External 2,5"USB HDD

[Duden2002]

Did anyone of you successfuly connect an external 2,5" USB HDD (without external power)?

I have tested two different but no one starts to spin.
WD Passport 250GB and Trekstor 320GB.

Could it be lack of power in the USB slots ?

I did test both USB-ports as I have the Premium version.

[Siegfried]

The reciever cannot supply enough current.

There are 2 things to try. Buy a Y USB cable and connect the second plug to a 5V power supply with a USB socket or buy a slf powered HDD.

Both can be bought from M*a*p*l*i*n.

[Duden2002]

Thats what I was worried about....
Then there are almost no benefit to use a external 2,5" HDD.

[Tiptronic]

Why not just put a new terabyte hd in it? For file transfer you could just use a normal USB stick.
And just wondering, did you connect 2 USB sticks? Because you need 2 USB's to start the 2.5" hd on a normal computer too.

[Duden2002]

Why not just put a new terabyte hd in it? For file transfer you could just use a normal USB stick.
And just wondering, did you connect 2 USB sticks? Because you need 2 USB's to start the 2.5" hd on a normal computer too.

No, I didn't connect the two at the same time with an Y-cable, but doesn't matter because I don't want to have the front cover open. Yes I will connect an internal HDD, just wanted the external for easier file transfer to computer. But maybe FTP will do that with an internal drive.

The HDD starts up on my computer with only one USB-slot connected and same on my Vantage 7100 HD.

[noviserbia]

I cant work out where to FTP the movies from the PC to the HDD in the AZbox.I want to try to FTP some of the BluRay rips and see if they can play that way.

[pr2]

Hi,

Up to you to choose where to place the file, there is no constraint on the Azbox, you organise yourself.

With the movie player you simply browse your HDD to the location where you have copy your file.

If you browse via Movie player menu, you will only see the supported Movie format (MKV, ISO, AVI, ....), if you browse the HDD via the file manager you will see all the files and you can also start playing the movie files from the file manager.
You can also copy paste file from File Manager... simply use the Menu key on your RCU and select copy... and then paste where you want.

I don't know if there is a maximum file size that can be copy / paste that way... feedback welcome...

Pr2

[noviserbia]

OK....i put all my divX,BluRay rips,mkv and also a BluRay movies in .....DATA/download folder in AZbox 500g HDD...and they all played perfectly with no glitches.SO that way is a much better method then streaming it from a PC over the network.It takes time to transfer them but its worth it......the only think whats missing its the DTS 5,1 sound and i hope the Azbox team will fix it soon.

[postbus24]

Did anyone of you successfuly connect an external 2,5" USB HDD (without external power)?

I have tested two different but no one starts to spin.
WD Passport 250GB and Trekstor 320GB.
.

If you type 'dmesg' in telnet after connecting ths USB disk, you probably see something like this:


usb 3-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Vendor: WDC WD12 Model: 00BEVE-00UYT0 Rev: 0 0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
SCSI device sda: 234441648 512-byte hdwr sectors (120034 MB)
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 234441648 512-byte hdwr sectors (120034 MB)
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda:<6>sd 1:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
sd 1:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
unable to read partition table
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete

which, according to lots of googleling, is a kernel bug that was fixed since version 2.6.20. (note: azbox has V# 2.6.15 )

I also tried a Y-cable , result was the same. :frown:

[Duden2002]

@postbus24

Hi, did you hear if the disk started to spin when you connected it ?
Hope there is a solution for this problem, but I still think there is lack of power in the USB slots.

[goran]

I don't know if there is a maximum file size that can be copy / paste that way... feedback welcome...

