10 year-old Foxsat HDR would like to meet a modern HDD

Tropi

New Member
My Foxsat HDR is at least 10 years old and still faultless, despite being the exclusive tuning source for all my TV viewing. Given its 12-18 hours of 7-days a week of powered on-time (!) I would very much like to replace its 320GB Hard Drive with a 1TB before it starts to fail.
Much research suggests that the sweet spot replacement capacity should be 1TB (rather than 2TB), based on this recorder's ability to format 1TB natively and the speed of populating and retrieving the media recordings.
Seagate ST1000MV002 "Pipeline") seems to have been a very popular and well thought of candidate, but these are now becoming quite rare and seem to be slightly over-priced plus the much stronger negative as likely to be "NOS", ie several years since actual manufacture and also some suggestions that their true age could lead to the warranty not being honoured at all. So I am now very nervous of that HDD. I certainly would not trust a cheaper "refurb", regardless of price, even for free!
Of current HDDs, I am inclined towards a 1TB WD Purple and wondered if anyone has direct experience of using this HDD in a Foxsat HDR? Is WD's SATA 3 easily and reliably throttlable back to the Foxsat's SATA 1 requirement?
Alternatively, reliable recommendations for any other current 1TB HDDs that can be totally relied on for compatibility with the Foxsat HDR would be very welcome.

Once i have that resolved, I would quite like to carry out the same procedure on a much less used HDR-FoxT2, so the correct HDD choice is very important.
 
I recently purchased this: https://www.ebuyer.com/414223-seagate-2tb-pipeline-internal-hard-drive-st2000vm003
Very happy with it so far.
The installation blog mentioned by BlackHole above is very straightforward. The Humax will happily format the drive and, on advice from here, I did not need to utilise the partition section.
However I did utilise the 'Format the file system' advice (again as advised on here).
Very happy so far...
For the HDR-FoxT2 see this thread - afraid I can't help with the sat version
 
Seagate ST1000MV002 "Pipeline") seems to have been a very popular and well thought of candidate, but these are now becoming quite rare and seem to be slightly over-priced plus the much stronger negative as likely to be "NOS", ie several years since actual manufacture and also some suggestions that their true age could lead to the warranty not being honoured at all. So I am now very nervous of that HDD. I certainly would not trust a cheaper "refurb", regardless of price, even for free!
Personally I would go for the Seagate drive you suggest and buy it from a reputable supplier such as Ebuyer see https://www.ebuyer.com/337318-seagate-1tb-3-5-sata-video-hard-drive-st1000vm002# I have never had an old or refurb driver from Ebuyer but I have had more than one dodgy drive from sellers on Amazon marketplace.
 
I would very much like to replace its 320GB Hard Drive with a 1TB before it starts to fail...
I would quite like to carry out the same procedure on a much less used HDR-FoxT2
Why? With no evidence of imminent failure, money and time spent "repairing" it is a total loss - and risks disturbing things that don't need to be disturbed. Don't go near any air locks.
 
Thanks for the quick and helpful replies, gentlemen.
Despite my reservations as to the true age since manufacture, I actually am presently inclined towards the Seagate 1TB Pipeline from Ebuyer, although I am still hoping that someone might report experience of WD Purple. I'll try to see the weekend out before committing to anything, although my instinct is to grab an ST1000MV002 while still available - it would be quite irritating to have them all disappear while I'm prevaricating!
Black Hole "why"?
The weakest link in any Hard Drive Recorder is the HDD. I have a couple of still operational IBM (PC) HDDs which are almost 20 years old! But all HDDs fail eventually and 10+ years of constant everyday use is increasing the likelihood, almost certainty, of losing, irrecoverably, everything presently on the original video HDD. Preventative maintenance (at a reasonable price) is almost always a good investment. An extra bonus is the highly desirable tripling of internal storage capacity which has been in my mind for a few years now. Taken together with the dwindling availability of a suitable HDD, which will eventually, inevitably, disappear from the market altogether, makes a very persuasive argument for doing this transplant quite soon.
 
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Well, if you buy from eByer, I hope that it's OK and you don't have to send it back for a refund. :frantic:

Have you checked out the SMART data on your existing drive for any likely failure points?
 
