HDD Size Limit? Lorex NVR

[JessieO]

I have a Lorex LNK71082T NVR that came with a 2TB surveillance drive built in. I'm looking to bump up the HDD, and I have a line on a good deal for a 16TB Toshiba Enterprise SATA drive - perfect size for keeping the number of days of recording that I'd like.

The problem I'm looking for help with is whether or not the NVR will support a drive this big. The max drive size indicated on Lorex's website varies - some places say 6TB max while other places on their site say 8TB. Add into the mix a review from a guy who said he popped in a 10TB with no problems, and, well, I'm not quite convinced that the stated limit is a hard limit.

Anyone have any experience with upgrading drives in Lorex NVRs/DVRs past their stated limit? Also, does anyone know the filesystem that Lorex boxes usually use? ExFAT? Ext3? Even if the drive doesn't work by plugging (and playing), I could always format the drive myself in a different system or duplicate the partition table from the existing 2TB.

I'm not totally set on keeping this NVR as I may switch over to Blue Iris, so I'd like to not compromise and get a smaller drive just to suit an NVR that I might be getting rid of anyway.

 

[Flintstone61]

Does the NVR support dual drives? maybe you can go 8TB + 8TB to get there.

 

[JessieO]

Nope, I have the 8-cam box that only supports a single drive

 

[Flintstone61]

bummer

 

[Flintstone61]

does your menu have this?
12.4.3 Enabling eSATA Recording
Enable eSATA recording to use external hard drives for recording video.
To enable eSATA recording:
1. Under Device, click HDD to open the HDD tab.
2. Select Enable from the dropdown next to Record On ESATA.
3. Click Save

 

[Flintstone61]

yeah the owners manual says 6TB....16Tb is an expensive drive. I suppose once you unpackage it they dont want it back.

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[JessieO]

I would assume that my NVR does not have the eSATA option in the menus. The NVR is sealed into a location that isn't easily accessible, so I cannot verify via the on-device menu, but when connected via the Lorex client, there is no mention of eSATA under the Device -> Storage. Along with that, it doesn't have an eSATA port on the front or back, so...

 

[mat200]

I have a Lorex LNK71082T NVR that came with a 2TB surveillance drive built in. I'm looking to bump up the HDD, and I have a line on a good deal for a 16TB Toshiba Enterprise SATA drive - perfect size for keeping the number of days of recording that I'd like.

The problem I'm looking for help with is whether or not the NVR will support a drive this big. The max drive size indicated on Lorex's website varies - some places say 6TB max while other places on their site say 8TB. Add into the mix a review from a guy who said he popped in a 10TB with no problems, and, well, I'm not quite convinced that the stated limit is a hard limit.

Anyone have any experience with upgrading drives in Lorex NVRs/DVRs past their stated limit? Also, does anyone know the filesystem that Lorex boxes usually use? ExFAT? Ext3? Even if the drive doesn't work by plugging (and playing), I could always format the drive myself in a different system or duplicate the partition table from the existing 2TB.

I'm not totally set on keeping this NVR as I may switch over to Blue Iris, so I'd like to not compromise and get a smaller drive just to suit an NVR that I might be getting rid of anyway.

FYI - based on the compatibility chart at lorex this NVR does not appear to be a Dahua OEM NVR

Product Compatibility Chart - Expand Your System | Lorex

Find compatible products and expand your security system using our Product Compatibility Chart. You can add accessories, cameras, and upgrade your storage.

www.lorextechnology.com

 

[JessieO]

I ordered the drive today - a Toshiba MG08ACA16TE. I'll report back with my findings once I receive and install it.

 

[Rudi L]

I ordered the drive today - a Toshiba MG08ACA16TE. I'll report back with my findings once I receive and install it.

How did you make out with this? As I am looking to do the same with my lorex system!

 

[JessieO]

How did you make out with this? As I am looking to do the same with my lorex system!

Drive arrived today. I'm going to install it probably tomorrow evening (although I might wait until the weekend). I'll report back.

 

[JessieO]

Success! I pulled out the 2TB drive that came with the NVR (a Western Digital 2TB Purple drive) and replaced it with a 16TB drive (a Toshiba MG08ACA16TE Enterprise SATA drive). The NVR booted just fine, and then it showed a popup saying that the drive was not formatted.

I tried to format it remotely using the Lorex 13 client, and it would get to about 30% before causing the NVR to reboot, and when it came back up, the drive was still unformatted. I tried this twice with no luck, so then I tried formatting it using the interface on the device itself (plugged into a monitor via HDMI and using the included USB mouse). This took a few minutes, and it completed successfully.

The entire 16TB capacity was recognized by the NVR, and it has been recording just fine since the drive swap. I wont know if there are any issues with the recording going past the 6TB mark for about 12 days, but I doubt there will be any issues.

