FiOS HD-DVR crashing since adding external eSATA drive

After the recent firmware update, I added an 2TB external eSATA drive to my FiOS DVR. I'd really been looking forward to this because our DVR had been perpetually 90+% full. After a couple of reboots, the drive was recognized and showed as a second DVR at 0% full in the DVR Status menu. Just to make sure everything worked, I scheduled a bunch of recordings to make sure it was utilizing the new drive.
A few days later, we found that the DVR had erased several of our recordings because it was out of space. Checking the DVR status again, the new drive had disappeared.
After a couple of reboots, it appeared in the status menu again, and the DVR started recording to the external drive. But a few days later, my wife couldn't find the recordings. Turns out it had disappeared again.
This pattern has repeated itself several times over the last couple of weeks. On two occasions, the DVR has completely frozen while we were in the middle of watching something, necessitating a complete reboot in order to watch TV, and interrupting any recording that was going on in the background. Each time, at least 2 reboots has been required before the eSATA drive appears.
Needless to say, this whole thing is a disaster. I spent a ton of money and the result is poorer service quality. What can I do to fix this?

After a few minutes searching I found the link of recommended drives.
http://www22.verizon.com/ResidentialHelp/FiOSTV/Other+Hardware/eSATA/129841.htm
Here's a snipet from that page...
Which Verizon FiOS TV DVRs are compatible with eSATA devices?
The following FiOS TV DVRs are compatible with eSATA devices:
Motorola QIP 7216
Motorola QIP 7232
Cisco CHS 435 HDC
Which eSATA external storage devices can I use with my FiOS DVR?
Verizon recommends the eSATA hard drives below for use with FiOS DVR. Customers choosing to install other drive types will assume the risk of compatibility with FiOS DVR and Verizon will not assist with compatibility or performance issues should they arise.
Western Digital – WDBACS5000EBK-NEVZ – 500GB
Western Digital – WDBACS0010HBK-NEVZ – 1TB
Western Digital Retail – WDBABT0010HBK-NESN – 1TB
I'm not sure why this happened...'Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied.'
I'm assuming that the above drives were the only one tested at the time. We users can add to this list if we want. Anyone game?

