DirecTV HR21 and eSATA drive

You can do it yourself and save a few bucks, but people are finding various housings and various drives give different results (including more stutter and macroblocking).

Search for a Western Digital DVR Expander at your local shopping location or:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0digital%20dvr

and get everything you need in one box/one click with an easy install that will take no more than 90 seconds and be done with it.

There are plenty of threads over at dbstalk with exact instructions, I haven't done it but it sounds pretty easy.

There is nothing to do, just plug it in. However, it completely replaces the internal disk so that configuration information such as the list of things you want to record on a regular basis and (I think) the favorites channel lists need to be redone. I use a 750Gb Seagate Freeagent and it worked first try and I have had no problems with it. One thing to remember is that since the external disk replaces the internal disk and does not just added to the total capacity and that the internal disk is 320Gb, you need to put on a substantially larger disk to get any benefit.

Ernie

I am considering switching from Time-warner cable to Direct TV and was wondering if anyone could answer this question. If I purchase an HR21 (or HR22) for my family room and one for my bedroom, could I purchase an eSATA drive that could be moved from one room to the other? Many times I like to start a show in one room but then move to the other room to finish it. Would this set-up work, or do I need enough hard drive space in each room to record my shows at each location? Thanks

The latter. The recordings will be encrypted and locked to the receiver that they were recorded on. I'm not sure if the filesystem will even be preserved if you unplug it from the unit it's attached to. (Guessing no.)

File system would have to be preserved or you would loose everything with a power outage or simply unplugging the unit.

No, it means the previous response from demonfoo was incorrect.

No, you just misinterpreted; like with my TiVo, if I boot the unit with the drive removed, the drive becomes unmarried from the internal disk, and has to be completely reformatted before the unit can use the drive again. I'd assume something similar is done with the HR-2x units, even though instead of marrying the drive, it just switches drives entirely.

No I did not misinterpret. Your assumption is wrong and quite frankly, thats very much of a weakness on behalf of the TIVO - first one I've heard of.

Easiest way to do this -
Get the Seagate Pro 750 external ESATA drive. Power it up, connect it to the HR 21 and push the reset button (on the HR21).
That's it-just wait for it to run through it's startup procedure as if it were a brand-new install and you're good to go. If you ever want to go back to your original disc, just unplug the Seagate and hit reset again. Nothing is lost (from your original disc) and you can go back at any time.
This is the easiest way to add extra storage-other drives/enclosures will work but why try and reinvent the wheel?

Agree 100%....why try to reinvent the wheel.

The correct answer was given in post #2

The Seagate FreeAgent Pro Series External Drive is known for having a touchy eSata circuit which will not work with many DVRs if you read through AVS. It is also more prone to giving you errors in the video, especially as it moves to the outer edges of the platter when there is more data on the drive.

It may work for you or it may not work for you. Are you a gambler who wants to waste time and money on this?

Sure, go get a Seagate 750GB. Hell, go for a 1TB. Just be prepared to be stuck with a drive that you might find doesn't work the way you wanted it to work - that you cannot use with your DVR which isn't going to make you real happy.

As stated in Post #2, the easiest 100% way to get this to work is to get the unit listed there.

Why reinvent the wheel?

Not going to argue (well, maybe a little
The FreeAgent pro was (by far) the preferred unit to use with the HR21 on the DBS Forum. Virtually everybody who tried something else had issue after issue, while the Pro gave nearly 100% performance right out of the box with 0 hassle.

However, my response was more directed to the posts in the middle with folks discussing what they thought "might" happen or "should" happen rather than speaking from experience with an actual unit. (BTW-my Pro has been operating flawlessly for a year now

Ditto. I have had mine (a 750Gb FreeAgent Pro) in use for over a year. Installed without any fuss and never a hiccup.

Ernie

Maybe on an HR20 but not an HR21. The Free Agent Pro works fine on a HR20 but I ave been unable to get it to work on an HR21, for which I have had to resort to a Vantec Nexstar3 enclosure with Samsung drive.

