Hi, I have SA8300 HD DVR box and Passport OS, seriously standard 160GB is the best they can do? On HD that doesn't even add up to 20 hours...

i am in Queens, NY and i just called the TWC just to hear that they do not activate the SATA ports and do not allow external drive expansion.

I just wanted to find out if this is a load of crap that i should ignore and invest in SATA drive anyway or there is no way to do that in NYC? Has anyone been successful in my area? I

I don't care about moving stuff elsewhere - once on SATA it will stay there once i see it or delete it. It will only work if the SATA port is truly activated on the box, and there is no guarantees it is, right? Any particular model my best bet should be? In case it doesn't work with my DVR maybe i will be able to use it with my laptop? (If you are giving me internal harddrive models please tell me what the compatible enclosure would be)

I will appreciate any help....

Support for these ports are not offered because of several complications. The biggest thing is obviously the hardware, added expense that the companies and 99% of customers are not willing to fork over. Another large issue is that the external drives become married to the box and will not transfer to another unit unless formatted. The last piece of complication is that programs are encrypted and striped across both drives (internal and external), so with out the drive connected any programs recorded will not be playable. It's much easier for customer service reps to just tell you that they are not active, when they generally are, because of just some of the complications listed above.

To my understanding the, the drives listed below should be compatible with the Explorer 8300/HD/HDM:

Seagate (model: ST3160801XS and ST3400832AS)
Western Digital (model: WDXS1600JDNN and WD2500JD-56HBC0)
Maxtor (model: Quickview P01K160 and J01M300)

Good luck.

SA 8300HD eSATA "It Works" Thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=516559).

v/r,
C-F