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eSATA - DIRECTV recommended list

576K views 4K replies 404 participants last post by  mjfoxtrot 
#1 ·
Can I increase the recording capacity of my DVR?

For folks that are adding HDD capacity to their receiverss, DIRECTV has added the following FAQ to their web page:

DIRECTV.com
Yes, you can increase the recording capacity of your DVR or HD DVR simply by connecting an external hard drive with greater storage than the receiver's internal hard drive.

First, make sure you have a compatible receiver. Check the model number inside the small door located on bottom right corner of the front of the receiver. The model number should read either R22 (DIRECTV Plus® DVR) or HR20 or above (DIRECTV Plus® HD DVR).

You'll need an external hard drive that uses an eSATA connection. The following hard drive models are recommended:

  • Western Digital 500GB (model WDG1S5000)
  • Seagate 500GB (model ST30500SCA109-RK)
  • Western Digital 1TB (model WDG1S10000)
  • [STRIKE]Seagate 1TB (model ST31000SCA109-RK)[/STRIKE]

Follow these steps to connect the external hard drive:

  1. Turn off your receiver by unplugging the power cord. (Do not rely on the power button.)
  2. Look for the port on the back of your receiver labeled SATA.
  3. Connect the eSATA hard drive with an eSATA cable. Make sure the cable is firmly connected on both ends.
  4. Turn on the eSATA hard drive and give it several seconds to spin up to speed.
  5. Plug in the power chord of your receiver.

When your receiver reboots, it will automatically see the newly-connected hard drive. The hard drive inside your receiver will be disabled.

You now have expanded recording capacity. With a 1TB hard drive, you can record up to 200 hours of HD programming.

Please note: We offer this tip because we want to help you get the most out of your DIRECTV experience. It is recommended for advanced users who are comfortable working with electronic hardware. This modification of your DIRECTV system is not officially supported by DIRECTV.
 
#2,927 ·
fudpucker said:
OK - I've read until my eyes bleed, LOL! Lots of good stuff, but I just ordered my new DTV install, Genie system and I want to start day 1 with the upgraded storage. SO - if I could get some hand holding here. On the Dish systems it was easy, just plug in an external USB drive and you're done. Here a little more complex.

SO - while I feel you can never have too much storage, I decided to go with the external 3T drive (instead of a 4T.) After reading a lot here, it came down to the WD Green or WD Purple, and it SEEMS like the Purple might be a bit more suited to streaming video off of it and it's only $20 more - so looking at this:

http://www.amazon.com/Intellipower-sata_6_0_gb-3-5-Inch-Internal-WD30PURX/dp/B00IMPO5N8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1408499427&sr=8-2&keywords=western+digital+purple

For the case, I see some saying the don't like the TT power switch issues, but I haven't seen a link to another recommended case? If yes, please let me know, otherwise thinking of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-Active-Cooling-Enclosure-ST0021U/dp/B004G8QETS/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1398793867&sr=1-2&keywords=thermaltake+enclosure

Now, having not used external eSATA drives in the past, and not wanting to want to hook it all up with the new Genie and be missing something, I assume I'll also need to order an eSATA cable to connect the enclosure to the Genie? How about mounting screws? Anything else I need?

And lastly - do I just say goodbye to the installer, make sure I'm getting all my channels and the install went well, then immediately connect the external drive? Or do I need to record something on the internal drive first? And any need to do any kind of set up with the drive on my PC first?

Thanks!
Most eSATA devices come with the cable. All the TT devices do, I think. You don't really need anything else. RunnerFL will probably pop up and explain about the formatting on the various models of the Genies.

Rich
 
#2,928 ·
fudpucker said:
And lastly - do I just say goodbye to the installer, make sure I'm getting all my channels and the install went well, then immediately connect the external drive? Or do I need to record something on the internal drive first? And any need to do any kind of set up with the drive on my PC first?
You'll probably want to leave it as-is and record at least one thing first. That way you can verify that you're running off the internal vs the external. Not all HR44 models require anything be done to the drive but you're better off just hooking it up to a pc regardless of which HR44 you get. Just hook it up to a PC and let it initialize the drive, that's all. Once you've done that power down the HR44, hook up the external, power on the external then power on the HR44.
 
#2,931 ·
Cool thanks for the quick replies. Silly as it sounds - does the drive or enclosure come with mounting screws?

Also - I saw the comments on the TT switch going bad, but I haven't seen recommendations for a different enclosure - is there another that is the consensus "best?"

And lastly - theoretically, I could connect a different drive to the Genie and, say, record a lot of film noir or other movies on it, then disconnect and connect a different drive for normal daily recordings, then reconnect the "movie drive" when I wanted to watch those, right? I don't anticipate needing to do this, but on our Dish system we tend to packrat a lot of stuff we want to watch later on an external USB drive.
 
#2,932 ·
fudpucker said:
Cool thanks for the quick replies. Silly as it sounds - does the drive or enclosure come with mounting screws?

