Edirol R-4 Pro Internal Drive

Sean McCormick · April 27th, 2009, 09:35 PM

Thanks for the follow-up! I'm glad I bought the same drive, then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephen Hall

I spoke with a great Edirol tech support guy this morning. I asked him whether the R4 Pro drive contained any software required for the unit to boot.

He said that the drive doesn't contain any boot software.

He recommended that units with failing drives be sent to Edirol for repair. (My unit is out of warranty and replacing the drive doesn't scare me, so I will probably replace the drive myself, should it fail.)

He recommended that the drive only be replaced with the exact same model, the Fujitsu MHV 2080AT parallel ATA ( PATA ) 80 GB 2.5" drive. He said that Edirol had found that this drive is properly matched to the physical mounting system they use to maximize vibration resistance.

So, that's the story.

Cheers,

Stephen H

Ron Priest · October 9th, 2011, 12:29 PM

Hi, I was wondering if you have ever replaced the hard drive yourself? I have one of the original R4 with the 40 GB hard drive that has apparently went bad. When I power it up, it keeps trying to load files forever, and never gets past that point. So I assume the data files on the drive are corrupted. Do you know of any way to get past that and reformat the drive? Even if I can't access the files on the drive, I was hoping that I could simply replace the drive myself to save some money. Do I simply replace the drive and when I boot up the R4 it will see that the drive needs to be formatted? Any specific drives you would recommend?

Stephen Hall · October 13th, 2011, 08:58 AM

I recently replaced the internal hard drive on my R4 Pro with a compact flash card and adapter. It was painless and the recorder works beautifully. Drive maintenance functions and file copying from the recorder are much faster.

The posting is here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/all-thin...lid-state.html

Cheers,

Stephen H

Gints Klimanis · September 1st, 2014, 01:35 AM

Thank you for the tutorial, Stephen.

I updated my R4 Pro with a 128GB compact flash.

The drive in the unit was :
Fujitsu MHV2080AT
80GB 4200 RPM 8MB Cache
IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 2.5"
High Shock Tolerance Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive

Fujitsu MHV2080AT 80GB 4200 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 2.5" High Shock Tolerance Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com

Has anyone tried a larger drive ?
WD Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVERTL 320GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache
IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 2.5"
Internal Notebook Hard Drive
WD Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVERTL 320GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive - Newegg.com

Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVE 320GB 5400 RPM
PATA 2.5"
Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...4239-_-Product

Gints Klimanis · September 16th, 2014, 03:12 AM

The 128GB Delkin CF 700X UDMA6 (Read= 105 MB/sec, Write= 67 MB/sec) flash card worked and offered a full upgrade. Mac OS Finder reports 128.01 GB Capacity. The R4 pro HDD utility's format of the flash card took about 5 minutes compared to about 30 seconds of the new 320 GByte HDD.

When I upgraded to the 320GB hard drive, only 137.4GB was available after formatting. MS-DOS (FAT32). 137.4 BillionBytes = 128*1024*1024*124

Swapped in another r4-pro-formatted 128GB Delkin card in the CF slave slot of the IDE->CF dual adapter. The R4 didn't see the 2nd CF card.

48000 samples/second * 24 bits/sample * 1 byte/8 bits * 3600 seconds/hour = 518 Million Bytes/hour
1 channel = 12.4 Billion bytes/day
2 channel = 24.9 Billion bytes/day
3 channel = 37.3 Billion bytes/day
4 channel = 49.8 Billion bytes/day

44100 samples/second * 16 bits/sample * 1 byte/8 bits * 3600 seconds/hour = 318 Million Bytes/hour

I was hoping to get to 6+ days of continuous 4 channels of 24-bit, fs= 48000 Hz with the 320GB HDD. I'm stuck at about 2.5 days with the 128 GByte limit . I could go with fs= 32000 Hz, but the minimum is fs= 44100 Hz. Since I'm recording a large dynamic range with a low gain, I'm not confident moving to 16 bits is a good choice.

