I received my 1TB WD My Book AV Expander today. Here's how it went down:
Unpack, plug into back of DVR with included eSATA cable, plug WD HDD into wall outlet, turn on DVR and TV. See prompt on TV about new attached storage. Look for and find remote that kids misplaced. Then Press A on remote to format. Wait 30 seconds. Now when I press List it shows 5% Full (used to be 40%). It didn't even interrupt the current recording. No more taping over my World Cup matches. How easy is that?
So far no heat from new hard drive and it's whisper quiet. Drive also comes with a USB cable (not needed for this project as the Scientifc Atlanta 8300HD supports eSATA only for adding storage.) From WD's website this drive is on the list of supported drives for Time Warner SA8300HD but it was still a relief to see it immediately recognized. Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1 TB USB 2.0/eSATA External Hard Drive
We have had a TiVo Premiere XL for about 2 months and got this pretty quickly as an accessory along with the wireless-n adapter. This 1TB HD works great and combined with the 1TB internal drive on the Premiere XL I now get 301 HD hrs/up to 2637 SD hrs (I have the SD recording quality set on highest so I actually get 447 sd hrs capacity). Installation was easy as I was used to hooking one of these external HDs up to the cable DVRs (we still haven't gotten rid of them all yet-still waiting for the "tuning adapter" just for this TiVo). The directions are on the TiVo website, but you basically unplug the TiVo, plug the HD eSATA into the TiVo, then plug in the HD and wait for it to spin up (about 20 secs), then plug the TiVo back in and the on-screen menus will take care of the rest after booting back up. No problems whatsoever with the exception of one time watching a show where there was a hiccup in the recording-not sure whether the recording was on the TiVo HD or the external HD-and rewinding to get it to play again sent the TiVo to do a reset. Only has happened once in 2 months. Very quiet, virtually no HD noise (you can hear spinning if you stick your ear up to it). Looks pretty nice with the single pin dot although you can just as easily hide it behind components if you want.
I was a little hesitant because I have had mixed success with WD externals. One, a 2GB My Book Studio II works great as my main backup with firewire on a Windows 7 x64 PC. Another, an older WD My Book 500gb had lots of issues with the controller card inside and eventually it failed-but I cracked it open (literally because this version at least was not user serviceable) and was able to remove the 500gb HD and put it into an Antec external enclosure and now it works great as a media (audio/video files) drive.
I bought this unit to expand the memory capacity of my Tivo HD unit. My journey started with a chat with Tivo technical support where they informed me that this DVR expander is the only unit they recommend as compatible with Tivo equipment. Placed the order at Amazon and got the unit the next day. Followed the instructions step by step and my Tivo froze. Called Tivo (twice), with no luck in resolving the issue. Called Western Digital: very nice staff but no help either. Got a call back from Western Digital the next day and they said that my Tivo required a firmware update. Called Tivo, no such thing, as my firmware was up to date. Then, I went back to the Amazon website and found from a reviewer (whom I am now very grateful for his comments), that he managed to make this unit work by replacing the ESata cable that comes with the unit with another one. Short drive to Radio Shack and $10 bucks later, Voila! the unit was working perfectly after a short 15 minutes set-up time. On the positive side, this expander is very quiet, with almost no heat generation and so far and no issues with the quality of the recording.
Connection is about a 5-minute job, but initial boot-up takes awhile. Western Digital instructions are incomplete and fairly useless--just diagrams.
Unplug the Tivo power cord. Connect the SATA cable between WD Expander and Tivo. Power on Expander (check for white light in front). Plug in the Tivo power cord. Go to Settings menu on Tivo, then External Storage, then Add. Then, BE PATIENT! It took my unit about 25 minutes to boot and reconfigure everything. A couple of times I thought something might be wrong but I continued to wait and it finally completed and worked. You can also find instruction on Tivo's Web site. These are basically the same as given here.
The Expander box only shows compatibility with Tivo Series 3 and Premiere. But, that is wrong. I suspect that reviewers who say it does not work with a Tivo HD unit had a defective unit or cable, powered off and on in the wrong sequence, or were impatient and bailed out while the Tivo was still reconfiguring during the initial boot-up.
I bought from a local Best Buy store. Their price is too high ($150). But, I wanted the convenience of easy return in case the reviews saying the Expander would not work with a Tivo HD were correct.
I hope this helps anyone with a Tivo HD that is considering the WD My Book AV DVR Expander.'
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