Upgrading Samsung HDSKY

Which replacement drives can you use and which do people recommend?

Postby lemans » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:13 am

I am very tempted by the Samsung drive at that price!

Has it been 100% reliable. I did note one poster who said that his upgraded Samsung with the Samsung 1TB had stopped once or twice. I too have a wife who does not appreciate my technical curiosity!!
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Postby skituscanycom » Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:46 am

Only two problems so far which are probably not due to the disk itself.

I rewound to the start of a programme we were watching that had been transferred from the old Sky+ disk using Copy+.

When it hit the top and threw up the usual info screen (programme details etc.) I could not then resume playback. The LED came on on the box when I pushed the button on the remote, but it didn't play.

I could get the info up pressing i, but couldn't back up to the planner or even shut down properly with the power button.

As a last resort I had to pull the mains plug.

Upon rebooting, I found that Strictly Come Dancing on BBC HD had failed due to a 'Technical Fault'

I was in the doghouse :o

I also hadn't got around to re-installing the Sky+ box following the latest bout of disk copying, so there was no backup copy :shock:

DEAD MEAT

Only other problem has been that part 3 of 'Place of Execution' came up with a message like 'Programme Not Found' ... GULP :roll:

Fortunately, I was saved ... it was still OK on the original disk in the SKY+ box. Have you seen this before PCBBC?

I have a feeling that these issues may not be due to the physical disk drive, but maybe PCBBC knows better/has seen these kind of things before or are they just some of Sky's 'random features'? :wink:
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Postby pcbbc » Mon Oct 27, 2008 11:41 am

skituscanycom wrote:Only other problem has been that part 3 of 'Place of Execution' came up with a message like 'Programme Not Found' ... GULP :roll:

Fortunately, I was saved ... it was still OK on the original disk in the SKY+ box. Have you seen this before PCBBC?
No, never heard of that error before.
Was this something newly recorded on the disk, or had it been copied over from one of the other disks?

I have a feeling that these issues may not be due to the physical disk drive, but maybe PCBBC knows better/has seen these kind of things before or are they just some of Sky's 'random features'? :wink:
I've certainly heard of the first problem, where you get a lockup on attempting to play. This seems to be just one of those spurious features. And if Strictly was recording at the time it's not surprising it failed.
In the past when I've had lockups and something important recording I've waited for the scheduled recording to complete before rebooting, and this has meant the recording was playable. Of course this may not be the case for every scenario, but it is better than a reboot which will always result in a failure.
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Postby skituscanycom » Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:10 pm

pcbbc wrote:Was this something newly recorded on the disk, or had it been copied over from one of the other disks?


Copied over. Strictly speaking it was copied over twice. From the 250GB IDE drive to the 1TB WD and then from the 1TB WD to the 1TB Samsung.
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Postby pcbbc » Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:19 pm

skituscanycom wrote:
pcbbc wrote:Was this something newly recorded on the disk, or had it been copied over from one of the other disks?


Copied over. Strictly speaking it was copied over twice. From the 250GB IDE drive to the 1TB WD and then from the 1TB WD to the 1TB Samsung.
Okay. Is it possible to check the exact message?
And I'm wondering if there is anything spurious in the Copy+ log files against this recording?
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Postby skituscanycom » Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:57 am

pcbbc wrote:Okay. Is it possible to check the exact message?


The exact message is:

"FOR YOUR INFORMATION 26
This Programme is not Available"

pcbbc wrote:And I'm wondering if there is anything spurious in the Copy+ log files against this recording?


Didn't realise you logged the operations before you said this :)

I found the logs in the Program Files directory and located the item in question. There were no errors that I could see :?
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Postby pcbbc » Wed Oct 29, 2008 10:50 am

Thanks for the details, but I'm still none the wiser. Sorry.
I think this one will just have to remain a mystery!
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Postby dunk05 » Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:02 am

Morning guys,
First - Pcbbc - thanks for a nice bit of software, her indoors would have
been mightily unimpressed had I replaced our Sky+ box full of her programs
with an empty Sky HD box.

Secondly I can confirm that the Western Digital WD5000AACS does NOT work
in my Samsung Sky HD box. I'm getting the same crashing seen by skituscanycom.
Using copy+ to copy onto the supplied seagate and the
box is working fine.

