Swapping HDD's

peterpi

peterpi

Member
I've had the !! WARNING !! about the HDD in my T2. I've powered it down before it becomes completely shafted. I've got another 1TB drive and I wonder if I can clone the old one to the new? If so, is there a program I can use to do this on a Windows 10 PC, or will I have to clone it using a Linux machine?

If not, I'll swap the drive, let the Humax do the formatting ETC and take the stuff I want off the old drive and archive it. Its probably the easiest thing to do anyhow.
 
You can do it with Acronis True Image: it does not recognise the ext3 filesystem but can do a sector by sector copy. There is a free version called Seagate Disk Wizard, but I think your PC needs to have an internal Seagate or Maxtor disk to use it.
It is probably easier to put the new disk in the HDR-FOX, format with the remote control handset and copy your recordings over using a USB to SATA adapter or caddy.
When you say 'warning' do you mean on screen or do you have custom firmware? If the latter it may just be a reallocated sector.
 
If you really have a duff disk and you really want to copy it on a Windows box, I can recommend the "AOEMI" utility.
It says it supports ext* filesystems but I haven't verified that as I use a Linux box for such things.
 
The first thing is not to panic. The warning needs further examination before you know what the prognosis is. Posting the SMART stats here will give us a chance to recommend further action.

If you decide to replace the disk, I recommend setting it up fresh. It is then straightforward to use the old disk in a USB caddy to either watch recordings from or import recordings.
 
peterpi said:
I've had the !! WARNING !! about the HDD in my T2. I've powered it down before it becomes completely shafted.
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I think you may be over reacting. What exactly did the warning say? Things like reallocated sectors are perfectly normal and in small number are not a harbinger of impending doom.
 
Than you all for your answers.

First of all I do have the custom firmware installed. Th is is the message I get. I did do a diagnostic check but did not do a screen grab. I've just turned it back on, but at the moment no warnings. Is there a way to force a HDD check? If so I'll post the results.

HUMAX.jpg
 
<sigh>

WebIF >> Diagnostics >> Disk Diagnostics

Just grab the attributes table and post it (mine follows - OK, it's not very tidy, but the data is there):

Code: 
ID    Name    Flags    Raw Value    Value    Worst    Threshold    Life Left    Notes
1    Raw_Read_Error_Rate    POSR--    229062087    119    099    006        -
3    Spin_Up_Time    PO----    0    097    097    000        -
4    Start_Stop_Count    -O--CK    6320    094    094    020    93%    -
5    Reallocated_Sector_Ct    PO--CK    0    100    100    036    100%    -
7    Seek_Error_Rate    POSR--    587650616    087    060    030        -
9    Power_On_Hours    -O--CK    39392    056    056    000    56%    -
10    Spin_Retry_Count    PO--C-    0    100    100    097    100%    -
12    Power_Cycle_Count    -O--CK    3160    097    097    020    97%    -
184    End-to-End_Error    -O--CK    0    100    100    099        -
187    Reported_Uncorrect    -O--CK    4    096    096    000        -
188    Command_Timeout    -O--CK    0    100    100    000        -
189    High_Fly_Writes    -O-RCK    9    091    091    000        -
190    Airflow_Temperature_Cel    -O---K    46    054 (46°C)    042 (58°C)    045 (55°C)        In_the_past
194    Temperature_Celsius    -O---K    46    046    058    000        -
195    Hardware_ECC_Recovered    -O-RC-    229062087    037    028    000        -
197    Current_Pending_Sector    -O--C-    0    100    100    000        -
198    Offline_Uncorrectable    ----C-    0    100    100    000        -
199    UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -OSRCK    0    200    200    000        -
 
That is quite a large change in one go, and it appears not to have reallocated the sectors. I would boot into maintenance mode and run fix disk. You can do a basic disk check using the remote control handset. However, with pending sectors it will fail. In any case, fix disk starts off with such a test and will then attempt to reallocate the sectors.
 
How does this look? I've got a 1TB Western Digital Red drive, so I'll swap it out anyhow.
Humax Attributes.jpg
 
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It's obviously had a glitch and marked 164 sectors as suspect. A fix-disk might well be able to sort it though - with that many sectors at once it's often a false alarm.

I would add '-y' to the extra options to fix-disk or you'll be asked to type yes 164 times.
 
peterpi said:
It's just that I used it in a media server, and I've upgraded to a larger drive. Whats the recommended drive?
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A drive designed for PVR usage; in the Western Digital range Purple (which are mainly marketed as surveillance drives) although the blurb says "WD Purple NV is also backwards compatible with DVR systems" which makes me wonder how optimised it is for PVR (aka DVR) usage. In the Seagate range 1TB ST1000VM002 or 2TB ST2000VM003 or 3TB ST3000VM002; note that Seagate still have a clear distinction between drives for DVR usage and drives for Surveillance usage .
 
