Yet again ... No Hopper-compatible EHD available

[Luddite by Choice]

I've been using a WD Elements 2TB for my iMac Time Machine drive for years without failure.

Mine stay warm and the third one I tried even shows many layers of backup, but I can't actually -- you know -- go back in time. (At least it's a warm paperweight.)

 

[navychop]

I subsequently put a bullet through it.

Bullet? Them newfangled things are dangerous! A broadaxe is much safer!

 

[Strega]

I had to chuckle about your comment about your screen name and "2-Hopper/7-Joey/9-TV system spread over two buildings", Mesh Wi-Fi... If you're a Luddite, then hopefully your IT staff is not! What does it take to not be a Luddite now? Warp drive?

 

[navychop]

He failed as a Holosuite repairman. Couldn't find one…..

 

[Foxbat]

On that note, Apple, Sandisk, WD, and I have given up trying to get three different Sandisk and WD SSDs to get Apple's Time Machine to back up my Mac properly.

We do have a Computers and Gadgets section of this Forum. I have been using Macs since my Father-in-Law needed Tech Support and I got a refurbed Mac Pro in 2007. I might be able to help you out over there.

Thread 'macOS Time Machine Solutions': macOS Time Machine Solutions​

 

[Luddite by Choice]

I had to chuckle about your comment about your screen name and "2-Hopper/7-Joey/9-TV system spread over two buildings", Mesh Wi-Fi... If you're a Luddite, then hopefully your IT staff is not! What does it take to not be a Luddite now? Warp drive?

Unfortunately, my IT teams have been Spectrum (25 years) plus Dish (the last 18 of those years). More unfortunately, even when this stuff is running fairly smoothly, I often can't tell my wireless phone from my Dish remote due to chemobrain. I'm probably using only 10-20% of my Dish system's capability and less than 5% of my cell phone's capacity. Fortunately, I have you folks for backup (thank you!) and don't mind throwing money at the problems if it gets results. Example: I'm going to add two more mesh stations just in case it relieves some connection reliability issues.

 

[Foxbat]

I'm part Luddite in that I believe in using cabling over wireless. Wi-Fi is the connection of last resort.

 

[HipKat]

I'm part Luddite in that I believe in using cabling over wireless. Wi-Fi is the connection of last resort.

Same here and happy I'm very good with Cat 6E, Wallfishing and RG45 connectors

 

[Luddite by Choice]

I'd love to go wireless, but with two stories plus a separate steel shop set on concrete, it's not worth the hassle ... unless Dr. Mercola is right about EMF ruining our health.

And maybe I missed something in our Hopper replacement discussion, but the Dish guy who installed my system suggested today an even simpler Hopper swap approach: Cable my old Hopper directly to a new Hopper, tell the old empty one to regurgitate its contents into the new one, and when that's complete return the old one to Dish. No middleman -- no EHD, no hub, no added risk of losing some content during two transfers -- and I can watch TV as usual during the day or two it takes to transfer the contents.

BUT THAT, you accurately observe, leaves me without extra storage capacity.
To which I say, If I need more shows stored than one Hopper, let alone 2 of them, can handle, I need to get a life. It's sorta like the endless hours, days, and weeks some of my buds spend watching sports on TV; I don't watch sports ... I DO sports. When we were preparing to move away from a neighborhood decades ago, the neighbors admitted to betting on which toys I would use each weekend. They pretty much stopped doing that after one 3-day weekend in which I went skiing, windsurfing, serious desert dirt bike riding, 4-wheeling, and snowmobiling ... not to mention using one or more of them on most weekday evenings. Holy COW but I loved Utah!

 

[bookworm370]

Every thread I've seen on this topic has two downsides to that: we have to partition anything bigger into 2TB chunks, and even then the resulting kluge is reportedly highly unwieldy and very unreliable in Hopper-land. People complain of losing part or all of their archived content immediately or within a few weeks.

No, the Hopper will self partiton into 512G partitions using EXT-3

 

[Luddite by Choice]

That would spread my 1.5 TB of content over at least 3 partitions even if I had a clue what an EXT-3 is. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, especially compared to just running an HDMI cable between the old and new Hoppers and pushing a couple of buttons.

No, the Hopper will self partiton into 512G partitions using EXT-3

 

[navychop]

Ethernet, not HDMI.

Write it off. Use an EHD.

EXT-3 is a method Unix and similar use for partitioning. As opposed to FAT for Windows.

 

[Foxbat]

That would spread my 1.5 TB of content over at least 3 partitions even if I had a clue what an EXT-3 is. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, especially compared to just running an HDMI cable between the old and new Hoppers and pushing a couple of buttons.

The Hopper takes care of all that behind the scenes. It doesn't have any User Interface effect (except I'm sure there's a maximum event duration that will fit in the 512 GB partition) and to you, it just looks like however much space your EHD has.

There were a number of posts from a decade or more ago when several Dish EHD users with Linux PCs examined how events were stored in the multiple partitions. We were able to take two EHDs and migrate programs from one drive to the other, effectively making backups of the events. I was most interested in going from a 1 TB EHD to larger EHDs over the years. I'm at 6 TB which has been plenty big for me.

 

[Luddite by Choice]

Ethernet, not HDMI.

Write it off. Use an EHD.

EXT-3 is a method Unix and similar use for partitioning. As opposed to FAT for Windows.

Got it. But I gather that an EHD is MUCH faster than a cable, so IF my Hopper really needs replacement, I'll go with an EHD.

I won't know for sure whether my Hopper is buggy until I get a fully functional WiFi system in my home. Dish techs said a Google Nest Pro 6E would solve all my problems, but so far it's worse than my TPLink w/ 1 extender was. They get one more chance to see if FOUR Nest routers can outperform my TPLink + extender.

