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2Tb hard drive

R

rbrian

Member
I know this has been discussed several times, but having read most of the threads I'm now even more confused! I'm comfortable with opening the box; I've replaced hard drives in a number of computers, it's what comes after that confuses me.

I bought the drive mentioned in this post, a ST2000VM002. The stuff about sector realignment is very confusing for me, so hopefully someone can answer a couple of questions:

Can I just put it in and hope for the best, or does it need to formatted on a computer first? Does the ExFAT package make any difference, or does it still need to be Ext3?

If it does need a computer, can I do all the sector alignment there with a GUI, instead of on a command line? I haven't really used a command line since 1991, when my dad swapped our BBC B for an Acorn A5000, and I've used a WIMP environment since. It makes far more sense to me than a command line, which I'll only ever copy and paste without understanding what I'm doing.

Does it really need it done, given that "it uses a technology called SmartAlign to handle partition misalignment conditions in the drive firmware without impacting on performance"

Where does the custom firmware live? Is it on the hard drive, or will it still be there with a freshly formatted drive?

I have access to OSX, Windows 7, and I can download Linux if necessary.
 
rbrian said:
I bought the drive mentioned in this post, a ST2000VM002. The stuff about sector realignment is very confusing for me, so hopefully someone can answer a couple of questions:

Can I just put it in and hope for the best, or does it need to formatted on a computer first? Does the ExFAT package make any difference, or does it still need to be Ext3?
Click to expand...
The Humax will not format a drive bigger than 1TB so your options are to do it on the box using the af123 instructions or do it on a PC. I think it has to be Ext3.
 
Yes it has to be Ext3.

Regarding the location of the custom firmware, it depends what you mean. In this case, the utilities required for disk manipulation reside in non-volatile store in the Humax itself and not on the HDD.

The sector alignment and stuff is best done on the command line, I don't think the GUI tools provide that kind of detail. If it's understanding you want, command line is best - you might have to read up what the options do, but at least nothing gets hidden away. Google is your friend.
 
As expected, I jumped in with both feet and limited understanding. The CLI was more helpful than I expected, and since the numbers were all identical (would they be on all 2tb drives, or just this particular model?), I used the same numbers to create my partitions. I rebooted when the article said I should, and then got stuck, I couldn't find my newly created partitions. Just to see what would happen, I let the box try to format the drive - and it appears to have succeeded! That's contrary to what the article says, so what's going on? Is it ok to just use it now, or am I sitting on a time bomb? I might redo it anyway, if only to get rid of the 200Gb of reserved blocks.
 
rbrian said:
The CLI was more helpful than I expected, and since the numbers were all identical (would they be on all 2tb drives, or just this particular model?),
Click to expand...
Not necessarily but probably not very different.
I used the same numbers to create my partitions. I rebooted when the article said I should, and then got stuck, I couldn't find my newly created partitions. Just to see what would happen, I let the box try to format the drive - and it appears to have succeeded!
Click to expand...
So what size is the Humax reporting for the recording partition? What version of the standard software are you using?
 
1.03.06, 2.21. It says 2000.0GB, with 197.1GB reserved, under Settings -> System -> Data Storage. I just used the CLI again (gfdisk -lu /dev/sda), and it's only reporting my 1TB external drive which I used to transfer my content. It doesn't mention the internal drive at all, and says floating point exception, whatever that means. I'm currently transferring about 300GB across, which is working fine, and in Media - Video all my files and folders are appearing one by one, it's playing a recording which has transferred ok, and in the top corner of the screen it says 1757GB is available, dropping each time I refresh, as it should when transferring data.
 
rbrian said:
1.03.06, 2.21. It says 2000.0GB, with 197.1GB reserved, under Settings -> System -> Data Storage. I just used the CLI again (gfdisk -lu /dev/sda), and it's only reporting my 1TB external drive which I used to transfer my content.
Click to expand...
So what does gfdisk -lu /dev/sdb report?
 
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000 GB, 2000396321280 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907024065 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 8 2104510 1052226 83 Linux
Warning: Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 2104512 3886043166 1941969330 83 Linux
Warning: Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 3886043168 3907024062 10490445 83 Linux

Warning: Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.


All as it should be I think. How come it's SDB, not SDA? Surely the internal drive should be SDA, then subsequent drives SDB, SDC, etc?
 
If there is a USB drive it gets recognised first. The Humax software has to allow for that (and may be why a real USB drive needs to be present so that a virtual drive is acknowledged).
 
rbrian said:
I let the box try to format the drive - and it appears to have succeeded! That's contrary to what the article says, so what's going on?
Click to expand...
Humax have not detailed the changes in 1.03.06 and 1.06.11, but users are speculating that one new feature of these releases is support for drives larger than 1TB, your results seem to confirm this
 
rbrian said:
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000 GB, 2000396321280 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907024065 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 8 2104510 1052226 83 Linux
Warning: Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 2104512 3886043166 1941969330 83 Linux
Warning: Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 3886043168 3907024062 10490445 83 Linux

Warning: Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.


All as it should be I think.
Click to expand...

Those numbers are different to the ones in the af123 blog so I assume the Humax has indeed formatted the drive (and aligned it properly). Interesting.
 
I did the alignment first, following the first part of af123's instructions - but if the numbers are different, does that mean it undid all of that and started again from scratch? So I actually could have just bunged the drive in and hoped for the best? ;)
 
rbrian said:
does that mean it undid all of that and started again from scratch? So I actually could have just bunged the drive in and hoped for the best? ;)
Click to expand...
I think that is the tentative conclusion. It appears that the 1.03.xx series of software can format a drive up to 2TB which wasn't possible previously.
 
I wonder if that applies to external HDDs on 1.03.06? If I get a chance I will update he firmware in HDR2 and try it on a spare drive.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I have installed 1.03.11/2.22 on one of mine witn apparently no ill effects (I wanted radio iPlayer for something). I don't have any big drives to test on it though.
 
I'm also on 1.03.06, and am planning to upgrade to a 2Tb drive, so would be very interested to know how this goes long-term.
 
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