HR20 Hard Drive Upgrade

[Brewer4]

Have you upsized the hard drive on your HR20 (-100 or -700) either internally or via eSATA? Or do you plan on upgrading anytime in the near future?

 

[Jimbo]

I plan to, just not sure when ....
I may end up waiting abut 6 months and see what kind of prices are out there for a 1 TB or 1.5 TB set up , definitely External ....

Jimbo

 

[Ramy]

I plan to also when I can get the extra funds. I will be getting the biggest I can find.

 

[Bigguy]

Plan to, but would like to be able to add to the internal storage with the addition of an external drive. But I will up grade to the biggest I can get when all the HD is online.

 

[jcrandall]

I've been very happy with my 750gb FreeAgent Seagate drives. I paid about $300 each when they first came out. I've seen them as low as $219 on sale last month.

More than doubles the storage available.

 

[CWS_kahuna]

I'm new to the Mpeg 4 boxes so please bare with me a second.

From the little bit of reading I did in the Living on the edge forum:

If you hook an external drive up, the internal drive does not function, is that correct? Is there any indication that we may someday be able to combine the drives to work together?

I thought I was reading that if you hook an external esata up, the drive formats automatically, does the same thing happen if you replace the internal with a larger drive?

If using the external esata option, how is the response time affected, is everything slower?

Lastly will the external drives work with the regular updates on the HR20-100S, or do you need one of the updates from the living on the edge thing.

 

[Brewer4]

1. If you setup eSATA drive, the internal is not accessed. Its still there and anything you recorded is intact but not accessible until you shut down, remove the eSATA, and boot into the internal.

2. No word on combining. eSATA is available but not a supported feature. So there is talk of a combination drive configuration but I wouldnt bet on it anytime soon or even at all. 300 GB drives believe it or not will be nothing for HD storage in a few years and most will be moving to larger drives.

3. The drive formats automatically and aligns to the HR20 regardless of internal or external. So dont take a drive that you have data on, experiment with the HR20, and expect the data to remain.

4. I found response time FASTER with my eSATA drives. WD7500AAKS 750GB SATA SATA/300 HARD DRIVE. I put same drives on HR20-100 and HR20-700

5. No need to force updates if you dont want to. The HR20 acts like nothing has changed other then different drive and size. National releases when released will work and show up automatically. The unit is not considered hacked or anything so all functions as normal.

 

[Jimbo]

1. If you setup eSATA drive, the internal is not accessed. Its still there and anything you recorded is intact but not accessible until you shut down, remove the eSATA, and boot into the internal.

2. No word on combining. eSATA is available but not a supported feature. So there is talk of a combination drive configuration but I wouldnt bet on it anytime soon or even at all. 300 GB drives believe it or not will be nothing for HD storage in a few years and most will be moving to larger drives.

3. The drive formats automatically and aligns to the HR20 regardless of internal or external. So dont take a drive that you have data on, experiment with the HR20, and expect the data to remain.

4. I found response time FASTER with my eSATA drives. WD7500AAKS 750GB SATA SATA/300 HARD DRIVE. I put same drives on HR20-100 and HR20-700

5. No need to force updates if you dont want to. The HR20 acts like nothing has changed other then different drive and size. National releases when released will work and show up automatically. The unit is not considered hacked or anything so all functions as normal.

Costco is opening here in town at the end of the month, I will take a good look at what they have. They could be offering discounts just because they are just open and want to bring in the masses.
At least I can hope.

Jimbo

 

[pro96]

750GB eSATA running for the last 3 weeks. Prior to that had a 500GB for months.

 

[CWS_kahuna]

Thanks Brewer4.
So in response to #3, I can get a 750GB internal drive, replace the 320GB internally with the 750GB and it will just format to work with nothing else needing to be done at all. If that's the case I might just give it a shot.

(Probably been asked before but) Curious if this Cavalry 2TB will work? Maybe kind of pricey at this time but it seems like a nice option down the road.