Similar Messages

Success with adding an external eSATA drive to a Verizon FIOS DVR

August 4, 2012 - Success with adding an external eSATA drive to a Verizon FIOS DVR
I just upgraded from a Comcast DVR to a Verizon FIOS DVR. I upgraded because my old DVR was limited to 500GB (1/2 TB) on the internal drive and the new FIOS DVR allowed for a much larger external eSATA drive. Selecting a viable external drive for the FIOS DVR was easier said than done. The three drives listed on the Verizon web site as compatible with FIOS DVRs are no longer manufactured by western digital and are not available on the market.
The DVR that I received from Verizon was a Cisco "CHS 435 HD DVR" that came with a 500GB (1/2 TB) internal drive. This is one of their "Multi-Room DVRs" that allows other set top boxes (not DVRs) to watch videos recorded on it.
I selected a western digital "WD30EURS" eSATA disk drive because it was a follow on product to one of the three listed as acceptable by Verzion on their web page and it was 3TB in size. I ordered from amazon.com for $170.99. This drive is a "bare drive" so it does not come with an external encloser or a eSATA cable.
According to the Western Digial web site this is a AV-GP drive: "These drives are designed to last in high temperature always-on, streaming digital audio/video environments such as PVR/DVR, IPTV, and video surveillance systems."
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/AAG/ENG/2178-771131.pdf
I got a "Macally G-S350SU Hi-Speed eSata/USB2.0 External Storage Enclosure for 3.5inch SATA HDD" to hold the drive for $34.39. I chose this one because it does not use a fan that could cause continious noise. The box is made out of metal so it cools itself as long as it is exposed to air (not covered up). This box comes with an external power supply that has a small transformer that plugs into a wall outlet.
Then I needed a eSATA cable. I got a "StarTech 6-Feet Shielded External eSATA Cable M/M (ESATA6)" for $6.50 and a 3-foot version for $5.90. I went with the longer one so that the cable would be less likely to become accidentally unplugged if I need to move the drive or the DVR. The cables and the drive houseing came from the same Amazon provider so it saved me on shipping. The drive came from Amazon/Western Digial directly but they do not have external housings or eSATA cables on that site.
The total cost was $255.56 including shipping for all these items.
I went with the largest (3TB) drive from western digial's AV-GP line to avoid a future upgrade from a smaller drive to a larger drive. There is no way to copy videos from one external eSATA drive to another drive because they are formatted by the FIOS DVR in a propriatary format. That would mean that any future upgrade would require losing all recorded files during an upgrade. That also means that there is no way to back up the contents of the drive to protect yourself from hard drive failure.
The installer who setup the DVR did not want me to plug in the drive while he was there and explained that I was on my own when I attached this kind of personal device to the DVR. When I plugged in the new eSATA drive it was automatically discovered. I was asked by the DVR if I wanted to format the new drive. I answered yes and within 2 hours the drive completed formatting. I did not watch the boring format so it could have finished faster.
When I started recording new videos they go directly to the external drive automatically and avoids the internal drive. It had no trouble recording two HD shows and playing a recording at the same time. I now have 20 hours of HD video recorded and the 3TB external drive is 17% full. So far my experience with the external drive has been great. No problems or issues. Learning the new remote control, new DVR menu system, and web browser control of the DVR from a laptop is another story. It will take some time to figure out how to make all the new features work.
It took me a while to figure out how to make this work since the verizon web site made useless suggestions and pointed me to products that are not available any more. I could not tell if this really would work until I plugged it in and then I was pleasantly suprised that it did. I have had this working for 3 days without any issues. I hope this post makes it easier for you to add an external eSATA drive to your DVR.
Here are the three items ordered from Amazon to make this work:
Western Digital 3 TB AV-GP 3 TB SATA 2 Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Driv...
Macally G-S350SU Hi-Speed eSata/USB2.0 External Storage Enclosure for 3.5inch SATA HDD
StarTech 6-Feet Shielded External eSATA Cable M/M (ESATA6)

You are right. I can only access 2TB of my 3TB external drive. That gives me a total of 2.5 TB counting the internal (0.5 TB) and external (2.0 TB) drives. This is a significant improvement over the just the 0.5 TB internal drive. I have not been able to find a reason for this limitation. Cisco and Verizon do not mention any limits that I can find. I hope that a future BIOS upgrade could provide access to more space but this would probably require me to reformat the drive and lose everything recorded.
I paid $170.99 for the 3 TB WD30EURS drive at amazon. I could have gotten away with spending only $116.99 for the 2 TB WD20EURS drive. Not worth returning at this point so I will stay with it. Makes me glad I didn't buy the most expensive 6 TB external monster drive available from another company.
I bought: 3TB drive: Western Digital 3 TB AV-GP 3 TB SATA 2 Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive WD30EURS by Western Digital
I could have bought: 2TB drive: Western Digital AV-GP 2 TB SATA II Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Internal Hard Drive - WD20EURS by Western Digital
Details of what I learned:
The external 2 TB drive now has 41 hours of HD video recorded and claims to be 34% full (66% free). My estimate would allow me to have aprox 120 hours of HD on the external drive (2TB) and 30 hours of HD on the internal drive (500GB) for a total of 150 hours of HD. This will keep me happy for the near future.
There is a hidden "diagnostic menu" that is not normally accessible or documented by CISCO or Verizon. This menu has a lot of interesting info on the inner working of the DVR. There was an obscure reference to this menu on another forum.
To access this diagnostics menu:
1) Get the DVR into normal live tv mode (no menu, no guide, no pause ...)
2) Go to the Cisco CHS 435 HD DVR (not the remote control) and press these buttons on the front of the DVR: Press both the Left Arrow "<-" button and "OK" button at the same time and hold them both down for aprox 5 seconds.
3) The "Verizon FiOS TV Diagnostics Menu" menu will appear. The menu can then be used by the remote control.
4) I chose "D03 Memory / HDD" and then "Hard Disk Information" and finally "OK"
A five page disk report appeared. With a little bit of interpretation I discovered:
The Internal Drive is know as "drive 1/hdc1" has 461 GB total space with 454 GB free.
The External Drive is split into two partitions "hdc2" and "hdc3" (aka two mount points).
"drive 2/hdc2" has 1007 MB total with 317 GB free
"drive 3/hdc3" has 1007 MB total with 974 GB free
The normal DVR menu has an "Eject" feature that allows you to stop the external drive and make it safe to remove it from the DVR without losing anything via an unplanned drive removal. This can be found at "DVR" button on remote then "Settings"->"External Hard Drive"->"Eject".