I've a couple of 7200 seagate baracudas in my PC, I'm going to try
swapping one of them out for the WD, and I'll try that in the box instead.

Else it's recommendation time for good disks for an upgrade, though given
how quick and easy copy+ works, I can probably just wait till it's full and
take advantage of cheaper prices.

I didn't have to do a planner rebuild is this normal or does it mean my free
space is probably out?


Cheers,
Dunk
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Postby lemans » Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:31 pm

Got my Spinpoint today

Will report back at the weekend when I get a chance to pop it in my HD box.

I've also got a SATA cable to do the copying and it seems at least 50% faster than the USB cable I used last weekend on my failed upgrade attempt with the WD drive.
lemans
 

Postby pcbbc » Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:37 am

dunk05 wrote:First - Pcbbc - thanks for a nice bit of software, her indoors would have been mightily unimpressed had I replaced our Sky+ box full of her programs with an empty Sky HD box.
NP - Glad you (and the wife) found it useful.

Secondly I can confirm that the Western Digital WD5000AACS does NOT work in my Samsung Sky HD box. I'm getting the same crashing seen by skituscanycom.
That's a definite then.
At least it's should help others in their drive choice.

I didn't have to do a planner rebuild is this normal or does it mean my free space is probably out?
This was just my recommendation in the early days of Copy+ to allow the box the maximum chance to sort anything out in case I'd missed something obvious in Copy+.
Personally I no longer bother with a PR following a copy, but the instructions remain for completeness and because it certainly can't do any harm.

I've also got a SATA cable to do the copying and it seems at least 50% faster than the USB cable I used last weekend on my failed upgrade attempt with the WD drive.
Yes, SATA will be quicker and I'd certainly recommend it if available:
USB2 = 480Mb/s
SATA150 (I) = 1500Mb/s
SATA300 (II) = 3000Mb/s
I'm surprised though because the maximum throughput of drives is around 120Mb/s, well within the capabilities of all the specs.
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Postby Greytop » Sat Nov 01, 2008 12:36 pm

Hello there!
my first post,

Firstly Pcbbc - thank you very much for Copy+, It worked flawlessly for me transferring all the content from the std Sky+HD harddrive to my new 500GB Samsung HD502IJ Spinpoint.

Second point and relevant to this post, I can confirm that the 500GB Samsung HD502IJ Spinpoint does not work with the new Samsung Sky HD box. I get the same symptoms as others who have posted here where the HD box goes into standby every 5 to 10 minutes. I also agree that it looks like the Samsung box PSU is borderline with some harddrives.
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Postby lemans » Sat Nov 01, 2008 2:01 pm

As promised..............

I can now report the the 1TB Spinpoint does work in my Samsung box. Copy+ copied everything across flawlessly again. The box has not crashed in two hours of messing around and recording up to two HD programs at once. So fingers crossed!

My wife has commented that the box has frozen a couple of times this week (while I was at work) and required unplugging and rebooting to fix - this was with the original hard disk! So it could be that these boxes are a bit cheaper (to make) and are not as reliable as the originals.

I will report any further issues if they arise. But in the meantime it's great seeing "90% free"
lemans
 

Postby pcbbc » Sat Nov 01, 2008 4:51 pm

Fantastic! Glad the new drive is working.
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Postby paul1962 » Sat Nov 08, 2008 3:51 pm

Have to say Copy+ is a great bit of software.

I've just upgraded my Samsung HD box with a Samsung HD103UJ 1TB drive.
I've eventually got it working but not without a lot of trial and error.
If Copy+ formats to 750Gig it works fine, however, 900Gig or 1TB causes the box to tell me there is a problem.

Has anyone else had this problem ? (I've not seen it mentioned).

I'm guessing that I could probably increase the 750Gig and at some point before 900Gig it will fail in the HD box but at the moment time is limited :(

Any advice/information very much appreciated.
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Postby pcbbc » Sat Nov 08, 2008 11:02 pm

Sorry, not something I've seen mentioned either.
In what way does "the box tell you it has a problem"?
Details of the error message received or the way in which it fails to work might jog someone's memory, or at the very least identify similar problems in the future.
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