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Hello!
I am a Mum with a 500GB Foxsat-HDR Humax box full of CBeebies tv programmes. I am wondering if you could give me advice on how to expand the recording capacity without taking on too much time-consuming work?
I wondered – should I
1) replace the internal hard drive (currently 500GB) with a 2TB one, or could I
2) just plug in a 2TB external hard drive?
If I plug in an external hard drive, would I have to manually copy the tv programmes every week, or would the humax box record directly to the external drive and play directly from it?
If you could even just direct me to the appropriate documentation that would be great.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!
Thanks,
jsp
The largest drive the Foxsat can install by itself is 1TB. To use a 2TB drive the drive has to be partitioned and formatted EXT3 on a PC.
There’s a guide how to do this here:
http://www.avforums.com/threads/humax-foxsat-hdr-%C2%96-upgrade-hdd-to-2tb.1336395/
You can’t record directly to a USB drive, you have to copy the recordings to the external drive after they are completed. You can watch the existing recordings on the 500GB drive by slotting it into a usb cradle and use it as an external storage drive.
The box needs a low power AV specced drive like this one
You will need to jumper pins 5 & 6 to reduce the data transfer rate.
To cope with programmes larger than 4GB (many HD recordings will be larger than 4GB), the external drive needs to be formatted EXT3 format (See Foxsat HDR FAQ’s)
Welcome to the forum
Fantastic, thanks. That’s exactly what I was hoping to find out.
Does that mean that once I’ve copied recordings across to an external hard drive, I will still be able to play them without copying them back?
Thanks a million. So extremely helpful.
jsp
jsp – 9 minutes ago »
Fantastic, thanks. That’s exactly what I was hoping to find out.
Does that mean that once I’ve copied recordings across to an external hard drive, I will still be able to play them without copying them back?
Thanks a million. So extremely helpful.
jsp
Yes you can replay directly from the USB drive. That’s why you can connect the old drive to the USB port and replay the existing recordings. You will find them in the video folder in the third partition (SDA3) if I remember correctly.
TIP If you don’t use the box to store many photos or MP3’s, then immediately after installing the new drive elect to format both partitions using the box menus. This gives you a slider which allows you to allocate all but 1GB to the Video recording partition (max space for recordings).
Fabulous! Thanks so much for this. Total lifesaver.
Problem solved.
jsp
Hello!
Would you mind if I ask a quick question about how to get the external USB drive to work?
We bought a 4TB external hard drive. We also have a 32GB usb thumb drive that is formatted in ext3. The thumb drive works just fine for moving tv programmes from the Human to the laptop. We took the entire disc image from the thumb drive and copied it onto the 4TB external hard drive, then plugged in the 4TB drive. The Humax says: “Cannot read USB device. Supported formats are (blah blah blah). Please format drive on a PC.”
Just formatting the external drive in ext3 does not work either. I wondered if you had any ideas?
Thanks!
Jsp
Try partitioning the 4TB drive into say 4 1TB partitions and format each partition separately. Suspect it’s the size that is the issue.
ditto what Graham said, although 2 x 2TB partitions should also work if that makes more sense
damian – 13 minutes ago »
ditto what Graham said, although 2 x 2TB partitions should also work if that makes more sense
Really? I thought it would depend on the partition type; if it is GPT then I wonder if the Humax kernel supports it; if it is MBR then it will be limited to 2TB unless the USB hardware is presenting a large block size.
I don’t have a 4TB external drive to play with and I don’t think anybody here can give a definite answer without having exactly the same model 4TB drive to test; however if 4TB doesn’t work then 2 x 2TB would be the next logical step, if lucky both and if not then at least one of the 2TB partitions should be visible.
The kernel won’t support >2TB natively
Thanks for these tips. In the end my husband put both the original and new hard drives into a desktop computer, copied the disc image from the old drive to the new bigger drive with a 2TB partition, and then put the 2TB drive into the Humax. It worked! We’re just waiting to see if it catches fire.
Ta!
Jsp
damian – 3 months ago »
I don’t have a 4TB external drive to play with and I don’t think anybody here can give a definite answer without having exactly the same model 4TB drive to test; however if 4TB doesn’t work then 2 x 2TB would be the next logical step, if lucky both and if not then at least one of the 2TB partitions should be visible.
The kernel won’t support >2TB natively
Hello,
I tried a 3 TB Western Digital Elements HD with various options in formating it under EXT3 with :
– either with a single 3 TB partition : it didn’t work (“no storage available” for “sdb1” folder siplayed in File Manager when trying to copy a file from internal HD)
– or with two 1.5 TB partitions : equally unsuccessfull (same error message for both “sdb1” and “sdb2” folders displayed in File Manager)
– or three 1 TB partitions : only the first one worked (“sdb1”) to copy files from the internal HD. Both other partitions displayed yhe usual “no storage available” when trying to copy a file from internal HD.
I then purchased and formatted EXT3 a 1 TB HD that I connected in parallel with the existing external 1 TB drive connected to the Humax’s frontal USB socket through a USB 2.0 hub powered by a mains supply : the Humax perfectly accepts both external HDs, that it identifies as “USB2” and “USB3” (“USB1” being connected to rear USB socket). I can copy files from my internal HD to any of my three external HDs.
The main folder in my “USB3” disk is named “sdc1”, while “USB1” and “USB2” disks’ main folders display “sad1” and “sdb1” respectively.
I tried to also connect to this USB hub, either a USB key or a raw HD inserted in a dock (both being formatted EXT3), but it unbalanced the connections, and my “USB3” disappeared from the file manager.
On the other hand, I’ll try to use another power-supplied USB 2.0 hub on the Humax’s rear USB socket to add a new 1 TB disk. I’ll keep you informedof the results.
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