Adding a SATA Drive To Pace HDPVRs.

[bobair]

P.S. for those of you using an external drive - According to Shaw, and from my experience, do not plug the external hard drive power into the power outlet on the back of the PACE DVR. I'm unsure why this is the case, but I simply couldn't get things stable until I plugged the drive into a wall outlet.

[boseman]

I noticed that the Vantec NST-360SU-BK is a esata/USB 2.0 enclosure and wonder if people have had any problems connected via esata to their Pace 775 box? I have heard that dual interfaces can lead to problems. I can't seem to find a Vantec that is just esata

I have a couple of WD5000YS 500 GB RAID drives kicking about and thought for under $50 I'd toss one in a box and hook it up.

[Senk]

I've had no issues with my Vantec NST-360SU-BK.

[joel999]

I read that this box now supports 1TB+ hard drives. Has anyone had the chance to try this out? Will this work with a 1.5TB drive?

joel

[Kritiker]

I have an ancient drive enclosure that I am retiring from service and thought that I might use it only to house and power a SATA drive and then use a SATA to SATA cable (the kind used to connect SATA drives to a motherboard) to connect the drive directly to a Pace Aspen I am considering getting. Any advice? Have I overlooked something?

Does the Pace Aspen have an eSATA or a SATA connector? Is it a jack ("female") or plug ("male")? I can't quite tell from the online manual and I don't yet have a unit to inspect.

Thanks.

[rotorboy]

Hi all,

I purchased the Iomega UltraMax 500GB for my Pace PVR.

Initially, the HD works fine. The PVR recognizes it, prompted for formatting and I was off to the races.

I noticed the % used was down to 11% from 46% so I assumed the HD was recognized and working.

I started recording a program to test it out. Within 30 minutes, the PVR froze, freezing the program I was watching (and recording). After a minute or two, the PVR seemed to 'hard reboot', going through all the startup codes. This time I was not prompted to format the HD.

I tried accessing the PVR (after allowing several minutes to download the programming again) but just kept getting the message that the 'DVR is unavailable' or something to that degree.

I left the unit alone for a couple of hours but the same message appeared.

I then tried powering down (as per the instructions), disconnecting the SATA cable, powering on the PVR without the external HD. That seemed to work again.

I then tried re-installing the HD (as per the instructions) but the same thing happened.

Now, after two separate calls to Shaw, a technician is booked to come by.

I am thinking it is some incompatibility or the Iomega drive is flawed somehow. I am thinking of returning the Iomega for something else.

Any thoughts?

[rotorboy]

Originally Posted by Kritiker

I have an ancient drive enclosure that I am retiring from service and thought that I might use it only to house and power a SATA drive and then use a SATA to SATA cable (the kind used to connect SATA drives to a motherboard) to connect the drive directly to a Pace Aspen I am considering getting. Any advice? Have I overlooked something?

Does the Pace Aspen have an eSATA or a SATA connector? Is it a jack ("female") or plug ("male")? I can't quite tell from the online manual and I don't yet have a unit to inspect.

Thanks.

Kritiker,

The Pace Aspen has a SATA connector. Shaw told me the drive has to be eSata (not a SATA drive as specified in the manual).

Having said that... I'm having problems with my eSata drive on the same PVR you have.

[Kritiker]

Originally Posted by rotorboy

The Pace Aspen has a SATA connector. Shaw told me the drive has to be eSata (not a SATA drive as specified in the manual).

I finally got, and have now had a chance to examine, a Shaw Pace Aspen PVR and, despite being labelled SATA, the connector on my PVR is actually an eSATA connector (see the bottom left image at http://www.homestead.co.uk/categoryi...sata+esata.jpg).

So my question now has become whether I can use a SATA drive, housed in and powered by an old enclosure, connected with a SATA (for the drive) to eSATA (for the Aspen) cable. Based on a few reports in this thread I think this should work but would appreciate confirmation from someone who has successfully done it.

Did it work and did it work reliably? Has anyone done it and found it not to work?

[billdag]

All the hard drives are SATA (not counting old IDE drives) and become Esata drives when mounted in case with Esata port. I'm using a 1TB SATA drive in a Nexstar Vantec NST-360SU-BK case (about $40 Cdn when on sale). This is a combination USB/Esata case which has worked perfectly for several weeks. The only downside is that only about 700 GB is recognized as it was married to the Aspen before the 13.56 firmware update. I suspect I will have to wipe out the drive and re-format to get the full capacity. Too bad I have about 20 Movies already loaded on it and unwatched. Even with the lower 700 GB recognized I still have an estimated 150 Hrs. of HD capacity - not bad!
Another case may work for you but a lot of them don't! Pace recommends dedicated Esata cases (no USB) but the Vantec combo works great.

