# Nomad External Drive Suggestions



## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Figured I would start a thread to get people's feedback on what external drives they are using with their Nomad's and if they have had any issues. I'm hoping to buy an external drive in the 128Gb+ range so I could have all of my recordings transcoded at the same time if I felt the need (I will probably set all of my series links up to be automatically transcoded from now on).

Obviously I'm not going to find a thumb drive in this size so I'll need an external hard drive with USB hookup, or a USB enclosure for an internal hard drive.

Anyone know if the Nomad puts out enough power to run something like this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822165271

Or if I need to have one with it's own dedicated power supply like this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136573


----------



## njblackberry (Dec 29, 2007)

Patriot makes a 128gb USB thumb drive - at a price!

http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Xporter-Hi-Speed-Hi-Capacity-PEF128GMNUSB/dp/B002DQ4CNK


----------



## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

njblackberry said:


> Patriot makes a 128gb USB thumb drive - at a price!


And what a price that is!

I have a 160gb external USB drive I'm not using right now. I guess after I get the feel of the nomad I'll plug that in and see how it works (if I need additional space).


----------



## Richierich (Jan 10, 2008)

I am using a WD Elements 2 TB External Hard Drive (WDBAAU0010HBK) with it's own Power Supply!!! 

No Problems Yet!!!

I would use one with a dedicated Power Supply rather than rely on power from USB. Just my $.02!!!


----------



## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

njblackberry said:


> Patriot makes a 128gb USB thumb drive - at a price!
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Xporter-Hi-Speed-Hi-Capacity-PEF128GMNUSB/dp/B002DQ4CNK


Wow, don't think I'll be buying that anytime soon. The 64Gb version isn't much of a deal either.


----------



## njblackberry (Dec 29, 2007)

Only reason I know about it was someone at work decided it was a good idea to buy some. I do NOT have this connected to my Nomad. Went with a PNY 32gb USB stick for that!


----------



## litzdog911 (Jun 23, 2004)

32GB SanDisk Cruzer USB Flash Drive works fine.


----------



## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

litzdog911 said:


> 32GB SanDisk Cruzer USB Flash Drive works fine.


Yes, but the manufacturer's web site recommends you format the drive to remove the software and partition (before you use it in the nomad).


----------



## Diana C (Mar 30, 2007)

I'm using an old 100GB laptop hard drive in a USB case, powered off the Nomad's USB port...works fine. It appears to use external memory, if available, first (at least there was lots of disk activity when it was transcoding and downloading).


----------



## markrogo (Sep 18, 2007)

Titan25 said:


> I'm using an old 100GB laptop hard drive in a USB case, powered off the Nomad's USB port...works fine. It appears to use external memory, if available, first (at least there was lots of disk activity when it was transcoding and downloading).


I'd say most any 2.5" drive would probably be fine powered off USB. And most any 3.5" drive would probably require a powered enclosure (or at least ought to seriously consider using one; see the post above).

People should keep in mind that it was, what, 0.6GB per hour or so of transcoded material. So a 500GB drive would hold an extraordinary amount of content, especially given that "if deleted from DVR, then deleted from Nomad too". Seems like a decent size 2.5" drive is a really good compromise even if you have to buy new. 250GB laptop drives are sub $40, $60 if you include an enclosure. I believe my 3 DVRs together could be fully transcoded on a drive of that size, even though we routinely have 200-300 hours of content stored.

(Because of the downsampling of transcoded content, I don't see how anyone could realistically make use of a 2TB drive on Nomad. You'd need to have ~3000 hours of stuff _on_ your DVRs. Of course, 2TB 3.5" drives are insanely inexpensive and come in power-sipping "green" varieties. So if you've got the space for them or one lying around, no reason not to use one.)


----------



## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Yep, that's why I figure I only need around a 128Gb drive. Don't really need more than that unless I add another DVR or add external drives to them, and I don't plan on doing either anytime soon.

It seems like most of the portable 2.5" drives jump from 80Gb to 320Gb though, so I'll probably end up with 320Gb which should be good for around 500 hours of programming (way more than the 200 I would max out at right now).


----------



## litzdog911 (Jun 23, 2004)

Beerstalker said:


> Yep, that's why I figure I only need around a 128Gb drive. Don't really need more than that unless I add another DVR or add external drives to them, and I don't plan on doing either anytime soon.
> 
> It seems like most of the portable 2.5" drives jump from 80Gb to 320Gb though, so I'll probably end up with 320Gb which should be good for around 500 hours of programming (way more than the 200 I would max out at right now).


