB drive for each rcvr. Will they work OK ?


Right now only drives up to 750GBs are supported. Some members have reported problems with drives larger than that and other have reported no problems with 1 TB drives.


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## Bill R

erasmu said:


> Today (Friday) Amazon.com has the WDG1U7500N MyBook Essential 750GB for $169.99 with free super saver shipping. I don't know how long that price will be good.


I ordered one of them early Saturday and I was pleasantly surprised when the mailman delivered it today, Monday (Amazon has a distribution center in my state).

I looked at the Amazon web site today and the price is a LOT higher so it looks that it was a very limited time offer.


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## Albie1200

Has anyone had any luck running their external drive through a USB hub? I currently have the rear USB occupied by a cool mat, so I want to hook the Hub to the 622, then the HDD and cool mat into hub.

Will this work?

Thx in advance!!


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## eatonjb

Albie1200 said:


> Has anyone had any luck running their external drive through a USB hub? I currently have the rear USB occupied by a cool mat, so I want to hook the Hub to the 622, then the HDD and cool mat into hub.
> 
> Will this work?
> 
> Thx in advance!!


you know, if all you are using a HUB for is for power, some of them let you do that without plugging into a computer or anything.. as long as it's a powered hub.. but if you are trying to get it without power.. I am at a loss there.

e..b


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## SaltiDawg

Albie1200 said:


> Has anyone had any luck running their external drive through a USB hub? I currently have the rear USB occupied by a cool mat, so I want to hook the Hub to the 622, then the HDD and cool mat into hub.
> 
> Will this work?
> 
> Thx in advance!!


IIRC on the Technical Chat months ago they said that you could not utilize multiple drives using a USB hub. I guess that does not specifically answer your question about one drive and a cool mat that presumably draws only the 5 Volts.


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## Albie1200

Well I will probably just use eatonjb's idea, and just use a powered usb hub as strickly a power source for the cool mat. Maybe if I'm bored I will try and run the HD through the hub so we will have an answer here, but at lunch I already ran all the cables so who knows.


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## cooljoe815

I have a HR20 and I am a newbie. If I read this thread correctly, I can add an e-sata external connection to add more hours to my DVR. 

Can someone break it down for me. 
1. buy a Hd that is at least 500 GB w/ e-sata connection. 
Am I right so far?
2. do I need to re-format the HD , or is it ready to go. 
If you someone can do a sticky type of explanation, I do appreciated.


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## Ron Barry

cooljoe.. welcome to dbstalk. You do know you are in the Dish 722/622 forum right? HR20 is a Direct box so the question would be better asked in the DirecTV forums.


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## TBoneit

Just to add to Ron's message. One of the differences between the Dishnetwork HD DVR and the DirecTV HD DVR is tha the 622/722 can use the external as additional storage along with the internal whereas the DirecTV HD DVR it repaces the internal hard drive completely. 

This difference means that adding a 500Gig external to both will add the 500 gig as usable in addition to the internal in the Dishnetwork DVR. 

Inthe DirecTV DVR you only gain the difference in size between the internal and the external drive.


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## PanamaMike

Which external drives work best? See there are issues with WD and Seagate. Any particular models known to work well without any odd gremlins? Looking for a robust drive that works properly.


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## ChuckA

Maxtor One Touch drives work great for me.


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## TulsaOK

PanamaMike said:


> Which external drives work best? See there are issues with WD and Seagate. Any particular models known to work well without any odd gremlins? Looking for a robust drive that works properly.


Western Digital Essential 320 gig drive works great on my ViP622. I'm also a fan of the Maxtor drives but only have experience with those in computers; not stand alone.


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## Grandude

I'll vouch for the Maxtor OneTouch III drives also. Don't know about the IIIIs.
The threes work fine, shutdown to idle and stop the spindle from spinning and when asked, spin up and go to works. They stack nicely too.
My only gripe is the brightness of the lamp(s) in front which I solved by putting black tape over the lamps allowing only a small slit in the top and bottom so I can see that it is working.


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## davethestalker

Don M said:


> I am looking at a Western Digital My Book 3.5" 750GB USB 2.0 (WDG1U7500N) to connect to my 622. Should this work when the USB external HD connection is activated on the 15th? Thanks for any advice.


NewEgg has two similiarly and reasonably priced EHD, I do not see what the difference is between the two models.

* WDH1U7500N and **WDG1U7500N*

The difference I do notice is the WDH1 does not have it's drive speed indicated.


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## TulsaOK

davethestalker said:


> NewEgg has two similiarly and reasonably priced EHD, I do not see what the difference is between the two models.
> 
> * WDH1U7500N and **WDG1U7500N*
> 
> The difference I do notice is the WDH1 does not have it's drive speed indicated.


