external Hard drive

[longhorn23]

Hi, I was just wondering if you guys could post which esata external hard drive you use. With all the Olympics coverage in 4k HDR, it would be nice to be able to record all of it without having to worry about deleting recordings every day. What brands would you all recommend? I am looking for a 4tb to 12 tb hard drive. Is DVRdaddy a good brand? This Fantrom Drives hard drive is another one I am looking at.

Fantom Drives G-Force 8TB USB 3.0 / eSATA Aluminum Desktop External Hard Drive GF3B8000EU Black - Newegg.com

Thanks again for all the help. Really appreciate it.

 

[raoul5788]

I've had good luck using WD drives.

 

[Techiefan]

Here is another choice that has been tested to work on DTV DRV's for $182 (4 TB)

Amazon product ASIN B01LY6TDQS

 

[longhorn23]

Thanks for the replies! If anyone has any other suggestions, I would appreciate it. Thanks for the help.

 

[DaRef]

Almost any hard drive in an external eSata enclosure will "work". I've recently been seeing things like skips in recordings - but if you back up a few seconds it plays correctly. This is leading me to believe that some drives, especially 5400 RPM drives or drives pulled from large capacity backup units from WD or Seagate (which is what I did) just don't perform fast enough. They seem to be optimized to write large sequential files like backup and video recordings but extended playback (especially if other shows are recording at the same time) suffers performance issues. To test my theory, I've acquired a 6 TB Toshiba x300 "extreme performance" drive to see if that improves things. I've even begun to wonder if HD performance is at the root of a lot of the problems that people are reporting with HR44, HR54, and HS17 DVR units skipping and dropping frames. You can be sure that AT&T/DirecTV are not putting the speediest drives in the units.

 

[Techiefan]

yup and I did a video on it.

Take a peak for anyone looking to upgrade. BB has a 4TB drive on sale for $89 right now, plus the sled.

 

[Techiefan]

8 TB Western Digital drive is on sale today (2-20-18) for $159 at BB + 25 for the external housing

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401

 

[longhorn23]

I bought this 8tb Fantom Drives. external hard drive:
amazon.com/gp/product/B073GH57Z1/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

But I am having all kinds of problems. It said that it recognized the hard drive and it reformated the hard drive. But nothing is responding to the remote and if it does, it'll respond like an hour or so later. The guide won't pull up and if it does there is no info on it. I can't change channels. At one point it showed that there's 0 percent used on the hard drive. It's like everything is lagging or delayed or freezing up. I have used an esata hard drive for fiOS before and I have had no problems. Not sure what to do. Does the length of the esata cable make a difference? I used a 6 ft esata cable instead of 3 ft. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

8 TB Western Digital drive is on sale today (2-20-18) for $159 at BB + 25 for the external housing

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401

 

[Jimbo]

WHJY on earth do people use these HUGE EHD's ?
Yup, fill it up with all your valueable shows, then complain when it doesn't work or you lose your recordings ...
There ARE limits of how big will work on these units.

 

[Techiefan]

I bought this 8tb Fantom Drives. external hard drive:
amazon.com/gp/product/B073GH57Z1/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

But I am having all kinds of problems. It said that it recognized the hard drive and it reformated the hard drive. But nothing is responding to the remote and if it does, it'll respond like an hour or so later. The guide won't pull up and if it does there is no info on it. I can't change channels. At one point it showed that there's 0 percent used on the hard drive. It's like everything is lagging or delayed or freezing up. I have used an esata hard drive for fiOS before and I have had no problems. Not sure what to do. Does the length of the esata cable make a difference? I used a 6 ft esata cable instead of 3 ft. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

WHJY on earth do people use these HUGE EHD's ?
Yup, fill it up with all your valueable shows, then complain when it doesn't work or you lose your recordings ...
There ARE limits of how big will work on these units.

First longhorn23 could have purchased a cheaper drive as the one from Amazon he posted is 7200 RPM ($339) which is a waste of $$ but thats his choice. You have the same risk from 1 TB to the max which I think is 12 TB, however a loss is a loss. If I have to delate due to space it's a loss too no? I think anywhere from 4TB to 8 TB is fine, I just don't suggest people spending more then needed or called for. The Fantom drives have been said to work fine, but I have no data on the 7200 RPM drive but with that said I suggest making sure the drive is good in the first place. So connect it to a PC and format it, add some large files and see how it holds up. I also think that the ideal cable is 3FT or less but it shouldn't be an issue at 6 FT. If the cable is bad that will cause all sort of issues but haven't seen that issue in a while for an eSATA cable as they are more rare these days and actually getting outdated but oh well.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Techiefan]

Just reporting back my experience after upgrading two weeks ago and can say I am not seeing any issues or problems with the WD 4 TB drive. I see it's no longer on sale at BB but Microcenter has a Seagate 4TB for $89 right now. On Amazon the 4TB drive is also 99% of time going for $90 to $99. The 8 TB drives go up and down all the time, I have seen it for $159 to $189 at BB but same goes for Amazon and many other outlets like Newegg etc. Don't forget the external case, and I had someone ask me if an USB to eSata convertor would work which I have no idea?