Deal on My DVR Expander at Best Buy

[andrews777]

I finally got tired of only having 30-35 shows and decided to buy 2 My DVR Expanders for my two Tivo HD units.

I was quite surprised to find the units for $197 on bestbuy.com via Froogle, Google's shopping site. I was about to order them when I looked for any active coupons and I found this 10% off coupon that expires today (Saturday, 12/29/07). It had to be used in the store, so we went to a local Best Buy today and they had at least 5 or 6 of the units on the shelf, they matched the website price of $197 (instead of the $219 on the sign in the store) and also took off the 10% discount!

http://emailinfo.bestbuy.com/P/v3/CouponWrapper.asp?SID=506315-2-0-ARTICLE-alert_bottom_2&E=9398%3B665723%3B1237981045%3B1%3B02&R=T1_CPN_50458&A=1007&ci=50458

I am now hooking them up, but I wanted to post a quick note in case anyone is on the fence and can get out to the store today. They were in the computer department, though a lady in the home theater area helped me out, matched the price and got me the discount! About $378 for both of them. Not as good as other external drives, but I can take them back locally, if needed, and they will plug and play with the TivoHD. :)

I am happy, at least for now, though I would really have liked a 1 TB unit....

Brad

[Resist]

The only issue I have with this type of extra storage is you need an additional power outlet. Seems to me it would be better to just upgrade the internal hard drive.

[andrews777]

The only issue I have with this type of extra storage is you need an additional power outlet. Seems to me it would be better to just upgrade the internal hard drive.

Perhaps, but I didn't want to monkey with the unit.

It should be plug and play, though I just rebooted with the drive plugged in and it didn't seem to recognize the drive. :(

I have had the latest software for a while....

Brad

[stream]

The only issue I have with this type of extra storage is you need an additional power outlet. Seems to me it would be better to just upgrade the internal hard drive.

I got a 500GB Seagate DB35.3 drive for $130 from thenerds.net. Plus there's 1 less point of failure, and it's very, very easy to do, using WinMFS:
http://www.mfslive.org/

[andrews777]

It is now up and running. I believe the setup screen where you can add the external drive "times out" and it drops to regular TV. This wouldn't be bad, except it takes so long to get to that screen.

Otherwise, it seems to be working fine with 86 HD hours or 810 SD hours!

Now I just have to watch going wild with taping things. :)

Brad

[Wheens]

Now I just have to watch going wild with taping things. :)
Hope you're into reruns! Nothing new going down thanks to WGA's strike.:D:D

[andrews777]

Hope you're into reruns! Nothing new going down thanks to WGA's strike.:D:D

I mostly watch things like the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, HGTV, etc. The writer's strike hasn't had too much impact on me. :)

Brad

[CZBrat]

I just returned from Bestbuy and got the same deal. Had them match bestbuy.com quote and added the additional 10%. Plus I had a $5 off Bestreward coupon for a grand total of $173.19!!

Great deal. Now I will go and expand my Tivo to 500GB.

Thanks for the tip.

[ewilts]

I just returned from Bestbuy and got the same deal. Had them match bestbuy.com quote and added the additional 10%. Plus I had a $5 off Bestreward coupon for a grand total of $173.19!!

Great deal. Now I will go and expand my Tivo to 500GB.

You're actually expanding to 750GB. Those suggesting that it's easier to upgrade the internal drive haven't really done much for pricing comparisons and ease of installation. A 750GB internal drive will run you about the same price as you paid, but it's a lot more of a pain to upgrade the internal drive than it is to just plug in the external DVR Expander. Of course, you do have 2 devices to plug in instead of 1, but you do have a fully supported unit.

[andrews777]

You're actually expanding to 750GB. Those suggesting that it's easier to upgrade the internal drive haven't really done much for pricing comparisons and ease of installation. A 750GB internal drive will run you about the same price as you paid, but it's a lot more of a pain to upgrade the internal drive than it is to just plug in the external DVR Expander. Of course, you do have 2 devices to plug in instead of 1, but you do have a fully supported unit.

That's why I went the route I did, in spite of the costs. I didn't want to have to monkey with the unit. And now I get Best Buy support if anything goes wrong with the drive rather than dealing with Tivo or Western Digital by phone! They may not be perfect, but they are all over town. :)

Brad

[Resist]

Upgrading the internal drive is not a pain, if you send the unit to weaknees and let them do it.

[andrews777]

Upgrading the internal drive is not a pain, if you send the unit to weaknees and let them do it.

Um, that would leave me without a unit (2 in my case) for quite some time. Plus the cost is no longer "cheap" if I have someone else do it.

I now have 86 hours (or so) of HD recording. I would have preferred more, but I can live with this for a while now. :)

Brad

[brettatk]

Upgrading the internal drive is not a pain, if you send the unit to weaknees and let them do it.

It's not a pain to do it yourself and will save you around $300 by not shipping it somewhere to have them do it. It took about 20 minutes to do the entire upgrade. You do have to have limited computer knowledge but it is pretty painless and simple. I upgraded to an internal 1TB drive giving me up to 144 hours in HD. I'll probably grab an eSATA drive once the prices come down a bit.

[Scott D]

Can you link 2 external drives? I know you can internally.

[Resist]

It's not a pain to do it yourself and will save you around $300 by not shipping it somewhere to have them do it. It took about 20 minutes to do the entire upgrade. You do have to have limited computer knowledge but it is pretty painless and simple.Do you have to reset your season passes with a replacement drive?

[mattack]

Can you link 2 external drives? I know you can internally.

As far as I know, Tivos are still limited to 2 drives total... Though that was originally a limitation because of IDE's limitation of 2 drives, I think.

Does eSATA even daisy chain??

Basically -- I would guess no.

[stream]

Do you have to reset your season passes with a replacement drive?

No--the software in the link in my post above copies the TiVo settings (including cable card, season passes, etc.), and you can also copy your recorded programs to the new drive.

[Resist]

I was talking about internal drives.

[brettatk]

Do you have to reset your season passes with a replacement drive?


No, if you choose the right option you will not have to reset anything or lose any recordings.