A Condensed Guide to Hard Drive Configuration
Introduction
I upgraded my unit last night, from the 320GB it came with to a Samsung HD204UI 2TB.
I've no idea how good my choice of drive will prove to have been in the long run, but a number of factors were considered. Firstly, ignoring all advice to favour drives specifically designed for AV use, I had previously (several years ago) upgraded a Sky digital box, replacing the default 40GB drive with a 160GB Samsung drive. That drive lasted me for at least 2 years until I canned Sky. And it got a fair hammering. Though I did disable the Sky instant replay feature, which is said to cane hard drives. I'm not sure if the Humax unit abuses drives in the same way. Other considerations in choosing the Samsung were: capacity, economy, price, sound levels. So I'm not necessarily recommending this particular model, it just works for me.
However this is not intended to be a guide to upgrading the hardware. There seems to be a few of those around already. What I struggled to find was a straightforward guide to configuring a new drive such that it can simply be dropped in and run. You cannot just drop in a 2TB and let the unit format it. Well the unit will certainly have a go, but like I did, you will probably find yourself Googling for help once the front panel has displayed “Initializing Parti” for the first 15 mins or so.
I'm comfortable in a Linux environment, but feel free to choose your tools. The main objective for me was to understand the configuration required rather than being too pedantic about how that should be achieved. So this is less a HOWTO, more a WHATTO. If you see what I mean.
Before you start
Please read the whole guide – including the notes – before starting, or deciding whether or not to start at all. You are assumed to be proficient in UNIX administration. If you're not confident in this area, you could be better off with a more user-friendly guide, as this is not intended as a primer. There will be no further health warning or disclaimers in this guide.
Preparation
Remove “old” drive from Humax device.
Hang both the old drive and shiny new 2TB drive off a nearby linux server.
Log in to the root account.
Create partitions & file systems on new drive
Use fdisk to view partition layout of old drive and take a look around
Use fdisk to create 4 primary partitions on new drive as follows:
Create ext3 file systems on each of the 4 partitions on the new drive
Migrate existing configuration & data
Mount the devices on the old & new drives on /mnt/old1-4 & /mnt/new1-4
Copy your old stuff across:
Deploy new drive
Install new drive in Humax STB
Check menu->system->HDD for space available [9]
Notes
[1] The size of the original is 2GB, and this was barely dented at 4% use. But it seems silly to be too mean if you've got so much to go at. 4GB should be enough even for an industrial couch potato.
[2] I could be wrong, but just extending archive storage should not affect the size of the EPG. This can remain tiny.
[3] This is the partition you need to make as big as you can.
[4] This one is up to you, though I don't know why anyone would store photos or music on a STB. If you're with me on this, make it as small as possible. I understand that the unit likes this to be a minimum of 1GB. Now this could either be a real minimum value, or it could be (though this is just a theory) that the unit's interface will not let you configure it to be less. Someone please try setting a much lower value, and follow-up here with your findings!
[5] It could be fact or anecdotal, but I'm sure I have read that copying reserve.info & fsatepg to the appropriate partitions on the new drive convinces the Humax unit that the disk has been prepared for use, and it will not format the drive on first boot after upgrade. It's also possible that you must do more than this – or less! It's definitely more or less true, as I followed the steps above and the unit didn't format the drive on startup.
[6] See [5].
[7] Migrating this data is optional, but if you don't do it, it's probably a good idea to create these 2 subdirectories in the partition: cd /mnt/new3; mkdir Video Movie. All ownerships and permissons should be created as required if you are logged in as root. You can confirm this by checking the setup on the old drive.
[8] Nobody actually uses this, do they? Again, if you don't migrate data from the old drive you should probably create 2 default directories here to fool the unit into thinking all is as it should be (i.e. so it doesn't reformat the drive on first boot). These are the 2 you need: cd /mnt/new4; mkdir Music Photo
[9] When I checked mine after first boot with the new drive, it reported 1.9GB (sic) free. I wasn't too concerned, as the same screen displayed free recording time as 245h (HD) or 980h (SD). So I guess that's a limitation in the firmware. I can live with it.
Introduction
I upgraded my unit last night, from the 320GB it came with to a Samsung HD204UI 2TB.