Just remember that those recordings only stay in your Nomad while they're also on the DVR. Once deleted from the DVR, they're gone from your Nomad, too.


----------



## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

I'm aware of that, it's not an issue. I'm just saying with 200 hours of recordings possible (one HR22, two HR21) then I could end up needing approx 120Gb of space if I had everything transcoded (200*.6=120Gb). I've never had all 3 of my DVRs 100% full, but I might as well prepare for it if I'm buying something rather than having to update it later. I could probably get away with a 80Gb drive (approx 130Hrs of recordings) but for only $10-20 more I can get a 320Gb drive so I might as well get it and not have to worry about upgrading down the line some time (unless there's a failure of course).

I just plan on having all of my content set to transcode automatically. That way anytime I have to leave on a trip I only have to worry about the short transfer time to get them onto my iPhone/iPad, and I don't have to worry about the transcoding time.

Right now I'm looking at these two. Anyone ever use one of them before?
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeA...OSEG/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1318545861&sr=8-9

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...55OM/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1318546075&sr=8-8


----------



## Richierich (Jan 10, 2008)

litzdog911 said:


> Just remember that those recordings only stay in your Nomad while they're also on the DVR. Once deleted from the DVR, they're gone from your Nomad, too.


I understand that but having 7 DVRs with 13,000 Gigabytes of Storage Capacity Allows me to leave a lot of Recordings on my DVRs!!! :lol:


----------



## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Just to chime in with a different POV: I plan to stay within the default storage size of 16 Gigs. I'll take only 8 or 10 hours of stuff to see on any given trip. The rest will be live. Possibly will add a 64 Gig Flash when they become cheaper.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Perhaps someone can justify the fascination with flash drives. Unless you drop big money, they are often slower and the capacities are obviously a lot smaller.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

harsh said:


> Perhaps someone can justify the fascination with flash drives. *Unless* you drop big money, they are *often slower *and the capacities are obviously a* lot smaller*.


My 32GB Flash drive is ideal (in *total* results in tripling the base 16GB memory), the cost was $29, and it works perfectly and fast with Nomad.

In honor of the baseball playoffs - three strikes - yer out.


----------



## litzdog911 (Jun 23, 2004)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> My 32GB Flash drive is ideal (in *total* results in tripling the base 16GB memory), the cost was $29, and it works perfectly and fast with Nomad.
> 
> In honor of the baseball playoffs - three strikes - yer out.


Likewise. My Nomad is already loaded with all of the shows I would take with me travelling for a few days, and there's still half of the combined 48GB memory free.

Obviously the Flash Drive is plenty speedy enough and will certainly consume less power than a hard drive, with greater reliability.


----------



## markrogo (Sep 18, 2007)

The point of having enough space to transcode more content is that you don't have to necessarily pre-choose the small amount of stuff you can take with you, but rather have most of your DVR content. I doubt my DVRs record more than 25-30 hours in a week, but there is easily more than 100 hours stored on them at any time (I'm fairly sure, as I said above, it's 200-300).

As for the comments above, from my searches, it appears, really, the sweet spot on 2.5" drive is 250GB, but in fairness even 500s are not especially expensive. http://www.pricewatch.com/gallery/hard_removable_drives/notebook_250gb Any major brand should be fine for this purpose, it's unlikely to be taxed especially hard. As they are all notebook drives, they should all go into non-powered modes when not being used and should be pretty "sippy" to begin with.

If one wants to go with USB, it stops making sense to add anything past 64GB, which is about $90 and would give you 80GB total. That should store 130 hours or so. Given that Nomad should keep doing everything FIFO and should never add anything you do as one off and don't tell it to convert, this does sound like a lot. In fact, as a compromise, the 32GB solution is much cheaper, 48GB total (I'm understanding it's additive) is about 80 hours of programming. What's perhaps most interesting about that is that everything on Nomad could fit on a 64GB iPad or iPhone for a long trip... Again, without thinking about what to download. 32GB of flash is sub $40; I'm sensing the appeal.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> My 32GB Flash drive is ideal (in *total* results in tripling the base 16GB memory), the cost was $29, and it works perfectly and fast with Nomad.


It doesn't make sense to pay $30 for 32GB when you can get 15 times the capacity for $15 more. It isn't like you're going to be needing to carry the drive around.


