View Full Version : Adding a second hard drive
Hi all, I've just added a second 100GB hard drive for my picons, time shift, epg etc.
I got an esata enclosure from Maplins for £25, have plugged it into the external esata port, and the system can see it fine, but is getting confused.
If I go into the settings where you can initialise the hard drive, it sees both drives, but if I try to initialise the external one, it says there's a problem with the mount.
If I double press the blue button, it's not seen at all under devices (Dream Elite).
I presume it's because there's only one hdd on the system.
If I go into file manager, /media, I can see it and access it
I have /media/sdb1 (my main hard drive)
/media/sdc1 my external one.
I presume I can just create a new directory say hd1 and manually edit fstab to mount /dev/sdc1 as this?
Just wanted to check before I attempted it as m,y system is now stable and I don't want to wreck it.
Thanks
After playing for hours, I ended up realising that if I wanted both an internal and an external sata drive connected, I had to format the external on a linux PC.
Formatting using VUduo system menu won't initialise it, gets confused as it tries to create movie folder etc which already exist on the mounted internal.
I've got it as a permanent entry in fstab, mounted as /media/hddext and I've pointed my timeshift and picons to it fine. Not tried permanent time shift yet, but so far, it's looking good.
basilyoung
18-07-10, 21:35
nice one, please post your final configs, that is some thing that could be handy
baz
In the end it was extremely easy, although I didn't quite end up with what I wanted, or how described above.
Here's what I did, the 2nd to last paragraph is all that's actually needed, the rest is how I got to that point :)
After formatting to ext3 on my linux PC, I plugged it into my vuduo, telnetted in and created a directory called
/media/hddext
mkdir /media/hddext
I changed it's permissions to the same as all the other files in there
chmod 755 /media/hddext
I then put the following entry into the bottom of my /etc/fstab file
/dev/sda1 /media/hddext auto default 0 0
(sdb1 is my internal drive)
This worked fine in that the drive mounted correctly.
I could go into system/recording paths and select that drive for my timeshift recording etc.
However, what I couldn't do on my dream Elite image was change the epg.dat location. Or to put it another way, I press the blue button, press red for the epg panel and under it's global settings, I could scroll through a predefined list of mount points which did not include my newly created one.
Under double blue button devices, the drive was shown up as not mounted, and if I tried to mount it, again I was given the same pre-defined mount points.
So, I thought I'd select /media/usb as it's mount point to see what happened. After it rebooted, sure enough, /media/usb was my external drive, I could set it up store the epg.dat file and all was working fine.
On further inspection, by mounting this as /media/usb under double blue button/devices, it had commented out my entry in fstab.
That being the case, all you have to do is format it on a Linux machine to ext3
Plug it into your vuduo
In Dream Elite, press blue button twice, select devices, select the external hard drive and pick any unused mount point
The box will reboot and it all works 100% fine.
Personally I wish I could add mount points to this list as by having it as hddext it makes more sense, but at the end of the day, it works fine.
Only problem I can see with that, is that having the picons stored on an external hdd could mean that the picons take ages to load up when the hdd has gone in to standby. But, am not sure whether it would actually go to standby, as in the box settings, I think it only allows setting the /media/hdd mount to standby (although am pretty sure I remember gemini image on dm800 allowing a standby for usb hdd's)?! So, in that case it won't cause a slow down on the picons, but could cause unnecessary power consumption for being on all the time (which is the reason why I'd like a large usb key for the job :p)...
Hope all goes well though, and let us know how it goes in a few weeks time if you can :)
True, but as I'm going to be using the drive for permanent time shift, it will be running all the time anyway.
The enclosure is powered from a USB Y cable which plugs into two spare USB ports (or I can optionally buy a power adapter). Seems to work fine with just one plugged in, but have plugged both in just in case.
I live in an all electric house, there's always at least 2 PC's on, sometimes 4, plus at least 1 games console (teenage kids). Two of the PC's have high end graphic cards and big power supplies, so I doubt I'll notice the extra power consumption.
In the end it was extremely easy, although I didn't quite end up with what I wanted, or how described above.
Here's what I did, the 2nd to last paragraph is all that's actually needed, the rest is how I got to that point :)
After formatting to ext3 on my linux PC, I plugged it into my vuduo, telnetted in and created a directory called
/media/hddext
I changed it's permissions to the same as all the other files in there
I then put the following entry into the bottom of my /etc/fstab file
(sdb1 is my internal drive)
This worked fine in that the drive mounted correctly.
I could go into system/recording paths and select that drive for my timeshift recording etc.
However, what I couldn't do on my dream Elite image was change the epg.dat location. Or to put it another way, I press the blue button, press red for the epg panel and under it's global settings, I could scroll through a predefined list of mount points which did not include my newly created one.
Under double blue button devices, the drive was shown up as not mounted, and if I tried to mount it, again I was given the same pre-defined mount points.
So, I thought I'd select /media/usb as it's mount point to see what happened. After it rebooted, sure enough, /media/usb was my external drive, I could set it up store the epg.dat file and all was working fine.
