Where can I buy a suitable replacement / upgrade harddrive for my 9200?

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Where can I buy a suitable replacement / upgrade harddrive for my 9200?

(6 posts)

AAA

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My 9200 is starting to act a bit weird (it appears to miss recordings but in fact sometimes they are there but look like a repeat of a previous recording in the recordings list..)

I'm pulling off the recordings (that I can find!) that I most want to keep and sticking them on our network drive as MPGs that I can access and watch through the PS3 - which is a slow process but I'm pretty happy with the end result..

I will then try doing a full reset and format of the drive - but I'm guessing that the drive might be on the way out.

I've seen a few threads about suitable drives, though the terminoligy is unfamiliar to me.. I think I want an ACE IDE ~ 500Gb from Seagate? But I can't find where to buy such a thing!

Any advice would be much appreciated. Am I barking up the wrong tree? I only found out today that it is possible to get hard drive error messages on the Humax. Since I've not had any, is it unlikely that the HD is at fault?

Cheers, Neil.

(As an aside - I did go to look at new PVRs, but I'm not particularly bothered about HD and reading the threads on AVForums there seem to be big problems with most of them! Most of the bugs on the 9200 eventually got resolved - and at least I am familiar with the remaining ones, so I'd really like to fix it..)

| Mon 27 Jun 2011 10:21:47 #1 |
myhumax

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Not sure if this is still a problem but the 9200T had problems handling very large number of recordings - there is a limit - I forget the number now. I mention this because once you've upgraded the disk, it will hold more recordings and will come across this limit at some stage.

I've been using a 250GB non-ACE drive in my 9200T for years now without problems. You might want to do the same - I would not recommend going over 320GB for the reason above.

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?page=1&store=33&cat=392&filtersubcat=3264

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives-int/ide-%28pata%29-250gbplus

| Mon 27 Jun 2011 10:50:58 #2 |
Barry

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son_t - 4 minutes ago »
Not sure if this is still a problem but the 9200T had problems handling very large number of recordings - there is a limit - I forget the number now. I mention this because once you've upgraded the disk, it will hold more recordings and will come across this limit at some stage.
I've been using a 250GB non-ACE drive in my 9200T for years now without problems. You might want to do the same - I would not recommend going over 320GB for the reason above.
http://www.ebuyer.com/search?page=1&store=33&cat=392&filtersubcat=3264
http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives-int/ide-%28pata%29-250gbplus

511 was the limit on recordings if you remember the test I did in one of our other places.....Jan 2008 eek!

Try 512 and you get the pop up message:

'The number of recorded programmes exceeds the limit'

and

Welcome to our new member AAA

| Mon 27 Jun 2011 10:58:51 #3 |
AAA

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Thanks for the welcome and advice. I shall stick to ~ 320GB tops then (though I've never gone over about 200 items before with my 160Gb harddrive.)

If I were to upgrade the disk using a 320Gb from SCAN - do you have any advice on what the following means (as there's a choice of two..):

"AV, 24x7," (I'd be tempted to believe it refers to it's suitability for Audio Visual purposes - used 24/7 - but I know it can't be that. Sounds better than "Caviar SE16" which sounds like an unusually posh restaurant for Bermonsey..)

Incidentally - re-reading my post, I think it sounds like I am quite critical of my 9200s quirks. In fact that's not fair - it's probably the best piece of technology that I've bought in the last 10 years (narrowly beating my 2005 ipod that is still -just- working) and I ended up buying ones for my parents, my in-laws and my sister.. I am too attached to it to just get something else..

| Mon 27 Jun 2011 13:53:30 #4 |
aldaweb

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In the other place there were discussions and details of using a SATA drive (eg SCE instead of ACE) with an adapter. Something else to think about if you run into problems with non ACE IDE drives.

I'll see if I can find details later for reference.

Edit: obviously the other place lost all the info but there are some posts on DS here about it though now quite old.

| Mon 27 Jun 2011 17:35:06 #5 |
Richard MQ

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From WD's web site [1] the first unit that you reference is specified as "24x7 reliability.
With a MTBF of 1 million hours, these drives are designed to last in always-on streaming digital audio/video environments."

I'd say that was a pretty good match...

I used a standard drive in my old 9200 without any problems, though we switched some time ago to a 9300 for working with a newer telly via HDMI - much better picture. I think they are basically the same in software terms.

BTW: I'd agree with you (AAA) that for all its faults it's probably the best piece of technology that I've bought in a long while. Well done Humax!

Good Luck
Richard

[1] http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=170

| Tue 28 Jun 2011 20:28:12 #6 |