Official Moxi Hard Drive Replacement Thread - Page 2

Are some drives quieter than others? I thought it was just the drive that came in the Moxi that was so very noisy.

Some drives are a lot noisier than others. I have several 750 GB Seagate hard drives that are the noisiest drives I've ever used (which I don't mind...with some of the testing stuff that I do, it is nice to be able to hear the drive reading/writing data so clearly). It's always a good idea to get a very quiet hard drive for any sort of video set-top-box use.

Some drives are advertised as being specially designed to be more quiet. I just purchased a Western Digital WD10EVDS a few days ago, and it is advertised as being designed for use in video set top boxes.

I hope yours continues to perform. I have begun getting 15-20 second freezes after about two months. The drive is only 19% full. It appears to be getting worse with time. I am going to replace with a Seagate pipeline or Barracuda as soon as I watch and clear off all of my saved recordings.

I switched to the following.
Western Digital AV GP 1TB 32 MB buffer
Failed

It was super quiet which was nice but was freezing. I'm returning both drives and will look at just buying a new Pipeline HD.

I never really tried recording and watching anything with the 500gb drive, so I never had a before and after to compare to. I took a chance and cracked it open to upgrade the drive immediately. I've also been trying to do some other things with regards to relocating and re-setting up my ReplayTVs, so I've been a bit busy. I really just started recording and watching it withe 2tb drive, but I've now noticed from time to time where recordings do freeze up for about 20-25 seconds from time to time during a playback. For me, it always seems to do this after I fast-forward (FF), so I was thinking that it was a quirk with moxi. The freeze up seems to almost go away if I pause it for about 2-3 seconds after a FF. Thanks for the heads-up regarding it. It appears this must be related to the drive. I keep using it for a while and I keep my eye on this thread for high capacity drives that are working. If things keep getting worse like you're having, I'll swap out for the largest that seems to be without issue.

Quick question. When you buy a brand new replacement drive, do you need to do any formatting/ partitioning before installing it?

Nope.. Just put the drive in and let Moxi do it's thing.

quick question when my unit is at the Install Initiated screen about 15 min in the left light starts blinking is that good or bad? should i just let it sit?

I can't recall seeing it right off hand, but that doesn't mean that it isn't there. Depending on your download speeds, the entire process from the the moxi site and setting up the drive could take a little while, I'm also not sure if hard drive size is a factor too. Although I didn't time the installation of a new 2tb drive while using cable internet, for some reason, I want to say that it took somewhere around 30 minutes (could have been less time or more). I have a different 2tb drive coming in that I want to try, so I'm going to try and take notice of things (like time) more closely.

In my experience, this is bad. I tried using an old 1TB WD green drive I had sitting around last Friday and it had the left blinking light. It stayed on the Install Initiated screen for over 2 hours before I gave up and unplugged. I tried another 320 GB Seagate and it installed perfectly without any blinking lights at all.

I am currently in the process of installing a brand new 1.5 TB WD Green drive. It took about 18 minutes for the Install Initiated screen to complete. When it finished, I got a solid left light, followed by the Checking Hard Drive screen, then the Moxi setup screen.
I am just starting the Moxi setup now, I'll post the results after it is finished.

Moxi 3-tuner DVR

Samsung Spinpoint F4 HD204UI OEM 2TB 5400RPM 32MB cache

Firmware unknown

Success

After chief-j said he had a failure with the 2-tuner and the drive above, jonnyb said he had success with it in his 3-tuner, I decided to purchase one and try it in my 3-tuner unit. I had originally purchased the WD below, but it would freeze during playback from time to time for about 20 seconds and then continue on. Anyway, I was still looking for the largest capacity drive that wouldn't have any issues, so that why I took a gamble on the Samsung Spinpoint since jonnyb seemed to be having no issue. I purchased it from NewEgg.

