External portable HDD to use with a Humax HDR-FOX T2 - Can you help!?

Been looking in Tesco again (2.5" portable USB drives) - they've still got the 320GB Buffalo @ £36, also a 500GB Hitachi @ £43, and a 750GB Samsung @ £54. Then there are triple points coupons around this month, and £5 off £50 spend in electricals...

So, being as I've been wanting to play with the new NTFS capabilities, and didn't want to wipe my Buffalo to do it.... (you see where this is going) I now have the Hitachi and was preparing to format it NTFS (but it is already :)). I can't even tell that the drive is spinning (not next to my PC anyway).
 
I followed this thread and bought 2Tb Seagate drive from Maplins on Monday night for £89.
They have a no returns policy, but I thought I'd risk it.
Downloaded a copy of Gparted live ISO. Booted my laptop and formatted the drive to EXT3.
After about an hour plugged into my Humax.
Works a treat.
Thank you guys!
 
Waking up an old thread. I'm trying to use a 2TB WD MyBook Studio as a drive on my HD-FOX-T2. My first attempt to let the Humax format the drive failed - it just hung for ages, until I googled and discovered it can't format drives greater than 1TB. Then it wouldn't let me out so I had to hard-reset it (literally, pull the power plug) to get out of there.

Then I took the drive upstairs and plugged it into my Linux box and formatted it to ext3 (with MBR partition format); brought it back downstairs and plugged it in.

The Humax sees the new drive and offers immediately to format it. I already know that won't work, and also that it shouldn't be necessary, so I say no. The Humax is able to see the drive, see how much free space it has, and so forth. For instance, it sees the empty Lost+Found directory that the linux formatter put there. I think if there were video files on it, it would see them and try to play them. However, I can't make it use it as the PVR drive. The option to select it for PVR is greyed out; presumably until it gets to format the drive itself. Which it can't.

Anyone else found this and know a way around it? At the moment I can only guess it's looking for something specific on the drive. Or failing that, that the drive must be completely empty, and that Lost+Found folder is throwing it. Or that certain permissions must be set on the root folder of the partition?

Software Version KZTFT 1.02.20
Loader version L7.26
 
The Humax stores the UUID of the disk in its flash so nothing you do to the disk will make the Humax like it. If you're running custom firmware then you can assign the disk by hand, otherwise you need the Humax to format it as far as I know.
 
That does somewhat contradict that others have been able to format a drive on another machine for use - did I just assume they were doing so for PVR use, as opposed to just to make video files available to play? Or is that a more recent firmware change?
 
Some of the posts may have been referring to the HDR which will only allow recording to its internal disk. Large disks can be connected via USB but they can only really be used as backups.

If you don't want to install the custom firmware there may be a way to workaround it. Allow the box to format another smaller drive, then using the Linux box use 'tune2fs' to find its UUID and then set the UUID of the 2TB disk to the same value. It's a bit of a cheat since no two disks should have the same UUID.
 
right, i need a smaller drive. I have them; it's just that the 2TB one was the one most immediately available. I have a stack of internal 500GB drives which I can use via a sharkoon dock-thingy (but that'll be noisy), and a 500GB WD portable drive which is bus-powered and thus probably won't work (but would otherwise be ideal). They're all full of stuff too, so that stuff needs moving...
 
I've got a 2TB external HD.

I use my internal HDD to record the shows then watch them.
If there is something that I want to keep or if I haven't time to watch I move to the external HDD and watch later.
I did record an few nature shows (life in freezer sort of stuff) which I waited until complete before moving to external.

I download TV series and put them straigh on the external HDD.

I do not record to the external.

This might be of interest to people wanting larger internal drives: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1362751
 
xyz321 said:
Some of the posts may have been referring to the HDR which will only allow recording to its internal disk. Large disks can be connected via USB but they can only really be used as backups.

If you don't want to install the custom firmware there may be a way to workaround it. Allow the box to format another smaller drive, then using the Linux box use 'tune2fs' to find its UUID and then set the UUID of the 2TB disk to the same value. It's a bit of a cheat since no two disks should have the same UUID.
Click to expand...

