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2 Messages

Tuesday, October 5th, 2021

DVR Expanded Storage

Can a Fantom GFORCE 3 DVR Expander be connected successfully with a DirecTV HR44-700 DVR? The Fantom drive is 4TB

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ACE - Expert

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23.4K Messages

4 years ago

DirecTV HDDVRs or Genie support external DVRs that use eSATA.

Regular HDDVRs have a hard cap of 2TB

Genie (such as HR44) have no official hard cap, though 4TB was suggested early on. But there are those who have used up to 12TB or more successfully.

External is used instead of internal to prevent transferring of recordings. Also those recordings are encrypted to their exact DVR, so cannot be moved from the HR44 to something else.

The internal remains inactive while external is connected. Unplugging and rebooting would revert back to use the original drive. Caution as the eSATA port was not built to do this very often. So it is more for plug in and use for the long term.

ACE - Expert

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21.3K Messages

4 years ago

Only if it uses Esata

ACE - Professor

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2K Messages

4 years ago

@StuKH

This Works and as posted your GENIE needs a ESATA port located on the rear  --USB CONNECTION will Not WORK! 

Amazon.com: Fantom Drives 6TB DVR External Hard Drive Expander - USB 3.0 & eSATA - Supports Directv HR34, HR44, HR54, HS17, Arris and More, Silver (DVR6KEUS) : Electronics

ACE - Expert

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2K Messages

4 years ago

Also be aware the external drive replaces the internal drive, it doesn’t add to that storage. 

ACE - Professor

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2K Messages

4 years ago

NOTE: ESATA does "replace" the internal drive --so when installed all your series links will needed to be added to the "NEW" Drive --That being said --Should you ever remove the ESATA Drive --the receiver will revert to the INTERNAL DRIVE and you can still view all the stored recordings on that drive as well as record new shows. 

New Member

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2 Messages

4 years ago

Thank you. Very helpful and thorough answer. Much appreciated


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