1 Terabyte DirecTV Add on drive

[Lex]

I just got my 1 Terabyte add on hard drive (external) from WD with an external e-sata port. I wasn 't sure if one was Sata and one was E-sata, and I might need a cable with one type end on each end. But after ordering that cable, it wound up being the cable with like ends. e-sata I think, that worked. Fortunately, that cable was included with the WD drive.

I was really nervous about plugging this up, and what would happen with my existing internal 500 mb drive. I have a lot of HD movies on it. But I gave it a go, when it booted up, I Expected it to show as 1 drive with all my existing movies, and free space. However, that is not what happened.

With the external drive plugged in, the machine thought it was starting out with 100% free space. Therefore, the internal drive was not recognized using an external port drive. However, when I unplug the drive, and reboot, it then went back to the internal drive. So, now, I can keep my old movies on the internal drive, and plug in the new drive for a great deal of new free space. Then if I ever want to watch stuff on the old drive, I can do a reboot, unplug the drive, and I have my old movies at access.

It wasn't exactly what I expected, ,but it's still not a bad solution!

I did read one thing in particular. If I record a bunch of stuff on that drive, unplugged it and plugged it into a second DVR? Sorry, you loose the content, it will reformat! Good to know. I just got a higher capacity DVR for my bedroom, after pushing the issue with DTV, so now I have lots of free space in both places.

[Hdale85]

We have the whole house DVR system so it shares it all from one DVR. I'm not sure how big the hard drive is in it. Must be pretty big as we haven't come close to filling it.

[impala454]

So it doesn't just add to the existing space? That's a bit of a bummer.

[Lex]

If I wanted to pay 3 bucks a month, I could add it to my old receiver and never have upgraded it to a new receiver (which I forced DTV to do)

and totally bypass it's hard drive, and keep the new external drive with that system, and move it into the great room, and put the full one in the bedroom (reverse receivers)

But if I did that, then I no longer have all those movies accessable to the great room. So I'd rather keep adding new drives to the main system, and catalog the movies, then I can plug in a different drive or use the base drive as required.

That's true it was Chuck, but if it did, I'd have a concern about loosing what was on the main drive when it is split apart. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it's livable.

I didn't fool with whole home, my DTV bill is already high enough.

Dougie, I record only HD content, it adds up. I figured it up, 4 hours of HD was equal to 1% of the space, therefore, I can put 400 hours of HD material on this 1 terrabyte drive. I am pretty sure my first system drive on that machine was 500 gb, therefore, it only held 200 hours of HD content.

[Hdale85]

Well we went the the whole home DVR because we got it free by doing automated bill pay or something. Compared to what we would of paid for the same features from Time Warner we still have a killer deal. I like the service a lot better too.

[Lex]

I just get pretty pissy about adding to my bill. They want to add for every little thing, for instance not only do you pay a rental fee on the DVR, you pay a USE fee as well per unit, that stuff starts adding up, my bill is over $125 now with showtime, Starz, and HBO. I don't have cinimax even! Ticks me off it's that high If I turn off the movie channels, I can get it reduced, but then I have no movie channels! LOL. It's a catch 22. I started trying to change plans to a cheaper plan the other day, then they elminate the golf channel and DIY network I think! So I cannot win.

[Hdale85]

We have the middle package or something. We don't really need the movie channels though. This same service from Time Warner with less channels (the ones we care about anyways) was going to be like 150 a month before our internet....