Official Moxi Hard Drive Replacement Thread - Page 12

we are more so referring to possible limitation of internal storage. youre correct about external.
Edited by dz2k - 3/28/13 at 4:36pm

I'm merely thinking out loud here, so I could be wrong.

As I understand it (when explained to me by Moxi Support), when you add the external drive, it extends the volume onto the concatenation of the two drives. Meaning that it does not create 2 separate volumes, one for the internal, and over for the external. If this is the case, then the volume filesystem should be able to fully utilize a 3TB drive internally just as easily as a 6TB external.

Now, the only caveat would be the Moxi hardware & OS architecture. The Moxi has to boot from the drive & I don't know what the CPU is, nor the OS (although I believe it's a Linux of some flavor). I know that on a x86 or x86-64 version of Linux & your server is using a BIOS, you cannot have a boot volume greater than 2TB. If the server is using UEFI & has GPT support, then you can go larger than 2TB for a boot volume.

great information. we appreciate it.

There is no reason that a "volume" cannot be composed of, for instance, an MPT formated drive and a GPT formated drive. The lower level drive format limitations will apply to the two physical drives regardless of the overall concatenated volume size. Without knowing the individual drive formats we cannot imply the actual limits.

To me the external drive is much easier to make a RAID set and since the external drive can survive an internal drive being replaced, the smaller the internal drive and the larger the external RAID set, the more survivable data you have.

you are right Mr. Duncan in stating external hdd is the way to go. arghh. have you tested the JMB390 based RAID controller board on moxi? I've found out a couple things in my time away from this board that i'd like to share.

ffp tips:
> the ethernet cord could prevent you from getting the recovery process screen. ex. i used a long, cheap ethernet cord to connect direct to modem (due to the distance) and couldn't get it to display. i then swapped to a shorter cord and all was well again!
> after holding reset to start the process, I hold down all 4 buttons while the led to the far right is still lit. it goes off while still holding it.
> i tend to use my thumb and the closest finger to it on each hand. it kinda looks like a forward slash as to how i press them if that makes sense. my right hand finger is on the right diagonal, right hand thumb is on the down diagonal, left hand finger is on the top diagonal, and left hand thumb is on the left diagonal.

moxi 2 tuner
after testing several of the top brand/capacity hdd's (wd, Seagate, hitachi) in this thread..im sad to say it appears to have a 1.5tb limit on internal hdd. a good tip about ffp is after you press ok to initiate that process..if your amber light to the left starts blinking within the 1st minute, you are simply out of luck with that hard drive model. you could wait until you're blue in the face and it wont help along with countless wasted hours. i think the ffp doc mentioned if it exceeds 1 hour..to try again anyway.

moxi 3 tuner
it seems some were able to get 3TB internal hard drives installed. it seems they didn't only upgrade memory from the prior 2 tuner but had to upgrade elsewhere also. I didn't get recording space results from anyone but will agree that it probably still only uses 2tb. The reason I say this is because volumes > 2TB require extra steps to take advantage of the space and at the same time be a boot volume. ex. gpt format & the volume is encrypted and makes it difficult to get to a command line to resize partition. However, I would probably use the 3tb internally if I had this model because no one knows for sure.

The credit for this method goes to torres2005:
not really use this software (easeus.com/disk-copy/) is via msdos by a pendrive

part 1
1) 01 Pendrive empty (just 1Gb)
2) Cases of 02 HD SATA (USB HD will receive a case of old PS3, the other new HD)
3) 01 free program called EASE U.S. DISK COPY:

part 2
1) Download the program mentioned above, EASEUS (45MB) and run no need to install;
2) Plug in the USB pendrive empty;
3) Turn the EASUS and let it format the pendrive, it will become a boot disk. Leave the stick stuck there.
4) After you format the USB stick just right, TURN OFF THE PC = this step is important to prevent the operating system attempts to read or write to the PS3's hard drive and thus you lose all your data encrypted by the PS3;
5) TAKE TURN THE PS3. Only then remove the old HD PS3 careful not to strip any screws;
6) Prepare the first case SATA: put the old HD from the PS3 and plug in a USB in the pc;
7) Prepare the second case SATA: put the new HD that will for the PS3 and plug in another USB in the pc;
8) Turn on your PC on and choose to boot the USB disk with EASEUS;
9) When thepc starts EASEUS within the program, choose DISK COPY. This is the option that copies the old to the new HD, 1:1, byte by byte;
10) Choose SOURCE as the old PS3's HD, which will be depending on your PS3 40gb or 80, 120, 160, 320 ... Mine was 80GB;
11) Choose the HD DESTINY as the new PS3, which will be the size of the new HD that you chose. Mine was 250GB;
12) Pay attention to both disks appear as "unmounted" due to the file system and encrypted crazy PS3, but can proceed without fear;
13) Depending on the size of your hard drives copying may take between 1am and 6am. Here, 80GB -> 250GB took 1:30 h, so my notebook is lentinho pq;
14) When finished cloning the new HD will be automatically resized to its maximum size, ie the PS3 with HD had seen the new size as if he had never left in the game;
15) Turn it OFF the pc when it's over and remove the cases of the USB ports.
16) Remove the new HD's case, reassemble it on the PS3, keep calm w / not doing things and running into problems, poor little pravc test if it worked!
17) After all certinho mounted on the PS3, then turn it on and boot making.
18) surprise, everything keeps working the way it was, except that increased disk space!

