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Replacing and upgrading the DVR530 Hard Drive (will Void your warranty!)

100K views 231 replies 82 participants last post by  kcowan 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
About the Author and this thread - ARR is a former Shaw employee who worked for several years assisting the Star Choice team that developed and tested the Star Choice DVR530. He previously posted on the Digital Forum as digitaldude.

This is a revisit of a topic discussed in previous posts and hopes to shed some clarity for those interested.

DISCLAIMER: If your unit is under WARRANTY, then this procedure is NOT recommended.

A little history:

The very initial hard drive in DSR530's were Maxtor, but never went into production with that model as it proved unreliable and not up to the task.

The CE version was chosen for it reliability and performance.
Read the specs here: http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_ce.pdf

A little known fact is that ~ 30K 'special' dsr530's were shipped with the Seagate 250GB hard drives for in house use at a major N.A. auto manufacture that operates their own DCII transponder and had been using Moto DSR4XX units, but needed a DVR and the 530 was the ONLY DCII DVR around.

While its easy to criticize Moto/*C for selecting the 160GB, initial plans which I took over spec'ing originally had the 80GB and the 120GB was only a consideration as they were being used by the cable HD PVR's and only recently in the DCT6416 went to 160GB. I examined the cost and made a case for our current 160GB, so be thankful we got that.


continued....
 
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#82 ·
So I replaced the original drive with a DB35 500(ST3500830ACE), after getting the 530 authorized it rebooted by itself about 15 minutes later. A slight panic with that! Then not a single glitch. It runs quieter, temperature on the old was usually 47, the new drive 44. I noticed jump back or forward has no image delay like the old drive. I didn't notice any other "speed" enhancements as of yet.

Its just nice having the extra hours (below 5 on the old one I would worry!) and faster skip function. Next up, the other 530 after another few months of testing with the current enhancement...

Will MPEG4 double the record time? If so, that would be a easy solution to all that have the 160 drive and would like to record more hours without having a drive upgrade.
 
#83 ·
good to hear

I have also been extremely pleased with my 500Gb DB35. I wish a reliable source for the IDE flavor of this drive in 750GB would appear. They may well be no longer manufactured due to the demise of IDE overall versus SATA as commodity hard drives, but I'm watching Seagate closely to see if they can produce any more and get them into distribution.

The smoothness you are seeing is perhaps due to the large buffer on the drive. And the DB35s are very quiet, I agree.

There is simply no reason this drive should not be stock standard as a means to compete with Bell, et all.

regards,

chmod
 
#86 ·
I am trying to get this straight in my head....

If I understand correctly a larger drive will have have less seeking because of the larger cache and more platters.

So even though a standard 500G drive has a 10% greater power draw, than the original DB35 drive (according to the specs) since it is not being worked as hard it may end up generating the same or less heat?

It it worth the extra trouble and cost finding a DB35 drive or will a ST3500630A drive result in equal heat and noise performance of the stock 160G drive with more storage?

It seems to me that the 500G is the "sweet" spot from a price/capacity viewpoint.

Tom
 
#89 ·
Thank you ARR!

I am brand new here as of tonight, I have owned the 530 for a couple of years now. I have a warranty replacement approximately 1 1/2 years now which is locking up, timer issues etc at a rate that I am not happy with at all. SCR was prompt to call me back after I had emailed them and explained my dilemas then cited my current version 00.E4 was to be replaced this month as SC downloads between 1 and 5 am if the machine remains powered off, so far no upgrade. I am interested in this hard drive replacement as an alternative, I have read many success stories, or should I hold out for hope from SC? My apologies if this query is in the wrong thread, I'll get my DH legs soon...
 
#90 ·
Even the normal Seagate IDE drives are getting hard to find. I couldn't find any at my normal favourite B&M stores, so I had to order one online from canada computers. It shows OOS, but hopefully will be in soon.....

Got my Security bits..... now, just need the HDD.

P
 
#93 ·
Hits dont just randomly get sent out.

And the SAC doesn't care if a receiver on the account hasnt been hooked up for 6 months or 6 minutes. But dont leave your receivers unplugged for too long. It kills the batteries and corrupts the Unit Address.


I'm pretty sure hits get sent to your receiver around month end for your monthly programming.
 
#96 ·
The old 160 GB?

What is needed for the old HDD to work in a PC?

Does it need a low level format or will it work simply by running the Windows XP install CD? Wipe out VxWorks and format with NTFS?

Thanks again ARR, installed the 750 GB a few weeks ago and it's been working like a charm ever since.

Any updates with using external USB drives?
 
#98 ·
USB External Drive

Well, I got ored of waiting for my new 750 gig drive to come in, so I thought I would follow up with the idea of seeing if I could get an external USB drive to work. Well... success! And it was not hard to do either. I opened up the box and removed the drive as explained earlier in this thread. The connector inside connects up to a header on the board inside the machine. I pulled off the connector (off the drive and the board). I took a usb cord (one that connects to the motherboard header on a computer motherboard) and put it on the board header inside the 530.
A motherboard header will have 4 or 5 pins. The connector on the USB cord will have the same number of tiny holes to plug onto the pins. The 530 has 4 pins on it's connector. I was a little concerned because the hard drive cord inside the 530 has the green and red wires reversed from the computer USB cord I replaced it with. Turns out it didn't matter.
I decided that the best way to test this setup was to use the original drive in the external USB case. That way I could see if things were fully functional without going through the effort of factory resetting my machine.
I hooked it all up, plugged the usb external drive into the newly installed USB header cord and started it all up. Everything worked perfectly. I could access all my recorded shows, I recorded new material, and erased as well.
I did not test for hours to affirm stability, but I would be surprised if there would be any problems. So there you go. Great set up if you want to swap drives and have huge amounts of storage space (virtually unlimited actually). The only problem is the encryption. No other machine will read the drive, so if your machine dies, there goes your library.

Cheers all.
FWW
 
#100 ·
Like I said in my last post... still waiting for my 750gig to come in. The thought of going through the effort to mirror the factory 160 to another spare drive just to see if it works seems like a lot of work if I don't plan to use the drive in the end. If it takes yet another week before my new drive comes, I might get bored again though. Who knows.

FWW
 
#106 ·
Now that you can move the HD to an external case I wonder if you can use
a) SATA drives
b) non seagates.
Wasn't the Seagate spec'd because of the little connector board?
Without that, then brand shouldn't matter.

And chances are the USB adapter chip isn't the same as what Moto is using, suggest that the SATA <-> USB shoudl be good as well.

That would certainly alleviate fears of the IDE supply.
man O Man, this just keeps getting better and better.

As for the 505, I don't believe the USB headers are on the board, so SOL. :(
 
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