Also - I saw the comments on the TT switch going bad, but I haven't seen recommendations for a different enclosure - is there another that is the consensus "best?"

And lastly - theoretically, I could connect a different drive to the Genie and, say, record a lot of film noir or other movies on it, then disconnect and connect a different drive for normal daily recordings, then reconnect the "movie drive" when I wanted to watch those, right? I don't anticipate needing to do this, but on our Dish system we tend to packrat a lot of stuff we want to watch later on an external USB drive.
You will get everything you need in the enclosure's box. There should be no problems with the on/off switch, that only applies to the Thermaltake docks. You should have no problems with the enclosure.

You can use as many HDDs as you want, but keep in mind that the HDDs are actually "married" to the Genie and cannot be played on any other DVR than the one you recorded them on.

Rich
 
#2,933 ·
Rich said:
You will get everything you need in the enclosure's box. There should be no problems with the on/off switch, that only applies to the Thermaltake docks. You should have no problems with the enclosure.

You can use as many HDDs as you want, but keep in mind that the HDDs are actually "married" to the Genie and cannot be played on any other DVR than the one you recorded them on.

Rich
Ah, that's how ignorant I am on this, I didn't realize the docks and enclosures were different items. Duh. Thanks
 
#2,936 ·
Just got done upgrading one of my "ancient" HR20-700 (I was running a trio of them until last week) with a new HR44-500. Was using some WD "Green" drives of various types on the HR20s through their life and decided to not buck the trend. However, knowing the HR44 can address more than 2TB of space, I went with the 4TB WD40EZRX and a Rosewill METAS eSATA/USB3 enclosure.

One initial problem I had was the HR44 recognizing the drive when I first connected everything together. Turns out, I needed to get the drive connected to my desktop computer to initialize the drive first. Once that was done, the HR44 picked it right up on the next reboot.

And I agree this thread is a little out of control. There should probably be a sticky post with known-good and -bad drives and enclosures.
 
#2,937 ·
I think the best solution is to just read no more than the last 50 - 100 posts. No matter how it got cleaned out and/or stickied, it would obselesce in a matter of a few weeks to months.

The other thing is that there are a bunch of us who watch this thread fairly closely, and if there is a question, no matter how old or how many times others may have answered it, we try to help.

Ignore those who complain that the poster's question has been asked and answered before...those comments are just from people who have too much time on their hands, and no real desire to help.
 
#2,938 ·
fudpucker said:
Ah, that's how ignorant I am on this, I didn't realize the docks and enclosures were different items. Duh. Thanks
The link that you posted earlier was to an enclosure. A dock is basically a small case that you can "plug" a hard drive into. Here is the Thermaltake dock that many people here use.

I have two of the enclosures that you linked to and like them very much. These enclosures contain two cooling fans. The docks rely on the fact that the hard drive is exposed to keep it cool. If you really think that you would want to swap multiple hard drives into a DVR, then the dock would make more sense for you because it is very easy to swap drives in a dock, whereas it would take some effort to swap drives inside of an enclosure.

BTW, the photo of the dock on Amazon shows that it contains blue LED's. These lights can be disabled with switch that's located near the power switch.
 
#2,939 ·
Bill Broderick said:
The link that you posted earlier was to an enclosure. A dock is basically a small case that you can "plug" a hard drive into. Here is the Thermaltake dock that many people here use.

I have two of the enclosures that you linked to and like them very much. These enclosures contain two cooling fans. The docks rely on the fact that the hard drive is exposed to keep it cool. If you really think that you would want to swap multiple hard drives into a DVR, then the dock would make more sense for you because it is very easy to swap drives in a dock, whereas it would take some effort to swap drives inside of an enclosure.

BTW, the photo of the dock on Amazon shows that it contains blue LED's. These lights can be disabled with switch that's located near the power switch.
Thanks, I think I'll start with the enclosure, and then if I decide swapping drives on occasion is something I want to do I'll probably just buy another enclosure/drive combo. Right now I don't even have my new Genie install (moving over from Dish) so need to get a feel for the system. I just know I'm gonna need more than 1T storage and want to add it before I have a bunch of recordings on the internal drive.
 
#2,940 ·
fudpucker said:
Thanks, I think I'll start with the enclosure, and then if I decide swapping drives on occasion is something I want to do I'll probably just buy another enclosure/drive combo. Right now I don't even have my new Genie install (moving over from Dish) so need to get a feel for the system. I just know I'm gonna need more than 1T storage and want to add it before I have a bunch of recordings on the internal drive.
As others have mentioned, 2 TB is easy, no special initialization needed. Above 2 TB, some of the Genie's (like the HR44-700) require drive initialization on a PC before connecting to the D* box. I'm using a 2 TB and a Max 5 enclosure by ThermalTake (same maker as the BlacX Dock) on my HR44-700 and it took right off. When I initially tried a 3 TB, it wouldn't work (wasn't initialized). The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had no need for 3 TB as 2 TB was plenty and the more you record, the more you will lose if you are archiving instead of watching to catch up.
 