New DVR, Can't Recognize Existing ESata Drive/Programs

I had a Motorola 7216 DVR box that had an external ESata drive. The box had three issues: froze 2-3 times a day for maybe 30 seconds, sound "clipping" during loud sections of shows/movies, and I could never get the Android app or web app to connect to the DVR. So, I received a new 7232 DVR today. Prior to disconnecting the old, I did the proper method of ejecting of the ESata Drive.
I hooked up the new DVR, and (possibly mistakenly) hooked up the ESata drive as well before booting it up the first time. Did the initialization, all went well. Went through the routine of adding ESata, rebooted, didn't recognize the drive. Realize I maybe shouldn't have plugged it in, so unplugged ESata cord, rebooted, did Set-Top Box Auto Correct, then went through the proper routine to add external storage. However, when rebooting, the box blinks one light for 30 seconds, then the entire display lights up, then it reboots, repeating this routine ad infinitum (nothing ever displays on the TV).
So, thinking I got a bad box, I hook up the old DVR, get it working, and then run the add ESata routine. It now is in the same infinite loop as the old box (for 30 minutes now as I type).
Removing the ESata, and rebooting, back to normal operation, though without ESata and all of the recorded shows.
Any ideas? Do you think my "mistake" in hooking up the ESata drive to the new box right off the bat might have messed up the drive? I'm ordering an ESata to Sata cable so I can hook up the drive to my PC and see if it's accessable. Maybe I can reformat it, knowing we'll lose all our programs (actually, my wife's programs......no big deal to me )
Or does it take a long time to initialize an existing ESata drive with lots of programs on it?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Greetings, armond_in_nj!
Thanks for your message responding to my plea for help!
OK.... Finally have had time to try everything again AND make notes along the way.
I have a Motorola STB, model HD DVR QIP 7216 P2 500GB.
I have a Western Digital external eSata hard drive, model WDBABT0010HBK-NESN – 1TB (on the "approved" list).
And yes, I have tried everything mentioned in the post by "steveKane" just above my original. See below at the end for what happened when I tried to re-format my WD drive on my desktop PC.
When I first got my WD external HD several months ago, I had to call Verizon support to get the DVR to recognize the Western Digital external HD, but we finally got that fixed and all was fine (i.e., programs recording to external HD, status visible under DVR/Recorder Status using my remote). Then, around mid-november, when I would schedule programs to record, either when I was asleep or at work, when I went to view them later, often times one program was broken into 2 or more segments. Then a little later, sometimes while watching a recorded program, the DVR would just freeze. I would reset the Set Top Box (STB) and could continue watching the program. But this all got worse and worse and, finally, I called tech support. After a frustrating hour with a tech support person, who declared everything was fine with my STB because I could press RECORD and the DVR would record a short segment of programming. During that hour conversation, we had reset the STB more than 10 times. I finally asked to speak with this technician's supervisor, who finally agreed with me that the STB needed replacing. When I received the new STB, it would not function at all. So.... another call to support, more attempts on their end to re-set the STB, and finally they agreed that I needed yet another new STB. When that arrived, I went through all the proper steps to set up the STB first, without the external HD and, only when the new STB was working properly did I try to get it to recognize my external HD.
The Western Digital instructions for connecting their drive to my DVR are as follows:
1. Power off the DVR box by disconnecting the AC power cord. --- Did that
2. Connect one end of the eSATA cable to your My Book AV and the other end to the DVR box (do not use a USB cable to connect to DVR) -- Did that
3. Connect one end of the AC power cord to the My Book AV and the other end to the electrical outlet. The power LED inlluminates. ---- I did, and it did
4. Waii approximately 15 seconds for the hard drive to reach operating speed. -- Did that
5. Power on the DVR box by reattaching the AC power cord. -- Did that
6. Follow the on-screen instructions.
This procedure did not work. There were no on-screen instructions when I powered the STB back on. So, I did the following:
1. I went to "DVR/Enable more storage" and followed the prompts from there, which at one point told me to connect the external HD to the STB, which it already was. I pressed OK to proceed and got the message that "external storage is active for this STB. To detect the external hard, please press OK to reboot the STB".
2. Did that, waited; during reboot, a white band appears briefly across the TV screen with the words "Please wait" in red, then it goes away as the reboot process continues. Eventually, I get a message that says "Press MENU to watch FiOS TV, or turn your TV off". I press MENU, the screen appears (with red background) saying "Verizon FiOS is starting up - one moment pleast. Initial download in progress. It takes about one minute", then after a minute or so, the TV image appears.
3. I go to DVR/Recorder status, and the external HD is not there.
Since the STB prompted me to connect the external HD during step 1 above, I decided to power everything off, disconnect the eSATA cable from the back of the STB, reconnect power to the external HD, then reconnect power to the STB to reboot.
Everything in step 2 above proceeds as outlined there, but still I got no on-screen instructions after FiOS started back up. So, I went to DVR/Enable more storage, followed the prompts until asked to connect the external HD to the STB, at which time, now, I get a pop-up screen that says "The connected external HD has been previously used with another STB with a different DVR. Using the drive on this STB will remove all existing content on the drive. Do you want to use this drive?" Options are "ACCEPT" or "REJECT". I press OK to ACCEPT, then we go through the whole reboot thing again, and still no sign of the external HD under DVR/Recorder status.
I even tried connecting the WD external HD to my desktop computer (running XP Professional) using a USB cable (following "steveKane's" suggestion in his posting of 12-02-12), thinking I could try to reformat the drive on my desktop. After connecting, I go to Window Explorer and the drive is not there. When I open the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the Task Bar, the drive is visible there. I tried stopping the device, removing it, then waiting a bit and reconnecting it, but get the same results. Not visible in Explorer so that I can try to re-format.
The posting by "mcorbo" right above "steveKane's" posting says "The only way to reuse the drive is to let the dvr reformat it." So how does one get the DVR to reformat the drive????
I hope I have given you the information needed.
I'm at my wits end. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Time Machine issues since adding external drive

