Sky HD Box - Hard Drive Replacement

[admin_exported]

Hi All,

Am I right in thinking that if you only put a 500gb hard drive in a Sky HD box then the box will recognise it, and there is no need for Copy+ to be installed (not interested in copying anything over) which means less fuss if planner rebuilds etc are needed at a later date ?

Also, any recommendations for a suitable Hard Drive - I am toying with a Western Digital 5000AVVS as this seems popular on other forums as it is intended for PVR's etc.

Cheers.

 

[daveh75]

soulton:
Hi All,

Am I right in thinking that if you only put a 500gb hard drive in a Sky HD box then the box will recognise it, and there is no need for Copy+ to be installed (not interested in copying anything over) which means less fuss if planner rebuilds etc are needed at a later date ?Correct. Worth remembering though 140 Gig of any drive you install will be robbed "for Sky use" so you may want to go bigger anyway!

soulton:Also, any recommendations for a suitable Hard Drive - I am toying with a Western Digital 5000AVVS as this seems popular on other forums as it is intended for PVR's etc.That should be fine.

 

[Anonymous]

Many thanks daveh75.

Always best to double check with someone in the know.

As for the size -

I am limiting myself to 500gb as my mate has a 1tb and surprise surprise it is always over 80% full. My philosophy is - record it, watch it, erase it or back it up to my HD recorder and / or burn it to disc if anything is worth keeping.

Thanks again.

 

[Tonya]

If you have a Sky+ unit, It is possible to overcome the 500GB barrier by using Copy+ when formatting the new drive using a PC before you install it.
The software isn't just to copy data over, like the name suggests, but is also used for formatting a new drive.
This software can correctly format the drive to use any capacity up to 1TB.
Be aware however in the unlikely event of you ever have to do a full system reset, if you use a drive larger than 500Gb formatted with Copy+, the Sky+ box WILL reformat it to a maximum size of 500Gb!!

No such problems with the Sky+HD boxes, as they use the newer SATA drive system, so you can simply drop a good quality terrabyte (just short of a thousand Gbytes) drive without further ado.

Now here's the science bit . . . .

But remember whatever the size you use, the operating system will always steal a certain amount for the "Anytime" service.
This is 80Gb for Sky+ boxes and 140Gb for Sky HD.
So your recording space will be roughly the total size of the disk after formatting minus the above figures depending on the box you are using.

I have used a Samsung terrabyte drive in both a Thomson HD and Samsung HD without any problems whatsoever.

Hope this makes sense!
Remember, Google (or Bing!) is your friend if you need installation instructions!
Providing you have the right screwdriver to open the box, the operation can be accomplished in about 10 minutes.