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4tb internal drive?

sohlinux

sohlinux

Member
Hi, My humax fox t2 internal 1tb hard drive has failed, will a 4tb internal work ok without partitioning it?

the 4tb I have is currently in a usb box and was working fine on the humax without a partition but will it work if I take it out of the usb box and put it inside the humax? any need to reformat it or anything? I dont want to format it because it is 70% full.

thanks
 
this is what I have
Web interface version: 1.0.10-1
Custom firmware version: 2.22 (build 1905)
Humax Version: 1.03.12

so if I remove the 4tb hard drive from the usb case and put it inside the humx will it work right away or do I still need to do anything? keep in mind the 4tb works fine via the usb socket and is 70% full so I dont want to format it.

thanks
 
Eh??? What did you not understand about "2TB is the limit"?

The internal drive in the HDR-FOX has several partitions organised for the various functions of the HDR-FOX, formatted Ext3. I see no way you are going to make the drive work "just" by fitting it into the Humax. You don't even know whether the drive is SATA. Supposing it did fit, the Humax would most likely come up saying "this drive needs formatting, want me to go ahead?" and then fail.

Is the drive even formatted Ext3? If you are running 4TB (however much did that cost??) you are probably NTFS and relying on the CF to write to it.

Read the 2TB installation blog referred above, then you will see how fiddly it is.
 
I can't see how the Humax can be using an external 4TB drive. Are you sure it isn't just seeing half of it?
 
yes it looks fiddly but I like fiddly, its a good way to learn, im gonna backup the data and try it, fyi the drive was 130 quid from pc world, its sata and was formatted under linux with ext3 single partition showing 3.72tb

ill post my findings shortly..
 
Did this work prior to 1.03.12, or have you only been using it recently? If the former, at first sight it appears to be contradicting everything we thought we knew about the Humax kernel drivers (2TB max, for example, unless you use non-standard sectors).

It is still not necessarily advisable to install as the internal HDD. This drive is probably only intended for light duty, whereas in the HDR-FOX it will be writing pretty much continuously, and AV drives optimised for that kind of duty cycle are recommended.
 
I have been using the 4tb usb drive for the past 6 months or so but I didn't know what the humax version was until I checked today. 1.03.12, it was formatted ext3 under linux, I didnt change the default block size and all works fine as a usb drive, so now to test if I can put it inside. it will take a few hours to backup. ill be back with the results soon.

ps, the 4tb disk is a sata seagate, its the same make as the internal disk but 4tb instead of 1tb, I have never heard of a hard disk which is meant for light duty?
 
ok the 4tb disk is inside, now formatting. is it normal there is no progress bar?

4 tb is gonna take a while to format if the humax does a slow format? is it usually a slow format? no progress bar?
 
Take a look at this thread. In the past the Humax did not support GUID partition tables, typically limiting drives to 2TB, so your findings are intriguing. The internal HDR-FOX drive has three partitions of 1GB (EPG), the bulk of the drive (recordings) and 10GB (streamer down file for iPlayer etc.). However the BootHDR custom firmware package, which was created to allow HDR-FOX software to run on a HD-FOX, gets around this structure using links. So it might be possible to get away with a single partition on the internal drive with the right links in place to simulate the regular HDR-FOX partition structure.
 
MontysEvilTwin said:
Take a look at this thread. In the past the Humax did not support GUID partition tables, typically limiting drives to 2TB, so your findings are intriguing. The internal HDR-FOX drive has three partitions of 1GB (EPG), the bulk of the drive (recordings) and 10GB (streamer down file for iPlayer etc.). However the BootHDR custom firmware package, which was created to allow HDR-FOX software to run on a HD-FOX, gets around this structure using links. So it might be possible to get away with a single partition on the internal drive with the right links in place to simulate the regular HDR-FOX partition structure.
Click to expand...


yes ingriguing, I think it will work but im wondering why there is no progress bar on the format? ill leave it for a couple of hours, if it hasn’t finished by then I will create the partitions manually with linux and copy the files to the 3 partitions.
 
sohlinux said:
ok the 4tb disk is inside, now formatting. is it normal there is no progress bar?