[dgphotos]

This is according to Shaw Cable Tech (who looked up his Pace list):

Edge: DiscGo Model TBM120
Maxtor: ModelNo R42JER0E
Seagate: ModelNo ST30500SCA109-RK
ST31000SCA109-RK
WD: ModelNo WD5000F032
WDG1S5000
iOmega 34172

I was trying a Vantec eSata Case with either a WD 500 or 640GB drive but neither worked. Just got my hands on an iOmega DVR Expander Drive 500GB (matching the last one on their list).

Will report shortly.

Dean

[dgphotos]

Further to my earlier reply to this thread, things seem to be working well with my Pace 776D and the iOmega 500GB drive ... from 28% full down to 6% after the format and incorporation of the drive. It did ask me to format and I had to say Yes. Also, like the other member said, only took about 3 minutes, maybe less, just like the Windows Quick Format instead of the Full.

Will keep using this and posting my observations, hope I don't encounter the freezing problems, etc. mentioned earlier. Great!!! London Drugs sell the HDD unit for about $179. More money than my DIY version but this one works!

Thanks.

[CHrisCHu]

Originally Posted by Kritiker

So my question now has become whether I can use a SATA drive, housed in and powered by an old enclosure, connected with a SATA (for the drive) to eSATA (for the Aspen) cable. Based on a few reports in this thread I think this should work but would appreciate confirmation from someone who has successfully done it.

Did it work and did it work reliably? Has anyone done it and found it not to work?

For testing purposes, I tried with success (along with bumps on the way) using an SATA-to-eSATA cable hooked up to a bare drive (it's my old Toshiba laptop drive Fujitsu 100G 2.5" 5400rpm SATA). I then ran an SATA power connector all the way from my desktop PC to power the drive. After the necessary boot up sequence, the Pace reformatted its internal HDD without prompting for confirmation! I totally didn't expect formatting without prompt but I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I ran a bare drive without enclosure.

Next, the Pace restarted itself and again cycled thru' those A**A diagnostic codes on the front display and this time it prompted for formatting the external HDD. After that and yet another boot up sequence everything seemed to work fine. Since all programmings had been wiped out (along with all the programming schedules) on the internal HDD, I had to record hours and hours of HD junk into the internal HDD before I could test out recordings on the external HDD. I confirmed with the diagnostic page and by unplugging the external HDD drive that it indeed recorded programs onto the external HDD properly. I also tried fastfoward and rewind programs with various speeds and they all worked fine.

I then tried a few different sequences of plugging/unplugging/power-up/down and figured out that as long as the external HDD is not being read/written, I can get away with unplugging the external HDD momentarily without crashing the Pace (not recommended).

[boseman]

Well so far so good with my Vantec NST-360SU-BK and my WD5000YS RE2 500GB drive. It's been up and running for about 90 days and other than the usual Shaw problems with reception all has been good.

One thing I have noticed is all of my recordings have been stored on the external drive leaving the internal one clear. I don't know if that is normal but it seems to work although I haven't stored enough to span the two drives.

[CHrisCHu]

Just picked up my 2nd Pace 776D box (2nd as in for another room, not for replacement) today from my local Shaw (Vancouver) and also picked up the parts to build my external HDD from NCIX (nGear USB/eSATA 3.5" aluminum box $29 and Hitachi 1TB $70 after rebate, both on sale). The only reason I picked up a 1TB drive instead of something bigger is simply because of price (cf $139CDN for 1.5TB on sale).

The new Pace box is running SW ver 75.73 and Firmware version 13.56.

From the 22 DVR STATUS page

:
:
DRIVE TOT SIZE REM SIZE EST TIME LEFT
----------- --------- --------- ----------------
1 (media) 990GB 990GB (100%) 733/200 hours
:
:


From the 23 HDD STATUS page
SERIAL NUMBER : STF604.....................
MODEL NUMBER : Hitachi HDT721010SLA360
LOCATION/TYPE : EXTERNAL / SATA
FRAGMENTED/MAX FILES : 0 / 0
TOTAL SIZE : 1000gb
:
:

So far everything seems to work fine. I have about 7 hours worth of recordings on the internal drive and recording both tuners on HD channels right now (have about 1 hour total so far) and at the same time watching and cueing previous recordings from either drive seem fine so far (touch wood).

FYI, I go for the rental program for the HDDVR box because:

1. all rental box are Pace and I don't want to wait for external HDD capability with the Motorola,
2. I don't want to deal with warrantee expiring in 3 years (I've had STBs failed on me after warrantee period before),
3. and I want to have the option to change box if something newer/better comes up.

[grouch potato]

Ok, if I understand this correctly a firmware update raised the 750 gig limit, so it is now 1 tb, or more... Anyone happen to know what the new limit is?

Anyone have any luck getting a 1.5 tb or 2 tb setup working?