HDR-FOX T2 HDD Replacement

My view is to avoid SMR (shingled) drives like the plague, with the possible exception of drives used for backup purposes only.
 
As I only use about 75% of my existing 500MB drive don't really need more than 1TB which is what I ordered.
Being CMR, that appears to be the lower-risk choice.

My view is to avoid SMR (shingled) drives like the plague, with the possible exception of drives used for backup purposes only.
The article I linked particularly slams the SMR version of the WD Red in the very demanding situation of rebuilding a RAID, where a ten-fold increase in the rebuild completion time results in the array no longer having redundancy and therefore exposing an enterprise system to data risk for much longer than if another type of drive were used for the rebuild. By "rebuild", I mean reconstructing the array when one drive out of four has been taken out of service and replaced using a WD Red, so that the redundancy in the array is used to recreate the data from the missing drive, while the array remains in service.

That hardly constitutes a problem with SMR in general, in less demanding situations, and might only affect the WD implementation. Certainly it appears an SMR drive has an awful lot of extra work to do, but Toshiba offer the same warranty assurances.
 
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I'd like to say Many Thanks for this post. It allowed me to upgrade my old 500GB drive, which was regularly so close to full that I'd have to delete stuff to make space for what my wife considers essential to be recorded, and allowed us to keep all the things that we haven't got round to watching yet.

I used a 2TB Seagate Skyhawk, swapped it out very easily using the very good instructions in:

The Humax then offered to format it, all fine, as described in this thread.
I then connected the old drive via a USB-sata adapter, and transferred all the old recordings to the new drive, all as described in this thread. Yes it was very slow, the best part of 2 days to transfer, in small alphabetical groups. But I'm too mean to spend another £25 or so on another USB-sata adapter!

The transfers will continue even while you play existing ones or record new ones.

One warning - don't let someone try to play and then delete the specific recording that is being transferred at that time. That lead to the Humax "hanging", needing power off and on again. But other than that one recording, no harm done.
 
But I'm too mean to spend another £25 or so on another USB-sata adapter!
How would that have made things any faster if you'd bought one? The main way to do this faster would be to connect both old and new drives to a PC (Linux or Windows) in some way that was not restricted by USB2 speeds.
 
The main way to do this faster would be to connect both old and new drives to a PC (Linux or Windows) in some way that was not restricted by USB2 speeds.
Yes, but the USB port on the HDR-FOX is far slower than even USB2 is capable.
 
I'd always wondered why it is glacial copying files.
Transfer Speeds

I don't know how long the same copy would have taken to a USB memory stick, but copying 5.86GB to the portable drive took about 34 minutes. It only took 3 minutes to get it into the PC! For comparison, I copied 6 half-hour (+padding) radio recordings to a FAT32 USB stick (which means 18 files - no thumbnail on radio recordings), totalling 1.7GB in 9 minutes. The surprise is that it is roughly 200MB/min either to USB hard drive or to USB Flash drive. However, the USB stick then took 1:40 to copy into the PC.
It's a bit quicker if there's no on-the-fly decryption in the process (or is it a bit slower if there is – I forget, but it's hardly material!)

Do we know why it is so slow?
Cheap hardware, value-engineered to do just the job that's needed and no more, to retail at a specific price point. Lightning file transfers were not on the must-have list!
 
It's a bit quicker if there's no on-the-fly decryption in the process (or is it a bit slower if there is – I forget, but it's hardly material!)
I know I had auto decryption enabled in webif, I remember doing it and some my older saved recordings are decrypted. But it appears to have silently got disabled a few years ago, I wonder which webif update did that? I've turned it back on now.
Cheap hardware, value-engineered to do just the job that's needed and no more, to retail at a specific price point. Lightning file transfers were not on the must-have list!
Yeah but it takes effort to make it this slow. Maybe the PHY is only USB 1.1 standard speed, none of this USB 2 High Speed "new" fangled stuff.
 
it appears to have silently got disabled a few years ago, I wonder which webif update did that?
No update should have disabled recursive auto-decryption, because the setting is a flag file (.autodecryptR). There are a few reasons the flag file might go missing, or might not be acted on (Content Share needs to be ON, and an active network connection is required).
 