Jimbo,
Costco today has the 750GB Free Agent Pro for I think $224.99, The other drives they had were Western Digitals but they were not esata capable. I know they also have Maxtors in store at times but I don't think they are esata either. Something I just found a little interesting is the external 750GB drive at Costco is cheaper than the internal 750GB seagate (retail) drive at newegg.com. Maybe it'd just be best to try this Costco Drive at some point.

Any recommendations for an external case that can house 2 drives? I happen to have 2 brand new 400GB drives just collecting dust.

 

[vurbano]

Thanks Brewer4.
So in response to #3, I can get a 750GB internal drive, replace the 320GB internally with the 750GB and it will just format to work with nothing else needing to be done at all. If that's the case I might just give it a shot.

(Probably been asked before but) Curious if this Cavalry 2TB will work? Maybe kind of pricey at this time but it seems like a nice option down the road.

Jimbo,
Costco today has the 750GB Free Agent Pro for I think $224.99, The other drives they had were Western Digitals but they were not esata capable. I know they also have Maxtors in store at times but I don't think they are esata either. Something I just found a little interesting is the external 750GB drive at Costco is cheaper than the internal 750GB seagate (retail) drive at newegg.com. Maybe it'd just be best to try this Costco Drive at some point.

Any recommendations for an external case that can house 2 drives? I happen to have 2 brand new 400GB drives just collecting dust.

I have doubts the calvary will work because of the controller card they sell with it. But you never know.

 

[dcwebman]

Not sure if this is any good, but less than $100 for a 500GB seems like a pretty good price.
500GB USB 2.0/eSATA External Hard Drive (Beyond Micro)

 

[Brewer4]

Not sure if this is any good, but less than $100 for a 500GB seems like a pretty good price.
500GB USB 2.0/eSATA External Hard Drive (Beyond Micro)

Looks like it would work. Keep in mind it takes about 6 GB for 1 hour MPEG4 and 10 GB of MPEG2 so the internal 300 GB drive stores 30 hours HD MPEG2 and 50 hours HD MPEG4. The 500 GB drive is only going to give you 50 MPEG2 and 83 MPEG4. Better then the internal but you have to evaluate if worth spending 100 bucks for 20/33 hours more. Since its not added to the internal, I figure not worth doing unless you get sizes of 750 GB or more. If you dont think you will never need more then the 50/83 then its a good deal.

 

[Ramy]

Can you move your eSATA drive from one HR20 to another without losing information?

 

[Brewer4]

Can you move your eSATA drive from one HR20 to another without losing information?

Oh man are you going to make me experiment? Better now I guess with little recorded. I doubt it but I will try when I have nothing of value recorded.

 

[Ramy]

I had never seen that question asked so I thought I would because if I want to watch something on another TV I could just move it.

 

[Brewer4]

I shut down my -100 and -700 down. Then connected -100 drive to -700 and booted. Well interestingly enough, my recordings were there. Happiness. Then I tried to play them. Notta. It says Searching for Authorization and then Your Access Card has Expired (763). The recordings are tied to the access card and though appear intact, wont work with another access card. Bummer.

 

[Ramy]

I shut down my -100 and -700 down. Then connected -100 drive to -700 and booted. Well interestingly enough, my recordings were there. Happiness. Then I tried to play them. Notta. It says Searching for Authorization and then Your Access Card has Expired (763). The recordings are tied to the access card and though appear intact, wont work with another access card. Bummer.

I figured you wouldn't be able to, but I was hoping.

 

[Brewer4]

You might be able to move the Access card and get them to work but thats a pain.

 

[cmeans]

I went with:

Amazon.com: Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750 GB USB / eSATA External Hard Drive ST307504FPA1E2-RK: Electronics ($242)

Newegg.com - SIIG 6.56 ft. eSATA to eSATA Cable Model CB-SA0211-S1 - Retail ($20.99)

It does seem faster than the original internal drive, especially deletes.

-Chris