SA8300HD - External SATA Drive Works, Please Read Post 1 and Post 1 Links

[Tom Neumann]

Hi,

I have a Maxtor Quickview Expander that I bought (I think) a couple of years ago. It works fine and it basically invisible.

I have had, since I got it, the odd case of sound dropping out momentarilly. A review plays the sound without problem. I know a number of people have commented on this in the past and it is a minor issue to me. I thought the latest software upgrade might have gotten rid of this annoyance but it hasn't.

Are any of you that have external drives *never* having this happen? Is it an issue with this type of drive that would be cured with another type of drive or is it one of those things that we all put up with?

Thanks for your comments,

Tom

[peter m. wilson]

Hi,
I've got Maxtor 250 & 300. Seagate 320 & 750.

Since I cull my drives on an ongoing basis the frame of the pretty box with the luminated Blue circumfrance has been put asiude for now except for it's electronic power facia.

My SATA cable is plugged directly into all hd/drvs.
Again, power connection from OutBoard box is connected to hard drives. I always unplug O/B setup from power bar leaving on/off switch always in the on position.

The Seagate 750 has had hiccups but often is fine for 20 or 30hrs of HD recording.

The smaller drives have had very few issues that I was not to blame for

Peter M.

[tekdawg]

This Thermaltake Case is cool BUT it not transportable as it does NOT have a external power adapter.. it is meant only to drop off of your PC.

Cheers

[AVRoe]

Originally Posted by BJC

Last night I went to touch the Kingwin case to see how hot it gets. A static electricity spark jumped to the box and I heard the HD in it spin down and my picture froze (the LED's on the case did not go off). I changed the channel but it didn't switch for about 10 seconds and then everything was fine again. WHEW!!! Maybe it's the cases overcurrent protection spinning down the drive. I wonder if the fan spinning is causing or adding to the static?

BJC, glad you found something that worked out, sounds like you got it for a good price as well. I paid $41 for the Kingwin, and about $26 for the cable from NCIX back in late 2005. Yours came in for half of that.

As far as your static incident, that is very strange. I would say it is most likely you that had the charge, given the cold/dry air, and the case provided the ground. But, it should have acted as a faraday cage and kept it away from the drive, vs interrupting or spinning it down. Perhaps it could be a problem with the ground on your AC outlet. Try touching something else grounded first (e.g. the 8300Hd case), and then the external case. If it still happens, then it is not you with the charge, but the case building it up.

My enclosure has been running over a year, and the HDD never spins down, it stays fairly warm to the touch, but not hot. I expected the fan to quit by now, but still going.

I just checked my Nexstar again to see what cable it had, as I haven't done that in quite a few months. Then I realized it is the USB/eSATA version as well (360SU-BK), and then I looked on their website and they have USB on all their versions. I'm not sure what I was thinking in my post, but we'll have to see when I go try that one. At least it works without issue for a few.

[BJC]

Ya, I seem to be the source of the static.
Strange that the computer bracket that came with my Vantec case is the L-type eSATA connector on both ends (don't know how this would plug into any motherboard) and my friend that bought the same case got one with the I-type SATA connector on the motherboard end and eSATA on the bracket end.
I do see the odd glitch maybe once or twice a day, but this may be in the originating signal from Rogers. There aren't many, if any, more glitches than it seemed to have before I added the drive. Any way to tell where it originates?

[peter m. wilson]

Hi,

Last summer I ordered a 6' SATA 1-2 cable from the US.
Anyone know of either CDN suppliers of longer cable or some way of daisy chaining cable?

If your wondering why. I've cut a 3" grommet hole in the baseboard connecting office & HT. Logitech's RF stuff has ebough juice to allow wireless control.

Thanks,
Peter M.

[xnappo]

FYI - I am maintaining a drive compatibility database here:

http://www.baseportal.com/baseportal/xnappo/main

Sorry if someone already mentioned this. Your inputs are appreciated!

If you are don't have an AVSForum account - please put your digitalhome username instead and mention that in your comment.

Hope you find it useful!

Thanks in advance,
xnappo

[thegrommit]

Samsung SP2504C and a Vantec NST-360SU work fine out of the box. No stutters experienced while simultaneously recording and watching a 30 minute show.

