Hard Disk Failure?

Once again thanks everyone for your input. Having read through the Disk installation blog here http://hummy.tv/forum/threads/hard-disk-failure.3528/ and here http://myhumax.org/blog/?p=22 am I right in assuming that installing a 1Tb HD (I don't think I need larger) would be as simple as changing it over and reformatting using the Hummy menus.

In the myhumax blog, the writer states "Even though I really ought to have sourced out a drive designed to be used in a PVR – a ‘CE’ hard disk." What is a CE hard drive and what's the difference with what's used in a PC???? Also what about the cache size? And does the drive speed matter?

Would someone be so kind as to point me in the direction of a suitable HD.

Thanks in advance - Alan
 
I'm guessing CE = Consumer Electronics, in the past there used to be a distinction made between a hard disk designed for constant read/write e.g. video recording and a hard drive use in normal computer use where the head can be 'parked' occasionally between read /writing blocks of data, a 'normal' drive was likely to overheat if constantly in use. Modern drives are more flexible and are capable of what used to be called 'AV' or Audio /Visual applications. The original 1TB has a cache buffer of 16MB and a spin speed of 5900rpm smaller figures could affect access time but won't be a problem to match. Data sheet of the original 1TB ST31000424CS drive HERE
 
Suffolkboy said:
what's the difference with what's used in a PC????
Click to expand...
The drive manufacturers have a huge market for drives for consumer electronics, and it is worth their while providing drives optimised for that kind of duty cycle. They are competing to supply to consumer electronics manufacturers, who will bulk-purchase the drive with the best spec for their requirements at the best price.

Requirements for a PVR are not a huge data rate or seek speed (files tend not to be random access, reads/writes are in large blocks, and the data rate requirement is limited by the bit rate of a few concurrent HiDef streams) - but the drive will be operating continuously. For a PC the seek time is crucial in achieving a good user experience (lots of files have to be located and read when starting up an app or booting the system, so the minimum possible delay is required), and time taken to read a large block of data into memory also affects performance (how long do you want to wait for that video file to load into your editor?) - but the drive will be operating in fits and starts and shouldn't get so warm.

Consequently it should be possible to tailor a drive for CE use cheaper than a PC drive and supply it in bulk to the manufacturers, even if the same drive is not much (or any) cheaper on the retail market. I would expect a non-CE drive (ie a high-performance PC drive) to get a bit warm in a PVR. Also, the layout of the tracks on the CE drive will be optimised for PVR (ie serial access) use, and possibly the embedded operating systems as well. PC drives optimised for operation with Windows might not be very happy, as indicated in the installation blog HERE (click).
 
There is still a distinction. CE or AV drives are optimised for AV content. They generally run cooler and quieter than desktop drives as well as consuming less power. They also behave differently as regards error detection, correction and reporting. A single read/write error when recording AV content usually matters a lot less than a pause while the drive or application stops, waits for the disk platter to revolve again then retries the read. You can get away with a normal drive in most cases but there's a reason the manufacturers make their AV ranges.

The Seagate CE drives are interesting because they use a compromise spin speed of 5900 RPM.

http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/consumer-electronics/video-3-5-hdd/

WD AV disks are also well reported in PVR applications:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/av/

The problem is that the Humax is SATA2 and it's hard to get SATA2 drives now. A SATA3 drive should work fine, possibly with the addition of a jumper to set it to SATA2, but I don't remember seeing any reports of anyone trying it. I used a 2TB Seagate ST2000VM002; the successor is the ST2000VM003 which will almost definitely work but you would try it at your own risk. Hopefully somebody can post a tried and tested model.
 
I have just arranged a warranty swap out on mine because of this exact same issue. got all my stuff backed up thanks to CF and have returned to default settings ready for exchange. the most difficult thing to do was get registered on here to post this comment thanks to hotmail.
 
Well it's 5 days since I last posted and in that time have had no issues with my hummy. In the best tradition of "if it aint broke don't fix it" I think I'll just carry on untill it dies.
Thanks to everyone who's contributed.

Alan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top