Super Dish Dead!!!!!

[bradsmainsite]

Nels,

That is true only for the guide data, but not for software upgrades it must be turned off to receive these, and you would not want to leave your DVR on all the time as this would cause excessive wear to the hard disk heads and premature failure.


You may have an old version of software in your 811 because you should not have to turn it off nightly to get new guide data.  Some 811's just will not take software upgrades and should be replaced, so you may be stuck in old software nomans land.

If you can check your current version and tell me what it is and I'll let you know if its current or not.

[bradsmainsite]

Just checked current version for 811 receiver is P338

[jkane]

you would not want to leave your DVR on all the time as this would cause excessive wear to the hard disk heads and premature failure

Um ....  This is not 100% true. First, a hard disk is not a tape device.  The heads never touch the media, so there is no wear on them.  What fails most often on hard disks are the bearings for the platters.

Given this, there are two lines of thought and a good arguement for each.

The first says that stopping and starting the spinning disks creates the most stress on the bearings and therefore causes them to fail sooner.

The second argument says that the more you use the bearings, the sooner they wear out.

So, it is a 50-50 chance that powering your disks down every day is either good for them or bad for them!   :confused:

How about some real world experience?  I have worked with disks in both scenarios.

I can tell you that servers that are left on for years at a time are very sensitive to being powered down.  If that disk has not stopped for a couple of years, the chances of it not starting back up again is greater than if you left it turned on and didn't touch it.

On the other hand,  I've seen desktops that get powered down every night, work for year after year with no problems.

So, this supports the argument that leaving them on is actually worse than powering them off.  But, this is only anecdotal and is not based on recorded facts.   {fart}

[jsmith]

However...

I don't believe the hard drive component of a DVR receiver ever really shuts down unless it's unplugged, based on the fact that when I shut my receiver off... I can still hear the hard drive spinning and you can still record when the receiver is off.

So I believe there is no real harm in powering it off or leaving it on... I would say power it down at least once a week to allow the software update process to run normally.

Besides what are you really gonna lose, last weeks American Idol episode... ?

[digdugm]

I've had my sat-t60 for at least 5 years now, I never shut it off. from my experience the only thing shutting it down does is stop the buffers, so I guess it woulld save because its not countiually writing but the drives never stop spinning. I've never had so much as a hiccup (knock on wood) with either the orginal 40GB drive or the 40GB i added shortly after getting the unit.

[bradsmainsite]

Um ....  
So, it is a 50-50 chance that powering your disks down every day is either good for them or bad for them!   :confused:

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

If it works for you don't change it.

And if it smells bad don't eat it.

Oh by the way if your part of the news team from tmj4 keep looking over
your shoulder! :wave:

What this has to do with anything don't know, but its late and I need sleep!!