New DISH subscriber, help with compatible USB hard drives for use with recievers

[meimmortal1]

Hi, I'm new to DISH Network. I thought a forumn would be the best place to ask this, and when I googled "dish network forumn", this site came up first. What I have is a couple of non-dvr HD receivers... and I was told by my installer that I could buy an external powered usb hard drive, pay $39.99, and have them act as DVR's. My question is, what is compatible? I checked with Dish and they just said look for the red dish compatible signal. I rarely see that anywhere

I am actually scoping two hard drives and really want to buy them but...does anyone know off hand if Western Digital 160GB My Book Essential USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - HDD-WDH1U1600N is compatible with dish and will make my recievers work like DVR's???

Thank you in advance for your answer on this -

-David

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Those should work fine.

The ones that have issues are the ones with 2 hard drives in them... you can tell them as they are twice as thick as a normal USB drive.

 

[teachsac]

Do you have the 211 or 222? That feature is available on the 211. I don't think it is available yet on the 222. I could be wrong. You might have to do a search. You might want to also consider a little larger drive if you do a lot of recording (especially OTA).
S~

 

[KAB]

Do you have the 211 or 222? That feature is available on the 211. I don't think it is available yet on the 222. I could be wrong.

You're not wrong.

 

[meimmortal1]

Thanks a lot guys, I appreciate it.... and to answer your question, not a lot of recording...just like the pause and rewind function a lot. Thanks so much

 

[Jim5506]

I use an external SATA HDD dock like the Thermaltake Dock, about $25 then just buy internal SATA drives to plug in to it.

Smaller drives (250GB) mean you will lose less when the drive fails (which all of them will).

 

[lakebum431]

I use an external SATA HDD dock like the Thermaltake Dock, about $25 then just buy internal SATA drives to plug in to it.

Smaller drives (250GB) mean you will lose less when the drive fails (which all of them will).

Sure they will all fail over time. But to be clear this doesn't mean it is necessarily going to happen early or soon. I have been using external drives on my 211k and 722k for quite a while and just leave them plugged in all the time.

 

[Tomboy257]

Can you move the external drive to your computer to make a DVD or to a 222 for viewing only?

 

[Jeff0575]

NO it will only work on your receivers. Will not be able to watch them on your computer.

 

[KAB]

Can you move the external drive to your computer to make a DVD or to a 222 for viewing only?

Also, 222 is not EHD capable.