System spec:
2012 Mac Mini, quad core 2.3ghz i7, 16gb RAM, OS X Yosemite 10.10.2
Problem:
Today I added an external USB 3.0 1TB hard drive to my Mac Mini - a self powered Seagate one. I want Time Machine (running on another external drive - a mains powered 2TB USB 2.0 Western Digital drive) to back this drive up - so I went into the Time Machine preferences pane and removed the drive from the exclusions list to which it had automatically been added (since TM doesn't usually back up external drives)
I moved some data to the drive and Time Machine began to back this up as expected on it's next run. I went to check the TM drive in Finder to make sure it was backing up correctly when I noticed that the folder for this latest backup wasn't appearing - and that the Latest link went to the backup BEFORE the drive was installed. Both Finder and the Time Machine pref pane correctly showed the TM drive space dropping though - and if I went to Terminal and listed the contents of the Time Machine drive, the folder for the current backup appeared and Latest pointed to it as expected.
I let this backup and a second backup finish - so at this point I have two backups that have run since adding the external drive. The backups appear in the navigator on the right hand side - but they are greyed out compared to the others. If you try to click on one of these greyed out backups, TM scrolls back to an empty Finder window titled "Waiting: ...." and the time the backup ran.
I tried rebooting to fix this - when I checked again after rebooting, Time Machine showed the two backups and both were accessible and navigable within the TM restore interface. This was four hours ago. Three more backups have run since my reboot and they are exhibiting the same symptoms as the ones prior - not showing in Finder, not linked from Latest, and greyed out in the TM restore interface.
While I'm fairly confident the data IS being backed up, this is still going to be a problem if I need to restore. Has anyone seen this before and how did you fix it if so?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take the action that isn't working the way you expect. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