On a side note, I plugged the old drive into my Windows PC to see what was on it, but the only recognized partition was not recognized as formatted. I then plugged the drive into my Linux box, and I found a 50GB partition at the end of the partition table (I'm guessing it was Ext3 formatted, but I didn't check) containing jpeg thumbnails of all of the recorded video segments. The first 1950GB (or whatever 2TB minus 50GiB is) of the drive, on the other hand, was shown as blank unpartitioned space. I'm guessing this means that it writes the video directly to the drive in a raw format. This'd be something to keep in mind if you ever need to recover video from the drive itself without the NVR available - it'll be difficult.

Additionally, the board inside had three SATA ports but only space for one drive (screw holes for both 2.5" and 3.5" drives in the bay). I'm guessing this same board is used for the 16-channel and 32-channel models (with a different firmware) and the one of the other SATA ports is used for the second drive while the other SATA port is wired to an eSATA port on the back. I'm not sure if they are usable with the firmware that comes on the 8-channel (mine). I also had to mount the drive backwards compared to the included drive as the screw hole placement did not leave enough room to plug in the drive cables.

So, TLDR: The stated 6TB drive size limit for the Lorex LNK71082T NVR (included with the LNK71082T8KB bundle) in the manual and on Lorex's website is untrue, and I was able to get a 16TB drive working. However, you need to format the drive directly on the device and NOT remotely using the Lorex client.

 

[Rudi L]

Sweet good to know! See if it works with my lorex now!

 

[joeuser]

Sorry to revive a 3 year old thread but I am in need of guidance with LNK7xxx systems and 16TB drives. I recently bought a Seagate Exos 16TB X20 drive which and tried to install it in my LNK7216 NVR (which supports 2 disk drives). According to the manual it says it can only do 6TB, but the LOREX website is listing 16TB models as compatible once I punch in the device model.

Product Compatibility Chart - Expand Your System | Lorex

Find compatible products and expand your security system using our Product Compatibility Chart. You can add accessories, cameras, and upgrade your storage.

www.lorex.com

Has anyone has any luck with other 16 TB drives apart from the Toshiba MG08ACA16TE ?

 

[JessieO]

Sorry to revive a 3 year old thread but I am in need of guidance with LNK7xxx systems and 16TB drives. I recently bought a Seagate Exos 16TB X20 drive which and tried to install it in my LNK7216 NVR (which supports 2 disk drives). According to the manual it says it can only do 6TB, but the LOREX website is listing 16TB models as compatible once I punch in the device model.

Product Compatibility Chart - Expand Your System | Lorex

Find compatible products and expand your security system using our Product Compatibility Chart. You can add accessories, cameras, and upgrade your storage.

www.lorex.com

Has anyone has any luck with other 16 TB drives apart from the Toshiba MG08ACA16TE ?

I have been using the 16tb I mentioned in this post now for years without any issue, the only caveat being that I had to format it using a monitor and mouse directly connected to the NVR. I haven't tried any other drives, but I am considering upgrading the drive to a 24TB one.

 

[joeuser]

I have been using the 16tb I mentioned in this post now for years without any issue, the only caveat being that I had to format it using a monitor and mouse directly connected to the NVR. I haven't tried any other drives, but I am considering upgrading the drive to a 24TB one.

With the change of drive from 2TB to 16TB, do you now find that you are able to store 8 times as much content ? I ask because I am getting conflicting feedback as to whether all of the 16TB are actually usable by the NVR considering it is an older device and the 16TB drive support may not be accurate (and perhaps you just got lucky). I had no luck with the 16TB Seagate Exos (as I previously pointed out).
Edit: Wanted to add that I've also been trying to format directly from HDMI + mouse connected to the NVR Unit and not remotely.

 

[JessieO]

It didn't scale quite linearly - I could record about 3 - 3.5 days of 8 channels of 4K with the included 2TB drive. Now with the 16TB, I can record about 20 days.

It did report all 16TB of space. The commenting - I am wondering if they may be similar thought as the endless reviews that show up on all storage at any retailer ("I BOUGHT a 1TB flash drive, but it only shows up as 931GB! Ripoff! 0 stars!").

That said, I'm sure there are actually NVRs out there that actually DO have a limit. My Lorex NVR with whatever standard firmware it came with, though, doesnt.

 

[joeuser]

It didn't scale quite linearly - I could record about 3 - 3.5 days of 8 channels of 4K with the included 2TB drive. Now with the 16TB, I can record about 20 days.

It did report all 16TB of space. The commenting - I am wondering if they may be similar thought as the endless reviews that show up on all storage at any retailer ("I BOUGHT a 1TB flash drive, but it only shows up as 931GB! Ripoff! 0 stars!").

That said, I'm sure there are actually NVRs out there that actually DO have a limit. My Lorex NVR with whatever standard firmware it came with, though, doesnt.

Can you post which version of the firmware you are on ?

 

[JessieO]