UPDATE:
I originally had posted earlier that this drive was a failure in the 3-tuner units, but I have retracted that and changed it to success. I had tried several times and about an hour of my time this afternoon trying to get it to initiate an install of the moxi software but had no success and finally gave up. I placed the 2tb WD drive (listed below) back in and decided to watch the remaining shows that were on there. Several hours later, I decided to give the Samsung drive one last try tonight, but I really didn't expect it to take it. SURPRISE! It seemed to take the install this time. The reason that I said "seemed" is due to that I haven't actually recorded anything yet, but everything else appears to be working fine. I'm not going to even try any recording anything until tomorrow. I have a CableCard installed and it takes it a while for all of my channels to sync up. I'll have to report back here in a few days if recording is working okay or not.

UPDATE PART 2:
I've recorded three shows at the same time and the Samsung drive appears to have no issue. I also watched one of the recorded shows with no apparent freezing. I guess that it will take about week or so before I feel fully comfortable with this drive.

Moxi 3-Tuner DVR

Western Digital - Caviar Green 2TB Internal SATA Hard Drive

Model: WDBAAY0020HNC-NRSN

Success (but recordings sometimes freezes and then starts playing again after +/- 20 seconds)

Based on what I'm seeing with this Samsung, I'm not sure what to say about the success or failures of some drives. Perhaps some people should consider trying some of their larger drives again just to be absolutely sure.

I guess that I will try and use the WD listed above as an external USB drive for the moxi and see how it performs. Off to eBay to order my parts for it. in a moment.

One final note regarding the new Samsung drive. After I installed it, my cablecard (M-card) partially stopped working. It shows me all of my channels, but the premiums will no longer come in and posts a message saying that I am not a subscriber of them, along with a few others. I did have to call comcast, and they tried a few different tricks over the phone that didn't work. They finally scheduled a tech to come by and check things out on Friday. I don't know if it was just a coincidence that I had issues with cablecard at the same time the I replaced the WD drive with the Samsung, or not.

I've seen acaoacao and Bryan_CoxPHX's post regarding external drive cases. I think that I might have found an external case that might cost about as much as all of the parts listed within their posts, and that including the shipping prices of the parts.

Vantec NexStar CX NST-300SU-BK External 3.5 inch SATA to eSATA & USB2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure

Aluminum Casing Cools Down Your Hard Drive

Transfer Rates Upto 3Gbps W/eSATA

Transfer Rates Upto 480Mbps W/USB 2.0

Hot-Swappable: Plug And Play Without Rebooting

Blue LED Indicates Power/HDD Activity

Supports 3.5" SATA I/II Hard Drive

Interface: Internal - SATA; External - USB 2.0 & eSATA

It says that it can support a capacity up to 1.5TB, but I seen several people state that it will handle a 2TB drive with no issue.



You can find them on eBay and at Amazon, and the price is roughly $25 to $35, but that's before shipping. I found one for $29 with free shipping at eBay from this seller:
eBay eSATA Case

I have a newer Moxi which doesn't allow for upgrading the internal drive (version 1.03). Instead I just added a 1TB laptop drive:

Is that possible? I thought they were all upgradeable? Did you add it using an eSATA drive? I would love to get more details.

Mine is the newer Moxi as well, and your picture looks exactly like mine on the inside except to where you added the smaller secondary drive. I'm taking it for granted that yours is the 3-tuner as well.

From what little I understand, when you install a new, larger, primary drive and power up while pressing the four arrow buttons, that the moxi will seek out the moxi web site to download the OS and such to install it onto the new primary. This has me a bit puzzled as well, and I would love to hear more details too.

I do like your idea of placing the secondary 2.5 drive inside the unit. Since the moxi appears to be a bit finicky about what drives will work with it, what make and model 2.5 drive did you use? How did you brace the drive inside the case?

Yeah, mine is a 3 tuner model. The 4 finger press doesn't work on the latest revisions of these.

The drive is a Seagate blue drive that I pulled out of an external USB case. I removed the eSata connector from the back of the Moxi and used one of the screw holes to mount the drive and drilled another in. Its held by two screws on the back and is pretty sturdy.

I think this is the drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148657

WOW! That is indeed very interesting about the 4 finger press (4fp) not working for you.

I bought mine from Amazon about a month ago. After I felt somewhat sure the unit was working, I went ahead and cracked open the case to upgrade the internal drive. I tried two different 2tb drives, but the Samsung Spinpoint F4 HD204UI seems to work the best. If the house is quiet, you can hear it seeking. When I'm watching a show, I don't notice the sound.

