8300HD and External SATA - It Works!! - Page 6

lol, no man, sorry, didn't realize.
My area is in the sticks though!!

I'm in south Louisiana between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the party capital of the world
They do however, pump sunshine in here every now and then!!

ROTFLMAO!!! That is so funny!

It doesn't matter if you live in the sticks or the big city, it just helps folks understand the comments when the location is there. It's just a pet peeve of mine, so no big deal. I just hate seeing posts with no location in the profile and then having waste the bandwidth to ask. Never could understand why folks leave that part of the profile blank, guess we've just become really paranoid about identity theft or something.

HOLY CRAP! That case costs $75?! What's it made out of, alien technology?

It doesn't even have a fan, so your 300-gigger must get really hot in there.

Surprised you didn't try this one at the same site: http://www.usb-ware.com/slim-line-sa...-enclosure.htm

I'd unplug the LED cable inside if it really bothers you...

It seems time someone summarized the various links to SATA-related drives, enclosures, and cables posted in this thread. So, that's what I just did and I hope it's helpful. Perhaps DMILANI will edit his first post in this thread to include this summary to make it easier to find.

Drives:
http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com...2664&ad=1536769
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-144-363&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-144-359&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-145-075&depa=0
http://www.microcenter.com/single_p...oduct_id=168265
http://shop1.outpost.com/product/3868597

Enclosures:
http://www.addonics.com/products/ex...d/aeehdsa35.asp
http://www.addonics.com/products/co...d/aechdsa35.asp
http://www.apricorn.com/product_details.php?ID=432
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-145-369&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...145-369&depa=0
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SS-350S-BLK
http://www.usb-ware.com/aluminum-sa...-drive-case.htm
http://www.usb-ware.com/slim-line-s...e-enclosure.htm

Cables:
http://www.cruzsystems.com/COMAX-PDF/221303D.pdf
http://addonics.com/products/other/default.asp

Miscellaneous Info:
http://www.scientificatlanta.com/Ex...ted/4003986.pdf
http://www.scientificatlanta.com/Ex...ted/4003870.pdf
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/...ment=6516283858
http://www.scientificatlanta.com/Ex...ted/4003986.pdf
http://www.powertv.com/developers/PowerTVOSDocs.htm

Thank you for this VERY informative listing. I totally missed the Addonics Serial ATA adapter webpage. Ordering one Monday morning.

It only took a few minutes of cut&paste and I'm glad you found it useful.

D:

Everythings running great, I have 1 question the HD is running hot, how did you connect the fan from the external enclosure to run with the HD?

Lon

Most of the links on your first post don't work, they don't have the complete URL, but instead the abbreviated one.

I have a question.

How long can an 8300HD go without an active cable connection or power?

If I wanted to take my 8300HD and my collection to a friend's house could I do it?

Power could be maintained with a UPS so the box would not know that it has been unplugged, but obviously maintaining the live cable connection would be a problem.

Sorry if this has been discussed before.

-Mr. Wigggles

Oh one more thing,

Is there any file sorting utilities? It sounds like once a recording is on a drive that's it. Anyway to put all of the Sopranos episodes on one drive? Or for those who plan to do a lot of archiving pretty much stuck keeping thing chronological and leaving it that way?

-Mr. Wigggles

If your friend has cable connection, you can just plug it in. I'm pretty sure authorization is to the box not location. If you unplug the power, the box needs reinitialize and download authorization code from cable company.


Recordings can be sorted alphabetically or chronically.

Double Oops, mine don't work either. If I get time before you do, I'll fix them and PM them to you to add to the first post.

Interesting:
http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/...1,2680,00.html
http://www.i4u.com/article3133.html
(Seagate introducing external SATA drives for DVRs)

Thanks to all who have contributed information about equipment used with their success on adding external hard drives. I received my 2 cables (SATA I to II) from the Cruz source and was happy with their prompt delivery.

I have three of the 8300HD DVR's and will be adding external hard drives to at least 2 of them (then I could return one or move to another room). I have Adelphia in a Cleveland, Ohio suburb. Was with E*.

My question is about playback quality / performance comparison of the hard drives that have been tested.

The Hard drive that is inside the 8300HD is actually only a Maxtor ATA133 160GB QuickView (4R160L0) (as disclosed by other threads from the service mode/diagnostics). So is an external SATA drive actually giving better playback? (keeping up with all pixel refreshes/no hiccups)

If postings could include the model of the drive it would help me and others decide how much to spend on an upgrade. To properly evaluate results I would need to determine which one of the 5 different Maxtor ATA/133 250GB hard drives that were used as described in several different posting?

Current ata/133 250GB Maxtor Models are listed as 6B300R0, 5A250J0, 5A250J0, L01R250, L01P250.