No update should have disabled recursive auto-decryption, because the setting is a flag file (.autodecryptR). There are a few reasons the flag file might go missing, or might not be acted on (Content Share needs to be ON, and an active network connection is required).
There was an update a few years back that changed the name of the recursive flag file names so there is a possibility that the auto-rename part of the update failed.
 
From my perspective, using the Humax's USB interface was the low risk approach (I didn't want to struggle to access all my wife's "essential" recordings) and I was well-informed by this thread about the slow speed.

We've been Humax PVR users for nearly 20 years, I guess, and it might seem old-fashioned but back then it did revolutionise our TV watching, and it's what we know and (mostly) love.

We don't really do internet streaming of TV (can't skip adverts), so giving our T2 a new lease of practical life was the best option for us.
 
There's been some questions here regarding using the 2TB Toshiba S300 (HDWT720UZSVA) as a replacement drive. I decided to replace the original 500GB Seagate Pipeline in mine because I was getting low on free space and then started to get drive warnings everytime I used Web-IF. Earlier this week I had some time on my hands to do this and was originally planning to use the 2TB Seagate Skyhawk but found it unavailable for quick delivery so instead thought I would try the Toshiba as I could get that next day. I successfully installed this last Tuesday and am happy to report that it seems to be working perfectly.

I'd like to thank all the contributors to this thread, in fact the entire forum, for the invaluable information it provides for all things Humax and the creators of the customised firmware and add on packages.
 
There's been some questions here regarding using the 2TB Toshiba S300 (HDWT720UZSVA) as a replacement drive. I decided to replace the original 500GB Seagate Pipeline in mine because I was getting low on free space and then started to get drive warnings everytime I used Web-IF. Earlier this week I had some time on my hands to do this and was originally planning to use the 2TB Seagate Skyhawk but found it unavailable for quick delivery so instead thought I would try the Toshiba as I could get that next day. I successfully installed this last Tuesday and am happy to report that it seems to be working perfectly.
Please keep us posted on how this works out over the next few years.
 
I have been all through this thread and I cannot see anything related to my problem - the HDR-T2 doesn't think that the hard drive is present. I have done the factory reset and re-loaded the custom firmware and even that thinks there is no HD.

If I just replace the disc, will I need to load some sort of OS?

Thank you
 

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The OS is in Flash so you can just connect a new blank disc, format it and start from there. If you have installed the custom firmware on the old drive you will have to do that again, but that's no harder the second time than it was the first.
 
I have been all through this thread and I cannot see anything related to my problem - the HDR-T2 doesn't think that the hard drive is present. I have done the factory reset and re-loaded the custom firmware and even that thinks there is no HD.

If I just replace the disc, will I need to load some sort of OS?
Fitting a Replacement Drive

Something to note is that (disregarding Custom Firmware for the moment) the HDR-FOX only stores recordings (and other media) on the HDD. Everything else (user settings, recording schedule, etc) is stored in non-volatile memory. Therefore replacing, or disconnecting, the HDD has no effect on the remaining functionality.

Full details for opening up the HDR-FOX and removing the HDD are provided here: HDR-FOX Commissioning, Disassembly, Repair (click). Fitting and reassembly is the reverse of removal.

Once fitted, powering up the HDR-FOX should result in it recognising there is a blank drive and offering to format it. If not, go to MENU >> Settings >> System >> Data Storage >> Storage = Internal HDD, then Format Storage.
See the original post for details how to chose a replacement drive, but note there is a risk your HDD is not being recognised because the interface has failed rather than the drive. If you can at least take the drive out and test it to confirm it has failed, that would be a good move.
 
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