DVR doesn't recognize new eSATA drive

I just purchased a new eSATA drive (Western Digital 1 TB: WDBABT0010HBK-NESN) and connected it to my Motorola QIP7232-P2 set-top box, but after following the on-screen prompts to enable more storage the DVR does not recognize the additional storage and still reflects the pre-eSATA drive usage %.
I've already disconnected and reconnected the eSATA drive and tried to "enable more storage" through the DVR, which included rebooting the set-top box, a few times already.
Thoughts?

Thanks, Armond! I haven't tried replacing the SATA cable yet, but that may be the next logical step.
I tried disconnecting, reconnecting and rebooting the DVR at least a dozen times. Finally, I was able to get the DVR to recognize the external storage (showing 100% capacity).
However, when the eSATA drive was connected and recognized the DVR wouldn't record any shows (neither scheduled nor live TV). As soon as I disconnected the drive, recording would resume. The error message I received in the "History" section of the DVR stated, "This show could not be recorded due to the channel being unavailable, not subscribed or other error." Verizon Technical Support even sent me a refurbished DVR and that encountered the same problem.
Do you still think it's the cable?

External eSATA Drive to Mac Pro

Hi, Guys:
I'm trying to determine if I need a separate eSATA card to connect my external 2T Fantom Green Drive to my Mac Pro (mid-2012) of just an extender cable. Newer Technologies has an extender cable that seems to have worked with older Mac Pros, but I can't find any indication that it would work with the newer ones. The drive mfg'ers were no help. Thanks for any information.

The extender cable will work in any Mac Pro, but it uses the optical drive SATA ports. On early (before 2009) Mac Pros, both ports are free since the optical drives were PATA. Newer Mac Pros use SATA optical drives. so only one port is available for external SATA drives if you have one optical drive. If you have two optical drives there will be no ports left.
The optical SATA ports require the drive to be powered on and connected when the computer is booted.

MS Office 2011 asks for license when I boot external eSATA drives

This is interesting, and really frustrating to say the least. I finally got Office 2011 working on my new MP, no thanks to MS. I spent over 8 hours on the phone, getting disconnected multiple times, and no one I spoke with could tell me why the darn thing kept asking for and not accepting as valid my product key. This was after I transferred the user and applications from a Time Capsule backup to my new MP. I completely removed Office, reinstalled, and then imported an Outlook OLM I had exported. It took the product key and all has been well until now. I have run Disk Utility permissions several times....
I installed an OWC eSATA two port card and attached their two HD enclosure containing two drives. Power them up, they work great, but now when I boot Outlook or any of the applications in the suite, up pops the license window.... ugh. Eject both drives, still fails. Power off the enclosure, they all work. The only thing I can figure it is, is the license protection thinking I installed it on a different machine. So now I'm stuck with Office not working when the external eSATA is on.
I thought about attempting to enter the license when they were running, but I can't risk losing my email and Office if it messes up. I saw a similar post on the Office for Mac 2011 Blog. I was going to install Win 7 on one of my internals and this situation has brought that to a screeching halt. Heck, I'll go to bed and sleep on it.... not well but I'll try.
Michael

I have just got a problem with my MBP 2011 in that when I plugged in a Thunderbolt LaCie Little Big Disk plus two firewire drives when I opened Excel it asked for the product key. When I enetered it ( which has happened a few times since I got this MBP) the maximum number of activations was exceeded. I called MS who did provide a new product key and I thought all was well, but when I shutdown the MBP, unplugged the Thunderbolt drive and the firewire drives and rebooted it asked for a product key again. I will try plugging in the Thundrbolt disk again and then the firewire drives and see if it still asks for a new product key. But if this is a repeatable problem then it is a real issue.

