FVP-4000T Hard Drive « My Humax Forum

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FVP-4000T Hard Drive

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smiffy12

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Hello, I'm new, to Humax and an absolute virgin as far as it's concerned. If it helps any - not that it likely would, I work with computers - both soft and hardware.

For years, I've been a subscriber to Sky. Never had a TV aerial, only a dish. Now, income has dropped and I can no longer afford sky so was talking to my family about it and they bought me a present of a Humax FVP-4000T 500GB. I've now got a freeview aerial being installed so I can use this (I know, could have used Freesat, but freeview is what I got and our dish is a bit past it anyway). We have a 2TB sky HD box at the moment. The new Humax box is 500GB.

I wondered, can I open up the Humax box and put in a larger capacity hard drive? 2TB preferably, but even 1TB would be an improvement. Is there anything I need to know ie, make / model of drive, should I clone the removed 500GB one to the new one before installation, does firmware require upgrading? Basically, anything and everything about this I should know - if it's even possible at all!

I'd be really grateful for any help and advice, and I look forward to becoming an active contributor here as I gain experience and knowledge of Humax. At the moment, it really is virgin territory.

| Wed 6 Sep 2017 12:21:38 #1 |
Martin Liddle

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smiffy12 - 1 hour ago »
I wondered, can I open up the Humax box and put in a larger capacity hard drive? 2TB preferably, but even 1TB would be an improvement. Is there anything I need to know ie, make / model of drive, should I clone the removed 500GB one to the new one before installation, does firmware require upgrading? Basically, anything and everything about this I should know - if it's even possible at all!

I have fitted larger hard drives to various Humax boxes but not to an FVP-4000T. I would expect that the process would be to buy a suitable hard drive; ideally you want a drive designed for PVR usage. I don't know what is fitted as standard to an FVP-4000T but I would suggest opening the box to have a look and then buy a larger capacity drive from the same series. I would expect when you start the box after fitting the new drive it will offer to format it for you and away you go. I would expect that the existing firmware will be OK but 2TB may well be the largest capacity drive you can fit.

Maybe someone else here has actually done it and will post further details. If not let us know how you get on. Good luck.

| Wed 6 Sep 2017 13:56:12 #2 |
grahamlthompson

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Very often Humax boxes use 5.25" Seagate Pipeline Sata drives, however there are now reports that some later production models are appearing with 2.5" laptop drives which use even less power than the low power full size models.

As Martin says you need to look inside to see what form factor is used.

| Wed 6 Sep 2017 15:03:49 #3 |
smiffy12

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Thank you very much indeed for both replies. I opened the box and discovered a 3.5" SATA drive. It's a Seagate video drive. I've fired it up, got it on line, updated the firmware to v 1.02.13 (latest) in the hope that this give the best chance of working with a larger drive. I've never been a great fan of Seagate so have purchased a WD Red 2TB drive. It was a toss up between purple and red. Purple is for surveillance systems (use 24/7), red is for NAS systems. My understanding is the WD Red for NAS is a little higher spec and runs that tiny bit cooler and quieter so opted for that. It will arrive tomorrow and I'll let you all know how it goes......It's always good if people post their success stories (or otherwise but I'm being optimistic) so that next time someone has this question the answer is there

Fingers crossed

| Wed 6 Sep 2017 15:57:08 #4 |
Martin Liddle

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grahamlthompson - 1 hour ago »
Very often Humax boxes use 5.25" Seagate Pipeline Sata drives,

Surely you mean 3.5" form factor?

| Wed 6 Sep 2017 16:50:15 #5 |
Martin Liddle

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smiffy12 - 53 minutes ago »
I've never been a great fan of Seagate so have purchased a WD Red 2TB drive.

That may not be the best choice but time will tell. The problem with drives not deigned for PVR usage is that as they age and sectors emerge that need mapping out, the drive will try to preserve the data by making multiple read attempts. This can result in stuttery play back. But it should be OK most of the time.

| Wed 6 Sep 2017 16:54:45 #6 |
smiffy12

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Martin Liddle - 1 hour ago »

smiffy12 - 53 minutes ago »
I've never been a great fan of Seagate so have purchased a WD Red 2TB drive.

That may not be the best choice but time will tell. The problem with drives not deigned for PVR usage is that as they age and sectors emerge that need mapping out, the drive will try to preserve the data by making multiple read attempts. This can result in stuttery play back. But it should be OK most of the time.

I know what you mean. Purple is designed for lots of writes, not so much reading. Red NAS drives are designed for 24/7 server type access so lots of read and writes going on simultaneously - that's my logic, coupled with them being excellent quality drives with a good warranty. As you say, time will tell :-).

| Wed 6 Sep 2017 18:33:11 #7 |
blackcab94

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Any update on this would be helpful.

Ta!

| Sun 31 Dec 2017 18:25:16 #8 |
REPASSAC

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It is a bit early for problems to arise.
I would have opted for either a Seagate pipeline or a WD Purple.

| Mon 1 Jan 2018 6:57:24 #9 |
pigolato

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Did you have any success doing this upgrade smiffy12?

| Mon 15 Oct 2018 11:13:03 #10 |