My Book Essential 2.0 is version 2.0. Version 2.0 is the next release. I have a version 2.0 and the difference is the 16mb buffer vs. 8mb. I don't know if throughput is any better. I get 16gig/hour.


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## davethestalker

TulsaOK said:


> My Book Essential 2.0 is version 2.0. Version 2.0 is the next release. I have a version 2.0 and the difference is the 16mb buffer vs. 8mb. I don't know if throughput is any better. I get 16gig/hour.


The 2.0 is the less expensive of the two, right?


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## TulsaOK

davethestalker said:


> The 2.0 is the less expensive of the two, right?


Yes. It's the WDH1U7500N. It's a bit smaller and it has a different finish to the case. As I said, I don't know if the larger buffer will have any effect on performance but it's the latest version of the product. Mine has performed flawlessly. It spins down after a while and "wakes up" when accessed.


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## jeffnebraska

Having problems - 

Got a Maxtor One Touch 4 from Frys for $120. Hooked it up, it prompted me to reformat, which I did. It started working. I transferred about 12 HD movies overnight on the first night, then the trouble began.

When I go to access the drive now, it brings up the movie list, but if I try to play one it says "drive in use by the other tv" or something to that effect. Same error message at this point if I try to transfer something to the drive.

Additionally, I tried to delete a movie and it brings up the delete progress bar for no more than a few seconds, but then the movie remains on the drive.

What gives? Is there a reboot procedure, other than unplugging the drive and plugging it back in, that I should perform? Are these symptoms common?

One other question - does the drive have no capabilities (e.g., no transfer or playback) on TV2, or just limited capabilities? The FAQ area is unclear.

Apologies if some of the advice I need is buried in this thread (I assume it is). 

Thanks all.


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## TulsaOK

jeffnebraska said:


> Having problems -
> 
> Got a Maxtor One Touch 4 from Frys for $120. Hooked it up, it prompted me to reformat, which I did. It started working. I transferred about 12 HD movies overnight on the first night, then the trouble began.
> 
> When I go to access the drive now, it brings up the movie list, but if I try to play one it says "drive in use by the other tv" or something to that effect. Same error message at this point if I try to transfer something to the drive.
> 
> Additionally, I tried to delete a movie and it brings up the delete progress bar for no more than a few seconds, but then the movie remains on the drive.
> 
> What gives? Is there a reboot procedure, other than unplugging the drive and plugging it back in, that I should perform? Are these symptoms common?
> 
> One other question - does the drive have no capabilities (e.g., no transfer or playback) on TV2, or just limited capabilities? The FAQ area is unclear.
> 
> Apologies if some of the advice I need is buried in this thread (I assume it is).
> 
> Thanks all.


Have you tried removing power for a few minutes?
Which mode are you running?


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## jeffnebraska

I tried unplugging the drive from both power ans USB and reconnecting. Same symptom.

The error message is "This option is currently in use by the other TV." No one else seems to be having this problem, so I guess I'll have to call DISH and hope for someone competent. 

Can anyone offer any help?


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## ChuckA

This has been reported in the past but the only solution I remember seeing was to reboot the receiver. You might also try goint to the other TV and seeing if you can access the EHD from there.


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## TBoneit

Or as another test try switching the Vip622/722 from dual mode to single mode or the other way around depending on how it is set up. 

Also you could try pulling the power for ten minutes to the EHD and the DVR. Power up the DVR and then the EHD.

BTW do you leave the EHD powered up and connected all the time. As a personal preference I always pull the power when I'm not using the EHD.

This sounds similar to the trouble Seagate EHD people were experiencing. Since Seagate bought Maxtor a while back maybe they have started rebadging Seagate EHDs as Maxtor now. When Maxtor bought Quantum a while back They sold Quantum models with the Maxtor name on them for a while and then that went away.


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## langlin

I have the new VIP612 and it now allows recording directly to the EHD.

Should be coming "soon" to other VIP's

Check here:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1443793#post1443793


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## ChuckA

Does that really work? The ERD (External Recording Device) has always been a PocketDish, not an EHD.


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## langlin

You're right, I was wrong. But it is now in the menu of the 612 to record directly on it, I don't know if you can on a 622 since I don't have a Pocketdish. Sorry for the bad post.


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## jeffnebraska

ChuckA said:


> This has been reported in the past but the only solution I remember seeing was to reboot the receiver.


Rebooting seems to have worked.

I had tried unplugging, but not holding the 622 power button to force a reboot. For the moment, shows are transferring again, and I was able to delete Pan's Labyrinth from the EHD, which had not worked in my first 15 tries.

Thanks.


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## TulsaOK

jeffnebraska said:


> Rebooting seems to have worked.
> 
> I had tried unplugging, but not holding the 622 power button to force a reboot. For the moment, shows are transferring again, and I was able to delete Pan's Labyrinth from the EHD, which had not worked in my first 15 tries.
> 
> Thanks.