I was driving myself daft with hour after hour of poking around and not finding anything to recommend a more recent HDD than the out of production Seagate Pipeline. So I determined to buy a 1TB version from E-Buyer at a reasonable £51.48. But that was instantly knocked on the head when I eventually discovered that shipping off the UK mainland incurred a punitive shipping charge of £15! I am completely accustomed to having free or very low cost delivery from Amazon, so this came as a very nasty shock. Back to reconsidering taking a chance on a WD Purple!
But cold feet eventually drove me to search even more diligently for a Pipeline from a recognized supplier, at a decent price with a more acceptable shipping charge. It was VERY difficult, but I eventually settled on Lambdatek who were a couple of quid more than E-Buyer, but charging a very much more reasonable £5 for shipping and who also assured me that their stock is sourced directly from Seagate and so should carry a full guarantee. I still have my doubts about that, but I guess I'll check it for sure when it eventually arrives, some time next week and I register it with Seagate.
I expect half a dozen people will then tell me I should have bought the WD Purple!
 
I was driving myself daft with hour after hour of poking around and not finding anything to recommend a more recent HDD than the out of production Seagate Pipeline. So I determined to buy a 1TB version from E-Buyer at a reasonable £51.48. But that was instantly knocked on the head when I eventually discovered that shipping off the UK mainland incurred a punitive shipping charge of £15
I don't understand that; it is showing me a shipping cost of £2.91.
 
I expect half a dozen people will then tell me I should have bought the WD Purple!
Do not buy a purple. They aren't designed for PVRs, rather they are supposed to be used in a RAID array along with a motion activated surveillance system which has a quite different disk access pattern.
 
Martin - Ebuyer Delivery - the cheapest I can see on their comprehensive delivery list is £3.49 for mainland and that doesn't include the Scottish Highlands which are not actually off-shore! I guess £2.91 is the cheapest shipping without VAT, which brings it up to £3.49 in total.
£15 extra is a certain deal killer on a £50 item - unless in desperation and I'm not, (though I thought I was for a while)!
Thanks for the caution on purple, af123 :cautious:
 
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Install the Custom Firmware and simply back up the recording partition to any drive on a PC including USB connected ones with any File System. If you have to replace the HDD, Simply copy all the files back to the video partition. Encryption isn't an issue because the key is in the box. The copied files can even be replayed by copying the files to a EXT3 formatted drive from the Foxsat-HDR and connecting the drive to a Foxsat-HDR usb port.

Adding Nowsters patch records HD without encryption enabling use of the recordings on other kit.

You can even use esata connections to record to a drive in a external sata cradle. Install a new drive and let the box initialise it. Put the original drive back in the box and the new drive in the cradle. Copy the video partition files to the new disk in the cradle (SDA3). You can now replay all the recordings from the new disk and even record to the new HDD,
 
Thanks for the helpful and encouraging input, Graham.
I am comfortable with WIndows PCs and have no fear of swapping an HDD. But, (1) I have no experience of Linux and, (2) although I have 5 PCs wirelessly networked at home, the network's inconsistent behaviour and hiccups occasionally drives me daft with frustration! Is there a reliable and comprehensive, step by simple step "Dummies Guide" for setting up the Custom Firmware? I have to admit that I am afraid of messing up my presently non-networked Foxsat through ignorance or stupidity. If I can get a thorough grasp of exactly what is required before starting, I'd feel much happier about it. The attraction of the enhanced facilities is very strong.
 
Is there a reliable and comprehensive, step by simple step "Dummies Guide" for setting up the Custom Firmware?
This is the start of what it says in the ReadMe.txt file that is contained in the .zip file:
===============================================================================
raydon's Media and File Server Bundle for the Humax FoxsatHDR - Release v4.1.3
===============================================================================

This rar archive contains everything necessary to set up the Humax Foxsat HDR as a fully functioning Media and File Server.
There are some major changes and additions to the earlier v3.0 releases, so please read this document carefully before starting.


At the risk of stating the bl33ding obvious, have you read it?
 
Perhaps not quite so bl33ding obvious!
My initial enquiry was quite specifically for some experienced opinion in selecting a larger compatible HDD replacement. The suggestion of Custom Firmware has only just arisen, so naturally I don't have either "the .zip file", or its ReadMe.txt file. Not even sure where I would find them on a safe host. Obviously I'll have to search around for the latest version and then hope that it doesn't make too many assumptions about previous experience with networking and File Transfer Protocols
 
There is a copy of the latest Foxsat HDR firmware in my dropbox HERE
Much more info HERE

You might also like nowster's patch that stops encryption of future recordings HERE

@prpr The AVF link didn't work for me just now.
 
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