Shaw Gateway: Adding External Drives

[tttinbc]

Hello all, just had the Gateway installed a few hours ago, the installing tech guy was excellent and everything looks like it's working fine except my 2 tb external drive. Tech had not had any experience with adding an external drive to a Gateway but based on some posts here he did his best to let whoever he was speaking to over the phone know what was required.
1) He confirmed it was added to my account.
2) He asked them to push the code out to the Gateway.

It sounded to me like the person on the other end of the phone was not certain of what was required so I'm not confident he 'pushed' anything out to the Gateway?

No luck getting it up and running when Tech was here before he had to leave for his next appt. He has followed up with me since and recontacted Shaw to inquire further but as of now I still can't get it up and running.

I have it all hooked up and when I go into settings / external hard drive I just get the message to connect an esata hard drive specifically documented for use with a DVR, such as 'DVR Certified'....Have tried recycling both the Gateway and external drive without success.

I am using a common set up based on information on this board:
- Vantec NEXSTAR CX enclosure
- Western Digital 2 tb AV-GP hard drive (WD20EURS)

I live in Vancouver.

Can any of the Shaw employees who post here give me some advice as to what to tell Shaw support when I phone them so they'll understand what is required.

Thanks very much in advance...

Tom

[jorton]

I put the same enclosure and drive on my brothers Gateway about two weeks ago and the Gateway just saw it and prompted for a format. No call to tech support to have a code sent to it etc. He didn't get the installer to do anything special, it just worked.

I would plug it into a PC (if you have one with an esata port...) and see that the drive is visible and working.

I'd like confirmation as well from a Shaw Tech wether or not there is something that has to be done from the office to allow the expander to be used.

[tttinbc]

Thanks very much Jorton for that advice and I now have it working, I dusted off an old PC with esata and hooked it up. It did not recognize the drive at first, so I thought I would just reverse the esata connections from the drive and pc and for some reason that worked.

I assumed it would / should work with the esata cable either way but appears not or maybe there is an issue with the cable.

Am I a moron and does the esata cable have to go in a specific direction.

When I hooked it back into the Gateway running the same direction the Gateway recognized it right away!

Thanks again,

Tom

[jorton]

The cable should work both directions, maybe the cable wasn't making a good connection on one of then ends (cables aren't perfectly made all the time... unfortunately) and it was OK when then the ends were swapped???

[tttinbc]

Yes, once I switched the cable around it worked perfectly. If I have any problems in the next few days I'll just go buy a new esata cable but working fine now.

Thanks again!

Tom

[digital island]

I just wanted to report that I have been using the following setup without issue:

NexStar MX Enclosure
2 x WD 2TB AV-GP in Raid 0

I plugged the drives in, did the reset button on the enclosure and plugged it in to the wall for a few minutes before attaching to the Gateway. When I plugged it in the Gateway, it detected, and asked me to format. After 20 minutes a prompt told me the drive was ready. My available recording space did not update until after I did a new recording after the new drive was attached. It was exactly as predicted. 59% Full Before (500GB). 6% Full After (4,500GB).

I did not have to phone Shaw to have anything special done with the Gateway. It all "just worked". I have since had programs recorded and watched from the enclosure (as evidenced by the HDD activity lights), however I have not been bothered to test multiple simultaneous records, however I expect no issue.

[Reboot]

It has been exactly one month since I set up the identical system, it has worked flawlessly ever since.

[TechGuy8]

Has anyone experience the out of sync problem between the external drive and the gateway similar to the sync problem between the PVR and the external drive?

[amosnov]

Originally Posted by Reboot

It has been exactly one month since I set up the identical system, it has worked flawlessly ever since.

Like to jump on the bandwagon here. My Vantec Nexstar MX as a gateway expander has been rock solid, recording and playing for a couple weeks. Would be happier if Vantec posted more information on how the unit works. What is it doing during housekeeping when both LEDs are on. Bottomline, it's a low cost solution for a gateway expander.

Reading the Mediasonic forum I notice the support getting testy and shooing off Shaw gateway owners rather then showing any interest in investigating their enclosure issues.

[jorton]

Still think it's just the JMicron chipset in the Mediasonic not playing nice with the Gateway and since it's probably a hardware thing they won't be able to fix it so they want them to go away. Some chipsets just don't play nice

My logic being that chipsets that are the same brand are more likely to play nice together.

For example, the Lacie Big4 is the only sort of "approved" external drive for the Gateway/Moxi (Arris). Lacie recommend using a Silicon Image controller in your PC with it (I read this on their support site if I can recall correctly). This implies that they probably are using a Silicon Image chipset in the enclosure so if you were to use another Silicon Image based enclosure you may have the best chance at compatibility. The Nexstar MX is Silicon Image based and works great with the Gateway.

[polarys]

Hey guys - I got my NexStar MX enclosure and now I need to find some drives to fill it. I'd like to get a couple of Western Digital AV-GP 3TB (WD30EURS) - has anyone found any good deals on these bare drives, online or otherwise?

[Reboot]

NCIX always has good prices, drives are always going on sale there

[amosnov]

Good RAID1 results this time. Here's the details...

Hard drives: HD1, HD2 | HD PCB connections: CON1, CON2 | Enclosure LEDs: HDD1, HDD2 | Enclosure: HD1 on CON1, HD2 on CON2
- 44 recordings: 23 recordings internal, 21 recordings on expander
- HDD LED blinks for "failed" drive, except as noted below

Enclosure: HD2 on CON2, HD1 removed
- gateway recognized enclosure, played recordings on enclosure

Enclosure: HD2 on CON1, HD1 removed
- gateway recognized enclosure, played recordings on enclosure

Enclosure: HD1 on CON1, HD2 removed
- gateway requests format

Enclosure: HD1 on CON1, HD2 removed
- hold reset, power-on, count to 10, gateway recognized enclosure, played recordings on enclosure, HDD2 not blinking

Enclosure: HD1 on CON2, HD2 removed
- gateway recognized enclosure, played recordings on enclosure, HDD1 not blinking

Enclosure: HD1 on CON1, HD2 removed
- gateway recognized enclosure, played recordings on enclosure, HDD2 not blinking

At this point I deleted the data on HD2. Under Win7 I initialized HD2 as MBR, created volume, quick format, deleted volume and replaced HD2 in the enclosure on CON2. After reset, the gateway recognized the enclosure. After some seconds both LEDs are on steady indicating data rebuild. When complete I'll pull HD1 to confirm rebuild on HD2.

The enclosure should continue to operate without intervention whether the first drive to fail is HD1 or HD2 but if the gateway fails to recognize the good drive (i.e. sees drive but requests format), an enclosure reset may bring it back online.

[amosnov]

In sum, this enclosure in RAID 1 mode not only works as advertised but seems well engineered for robustness and protection of data (for example, it is unfazed, if you replace a "good" drive on the "wrong" connector, just don't forget reset).

To check RAID 1 data rebuild after I destroyed the data on HD2, I pulled HD1 from the enclosure and reconnected enclosure with only HD2. The gateway recognized the enclosure, HDD1 was blinking. I checked that all recordings dated before data was destroyed had been recovered. Result is 100% recovery.

For some reason after I replaced back HD1 it's in housekeeping mode again (both HD LEDs on steady). Err on the side of caution I guess. The housekeeping period is closer to 1.5 days for 3TB, so somewhere between 1 to 2GB/min.

[polarys]

FYI, anyone looking to buy bare drives (i.e. me) -- if you're wondering why prices are going up and stock is being depleted, it's because of the recent floods in Thailand. It doesn't look like things will get back to normal (HD market wise) until at least March of next year:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...consumers_most