----------



## markrogo (Sep 18, 2007)

harsh said:


> It doesn't make sense to pay $30 for 32GB when you can get 15 times the capacity for $15 more. It isn't like you're going to be needing to carry the drive around.


Yeah, it can make sense.

First of all, 99% of people can't make use of 15x the capacity. You are talking 500GB I presume, which is 800 hours of capacity. Most people have nowhere near that much DVR capacity, let alone that much recorded. Nomad can >only< hold things that are still on the DVR. And you only >need< to hold things you want to tote around on a portable device.

Second of all, it means a rotating storage disc, which will make some modicum of noise when it's doing its thing. The flash drive will be silent.

Now, if you do have a ton of DVR space >and< you want to carry a ton of stuff with you, then the 500GB drive makes a ton of sense. It's a bargain and, as I said above, should be power efficient as well. But if you're more "conventional" and think that 80 hours of Nomad-ready stuff is plenty, then the flash drive is a perfectly reasonable, inexpensive enough, silent, super low-power way to go.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

harsh said:


> It doesn't make sense to pay $30 for 32GB when you can get 15 times the capacity for $15 more. It isn't like you're going to be needing to carry the drive around.


It makes plenty of sense - if you don't *need* the capacity, you don't *spend* the money - why that is so hard to understand is amazing.

Maintaining an extensive library of content *on nomad *is not a requirement. 48GB in total holds tons of content.

These are the things one learns when *actually having *the device with DirecTV as a service.


----------



## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

harsh said:


> It doesn't make sense to pay $30 for 32GB when you can get 15 times the capacity for $15 more. It isn't like you're going to be needing to carry the drive around.


Sounds like my wife. 
"I bought it because it was 50% off." 
"But you didn't need it in the first place." 
"But I saved us 50%."


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

trh said:


> Sounds like my wife.
> "I bought it because it was 50% off."
> "But you didn't need it in the first place."
> "But I saved us 50%."


:rotfl::lol:


----------



## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

trh said:


> Sounds like my wife.
> "I bought it because it was 50% off."
> "But you didn't need it in the first place."
> "But I saved us 50%."


You forgot one.

"They were 50% off, so I bought 2"
"But you didn't need it in the first place." 
"but they were 50% off"


----------



## Diana C (Mar 30, 2007)

I think the point that this thread has brought forth is that almost any USB storage device seems to work well. In my case, I had 2 drives for my previous laptop and when I sold it, I kept the extra drive as a spare. Since it wasn't being used, I bought a 2.5" USB case for $10.00 and hooked it up to the Nomad. It sits next to the Nomad and is virtually silent (you have to put your ear about 4" away from the drive to hear anything).

If I didn't have that laying around, I probably would have used a 16GB or 32GB thumb drive.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Titan25 said:


> *I think the point that this thread has brought forth is that almost any USB storage device seems to work well.* In my case, I had 2 drives for my previous laptop and when I sold it, I kept the extra drive as a spare. Since it wasn't being used, I bought a 2.5" USB case for $10.00 and hooked it up to the Nomad. It sits next to the Nomad and is virtually silent (you have to put your ear about 4" away from the drive to hear anything).
> 
> *If I didn't have that laying around, I probably would have used a 16GB or 32GB thumb drive*.


Well said.


----------



## markrogo (Sep 18, 2007)

Titan25 said:


> I think the point that this thread has brought forth is that almost any USB storage device seems to work well. In my case, I had 2 drives for my previous laptop and when I sold it, I kept the extra drive as a spare. Since it wasn't being used, I bought a 2.5" USB case for $10.00 and hooked it up to the Nomad. It sits next to the Nomad and is virtually silent (you have to put your ear about 4" away from the drive to hear anything).
> 
> If I didn't have that laying around, I probably would have used a 16GB or 32GB thumb drive.


Sure, sure, you had a perfectly good solution. And many people here would be totally comfortable getting a 2.5" enclosure and making a mini-external drive. Some wouldn't.

It's hard to imagine anyone who couldn't manage the thumb drive insertion, on the other hand. 

For whatever it's worth, I just bought the cheapest 32GB thumb drive for $30 on sale at Fry's (to make Windows backup discs on a laptop that came without recover discs not for Nomad); I suspect that getting 32GB USB sticks for $20 is something that will be routine inside of a year. And Nomad's with them will still store insane amounts of content.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

harsh said:


> It doesn't make sense to pay $30 for 32GB when you can get 15 times the capacity for $15 more. It isn't like you're going to be needing to carry the drive around.


