Western Digital My DVR Expander 500 GB eSATA External Hard Drive
by Western Digital
|
List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital My DVR Expander 500 GB eSATA External Hard Drive
Customer Review: Fantastic product.
Summary: 5 Stars
Congratulations to Amazon for prompt delivery: 21hrs delivery time between Nevada and Montreal, Quebec. I installed the 500gb model on Jan1st. No problem but it took 2 attempts to connect the drive with the Scientific-Atlanta 8300HD+. I had 18 saved programs taking 76% of the internal hard drive; after installing the expander, it now shows 29% ! Excellent. This means I went from a capacity of 40hrs of HD-1080i recording to 103hrs of HD-1080i (820gb total now). Again excellent. As of today (Jan.9th), the drive has been perfect. All the features of the 8300HD+ work as before, including pause, FF, RW, on LIVE programs. I suggest plugging the DVR and the Expander on a UPS (battery backup). This way, if you get a power failure or hits, the DVR and Expander will not have to be reconnected together and the drive will have less chances of getting damaged. Playback (video/audio) of recorded programs has been excellent, in fact, I did not notice any difference.
UPDATE:20-Feb-2010 - A few weeks ago, I wrote to WD Cust.Svc enquiring about the way programs are recorded on the DVR/expander and when does it go into IDLE Mode: this is their answer:
"The unit will go into idle mode after 20 minutes of no use, or signal input from the DVR machine. DVR machines usually set the recording manner, so the first and last few minutes of the recording go into the internal drive on the DVR machine, and the rest into the DVR expander, in order to retain full control of header, lead in/out information. Once the internal drive has become full, it will record fully on the external expander".
UPDATE: March-14th-2010: On March-11th-2010, coming back from work I noticed my DVR was in trouble as the screen was showing: ER-01 and ER-00 in a loop. DVR crashed due to a memory problem. Was replaced no charge. DVR Expander not at fault here.
UPDATE: April-24th-2010: Expander working 100%, no problem at all. New DVR also perfect.
UPDATE: Oct. 12th 2010: No major problems with the unit. Recorded data sometimes has a few glitches on video but this could be a bad channel reception. If you have a problem and the dvr freezes but if you can still use your remote (UR-5U-8400A), there's a way to rebooth/restart your DVR without going thru the whole process: press PAUSE for 10sec. or more until you see the 'message' icon on the led display flashing; press PAGE - once; press STOP 3 times; you will see
'r - 2' on the display. Do not touch the remote after that. After 15-30 sec. the DVR will rebooth. After about 5 min., you should see the time on display. Start the DVR & you should see a message on TV 'this external hard disc works or is compatible with this DVR'. Press EXIT on remote and all should be ok. This procedure is for the Scientific-Atlanta 8300HD+. Good luck ! Cheers.
Customer Review: Couldn't Be Easier - Works With Scientific Atlanta 8300
Summary: 5 Stars
What can you say - for a device like this, "scoring" is it easy. It either works as advertised, or it doesn't - this thing works as advertised. It's easy to hook-up/install, or it is not - the directions couldn't be clearer, and it was a snap to hook-up.
I have a Comcast DVR Scientific Atlanta 8300HD. I was constantly running into low space issues. No matter how hard I tried to keep up with "house keeping" it always seemed to run at or near capacity. And with the 2008 Summer Olympics coming up, I was finally motivated to find a solution.
I did few Google searches, and yielded some promising results. Other users of the SA-8300HD had the same problem and came up with varying solutions - build you own eSATA external drive, or buy an out-of-the-box device. I'm pretty tech savvy, having built a number of PCs and external USB drives. The cost of DIY-ing a similar device was about $100-110, delivered. For $40 more, I could get a pre-built and certified device. I didn't want any hassles, so I went with this.
It looks like and is the same size as any of the WD MyBook external drives. It's a little smaller than a hard covered book. It comes with an external power supply and an eSATA cable, and a Quick Install guide.
Total time to install - 15 minutes, tops. I could have done it in less than ten, if I read the install guide fully. I jumped the gun and instead of pulling the plug on the DVR, I just turned it off. YOU HAVE TO UNPLUG THE DVR BEFORE CONNECTING THE EXPANDER. Which is what the directions says, but I skipped.
So, to install, you:
1) Check Capacity of your recorder (mine was at 62%)
2) Unplug the DVR
3) Plug in the Expander
4) Connect the Expander to the DVR with the eSATA cable
5) Plug the DVR back in.
The DVR will go through its boot process. When the clock reappears, turn on your TV and then your DVR. A message will appear:
"Detected an external DVR Expander - do you want to format it for use with this DVR?"
Hit Yes and the message disappears. There is nothing to tell you it is performing the install/format. A few minutes later, a new message appears:
"The DVR Expander is ready to use"
Go to the recording section and check capacity. Mine dropped to 16%!
