Shaw Gateway: Adding External Drives

[Reboot]

Well, you've got me there...what is your drive enclosure?

[jorton]

What enclosure are you using?

[rp_guy]

One vantec nexstar 3 esata and the other is a velocity esata

[Reboot]

If neither of them is being recognized have you tried replacing the eSata cable?

[jorton]

Do you have another esata cable you can try? I did once have an enclosure that didn't register until I swapped the cable.

[jorton]

@reboot - looks like we're on the same wavelength tonight

[Reboot]

Yup, you've got me smiling

[rp_guy]

Actually each drive has its own cable so I doubt it's that. I'll try a 3rd esata cable though

i just tried deleting the partition on one and leaving it as unformatted, still not working (previously had it as ntfs)

[jorton]

The drives don't need to be formatted before connecting, the Gateway formats with its own file system.

How long are you waiting for it to appear?

I have waited for awhile on occasion and then the message to format pops up. Maybe just let it sit for awhile and see what happens???

What size drive 2TB?

[polarys]

I finally found a Canadian site that sells the WD AV-GP (WD20EURS) drives (memorydepot.com) so I got two 2TB drives to run in RAID-0 mode in a Vantec NexStar MX NST-400MX-SR enclosure. Popped the drives into the enclosure, plugged it into the Gateway, and by the time I got back to my living room it had detected the drive and offered to format. Within 30 minutes it had finished formatting and the recording space went from 87% full to 8% full. Nice! The enclosure and drives do make some noise, but since I have the Gateway in the garage it's not a big deal - but it's not something I'd want sitting in my living room next to the TV.

[rp_guy]

just left the drive for 3 hours, still nothing. one 1.5tb green, the other 1tb green. not sure what else to try, i'll let the gateway shut down for 5 mins maybe and try again

[Jetranger]

I thought there were issues with the 'green' drives and Gateway but I do seem to recall someone had posted that they had one or more working with their Gateway. I'm not as familiar with this thread as most others since I just use the Shaw expander and it had no issues. Do you have a 'non-green' drive you can try connecting to see if that is the issue?

Edit: See this post on the previous page of this very thread, 304

[jorton]

I've had 2x WD EARS 2TB in a Nexstar Vantec MX in Raid 0 and a single WD EARS 2TB in a Nexstar Vantec CX. Both worked for me for about a week each when I was testing them out last summer. I later switched to the WD AV-GP 2TB drives for 24/7 DVR use.

Just odd that you don't get anything happening with either enclosure. Did the concierge have any thoughts?

[rp_guy]

no i think the green drives aren't good in a RAID enclosure but as single drives there shouldn't be a problem, especially on a first power up (they tend to sleep too often but that shouldn't occur right after switching them on)

concierge said they don't give support to 3rd party drives (ie not expanders). so i asked them to add the code and let me troubleshoot.. which is giving me a rough time already


i just tried the drives on an ESATA port on my computer, was recognized like it was on usb, so it's not the cable or the drives..

also just modified the park head sleep on the green drive using wdidle3.exe /d, still no effect.

[GamerGuy]

I have read elsewhere in the past others to have had issues with Green drives in exterior enclosures. Not Gateway specific but PVR related at least. (NCIX forums)

I to am using a Nexstar Vantec CX, with a Seagate 1.5TB drive with no issues. I'm actually quite please how the Gateway deals with exterior drives. I couldn't "disconnect" on my Pace box. I had to power cycle the whole system if the cable got jiggled even. The Gateway at least carries on in those instances.