# Largest external hard drive = 1TB? Why?



## Snydley (Mar 30, 2007)

I bought a new 2TB W.D. hard drive to put in an enclosure and use as my EHD, it works but only 1TB is recognized. I see from Dish Network's site that 1TB is the max size,(I should have checked before I bought it, but I have another use for it ). WHY Dish Network? It's time to roll out an update for the receivers to use 2TB. I know some are gonna say that 2 1TB drives are better than a 2TB drive, in case it goes bad, I don't want to argue that, so don't bother. I just think it's time for 2TB drives, they're affordable, and I don't need 2 enclosures that way.
Thanks,
Snyde


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Snydley said:


> I bought a new 2TB W.D. hard drive to put in an enclosure and use as my EHD, it works but only 1TB is recognized. I see from Dish Network's site that 1TB is the max size,(I should have checked before I bought it, but I have another use for it ). WHY Dish Network? It's time to roll out an update for the receivers to use 2TB. I know some are gonna say that 2 1TB drives are better than a 2TB drive, in case it goes bad, I don't want to argue that, so don't bother. I just think it's time for 2TB drives, they're affordable, and I don't need 2 enclosures that way.
> Thanks,
> Snyde


You can go above 1tb. Because of the way partitions are created you apparently cannot use more than about 1.6. See P Smith's explanation http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=2145329&postcount=17


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Also, would be good to know what model of HDD, what DVR you have and what FW version it's running (press Menu twice for gather the version info).
Last time I checked, 2 TB disk for ViP622 L6.18 didn't accepted al all.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

The only reason not to use smaller drives for external archiving is the time needed to change drives.

The reason not to use HUGE drives is that if it fails, you lose EVERYTHING.

A new development that partially obviates the large drive problem is a hardware Raid1 setup that uses 2 1T drives that are mirrors of each other. The Dish receiver sees it as one 1T drive but the hardware Raid1 is writing the identical data to both drives. If one fails the other carries the load, and you can replace the bad drive to restore redundancy. Still a bit pricey ($400ish), but I'm sure it will be coming down.


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## thorrall (Oct 1, 2006)

My understanding was that the 722 officially wouldn't work with RAID devices. However, since some RAID devices have their own drivers on board they must look logically like a single drive as Jim explains above, and I would think they _would _work.

Has anyone here actually tried it successfully?

I run RAID1 for my computer C drive and for a large 2 X 1.5 TB drive on the network. It's very comforting to know that if anything fails there is automatically a backup and it would be great to have the same thing for the 722 EHD.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Talking about RAID for DVR: you should understand - only HW RAID could be used there.


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## thorrall (Oct 1, 2006)

This appears to be a good deal for a mirrored USB RAID1 EHD:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822204072

Hi points, based on user reviews - aluminum enclosure with large low speed fan runs cool and relatively quiet, good overall reviewer satisfaction, uses drives from major manufacturer so should be easy to get identical replacement drive should it become necessary.

Lo point: Comes formatted with FAT32, probably has to be formatted to NTFS for use with Dish receiver - shouldn't be a big deal but will take a little time on a drive this big. Also, price is after $20 rebate, may be available for only a limited time.

If anyone tries it pls post experience.

There is a Cavalry (different manufacturer) equivalent on the same site but its user reviews are decidedly negative.


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

thorrall said:


> Lo point: Comes formatted with FAT32, probably has to be formatted to NTFS for use with Dish receiver - shouldn't be a big deal but will take a little time on a drive this big. Also, price is after $20 rebate, may be available for only a limited time.


Dish uses Linux on their DVRs, so no matter what filesystem is provided on the drive it'll format it with EXT3 (I believe they're using EXT3 anyway)


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## Guest (Sep 26, 2009)

a couple of quick question:

(1) let's assume that the 722k accepts a dual-1TB RAID enclosure, how will I know even 
know that one of the hard drives has gone bad? Is there some kind of indicator light on 
the USB RAID enclosure? if the RAID enclosure goes bad internally, is it possible to knock
out both drives at the same time?

(2) what are some examples of shows that you must absolutely keep forever? 

(3) if I use a 1TB ext drive and it's become full, is it possible to copy the contents to another 1TB ext drive?


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## Galaxie6411 (Aug 26, 2007)

(2) I keep any movie I like in HD on my EHD, lot easier than netflix or an other movie rental service. I also have entire seasons and series stored that I haven't watched yet.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Galaxie6411 said:


> (2) I also have entire seasons and series stored that I haven't watched yet.


I had that situation as well. Then one day my 722 said it needed to format the drive. There was no way out of it. It was a fairly new 1Tb Western Digital Essential drive. Nothing wrong with the drive; the 722 just refused to access it without reformatting. I lost hundreds of hours of HD movies and seasons of series that I had not watched. I do not save series anymore. Movies get rerun.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

quietmouse said:


> a couple of quick question:
> 
> (1) let's assume that the 722k accepts a dual-1TB RAID enclosure, how will I know even
> know that one of the hard drives has gone bad? Is there some kind of indicator light on
> ...


(1) - depend on the external storage box - ie need to read a manual first;
(2) - that's very personal question; you should make your own decision here;
(3) - why ? Just get another disk and use it. Keep old one the for future play. See BlacX device.
Theoretically/practically you can save all/part of your recordings to any other storage with EXT2/3 format by using Linux machine - just copy whole/part "*DishArc*" folder from EHD's 500 GB partition(s) to other disk.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

There is tech info of EHD Seagate 1.5 TB formatted by ViP622 (L6.23):


> WinHex 15
> 12/26/2009, 17:00:07
> 
> Hard disk 3
> ...


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