esata 2TB external DAS

Which replacement drives can you use and which do people recommend?

esata 2TB external DAS

Postby brushedmoss » Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:29 am

Anyone any thoughts on adding an external disk pod ? I'm considering getting a unit like this http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=329129 , connected to HDD board with http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=335641 which will allow me to put 2 x 1TB disks in, with RAID 0, which will do some good things like;

1)the box will present itself as 1 2TB disk
2)RAID 0 will double the read/write speed, allowing me to put the disks in quiet mode without fear of performance / seek problems associated with jerky video
3)will be external to the HDD box, preventing the overheating / noisy fan issues
4)supports usb, so can directly attach to pc, to run copy+ without usual tomfoolery of screwdrivers and cables
5)allows me to leave existing drive untouched, no breaking warranty seal

anyone know of copy+ will have issues with >1TB ?
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Re: esata 2TB external DAS

Postby pcbbc » Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:25 pm

Hi,

People have tried the Thecus unit over at AV Forums quite successfully with 2 x 500GB drives. This was before the native 1TB drives became available. However there were occasional issues, and the feeling was an internal drive was much better, and most (if not all) original Thecus users have moved that way.

However, various users have since tried 2 x 1TB in similar enclosures (see later in the same thread) and it doesn't work.
More recently someone else tried again (different unnamed enclosure) and we discovered this worked, but gave only a 8.5GB capacity as seen by the SkyHD box! :o

This appeared to be an addressing limit in the Sky firmware, as a drive correctly formatted by Copy+ to 2TB was recognised by the box. Unfortunately all the recordings would not play and the box would not record. The reason was anything past the 8.5GB boundary could not be read or written by the Sky box, and all the recordings are stored a way into the drive (i.e. past 8.5GB). Contriving a disk size such that copied recordings sat spanning the boundary, showed some played and some did not. This was consistent with which side of the boundry they were recorded.

So - This appears to be some kind of addressing limit in the Sky firmware, we assumed triggered by the roll over from 31 to 32 bit disk addresses required to address > 1,099 GB.

So 2, 3, 4 and 5 are all potentially good ideas. But 1 is a non-starter (at least at the moment) for anything over 1,099 GB I'm afraid.

Cheers, Stuart.
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Postby Peter88 » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:41 am

Am I right in assuming this is only a 2Tb limit? so anything lower would work?
It is a shame when there are limits, but life is full of them.

Has anyone gone the other route? Actually build a new box? Presumably the firmware is known? and could therefore be changed. There would be many improvements that could follow.

Provided it doesn't invlove stealing sky programmes, it would be legal.

Just thinking outside the box.... :roll:
Peter88
 

Postby pcbbc » Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:18 pm

I'm sure I replied to this, but my post seems to have got lost - sorry.

Peter88 wrote:Am I right in assuming this is only a 2Tb limit? so anything lower would work?
Please read the above. There is a limit at 1,099GB. :roll:

Has anyone gone the other route? Actually build a new box?
What, built their own PVR from scratch? That would be quite an undertaking.
Of course people build media centre PCs, and also Linux boxes for this purpose.
And then there's Dreambox - but that is based on commercially available hardware from a now defunct pay TV provider.

Presumably the firmware is known? and could therefore be changed. There would be many improvements that could follow.
Not by me it isn't. Copy+ was developed purely by examining the functionality from outside the box by looking at the disk format produced by the box. No reverse engineering of the software at all.

I'm not really sure what you are driving at here anyway. "Knowing" the firmware wouldn't be of much, if any use. In order to make improvements (other than the odd patch here and there) you'd require the actual source code. And probably much better to start from scratch anyway.
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