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Zgemma H2s External harddrive

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rogan24

Newbie
Hi there, Ive just set up a couple of Zgemma's in my house last night with usb's but
i want a bigger drive now. Whats my best bet? will portable hard drives
that get power from the USB work with these? or would it be better to get a desktop
hard drive where its got its own power supply? Thanks
 
Currys and Argos do the seagate 2tb desktop external hdd for £63/£64 which is externally powered


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I use a Toshiba 1tb usb3 external drive without external power and it works with no issues

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funny how all the forums state not to use portables and when/if it burns out your usb port:fartlight:?
 
The guy that setup my box before I changed it to the woosh build never mentioned anything just plugged in my non powered usb set it up and left. So should I change it to the powered one I have plugged into my pc. Has anybody experienced the burned out usb port or is it one of those myths that you always read about.
 
I read somewhere that the whole powered external thing was for older drives/boxes, newer drives apparently draw much less current through the port plus the units power supply are better quality now so its no long a concern, if this is actually true Im not sure but I have for over a year been using a 1tb Samsung portable that draws power from the usb port with the Mrs recording anything & everything without any problems
 
Yeah the only thing I was worried about is with the time-shift with that on your hard-drive is being used all the time. Also that brings up antoher subject if you but your zgemma box on stand by does it still run the updates sorry to hijack the thread .
 
and you miss the bigger picture in the quality of these boxes been assembled, i can only offer an opinion of what to use as been into boxes for many years and boxes.i myself started with a portable and had issues and told to use externally powered ones which i did from then on.
 
not contradicting you your advise is probably spot on its just something I remember reading but dont recall where & only have my own experience to draw from which is limited, that being said I have never allowed timeshift to run by default as it would be running ALL the time...thats bound to have an effect on the port if it is indeed likely to fail. I have timeshift set to activate when I press the pause button so it only runs when I think there is a good chance I may want to rewind such as a football match then stop timeshift when im done. Running timeshift ALL the time is an unnecessary drain on the boxes resources & will slow it down.
 
The drive being on all the time with timeshift draws approx 450mA. It is boot that seems to pull the extra mA and voltage on initial switch on of the box.

Personally don't have an issue with using my USB powered 320gb HDD, it has been running now for 5 months and plugging it in was the first thing I did.

If I can find it I will plug in my USB power meter and make a video of the voltage and mA used at switch on and general use.
 
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OK, 1m:16s of footage of my plugged in USB HDD powered by the rear port on my Zgemma H2S

The box was already on when I started to record and therefore timeshift was already running in the background. Without video the screen and go through the menus etc and giving you all motion sickness I am sure you will take my word for it.

On watching the video the voltage remains below the 5v USB spec sitting at 4.95v as expected. It does drop slightly from time to time.

The mA which is 500mA delivered by USB 2 sits really nicely at 290mA, or 0.29 amps. It then hops to 0.39 before returning to 0.29.

At 13 seconds in it jumps 0.52
At 1m:01s it jumps to 0.55

[video]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwt-fajTjTRkOWpJV0RhaU5jUGc[/video]

Take from this what you will and decide if you want to use a usb port powered drive, personally I will continue.

When I can turn the box off later I will update with the power draw from the off state to see how that goes, I do think that this will pull over the 500ma but for a short period.


As for timeshift, it is a key feature / selling point for Sly, VM and other boxes which HDDs or the ability to rewind live TV, I know some turn it off as don't see the point in it, but personally our house couldn't live without it. The H2S doesn't seem to suffer from it running all the time.
 
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I agree Wooshman, not seeing issues in running portable hard drive on h2s, and not going to be turning time-shift off.

Don't see the point, if the box is able to do it, it should. Sky has no issue with time-shift, so why take a step backward.

Each to there own, but seems a lot of scaremongering about the subject. Has anyone actually had a drive fail in the first year because of using a portable hard drive?

For me, at £75 for the box if it goes bang in the first year its covered under warranty, after that, as with most things that have 12 months warranty on them, you are hoping that the unit survives until you replace it with a newer/faster/better model anyway.
 
I used to use an older type HDD on my TV box that i used to get power issues with.

I ended up using one of these and plugged the 2nd end into my TV (on mine the 'extra power' end was longer).

cable.jpg

Daz
 
A quick update with the video of the box being turned on from the off state.

You can hear my drive kick in, for some reason it powers up, goes off and powers up again, but that could be my drive? Never tried another one.

[video]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwt-fajTjTRkZ3NCQVhOSGJoazA[/video]

770mA is the largest draw of power then instantly below the 0.50 as before.
At 1m:05s you hear the TV program start up which means timeshift has started too.
A further 13 seconds shows no power draw over 0.40.

Now bear in mind I don't use my box like a normal person so it is on, off, drive unplugged, drive plugged in (sometimes hot swapped) and it has has this abuse for 5 months solid, normally day in and day out. I will continue to use my USB powered hard drive as I do now and report back should there be any issues.

As richsimpson has said, the warranty is good for 12 months from date of purchase and nowhere do zgemma state that a USB powered drive is not to be used, so any failure is covered.


In closing:

Different drives may give different results and with that said I plugged in a branded 1TB Seagate Backup Plus portable drive which is USB 3.0. From a power off state the instant power draw was on 0.66, fluctuated between 0.30 - 0.55 before settling at 0.31. Watching it for a period of time the peak hit only 0.52 with timeshift on. So does this mean that even newer HDDs use less power than previous USB drives?

My findings are on two drives only but they are the results. It is possible that the warning of using a USB powered USB HDD is now outdated due to modern technology using less power as laptops and the battery life are key.

I will continue to use my older USB 2.5 HDD caddy of no brand with an old 320gb HDD in it which the videos show in use. If I need more space I know I can plugin my 1TB and reduce power draw even more. Win Win!
 
Hard drive stays on even when in standby

Hi

My hard drive stays on even when the box is in standby. Is there a setting or something to change to turn it off when the box is off? I thought i cahanged a setting to this, but it didnt work.
 
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