Hard drive crash/iTunes on External Hard Drive

I have a 40GB iPOD with the flywheel. For years, I have been using an old laptop (Dell Inspiron 5000e with Windows 2000) essentially for iTunes/iPod only, using an external harddrive to hold my ~3500 songs. This week I added new songs and synched with the computer, but the process was slow and my computer made strange noises and then would not shut down. The iPod--which had to be pulled even though it said "Do Not Disconnect" because the computer was just going through agonal gear-grinding heartbreaking death-- initially played normally but then began to skip through the songs erratically and finally showed the dreaded file folder/exclamation point sign, and now is just showing the Apple and will not reset. When I tried to fire back up the laptop it just makes lots of groaning sounds and will not even stay booted up. So I'm guessing my problem is that my computer is very sick or dead, and this is not an iPod problem.
I've had headaches everytime I try to change anything about my setup (probably because I was trying to squeeze a lot out of an obsolete computer, but anyway...), so I'm anxious about proceeding to a new arrangement without seeking advice first. How do I set up anew using a different computer? Should I use the same disk that came with my original iPod to download iTunes/iPod software to a new hard-drive? Or can I get the latest versions from on-line without needing the original disk? Once these are downloaded onto a new computer, I assume I can then hook up my external hard drive and that it will fill in the iTunes of my new hard drive (I am confused about the access to these tunes because they were stored in the external drive but somehow directed to my computer desktop--I'm easily lost when it comes to drives, etc, and I may be Jones'ing from not having my Shuffle of tunes this morning)? Is there something I need to do to train my iPod to synch with a new computer? Will it likely still synch even though it is showing the Apple sign and appears not to respond to any commands or to charge in its cradle?
Sorry so detailed, but I mainly need advice about the order of the steps I need to take to change my set-up. Thanks!
Michael

Hey jcaqualung,
Thanks for the question. I understand that you are experiencing issues with iTunes on your Windows Vista machine. The following resource may provide a solution. I would also recommend installing iTunes on the internal hard drive of your computer, as opposed to the external drive.
iTunes for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8: Fix unexpected quits or launch issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1717
Thanks,
Matt M.

Dual boot Win7 on external eSata drive with Precision M4700

Because virtualization doesn't support some HW devices I need, I would like to dual boot Win7 Pro/64 on an external (removable) HDD connected to the eSATA port of my Precision M4700.
eSata means optimal performances, but will the boot menu be happy with a removable disk, i.e. which will NOT be permanently connected (obviously I won't boot the OS on the removable disk if it is not connected) ?
And on the legal side, is it OK to use the OEM license of the OS that shipped with the system for this ?
As a side question, are the OS entries in a Win7 boot menu bound to a physical disk on a specific Sata port ? IOW, what happens if I move a HDD with a bootable partition/volume from the internal bay (port 0) to an external eSATA enclosure connected to the eSATA port (port 5) ? Is the eSATA port transparent to the Win7 boot loader ? Will the volumes and drive letters remain unchanged and appear seamlessly to the OS on it ?

Hi Benoitm,
Assuming the M4700 can boot from an external eSATA port, this should be possible. And it should be possible to install onto an HDD then put that drive in an external case and boot from it. Your preferences and drive letters should be retained. You might want to verify your system can boot to an external HDD first.
The Dell license only covers the version of the OS that came with the system. In theory, dual boot requires two licenses.

Attaching an external eSATA drive to my Mac Pro?

Need to attach a LaCie 1TB eSATA drive to my Mac Pro for video editing with Final Cut Pro.
So can I just buy a regular PC based eSATA card to conect it to the Mac Pro. Like this one on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sitecom-CN-042-eSATA-PCI-Card/dp/B000UDUBPG/ref=sr113?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1245579334&sr=8-13
Any other known setup issues?
Kevin

Buy Mac Pro compatible. I'd start looking at Sonnet Tempo E4P
http://www.sonnettech.com
http://www.macsales.com
http://www.amug.com - click on reviews, dozens of on SATA controllers.
And please, please, skip and avoid LaCie (use it for backup) and go with native SATA enclosure. They don't even work well with even Sonnet Tempo or others like E2P. (There is a footnote on Sonnet site AND on OWC!)
Lots of threads on external SATA products.

