We understand, you're not ready to let go of the
BSG season finale just yet even though Tiger and Phil are charging up the back nine at Augusta, but keeping a lot of HD on the DVR can fill up space quickly -- which is where these two come in. Amazon is now taking pre-orders of the long-awaited 1TB edition of Western Digital's TiVo compatible (or other
eSATA enabled box)
DVR Expander, although no ship date is listed, and
Apricorn took our advice on its
fugly 500GB, 1TB or 1.5TB sized boxes, giving them a sleek new look. It's dual USB 2.0 / eSATA compatible, but not TiVo, so Scientific Atlanta 8300, DirecTV and DISH ViP owners can claim this one at $219 for the 1.5TB, while the WD will set you back $183.
Read - Apricorn Unveils New Look for the DVR Expander
Read - Western Digital WDG1S10000N My DVR Expander 1TB eSATA (Black)
posted Apr 12th 2009 at 10:49PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brdystyls @ Apr 12th 2009 10:57PM
Recession Antidote!!!!!
randalljo @ Apr 12th 2009 11:02PM
I agree. Let's all sit on our butts and watch more TV... that will make the recession go away!
El Taco @ Apr 12th 2009 11:36PM
plz
dreamer @ Apr 12th 2009 11:44PM
pretty please.....
Dtech_Update @ Apr 13th 2009 1:05AM
Well actually the best way to get rid of a recession would be for everyone to start buying things... it would sky rocket the economy... All these bail outs are horrible it makes the recession worse, and worse. And the reason why the government does it is because if you walk up to the president and are CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation, that employes thousands, and get on your knees and beg for money what is the president supposed to say? He can't say no that would make him a "bad president." so he says yes... and now we have what is currently a trillion dollar deficit in one of the most powerful countries in the world. I in no way am saying Obama is a bad president as a matter of fact i like him, but these bailouts are going to make the economy worse and worse.
Miles @ Apr 12th 2009 11:01PM
wait you can't just plug in a HDD and use it as extra storage?
Sounds stupid.
Gotta say though...thats a hell lotta memory.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (BarCODE) @ Apr 13th 2009 6:27AM
Some TiVOs and Cable Box PVRs support it.
joseee @ Apr 12th 2009 11:05PM
i have time warner in NYC area am i able to use one of these? ive heard some cable providers dont allow it.
Greg @ Apr 12th 2009 11:20PM
That seems quite expensive to me. I long ago added a 1TB drive to my DirecTV DVR in a eSATA external enclosure for less than these sell for, and at today's prices you could do it for under a hundred bucks.
Jeff @ Apr 12th 2009 11:23PM
I did the same a long time ago. Easy as pie. Just plug in the drive and reboot the DVR. What is the point of these DVR HDDs? Seems like they're preying on those who don't know any better.
engadget @ Apr 13th 2009 12:29AM
It's primarily for the Tivo HD...they only recognize these specific WD drives. Lame.
rcarm @ Apr 12th 2009 11:21PM
Oh... so that's what that usb port was for.
Tony @ Apr 12th 2009 11:32PM
Do not waste your money I bought one of these DVR expander and it worked great for months until time warner updated there software to disable the e-sata port. Reading on the (avs forums) in more and more areas the cable company are disabling the ports. I called TWC and they said they dont support them. so i went from being able to store 60 hours of HD to 20 with the built in drive. you cant save anything
V35_Pilot @ Apr 13th 2009 9:35AM
It appears you are assuming the entire world is a TW customer. Additional hard drives work great for us Dish Network customers.
TechSurfer @ Apr 12th 2009 11:34PM
this is going to be cool
Kendal @ Apr 12th 2009 11:53PM
No firewire?
Brian McPherson @ Apr 13th 2009 12:57AM
Overpriced - I picked up a Seagate Free Agent Extreme 1 TB at Fry's for $139 and added a $2 eSata cable - plugged it in to my DirecTv DVR and now I am ready for the NBA playoffs.
Laron @ Apr 13th 2009 2:11AM
Can someone confirm compatibility on SA 8300 HD DVRs? Provider Time Warner. There is a plethora of interfaces on the box, however none of which currently work with any external hds.
Tony @ Apr 13th 2009 8:12AM
like I said in my post I had a SA 8300 HDC it worked fine up until a month ago when Time Warner upgraded there OS on the box. after that it stopped working. The software upgrade disabled the E-sata port on the box and there is nothing you can do about it. I still have the old SA 8300 HD and on that one they did not update the OS ... It seems TWC is rolling out the new update area by area and once your box takes the update there is nothing you can do.