On further inspection, by mounting this as /media/usb under double blue button/devices, it had commented out my entry in fstab.
That being the case, all you have to do is format it on a Linux machine to ext3
Plug it into your vuduo
In Dream Elite, press blue button twice, select devices, select the external hard drive and pick any unused mount point
The box will reboot and it all works 100% fine.
Personally I wish I could add mount points to this list as by having it as hddext it makes more sense, but at the end of the day, it works fine.
Guys, be very careful when trying this. It does work exactly as I described on the current Dream Elite image, however, I've just tried the VTI image and with VTI, the first part of my post is correct and not the last.
I installed VTI with the external hard drive unplugged.
I then plugged it in, on rebooting, it found my 100GB ext as sda1 and mounted it as /media/hdd and it mounted the 1TB internal as /dev/sdb1. VTI by default seems to pick your first hard drive as your main drive, hence it picked /dev/sda1, which meant that as the default recording path to movies is /media/hdd, the internal drive wan't being used.
I checked fstab and unlike Dream Elite which commented any mention of /dev/sda1 & /dev/sdb1 out, VTI had put entries in.
So with this VTI image, I simply created a /media/hddext folder
mkdir /media/hddext
and changed the two hard drive entries in fstab to look like
/dev/sda1 /media/hddext auto defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/hdd auto defaults 0 0
I've now rebooted and all appears fine. Going into VTI system info and selecting "show file system mounts" correctly shows
/dev/sdb1 on /media/hdd type ext3 (rw, data=ordered)
/dev/sda1 on /media/hddext type ext3 (rw, data=ordered)
So I'm happy with the result do far, just wanted to warn you in case it's different still with PLI etc. Haven't got around to installing epg info and trying to change paths yet, but I'm hopeful as VTI system info shows me my external drive is mounted which didn't happen when I had the problems with Dream Elite.
Guys, this solution comes very close to solving my problem, but not far enough.
I have an external network drive with address 192.168.1.11
How do I mount this? what will be the storage paths??
I will be highly grateful!
Guys, this solution comes very close to solving my problem, but not far enough.
I have an external network drive with address 192.168.1.11
How do I mount this? what will be the storage paths??
I will be highly grateful!
As I stated in another post, please do not must your same question in multiple threads, start another topic asking your question.
Thank you.
Ojustaboo,
Would you please specify:
1. Is your esata enclosure SATA I (1.5 Gbps) or SATA II (3.0 Gbps)?
2. What is your VU+DUO revision?
3. What internal and external drives you use? Did you flash (use jumpers) to put them in SATA I (1.5 Gbps) mode only?
4. What DE and VTI image versions you've installed?
5. An excerpt from your dmesg output about ata1/2 messages is welcome too?
There is so small information on the forums about esata drives and vu+ so your info would be very useful for others. I've a problem with my Samsung Story Station 1.5TB eSata drive which is not recognized at all on OpenPli (it seems problem with drive negotiation).
1) Sata II
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=2211802) I imagine it's 2.3, first box I had had a faulty Ethernet port, country was out of stock for a while, only received my replacement box at the beginning of July. Serial no starts MA042500
3) Internal is Samsung EcoGreen F2 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 32MB Cache - OEM
External is Seagate ST9100824AS - Hard drive - 100 GB - internal - 2.5" - SATA-150 - 5400 rpm - buffer: 8 MB
No jumpers added or touched
4) Been using the nightly builds of PLI for a while now, (in my earlier post, I was using whatever the latest version of VTI was on the 20/7)
5) As requested (looking at this, does this mean my internal drive is running at 1.5 Gbps instead of 3 Gbps? )
[SC]: registered sci0
[SC]: registered sci1
brcm-pm: enabling power to SATA block
sata_svw 0000:01:00.0: version 4.0
sata_svw 0000:01:00.0: delay 1 second.
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xB0510000 ctl 0xB0510020 bmdma 0xB0510030 irq 42
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xB0510100 ctl 0xB0510120 bmdma 0xB0510130 irq 42
scsi0 : sata_svw
ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl F0000)
ATA: abnormal status 0xD0 on port 0xb051001c
ata1.00: ATA-7, max UDMA/133, 192426570 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32)
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
scsi1 : sata_svw
ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl F0000)
ata2.00: ATA-7, max UDMA7, 1953525168 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32)
ata2.00: ata2: dev 0 multi count 0
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
Vendor: ATA Model: ST9100824AS Rev: 8.03
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
SCSI device sda: 192426570 512-byte hdwr sectors (98522 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
SCSI device sda: 192426570 512-byte hdwr sectors (98522 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
sda: sda1
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
Vendor: ATA Model: SAMSUNG HD103SI Rev: 1AG0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
SCSI device sdb: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write back
SCSI device sdb: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write back
sdb: sdb1
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdb
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
My /etc/fstab looks like
rootfs / auto defaults 1 1
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0
/dev/mtdblock2 /boot jffs2 ro 0 0
tmpfs /var tmpfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/hdd auto defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/hddext auto defaults 0 0
I somehow don't see the point of such a configuration: to have an external drive always on, and the internal one - powering down.
