Connecting multiple USB hard drives via USB hub

pgy

New Member
Hello,

I have a Humax Fox T2 with a 1TB internal hard drive. Since I eventually ran out of storage space I started using a Western Digital 2 TB USB 3 hard drive that I connect using a Belkin Ultra Slim 4 Port USB Hub with a power supply. The reason for the hub was to ensure the hard drive had enough power as when I first connected the drive it was not behaving consistently being connected directly to the Humax USB port which I believe is USB 2. I had also read a post from someone who is using a 7 port hub and has four 2 TB hard drives connected. He said he was trying to connect a fifth drive and that the limit seemed to be four which I thought would serve me for the foreseeable future.

My first 2TB drive is at 85% capacity so I thought I would fire up the second 2 TB Western Digital USB hard drive I had waiting to go. I have formatted it using the EXT3 file format as was done with my first WD 2TB USB drive. I then powered down my Humax and the USB hub, plugged the second USB drive into the second port of the USB hub, powered the hub back up and then the Humax and signed into the Humax CF to see if the second USB drive was recognised. Unfortunately, it was not recognised by the Humax like the first USB drive is.

I have tried powering down and rebooting the whole configuration a couple of times. I have also tried unplugging the first hard drive and leaving the second hard drive plugged in with no luck of it being recognised by the Humax. I also tried it with the first hard drive plugged in through the USB hub in the back of the Humax as it always is but with the second drive plugged in through the USB port on the front of the Humax but still with no luck of it being recognised by the Humax.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I do not want the hassle of swapping out the internal hard drive and the USB hub solution with four 2 TB drives seemed to be a simple and expandable solution that would work for me. I am hoping it might be something simple like instructing the Humax to mount the drive although I do not think I had to do that with the first drive.

Cheers
 
My first 2TB drive is at 85% capacity so I thought I would fire up the second 2 TB Western Digital USB hard drive I had waiting to go. I have formatted it using the EXT3 file format as was done with my first WD 2TB USB drive. I then powered down my Humax and the USB hub, plugged the second USB drive into the second port of the USB hub, powered the hub back up and then the Humax and signed into the Humax CF to see if the second USB drive was recognised. Unfortunately, it was not recognised by the Humax like the first USB drive is.
What partition scheme is used on the new drive (MBR or GPT)? If it is a GPT scheme then the Humax won't recognise it.
 
I am not sure which one. I used fdisk within Ubunto to format the disk. I do not remember having that option to choose and not sure what the default is. How can I check what the partition scheme is?
 
Using the parted command I can see the partition table is listed as loop. My largest drive shows as GPT and the others as msdos. I am not sure how to format to the MBR format you noted above.
 
I am not sure which one. I used fdisk within Ubunto to format the disk. I do not remember having that option to choose and not sure what the default is. How can I check what the partition scheme is?
In fdisk use the "p" option and look at the Disklabel type; if it says "dos" then it is MBR and should be recognised by the Humax.
 
I am trying not to be an idiot but I cannot figure out the right syntax for the fdisk command. My drive location is /dev/sdj . I have tried 'fdisk -p /dev/sdj' and it says invalid option 'p' . I have also tried 'fdisk -t /dev/sdj' and it tells me its an unsupported disklabel.
 
OK, I figured out how to use the 'p' option. The disk label is listed as dos.
OK so that should work fine. I assume you have a computer running Ubuntu; what happens when you plug it into the computer? Perhaps post the relevant output from /var/log/messages.
 
Are these 2TB WD USB drives identical?

Are they 2.5" "portable" or 3.5" "external" drives? The difference is that 2.5" drives are much lower power than 3.5" units (indeed, 3.5" drives often have a separate power adapter).

Be aware that genuine USB3 ports are capable of providing more 5V power than USB2 ports, and although we know people have got it to work, I have doubts whether every USB3 drive will always work reliably with the HDR-FOXes supply capability (or any USB2 port). See Things Every... (click) section 12.

That said, my recommendation is to disconnect everything else and just plug the troublesome drive directly into the HDR-FOX USB port, then go to Menu >> Settings >> System >> Data Storage and see if it is listed there (the internal HDD will be). If it is, use that menu to format it. If it isn't, there is something fundamentally wrong with it and it will never be recognised by the HDR-FOX whatever you do.

As an aside: it always amuses me that people think they will ever have the time to watch more than 2TB backlog of TV. Therefore they are spending hard earned cash to store stuff they'll never watch simply because they can't be bothered to prune it. And, if it's so important to them that they can't bear to part with it, it has to be backed up...
 
I guess if the alternative is buying a lot of seasonseries sets on DVD, or perpetual streaming subscriptions, then a 2TB disk capable of holding many hundreds of DVD-equivalents may not be such a bad deal.
 
Back
Top