WD's 500GB My DVR Expander drives certified for use with DISH HD DVRs

by Darren Murph, posted May 16th 2008 at 2:20PM

From what we can tell, this is just marketing hoopla to get you to buy a drive "certified" for use in a particular application; in all actuality, users can connect any USB 2.0 external hard drive to their DISH Network HD DVR and expand their storage capacity for a one-time fee. Nevertheless, Western Digital has just let loose its 500GB My DVR Expander, which "more than doubles" your available recording hours by storing up to 300 hours of SD content and 60 hours of high-def goodness. As predicted, the drives work with the satcaster's ViP family of HD DVRs, and WD is apparently looking to expand the brand to other carriers as soon as they get with the program and enable USB storage. Those willing to fall for this ploy can procure the half-terabyte drive for $149.99, but considering that the port activation fee is still charged, we can't imagine looking elsewhere first.

[Via FarEastGizmos]

Filed under: DVRs, Other hardware, Set-top boxes, Satellite

Tags: dish, dish network, DishNetwork, external hard drive, external hdd, ExternalHardDrive, ExternalHdd, hd dvr, HdDvr, My DVR Expander, MyDvrExpander, storage, wd, western digital, WesternDigital

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Rob @ May 16th 2008 3:23PM

I've got one that looks just like that. Paid $100 for it and use it with my ViP HD DVR. Of course my 500GB drive holds more then 60 hours of HD! Probably closer to 100 hours.... I have 75-80 movies in HD archived on it.

Neutral

riverside_guy @ May 16th 2008 4:27PM

This item would be less expensive if it has ONLY a SATA connection (USB means it must have electronics, SATA is the native format drives use). For the cost of a eSATA connector, it COULD have accommodated both USB and SATA (which all SciAtl boxes use).

As for "100 hours" it might very well hold that much BUT at the expense of additional compression added by your provider. If they are NOT adding more compression to squeeze moire channels in, then 60-80 is about the best you can hope for.

Neutral

Ernesto @ May 16th 2008 11:21PM

I've had this ever since they announced you could use an external hd. Of course I got this AFTER I tried using a 1TB external hd (my mistake i guess) as the limit is 750GB, booooooooo. It works, SATA would have been a lot nicer and faster, it takes rather long to transfer shows but at least you can do it in the background. But once the file is on the external, the USB is slow, fast forwarding/rewinding is so choppy and slow its not even funny, compared to the built in drive of course. Its great as I don't have to delete shows but I'd love to be able change the internal drive.

Neutral

Stormprobe @ May 20th 2008 8:33AM

There is a eSATA version too. The My DVR Expander: http://wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=334&language=en

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