Anyway, I know that the 4fp didn't work for me with the Samsung drive that I installed. The moxi would just keep going through a reboot cycle after I saw the first bootup screen. There was never any information saying that it was downloading anything, so I left the unit unplugged, and it finally made the connection the next day. I finally saw the screen that indicated that it was downloading what it needed. I don't know why, but I just assumed there may have been some sort of an issue at the moxi site where the unit needed to download the software. I had tried the 4fp about six different times the night before because I was uncertain that I had done it correctly. I stopped when I felt that I had. It was late at night, and that;s why I waited until the next day to try it one more time.

The reason that I went into a long story was just in case there was something that I did that might be of some benefit to you or someone else.

Where did you find the version number at, so that I can compare mine to yours. I looked through the settings screen and didn;t really notice anything stating the version number.

The revision # is written on the motherboard.

The reason I'm sure it doesn't work as I tried it with the 500GB drive it came with and it still never worked. Must have tried it 50 times.

The next time that I crack open the case I'll have to check out the number on the mobo. I can see me opening it back up within the month. When I do, I'll post the number on mine.

Are you sure it is not a network condition that is preventing you from getting it to work. I know several users who were unable to get the 4fp working until they swapped out a switch or router....

If I had to guess, that four finger press is a routine that starts up a PXE (Network Boot) environment that reloads the OS...

I have no problem PXE booting from any PC's I have and would love to be proved wrong on this.

I'm not the only one who had had an issue with the newer versions:

http://www.moxiforums.com/index.php?...page;topic=6.0

AlmostInsane, I would be very surprised if Moxi eliminated the Four-Finger Press after all this time. In fact, they welcomed Moxi owners to do it, and would advise them to do it, when issues were reported. Many issues were fixed by the reformat/reinstall, which saved Moxi from warranty repairs.

Moxi has to have a procedure in place so owners can reinstall OS without having to send it in, when the issues are minor.

I would urge you to do the following:

Unplug Moxi power, Router power, and modem power.

Plug modem in first. Wait for signal to reestablish.

Plug Router in next. Wait for Router to handshake with modem.

Then plug in Moxi power and hold down 4 buttons at the same time.

I have had issues with Moxi 4 FP and pulling IP from Router, and the fix was always a power cycle of Router, etc.

You can see the Ethernet light Router that represents Moxi to see if it lights up as your are attempting 4 FP.

Good luck!

I'll give it another try when/if the stock drive dies. I rather not have to set it up again - just deleting the channels I do not get/watch took way too much time.

almostinsane; What is with the 4 pin IDE pwr. connector floating above the main board?

It't not used.

Gotta of been put there for a reason.

Well it one long cable - one 4 pin plugs into the system board, then there's the unused 4 pin connection, then two SATA connections. Its not the one that came with the DVR - I added it to power two drives.

jbarrington - several questions:
1) Has the Spinpoint continued to work reliably?
2) Do you find the Spinpoint quiet?
3) Did you hookup the WD externally?
4) What happened when Comcast visited?

I am about ready to pull the trigger on a HD upgrade and am leaning towards the Samsung Spinpoint F4 HD204UI.

Anyone else have extended success with a different very quiet drive (1+ TB)?

Ok, you guys were right. Tried it out again after plugging the Moxi directly into my router and it worked on the first try.

I tried a 2TB WD greed drive and used it for 1/2 a day. The perf sucked compared to the stock drive. Every time I'd open the menu the video would hiccup for a second. The menu navigation was slower.

Took it out and put back in the 500GB + 1TB. Good to know the format process still works if needed.

Moxi DVR 2-Tuner

Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1 TB SATA

Partial SUCCESS

Bought from Amazon for $59.99 after Seagate Pipeline HD 500GB caused permanent freeze right before Bulls NBA playoff game was about to start Sunday night. Set-up took about 20 minutes from 4 key press + OK to Moxi Menu, then a call to TWC to hand-shake the cable card. Back up!

Update: it freezes quite often when fast reverse or forward. Beware.