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#2,941 ·
fudpucker said:
And lastly - theoretically, I could connect a different drive to the Genie and, say, record a lot of film noir or other movies on it, then disconnect and connect a different drive for normal daily recordings, then reconnect the "movie drive" when I wanted to watch those, right? I don't anticipate needing to do this, but on our Dish system we tend to packrat a lot of stuff we want to watch later on an external USB drive.
Sure, you can however keep in mind that your Series Links go with the hard drive so you'd need to setup Series Links for each drive.
 
#2,942 ·
hasan said:
As others have mentioned, 2 TB is easy, no special initialization needed. Above 2 TB, some of the Genie's (like the HR44-700) require drive initialization on a PC before connecting to the D* box. I'm using a 2 TB and a Max 5 enclosure by ThermalTake (same maker as the BlacX Dock) on my HR44-700 and it took right off. When I initially tried a 3 TB, it wouldn't work (wasn't initialized). The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had no need for 3 TB as 2 TB was plenty and the more you record, the more you will lose if you are archiving instead of watching to catch up.
Heck, I had to force myself to choose the 3T WD purple instead of the 4T, LOL! We're bad about recording an entire season of a series and not watching it until later, and we record a lot of old movies, specials, etc.
 
#2,943 ·
fudpucker said:
Heck, I had to force myself to choose the 3T WD purple instead of the 4T, LOL! We're bad about recording an entire season of a series and not watching it until later, and we record a lot of old movies, specials, etc.
That's certainly fine, I do some of the same, just understand that when that drive goes bad, whatever is on it is gone forever except any OTA recordings you may have done using the AM21 OTA Tuner Add-On...those can be watched across machines (or at least at one time they could, because they do not originate from DirecTV satellite service at all, but rather your local OTA broadcast staton

One thing to consider, if you think a drive is going bad, you can buy a hard drive cloner (I have one). It lets you drop a source drive into its dock, and you put a new drive into the target slot of the dock and it makes a perfect bit by bit copy of the original failing drive (assuming the failing drive still works). I did this with a five year old eSATA drive and the new cloned copy works perfectly and all my existing recordings were preserved in the bit by bit copy on the new drive.

If it is the receiver box itself that fails, then you are SOL. Catch a drive failure early and you can preserve everything, but if the box itself goes south, it's bye bye recordings.
 
#2,945 ·
OK just got my install, good guy. HR44 and two minis. So - how do I know if my 3T WD Purple is being recognized/used? I recorded a minute of something on the internal, deleted it, turned off the Genie, then connected my WD 3T Purple eSATA turned it on, turned the Genie back on. Didn't see anything, did a reset of the Genie. It reset, came up. but I have no idea if it is seeing/using the eSATA drive - can't find a place where it shows free HD space.
 
#2,946 ·
OK just got my install, good guy. HR44 and two minis. So - how do I know if my 3T WD Purple is being recognized/used? I recorded a minute of something on the internal, deleted it, turned off the Genie, then connected my WD 3T Purple eSATA turned it on, turned the Genie back on. Didn't see anything, did a reset of the Genie. It reset, came up. but I have no idea if it is seeing/using the eSATA drive - can't find a place where it shows free HD space.
Record something on the internal drive and leave it there. If you don't see that recording with the external connected then you're good.
 
#2,947 ·
OK, when some people talk about the need to initialize the 3T drive on the PC first - because it does not seem to be formatting the drive when I connect it to the HR-44 (I did the Menu Restart, pull the plug when the 44 front panel went dark, turned on the eSATA drive and plugged it into the 44, then plugged in the 44 to the power again - got the full reset messages, including finding sat, etc. but then no message on the external drive.) Anyway - I plugged the eSATA drive into my PC - do I need to format it on the PC first?
 
#2,948 ·
ADDENDUM: OK, I initilized the drive on my PC (figured it out) but there were two options on initializing. Since the drive is 3 T, when I used the MBR option for initializing, I got two partitions (since MBR won't create a partition larger than about 2.2T)

I once again hooked everything up, unplugged the Genie 44, plugged in the eSATA drive/enclosure (WD 3 T Purple) and this time when I plugged the Genie in I got a VERY brief message that said Initializing External Storage or something similar. It we very quick - less than 5 seconds - I expected it to take 20 seconds or more. Huh.

Anyway, looked at the playlist and there was nothing recorded, so since I didn't see the items I recorded on the internal drive I assume it is using the eSATA drive.

One more question, though: Since the MBR initialize creates two partitions for the 3T drive, how can I know if the Genie sees all 3 T of the HDD?
 
#2,951 ·
fudpucker said:
Does anyone have a rough estimate of how much a 1 hour HD show (such as a network show, not a 1080i movie) takes up in terms of space on the HDD? Want to do a rough estimate to see if the HR44 is seeing all 3 T of my external drive,

Thanks,
If you have to know for sure the only way is to power everything down and hook it back up to your PC. You'll either see 1 big partition or you won't.
 
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