8300HD and External SATA - It Works!! - Page 21

Wrong cable--- order this one: http://www.cruzsystems.com/(njci1k45...x/221303C.aspx

From whatever vendor/source, you need an eSATA connector on the end that attaches to the 8300HD. And most likely you need the same connector on the end that attaches to your external enclosure as well.

I BEG TO DIFFER with that! You are likely to need a plain old SATA connector on the HD/enclosure end. That is what the cable from CRUZ is, SATA on one end and eSATA on the other.

I just had Comcast come out and swap out my 8000HD for an 8300HD this morning. After they left, I unplugged the 8300HD attached my eSATA drive and then plugged it in again. The box asked me if I wanted to format the drive and I said yes. After about 1 minute, it said its ready to use.

To get this going, I purchased a Hitachi OEM Deskstar 7K500 SATA II 500 GB drive from zipzoomfly.com ($345) and I purchased an aluminum eSATA enclosure from cooldrives.com (http://www.cooldrives.com/alexsaiiesdr.html ) for $69 on sale. The enclosure comes with the right cable to hook to the 8300HD.

This should add about 60 hours of HD recording or so.

A tech got back to me yesterday 9/14 and confirmed what I already knew. That the fan was not working. He said they'd send a new one and he'd call me back. He did not call back so last night I sent another e-mail to the tech and cc: customer service.

Today tech called and transferred me to an order guy. They will send a second new, hopefully functional, replacement with a return shipping label for postage. The debited my VISA for the one to come and will credit when get the first new replacement back.

I'm satisfied they are making good faith efforts to correct the situation. My only complaint is their product broke after 4 months and it's taking all this time/hassle to correct the problem.

Don't beg; it's beneath you.

You may be right, I may be wrong, or vice versa. Who knows. But at some point I'll bet that external SATA enclosures will have external SATA connectors. With regards to a "cruz cable", that is just incredibly misleading, at least it is now for people just tuning in; Cruz Systems offers SEVENTEEN cables including some that are for power.

My Expansion drive is eSATA and my cable is eSATA on both ends. It matches EXACTLY what the spec calls for.
I'm using the Maxtor Quickview Expander 300GB kit. Comes complete with everything and a heavy duty, shielded 6ft eSATA - eSATA cable and 12ft power cable. Retails at $299 at buy dot com, but there are many places to get 10% -20% off coupons and free shipping, etc. to get a lower price.
No problems yet and I've been pushing this thing hard preparing for the fall season.
YMMV
vegggas

Yes, CRUZ is a vendor who sales lots of cable. Further, the cables that they sell for this application are made by COMAX. But, in the context of this thread -from the VERY FIRST POST (which everyone should really read) it has been clear what the "CRUZ" cable meant.

What I am trying to point out, is that till recently all SATA drives had the original SATA (SATA-I, if you will) connector, while the SA8300 needed the eSATA connector. Now as Veggas points out, the newer drives intended for DVR expansion (Maxtor Quickview Expander) do have the eSATA connector on both ends-the scenery is changing.

As you said earlier:

I understand your point and you're right. However, while a few *may* read the first post and a few others may even use the search function, most noobs will just jump in at the last page and ask their question. Terminology changes as quickly as technology. I use to have a media room and now I have a home theater. Same room, same purpose, but a different moniker. I think the cables should be called by their current names. And for those that follow the proper forum etiquette, the first post should be edited and be kept current.

Just my $.02.

pepar,

We agree

Worth more than $.02!

lorelevitt,

I checked out your link to the eSATA cooldrive and, I have to say, that this enclosure looks very cool! I'm thinking about getting it. Can you give us a report on how this is working out for you, the quality and cooling ability, etc.? Does the included cable work OK?

Thanks for any input you can give us.

Steve K.

P.S., lorelevitt, does the cooldrive have an annoying bright blue LED as some of the others do?

Steve K.

That above linked enclosure is lovely! Simple, silver (matches my other stuff) and no hassle connectivity!

Looks like I'll buy that, a big hard drive, and be happy... now I just need to save the money

- D

Is there anybody here besides me who thinks an external hard drive that runs 24/7 needs a cooling fan? (He77, any drive that runs 24/7?) This CoolGear aluminum case looks cool, but will the drive RUN cool? Without a fan, I'm skeptical.

Does anybody know if a port multiplier like this one wll work? If so, 2.5 terabyes is doable.

And here's another from LaCie.

I have emailed SA to ask if the host adapter in the 8300HD is "port multiplier aware."

And I'm wondering, too. Does anyone out there have any experience with this Cooldrive enclosure or any other aluminum enclosures that work well without cooling fans? If these aluminum cases work well without cooling fans, this would be preferable, because the bearings in cooling fans will eventually go out, some sooner than others, then what will you do? Finding a replacement could be tricky, especially if the case is out of warranty. The aluminum case could act like a giant heatsink, making a cooling fan unnecessary.