Pr2

The problem is, of course, with FAT formatting, which only grabs smaller files, but not files of the BluRay "persuasion", i.e. stuff like 8GB big... and that is counter-intuitive, as this should be BD player capable... So, this should be sorted, I think...:respect-050:

We need NTFS formatting of the external and internal HDD allowed/recognised, so we can have large files played, as this baby can do it, thanx to its processor... ;)

[pr2]

The problem is, of course, with FAT formatting, which only grabs smaller files, but not files of the BluRay "persuasion", i.e. stuff like 8GB big... and that is counter-intuitive, as this should be BD player capable... So, this should be sorted, I think...:respect-050:

We need NTFS formatting of the external and internal HDD allowed/recognised, so we can have large files played, as this baby can do it, thanx to its processor... ;)

Hi Goran,

I know that FAT32 limitation for files is 4 Giga (not even the size of a DVD rip) ;-)

By the way, the internal HDD of the Premium is formatted in ext3 format (that's a Linux format) so you don't need NTFS, there is not only Microsoft in the World, Linux have its own (better) standard.

So you will not have problem with huge file!!!

Your only problem will be to transfert them from a NTFS support to the Azbox, for this either you use SAMBA or FTP. So if you transfer your files via the network you won't have problems since disk formatting is not a matter.

You will only have limitation if you want to use USB disk transfer, since only FAT32 is supported, or you can also format your external disk to ext3 then I guess that your Azbox will recognise it without problem and you can even record to it, but then you will get problem to connect it back to your Windows PC. :-)

Pr2

[goran]

Yes, that I knew but the point is that we need them to be inter-connectable/interchangeable for reasons you mentioned. If Ubuntu can see NTFS... ;) :)

[postbus24]

@postbus24

Hi, did you hear if the disk started to spin when you connected it ?
Hope there is a solution for this problem, but I still think there is lack of power in the USB slots.

Well i've tried to connect a 3,5" disk on USB power only (which is obviously way to heavy on power consumption) and I did not get that far in the dmesg output. The disk was not even recognized.

And also normally the y-cable should do the trick. Strange that a device which could power a satellite dish rotor doesn't have a few milli amps spare on its USB ports. :biggrinjester:

[TVDX]

Hi Goran,

I know that FAT32 limitation for files is 4 Giga (not even the size of a DVD rip) ;-)

By the way, the internal HDD of the Premium is formatted in ext3 format (that's a Linux format) so you don't need NTFS, there is not only Microsoft in the World, Linux have its own (better) standard.

So you will not have problem with huge file!!!

Your only problem will be to transfert them from a NTFS support to the Azbox, for this either you use SAMBA or FTP. So if you transfer your files via the network you won't have problems since disk formatting is not a matter.

You will only have limitation if you want to use USB disk transfer, since only FAT32 is supported, or you can also format your external disk to ext3 then I guess that your Azbox will recognise it without problem and you can even record to it, but then you will get problem to connect it back to your Windows PC. :-)

Pr2

So, the premium which is ext3 formatted will link up to windows machine without problems?.

[geezerpl]

And just wondering, did you connect 2 USB sticks? Because you need 2 USB's to start the 2.5" hd on a normal computer too.

Not true.
Most 2,5" enclosures these days are USB only (no 5V power supply) and they work perfectly with laptops or PCs which probably have better voltage output via USB than Azbox :(

On the other hand 3,5" enclosures are always powered by 5V power adapter as big hdd requires more power.

Attaching 2,5" ext. hdd with Y USB cable to Azbox might work (not tried yet) but would definetely look hilarious (or cheap)...

My 3,5" ext. hdd with extra power supply works fine. I just wonder whether or now I will be able to transfer big files from it to the internal Azbox hdd... I would prefer this over FTP !

[tez]

Well I have got a 2.5" drive (iomega) connected to my azbox and only needed to use one USB port. It depends on your drive some need 2 ports others will happily work off one.

[Duden2002]

Well I have got a 2.5" drive (iomega) connected to my azbox and only needed to use one USB port. It depends on your drive some need 2 ports others will happily work off one.

Ok, can you please specify which iomega drive? Thanks.

Edit:

Well after some more investigation I did manage to connect my Western Digital 250GB 2,5" HDD to the box only using the back usb-port. Before, I did only test the front, strange that the front usb-port don't have the same power, maybe I have to open the box and do some examination. :-)

[iko]

thanx for that info ;)