Adding Larger Internal HDD to Rogers 8642 PVR - Read Post 1

[57]

watchkeeper

1. Your post was moved to this existing sticky, please read post one and the link there, along with other earlier posts. A 1TB SATA WD Black is recommended. (around $140 now?)

2. You cannot use an eHDD without a working iHDD. There's also a sticky on eHDD.

3. Here's the SA FAQ which contains a post on repair info:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17719

4. Here's a post useful for those "new" to the forum - FAQs, Search Tips, Optimization, etc

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741

[roadcarver]

I can confirm that the WD - WD10EALX works with the 8642 PVR.

A couple of questions:

How do I open that 'debug' terminal to see the actual HDD space left?

Is there a way to stop a currently recording program from recording further?

[57]

The diagnostics no longer contains the information on HDD space. Go to List, Preferences, press "B" for Space remaining.

Tune to the channel, press Stop. Or go to "list - scheduled recordings, highlight programme, delete" or something like that.

[roadcarver]

Thanks 57 for the help and instructions.

[Mr.Nobody]

I received a Western Digital 500GB Caviar Blue (WD5000AAKX - SATA 6 Gb/s - 3.5 Inch - 7200rpm - 16 MB cache) as part of a barebones computer kit. Not needing 500GB of space in a computer, after testing the drive with a WinXP installation and running some tests (everything ok), I thought I'd swap this new drive with the 160GB drive (WD Caviar Blue) in my PVR.

The install was easy and seemed to go perfectly. However, after test recording 2x 30-minute HD programs, the 'Recording Space Used' screen reported 4% of the drive was filled. That's not right.

I've now cold-booted twice more, and warm-booted twice more, but no change.

Here's pg18 and pg28 from the diagnostics:



Can someone confirm for me that the 'Capactiy' and 'Free Space' of the AVFS shown above is not as it should be -- it's reporting less for each than in the ITFS column.

Any suggestions on what I should do next?

This seems to be the same issue reported by "Poloman" in Post#23 in this thread, who had a Costco-bought 500GB 8642HD:

Originally Posted by Poloman

I recently bought the 500gb version of the 8642(hd3) and I am having issues with the % remaining on the receiver.

Have any of you that have gone to the 1tb drives actually added up the # of hrs of content on the drive to see if you are actually using the entire drive???

The reason I ask is because as I said I have the 500gb version but the firmware thinks its a 160gb.

The reason I know(think) this is the case is because:

1) the drive shows up on page27 as 499gb
2) 1 hr of HD content recorded uses 5% of space....s.b. 1.6%
3) 1 hr of HD content on the 160gb hdd would be exactly 5%

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanx.

[57]

As you've noticed and as reported earlier in this thread, the 8642 doesn't do a good calculation when very little space is used. Since it's showing as a 500 GB HDD, you should be fine. Perhaps you can report back once you have many more hours of HD recorded.

[Mr.Nobody]

^ I will do.

[Mr.Nobody]

Everything's good. 9 days later, I finally filled the new 500GB WD 5000AAKX Caviar Blue drive.

Recording only on HD channels, it had stored 75 recordings comprising 90+hrs by the time it reached 100% capacity.



Cisco's 8642HD product brochure says the 500GB can record 62hrs of HD programming and BestBuy's product page for it says "up to.. 60GB", so that seems to indicate that Rogers content delivery is ultra compressed.

Checking the diagnostic pages now, the only change was on Pg18: the AVFS free space was down to 0. After deleting a recording or 2, the AVFS free space # changed to 11580. Not sure how that's calculated, but it doesn't really matter.

I can't imagine ever filling all 500GB again!

Current retail price on this drive is around $90... while 1TB drives are around $110 (a comparative bargain!). But, I found an old TigerDirect email from summer 2011 - the same 500GB drive's price was $39.99 then!

[Cybr9]

Tried upgrading my 160gb to 1Tb but chickened out as the green tamper evident tape is stuck on very well and looks impossible to remove without destroying it - I guess that is the intent LOL. As my box is under warranty, do not want to do this. Any ways of removing this tape without destroying it?

[icemankent]

I have two of these - which I had been using for about 2 weeks before I did my upgrade.
In both cases, the heat of the hard drive caused the glue on the tape to loosen, and the tape came off all by itself.

[Cybr9]

Well, I got brave and I carefully tweezed off the tamper evident seal; came off intact except for a few specks of green left behind . The rest of the installation of my new 1TB WD Caviar Black was a breeze. Plugged it in, the hard drive immediately started to be formatted and was done before I knew it .
Tested by recording a show and all looks well.

Thanks to all the informative posts and posters on this site that made it easy!

[Dolfan]

Dell hot deals has the WD Caviar Black 1TB WD1002FAEX on sale for $119.99 until 5:59 AM EST March 30th.

[ecarlino016]

This is not an external HDD idea I had but Ive posted it here as it applies to the HDD as a modification.

I have had an interest in modifying the 8642 and I was wondering if anyone had done this. My wife was complaining of the ticks of the 500gb within the new 8642 that I bought.

Has anyone used any external HDDs that were comprised of a 2.5" Solid State drive? Im interested in knowing what drive may be used as I would like to swap out my internal 500gb.

I am aware of the differences between 3.5" and 2.5" formfactors and the costs involved but Im thinking this may be a future trend taking into account issues of power consumption and noise pollution.

Thank you for any input.
EC

[craig_1]

Drives made by Crucial seem to have amazing read/write performance when compared with others we have tested. However, we did encounter an issue with a specific raid controller and these drives at their current firmware level. Apparently there WILL be a patch / update to the firmware from Crucial at some point.

I have not tried these with any PVRs.

The drive in question is the Crucial M4 512GB Sata 3 drive.

[Dolfan]

Installed my WD Caviar Black 1TB WD1002FAEX last night. Install was seamless and easy. It installed the latest firmware (Software: 3.0.0.1612, UI Version: 3.1.5.24.04.09.11/28392), which is what was running on the old HD.

One interesting outcome has been that I had paused live TV last night and had a couple of instances where I could not get it to stop fast forwarding or rewinding when I hit the keys. Really strange as I did not have that when I had the old 160 GB drive and 500 GB Extender attached.... Strange