Mac Pro External eSATA Drive

I am looking for a 2TB external hard drive for my Mac Pro (Quad Core 3GHz) and have a question. The Mac Pro has a 500 GB internal boot drive and three internal 500 GB drives RAIDed into a single 1.5TB drive. I would use an external 2TB drive for backing up the 1.5TB daily with Apple's Backup and will use it for Time Machine when I install Leopard. The computer is used primarily for Final Cut Pro Studio.
Costco has a Western Digital external 2TB drive with Fire wire 800 (800mb/s) for $600 and a Western Digital external 1TB drive with eSATA (3000mb/s) for $300. Either way it's $600 for 2 TB. I would need to purchase an eSATA Extender Cable to utilize the two extra SATA ports found on the Mac Pro's logic board for $25.
*The question is*: Could I connect two of the 1TB eSATA drives with the eSATA Extender Cable and make them a single 2TB RAID with Apple's Disk Utility... and would you recommend doing that over getting the 2TB drive which is 1/4 the speed and the same price?
Please see the details below and thank you for your help. I asked the Geniuses at three different Apple Stores and got 3 different answers.
2TB - My Book Pro Edition II (Firewire 800) $600
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=341&language=en
1TB - My Book Home Edition (eSATA) $300
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=357&language=en
eSATA Extender Cable $25
http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php

I am looking for a 2TB external hard drive for my Mac Pro (Quad Core 3GHz) and have a question. The Mac Pro has a 500 GB internal boot drive and three internal 500 GB drives RAIDed into a single 1.5TB drive. I would use an external 2TB drive for backing up the 1.5TB daily with Apple's Backup and will use it for Time Machine when I install Leopard. The computer is used primarily for Final Cut Pro Studio.
Costco has a Western Digital external 2TB drive with Fire wire 800 (800mb/s) for $600 and a Western Digital external 1TB drive with eSATA (3000mb/s) for $300. Either way it's $600 for 2 TB. I would need to purchase an eSATA Extender Cable to utilize the two extra SATA ports found on the Mac Pro's logic board for $25.
*The question is*: Could I connect two of the 1TB eSATA drives with the eSATA Extender Cable and make them a single 2TB RAID with Apple's Disk Utility... and would you recommend doing that over getting the 2TB drive which is 1/4 the speed and the same price?
Please see the details below and thank you for your help. I asked the Geniuses at three different Apple Stores and got 3 different answers.
2TB - My Book Pro Edition II (Firewire 800) $600
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=341&language=en
1TB - My Book Home Edition (eSATA) $300
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=357&language=en
eSATA Extender Cable $25
http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php

LaCie 1 TB Quandra d2 External eSATA Drive

I am about ready to buy the hardware that I need to begin converting all my old VHS tapes to digital. For the converter box, I am going to get the Canopus ADVC 110.
I will be sending the converted files to an external hard drive. I am thinking about getting the LaCie 1 TB Quanda d2 external hard drive. This comes with eSATA, Firewire 400 & 800, and USB 2 connections. Anyone have any experience with the reliability of this drive?
Bob

Thanks for the endorsement of the LaCie Quadra 1 TB. I ordered it last week along with the Canopus ADVC 110. Both are scheduled for
delivery on Monday, 5/10/2010. The reviews at BH Photo were quite good.
Looking forward to getting started on my VHS tape conversion project. I will be downloading all the digitally converted files from the ADVC 110 to the LaCie external drive, connected to my computer via the eSATA port.
Bob

MacPro slows down as adding external FW drives ?

Is it me or my Mac is now slower ? I have one additional 500GB internal drive plus 3 LaCie and one WD external FW Drives and My MAc is sort of "sleepy". I have a feeling that the additional drives are the culprits but what can I do to improve this situation? Thanks.