I went with the CF card. After a few swaps, I really began to notice the HDD hum and whine. The R4 pro isn't a device I'd keep in the same room as a microphone, but all of that changed with the 128GB CF upgrade.

October 9th, 2011, 12:29 PM	#17
Ron Priest Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Louisville, KY Posts: 50	Re: Edirol R-4 Pro Internal Drive Hi, I was wondering if you have ever replaced the hard drive yourself? I have one of the original R4 with the 40 GB hard drive that has apparently went bad. When I power it up, it keeps trying to load files forever, and never gets past that point. So I assume the data files on the drive are corrupted. Do you know of any way to get past that and reformat the drive? Even if I can't access the files on the drive, I was hoping that I could simply replace the drive myself to save some money. Do I simply replace the drive and when I boot up the R4 it will see that the drive needs to be formatted? Any specific drives you would recommend? __________________ Ron Priest Louisville, KY

October 13th, 2011, 08:58 AM	#18
Stephen Hall Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 51	Re: Edirol R-4 Pro Internal Drive I recently replaced the internal hard drive on my R4 Pro with a compact flash card and adapter. It was painless and the recorder works beautifully. Drive maintenance functions and file copying from the recorder are much faster. The posting is here: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/all-thin...lid-state.html Cheers, Stephen H

September 1st, 2014, 01:35 AM	#19
Gints Klimanis Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 2,222	Re: Edirol R-4 Pro Internal Drive Thank you for the tutorial, Stephen. I updated my R4 Pro with a 128GB compact flash. The drive in the unit was : Fujitsu MHV2080AT 80GB 4200 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 2.5" High Shock Tolerance Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive Fujitsu MHV2080AT 80GB 4200 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 2.5" High Shock Tolerance Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com Has anyone tried a larger drive ? WD Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVERTL 320GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive WD Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVERTL 320GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive - Newegg.com Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD3200BEVE 320GB 5400 RPM PATA 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive - OEM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...4239-_-Product Last edited by Gints Klimanis; September 1st, 2014 at 02:56 AM.

September 16th, 2014, 03:12 AM	#20
Gints Klimanis Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 2,222	Re: Edirol R-4 Pro Internal Drive The 128GB Delkin CF 700X UDMA6 (Read= 105 MB/sec, Write= 67 MB/sec) flash card worked and offered a full upgrade. Mac OS Finder reports 128.01 GB Capacity. The R4 pro HDD utility's format of the flash card took about 5 minutes compared to about 30 seconds of the new 320 GByte HDD. When I upgraded to the 320GB hard drive, only 137.4GB was available after formatting. MS-DOS (FAT32). 137.4 BillionBytes = 12810241024124 Swapped in another r4-pro-formatted 128GB Delkin card in the CF slave slot of the IDE->CF dual adapter. The R4 didn't see the 2nd CF card. 48000 samples/second 24 bits/sample * 1 byte/8 bits * 3600 seconds/hour = 518 Million Bytes/hour 1 channel = 12.4 Billion bytes/day 2 channel = 24.9 Billion bytes/day 3 channel = 37.3 Billion bytes/day 4 channel = 49.8 Billion bytes/day 44100 samples/second * 16 bits/sample * 1 byte/8 bits * 3600 seconds/hour = 318 Million Bytes/hour I was hoping to get to 6+ days of continuous 4 channels of 24-bit, fs= 48000 Hz with the 320GB HDD. I'm stuck at about 2.5 days with the 128 GByte limit . I could go with fs= 32000 Hz, but the minimum is fs= 44100 Hz. Since I'm recording a large dynamic range with a low gain, I'm not confident moving to 16 bits is a good choice. I went with the CF card. After a few swaps, I really began to notice the HDD hum and whine. The R4 pro isn't a device I'd keep in the same room as a microphone, but all of that changed with the 128GB CF upgrade. Last edited by Gints Klimanis; September 16th, 2014 at 04:41 AM.