My recommendation - do not hesitate, buy this. Even if you are tech-savvy, is your time/effort worth $40? This is certified and guaranteed to work. WD drives are typically sturdy, and their MyBooks are highly rated.
Hurry - the Olympics start August 8!!
Customer Review: Solid DVR expander
Summary: 5 Stars
As a Southern California of Cox Cable's HD service, I have a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8240HD DVR. And I like to record stuff. The problem with that is, of course, that the only way to save the stuff I record is to output it to a VCR. Kinda dumb, to go from a digital signal back to outdated analog equipment. But those DVR drives fill up quickly, particularly if you record a lot of HD content.
I was about to give up and go TIVO, but I really didn't want yet another monthly subscription fee. So, I went looking for a solid drive to increase my DVR's capacity, and after a fair amount of research, found that this Western Digital My DVR 500GB expander would work with my DVR. Of course, Cox doesn't support it, meaning that if you have a question or a problem, you're on your own. However, the 8240HD does support eSATA, and I can find my way around most problems, so I gave it a shot.
Amazon's price was good, and the drive arrived in perfect condition.
Installation was simple. Connect and power each component up in the right sequence and that's about it. One important note: BEFORE hooking this drive to your DVR, make a note of the space already used for existing recordings on your DVR. There's usually some setting that shows you the amount of recorded space. Once you hook up this drive, the only way to tell if it installed correctly is to go back and check the recorded space again. If the first reading said, for example, 25% used, then when you install this drive, the new percentage should be quite a bit smaller, thus letting you know of the increased capacity.
The drive is virtually silent, not inordinately hot, and the soft amber light on the front is not distracting, even when watching the TV with the lights out. Can't speak to its longevity, because I've only had it in service for a few months. But, I've had great luck with other WD drives on my Mac, so I expect this drive to last.
If you need a high capacity drive for your DVR, take a serious look at this one.
Customer Review: Excellent quality external HD for DVR expansion...
Summary: 5 Stars
I have the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD cable box and quickly realized that recording HD programming would fill the internal HD on the 8300HD very quickly. Then I found out that Scientific Atlanta was using only a 160GB hard drive!! Kinda cheap if you ask me. HD programming fills up space VERY quickly. So, I was relieved to find out that an external (eSata) drive could be connected. But which one?
Well, the Western Digital MyDVR Expander 500GB was cost effective and I have been very happy with Western Digital products in the past (I am a Computer Consultant and have replaced many a hard drive with WD ones and they all work well..... now Seagate, that's another story!). So, I gave this MyDVR a whirl.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to install. Literally... power down the 8300HD (by unplugging it), plug in and power up the MyDVR expander drive, replug in the 8300HD, after the LONGGGGG boot time for the 8300HD a message pops up saying that an external drive was found do you want to use it?, click yes. And voila! Now recording space is increased MANY fold.
I was worried that the MyDVR expander would continuosly run, but I was happy to find out that when the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD is in standby mode (off), the MyDVR expander would spin down also into a standby mode, therefore reducing stress by running continuously.
So far, so good. In fact, I would swear that the recordings have stabilized somehow and are better. But that's probably just psychological.
One IMPORTANT NOTE: When you add the MyDVR expander you LOSE the ability to pause live programming. In other words, the buffer that used to happen automatically is gone. But I never really paused live programming anyway. And if I want to leave while a show I'm watching is on, I just hit the RECORD button and record the rest of the show. So it all works out in the end.
Customer Review: An easy expansion to my DVR (unless you have Time Warner Cable)
Summary: 5 Stars
UPDATE 5/19/2010 -
I have Time Warner Cable. They just changed their software (Navigator), and prior to the software change, I was perfectly happy (See "Previous review" which follows).
This external disk does NOT work with Time Warner Cable anymore. This has been confirmed by a Time Warner Technician who visited my home this morning.
This solely a Time Warner Cable software problem, not a problem with the disk per se.
If Time Warner Cable fixes their new software to work with an external disk, I will update this post.
Previous review:
I have owned this for about 9 months now, and am extremely happy with it (that is to say that I have had 0 problems with it, it just sits there and works).
I am using it on Time Warner Cable's Scientific Atlanta 8300 HDC DVR.
The cable that came with it was the correct one for my DVR.
Installation was easy. Unplug the DVR, attach the cable to the DVR and Drive, plugin/power up the drive, plugin the DVR, and follow the instructions when they show up on the TV (drive needs to be formatted).
Voila, about 5 times as much memory. The new problem is that it takes a while to scroll throught all of the recordings to find the one you want to watch.
My only real complaint is that you can't move the drive to a different DVR. If you do, the new DVR will not recognize it and ask if you want to install/reformat it.
Also, you will lose most or all of your recordings if you reboot your DVR w/o the drive once it has been in use.
Evidently, (at least with Time Warner Cable's DVR) the recordings are split between the DVR and the Drive so that neither is whole. This is not the drive's fault, so I can't detract from the drive review.