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Hooked up a SATA drive to 9200!

42K views 62 replies 28 participants last post by  Snoman 
#1 ·
Well picked up a Maxtor 7Y250M0 drive to test on the 9200 and PRELIMINARY testing shows it works! I have recorded and played back two shows at the same time with no problems (this was only for about 10 minutes each but it seems to work at least initally.

Now some of you may say why would you want to do this??

#1 The external case has it's own cooling fan so the drive will not cause extra heat in the 9200.

#2 Buying the extra drive allows you to not remove the tamper sticker, so warranty will not be an issue.

#3 After the warranty is over when a drive fails I can just replace it with another.

#4 If/when they allow USB drives I can use the drive for more space.

#5 This will allow me to record off my second 9200 and move the drive between my two 9200's depending on where I want to watch.

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#5 ·
Congratulations!

Can you give us some more information? Enclosure and cables that you used?
What happened when you hooked it up and turned it on?
If you remove the external drive or shut it off, does anything get screwed up?

Inquiring minds want to know!
 
#7 · (Edited by Moderator)
Well lets see, it is a ADS Tech IDE to USB2 case converted to SATA sorta for my inital testing (I have proper connectors/external sata cables on order). I removed the IDE to USB electronics from the case and added an internal sata cable with both the power and data line on one connector. The sata power connection has a connector for the standard 4 pin power connector to convert over.

The connector for the SATA controller inside the 9200 is a SATA type "A" as seen here courtesy of macguru's (whom I have ordered the proper cables from). BTW eSATA is for external connections, which BTW you can not find in Calgary and provides shielded cable allowing for longer cable and data integrity!

Sata comparision image

When powered up with the 9200 the drive seems to be recognized immediately and does not come up with any warning or anything to format??? Guess it just does it!

I have not tried powering down the drive with it connected to the 9200 as I do not want to tempt fate, but if there was a power loss of both the 9200 and the drive I would suspect that the same thing would happen as would happen to the stock drive ;). Perhaps once BEV/DishNetwork add the ability to allow the user to run a utility to fix errors on drives I will test fate!

The only thing that I have not figured out is how I am going to get an external connector onto the 9200 case as I do not want to void the warranty. If it was out of warranty I woulde not hesitate to make a spot in the case for the connector.

This is one thing that irks me, the broadcom chip in the 9200 is capable of providing dual channel SATA, so why did Dishnetwork only provide one connection :confused:

Once I get everything the way I want I will try to post pics.

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#12 ·
Ahh, I'm not a 9200 owner so the penny just dropped!

You're using this drive as a replacement to the 9200 drive rather than augmenting the existing drive (like those with the SA 8300HD are)?
 
#13 ·
Yes Hugh you are correct!

However my plan is more devious that...when/if they enable USB I will then have another 250 gigs to use as well. Being that this model Maxtor is in the firmware, it SHOULD allow me to use the drive with a SATA/USB2 case. But for now it will be my main drive, keeping the 9200 cooler and allow me to move the drive between my two 9200's. So in essence I will have 50hrs of HD programming and can watch either in the HT or in the livingroom.

BTW by 50hrs I mean I plan on getting another Maxtor (the WD models are very difficult to find as not just any WD2500JD will work, they are much more specific in the model #'s.

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#15 ·
Hi Peano:

According to a person at www.satelliteguys.us it works the same way as the 5200 in that:

Same as the 522 drive swap, there's no software on that one either, just the file system which is automagically created when the box is booted with an empty or corrupt drive. All the software is in the firmware, not on the drive.
This stands to logic as the 9200 works with the drive turned off and with the 0551 error. So no harm/no foul!

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#16 ·
So would this mean you could connect the drive once it's full of content to transfer the HD material to a computer for manipulation and possible conversion to XVID or something?
 
#18 ·
I wonder if you could load an unencrypted MPEG2 video from your PC onto the SATA drive and then bring it to the 9200. In other words, rip a DVD in the normal manner and (after some walking back and forth) play back the DVD Rip on your 9200. This would work if the 9200 would basically say, "Oh, look, a unencrypted PVR show. I can play those too..." I'm thinking that the PVR would be capable of playing unencrypted files if they're in the correct format and file structure.