I would assume trying w/o the 4 FW units would be first off.
Issues with both makes get mentioned from time to time.
Even a bad cable can be problem, or daisy-chaining.
What are those drives doing? going to sleep? used sporadically? latest firmware from LaCie? LaCie FW/USB/eSATA enclosures also have slower than expected performance.
I've run with 4 OWC Mercury FW800 drives, along with 8 external SATA drives running on Sonnet controllers.

Adding external hard drive to airport extreme for time machine error

Hello,
I recently bought an airport extreme that I wanted to combine with an external hard drive in order to do wireless time machine backups. I hooked this up and the hard drive shows up in the devices menu.
However, when time machine starts to backup, I get the following error:
"The backup disk image “/Volumes/Blackmer External MyBook/Benjamin Crispell Blackmer’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” could not be created (error 1)."
When my computer is connected directly to the hard drive, it works fine.
Any ideas on how to fix this?
Thank you.

It is important to understand that Apple does not support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme. So, that may be an issue here.
Despite this, users try it anyway. Some appear to be successful for a time, some partially successful, some can't get it to work at all.
Even if it does appear to work initially, corruption issues may occur down the line without warning. Having tried this myself as a test a few times, I can attest to that.
If you want to try this anyway, the two important things to check are.....
The drive must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Other formats will not work
You almost always need to use a powered USB hub...even if the hard drive has its own power supply....because the USB port is under powered on the AirPort Extreme
You might also want to consider a secondary backup plan to protect your important files

Adding external hard drive space to eMac - help please??

Hi - I have just purchased a 320gb Seagate external HD as my 80G eMac HD is maxed out with pics, itunes, games etc etc...thanks to my kids!
I must be naive, but thought it would be as simple as "plug and play", but have not been able see the External Hard Drive (EHD) appear in Finder or Desktop, once tied in through firewire or USB ports.
When I follow the instructions available from online support, it's not enough to get a solution.
Can I please get some help....any ideas???
thanks Mac friends
Kieren
eMac Mac OS X (10.3.9)
eMac Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Kieren,
Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Use the Firewire connection; a USB 2.0 model eMac can in theory use a USB connection, but the drivers for USB hard drives is problematic. The Firewire connection will be both more robust and faster in practice (USB 2.0 is nominally rated faster than Firewire 400, but in real-world thransfers, Firewire wins).
With the external HD connected, open Applications> Utilities> System Profiler and check under the Firewire heading. Does the drive show up at all? Do you have any other Firewire devices attached? If there are other Firewire devices attached, dismount and disconnect them. If no Firewire devices shows up, or more tellingly, if the Firewire bus itself doesn't show up in System Profiler, it's possible that a power glitch may have caused the Firewire bus to latch up. Reset the Firewire bus triple fuses by removing all peripherals other than the keyboard and mouse, then removing the power cord from the side of the eMac (to remove the trickle current drawn by modern electronics even when nominally off) and waiting 15+ minutes. Then reattach the power cord only restart the Mac. Check Apple’s System Profiler (in Applications/ Utilities) and confirm that the Firewire bus is recognized. Reattach peripherals one at a time, checking System Profiler after each to confirm the addition is recognized.
If the external HD still doesn't appear in the Finder, open Applications> Utilities> Disk Utility and see if the drive appears in the leftmost window pane of that program. If it does, you can use Disk Utility to reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended / HFS+
If none of these steps help, I'd wonder if the drive itself is bad and should be exchanged. Check the drive on a different computer.
Once you have the drive avaialbale on your Mac, you can use Disk Utility to partition the drive. I'd suggest making the first partition a little larger than your present internal hard drive; you can then use a third-party utility such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! to clone the internal hard drive to the first partition of the external hard drive as a bootable backup. Then if there's a problem with the internal hard drive, you can use Startup Manager to boot from the external drive.
You'll also want to look over:
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
iPhoto: How to move the iPhoto Library Folder
Try to keep between 1 to 5 GB free space on the internal boot hard drive (depending on whether you burn CD-R or DVD-R discs) to allow for necessary cache and swap files

FiOS HD-DVR crashing since adding external eSATA drive

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