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Contributor

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2 Messages

Monday, August 2nd, 2010 1:52 AM

Hard drive

Looking for information on the size of the hard drive on the whole house DVR and how many hours of HD programming people are typically getting. Is it as easy as adding an extenal drive to expand storage? Are there 2 tuners like a typical CATV DVR? Thanks

Expert

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20.7K Messages

15 years ago

Quote: Originally Posted by mb2738 

Looking for information on the size of the hard drive on the whole house DVR and how many hours of HD programming people are typically getting.

Personally, before I'd add an external eSATA drive to a DVR in a Whole Home DVR installation, I'd add another HD DVR.  This will double your storage capacity while increasing your recording capacity to 4 channels from 2.  Even better, Directv will replace a broken DVR but a broken eSATA drive is a paper weight.  A DVR normally costs $199, but a seasoned customer can get them for $99.



Professor

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1.5K Messages

15 years ago

mb2738,

 

I agree with user dcd for your initial setup. IMHO, the preferable configuration for a Whole Home installation is to have two HD DVR's and at leat one HD receiver installed. This gives you the flexibility of storing content on either DVR(in addition to the expanded storage capacity) and allows you to schedule recordings from the HD receiver directing them to be recorded on the DVR of your choice. Of course if you want the most storage capacity available, you can add a 1-2TB eSATA drive to each of the HD DVR's following the installation and prior to recording a lot of content on the DVR's(you lose access to any content on the HD DVR's "internal hard drive" when you attach the external eSATA hdd). A 2TB eSATA on each HD DVR will give you the ability to record more content than you will ever find time to watch:0)

Contributor

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2 Messages

15 years ago

Thanks for the great info....


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