CRAIGFIN

I have had SKY + for about 6 weeks now so I assume I have the latest box (40 gig model). I would now like to upgrade my hardrive to about 160 gig. I know they are standard PC hardrive's but are they just a straight swap? Can I just buy a hardrive, stick it in and away I go or is there some tinkering to be done? Anybody done this???

Cheers,

Craig.

chrisowe

I know the hard drive in the Pace Twin digital is a laptop drive I think the Sky box is basically the same. Why do you want to upgrade the drive ? A 160gb will hold a lot of TV !

CRAIGFIN

Chris,
Thanks for the reply. I work away alot, months at a time so I need a decent size hardrive to record all my series links such as Deadwood, Hex, Spooks, Carnivale, Battlestar Galactica, Dead Zone, Nip/Tuck..........you get the idea

Craig.

IWatkins

I'm pretty sure the Sky+ is a bogo 3.5 inch hard disk rather than the Pace Twin that uses the 2.5 (laptop) hard disks.

You can probably find more info. over on http://www.avforums.com/

Cheers

Ian

class_A

Check up on it, but the procedure used to be:
1. Open Sky+, remove old HDD
2. Connect new HDD
3. Close Sky+, power up
4. Sky+ formats new HDD automagically

Drives are standard 3.5" parallel ATA. Not sure if there's a 137Gb limit. Low heat/RPM drives may also be desirable due to the confined space. There may also be rules for permitted drive spin up, seek and power save modes,

There were some issues with the Sky+ software not reporting free space correctly, don't know if they still exist. Obviously you will lose your Series Links and whatever other stuff Sky+ stores.

IanW

I was given this link on a thread when I purchased Sky+ about a month ago.

http://www.hummer.co.uk/disc-change-v2.htm

DazV

I know the Sky+ box is VERY picky about which drives work with it - think a lot of success was with Maxtor drives. A lot of people who changed drives reported a lot of heat generation too.

DJ140

I upgraded mine to a Maxtor 80gb drive, no problems. You will need a torx security screw driver, as the box has security screws on - Bought mine from Screwfix.

I've read that you can't go beyond 120gb, or somewhere around this figure, not sure why.

The Sky+ box with this drive now runs quiter and cooler than before. The standard 40gb drive ran very hot, probably why Sky have had to replace the box twice, due to HDD failure.

The unit is sat on a glass shelf, raised around 3 cms, to allow for airflow underneath. The cradle which the drive is mounted on acts as a heat sink and is attached to the underside of the Sky+ box, hence this is the area that gets hottest.

Do not enclose your Sky+ box, thay tend to stop working after 14 months!!!

Dan

Chris L

Useful thread this. Thanks for the link Ian. I've just ordered Sky + to be installed on Wednesday (got fed up with NTL Digital's package). The first thing I will be doing is a hard drive upgrade

mark_h

The Sky+ box needs a HDD that can spin up and initialise within a certain number of seconds, otherwise it resets and reformats the disk - this is why some disks work and others don't. Also it only supported HDDs up to around 120 GB I believe (but this limitation may have been removed by now - see below).

There is a new "Sky+ 160" box coming soon, which was originally slated to be announced this month. It will cost £399 and have a 160 GB HDD. Because this is greater than the original 120 GB limit, the software must have been updated, but I don't know if that updated software will get pushed out to the older boxes too.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

Aren't Sky bringing out a 120Gb version themselves?
Read it somewhere last week. Apparantly people with existing boxes can upgrade their boxes via a software tweak (although I'd hate to think of the compression artifacts though!)
Almost had myu Sky+ box a year now so only a few weeks before I try the bigger h/d

mark_h

Didn't I just say that?

You won't be able to upgrade the storage capacity of existing boxes with just a software update.

In my earlier post I said the current limit was 120 GB; in fact it is 132 GB. The "Sky+ 160" will also have two USB ports on "for future use".

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

Whoops, heavy weekend + Monday morning

messiah

Sky are now doing a Sky+ 160 box - I assume this means it has a 160gig HDD in it.

...but it's £300 more expensive!!

vanilla Sky+ now only £99.

where's my credit card?

DazV

Question - once you've upgraded from the standard HDISK to the bigger one, does the Sky+ display the correct spare capacity on screen ? Or does it mess the calc due tot he non standard bigger HDISK ?

My warranty is up now, so will go out and get a Maxtor 120GB. I take it 5400rpm is the only option due to cooling issues ?

Gymbal

I used the Hummer website, and went for the Samsung 120. effortless. correct spare capacity shows. I think avforums were very useful as well. The recent update corrected the apparent 17 minute problem

Go for it.

DazV

Our unit is about 14 months old - it can't seem to do the live pause then rewind as advertised on the tv.

Is it software upgradeable, and if so , how ?

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

DazV, have u got the instant rewind on, in Services/Sky+ setup ? U can set it to 5mins - 60mins, or OFF. This is a feature on all boxes, unless for some reason u have a super old bios. U can force an update if needed. Current version is 1.31A8, EPG 1.28.d. Turn off at mains, hold backup down whilst powering back on. Update sbe automatic.

I hope Sky do a deal for ppl who might want to upgrade their V2 boxes to this new 160gig model. The case has also changed as well as the internal changes. Its shown in the latest sky mag.