Very Large External Drive - Seagate Backup Plus 8TB

[Christian]

Hi all.
I've just joined so please forgive my ignorance if i'm asking a stupid question.

I purchased the brand new "8TB Seagate Backup Plus Desktop Drive" from 'Argos' (STDT8000200) recently in order to condense all my saved recordings (spread across several external drives), onto just one, for easy access. I took advice from the threads here and formatted it (with one big partition) on my computer using 'Gparted' and selected 'MSDOS EXT3'. It took about 4 hours and when it was done, it displayed "7.28 TiB" of space.

I then connected it to my Humax (hdr fox t2) to do some testing and copied several Hi-Def films (after Foxy'ing them first) from the internal storage - everything went well and played as normal. (I deleted them from the 8TB drive afterwards).

The problem lies however when I checked the 'Data Storage' (accessed via the remote control) where it only shows me having "3297.3GB" Total Size - thus missing 4TB somewhere! Has anyone got any thoughts as to why this is? I installed custom firmware 3.03 beforehand and even switched over to the latest 3.10 as it was said somewhere it supports very large hard drives - which i think in retrospect was for internal installation only. Thank you.

 

[Black Hole]

Under normal circumstances 2TB is your limit. We are still experimenting with support for drives over that, because they require major tweaks to the operating system. I'm not sure how you got hold of 3.10 custom firmware, because I thought it was on restricted circulation.

For the moment, the standard advice is in Things Every... (click) section 12. It is possible that the USB to SATA adapter in the external drive housing is providing some translation allowing you to access 4TB.

 

[Christian]

You are quite right, when I boot up my Humax it actually displays version 3.03 - I just assumed this was the newer firmware for large drives people were talking about, as per topic "Installing a Drive Larger Than 2TB - Possible?" - I must of instead tried 3.03 and 3.02 then.

Reading the topic again it does say version: 3.10 but i realise now it isn't listed on the official Firmware Downloads page - sorry for the confusion - if this were installed do you think my Humax would display the full 8TB, or is the 'experimental version' only for internal drives?

The usb to sata adaptor i believe, from reading wikipedia, is for legacy computers/operating systems to use the newer standard of Advanced Format drives, rather than being able to 'see' the full storage capacity. I still can't think of a valid reason why my external drive is only 'seeing' half the storage capacity. If it were truly limited it would only display 2TB (maximum) under normal circumstances.... Thank you for your help anyway, much appreciated.

 

[Black Hole]

It could be showing 4TB if the translation is mapping logical 1KB sectors. The limit is defined by the number of sectors that can be counted in the MBR partition table, which is 2TB for the conventional 512 byte sectors. The real question is whether, when you formatted the drive, you used the GPT system or the formatting software actually used an MBR scheme and realised it would need 2KB sectors to accommodate that size of disk.

The present developments are for installing an internal drive. We have yet to see how this extends to USB drives.

For what it's worth, the MBR system with 512 byte sectors is able to define two nearly-2TB partitions on a 4TB disk, because it only needs to track the start sector and the number of sectors in the partition. It is thus possible to have the first partition starting at the beginning of the disk and almost 2TB in size, and then the next partition starting within the 2TB limit and still 2TB in size. This depends on the operating system not getting confused.

 

[prpr]

The real question is whether, when you formatted the drive, you used the GPT system or the formatting software actually used an MBR scheme

Strictly speaking, you mean partitioning, not formatting. Formatting is what you do after you have partitioned, to create a filesystem within the partition.

 

[Black Hole]

Yes.

 

[Christian]

The real question is whether, when you formatted the drive, you used the GPT system or the formatting software actually used an MBR scheme

Strictly speaking, you mean partitioning, not formatting. Formatting is what you do after you have partitioned, to create a filesystem within the partition.

Sorry guy's I did't really understand that (or was it a rhetorical question?)..... I used Gparted and selected MSDOS EXT3. I avoided GPT as I read in another topic that the Humax doesn't like it - ....which I guess is the reason for the test version 3.10....? I didn't partition anything so I assume i've got one big partition - does that help?