MartinLiddle said:
A drive designed for PVR usage; in the Western Digital range Purple (which are mainly marketed as surveillance drives) although the blurb says "WD Purple NV is also backwards compatible with DVR systems" which makes me wonder how optimised it is for PVR (aka DVR) usage. In the Seagate range 1TB ST1000VM002 or 2TB ST2000VM003 or 3TB ST3000VM002; note that Seagate still have a clear distinction between drives for DVR usage and drives for Surveillance usage .
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Hmm, as I said I've got a red WD on the way. Its one I gave to my son, which has done about eight months as part of a media server PC. I might just get a "pukka" one and save myself any grief down the road.
 
Ok, a question for the experts in this sort of thing. What is the difference between the various sorts of drives and does it really make a difference which one you use? If so, what are the problems with using the 'wrong' type?
 
From the Wiki:

Note: Always choose a specific Audio/Visual (AV) or Digital Video Recorder (DVR) drive if possible.

  • Avoid drives which are designed for RAID use (e.g. WD Red and Purple drives) as they will have TLER (an error recovery option) enabled which can cause issues if there are problems with reading or writing to a sector. AV drives usually have this parameter disabled so that a failed write is just ignored and recording moves on. It can also cause complications when dealing with any problem sectors in the future as it causes some issues to be hidden from the host (the Humax in this scenario).
  • WD Purple drives have a surprisingly low workload rating of 60TB/year and should be avoided.
  • With any non-AV Western Digital disk, watch the disk stats to check if the load/unload count grows quickly which could indicate that automatic head parking after 8 seconds is enabled. This can (and should) be disabled using wdidle3[1].
Click to expand...

More information https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/disk-failing.6490/#post-85348
 
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And a good summary from the Tivo forums too
(http://www.tivocommunity.com/community/index.php?goto/post&id=10324065#post-10324065)

For those who may be tempted to take WK using the WD Purple as a reason to buy one for DIY, you'd be better off with a Red. They also go to 6TB and are AV drives (support the ATA AV streaming command set extensions), not that it necessarily matters, since TiVo doesn't use them).

Purple rated workload: 60TB/yr
Red rated workload: 120-140TB/yr

Both drives are for NAS (thus have TLER/ERC, which can be a detriment on a non-RAID controller). But, the Purple is designed specifically for motion-activated surveillance, not true 24x7 (unless you count idle time as 24x7). Since TiVo can't do RAID, you can't just add more drives, to meet the TB/yr workload, as WD expects, if you exceed it with one drive. The rating is per drive.

If you can wait to buy, sales on the Red NAS are frequent, often coming very close to the regular price of a Purple. Obviously, WK is going to go with what they can always get for the lowest cost, to increase their margins, and only cares that the drive last as long as the WK warranty.

I've done the math, and 4-tuner TiVos can easily exceed 60TB/yr, unless you don't record in HD. Don't forget that all tuners are always buffering, which still counts towards this, and 6-tuner TiVos insure there's no (logical) way to not exceed the workload rating.

For telemark's sake, and his thread, I won't go into details about what I found out about, through experience, with TLER/ERC drives, used in TiVos (I use WD Red). It seems to take a "perfect storm" of conditions to bite you, which is why I'm trying to just keep it as a footnote to everything else (and have not stopped using Red drives).

ETA: WD still only considers the AV-GP as the proper drive for non-RAID DVR/PVR use. You will not be able to get assistance from them, if you try to, for other drives. While their warranty terms clearly state the warranty is only valid for intended drives for intended use, getting warranty RMAs for other drives has not yet been reported as an issue (which they could start enforcing, and change that, at any time).
Click to expand...
While the Purple PURX is a "24x7" drive, WD has supposedly designed it to spend more time with the heads parked, and platters spinning (Idle Mode 3), than any other AV drive. It's primary target market is motion-activated camera environments, where it can quickly handle bursts of many cameras, without losing a single frame in the process of coming out of Idle Mode 3.
Click to expand...
 
Black Hole said:
And yet he says he uses WD Red, which the wiki entry says to avoid.
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They have TLER so should be avoided for non-RAID use but my interpretation of what he's saying is that the chance of being bitten is low enough that he continues to take the risk.

One thing is definitely clear from everything I've read - avoid WD purple!
 
af123 said:
It's obviously had a glitch and marked 164 sectors as suspect. A fix-disk might well be able to sort it though - with that many sectors at once it's often a false alarm.

I would add '-y' to the extra options to fix-disk or you'll be asked to type yes 164 times.
Click to expand...

By fix-disk do you mean using Windows to fix it or is it a CF application?
 
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