Can confirm that workaround (moving UUID to the desired drive) works just fine. Found an old 60GB ex-notebook drive for the intermediate step; now have a 2TB recording drive. Will probably have to sort out decryption at some point, but not pressured as I already have an EyeTV Sat to record stuff; this is just for more convenient timeshifting.
 
Just going back to the beginning of this thread - is the Buffalo still a good choice? I'm pretty much only going to use it in the way John Scott describes above.
Elsewhere I've read caution against using USB powered drives with the Humax - does it seem to manage ok?
Many thanks!
 
I have two 500GB portable USB2 drives currently powered from my HDR-FOX USB ports, no problem. One of them is a Buffalo Linkstation.

The issue is with external drives (which usually come with a power adapter, inconvenient to find another mains socket for), or a drive with USB3 interface (and no power supply) as the USB3 spec allows more current to be drawn than would be healthy for the HDR's ports.
 
My HD-FOX-T2 and USB3 drive are still going strong after almost a year of high recording and playback use.

Due to the HD-FOX-T2 being a single tuner and not allowing recording from the buffer wouldn't that help to avoid the circumstancies where maximum power is needed? And is the HD-FOX-T2 really capable of a situation were it could even approach using a USB3 HDD to its full potential, especially as the Humax USB2 port will limit the data transfer rate?

Also just because the USB3 specification specifies more power should be available does not mean that that a manufacturer making similar USB2/USB3 drives of the same HDD series would end up with design that draws noticable different power under the same circumstancies - or would it?
 
You are right, there is no certainty that a USB3 drive will draw too much current, but because it is not specified there is also no guarantee that it won't. It's pot luck, and if you want certainty best avoid.

You can't even list the models that have been found to work in the past, because the specifications always say the manufacturer can change the design at will - as long as it meets its performance requirements there is no certainty that today's production run will be made from the same components as yesterday's. We hit this sort of thing all the time in hardware design. We know there is something you can probably get away with 99% of the time, but it doesn't meet the spec so you can't do it.

Try a USB3 drive by all means, and it may well be OK, but don't say I didn't warn you if it's not.
 
What a busy thread...

Anyway I just thought I'd mention I was forced to buy a seagate GoFlex drive because I couldn't get a wester digital
last week. The case is shiny (I dont like that) but it was the only USB3 1TB I could get.
Its a nightmare.
I took the first back to the shop because it kept randomly seeking (lots of head motion noise) and the replacement
shuts down after writing more than about 300MB every single time.
If it is plugged into a USB2 port the write finishes with no problems and it seems to work ok.
They just dont seem to like doing USB3.

I dont know if this is typical of these but its on the record now anyway in case anyone else has problems with one.
 
Mine is a Seagate GoFlex 2Tb external.
I offload films onto it about twice a week and watch them from the external drive when I have time.
It's got about 1.1Gb free on it.
The only problem that I can possibly mention is that it goes into low power mode when it's not in use and take an extra 5 seconds to power up when I choose USB on the Humax. It's not a problem at all.
It's silent, fast and reliable.
It's got it's own power supply, so doesn't draw from the Humax. It's USB2.

When I first got it I re partitioned it using GParted.

Never had a problem since ~ December 2011.
 
No problem at all with "external" drives (with power supplies), except the possible inconvenience of finding another mains socket. Of course, even spun down a drive on an wall wart will consume power (unless you kill it at the wall).

The potential issue with a USB3 is that it might need the extra current, but not come with a power supply on the basis that a USB3 port can provide it.
 
Black Hole said:
The issue is with external drives (which usually come with a power adapter, inconvenient to find another mains socket for), or a drive with USB3 interface (and no power supply) as the USB3 spec allows more current to be drawn than would be healthy for the HDR's ports.
Click to expand...
But surely the fact that the USB3 device may or may not require more current than the USB2 spec allows will not be unhealthy for the HDRs port as surely this can only supply up to the current limit of USB2 spec. Of course the story is not complete, as if the USB3 device requires more current than the USB port will supply, then the device is likely to malfunction/not work. (or am I talking dross as has happened before?)
As in the above post by BH, which could have the last line extended to "....USB3 port can provide it but a USB2 port cannot."
 
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