External Hard Drive

[Islandguy43]

Has anyone tried to hook up a external hard drive to the SA 8300?

 

[jayn_j]

TWC has it disabled in their downloaded firmware. When I first got my Samsung HD-DVR, it worked for the first couple of months. It then stopped working after a firmware upgrade. Same update that killed the favorites list.

 

[Steve Mehs]

From what I understand external hard drives will work on MDN boxes but not ODN.

 

[jayn_j]

If you do a google search on 'external Hard drive TWC DVR', you will get a slew of postings from 2007 -2009 saying it is available, but unsupported. Then nobody is saying so after early 2010. This is consistent with my first posting. TWC hard disabled the e-sata port back in June, 2010 at the same time they killed the favorites list. Steve, if you have evidence to counter that, please post it.

After 6 frustrating months, I got a TIVO.

 

[Islandguy43]

From what I understand external hard drives will work on MDN boxes but not ODN.

MDN or ODN boxes?

I did an online chat yesterday and they told me it wasn't an option to hook up a EHD. I then asked about multi room dvr and got disconnected twice....so basically I don't know if it is available without taking the signature home.

 

[Steve Mehs]

If you do a google search on 'external Hard drive TWC DVR', you will get a slew of postings from 2007 -2009 saying it is available, but unsupported. Then nobody is saying so after early 2010. This is consistent with my first posting. TWC hard disabled the e-sata port back in June, 2010 at the same time they killed the favorites list. Steve, if you have evidence to counter that, please post it.

After 6 frustrating months, I got a TIVO.

Not sure why you couldn’t find anything, it’s a known fact external hard drives work on MDN boxes. I’m not going to fish through posts, but the 8300HD External Hard Drive thread in AVS is a good place to start. This post was made by AVSForum member NewPrometheus, and was posted on April 4, 2011, three days ago.

Hi All,

I currently have two (2) SA 8300HD cable boxes from Time Warner Cable. During a recent TWC service call to my house, I complained to the technicians about some HD channels being intermittently and independently unavailable on each cable box. At that point, they suggested upgrading to a more recent cable box, at which point I told them that I use the 8300HD because I utilize eSATA hard drives on both cable boxes band that this was a crucial feature for me. The technicians then suggested upgrading to the Cisco 8642 or 8640 cable boxes, which they claimed worked with eSATA hard drives.

I am writing to find out what this group thinks about this suggestion.

8300HD and External SATA - It Works!! - Page 289 - AVS Forum

I have no desire to add an external hard drive, I could make due with a 10GB hard drive and I record 20+ HD shows a week, so I never really presued the eSATA drives.

 

[jayn_j]

OK, I see the posts. As usual with TWC (and Comcast) the rules can change from region to region. The option is not available in Milwaukee, and TWC here (Milwaukee) aggressively worked to disable the ports on both the Samsung and the 8300. I tried them both.