It's so frustrating that humax didn't future-proof the 'hdr fox t2' by using the guid partition table (or whatever it's called) - I took the liberty in contacting 'Humax Support yesterday', and their reply was no more official firmware was in the pipeline for this particular model. I guess (from their perspective) I must be in a minority where I save a huge amount of tv programmes for future watching/archiving; Hi-Def Films, Science Documentaries, History programmes, Fiction tv series etc.

So what do you suggest then guys... exchange what i've got for 2x 4TB drives instead, or wait and hopefully get the full 8TB visibility? I'm in no immediate rush (i've currently got 7x 1TB drives all filled up, and i'm just starting my 8th!). Cheers.

 

[Trev]

7 x 1TB? It's only TV (that will no doubt be repeated in the not too distant future)

 

[Black Hole]

Yeah. Have you worked out how long it would take to watch all that, if you ever do, when there's new stuff coming along all the time?

IMO, 2 off 4TB drives are still not satisfactory, because you have no idea what mechanism allowed the Humax to "see" even 4TB of the 8TB drive, or whether the apparent 4TB is actually usable. There's nothing stopping you using the 8TB drive for archive, you just can't use it on the Humax (that drive is £200-worth, folks! £25 per TB - who would have imagined that in the 1990's when I paid about £100 for a few measly megabytes?). having 8TB of stuff on one drive is also like having all your eggs in one basket.

If you didn't actively select GPT, I'm pretty sure it will be MBR structured with 2KB sectors (or larger). There is presumably some kind of limitation in the Humax OS that isn't letting it work properly, but whether af123 will ever work out what it is and fix it is anybody's guess.

The easy route is to limit yourself to drives up to 2TB. If you want to hang on to your 8TB you could wait for the mods to go mainstream and see whether GPT disks can be supported by USB.

As for Humax future-proofing, at the time the HDR-FOX was released (2010), 2TB was a huge amount and very expensive. They will (or should!) put their effort into products for the market now.

 

[Des in London]

I purchased the brand new "8TB Seagate Backup Plus Desktop Drive" from 'Argos' (STDT8000200) recently in order to condense all my saved recordings (spread across several external drives), onto just one, for easy access.

If you don't mind waiting a bit there's a brand new custom firmware being tested as we speak (mentioned above), so you'll be able to "successfully" transfer all your stuff onto it. I've actually got the same version of HDD as yourself but mine is destined for internal use. FYI - it uses the GPT structure so no more 2TB limits! - stay tuned

 

[MymsMan]

I remember when the limit imposed by the FAT-12 system was 32MB and the concept of storing high resolution photos and video on disk was science fiction!

 

[Christian]

Apologies in advanced for all the quotes:

7 x 1TB? It's only TV (that will no doubt be repeated in the not too distant future)

Yeah. Have you worked out how long it would take to watch all that, if you ever do, when there's new stuff coming along all the time?

I know, I know... I must be completely crazy! BUT in my defence, it's sod's law that what I want to watch isn't on tv, and what is on tv is just crap! Hence just record everything! Besides, I enjoy being able to take the hard drive's to my friends, or mum's house and watch any recording from there - especially when at my girlfriends where we can watch any/all Hi-def films for free!

2 off 4TB drives are still not satisfactory, because you have no idea what mechanism allowed the Humax to "see" even 4TB of the 8TB drive, or whether the apparent 4TB is actually usable.

I understand you now, thanks for explaining in simple terms.

If you didn't actively select GPT, I'm pretty sure it will be MBR structured with 2KB sectors (or larger). There is presumably some kind of limitation in the Humax OS that isn't letting it work properly, but whether af123 will ever work out what it is and fix it is anybody's guess.

I did (in error) originally have it formatted gpt ext3 but when connected to my 'Fox' I couldn't do any copying, let alone see the drive! So when I re-did it with mbr ext3 I was very happy I could copy, but not so when there was only half the storage available.

...so you'll be able to "successfully" transfer all your stuff onto it. I've actually got the same version of HDD as yourself but mine is destined for internal use.

Thanks for the 'heads-up' but i'll loose the portability aspect if I use the drive for internal use only, and as I already mentioned it's great for taking to a friends house etc.

