No difference except for the "certification" which probably just means somebody actually tested it. I bought a cheap Fantom 500GB eSATA drive about 6 months ago for around $100, plugged it into the SA DVR, and it recognized it right away. Any eSATA hard drive should work just fine.
Actually, there is a difference. The SA DVRs won't work with an eSATA enclosure that supports "auto-sensing" or that goes into a power-save mode. Most external enclosures don't do auto-sensing, but some do, like every WD enclosure except the one marked for DVRs. Enclosures that support that go into power-save mode will initially work, but everytime it goes into that mode you have to pull the power cord on the DVR to get it to work correctly. Unfortunately I have experience with this.
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So uh, what's the difference between this and your standard run-of-the-mill external hard drive that costs less than half as much?
Or is this just to sell to the same people that drop $100+ on monster HDMI cables?
No difference except for the "certification" which probably just means somebody actually tested it. I bought a cheap Fantom 500GB eSATA drive about 6 months ago for around $100, plugged it into the SA DVR, and it recognized it right away. Any eSATA hard drive should work just fine.
Actually, there is a difference. The SA DVRs won't work with an eSATA enclosure that supports "auto-sensing" or that goes into a power-save mode. Most external enclosures don't do auto-sensing, but some do, like every WD enclosure except the one marked for DVRs. Enclosures that support that go into power-save mode will initially work, but everytime it goes into that mode you have to pull the power cord on the DVR to get it to work correctly. Unfortunately I have experience with this.