Ext. HD for Dish DVR

Looking to buy an external HD for my Dish 722k DVR. Any suggestions or tips?

 

http://store.westerndigital.com/sto...d.13092400/catid.13094600/categoryID.56007400

 

I know this is an old thread but I am going to move you away from a WD external drive if im not too late. I have seem a few threads of late where people have WD my book external drives and the HD controller has died. Apparently the HD Controller encrypts the data on the disk so if your controller dies you cant plug your disk direct into your PC using a Cady or SATA cables... or at least if your do the drive is not recognised so all your data is lost. Not a good solution imo.

 

Again, this is an old thread; however I would recommend passing on a pre-built external drive in favor of buying a bare drive and installing it in a fan cooled enclosure.

When I worked in retail, I ran into dozens of customers who purchased inexpensive external drives (no fan cooling) for use with a DVR or to store downloaded/copied DVD movies. Within a few months, the drives would fail and I'd end up having to explain the following to p*ssed off people who had lost their videos:

When used in a PC, a hard drive runs intermittently and has some degree of air flow around it. During video recording and playback, the drive spins for hours at a time. Although some Dish and DirecTV boxes do not have air cooling, users who are adding an external drive are usually doing far more recording/playback than a typical user.

The bottom line is that a hard drive without some form of cooling is subject to a far greater chance of premature failure due to overheating. In extreme cases, I have seen pictures of a disassembled failed drive where the platters literally warp and shatter due to excessive heat. A drive enclosure with a built in 80mm fan will greatly reduce the chance of this happening.

As for what drive to use, I prefer higher grade models such as WD's Caviar Black series or Samsung "RE" (Raid Enterprise) models (although most drives up to 1TB will work with most Dish/DirecTV DVRs, it is best to check the Dish/DirecTV website for advice on specific drives that have been tested with the specific model of DVR you have).

Hope this helps.