- This topic has 63 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hello, I’m new, to Humax and an absolute virgin as far as it’s concerned. If it helps any – not that it likely would, I work with computers – both soft and hardware.
For years, I’ve been a subscriber to Sky. Never had a TV aerial, only a dish. Now, income has dropped and I can no longer afford sky so was talking to my family about it and they bought me a present of a Humax FVP-4000T 500GB. I’ve now got a freeview aerial being installed so I can use this (I know, could have used Freesat, but freeview is what I got and our dish is a bit past it anyway). We have a 2TB sky HD box at the moment. The new Humax box is 500GB.
I wondered, can I open up the Humax box and put in a larger capacity hard drive? 2TB preferably, but even 1TB would be an improvement. Is there anything I need to know ie, make / model of drive, should I clone the removed 500GB one to the new one before installation, does firmware require upgrading? Basically, anything and everything about this I should know – if it’s even possible at all!
I’d be really grateful for any help and advice, and I look forward to becoming an active contributor here as I gain experience and knowledge of Humax. At the moment, it really is virgin territory.
smiffy12 – 1 hour ago »
I wondered, can I open up the Humax box and put in a larger capacity hard drive? 2TB preferably, but even 1TB would be an improvement. Is there anything I need to know ie, make / model of drive, should I clone the removed 500GB one to the new one before installation, does firmware require upgrading? Basically, anything and everything about this I should know – if it’s even possible at all!
I have fitted larger hard drives to various Humax boxes but not to an FVP-4000T. I would expect that the process would be to buy a suitable hard drive; ideally you want a drive designed for PVR usage. I don’t know what is fitted as standard to an FVP-4000T but I would suggest opening the box to have a look and then buy a larger capacity drive from the same series. I would expect when you start the box after fitting the new drive it will offer to format it for you and away you go. I would expect that the existing firmware will be OK but 2TB may well be the largest capacity drive you can fit.
Maybe someone else here has actually done it and will post further details. If not let us know how you get on. Good luck.
Very often Humax boxes use 5.25″ Seagate Pipeline Sata drives, however there are now reports that some later production models are appearing with 2.5″ laptop drives which use even less power than the low power full size models.
As Martin says you need to look inside to see what form factor is used.
Thank you very much indeed for both replies. I opened the box and discovered a 3.5″ SATA drive. It’s a Seagate video drive. I’ve fired it up, got it on line, updated the firmware to v 1.02.13 (latest) in the hope that this give the best chance of working with a larger drive. I’ve never been a great fan of Seagate so have purchased a WD Red 2TB drive. It was a toss up between purple and red. Purple is for surveillance systems (use 24/7), red is for NAS systems. My understanding is the WD Red for NAS is a little higher spec and runs that tiny bit cooler and quieter so opted for that. It will arrive tomorrow and I’ll let you all know how it goes……It’s always good if people post their success stories (or otherwise but I’m being optimistic) so that next time someone has this question the answer is there
Fingers crossed
grahamlthompson – 1 hour ago »
Very often Humax boxes use 5.25″ Seagate Pipeline Sata drives,
Surely you mean 3.5″ form factor?
smiffy12 – 53 minutes ago »
I’ve never been a great fan of Seagate so have purchased a WD Red 2TB drive.
That may not be the best choice but time will tell. The problem with drives not deigned for PVR usage is that as they age and sectors emerge that need mapping out, the drive will try to preserve the data by making multiple read attempts. This can result in stuttery play back. But it should be OK most of the time.
Martin Liddle – 1 hour ago »
smiffy12 – 53 minutes ago »
I’ve never been a great fan of Seagate so have purchased a WD Red 2TB drive.
That may not be the best choice but time will tell. The problem with drives not deigned for PVR usage is that as they age and sectors emerge that need mapping out, the drive will try to preserve the data by making multiple read attempts. This can result in stuttery play back. But it should be OK most of the time.
I know what you mean. Purple is designed for lots of writes, not so much reading. Red NAS drives are designed for 24/7 server type access so lots of read and writes going on simultaneously – that’s my logic, coupled with them being excellent quality drives with a good warranty. As you say, time will tell
.
Any update on this would be helpful.
Ta!
It is a bit early for problems to arise.
I would have opted for either a Seagate pipeline or a WD Purple.
Did you have any success doing this upgrade smiffy12?
My 5000T and also a HDR-1000S both have a 2TB Seagate Pipeline in them. Updating both was simple and both drives are near silent. The 4000/5000T uses clips requiring a screwdriver push to release them to open the case.
Because the recording schedule is held in NVRAM you don’t lose the recording schedule after fitting a new drive.
I am so sorry to have fallen off the radar here. Just had an email about posts regarding my post.
Well, the WD Red 2TB has worked absolutely flawlessly. It records and plays back every day. It is a teeny bit noisy when it fires up, but it’s really not noticeable at all once the TV is on.
So, would I recommend the 2TB WD Red? Yes I would, but I have nothing else to gauge it against other than it has been flawless for me.
I did have horrific trouble with the remote control though. The box wouldn’t respond to RC commands most of the time. In the end, I found something somewhere that said the remote was likely junk. I called Humax (Ireland somewhere I think) and complained. They wanted £30 from me. I told them NO. I advised them that the ball was in their court. they either supplied me with a new RC as the original wasn’t fit for purpose of they lost me as a Humax customer. They sent a replacement RC and it has been a joy….
So, the 4000T has been a great device once the RC was sorted. Only issue is it’s not great on WiFi. Put an ethernet cable in though and it’s fine.
smiffy12 – 1 hour ago »
Well, the WD Red 2TB has worked absolutely flawlessly. It records and plays back every day. It is a teeny bit noisy when it fires up, but it’s really not noticeable at all once the TV is on.
So, would I recommend the 2TB WD Red? Yes I would, but I have nothing else to gauge it against other than it has been flawless for me.
Thanks for the update. Experience from people who tried something different is always valuable. If you remember, another update in a year or so would be great.
Thankyou Smiffy12. Inspired by your success I swapped out the 500GB drive for a 1TB I had spare.
It was easy to export the recordings via USB, and reimport them onto the larger disc.
On this topic, my fvp-4000T is well out of warranty so I plucked up the courage to try swapping the old drive out, it was becoming slightly noisy at 5 years old. Here’s what I did just for info. This is not to be followed (disclaimer).
The original drive is labelled Seagate video and is 500Gb.
I bought a new Seagate Skyhawk 2Tb, it is slightly thicker than the 500Gb drive as it contains two disks or platters, rather than one.
Skyhawk is the surveillance model which is designed for long hours of recording low power and low noise, its the equivalent to WD Purple and the successor to the pipeline.
Best to avoid old Pipeline drives as they were discontinued in 2014 and the chances are any found will be very second hand (i.e. knackered).
So removing the warranty void labels on the unit, there is one screw at the centre back and 5 tabs on the bottom to release the top cover. There are four screws under the drive to remove and one clamp arm that unscrews from the main board. The clamp arm holds a bit of metalic foam to the top of the drive which I guess is there for earthing and damping vibration. The arm has two prongs at the level of the 500Gb drive and one higher up that is at the exact level of the new thicker drive. Unscrew the clamp arm and bend up two lower prongs so they are out of the way. Then the old drive just lifts out by lifting up the back and sliding it back from the connectors. Slide the new drive in carefully making sure the connectors line up. Refit the four screws underneath that hold the drive and refit the clamp arm and metalic foam strip. Refit the cover, that it!
I didn’t have to format the drive it was immediately recognised and showed 1863Gb free so far it has worked for a good few hours of recording.
Atb.
— End
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.