Sky Plus 250gb Hard Disk Installation
As a Christmas (2004) present to myself, I decided to upgrade the disk in my Sky Plus V2 (Pace) box.
Thanks to the following links it proved very easy to do - Info On Digital Spy forums and Installation Guide by Automan
At this time the Sky Plus 160 was due
for release but at nearly £400 upgrading the disk in my
current Sky Reciever would work out considerably cheaper, as
well as giving me more disk space. (Cost of disk was approx
£110)
After
reading all the info I opted for the largest 250gb drive (Maxtor 5A250J0).
Originally I attempted to order one from
Dabs, but the order was delayed several times so I cancelled
and went elsewhere.
There are people now selling 'upgrade
kits' on the net and on ebay. There really is no need to buy
one of these, particularly as they often work out more
expensive than buying the components seperately.
All that is needed is a Torx-10 security
screwdriver and the new hard disk. The Torx-10 security
screwdriver differs from a typical Torx as it has a hole in
the centre of the pointy-end, this fits over the peg in the
centre of the Torx screws.
If, like
me, you are unable to find one of these the screws can be
removed using a pair of grips, but it is fiddly.
In my experience
I found that the disk intialised after 5 minutes rather than
the half hour or so that was mentioned in the write ups. A
film now only takes up 1% of disk rather than 3, and a typical
30minute program is <1%, although this is rounded up to 1%
as the Sky planner cannot show smaller values. I've been away
on hols and come back to only 9% free, the problem now is when
am I going to watch it all!!
The latest - a problem!
There aren't many people that have been running with the larger disk fo this
amount of time (18 months)...and I'm starting to get problems
I recently had a brown-out and since then I have had trouble with the 250gb
disk - whether this is coincidence or not I do not know.
What I have experienced is around 30% free, the disk makes loud
clonking/ticking noises and the Pace box goes into standby mode. It would
appear that a sector of the disk has been damaged.
After attempting a planner rebuild I lost all of my recordings! With the disk
now empty the Sky box worked as normal, until I reached the 30% free mark
again. As before the box went into standby mode and it took several attempts
before it would stay on long enough for me to access the planner, this time I
deleted some recordings and got the disk up to 40% free and the box seemed OK.
My plan is to fit a new 250gb disk, unfortunately the Maxtor 5A250J0 is no
longer available, the new preferred disk is a Samsung SpinPoint V120CE (HA250JC).
New Spinpoint
I have been running with the SpinPoint disk for over 8 months and all is well (touch wood). The disk is a little noisier than the Samsung (sounds more sratchy) but other than that no problems.
Users have discovered that it is possible to use a larger hard drive in the V2 box, if the Copy+ program is used. In addition >750gb can be installed in the Sky HD box.