4 tb is gonna take a while to format if the humax does a slow format? is it usually a slow format? no progress bar?
Click to expand...
This makes my previous post obsolete. No progress bar but it does a quick format. If it does not work you could create the partitions on another Linux machine (Ubuntu laptop etc.).
Regarding the type of hard drive. The humax internal drive is an AV drive which is optimised for PVR use. A 'standard' drive will work, but might fail more quickly in this environment.
 
sohlinux said:
yes ingriguing, I think it will work but im wondering why there is no progress bar on the format? ill leave it for a couple of hours, if it hasn’t finished by then I will create the partitions manually with linux and copy the files to the 3 partitions.
Click to expand...
Watching with interest : )
It will be interesting to see what gfdisk and parted think of the final configuration - that should confirm the partitioning type.
(Also, what does 'uname -a' show on your box? It would be good to confirm the exact kernel version)
 
Even if the HDR-FOX can now read such a large drive, it might not be able to format it. A guide to formatting a 2TB drive for the Humax, written by af123, will tell you more about the drive partitioning. It is on the wiki here. (Edit: link to guide already provided in post #2.)
 
While conventional wisdom says that GPT is required for disk partitions to exceed 2TB in size*, it is conceivable that larger partitions are possible if 4K logical sectors are used. I would be surprised if the Humax could format it by itself though, although the command line tools in the custom firmware should be capable.

* and we know that the Humax kernel does not support GPT/EFI.
 
af123 said:
Watching with interest : )
It will be interesting to see what gfdisk and parted think of the final configuration - that should confirm the partitioning type.
(Also, what does 'uname -a' show on your box? It would be good to confirm the exact kernel version)
Click to expand...

humax# uname -a
Linux humax 2.6.18-7.1 #1 SMP Fri Feb 7 14:15:02 KST 2014 7405b0-smp GNU/Linux

it looked like the humax couldn’t format it or maybe I wasn’t patient enough to wait.... I hear a 4tb drive can take some time to format..

im reformatting now on centos, its interesting, first I tried to mount the drive using a sata usb2 adaptor and it mounted as only 1.8tb, then swapped to sata usb3 and it mounts as 3.72tb, looks like usb 2 is not able to see the 4tb drive

anyway I will be back later today or tomorrow to tell if it works or not.. after I copy all the files to right places.
 
MontysEvilTwin said:
This makes my previous post obsolete. No progress bar but it does a quick format. If it does not work you could create the partitions on another Linux machine (Ubuntu laptop etc.).
Regarding the type of hard drive. The humax internal drive is an AV drive which is optimised for PVR use. A 'standard' drive will work, but might fail more quickly in this environment.
Click to expand...

intrigued.. how is a disk optimised for PVR use? I thought a hard drive was a hard drive, these disks look identical on the outside, they are both seagate, one is 1tb and the other is 4tb, there is no mention on the drive itself as to its usage for AV PVR
 
The factory fitted 500GB and 1TB HDDs are Segate Pipiline, as you can see it has quite a few items referring to video recording :-

Key Advantages
• Optimized one-disk, 1TB performance—perfect for high-definition consumer DVR applications
• Low power, quiet hard drives fine-tuned for consistent, dependable delivery of multiple high-definition video streams with capacities from 250GB to 2TB
• Designed to meet Energy Star and other strict consumer power consumption standards
• Quiet drive operation to enhance customer viewing and listening experiences
• Easy-to-manage multi-room video delivery of at least ten simultaneous HD streams
• Qualified for operating temperatures up to 75°C to meet the rigors of the consumer electronics set-top box market
• 24×7 operational profile to meet the always-on demands on the DVR market

Best-Fit Applications
• Consumer digital video recorders
• Media servers and centers
• Home theater PCs and servers
• Cable, satellite and IPTV set-top boxes
 
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