western digital wdg1s5000vn 500gb my dvr expander esata

Rating:
Date: 2008-07-02
Space...the final frontier
I connected my DVR Expander to a SA8300HD (Scientific Atlanta HD-DVR from Time Warner) and had the same positive experience (so far) as ByTheShore did.

Turn off and unplug DVR, connect and power up My DVR Expander, power up and turn on DVR, and a couple dialogs later I was up and running.

I had a Cavalry 500GB external eSata enclosure that I am returning as I had frequent playback glitches (one to serveral times an hour the video would pixelate/skip and the sound would drop for a second or so). I'm hoping the WD My DVR Expander won't have the same issue...since it is specifically designed for external HD video recording/playback, I have high hopes for it.

[Added two days later] The WD My DVR Expander is performing very well. Dropouts/glitches during playback are mostly gone, to the point that they appear to be just the "normal" occasional transmission hiccups that I get from my cable company (TWC). Recommended.

Rating:
Date: 2008-07-02
Couldn't Be Easier - Works With Scientific Atlanta 8300
What can you say - for a device like this, "scoring" is it easy. It either works as advertised, or it doesn't - this thing works as advertised. It's easy to hook-up/install, or it is not - the directions couldn't be clearer, and it was a snap to hook-up.

I have a Comcast DVR Scientific Atlanta 8300HD. I was constantly running into low space issues. No matter how hard I tried to keep up with "house keeping" it always seemed to run at or near capacity. And with the 2008 Summer Olympics coming up, I was finally motivated to find a solution.

I did few Google searches, and yielded some promising results. Other users of the SA-8300HD had the same problem and came up with varying solutions - build you own eSATA external drive, or buy an out-of-the-box device. I'm pretty tech savvy, having built a number of PCs and external USB drives. The cost of DIY-ing a similar device was about $100-110, delivered. For $40 more, I could get a pre-built and certified device. I didn't want any hassles, so I went with this.

It looks like and is the same size as any of the WD MyBook external drives. It's a little smaller than a hard covered book. It comes with an external power supply and an eSATA cable, and a Quick Install guide.

Total time to install - 15 minutes, tops. I could have done it in less than ten, if I read the install guide fully. I jumped the gun and instead of pulling the plug on the DVR, I just turned it off. YOU HAVE TO UNPLUG THE DVR BEFORE CONNECTING THE EXPANDER. Which is what the directions says, but I skipped.

So, to install, you:

1) Check Capacity of your recorder (mine was at 62%)
2) Unplug the DVR
3) Plug in the Expander
4) Connect the Expander to the DVR with the eSATA cable
5) Plug the DVR back in.

The DVR will go through its boot process. When the clock reappears, turn on your TV and then your DVR. A message will appear:

"Detected an external DVR Expander - do you want to format it for use with this DVR?"

Hit Yes and the message disappears. There is nothing to tell you it is performing the install/format. A few minutes later, a new message appears:

"The DVR Expander is ready to use"

Go to the recording section and check capacity. Mine dropped to 16%!

My recommendation - do not hesitate, buy this. Even if you are tech-savvy, is your time/effort worth $40? This is certified and guaranteed to work. WD drives are typically sturdy, and their MyBooks are highly rated.

Hurry - the Olympics start August 8!!

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-21
TiVo Approved!
This is the same drive that's sold on the TiVo website at a much better price! It works as easily as everyone said it would too! Right away, on the system info screen, it'll tell you about the added capacity but it takes about an hour for the To Do List to catch up so don't panic. If you've got a big home theater set up, do yourself a favor and get a longer eSATA cable, this one only comes with one that is 3 feet long. Happy HD viewing!

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-16
Installs and Works
Read about it 10 days ago, sounded like the perfect product that I could not justify not having at around $200. Quick Western Digital order and delivery. Came home an hour early to install. Out of the box, a few plugs in a particular order, and turn stuff on. The Cablevision box acted funny and I thought that this would be a bust. Re-connected and connected 3 times with no apparant luck.

Went out for dinner .When I got home--2 -3 hours later, the DVR was running. The time already recorded on the Cablevision DVR had gone from 79% to 18%--Perfection.Compatible with Cablevision Scientific American hd digitial recorder. Need it when you want to record in HD.

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-12
Easiest part of buying a Tivo, more storage
The only thing Tivo's done right (besides allowing you to share your media with your networked computers) is additional storage via eSATA external harddrives.

My Wireless G USB Tivo adapter didn't work without a software upgrade to my Tivo DVR (it came with software that was 2 years out of date). My Tivo DVR had out of date software, the cable card you are required to get to make it work is not compatible with ONDEMAND, and it costs about 200x as much as just renting a Comcast DVR.

If not for the ability to add the additional storage and export media to my computer, my Tivo DVR would have been a complete rip off. As it is, I still feel cheated.

But hey, at least the 500 GB storage adapter by Western Digital is easy, inexpensive, and doubles the capacity of my Tivo DVR.

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