Internal SATA Access to 4TB disk via Samba I/F

[Dave Wood]

Hi,
I am ugrading to BH 2.05 and will be purchasing the Seagate 4TB drive for a new VU Duo2 which Shiro has kindly verified can be formated and accessed.
With my current VU Duo with a 1TB internal drive I have activated the Samba i/f and am able to access the media successfully from any computer in the house and treat the drive as a network drive for transfer of any computer media files.

Because of my unfamilarity with Linux I am unsure if there are any technical I/F issues I should consider with a large disk. All my computers are windows 7 but do not have the latest Bios which enables disks greater than 2TB to be installed in a windows operating system. Maybe that is not relevant?

Before purchase of the disk I would appreciate any comments re access to an internal 4TB disk by external devices with Window 7 Computers via Samba .
Regards
Dave Wood

 

[Shiro]

Hi,
I am ugrading to BH 2.05 and will be purchasing the Seagate 4TB drive for a new VU Duo2 which Shiro has kindly verified can be formated and accessed.
With my current VU Duo with a 1TB internal drive I have activated the Samba i/f and am able to access the media successfully from any computer in the house and treat the drive as a network drive for transfer of any computer media files.

Because of my unfamilarity with Linux I am unsure if there are any technical I/F issues I should consider with a large disk. All my computers are windows 7 but do not have the latest Bios which enables disks greater than 2TB to be installed in a windows operating system. Maybe that is not relevant?

Before purchase of the disk I would appreciate any comments re access to an internal 4TB disk by external devices with Window 7 Computers via Samba .
Regards
Dave Wood

Hi Dave.
If you install the hdd internal in Vu+ box i think should be all ok with samba and Windows 7.
Samba and network disks are external and not bios dependent.

 

[Dave Wood]

Hi Dave.
If you install the hdd internal in Vu+ box i think should be all ok with samba and Windows 7.
Samba and network disks are external and not bios dependent.

Shiro,
Thanks for quick response.
I will be purchasing the Seagate today. Found it at £161 inc VAT and delivery
Regards
Dave

 

[NickZ]

Seagate users can utilize the standard ( not UEFI) BIOS and still access the full 4TB using Seagate's free DiscWizard software.

 

[Shiro]

Seagate users can utilize the standard ( not UEFI) BIOS and still access the full 4TB using Seagate's free DiscWizard software.

I think you have not understood the question.
The disk is in the box not installed in the Pc.
DiscWizard have nothing to do with this.

 

[Dave Wood]

Nickz,
Hi,
Thanks for replying,
Shiro is correct the 4TB is internally mounted in the VU Duo2 and uses the Samba I/F . If I was to install into the Windows PC I would have to either upgrade to a UEFI Bios or use the Disk Wizard utility supplied by Seagate.

 

[NickZ]

You should take into account that the temperature inside Duo2 can be too high. Besides, the rate of file exchange between Duo and PC can be too slow ( for large file transfer) even if you have a gigabit LAN. It is better to use the HDD as an external eSATA. If your PC has eSATA too, you may strongly increase the file exchange rate. For Enigma2 it is preferable to format HDD as ext4. To view ext4 in Window you must install Ext2Fsd-0.51 ( windows driver and GUI for ext4 HDD mounting)

 

[Dave Wood]

You should take into account that the temperature inside Duo2 can be too high. Besides, the rate of file exchange between Duo and PC can be too slow ( for large file transfer) even if you have a gigabit LAN. It is better to use the HDD as an external eSATA. If your PC has eSATA too, you may strongly increase the file exchange rate. For Enigma2 it is preferable to format HDD as ext4. To view ext4 in Window you must install Ext2Fsd-0.51 ( windows driver and GUI for ext4 HDD mounting)

NicKZ
Thanks for the advise.
I will monitor internal temperatures and check if they go too high and how the fan operates. (I do live in Scotland so ambient temperatures are low.) I also have plenty of air around the VU duo2 and it is the bottom of the rack so not catching heat from Amps etc.
The seagate is a 5900rpm spindle speed and is quite a low power unit compared to 7200rpm units. If I run into trouble I will purchase a caddy and connect it to the vuduo2 esata connection. I intend to format ext4 so indeed if I need to pull the disk out and read it directly on my PC I will take note I need the windows driver you mentioned.
Another issue I am concerned about is the audible noise levels. I note 24db idle and upto 28db on access which is quite high. Until its in the VUDuo Box Iwill not know?
Kit arrives Monday.

 

[Shiro]

There is not problem, it is fine to have internal hdd and seagate don't heat.

 

[Dave Wood]

There is not problem, it is fine to have internal hdd and seagate don't heat.

Shiro,
Hi, Thanks for the reccomendation of the Seagate 4TB
Disk was installed today, formated and working perfectly in 30 minutes. It is accessable from my other VUDUO and PC's via Samba without any problems. It is very quite and the temperature only increases marginally by a couple of degrees. I will do a speed test to see what the transfer rate is in due course.

Thanks for all the hard work to the BH team that has made this possible.

Regards

Dave

 

[Shiro]

Shiro,
Hi, Thanks for the reccomendation of the Seagate 4TB
Disk was installed today, formated and working perfectly in 30 minutes. It is accessable from my other VUDUO and PC's via Samba without any problems. It is very quite and the temperature only increases marginally by a couple of degrees. I will do a speed test to see what the transfer rate is in due course.

Thanks for all the hard work to the BH team that has made this possible.

Regards

Dave

Many thanks for the report Dave.