It was a wild shot anyway and I can always get a refund from Argos - 30 day money back guarantee!!! - I'll keep watching this Custom Firmware Forum incase any clever people manage to suss out the issues with these very large external drives.

 

[af123]

I'll keep watching this Custom Firmware Forum incase any clever people manage to suss out the issues with these very large external drives.

There's definitely a chance that version 3.10 will let the Humax use the drive when it's GPT formatted, but nobody has tried it yet.

 

[Des in London]

There's definitely a chance that version 3.10 will let the Humax use the drive when it's GPT formatted, but nobody has tried it yet.

I don't mind volunteering if nobody has any objections? I know i'm a newbie but using Gparted is fairly easy and i've got a spare 2TB drive that can be reformatted to gpt - it shouldn't take long. I'll update from the current CF 3.10 to the newer 3.10 (b2629).

 

[Des in London]

.

There's definitely a chance that version 3.10 will let the Humax use the drive when it's GPT formatted, but nobody has tried it yet.

* As you can see from the first 5 photos of my experiment this afternoon, my '2 TB drive' was formatted: gpt ext3

* I then took the liberty in connecting via usb, the newly formatted drive to my first Humax (#1) box which is running 'CF 3.03'
....you will notice (photo 6) that you cannot select this drive from the menu - thus it's not recognised.
....however (photo 7) does see the drive connected BUT cannot read it's contents, hence it's not available for copying onto.

* Next i connected the drive to my second Humax (#2) box which is running the brand new (test) 'CF 3.10' (b2629).
....again (photo 8), same story - it's not recognised.
....(photo 9) sees the drive also, but again cannot read it, so it too is not available for copying onto either.

* This concludes that even with gpt/efi support enabled in the 'current' custom firmware, AND the great work done by "af123" to create the new (test) firmware with large disk support (enabling the installation of hard drives having more than 2^32 sectors for internal use only), at present you cannot have a drive formatted in 'gpt' (the conventional way by Gparted) for external connection - only 'mbr' (msdos) - THUS you/we are still limited to a 2TB usb-hdd.

Perhaps in the future, the same 'on the box' formatting of the internal drive (by using a protective MBR), which allows the use of very large hard drives internally, can be used to format very large external drives too..........??
.

 

[af123]

With the drive attached via USB could you run 'gdisk -l /dev/sdb' assuming sdb is the right device?

 

[Des in London]

Hi 'af123' did you mean for me to Telnet into my humax and type in the command:

gdisk -1/dev/...

If so, what does that command do? - is it a checking feature or something, OR will it reformat it? Only if it's the latter i'll have to do it tomorrow as i'm off out soon.

ps.
forgive the obvious newbie question, how do i know the exact device name.... dev/sda, b, c?

Thanks

 

[Black Hole]

gdisk is the GPT equivalent of fdisk, so you get a report on the disk parameters without altering them unless you tell it to alter them.

Hopefully the external drive will be sdb. If it isn't, you will be able to tell from the output of gdisk.

 

[af123]

Hi 'af123' did you mean for me to Telnet into my humax and type in the command:

gdisk -1/dev/...

Yes, connect to the Humax via telnet and get to the command line (cli option from the menu). With the external disk attached type:

gdisk -l /dev/sdb

and post the results. That's a lower case el (short for list) there. The correct device will be /dev/sdb is the disk was connected after the Humax started up or /dev/sda if it was connected before starting the Humax up.
I have my old 2TB drive from my HDR that I need to run a security erase on then I can test with giving it a GPT table too.

 

[Des in London]

gdisk is the GPT equivalent of fdisk, so you get a report on the disk parameters

...The correct device will be: /dev/sdb if the disk was connected after the Humax started up, OR: /dev/sda if it was connected before starting the Humax up.

Thank you as always guys, especially for breaking it down into easy to understand language for us new folk - you certainly do learn something new every day!

- the results are as follows.......

humax# gdisk -l /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sdb: 3907029167 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): DDD3BB56-95A2-4C4D-92CC-06B24FC0F2FC
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907029133
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2156 sectors (1.1 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048      3907028991   1.8 TiB     8300
humax#