Sorry my english im from brazil hope i help for me works great

Again, the credit goes to torres2005. The ps3 internal hdd is much like a moxi internal hdd in the fact that it is encrypted and runs some form of Linux. I've verified that it does clone successfully but doesn't seem to actually expand out the volume to larger capacity. I've recorded several shows and it's still taking up the same amount of storage as the smaller volume.
Note: the pen drive mentioned above can be just a usb flash drive.
Edited by dz2k - 4/24/13 at 7:47am

Moxi 2 Tuner DVR
Startech S354UFER external raid 0+1 esata enclosure with Western Digital 4TB WD4001FAEX hard drives
Success

On a separate note: It's using full capacity as I did a recording space test from my old setup of recordings to the new. I changed the configurations a couple times before making a final decision. The enclosure has a purple color so I can tell when its being recorded to/accessed and blue when idle. Jbarrington...I owe you one for mentioning you went to this brand. I've never had luck with some of their cabling and had almost given up...but they hit a home run with this one! Thanks.
Edited by dz2k - 4/24/13 at 7:51am

does anyone know if moxi external hdd's are locked to the original moxi that formatted it? Ex. it cant be connected to another moxi w/o re-formatting back from start like a internal hdd replacement

I've been wondering the same...

I just found the time to test it and it is as I expected. the new moxi that the external hdd connects to wants you to reformat and start back over.
Edited by dz2k - 4/21/13 at 10:24pm

I don't have a way to test it, but I believe the external is locked to the internal. I speculate that moving the internal to another identical Moxi could take "it's" external drive with it.

Hi! First I want to thank everyone for your hard work in figuring out what works - yous guys are great !

I think I may have the slowest failing drive in history - just over a year ago it started getting wonky, needing a power down for a couple hours before it would come back up. At first this only happened every month or so but has progressed to only running 3-4 hours at a time a couple days ago. All sorts of weird symptoms happened, from stuttering to complete freezes to audio only to video only to all recorded programs disappearing (temporarily) to just general sluggishness.

I followed recent advice here and bought this $81 drive a few months ago:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006IMFT32 (WD AV-GP 1 TB AV Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD10EURX)
Twice as big as the original seemed fine to me . As I said the original drive finally became too flaky to run for more than a few hours so it was time to switch after I watched what I could. There are only four screws holding the top on and four holding the drive in - just 10 minutes work and my first attempt at the FFP worked, just using two fingers and a thumb! If I had known it was going to be this easy I'd have put the drive in when I received it! The new drive is super quiet and the Moxi seems more responsive than it ever was .

I'm not using a cable card as I only watch the clear-QAM channels. Remapping all those was a chore as will be recreating all the series recording entries but them's the breaks .

Thanks!
Ron

Having lost a lot of video when my WD 1.5tb green drive failed, I was wondering if anyone has tried enterprise drives? I think the extra cost is worth it if those drives do last a lot longer on average.

The WD AV-GP drives are rated for 24/7 video streaming as in video surveillance systems. They say it can support 12 simultaneous HDTV streams between recording and playback. I bought the 1TB version partially because folks on this thread seemed to have better luck with those than the larger versions. 150 hours of HD video is plenty for me as I only have basic cable.

I just ordered the 1 TB drive to have it on hand. At the moment the only problem I have is that 2 channels are pixelating (NBC and Comedy); I'm assuming that the MOXI unit isn't causing this. I'll have Charter out to fix it tomorrow.