I am waiting for a new box to come out with a bigger hard drive the one they have in it is small
only 20 hours of HD you cant save much or a series of shows to watch.
Squee @ Apr 13th 2009 11:40AM
http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/main list of all compatible & none compatible external hard disk drive for SA pvr !
kompulsive @ Apr 13th 2009 4:26AM
...you can buy a PCH for the same price.
Kevin @ Apr 13th 2009 6:54AM
Hmm... Or you can just do what I did... replaced the internal drive in my TiVo HD with a 1TB drive, for about $100 before I sold the old drive.
Arian Kooshesh @ Apr 13th 2009 7:32AM
this raises the question, if you can dvr it but don't have the space, is it equivocal to then torrent it? You aren't stealing, it's something you have access to, and you PAY for the convenience of being able to watch it at your leisure, sans commercial. But Time butthole warner corp doesn't want you to be that happy, noooo. I'm glad I'm on att dsl..... If I wanna watch a show I go to my neighbors who works for cox and watch whatever on demand...
on demand will prolly replace dvr ,eh? Once they can stick some commercials in there....
Tony @ Apr 13th 2009 8:19AM
We do have on demand on my TWC for some NBC and CBS shows (like CSI and Chuck)
but they are in Standard Definition.
Shows that I would have put on my DVR I am now watching on HULU
I have support TWC for years but now even I am getting angry with them. taking away something that benefited the consumer does nothing for there customer satisfaction
V35_Pilot @ Apr 13th 2009 9:29AM
Recently added a 1Tb WD MyBook to my Dish ViP722 receiver. Only paid $100 for the unit, which so far is working flawlessly. Not sure how rebranding these as "DVR Expanders" justifies the almost 100% increase in price, though. Looks like clever marketing will translate into larger profits for these companies.
As far as watching more TV goes.... I use mine to store the Discovery, National Geo, and Biography documentaries. These shows are incredible in HD. Might be more TV but at least we are learning something. :)
V35_Pilot @ Apr 13th 2009 9:50AM
*Dang unit confusion. Meant to type 1TB. Been thinking in bitrate too much these past few weeks.
Carl @ Apr 13th 2009 10:45AM
Did you have to pay the annoying $39.99 "activation fee" that Dish charges for the privilege of using your own drive on its receiver?
V35_Pilot @ Apr 13th 2009 11:01AM
Carl wrote:
Did you have to pay the annoying $39.99 "activation fee" that Dish charges for the privilege of using your own drive on its receiver?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't pay the full amount. As a 14 year customer, I called Dish (the US-based customer number) and told them I have never asked for anything before and that I didn't want to pay this fee. After some back and forth discussion we settled on me paying $10 for it (which I consider fair for what I received - I wasn't ready to toss my whole relationship with them for that amount).
FWIW, Dish claims this fee is required due to the fact that the code that allows the receiver to communicate with the external HD is not theirs; it is more or less a licensing fee to the third party group who developed it. Personally this sounds logical to me but I also believe Dish marked up the fee as another profit opportunity - hence their willingness to bring it down.
Brandon @ Apr 13th 2009 9:59AM
Will this work on those motorola DCT6412 DVRs?
Jim @ Apr 13th 2009 10:59AM
I have Time Warner in Cincinnati and had a WD DVR Expander. It worked great for a week and then the TW "genius'" sent an update that rendered the Expander useless. You wonder why the idiots have to screw up a good thing when it has no negative impact on their business.
Squee @ Apr 13th 2009 11:00AM
Here is an open data base for owners of Scientific Atlanta 8300HD SARA eSATA !! http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/main This web page is to support the users over at adding an external eSATA drive to the Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD DVR. Before purchasing any hard disk drive for your 8300HD I highly recommend checking out this list !
Mattison @ Apr 13th 2009 12:34PM
BOYCOTT Time Warner! Come on you guys, you can live without cable for the summer! Go for a hike. Call and cancel your sevice and state the reason as your expander will not work! You'll still have local digital over the air to watch. And you'll save $50 to $150 a month!!! Don't let these companies tell you how to live, they have forgotten that the customer is ALWAYS right.
$$$ TALK, stop sending these PIGS your money!
Jay @ Apr 13th 2009 12:46PM
If everyone is looking for a hard drive/hard drive enclosure, why not just sign up for Vantec's build your own drive giveaway? Free stuff never hurts so I already signed up. Only thing that is required is to become a fan of Vantec. I already did it! Just wanted to share with all you fellow computer enthusiasts.
For reference, Details can be found here
http://www.vantecusa.com/pdf/facebook/giveaway.html
adoptedchineseboy @ Apr 13th 2009 7:20PM
up for sale already (no pre-order) at buy.com