I've no idea how good my choice of drive will prove to have been in the long run, but a number of factors were considered. Firstly, ignoring all advice to favour drives specifically designed for AV use, I had previously (several years ago) upgraded a Sky digital box, replacing the default 40GB drive with a 160GB Samsung drive. That drive lasted me for at least 2 years until I canned Sky. And it got a fair hammering. Though I did disable the Sky instant replay feature, which is said to cane hard drives. I'm not sure if the Humax unit abuses drives in the same way. Other considerations in choosing the Samsung were: capacity, economy, price, sound levels. So I'm not necessarily recommending this particular model, it just works for me.
However this is not intended to be a guide to upgrading the hardware. There seems to be a few of those around already. What I struggled to find was a straightforward guide to configuring a new drive such that it can simply be dropped in and run. You cannot just drop in a 2TB and let the unit format it. Well the unit will certainly have a go, but like I did, you will probably find yourself Googling for help once the front panel has displayed “Initializing Parti” for the first 15 mins or so.
I'm comfortable in a Linux environment, but feel free to choose your tools. The main objective for me was to understand the configuration required rather than being too pedantic about how that should be achieved. So this is less a HOWTO, more a WHATTO. If you see what I mean.
Before you start
Please read the whole guide – including the notes – before starting, or deciding whether or not to start at all. You are assumed to be proficient in UNIX administration. If you're not confident in this area, you could be better off with a more user-friendly guide, as this is not intended as a primer. There will be no further health warning or disclaimers in this guide.
Preparation
Remove “old” drive from Humax device.
Hang both the old drive and shiny new 2TB drive off a nearby linux server.
Log in to the root account.
Create partitions & file systems on new drive
Use fdisk to view partition layout of old drive and take a look around
Use fdisk to create 4 primary partitions on new drive as follows:
Code:
Device GB Purpose
/dev/sdc1 4 Recording schedules [1]
/dev/sdc2 0.2 EPG [2]
/dev/sdc3 1994 Video data [3]
/dev/sdc4 1.2 Music & photos [4]
Create ext3 file systems on each of the 4 partitions on the new drive
Migrate existing configuration & data
Mount the devices on the old & new drives on /mnt/old1-4 & /mnt/new1-4
Copy your old stuff across:
Code:
# cp -rp /mnt/old1/reserve.info /mnt/new1 [5]
# cp -rp /mnt/old2/fsatepg /mnt/new2 [6]
# cp –rp /mnt/old3/* /mnt/new3 [7]
# cp –rp /mnt/old4/* /mnt/new4 [8]
Install new drive in Humax STB
Check menu->system->HDD for space available [9]
Notes
[1] The size of the original is 2GB, and this was barely dented at 4% use. But it seems silly to be too mean if you've got so much to go at. 4GB should be enough even for an industrial couch potato.
[2] I could be wrong, but just extending archive storage should not affect the size of the EPG. This can remain tiny.
[3] This is the partition you need to make as big as you can.
[4] This one is up to you, though I don't know why anyone would store photos or music on a STB. If you're with me on this, make it as small as possible. I understand that the unit likes this to be a minimum of 1GB. Now this could either be a real minimum value, or it could be (though this is just a theory) that the unit's interface will not let you configure it to be less. Someone please try setting a much lower value, and follow-up here with your findings!
[5] It could be fact or anecdotal, but I'm sure I have read that copying reserve.info & fsatepg to the appropriate partitions on the new drive convinces the Humax unit that the disk has been prepared for use, and it will not format the drive on first boot after upgrade. It's also possible that you must do more than this – or less! It's definitely more or less true, as I followed the steps above and the unit didn't format the drive on startup.
[6] See [5].
[7] Migrating this data is optional, but if you don't do it, it's probably a good idea to create these 2 subdirectories in the partition: cd /mnt/new3; mkdir Video Movie. All ownerships and permissons should be created as required if you are logged in as root. You can confirm this by checking the setup on the old drive.
[8] Nobody actually uses this, do they? Again, if you don't migrate data from the old drive you should probably create 2 default directories here to fool the unit into thinking all is as it should be (i.e. so it doesn't reformat the drive on first boot). These are the 2 you need: cd /mnt/new4; mkdir Music Photo
[9] When I checked mine after first boot with the new drive, it reported 1.9GB (sic) free. I wasn't too concerned, as the same screen displayed free recording time as 245h (HD) or 980h (SD). So I guess that's a limitation in the firmware. I can live with it.
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