Anyone have any input? Lorelevitt, if you see this, please give us your feedback.

In which case

pepar,

I've been running a Maxtor 250GB SATA drive in an aluminum ADDONICS case, without the fan being powered 24/7 for 6 months now. The thermal coupling between the drive and the case is pretty good and the case is just warm to the touch (around 85 degrees). I've had no problems. But, to be honest, if I had to do it over again, I would probably order a different case (with a fan).

I should point out that the drive is in open air and is standing vertically - to give maximum exposure to the air. Also, our house has central air and room temp rarely gets above 76 degrees.

RE: 2.5TB. GREAT QUESTION. (I assume your question is will 2.5TB work - not do these port multipliers work?) The largest that I've seen reported here is 400GB. And I've never seen anything higher reported as not working. I recall seeing some announcement quite some time ago about someone offering a terrabyte drive to work with the SA8300 - but never seen any reports of either success or failure.

Indeed, six months is a blip compared to the possible years that we could have the 8300HD's. In fact, a "long term" test (a la Motor Trend and it's ilk) may be necessary. To be safe and not try my luck, I will only use a case with a fan. A big, reliable, low RPM fan.


Yes, PM's do work, but I'm getting the idea that the host adapter needs to be "PM-aware."

I have a question regarding the references being made about the necessity that these external SATA hard drives connected to the SA8300 have to be powered on 24/7. When I read the SA8300 user manual a few months ago I remember reading that the external SATA hard drives should be plugged into the switchable socket on the back of the unit so that the hard drive powers up when the SA8300 is turned on and powers off when the SA8300 is turned off, thus eliminating the potential need that the hard drive has to be powered on 24/7. Does this setup does not work satisfactorily?

According to this online guide, it has to be an unswitched outlet.

Thanks for the clarification, roland6465, it looks like my memory did not serve me well. Must be gettin' old.

In the meantime, I hope someone can give us some input on the Cooldrive enclosure and its cooling abilities. I'm ready and rarin' to go! Earth calling lorelevitt, are you out there?

Steve K.

This Silverstone FP53 is intended to mount inside a computer case, but it is stylish - and sturdy - enough to be used as an external drive case. While not identically styled like the 8300HD, its design does not "fight" it either. Not only does it meets one of my deal-breaker bullet points - it has a cooling fan - it has vibration absorbers and is designed for quiet operation. Alas, though, being an "internal" drive cooler, it has no power or eSATA connector. I will continue to research this item to see how difficult it would be to adapt it to our specific purpose - an eSATA hard drive enclosure.

RE: Need to keep external drive powered 24/7. One could connect both the 8300 and the external drive to a single switched outlet and power them both up and down together. HOWEVER there are some downsides to doing this:
1) You can't record anything while the boxes are powered down.
2) When you do power up, the SA8300 will go through it's BOOT routine (meaning, it will be 5 minutes before you can use it).
3) Once the boot is complete, you will need to clear the message that the 8300 has detected the external drive.
All-in-all, too much of a pain. But you could do this.

By the way, early in this thread it was suggested that one might be able to build a "library" of external drives with different contents on each. I can imagine that this would not work (the directory of recorded programs resides on the 8300 and that would be confused with different external drives) - but has anyone actually tried it?

Hmmm... I guess the 8300HD would need to send, in the stream, which port (e.g. drive) it needs to recieve data from. Can it do it? This is a very good question, and may open the door to massive amounts of storage. Is it part of the SATA spec? If so, we may be lucky.

I await your answer from SA on this.

The box has to be powered 24/7 in order to capture programming 24/7, so not powering the external storage is not a viable option. Days can go by without me going into the home theater.

I'm doubtful. Port multipliers still have the OS seeing multiple volumes and creating a software RAID, if desired. The host adapter in the 8300HD will not do that. It needs to see just one volume. So far, only the $3200/1.5TB Silicon Image product does that with multiple drives.

Dead end, I'm afraid. In fact, I've stepped up my search for the perfect single drive eSATA enclosure.

SUCCESS in Winston-Salem, NC!!!!

I got my 250GB kit from http://www.discountechnology.com/ today and got it up & running in about half an hour. Only trip up was that I had to disconnect the power from the 8300 one extra time to get it to recognize the new drive.

Went from 51% full to 17%. Now I can really time shift me some HD!

Thanks so much to the members who made it so easy to find and hookup this great add on!

I have the Maxter QuickView Expander eSata external drive connected to my 8300HD and all has been working great. However I had a power surge today and lost power causing the 8300HD box to reboot. When it came back up I now have a yellow light on the external drive in addition to the typical green one. All my shows appeared in my list of the 8300HD but it says 1% usage when I have 10 HD shows and last night it said 10% so something is incorrect. I don't want to lose any of my shows and wonder if someone else has seen this and what would you recommend my correct sequence of next steps should be in order to resolve whatever this yellow light issue is trying to tell me?