SKY+ upgrades

Grayarea

I thought it might help if we posted upgrade info on boards.ie, so here is my info based on a format from anoth forum.

SKY+ model: V2
Make: Maxtor
Size: 120Gb
Speed: 7200rpm
Model: 6Y120L0
Works: Yes
How Long For: 1 Day
Comments: No Noise

The upgrade I would say is very easy for anyone who has done PC upgrades etc, with the upgrade instructions given in various magazines over the last month or two, most anyone who is carefull and follows the instructions should be able to do it.

Grayarea.

ShaneOC

How much did the disk cost you?

Grayarea

DiamondMax Plus9 120GB UDMA133
Mfr code: 6Y120L0
Quicklinx: 259YWS
173 now
3837 1-3 days £78.50


From dabs

ShaneOC

Not bad. Komplett have it too for in or around the same price.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/k.asp?ck=1&r=1&action=info&s=sr&p=27603&AvdID=1

I will definately look at getting a bigger drive at some stage but the 40G is fine for the moment.

DaithiSurfer

Upgraded mine yesterday

SKY+ model: V2
Make: Maxtor
Size: 120Gb
Speed: 7200rpm
Model: 6Y120L0
Works: Yes
How Long For: 1 Day
Comments: A lot of Seek noise from the head. You can hear it seeking about every 5 seconds. There was no seek noise with the original HDD

Grayarea

A lot of Seek noise from the head.

Did you disable write verify and set seek to quietest? I cannot here mine seek unless I am right next to the box (ear about 1" from front of sky+ box) and there is no other noise in the room.

Grayarea.

DaithiSurfer

I just put it straight in the way it got delivered.
I might try doing that tonight and see what happens.
I hate opening my PC just to mess with discs though.

DaithiSurfer

I've just read that maxtor drives are set to quiet mode when shipped, so i guess changing this won't be necessary.

I guess i can power cycle it 10 times to turn off write verify.


This will save me messing with my pc, Besides according to the utility for setting quiet mode you need to use a boot diskette.
I don't have one for xp.

JDxtra

You can download bootdisks from www.bootdisk.com.

It doesn't matter if you have XP on your machine or not, just as long as you have a floppy drive. I would imagine you would be booting it to DOS to run the utility.

ShaneOC

Originally posted by DaithiSurfer
I guess i can power cycle it 10 times to turn off write verify.

How does that work?

If the disk was in a PC and it was turned on/off 10 times would the write verify be disabled?

DaithiSurfer

It looks likt the disk is shipped with write verify but it is switched off after 10 power cycles, whether its in a pc or anything else that uses HDD.

Grayarea

The write verify count is set to 10 when leaving the factory, every time power is applied the drive subtracts one from the current count and flashes the new count.

The drives ship with seek set to fastest (also loudest!).

I checked both settings before changing them, and the difference is very noticable with seek noise.

Grayarea.

DaithiSurfer

I guess i'll be opening up my pc.
Thanks for that grayarea

watty

I have a 20G drive in my PC for PC stuff and a 40G drive for the Satellite recording (which is similar to Sky+, direct from internal digital tuner / stream demux, more or less.

I was thinking of one of the IBM 180G drives but since DVD writers have come down near the €150 this looks like a better option.

Even 40G lets you store a LOT of Mpeg2 direct from Satellite!

The Sky+ decypts the Harddrive data on playback rather than record. (Grrr). I think they might add some additional encryption for FTA recording.. It will not last.

If I got a Sky+ I'd fit a power switch interlocked metal /heatsink caddy for the HDD unit and then plug that into PC to archive FTA recordings to DVD rather than VHS. The problems of doing this for FTA are not simple, but surmountable. It won't work AT ALL for any channel needing a viewing card...

* (illuminating thought!)
Unless you had TWO hard disks!

Swap disk in Caddy
Archive stuff to DVD.
Swap disk when near full again

To play old program, restore archive from DVD to disk and play disk in Sky+ box. This is much trickier than it sounds as EVEN without messing with any Sky Encryprtion you need a driver that understands the Sky+ Filesystem. Unless you archive an image of the entire disk (not easy either).

* (illuminating thought!)
Of course if you had lots of caddies and 40G disks became cheaper, simply have a library of interchangable Sky+ caddied HardDrives (no PC with mysterious alien FileSystem utilities needed!)

DaithiSurfer

You were right Grayarea.
I turned the Disk to Quiet mode and re-installed it.
Not a peep out of it now.
Apart from the fan, which is the same as it always was. Can hardly even hear it.
I had a heart stopping moment when i re-installed the disk though.
it said there was a system fault.
I turned it off and back on again and it was fine though.

NotImpressed

It was working fine (got it 2 weeks ago).
Then this morning i found i had lost all of my programs, about 20 hours.
Cant get them back no matter what i try.
whats the point leaving recordings on sky+ if you lose them without warning.
You people are nuts doing upgrades.
If the thing is so unstable without upgrading i can only imagine it would be atrocious with an upgrade.

Grayarea

The upgrade is reversable and is the same as a PC drive upgrade. Providing you take reasonable static precautions there is no danger in doing this.

Really, its not rocket science.