It's clear a number of folks in this thread disagree.

Value is in the eyes of the beholder....and what "makes sense" to you may likely not be the same for others.


----------



## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

markrogo said:


> But if you're more "conventional" and think that 80 hours of Nomad-ready stuff is plenty, then the flash drive is a perfectly reasonable, inexpensive enough, silent, super low-power way to go.


Bingo! Well said.

Looking at just cost per gig of storage is perhaps akin to saying a motor scooter is better than a mercedes as it gets 10 times the mpg....[or maybe not; analogies are tough!]:sure:


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Laxguy said:


> Looking at just cost per gig of storage is perhaps akin to saying a motor scooter is better than a mercedes as it gets 10 times the mpg....[or maybe not; analogies are tough!]:sure:


Except in this case, the Mercedes is only half again the money, provides better protection and carries all your rowdy shows in relative comfort.


----------



## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Very expensive scooter you have in mind, and a very cheap MB..... 

I did say "perhaps".....:lol:


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

harsh said:


> Except in this case, the Mercedes is only half again the money, provides better protection and carries all your rowdy shows in relative comfort.


Months of *nomad* use have proven that "theory" to not be the case on multiple fronts.

BTW - I also own both a Mercedes and a Honda (really) - either one successfully get you to the grocery store or across town just fine, and both also hold many weeks worth of groceries.

The solid point made earlier by someone else sums it up best - users should get enough storage to address their needs - that varies by *nomad* user.

The key point to the OP is that a USB flash drive is an option that many users won't even require, but if so, it's a reliable and low cost addition that provides successful and significant external storage expansion.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Laxguy said:


> Very expensive scooter you have in mind, and a very cheap MB....


That pretty well sums up my point.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

harsh said:


> Except in this case, the Mercedes is only half again the money, provides better protection and carries all your rowdy shows in relative comfort.


I guess someone would have to actually own a *nomad* to have any real idea as to the appropriate storage size - obviously that would exclude any Dish users.

Car analogies are not only totally irrelevant, but have no alignment to the *nomad* storage and user experience. Like cars though...one size does not fit all.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> I guess someone would have to actually own a *nomad* to have any real idea as to the appropriate storage size - obviously that would exclude any Dish users.


A pretty compelling argument could be made that DISH users know considerably more about using USB connected drives with their equipment than the average DIRECTV user does.


> Car analogies are not only totally irrelevant, but have no alignment to the *nomad* storage and user experience


LaxGuy admitted as much when he made the first automotive analogy.

Storage is storage and if both are operationally equivalent, it comes down to a question of value. Flash drives generally aren't a good value compared to other forms of mass storage when employed in a stationary scenario.


----------



## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

harsh said:


> Storage is storage and if both are operationally equivalent, it comes down to a question of value. Flash drives generally aren't a good value compared to other forms of mass storage when employed in a stationary scenario.


Good value! Storage is storage! Stationary scenario!

This is in your opinion, natch, but: a flash drive requires no external power, has no moving parts, and is way more compact than a USB drive. While more expensive per byte, it's preferred in some applications.


----------



## Diana C (Mar 30, 2007)

Flash drive advantages: small size, low power, reliability (long MTBF)
Flash drive disadvantages: higher cost per byte, total capacity limits, slower access

Hard drive advantages: low cost per byte, much larger potential capacity, high speed
Hard drive disadvantages: physically larger, higher power consumption, shorter MTBF

My humble suggestions....

- Power consumption is a very minor concern
- Few users will need more than the built in memory, fewer still more than double the built in
- Speed of access may be an issue if downloading a large amount of data (however, if downloading while preparing, the Nomad will slow the download anyway, making this a moot point)

Again, to answer the question originally posed: Looks like ANY USB storage device will work.

Editorial comment: having been away from these forums for a few years, it is interesting to see little has changed.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

harsh said:


> A pretty compelling argument could be made that DISH users know considerably more about using USB connected drives with their equipment than the average DIRECTV user does.


Not even close....all wishful thinking.

One either has a *nomad* and know how it works firsthand, and the corresponding storage results - or you don't. Dish user input is pure guesswork if even that.

The various posters here who have a *nomad* already know these things, and the purpose of this thread is to aid the OP in answering the fundamental question - what kinds of storage options there are, if they work, and what kinds of results does a *nomad* user get.

Since there is also no firsthand knowledge by Dish users as to how much storage is used for various program sizes, and also no firsthand idea as to the cumulative total of a typical or even specific user's daily, weekly, or other recording content desired for transport to mobile devices - that's all speculation fluff as well.