Another interesting and related test would be to record the FTA BEV Barker Channels to see if the PVR simply records the DVB bitstream for the broadcasts (using the SmartCard as the only encryption layer). If so, then the FTA Barker Channels PVR recording might be unencrypted on the disk. In other words, check Lyngsat to confirm the unencrypted BEV Barker channel numbers, record some of that, and then check those PVR files on the PC to see if they're wide open. I'm thinking that they might be open.

Neither of the above is hacking BEV; it is simply confirming the capabilities of the Disk I/O and checking that the disk encryption is simply the SmartCard layer. I can't see any reason why they would use any other encryption layer other than the SmartCard. The Barker Channel test would be very interesting...
 
#19 · (Edited)
I like you're style Jeffy.

From reading the thread 57 posted on the Rogers' STBs, the 9200 (like the Rogers' STBs) may use a file system similar to Linux (some guy was going to verify if he could even see the files on the harddrive (after the STB formatted it) with Linux but never replied with his findings). If that's the case then you wouldn't be able to get your Win computer to write files to or read files from the drive in the correct file system. However if Linux's file system is the same as the STB file system then in theory you could copy the files over. The only thing is that I think the STB relies on it's indexes to determine what's on the harddrive, not actually reading the files (unsure on this of course). I wish somebody with Linux would test this just to see if the OS can even recognize the STB formatted files from the harddrive.

I am interested in your FTA channel idea but it would depend on having an operating system that uses (or can recognize) the file system of the STB.

In theory if the STB used the same file system as Linux, and you could read the contents of the harddrive from Linux, what happens if the files are encrypted? Would the OS just say "sorry can't open these files because they are encrypted, would it just not see the files if they are encrypted, what happens?". I know encryption is usually based on two keys but not sure how OSs handle this on files.
 
#20 ·
I have successfully recorded numerous shows, also had two shows record while watching a previous recording with no problems. I have also looked at a show that was recording while another was recording and I was was watching the other previous recording and there again was no problems.

The only thing I found was that when recording two shows and watching a third you could slightly hear the HDD head moving. The 9200 and the external drive are both out in the open, not in any entertainment unit. The external case also is slightly open due to waiting on the cables I ordered to properly cable the external case & 9200. Overall I think the use of the Maxtor is a success, the only qestion that remains is how well the Maxtor will stand up to PVR usage. I would hope that seeing as the drive is in the 9200 firmware that it would be able to handle the 9200 PVR.

I am going to try and pick up another 2 or 3 of these drives (one for my second 9200 and two will become spare drives for future use (drive failure and/or if the USB port becomes enabled to allow a second drive).

As to Jeffys question I do not have a SATA controller on my PC so I can't tell you what can/can't be done by adding files to the HDD. I would suspect however that the 9200 will not read them as they are not in the 9200 encrypted format and also I believe that the 9200 indexes files it has recorded for playback.

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#22 ·
ignax1 said:
So how do you get at the SATA connector without opening the case, or is the tamper sticker internal? What external enclosure did you use. Can 2 drives be connected at same time or is strictly a one-at-a-time deal? Does only the SATA cable come out of the 9200 or something more like power cables?
The Tamper proof sticker is placed across the drive on the inside. The 9200 has a single SATA drive connector, and a standard PC power connector.

You have to disconnect the onboard drive to run the external one. Using the external bay reduces the power consumption of the 9200 (which should also help it run cooler).
 
#26 ·
wildchild22 said:
Can you send me a link for the cables needed? I see in the digitalhome canada post you have a pic posted but AI am unsure of what I need.
Well I just got in the cables I ordered and I forgot to order one that I need. I am going to test to see how things work with what I have (making sure length is not an issue).

At Any rate what I would recommend is the following:


6" Chassis mount Cable_male-female - GD1072 (for inside the external case, which are the ones I forgot to order :( )

18" Chassis mount Cable_male-female - MC18MF (for inside the 9200)

1 meter Shielded External SATA w/ Type B to Type B (eSATA) - MC39EX-BB (esata cable to connect case to 9200)

The reason for the esata is that esata is shielded and the connectors for esata are much more robust that the regular sata cables, meaning they will be able to handle insertion/removal much better.

This is where I got the cables from:

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/SATACables.php

As I forgot to order the 6" ones, I am going to test with the longer ones to see whether there are any problems with the length.

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