DVRupgrade quality?

[jlanzy]

Any quality/reliability issues with the DVRupgrade external add-on drives? Specifically the Seagate DB35.

The external enclosures don't indicate if they are fan cooled which would seem to be better for longegivity. Also, hard or soft switch?

[tivoupgrade]

Any quality/reliability issues with the DVRupgrade external add-on drives? Specifically the Seagate DB35.

The external enclosures don't indicate if they are fan cooled which would seem to be better for longegivity. Also, hard or soft switch?

After looking at several types of enclosures, we decided to use one without a fan for several reasons; we didn't want an enclosure that relied upon a fan to keep the drive cool (ie, we didn't want things getting to hot if the fan failed) and we wanted to keep things as quiet as possible. In the end, the one we chose was made of heat-conductive aluminum and it transfers any heat generated by the drive. With that said, all the drives we've selected for use in the enclosure run very cool and barely warm up the enclosure at all. So in the end, we have no reason to believe that having a fan in the enclosure itself will make any bit of difference and the more appropriate place to have one might be in your entertainment center if its not so well-ventilated.

As for quality of drives.... DB35's are OK and their reliability, whether used as an internal drive or an external one shouldn't matter. We've not found their reliability to be as good as Samsung drives, overall, however they are slightly quieter and may be a bit more impervious to sector errors as they are tuned to ignore very small errors if there are problems. IE, they may perform better if they do have minor flaws. The Hitachi drives we use haven't been in service long enough to raw any huge conclusions, however they appear to be fine so far. I'd say they are all comparable, its just a matter of personal preference.

The switch on the back is a "hard" switch - so if you do lose power to the device, it will come back on without you having to power it on. Obviously important if you should have a power failure and need everything to come back up and be recognized by the TiVo.

Lou

[jlanzy]

After looking at several types of enclosures, we decided to use one without a fan for several reasons; we didn't want an enclosure that relied upon a fan to keep the drive cool (ie, we didn't want things getting to hot if the fan failed) and we wanted to keep things as quiet as possible. In the end, the one we chose was made of heat-conductive aluminum and it transfers any heat generated by the drive. With that said, all the drives we've selected for use in the enclosure run very cool and barely warm up the enclosure at all. So in the end, we have no reason to believe that having a fan in the enclosure itself will make any bit of difference and the more appropriate place to have one might be in your entertainment center if its not so well-ventilated.

As for quality of drives.... DB35's are OK and their reliability, whether used as an internal drive or an external one shouldn't matter. We've not found their reliability to be as good as Samsung drives, overall, however they are slightly quieter and may be a bit more impervious to sector errors as they are tuned to ignore very small errors if there are problems. IE, they may perform better if they do have minor flaws. The Hitachi drives we use haven't been in service long enough to raw any huge conclusions, however they appear to be fine so far. I'd say they are all comparable, its just a matter of personal preference.

The switch on the back is a "hard" switch - so if you do lose power to the device, it will come back on without you having to power it on. Obviously important if you should have a power failure and need everything to come back up and be recognized by the TiVo.

Lou


Thanks, Lou, that was informative and now I don't I have to second guess myself about purchasing the add-on hard drive as opposed to 'building' one myself.
joe