I bought a Seagate HD , and a case with a cooling fan from Comp USA , unplugged the DVR, plugged in the HD restarted and essentially that's all it took. Cable ESATA to ESATA.

Cheers

That drive looks very much like the "MyBook" series of drives from WD. Are they the same units (obviously assuming you choose the model with ESATA)?

Honestly cannot tell you. Usually I stay away from low end consumer WD Drives (as opposed to their Server Series Drives) and purchased one of these for someone as a last resort after all the various Seagate .09/.10/.11 series had glitches on DVRs. I thought I would probably see the glitches continue and return this - much to my surprise, it eliminated them all. I still wish they had a 750GB or 1TB drive and its overpriced for a 500GB. But...as its the only rock solid solution I have found out of roughly 15 different variations of drives, its not worth the continued issues that other combinations give not to go this route.

That's why I was asking. I wasn't sure if it was just a repackaged version of the normal one or not.


Understood. Me, I'm too cheap not to at least give it whirl. Of course, right now, I'm too cheap to even do it at all. For now, it's just a matter of keeping aheads of the incoming stuff...

However, if some store came up with a kick-butt price on a unit, I might take the plunge - it has to be local, though, for return purposes. Mail order is still a drag to make returns.

This did work but did get a bit hot so I replaced the enclosure with the fan cooled Antec MX-1. Much cooler now, which is an isuue since it never gets turned off.

I just checked out the link for the expander at NewEgg. It seems most have it hooked to tivo. I have Directv HR21. Will it work on that unit? I am also looking on clarification on encryption. Saying that it will work on my DTV unit, can I unhook it and connect to my computer and download shows to burn and make permanent copies?

Currently, I am on my second DVD recorder and am having the same problem with major breakups and pixelation on my recordings. I am convinced when the DTV techs convinced me it was my old HR 20 (silver face) and replaced it with the black faced HR21, my problems started. It is like there is a program inside that they installed disallowing recording. I typically only record Nat Geo, Discovery Channel stuff for my kids, I am not trying to record a bunch of movies off Pay Per View or HBO if that is what they are concerned about!!!!

It is funny that the problems seem to start consistently on the recorded DVD version anywhere between 9 and 14 minutes into the recording!!!!

DTV techs blamed my old HR 20 on generating too much heat (which it did) but my problems (blackouts, audio burps, etc...) have continued more so with the 21's.

Can anybody help????

The eSata unit itself will.


No it will not do that. None of the external eSata/USB drives are able to do that with any of the systems.

You can view the programs on your PC through the HR21 via the Direct2PC viewer over a network.

I'm not familiar with that. I imagine that would mean hook up the directv unit into my Cat 6 cable that is already wired into the walls up to my main computer?

Now, the lady at Best Buy told me yesterday that if I didn't have a very expensive surge suppressor, my equipment may be bad from prior surges, thus the recording issues??????

She couldn't explain however when I bought a brand new Panasonic DVD recorder (from Best Buy) and recorded a show within hours of hooking it up with the same broken video and audio. I highly doubt I had a power spike that fried whatever part she is referring to inside my new recorder!!!!

She then said the problem was because I looped the outputs from the DVR into my Denon receiver and then to the recorder (which is the way I had my Toshiba DVD/VCR unit connected and it worked fine for at least 3 years). I told her I went direct from the DVR into the new Panasonic recorder with the same problems. She had no reply. I pushed her and suggested it was a problem with the Directv DVR and she was firm it was a suppressor issue!

I have looked at alot of threads on both this site and DBStalk and I haven't seen anything that can explain what is going on. I have seen alot of talk about poor quality though regarding the HR 20 and 21's. I don't think Directv will help, I have zero faith in them after what they have put me through since November, 2007.

I am on my 5th (possibly 6th) DVR since May, 2008. They have replaced everything all the way from the dish even down to the barrel connectors in the wall plates with the exception of all the cables which they say are fine based on the strong signal that comes from the dish to the unit.