Has Anybody Tried "My DVR" Hard Drive? Recommend or not?

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Got mine when I installed the THD and it has been completely transparent. I would highly recommend it.

 

I purchased mine last October and have never had the slightest hiccup on the Verizon FIOS cable system.

 

Is the MyDVR Expander noisy at all?

I have a My Book external drive by the same company and it's a lot louder than I would want in my home theater set up. I don't have a TiVo HD at the moment but I like being able to record more than 20 hours of shows (HD or otherwise) so when I do make the jump I'll probably be looking at this or Weaknees.

 

bought the MyDVR Expander a while ago and it has worked great. I bought a longer eSATA cable to be safe and that is all I have used. I would recommend it.

 

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I've never heard a peep from mine.

 

Mine has worked well. The only problem I had was the lock up/reboot problem which seemed to be associated with the cable. There was a period of a few days where I was doing stuff around my entertainment system, and it seems ultra sensitive to movement. I haven't had a problem since then. It isn't noisy, but I wouldn't mind being able to turn off that light on the front.

 

Agreed, that light is a royal PITA - who was the genius who decided to put a bloody great glowing yellow beacon on a device destined for use in a darkened home theater environment? I've turned mine sideways and pushed it to the back of the shelf.

 

I don't find the brightness on my particular My DVR Expander to be too bright at all. If anything it's dim compared to the displays of some of my other A/V components.

 

Well, yeah, it's amazing how Tivo-branded items "just work out of the box" and non-branded items don't when Tivo explicitly disallows the use of the non-branded items.

 

I bought mine from BB a couple months ago and it has worked flawlessly! One caveat however...

You pretty much need a UPS for your Tivo and the My DVR. If you have a power outage (even for a couple seconds) it will be enough to knock things out of whack and freeze your Tivo upon reboot. I witnessed the process once and I went *scrambling* for a UPS the next day.

 

Solution:

 

I have one for my S3, no problems using the stock cable.

 

Hmmm.... wonder what the OP decided on. He never posted anything else to this thread. Also, one other benefit of building your own using the Antec MX-1 (if you have an S3) is its very dim drive activity indicator light.

 

I'm wondering if there's something else amiss when a cable swap solves an issue- a SATA/eSATA cable is a pretty mundane item. It's pretty hard to screw them up.

I don't know, though- I suppose a poor-quality connector could make bad contact or something...

 

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784

Some of the cheap, generic, cables don't have a connector that's long enough to reliably work with tivo. I don't know if it doesn't make a good connection or if it falls out. I think the tivo needs a longer connector then is typically needed for computer use.

The users who posted in that thread are giving us the benefit of a lot of trial and error. I wouldn't waste my time using a cable or enclosure that wasn't tested by posters on that thread.

 

If the Tivo's eSATA port is to spec, those cheap, generic cables don't have a connector that's long enough to reliably work with anything if that's the problem.

So the port isn't to spec after all? Not that it matters to us end-users, but it's interesting (if that's the case) to know where the fault lies...

 

from the thread I linked to

I don't know if tivos eSATA port is to spec or if the cables are out of spec.

Take a few minutes to at least read the first post in that thread. After reading all the issues I understand why tivo has specific external drives that are certified plug n play.

 

Well, I believe you, and agree. It appears that one or the other (the cables or the port) is out of spec so getting a cable you know will work is perfectly reasonable.

My point was that if the Tivo port doesn't work with cables normally used with computers (for which I've never run across one that *doesn't* work), it seems to me it's the Tivo that's to blame here.

Again, not that it matters when discussing whether a different cable is needed, but it is an interesting footnote.

I think that's being pretty forgiving of Tivo if you accept that some/many of the cables included with their "certified" solution won't work with their hardware!

 

I've had My DVR Expander for about 6 months with my Series 3 and it has worked flawlessly right out of the box. No replacement cable necessary.

Very quiet and stays cool.

I love it! Highly recommend.

 

Had mine for months and months. It works great. Very quiet. And lots of storage!