HR20 Hard Drive Upgrade

Have you upgraded the hard drive in your HR20 or plan to?


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Truthfully, to me the length of the warranty on a drive for my DVR is rather irrelevant, because if my drive dies, I lose everything on it, no matter how long it was warrantied. I'd much rather have a drive that is more reliable and durable with a shorter warranty than one prone to problems but having a longer warranty.
 
Jimbo said:
So you bought an "Internal " and and enclosure with a fan built into it ?
What kind of money did that cost and is it 1 or 2 drives ?

I have seen a few External 1TB units , but I think they are 2 disks

Jimbo

It's one 1TB internal drive with the Antec MX-1 enclosure. It wasn't cheap--the enclosure cost $49 at the time and the drive ran around $300--but I'm getting 250GB more space AND an enclosure that works very well with an excellent fan inside.
 
I had an Apricorn EZ Bus with a 500 gig WD Caviar. It did NOT have a cooling fan.

I was wrong on the Free Agent, it auto spins down when not in use. Plus it does have a power button so you could turn it off yourself, dunno how this would effect the HR20.
 
Truthfully, to me the length of the warranty on a drive for my DVR is rather irrelevant, because if my drive dies, I lose everything on it, no matter how long it was warrantied. I'd much rather have a drive that is more reliable and durable with a shorter warranty than one prone to problems but having a longer warranty.

I agree failure is not a good thing for a dvr drive. I've seen drives go thru hell and be fine and others die after a week, I just dont worry too much about it I guess.
 
I have a few friends at a local computer place that has a nice enclosure with a fan in it, it was $ 79 and put a 500gb HD in it, he doesn't know if it;s going to work for what he's doing, so I may give it a try if he decides to get rid of it.
Other wise, I would like to get a 1TB HD with 1 disc, I don't know much about how to make a 2 disc drive work in our scenario.

Jimbo
 
Heres some info I found on the Seagate in a review:

PC World - Seagate FreeAgent Pro Review

In use, the base--but not the brushed-aluminum drive case--got warm over time. Seagate says this is by design: The unit is fanless (which helps keep its noise to a minimum), and it dissipates heat through vents at the bottom of the drive.

In doing more reading I noticed most complained about it being hot at the base(I never notice because mine never moves) and I know this is where the power plugged in so I was curious.
 
Heres some info I found on the Seagate in a review:

PC World - Seagate FreeAgent Pro Review



In doing more reading I noticed most complained about it being hot at the base(I never notice because mine never moves) and I know this is where the power plugged in so I was curious.

IF I get this FA 750, mine will sit behind the TV unless it is noisy, then it will go inside the HT centre

Jimbo
 
I haven't seen one yet, but check around. Even if they did, one thing to keep in mind: very few external drives have cooling fans, which is why an internal one in an enclosure that has a fan is a big plus for many people.
 
I haven't seen one yet, but check around. Even if they did, one thing to keep in mind: very few external drives have cooling fans, which is why an internal one in an enclosure that has a fan is a big plus for many people.

So , buy an Internal and place it in an enclosure and plug that into the ESATA connection on the HR20, is this what your talking about.

I was talking with a friend earlier and he has a TIVO and bought a Seagate 500 and a nice enclosure and it would not work on his new TIVO set up.
Now I do not know how different the new TIVO's are, keep in mind that it is not a D* Tivo.....
So he said to beware when buying because not all will work.
So I am looking to see what most are using, but the Hitachi set up sounds good. this is 1 drive , correct ???

Jimbo
 
The FreeAgent is very quiet.

Jimbo you can buy and eSATA enclosure and just stick whatever drive you want in.

I just chose to go with the Seagate because I liked the design and felt it was a good deal for 750gb's at $199.

11 mo's ago I spent $140 on an enclosure and 250gigs.
 
The FreeAgent is very quiet.

Jimbo you can buy and eSATA enclosure and just stick whatever drive you want in.

I just chose to go with the Seagate because I liked the design and felt it was a good deal for 750gb's at $199.

11 mo's ago I spent $140 on an enclosure and 250gigs.

Where did you find it for $ 199 and you still need to find a esata cable, I think the Free Agent does NOT have a cable with it, I hate to buy something and then have to order the cable addl to use it.

Did you get the esata cable in the box ?

Jimbo
 
Where did you find it for $ 199 and you still need to find a esata cable, I think the Free Agent does NOT have a cable with it, I hate to buy something and then have to order the cable addl to use it.

Did you get the esata cable in the box ?

Jimbo

Bought it from CCity.

Best Buy now carries PNY eSATA cables in the store.
 
Bought it from CCity.

Best Buy now carries PNY eSATA cables in the store.

REALLY , I'll have to look into that, I found the best price for the FA at BB, but every time I ask them abut a cable they say they don't carry them.
Maybe that has changed now :)
It currently shows as $244 online at CC, $ 219 at BB.

Jimbo
 
REALLY , I'll have to look into that, I found the best price for the FA at BB, but every time I ask them abut a cable they say they don't carry them.
Maybe that has changed now :)
It currently shows as $244 online at CC, $ 219 at BB.

Jimbo

Yeah, when I bought mine CCity had like $50 off or something, cant' remember. It was a good deal.

Then my hunt for the fabled eSATA started because my HR20 was clear and I did not want to wait setting the FA up. At the last minute I decided to check BBuy's website (after CCity/RShack and calling all computer stores in my area) and a search for eSATA brought up the cable. The guy told me they had just started getting them in.
 
If you want a bunch of space then go with the setup I have. I bought 2 500gb drives and put them into an enclosure that does RAID and not have 1TB of space.
 
If you want a bunch of space then go with the setup I have. I bought 2 500gb drives and put them into an enclosure that does RAID and not have 1TB of space.

I don't know how to do the Raid thing, I hear that you have to have a seperate board in your home computer to do it.

I just found the FA 750 at BB today for $ 219, without a cable. and the BB I was at only handled the l type cables (those are for internal)
I also found a WD 1TB internal for $350 and a enclosure w/fan for another $75 so all together it was $ 425 for a TB set up (esata of course).

Seriously considering the Seagate FA 750, $ 219 and find a cable online I guess.

Jimbo
 
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