In my view, better to have the internal drive always on - by that you will prolong its life, it is best for hard drives to be spinning continuously, frequent power-ons lead to hd crashes, no accident that there is an internal power-on counter in each hard drive.
eSATA, on the other hand, could be used to connect drives that are already full of stuff that you want to watch on Duo, or perhaps for recording - record to external, when it is full, put it on a shelf, attach another external, etc.
Internal - permanently spinning, external - not. That is how it should be.
After installing a hard drive in my Duo, pretty much the first thing I did was "no standby" in settings.
Ojustaboo,
Thank you for the provided information. I'm sure it will help those who try to connect their eSata drives.
It seems that VU+ supports SATA I (1.5 Gbps) mode only and I think that this causes the problem with my SATA II Samsung external drive. Main dmesg output doesn't include the two "ata1.00:" lines, but includes the "ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps" line. This causes the drive to start, but somehow negotiation fails.
Your external drive is by design SATA-150 and it seems that I have to find a way to flash main in SATA-150 mode. Unfortunately, the Samsung flash utility works only in DOS, which doesn't support eSata drives (gasp).
On the other hand, pooface has reported that he's used successfully a Freecom Quattro 1.5TB USB 2.0 / FireWire / eSATA drive. He has not specified the interface USB or eSata, but that drive supports eSATA on 3Gbps so I'm a little confused here.
Does anybody connected any Samsung eSata drive to VU+ successfully?
Thanks,
I need to connect an ntfs eSATA drive, so far did not try to do it, afraid to destroy information on it - probably groundless fear.
But I am going to try with a new drive first, with only a few files on it.
Anyway, if it works with ntfs, should also work with ext3, even more so.
I found here some hope as to support of ntfs, I am getting the same with my duo as Ojustaboo:
root@vuduo ~ # dmesg | grep -i ntfs
NTFS driver 2.1.27 [Flags: R/W MODULE].
This perhaps suggests that it may be possible to mount an ntfs drive
I somehow don't see the point of such a configuration: to have an external drive always on, and the internal one - powering down.
In my view, better to have the internal drive always on - by that you will prolong its life, it is best for hard drives to be spinning continuously, frequent power-ons lead to hd crashes, no accident that there is an internal power-on counter in each hard drive.
eSATA, on the other hand, could be used to connect drives that are already full of stuff that you want to watch on Duo, or perhaps for recording - record to external, when it is full, put it on a shelf, attach another external, etc.
Internal - permanently spinning, external - not. That is how it should be.
After installing a hard drive in my Duo, pretty much the first thing I did was "no standby" in settings.
Interesting, what's other peoples opinions on this please?
With my old Sky+ boxes I got through a couple of drives over the years, I put this down to them constantly being hammered with the live pause/rewind buffer which was the whole reason for me using my old laptop drive for this purpose. It's not so much to have the internal going into standby but that I didn't want it thrashed all the time I am watching TV with permanent time shift. Saying that, the price of drives is now so low, if it dies in a year or two, it's no real big deal.
Ojustaboo,
Thank you for the provided information. I'm sure it will help those who try to connect their eSata drives.
It seems that VU+ supports SATA I (1.5 Gbps) mode only and I think that this causes the problem with my SATA II Samsung external drive. Main dmesg output doesn't include the two "ata1.00:" lines, but includes the "ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps" line. This causes the drive to start, but somehow negotiation fails.
Your external drive is by design SATA-150 and it seems that I have to find a way to flash main in SATA-150 mode. Unfortunately, the Samsung flash utility works only in DOS, which doesn't support eSata drives (gasp).
On the other hand, pooface has reported that he's used successfully a Freecom Quattro 1.5TB USB 2.0 / FireWire / eSATA drive. He has not specified the interface USB or eSata, but that drive supports eSATA on 3Gbps so I'm a little confused here.
Does anybody connected any Samsung eSata drive to VU+ successfully?
Thanks,
Am using the Freecom Quattro 1.5tb in e-sata mode... And it's working fine here... Not done a dmesg yet to get info, but will try in next few days if I get time...
I noticed that Deep standby (power off) and Restart commands of VU+ DUO (OpenPli 2010-07-25 image) cause HDD initialization in different order (internal SATA and external USB HDD). For example:
1. After a Deep standby: external USB drive was initialized first as sda1 and internal SATA initialized second as sdb1
2. After a Restart command: internal SATA was initialized first as sda1 and external USB drive initialized second as sdb1
This can be reproduced all the times and causes a problem with the /media/hdd path which in both cases point to different HDDs. I noticed this after a power interruption. When the power came back on the machine failed to record, because /media/hdd pointed to the external HDD where there is no "movie" folder.
Anyone with the same problem? Also, how can I fix the order in which drives are initialized as sda1 and sdb1?
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