USB HD?

[Todd3835]

Ok, so I went out and got a USB2.0 500GB harddrive for recording onto. I tried first to use a network storage and quickly found out that even though it's 100mb/sec network, it just couldn't seem to even play live tv off it without problems. So I went onto the USB HD Solution. Has anyone had luck with this? It seems to be OK once it's going, but there's quite a delay to start live tv and hickups once in a while. I can go back to having the HD in the box, but took it out to keep the heat down (this case is damn small). Any other thoughts would be appreciated.

-Todd

[Jackal24]

I use a firewire external drive with no problems at all. A firewire card is pretty cheap if your computer doesn't already have it. I think my dual firewire 400 CardBus card was like $25.

[ybrew]

I've got some external USB drives. I use these for video libraries (my son's movies ripped to divx), and my photo library. I haven't had problems doing that (well, i had a problem with one drive - I'm hopeful it's a problem with my computer and will be a non-issue when I upgrade this week).

I haven't done any recordings to these external drives though. I am upgrading my storage from 3 250g IDE drives to 3 (or 4 maybe) 500g SATA drives. All are internal drives. I'll just add some fans to combat heat if necessary. Noise isn't an issue as the server is in a closet.

[mattdcknsn]

I was using 2 USB hard drives for recordings and they worked fine, I decided to use 2 so that the recordings would even out across them. I didn't see any problems that I could blame on using USB, I just migrated to a new server with internal drives.

[Paul H]

You did check to see if your USB ports were really USB2 and not USB1?

[pjwerdna]

At one point I had all TV recording stored on a fileserver (2003 server I think it was) and could record two streams and play back one no problem. All SD streams and 100MB network all on a Epia MII 10000.

Then switched to a 300GB USB/firewire drive. That worked ok as well. Problem is it wasnt rated for 24 hour use and so started dying after 6 months or so. I did use the Firewire interface though which I think is better for streaming than USB.

Sounds to me like you have issues with drivers. Possibly the chipset drivers.

[stevech]

the OP's question was suitability of USB (2) drives for HD recording/playback.

Some of the replies, above, are or may have been w.r.t. Std Def., a much lower speed requirement. I did do some structured tests of my USB2 drives, using a fast CPU. As I recall, the USB2 speeds, for 64K block partitions, were much lower than EIDE speeds. Something like 1/4 speed. I recall (?) that EIDE was like 40 or 50MB/sec and USB was like 15MB/sec. Lot of overhead in USB2.

Also, I think USB rules say that if a hub has one or more USB1 device connected, all ports must slow to USB1 speeds. I think the idea was that a USB1 device could not decode the headers for USB2. But maybe today the ports are switched and this isn't true. Not positive on this. I do make a habit of running my USB2 drives on a dedicated PCI bus card and put no other devices on that hub.

[pjwerdna]

Originally Posted by stevech

the OP's question was suitability of USB (2) drives for HD recording/playback.

Actually he says "USB HD". Now that could be USB Hard Drive, or USB High Definition. From context I think its Hard Drive.

I'd have thought High Definition recording to a USB hard Drive at the same time as playback was a bit optimistic!

[dvd_maniac]

It seems to be OK once it's going, but there's quite a delay to start live tv and hickups once in a while.

Could power management be the problem here?

since it seems fine after the initial burst it could be the drive spinning up?

I have a couple Maxtor 1TB USB2/Firewire800 drives and have had them hooked up both ways. I recorded onto them using Max Mpeg-2 5.6GB/hr quality setting and noticed the same issue at the beginning of the video files.
The Maxtor OneTouch software had a power setting that spun them down after 15 minutes.
I had some issues with multiple simultanious recordings so I abandoned the idea of using them for recording drives.

[Todd3835]

Ok, I didn't realize there were other posts here. HD was meant as Harddrive. It's a 500gb WD. It came as external. Power shouldn't be a problem as it comes with it's own plug. I have 3 analog tuners. I did a test and it appears to record 3 shows and still play back ok. But I have noticed performance issues for sure.

It is definetly a USB 2.0 port, as I picked up a USB 2.0 card at the same time. Maybe it's just a seek time problem where when I start to record, and the card buffers up, that's when I'm seeing the pause.

As to firewire, I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that USB 2.0 was faster than firewire, but I could be wrong.

One thing I miss about BTV was that you could pick where to record to. I suppose I could have it record to internal, then move, but Sage wants to record wherever the most space is. Kinda retarded idea...... That would certainly solve me problem, I could put in a 80g for temporary storage, move to USB at off times.....

[dvd_maniac]

Power shouldn't be a problem as it comes with it's own plug.

I don't mean that the drive is not getting enough power but that the power management in windows and/or in WD external drive software could be powering it down and when the drive is accessed it has to spin the drives up again before it can do any i/o to it. This typically takes a few seconds on external HDs.

As to firewire, I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that USB 2.0 was faster than firewire, but I could be wrong.

You are right and you are wrong.
firewire 400 = 400Mbps
usb2 = 480Mbps
firewire 800 = 800Mbps
Check the software that came with the WD and see if there are any power management settings that is turning off the hard drive after a certain idle time is reached.
Even though I have Windows Power Management set to leave everything on Always the OneTouch software overrides it and still shuts down my external OneTouch HDs. I have to change it in the software to make it work...

[Todd3835]

Ok, I'll check that tomorrow. I didn't install the WD software (or the USB card drivers), as XP picked them both up without them. But I will check the windows stuff. I'm using the network storage for movies since pulling off that is fine, it was writing a show, and watching another that was a problem (I know IDE drives aren't going to read and write at that same time, but never had a problem with internal drives, even when recording 3 and watching a 4th). Guess I'll keep playing with it, the 500gb external was a good price (130, the 320's were 99.99) but if I can't getting working well, I'll return it for another 320gb internal. 500gb for just show recordings was probably a bit much anyways......

Next project is the STV Media extenders that are coming. Kinda hoping those will be a quick setup..... Kids are excited they are coming, they won't have to hunt down for a movie, just have to teach the 7 y/o to operate the remote LOL

-Todd

[pjwerdna]

Just noticed that you didnt say if the USB drive was formatted as 64k blocks.

64K blocks might not be ideal for USB data transfers, but windows has to allocated all the storage being used and keep the directory structure up to date. If it's allocating space for files in 2k chunks then I'd expect some hiccups.

[Todd3835]

Well, since I don't have anything on that drive atm (I've been keeping up with shows, and the MP3, Movie and Picture collections are all on the network drive) I can easily format it.... How do I check? It's formatted whatever way WD decided to when they made it =]

-Todd

[stevech]

It's probably formatted to 4K blocks; that's the default for windows partitions.

Utilities like Acronis Disk Director or TruImage, used *carefully* and re-do the partition's block size and total size without data loss.

[dvd_maniac]

Since you do not have anything on it right now you can do this without spending $$$
You can reformat it in windows disk management. Right-click My Computer and hit manage. Then highlight Disk Management. On the right panel, right-click your USB drive and hit format. Select 64 under Allocation unit size.

[Todd3835]

Yeah, after I posted I managed to do that. There's still some delay, but no-where near as bad. The hickups have all but disappeared from what I've noticed (when it does happen, it's usually right after I switch channels, or start watching live tv). Thanks for the suggestions!

-Todd