----------



## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

Getting away from the various doggy-droppings contaminating the thread from people who have no first-hand knowledge of *nomad*™, I just plugged a Thermaltake drive dock with a spare WD "Green" A/V 1TB drive into mine. No issues formatting and using the space. As soon as I opened up the app on my iPhone and brought up the System Info screen, I got a message that there was a new external drive connected, and asking me if I wished to use it along with a warning that all existing data on the drive would be lost if I agreed. One tap and five seconds later and I was back in business.


----------



## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

That's a LOT of mobile watching! But RR still has you beat!

And you now have 1.016 TB! It is additive.


----------



## techm8n (Jan 3, 2008)

had an extra 160gb laptop hard drive laying around. plugged it into an extra eSata hard drive case and connected to the Nomad. Works perfectly! 

Using the iPhone app on my iPad and it works just fine. I wonder if the video quality will improve or stay the same when the iPad app comes out.


----------



## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

It looks just fine on an iPad. Video quality better? Depends on your likes. I prefer the iPad, but arguably the picture is "better" on the iPhone, as pixel density is higher than on the 'Pad. Mileage varies!


----------



## Diana C (Mar 30, 2007)

techm8n said:


> ...I wonder if the video quality will improve or stay the same when the iPad app comes out.


The Nomad iOS client seems to be using the iPad's native video player (after decrypting the video file) so I expect that the only difference the native iPad client will bring is landscape list support, and possibly a layout more like the Windows client.

IOW, the resolution of playback won't change.


----------



## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Sure, same number of pixels. A question of whether it looks better spread out a bit as on the iPad or tightly packed as on the iPhone. I like them both!


----------



## Diana C (Mar 30, 2007)

Pixel density on the iPhone is 326 pixels per inch (ppi) with 960x640 display. Pixel density on the iPad is 132 ppi with a 1024x768 display. The Nomad encoding format appears to be roughly 480P (720x480) or less than either display. So, of course, the number of pixels displayed are the same. The question was whether or not the native iPad app would have a higher resolution for playback. My point was that resolution will not change since there is no pixel averaging taking place and that the current app's playback mechanism seems to be aware of the slightly higher resolution of the iPad screen (in other words, playback is not going through the (1x/2x conversion the iPad uses when running iPhone apps).


----------



## Diana C (Mar 30, 2007)

BTW, I agree that playback on the iPad is quite good, particularly if you let it run letterboxed. If you try to run it full screen on a PC with a, say, 1440 x 900 display I think the compression artifacts become quite noticeable.


----------



## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Titan25 said:


> [...] the current app's playback mechanism seems to be aware of the slightly higher resolution of the iPad screen


Ya. In this case, the playback mechanism is the stock iPad video player, which is already tuned for optimal playback quality.



> (in other words, playback is not going through the (1x/2x conversion the iPad uses when running iPhone apps).


Exactly. A native app will only present a different UI. Video playback quality won't change.


----------



## Richierich (Jan 10, 2008)

dennisj00 said:


> That's a LOT of mobile watching! But RR still has you beat!
> 
> And you now have 1.016 TB! It is additive.


My 2 TB Drive is Probably Overkill but I was hoping for an Archiving Process associated with Nomad and I am still holding out hope for it even though Stewart Sweet has told me that "It Ain't Gonna Happen" but then again I was told that DLB would Never happen and it did along with other things such as Faster Processors, etc.


----------



## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Wow, didn't think this would break out into a big debate. I went ahead and orderd the Seagate

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ELOSEG/ref=ox_ya_os_product

I'll post here when I get it all up and running.

Now here's a question. What's the easiest way to get all of my series set up to automatically trascode and store on the drive? Do I have to go into each one and set the series to auto transfer to one of my devices? Won't that make it automatically try to download to my device too? I just want everything to get transcoded automatically. That way whenever my wife or I are getting ready for a trip we can just select any of my recordings that we want to take with us and transfer them to either one of our devices. We won't have to wait for any transcoding, just for the transfer.


----------



## KenW (Nov 16, 2005)

I set the Auto mode with my PC, and then (several hours later) fired up the PC client and manually canceled all the pending downloads. A few hours before I left on my trip, I used my iPad client do do the downloads. I agree it would be handy if you could separate these two functions. I also like the suggestion to set a DVR to encode everything. After all, it's only disk space on the nomad.


----------

