Digital Cameras Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘Western Digital External Hard Drive’

Western Digital My DVR Expander 1 TB eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDG1S10000VN Black

Instantly add up to 60 hours of high-definition TV or up to 300 hours of standard-definition TV to your Scientific Atlanta 8300, 8300HD or TiVo DVR. You’ll have plenty of room to save your programs longer and never miss your favorite shows. Just plug My DVR Expander into the external SATA (eSATA) port on your DVRs and start recording even more TV shows, sporting events and movies. My DVR Expander has been tested for compatibility with Scientific Atlanta 8300 series DVRs. The unique no-fan passive cooling system and special hard drive design make it quiet for the living room or bedroom. Designed with a soft amber LED indicator, My DVR Expander is ideal for the living room or bedrooms. Dimensions (HxLxW) – 6.78 x 5.63 x 2.23 Weight – 2.60 lbs.System Compatibility Tested for compatibility with Explorer 8300 Series DVRs 8300, 8300 HD, 8300 MR, and 8300 HD-MR Digital Video Recorders. TiVo verified compatible with TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD Digital Video Recorders. Check with your cable service provider to confirm compatibility with their system.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars A “must have” device for HD DVRs
This Western Digital external hard drive is recommended by TIVO and worked seamlessly with my Series 3 HD TIVO in minutes. Set up is a breeze. TIVO recorded for nearly two weeks filling up the system with suggestions. If you have an HD TV and HD service you must get the expanded memory. No worries about what to record, what to save or what to watch. It was cheaper to buy it from Beach Camera, than from TIVO direct.

5 Stars WD My DVR Expander = a match for DirecTv HD DVR
I bought the 500 Gig at the start of summer, and promised my self when I saw the 1 Terabyte on sale, I’d upgrade to that and gift the 500 Gig to my son for use with his HR20.

This unit works great with a DirecTv HR21. Power up the My DVR, power down the DirecTv, attach the eSATA cable to the My DVR and the DirecTv unit. Power up the DirecTv, which goes through boot process, taking an extra 30 seconds to format the My DVR for its first use. 10 Minutes later after booting, the DirecTv is using the external WD My DVR Expander instead of its internal drive for storage. You lose access to recorded programs, movies, and program settings on the internal drive, while the external is attached. SO you have to recreate all your season passes, which you can’t do until the Program Guide gets repopulated (maybe 6 hours).

This unit is super quiet not needing an internal fan.

I also bought the SIIG eSATA cable, as some have reported issues with supplied cable. I placed the unit on top of two 1 inch pink erasers, so as to allow ingress of air from the bottom for cooling.

This unit is selling as fast as WD can make them apparently, and price varies from day to day, depending on which vendor has it in stock.

5 Stars An Essential Object
This is exactly what I needed. Easy to use and total relief from Tivo constipation…

We now have enough space to record and review everything we want to see on Tivo.

5 Stars Works with DirecTV R21
My DirecTV R21 HD-DVR was having the popular problem of the screen freezing. Finally, the hard drive gave out all together. Checking with DirecTV it was going to cost me a service call plus the cost of the replacement box. On DirecTV’s website they suggest the My DVR Expander for use with their equipment. Being the lower cost compared to the service call and new box I purchased this DVR expander and the SIIG cable. I removed power from the DirecTV box, plugged in the DVR expander, reapplied power and I was back in business. The DirecTV box reformatted the hard drive on boot up and it was instantly in service. As this replaces the existing hard drive, everything you had previously recorded and settings are lost. Not a big problem since my hard drive failed completely. Now I have 3 times the recording capacity and the reliability of a Western Digital drive.

5 Stars Making Your TiVo HD Better (If That’s Possible)
Within the first week or two of installation, our TiVo HD DVR started sending warning messages of limited memory. I was pretty surprised until I realized that its capacity was being taxed by the number of HDTV broadcasts being recorded, whether or not we wished to view them in that format (many childrens’ cartoons and shows are being broadcast in HDTV).

All was not lost, as we found the Western Digital “My DVR Expander” on the Amazon.com site adjacent to the TiVos (they’ve since moved it, so you’ll have to search for it). Hook-up was easy and the warnings of low memory are a thing of the past. We’ve outfitted each of our two TiVo HDs with these 1TB memory expanders.

The only thing that I can really find to complain about are the set-up instructions which are weak. The instructions that accompany the unit are centered around the WD unit itself. The TiVo manual doesn’t make reference to it at all. I had to hunt through the TiVo menus for mention of external memory device set-up, as there was no automatic notification of “external device detected”. Only after set up has been completed does the TiVo provide a message asking if you want to set up the external device when it’s already been done. In the scheme of things, not a big deal. Once installed, you can just forget about it, as the TiVo manages its use. We’re very satisfied with the product.

Buy/More Info