EXT/Unix/FAT/partitioning? No, thanks. At my age, I throw money rather than time at problems. I am blanking FED UP with spending hours, days, or months at problems cash can fix. I even Called The Guy to upgrade some of my home's light switches to fancy, smart sliders, but I hate 'em. I'm calling the same guy to go back to simple, dumb toggle switches. At least he does 'em all while hot, so I don't reset every gadget in my home to 12:00 by shutting off breakers.

 

[HipKat]

That would spread my 1.5 TB of content over at least 3 partitions even if I had a clue what an EXT-3 is. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, especially compared to just running an HDMI cable between the old and new Hoppers and pushing a couple of buttons.

EXT3 is file structure. TBH, it means nothing to the average end user other than random information that you have no control over.

 

[HipKat]

I won't know for sure whether my Hopper is buggy until I get a fully functional WiFi system in my home. Dish techs said a Google Nest Pro 6E would solve all my problems, but so far it's worse than my TPLink w/ 1 extender was. They get one more chance to see if FOUR Nest routers can outperform my TPLink + extender.

First, don't listen to Dish techs that tell you that you NEED Mesh routers. Many people do. I do at my house. And you may.

But Google's Mesh routers are garbage. Go look up Google Wifi on Reddit. I hate that again, they're taking the good Linksys Mesh WiFi 6E routers away and forcing us to push these crap Google routers on people

 

[navychop]

EXT3 is file structure.

I stand corrected. I put fingers in gear before fully engaging brain.

 

[Luddite by Choice]

First, don't listen to Dish techs that tell you that you NEED Mesh routers. Many people do. I do at my house. And you may.

But Google's Mesh routers are garbage. Go look up Google Wifi on Reddit. I hate that again, they're taking the good Linksys Mesh WiFi 6E routers away and forcing us to push these crap Google routers on people

I switched to Nest in the hopes of solving some intermittent WiFi outages that affected only some TVs and only on streaming channels. The odd part was that the TV in my remote metal shop never batted an eye. 2 Nests didn't help, but I'll try 4 today. If that doesn't beat my NON-mesh, two-station TPLink WiFi 6E I'll be returning all four Nests.

I've seen two different sets of hundreds, maybe thousands, of Nest reviews. One set ran over 90% One-star*, the other set ran mostly 4- and 5- star, dinging it primarily on its lack of parental control options I don't care about. I gave it a try based on the latter set of reviews and on the 30-day free return policy. I've had the Nests for only a week.

* JEEZ, but I get tired of Dish's incessant pressure to buy their Boost phone service. I shut 'em up by citing its reviews: 99% Ones.

I unplugged all my Nest "Points" (aka extenders), reset my mesh, and ran my mesh test again. It still says my mesh has two Nest devices (a router and one point) and both are working fine. It's like arguing with a telephone scammer, which I sometimes do for entertainment. I'm giving Dish one last chance to get full house coverage with 4 Nests before I return everything.

 

[Strega]

EXT/Unix/FAT/partitioning? No, thanks.

When you plug a new disk into a Hopper, it will ask if you want to prepare it for use. If you say yes, it will take care of all that for you. Every disk has some kind of format/file system on it. You really only care what the format/file system happens to be if you want to move the disk around. Like if you move disks between MacOS, Windows, Linux, then you need to think about what file systems each can use.

Pressure from Dish? No one from Dish has ever mentioned a phone service or anything about routers to me. Although I guess I only talk to them once every 8 years or so.

 

[Luddite by Choice]

1. When you plug a new disk into a Hopper, it will ask if you want to prepare it for use. If you say yes, it will take care of all that for you.

2. Pressure from Dish? No one from Dish has ever mentioned a phone service or anything about routers to me. Although I guess I only talk to them once every 8 years or so.

1. I'd love to believe that, but my own personal experience supports those of hundreds of buyers: Good luck with that.

2. EVERY call to Dish (about 50 in the last few months) has produced two unwanted responses: a LONG spiel about Boost and 2-3 minutes of my screaming obscenities in a vain attempt to talk to a human being. A tech in my home recently agreed, apologized, sympathized, and gave me a direct phone number that often works much better. Result in one case: 15 minutes of him operating my system remotely, followed by a curt "It's not the mesh we promised would solve all your problems and sold you; call Spectrum and the manufacturers of your router, modem, and TVs." Other such calls to that number led to "We'll send a tech out right away". THAT has produced no-shows, 24 hours, and two weeks.

No WONDER it took several months to fire Spectrum and expand my 18-year Dish service to replace Spectrum's 25-year TV service (for 25 years both were extremely unreliable and could not provide the services we want anyway: independent viewing on every TV). I find it hard to believe the newest independent comparisons' findings that the Google Nest Pro mesh system is 98% as good as ANYTHING else unless one needs parental control features.

After I hit POST REPLY, I'm unplugging my modem, my Spectrum wireless router, my Nest mesh router, and every Nest "Point", sequentially returning power to each of those, and running my network tests. IOW, I'm repeating everything the Dish tech did to install my mesh system but with two additional mesh Points. That shouldn't take more than an hour or two.

If that works, I'm happy. If not, I call Dish one more time to come tomorrow, add two mesh Points to their mesh system, and see whether they can back up their claim of far superior coverage. If they can't, I'll return all the mesh crap, go back to a wireless system (probably some TPLink), and live with it.

The "funny" part? The TV in my steel shop -- the remotest TV from my base mesh router -- has never missed a beat in all this, even with all three mesh points unplugged.

I wish I had more hair to tear out, or could at least find someone who could come to my home and fix all this ****. (I thought about Geek Squad, but their reviews are absolutely rock bottom.