Looking to get a big external drive for the HR34 - help/advice please

[Muckrak3r]

Okay, so we are running through the storage provided by the internal hdd in the HR34 pretty quickly. We are at 30% free space right now and most tv series are just coming back online from the Christmas break off season. So it's just going to get filled up.

I would like to get an external hard drive. It appears 2TB is the size, is there bigger? eSata, the cable coming from the external drive going into the HR34 has to be eSata, correct?

For those that have one, please let me know the model number you used, links would be helpful. I have never purchased an OEM hdd and placed it into an enclosure. Is that what has to be done for this setup? Again, any info and help is quite appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Jimbo]

Okay, so we are running through the storage provided by the internal hdd in the HR34 pretty quickly. We are at 30% free space right now and most tv series are just coming back online from the Christmas break off season. So it's just going to get filled up.

I would like to get an external hard drive. It appears 2TB is the size, is there bigger? eSata, the cable coming from the external drive going into the HR34 has to be eSata, correct?

For those that have one, please let me know the model number you used, links would be helpful. I have never purchased an OEM hdd and placed it into an enclosure. Is that what has to be done for this setup? Again, any info and help is quite appreciated. Thanks!

I've never worried about enclosures, I have always just gone out and bought External HD's.

Yes, they need to be ESATA

I'm currently using a 1.5 TB, had a 750 G previously, I like the Seagates, always had good luck with them.
Btw, the HR34 has a 1 TB in it from what I recall.

Hope you don't have anything important on it if your going big like that, if the recvr should die or need to be replaced you'll lose all your recordings as they are not transferable.

 

[Muckrak3r]

I've never worried about enclosures, I have always just gone out and bought External HD's.

Yes, they need to be ESATA

I'm currently using a 1.5 TB, had a 750 G previously, I like the Seagates, always had good luck with them.
Btw, the HR34 has a 1 TB in it from what I recall.

Hope you don't have anything important on it if your going big like that, if the recvr should die or need to be replaced you'll lose all your recordings as they are not transferable.

So the interface going out of the drive that connects to the HR34 needs to be Esata? In that case, I can't find a single Seagate drive that isn't USB 2.0 or 3.0

External Storage Solutions | Seagate

 

[Jimbo]

So the interface going out of the drive that connects to the HR34 needs to be Esata? In that case, I can't find a single Seagate drive that isn't USB 2.0 or 3.0

External Storage Solutions | Seagate

I really haven't checked them in quite some time ....
I am currently using a Seagate Free Agent Extreme

 

[Muckrak3r]

I can't even locate a manual for the HR34 and there isn't one in the box that it came in. What it's looking like, is I need to buy an internal 2 Tb Sata drive such as Amazon.com: Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST2000DL003: Electronics and then install it in an enclosure that has an Esata output like this guy here Amazon.com: Thermaltake Max 5 Active Cooling Hard Drive Enclosure with Two 80mm Blue LED Fans USB 2.0 eSATA ST0021U: Computers & Accessories

If that's all it takes - I will go ahead and pull the trigger and get this over with. I would just like a bit of confirmation from somebody that has an active set up.

 

[dfergie]

I had a WD mybook with a green that died very quickly with my HR20 - 700, and one of the early Seagate 500 gig regular EHDD's that did before that, interested to find one that will last with Directv ...

 

[Muckrak3r]

Okay - finally found the manual at least : DIRECTV DIRECTV Receiver Manuals

 

[raoul5788]

Costco often has good deals on external hard drives, including ones with eSata connections.

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

I can't even locate a manual for the HR34 and there isn't one in the box that it came in. What it's looking like, is I need to buy an internal 2 Tb Sata drive such as Amazon.com: Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST2000DL003: Electronics and then install it in an enclosure that has an Esata output like this guy here Amazon.com: Thermaltake Max 5 Active Cooling Hard Drive Enclosure with Two 80mm Blue LED Fans USB 2.0 eSATA ST0021U: Computers & Accessories

If that's all it takes - I will go ahead and pull the trigger and get this over with. I would just like a bit of confirmation from somebody that has an active set up.

Check out Weaknees HR20, HR21, HR21 Pro, HR22, HR23, HR24 and HR34 DirecTV HD DVR Upgrades . They can install an internal hard drive or external,& back up all of the information on your existing hard drive & transfer it over to the new one.

 

[Claude Greiner]

WOW it took me months just to fill up the hard drive on my HR24

 

[Muckrak3r]

Check out Weaknees HR20, HR21, HR21 Pro, HR22, HR23, HR24 and HR34 DirecTV HD DVR Upgrades . They can install an internal hard drive or external,& back up all of the information on your existing hard drive & transfer it over to the new one.

$400?! LOL.

WOW it took me months just to fill up the hard drive on my HR24

See, that's what I don't understand. We have only had the DVR for 3 months or so. I don't know how to determine how many hours of recordings we have on there. But it doesn't seem like too terribly much.

 

[jcrandall]

I highly recomend the WD20EURS drive, made for AV receivers. Previously the WD20EVDS (own two of them) was it, but the EURS replaced the EVDS.
WD AV-GP

2TB is the limit the DirecTV software supports at this time. People have tried larger with no success.

Antec makes an e-sata enclosure that is very reliable and has a cooling fan:
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzA0MjIxJjg0

 

[Muckrak3r]

Another concern that I have - is buying a 2Tb hard drive, and then D* updating firmware or whatever and then 3Tb or larger drives become compatible.

Sidebar - it also makes ZERO sense to have the external drive kill off the internal drive. On my Dish ViP722 - the external hard drive was usable as storage alongside the internal hard drive. So we would put entire tv series that we didn't have time for, or movies etc on the external drive to keep the internal drive freed up for our day-to-day viewing.

Does anybody know if D* has any plans to change it so we can use larger external drives?

 

[Jimbo]

Another concern that I have - is buying a 2Tb hard drive, and then D* updating firmware or whatever and then 3Tb or larger drives become compatible.

Sidebar - it also makes ZERO sense to have the external drive kill off the internal drive. On my Dish ViP722 - the external hard drive was usable as storage alongside the internal hard drive. So we would put entire tv series that we didn't have time for, or movies etc on the external drive to keep the internal drive freed up for our day-to-day viewing.

Does anybody know if D* has any plans to change it so we can use larger external drives?

We've all been discussing that for years .... so far, no word from D* about it.

Btw, 13 episodes or so shouldn't take up much room on the 1TB HD, even if your recording 10 series, it shouldn't be all that much.

 

[jcrandall]

2TB is around 400 hours HD.

No word on larger HDD support, and I would no expect it anytime soon.

As for the internal drive integrated with external, all pleas to Directv have produced no results, I wouldn't expect it anytime soon either.

 

[inazsully]

It sure seems like "D" could simplify things if they would just use a USB port for connecting EHD's. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like most of the electronic equipment I see utilize a USB connection.