I haven't had Charter out yet, because I'm not sure the MOXI isn't the problem.. Is it possible for the MOXI to cause pixilation on 2 channels only? This has been going on for over a week.

i think someone said to check moxi snr on said channels a few pages back.

Great idea. I forgot that I could find the s/n ratios for each of the three tuners by using the settings menu in the MOXI. Thanks!

Wanted to share my experience with everyone here and thank the operators of this forum and everyone who has contributed. Have a 3 tuner moxi, comcast service in Denver. Got the moxi in 2010, drive failed (was failing). Found this forum and read the entire thread before decided to replace drive. I did contact Moxi support before i came here and can confirm that Diego/Arrata does want $249 for an oem replacement. I do understand from other posts that this replacement is not a new unit, for that reason alone i decided to swap the internal drive.

Used the Seagate SV35 2TB ST2000VX000
Success
$100 at amazon. Says it's made for surveillance systems and as mentioned before should hold up well in a DVR situation.


Four Finger Press method did successfully restore the box no problem, the 2TB drive took longer to "initialize" which i assume means format but eventually the install did finish and everything is working great.

I should mention i first tried FFP method with the original drive in the system. It did restore but performance was still very flaky. I also realized after restoring the original drive that i was missing channels on my lineup and got the "you do not subscribe to this channel" error. Called comcast, and you all know how that goes. First FOUR times i called people "sent a reset signal" to my box which im sure the moxi has no idea how to handle. The box did nothing and each time i was forced to call again. Did get a guy on the phone today that explained to me that i had moved several times and not returned the cable card when i got new service at a new address. Basically my card had been getting free premium channels for some time and that was due to them not transferring the cable card to the new accounts when i moved. I didn't realize i had to do that so he brushed it off and seemed glad to solve my issue. He did not take my Data number, or any other ID numbers off the card but instead had me give him the serial number of the CC and a few minutes later everything started working. I did pull out the card to get the S/N but i think that information is available in the pairing menu as well so you don't need to remove the card.

That's my deal. I've been pounding on the moxi since the drive replacement and it's working great. Menus seem faster, recording three shows doesn't slow it down as much as in the past, remote more responsive etc.... I might grab another drive before this model is gone but gonna give that a few months to make sure drive is performing well, if anything changes i'll post again with details. Thanks again everyone, it's nice to know other people bought Moxi's no matter how few of us there are.

Nate

good thinking. like you stated, the replacement unit wouldn't be new and I doubt the hard drive would be either.

I have to wonder, has anyone ever heard of a Moxi failing that wasn't hard drive related? I know I have not.

I think there are a couple posts in this thread. i cant remember exactly what though. I can say the cable card slot was bad on my unit (but it wasn't failing so to speak) so I returned it immediately.
Edited by dz2k - 5/10/13 at 9:07pm

that is correct. I never thought about moving the internal to another identical Moxi could take "it's" external drive with it. I wonder if this works?! this will have to be tested.

Hi

Can someone please help me with this I would really appreciate it.

I am looking to expand the storage on my Moxi by adding an external HD and I got the WD AV-GP 2TB AV Hard Drive, Model WD20EURS and I put it in this external HD enclosure, the Vantec NexStar HX 3.5-Inch SATA to USB 3.0/eSATA HDD Enclosure with Fan, model NST-330SU3-BK, and connected it by eSata cable.
I added this last Thursday and it was running fine until I checked it this morning and it was not registering the drive. I don't know if this is because of the HD or the enclosure, maybe it is spinning down and that is the problem?

I was wondering if anyone knew a way to fix this with what I have or do I need to replace the enclosure or the drive. I am really wanting to expand the storage on this Moxi with a 2TB drive and if someone can please help me out I would really appreciate it.

Many thanks
Nicky

I would reboot moxi and see if it picks it back up. you should be able to tell if its recognized by the space meter and/or going to settings and disconnecting external. if it goes offline again, I would look into another enclosure before the hdd. people in the previous pages have used that hdd but I forgot if used as internal or external on their setup.

I replaced the failed external drive in my 2T MOXI and added a external drive to my 3T MOXI. I used a WD AV-GP 2 TB AV Video Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA II, 64 MB Cache - WD20EURS in both DVR's. My external case is a StarTech.com 3.5in Black eSATA USB 2.0 to IDE SATA External Hard Drive Enclosure that I got from Amazon. One StarTech enclosure has been in service since 2009. The new one appears to be exactly the same. The fan is medium noisy, and since these green drives don't get so hot, I unplugged the fan motor. It runs just warm and extremely quiet. I'm very happy with the new drives and enclosures.