Ronof9 – 12 mins ago  » 

I have asked Humax support the following:-

Can you confirm if the USB 2.0 interface on the HB 1100S WILL LIMIT THE TRANSFER SPEED if I buy a USB 3.0 hard drive?

Reply:- “It will not limit the speed.”

I am still not convinced the above reply is correct, am absolutely amazed it is only usb 2.0 despite being a relatively recent product (coming out way after usb 3.0 arrived)

A Usb 3.0 device will not change the performance in any way. The port is limited in speed by the low priority that is given to processing usb transfers.

The software is designed to give priority to the boxes primary role as a PVR, stealing clock cycles when possible to support the usb port. Fitting usb 3.0 ports would be totally pointless. Usb 2.0 is more than fast enough for HD recordings and transfer. I have a twin tuner V-Box device connected to my network which outputs to my network and is viewable on many networked devices.

Despite only having two tuners it can record 4 HD channels at the same time (subject to Mux) to a usb 2.0 portable hard drive.

Fitting a very fast SSD drive to a Humax pvr will also not improve recording and playback capability, the only advantage is a totally silent device.

You mak be able to improve transfer speeds to usb by reducing the cpu loading by either tuning to a off air channel or a radio channel. This used to work pretty well using Topfield Freeview+ pvrs.

Ronof9 – 58 mins ago  » 

I have asked Humax support the following:-

Can you confirm if the USB 2.0 interface on the HB 1100S WILL LIMIT THE TRANSFER SPEED if I buy a USB 3.0 hard drive?

Reply:- “It will not limit the speed.”

I am still not convinced the above reply is correct, am absolutely amazed it is only usb 2.0 despite being a relatively recent product (coming out way after usb 3.0 arrived)

Cheers

Providing the USB drive is USB2 compatible, it is the USB drive itself that will limit the speed, (and the power consumption if USB powered), to keep it within limits of a standard USB 2 spec’d port.

A few years ago when I looked for an external USB powered USB 3 drive that was not USB 2 compatible I struggled. Some sellers did not specify that the drives were USB2 compatible but when examining the manufacturer’s sites, all the ones I could find the manufacturers details were.

The only ones that I could find that weren’t USB 2 compatible were ones that appeared to be cobbled together using a 2.5″ drive and a caddy rather than one that had been designed for external use from the start.

Ronof9 – 19 mins ago  » 

Well if that’s the case I’ll get an external USB 2.0 Hard Drive

They are harder to find these days. A USB 2 compatible USB 3 will be fine, and if its not you’ll be able to return it as faulty or mis-sold.