External Hard Drive

[stretch4x4]

Has anyone tried using an external drive with their skippa yet?

We haven't had a chance to watch much recently and have filled the drive, I connected one of our seagate external drives to copy some stuff off but despite it spinning up it wasn't detected :(

Tried another small usb and it was detected fine.. Not sure if the 3tb external was too big or what was going on..

Bit annoying, tried to copy some files over the network but being wireless it was pretty slow.

[Carljh]

I have a 320gb external drive connected to my Skippa and have had no problems.  Although being a bit slow have also dragged a number of files from the Skippa to my PC and all have played fine.

[Dave at IceTV]

Tried another small usb and it was detected fine.. Not sure if the 3tb external was too big or what was going on..

Bit annoying, tried to copy some files over the network but being wireless it was pretty slow.

You are better off using the network if you can. Transferring to USB 'moves' the files instead of copying them - so if something goes wrong you could lose recordings.

At a guess I'd say the Skippa is limited to 2TB drives (internal and external).

But your drive not being seen could also be due to your 3TB USB drive needing too much power if it is relying on the USB cable to provide the power. I haven't checked the available power from the Skippa's USB ports but they are probably limited to the standard 500mA that USB 2 ports provide.

If your USB drive does not have it's own power supply you could try a USB splitter cable that provides double the power by plugging it into 2 USB ports (with only 1 port providing data a connection).

[IanL-S]

The recognition of external HDDs depends on the Linux Kernel that is being used. If it only supports MBR disks, the max size is 2TB (the drive can be larger than 2TB but the max size for MBR partition is 2TB). If it supports GPT disks, then there will be no effective limit on the size of partitions supported.

It is possible that the power for the USB ports follows the notebook specification rather than the desktop specification, and that there will be insufficient power for some external HDD without their own power supply. In addition to Dave's suggestion, you could use a powered USB HUB. Some PVRs do not recognise HDD attached via USB hubs - most Topfield PVRs do so. The most notable exception is the TF-T6211.

Ian

[stretch4x4]

Thanks guys,

Yeah I think it is a 3TB one so will have to see if maybe a 2TB one works.. Think I have one here somewhere although not as empty as that one of course..

It has it's own power supply so that shouldn't be the issue (you can usually hear them spin up and then max out the power and reboot in a loop if that is the case)

Yeah I wish I had an easy way to network it properly so it wouldn't take forever but currently that is going to take much much more effort so will see what I can learn with another drive once I find one with some space..

[stretch4x4]

Yep exact same size drive in 2tb has been located.

Oh well

[IanL-S]

On networking, I understand your concerns about the effort involved. You have already found wireless to be far too slow. You could try Ethernet-over-power-line (aka HomePlug). The latest versions are much faster, fast enough not to be worried by the SKIPPAs 10/100 NIC. You can now get ones that have a pass-through so you can still use it as a power point. There is a discussion of networking options that can be used on the oztopp wiki: http://oztoppy.wikidot.com/networkingyourtoppy. The thing to remembe is that the SKIPPA does not have an ftp server, but in windows you can right click on a recording and use the Send To to copy the file to the computer.

Ian

[Dave at IceTV]

The thing to remember is that the SKIPPA does not have an ftp server, but in windows you can right click on a recording and use the Send To to copy the file to the computer.

Maybe in Windows 10 you can, but not in Windows 7 or 8.1 (where you need to copy the url from the file's properties in Windows Media Player then paste the url into the address bar of a web browser).

[IanL-S]

The thing to remember is that the SKIPPA does not have an ftp server, but in windows you can right click on a recording and use the Send To to copy the file to the computer.

Maybe in Windows 10 you can, but not in Windows 7 or 8.1 (where you need to copy the url from the file's properties in Windows Media Player then paste the url into the address bar of a web browser).

Yes, I forgot about that. Most of my PC are not running Win 10.

Ian

[stretch4x4]

Interesting thought about the network over power.. A network port in that part of the house would have so many uses..

I must admit I have never really considered it as i was always worried it would suffer from some form of noise or it would create some form of noise knowing my luck..

Might have to take a look and see if it is cheap enough I might give it a crack..

Also re copying via network, I wasn't super worried about most of it (chances are I will never get around to watching all 40 episodes of mythbusters :p) so I kind of preferred the move option as I don't have to worry about going back and cleaning it up later. I tend to prefer doing things via the skippa so I am less likely to put it in a bad state. But it probably is the best option given the circumstances :)

[IanL-S]

These days interference is not as great an issue as in the past. My understanding is that the HomePlug units will not cause interference but they can suffer interference from some dialectic appliances. In real terms the cost of HomePlug has decreased significantly over the last 10 years or so. I got a top-of-the-range set for about $120, but you can get slower ones starting at about $40 for a set. Ones with power point pass-through are more expensive.

For more information try the following links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePlug
http://www.homeplug.org/explore-homeplug/faq-consumers/

Ian

[prl]

... dialectic appliances ..

Kantian or Hegelian?

:o

[stretch4x4]

So my skippa finally filled up and I thought I should sort it out properly.
So I rigged up a hub so I could copy off using a network cable.
Took me a while to figure out why it showed up as a DLNA device and not a network drive like it had previously.
But  got that sorted..
Next issue was that all the files of a single show seem to have the same name, so after copying the first  one you get a conflict, annoying but I figured that one out too..

The thing I haven't figured out is why I have 4 of one show but then the skippa says I have 6 of them.. Then another show I have 56 of but the skippa says I only have 8 :(

And then several files failed to copy but thanks to the fun naming I have no idea which eps..

Think I am going to have to go back to plugging in the smaller drive and let the skippa deal with it..

Certainly motivating to find a replacement device.

[Dave at IceTV]

Took me a while to figure out why it showed up as a DLNA device and not a network drive like it had previously.
But  got that sorted..

What was the solution?

[stretch4x4]

In the end I think it was the file and printer sharing that was doing it. (although I think I might have also turned off the auto setup option as well) Some combination of those determines whether or not it appears as a dlna server or just a network share.
http://images.digitalcitizen.life/sites/digitalcitizen.life/files/img/win81_network_sharing/network_sharing2.png

Not that the network share is doing me much good so far.. But might be useful for other devices.