When recording 2 programs and watching a previously recorded show I wonder if the better choice would be upgrade to a SATA drive that offers the extra features as mentioned on the Maxtor website about their newer SATA drive Ultra16 250 GB (L01S250) which has MHX acceleration for multi stream applications.

Maybe just upgrading with ATA/133 in an enclosure using a Maxtor Ultra Series ATA/133 250GB (L01P250) might show improvements?(designed for higher level use? Plus a FDB motor.?

To those whom have installed an external drive a performance comparison to the built in hard drive would be appreciated. (A before and after / if you know which drive a playback may be recorded on)
My first upgrade will be a 200GB ATA/133 (L01P200) (99.00 at staples) when my enclosure shows up (usb2 and serial).
__________________________________________________
I still love my replay 5040's as they can stream the HD recorded shows to other replays throughout the house to SD TV's with great quality. see other threads for info.

I'm using a Maxtor IDE drive I pulled from one of my PC's to see if it would work. I believe it's a DimaondMax 9, 8Mb buffer, 7200rpm, 160GB. I can't see any difference in PQ.

As far as I know there's no way to tell what drive a recording is on. Well, actually that's not true. I found a way when I accidentally pulled the plug on the external drive, first you get a big message on screen. But if you check your recordings, they are all still listed, this leads me to believe that the list of recordings is actually stored on the internal drive. When you select a recording that happens to be on the external drive and hit play, nothing will happen, it'll just dump you back to the list of recordings.

I've just put together my external drive:

I used a Maxtor 250GB SATA drive (L01S250) ($173 with sales tax & after $20 coupon). As I was buying a drive I thought that a pure SATA drive with 16MB buffer and 150MBs transfer might be a safer bet.

Addonics Aluminum enclosure (AAEEHDSA35W-R) ($55 with shipping & handling)

Comac Cable from CRUZ ($25 with shipping & handling).

I went from 86% full to 32% after the reboot, format new drive, and reboot again.

I tested by recording several programs simultaneously while watching a third (previously recorded). Everything seemed to work fine. I did have some (minor) pixelation issues - but these appeared to be normal (I get about the same amount when viewing live).

I have a couple of comments (questions for the experts):

1) I purchased the metal case with the thought that it would dissipate the heat better. It seems to as the unit seems to be just warm (probably 85 degrees). However, the case does have a small 12v fan. The Addonics power supply cable plugs neatly into the drive, so there is no easy way to tap off the 12v to run the fan in the case. I did not buy the $26 cradle that Dmilana suggested. Any thoughts how to neatly hook the fan up?

2) Because the drive is in a metal case, the drive noise is transmitted fairly well. It is not particularly noticable when idle (no drive activity) but it is noticable when the TV sound is low and there is drive activity. Not an issue for me, but it may be for others. Also, I don't know how objectionable that fan would be if I had it running.

Again, MANY THANKS TO DMILANA

Davehancock,

Are you in the timewarner rochester market (trying to figure out if its worth me to get the drive, i'm in greece)

thanks

oops double post

juliox,

Yes - I'm on Time Warner Rochester. From what I conclude from this entire thread, the External SATA function is hardware function and does not need to be "enabled" by the local cable company.

Actually, from this thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...readid=528391, it needs to be activated by firmware. And many has posted here that 8300 with Passport software does not support external drive (yet).

Foxbat,

The link supports what I said.

" SATA port active - Note at this time the SATA port is activated and supports external hard drive use. Once used there is no indication of which movies are on which drive. It is not recommended that external drives are attached at this time. "

In other words: it works, but they are not recommending that people connect drives. One reason is that there are not yet any commercially available (complete) external drives that have the needed SATA II connector. DMILANA, and his followers (us) are simply at the leading edge of this (thanks also to CRUZ).

Please note that information is releated to a specific version of software. That means the STAT port is active on that version of software. Not all the cable co. running the same version of firmware. Some are old (HDMI barely working) and some are newer versions. So it is version specific and may not be activated if your cable co. running an older firmware.

The features that they are talking about being "new" have been pretty much there for all 8300s. That tells me that the version that they were talking about has been out there for some time. If that is the case most SARA systems out there do support the Ext drive.

I note that they are talking about Ver 1.3.1 As many of us talk about the SARA version as being 1.85.xx.x (0r 1.87.xx.xx) it is a little difficult to link the two. I suspect that the version that they were talking about is the server version. Can anyone clarify?

Works in Westchester county, NY. I used a Maxtor 200GB IDE drive with the Bytecc enclosure from newegg. I don't think this has been mentioned before so I will put it out there for anyone attempting this: I could not get it to work until I jumpered the drive to master.
-Tag

FW enabled? Is this confirmed now? It'd be much better than some encrypted SATA...

As far as I can tell, it's not active out here. Connected it to my TV and nothing happened, TV reports no 1394 devices.

It would say it in your diagnostics. The guy I quoted was relaying his diagnostics report. It seems to be active on some folks's Passport boxes.