[kwguy]

I'm just about ready to buy what I need from NCIX but want to bounce it off the group before I place the order.

They have two different 500MB WD drives
WD500KS
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/produ...sp?driveid=214
WD500YS
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/produ...sp?driveid=238

I've read on the forum that many have had success with the WD500KS, but can't find any mention of the WD500YS. The YS has a 5 year warranty opposed ot 3 years on the KS.

For the external case I have chosen:
Thermaltake Silver River Duo
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/produc...2396/a2396.asp

Is there any reason to expect these not to work together?

Thanks.

[Gungawa]

Just to let you guys know of another success in adding more HD space to the SA8300HD. I just hooked up the the Kinwin KH350SE-BK enclosure coupled with a Western Digital 320G HD and the combo works!!!. Will keep you posted if I run into problems.

[dishguy1977]

Ok...very confused...

I've decided it's time to upgrade and I've looked over this very long thread, the summary posts, etc but I am still not clear...

Is there a definitive "recommended" solution of components I can purchase and build that will have no hiccups or develop any problems down the road...I'm not talking about the Maxtor Quickview Expander which I know about but is very expensive.

Do we still need this elusive SATA I to SATA II cable or is this no longer required on newer SATA enclosures??

I've thinking about this setup...

Kingwin KH-350SE-BK external enclosure
http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.a...teID=27&ID=309

and the WD3200KS.

The enclosure has an eSATA connection on the back...does this mean I can just use an eSATA to eSATA cable which might even come with the enclosure?? I guess what I can't figure out is if the connector on the back of the 8300HD is SATA I or SATA II (eSATA).

Sorry for the long winded post but I am excited to finally do this and want to go pickup the pieces tomorrow!!

[dishguy1977]

Originally Posted by Gungawa

Just to let you guys know of another success in adding more HD space to the SA8300HD. I just hooked up the the Kinwin KH350SE-BK enclosure coupled with a Western Digital 320G HD and the combo works!!!. Will keep you posted if I run into problems.

Ooops...didn't see this post before I posted my long winded question...sorry...

Did the correct cable come with the enclosure??

[pm47]

I've been following this thread for a while -- here's what I've seen with my SA8300HD, WD 5000KS 500GB drive and Vantec Nexstar NST-360SU-BK enclosure.

• I see glitches every 5 minutes or so when recording 2 HD channels and watching one of them. Just watching one HD show and not recording, the glitches seem to happen a little less often.
• Without the drive connected, there are no glitches.
• The glitches must be happening on the path towards the drive, since they are recorded on the disk. Whenever there's a glitch, if I rewind a bit and re-play, the glitch is there in the same spot.
• Bypassing the enclosure's circuit as suggested by post #891 didn't help.
• Inserting the drive's jumper to limit it to 150MB/s didn't help or make it worse. Without the jumper, it's supposed to be 300MB/s.
• I watched the "QAM Channel Status" diagnostic page (pg. 15) while recording two HD shows, and the "Overflows" counter on channel 5 or 6 or both incremented whenever there was a glitch. According to this page, this indicates DMA buffer overflows.
• When playing back a recorded glitch, the Overflows counters don't increment.

All of this suggests that the glitches are happening inside the PVR when a DMA buffer overflows, presumably because some part of the datapath between the QAM tuners and the drive isn't keeping up or is bursty. I don't think it can be as simple as the drive being too slow, or it would have gotten worse with the 150MB/s jumper (unless the PVR isn't really pushing 300MB/s to the drive anyway).

So I haven't got a solution and I'm out of ideas. Maybe somebody who knows more about QAM tuners and the 8300HD can make sense of this. Any other ideas of things to try, or do we need to just wait and hope some future firmware upgrade fixes this?

Thanks.

[exraver]

I have combination of Vantec/Seagate 500 MB for 4 months now, and I think problems are only with Rogers: some channels (TMNHD) will give me perfect recording always, some are OK (4-5 glitches in 1 hour show), some are really bad, so I think its problem with bandwidth. I live in South Etobicoke, Lakeshore.

[57]

If the problem were with Rogers signal/bitrate, the issues would not be occuring only when an external drive is connected, as has been happening to most of the people who mention these issues.

It is possible that the signal strength is somehow inadequate when two drives are connected and that may be worth checking...

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17719