Hooked up a SATA drive to 9200!

[Altaman]

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.

Alt

[Battscrew]

Congrats - this is good news

[Jeffy]

For reference, about how much ($) is the Maxtor 7Y250M0 ??

[Altaman]

Paid $159 for it...not a bad price at all, case cost me all of $16 I believe (the case was on sale at www.tigerdirect.ca).

Alt

[hugh]

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!

[57]

Various SATA drives, connectors and enclosures have been discussed a lot in the following thread for those interested...

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/for...ad.php?t=23773

[Altaman]

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

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

Alt

[North_of_Calgary]

Great job Alta.... looking forward to the pics... very tempted to try following in your steps.

The real key piece of information is will it work on a 9200 that is experiencing the 0551 error? Your broken one has probably gone back already eh?

[Altaman]

Yep went back...however anyone in Calgary that wants to try it in a 0551 system let me know and I can come over with the drive.

Alt

[Crispy]

Altaman ,

So the external drive takes over and the internal is then not recognized any further ?

Crispy

[Altaman]

Actually there is only one sata connector inside, so you have to disconnect the internal drive to use the external. Will say as well that the 9200 is alot cooler to the touch now as well.

Alt

[hugh]

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)?

[Altaman]

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.

Alt

[peano]

I must assume the 9200 "remarried" the new hard drive to the receiver, embedded smart card and boxkey data. Strange they would allow this.

[Altaman]

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!

Alt