Seagate reveals Showcase external HDD: for media centers and DVRs

Great, just great. Soon after Western Digital made a fool of itself by introducing an external hard drive "certified" for use with DISH Network HD DVRs, along comes Seagate to further fuel the hype machine. Announced at this year's Cable Show (after being mentioned at CES), the Showcase storage solution is "designed" to extend storage capacity of DVRs and media centers. In a similar vein, the outfit's newest drives are "compatible with Motorola's s-SATA-capable HD DVRs," and they also come with USB 2.0 ports and up to 1TB of space. No word on a price or any of that jazz, but those who can't figure out that an external hard drive is an external hard drive can look for 'em to land in Q3.

[Dave23 @ May 19th 2008 11:48AM]

Well, to be fair, the Tivo HD apparently requires some form of hacking to allow an external HD other than the over priced Tivo Media extender (or whatever it's called)

So if these also work with the Tivo HD unmodified then I think that'd be ok.

[slipperyskip @ May 19th 2008 11:55AM]

Nice looking design. I wonder where they got it?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/02/the-stephenson-g-metric-nano-casemod-is-pure-bioshock/

[Streakist @ May 19th 2008 12:07PM]

You know what the best thing is about external hard drives and Windows? If you share them and they get unplugged you lose those shared settings.

I think I'll keep mine internal for now...

[0megapart!cle @ May 19th 2008 12:19PM]

I don't know what settings you think you lose, but I keep a variety of external hard drives plugged into my machine at all times, and unplugging them, plugging them back in, they retain the same drive letter, and I have had no problems.

The one thing I will say, is stay far away from WD external drives. I have had two different ones that have problems with BeyondTV (the first 30-40 seconds of every recording are corrupted), and I have not had this problem with a Lacie or a Seagate drive that I connected. WD may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for.

[joey @ May 19th 2008 12:10PM]

FYI Seagate had this out at CES 2008.

[Herb Zite @ May 19th 2008 12:14PM]

TiVo Series 3 accepts just about any ESATA drive, TiVo HD requires a "certified" DVR Extender. In the same way, the Series 3 accrpts many Wi-Fi USB adapters and the TiVo HD only accepts the TiVo branded adapter.

[Rebel6381 @ May 19th 2008 12:19PM]

I definitely agree that an external hd is still just an external hd. Of course compatibility with above mentioned platforms such as Tivo and the likes may come into play but from what it sounds like, this isn't much of a factor.

Cool case though, design is simple and elegant and would go great in an entertainment system setting.

[Brian @ May 19th 2008 12:35PM]

Now does anyone know if something like this would work for a Motorola model 6200 w/ Verizon service? Recording everything in HD I'm always full.

[rock99rock @ May 19th 2008 12:54PM]

I know it is probably useful for most others, but 1TB just isnt enough anymore.

I need a cheap, compact enclosure for at least 8 HDD supporting a minimum of 6TB, Raid 5 preferred. This is for a desktop, esata LOW-Rise card would be required for this install. Any suggestions?

[palehorse @ May 19th 2008 12:59PM]

The irony is that we wont need that much space once flat-fee VOD libraries become viable...

If Netflix ever offers us instant access to every DVD in the world, at the press of a button, for a reasonable flat monthly fee, what the hell are we going to need 6-8TB for?

Maybe for A LOT of porn..!? :)

[rock99rock @ May 19th 2008 2:39PM]

Although porn is nice :) no. HD Media library. The costs of 750gb hard drives have dropped to almost $100, and at around 7-15gb per mkv HD movie, those first 2 drives have filled up quite fast :) I dont think there will be another storage medium that will be as cost effective in storing such large amounts of data anytime soon, so time to build something out.

[Jon Doe. @ May 19th 2008 1:49PM]

*shrugs* No worse then Apple's "server grade" hard drives for their Time Capsule thing. Every company pulls this crap....EVERY company.

[Jake @ May 20th 2008 2:36AM]

I had 6 Seagate drives in the last few months.
After several months all showed CRC errors and

ID Description Raw Value Status Value Worst Threshold TEC
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Raw Read Error Rate 27217570 OK 110

as listed from their S.M.A.R.T. logs.

I had one drive replaced 4 times in last 6 months. Those replaced (equivalent) drives had same SMART log errors.
So, for the next 5 years, Segate will keep good on their limited equivalent replacement policy. Even to the extent of replacing the failing several month old drives with refurbished drives with same SMART log errors.
Unbelievable but true. I try to post this information to a Segate forums but I kept receiving a speech filter violations and it refused to post. I assure you it was as plain text as this with no abusive langauage except the model of the drive. I don't trust this company!

[Warren @ May 19th 2008 2:51PM]

Guys, it's not as simple as hard drives are hard drives. These external drives from Seagate are better grade (you know they sell different grades to different markets, don't you?) and have customized firmware, so it's better tuned for continuous writes, has better recovery algorithm so that video won't stall due to read/write errors.

Sure, you can go buy a cheap generic off-the-shelf and it will work, but it won't have these extras. don't expect it to last just as long.

[Pete Steege @ May 20th 2008 10:59AM]

You're right. This device is totally different than Seagate's general-purpose external storage (FreeAgent or Maxtor One Touch) - unlike WD's.