Were you unplugging the receiver or the EHD? Unplugging the receiver (power cord reset) is as basic a reset as you can do.


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## jeffnebraska

I tried unplugging both the receiver and the EHD, and that didn't help. 

Pushing and holding the power button to force a reboot of the 622 is what did it.


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## Ron Barry

I think Tulsa was referring to unplugging the power cord not unplugging the USB at the receiver end. 

Jeff when you refer to unplugging are you referring to the USB cable or the power cable because pulling the power cable is actually a more stronger reset then holding down the power button for a count of 10 and if a power button reset cleared the issue a power cord should have also. If it did not, well I am confused.


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## bgibb1123

How about internal drives? I have two Seagate Baracuda 750GB 32mb cache HDD's doing nothing in my PC setup right now. The plan was to originally go with a RAID 5 setup, giving me around 2.6 TB of useable space on my HTPC. Turned out there are limitations with the Nvidia nForce780i chipset, which are topped out at 2.0 TB in any RAID setup. So right now, I can only use two of the 750 GB HDD's. I was originally hoping to use the added space for DISH DVR storage. 

Back to my original question...what about using an internal HD? Well, I've actually found one solution to my own question. One could use a SATA / IDE to USB Adapter (most sell for $15.00 to $35.00's). Just leave your internal HD in the PC, hook the adapter to the HD and use one of your PSU connectors inside the PC for power, and all that's left is to run the USB cable out the back of your desktop PC to your ViP 622 / 722 receiver's USB port...and you're done! Now you have your added storage space handled, and don't have to worry about an external HD. 

Well, that's one way to do it. Any other folks have any ideas? Anyone know if it's possible to use sofware which is used to link two PC's? Or software that is used to make backups? Will the ViP 722 allow you to hook your USB cable to your PC's USB port and download to a HDD you dedicate for only DISH DVR downloads? Most everyone downloads pics from their camera to their PC's hard drive, so why not DISH DVR items? Is it possible and I just don't know it? Or are we all forced to deal with an external drive or the one solution I have above with the use of an adapter? 

Sucks that DISH has always got to have their limitations on stuff. I get it to a point. But we have already paid for the programing we are recording...that's for darn sure. With all these HTPC's popping up everywhere, you'd think DISH would make it easier for us to incorporate their receivers into the Media Center market. Hell, even cable is onboard. They have cable cards which can be installed right into the PC. Wonder if we'll ever see a satellite PC card for DISH or Direct? I won't hold my breath! 

My PC is tied into my AV receiver, and my Plasma HDTV, and I have all the benefits of a TRUE Home Theater / PC Media center. Last piece of the puzle is incorporating DISH Network into the setup...but of course, they don't make things real easy as we all know. Well, I've said a mouthful for my first post. So I'll end it here. 

One added tidbit...

Anyone who's got a media center setup, ABC is streaming some of their shows in HD on their website. I've been watching LOST streamed in HD...and the pic quality is damn good. Rather exceptional for being streamed. One note, you gotta have a broadband connection, along with a real good dual core processor. Mines an E8400 Core 2 Duo running at 3.0 Ghz. Anyways, the feed and pic is outstanding, and I rarely have any problems watching a show in it's entirety...loss of stream and pic have been very rare. Won't compare to a Blu-Ray disc or even Dish Networks bandwith sacrificed HD channels, but pretty amazing for internet streaming. Hope more media outlets go to this HD streaming.


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## Rob Glasser

Welcome to DBSTalk bgibb1123. I think I understand what your asking, if not I apologize. Based on what I read your looking at basically using your PC case for power and physical storage of the hard drive itself. Connecting it to a SATA/IDE to USB adapter and then plugging that into your ViP722. The drive itself would have no data connectivity inside the computer. If so, in theory that should work. 

To answer you question about moving the cable back to your PC to get to the content, that will not work. The drive, when connected to the ViP722 is formatted in a proprietary format for Dish Network archiving. It is not designed to connect to anything else.


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## bgibb1123

Thanks for the reply Rob. I should have figured that one out, but thanks for the help. Isn't Dish Network software Linux based? Thought I read that somewhere. Anyrate, apples and oranges here. Be like trying to get the MAC and Windows to mesh together. Two different animals. Linux is FREE, and a windows' a proprietary system / format, would require a partnership with Microsoft. Now I get it. Plus we're dealing with MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 here and not AVI.

Guess I'll just use the adapter solution for my added DVR storage. I'll have an external USB HDD...with the only difference being, it's housed inside my PC. And of course, the HDD is not tied into the rest of the PC except for the power supply.


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## TBoneit

Not to mention that the content is encrypted.

What we pay for is the right to view the content. The money we pay is not for ownership of the content. 

Look at the messages about D* going to 24 hour PPVs.


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