Customer Reviews

Iomega DVR Expander Drive, eSATA, 500GB - 34172

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Iomega eSATA 500GB DVR Expander Drive - 34172

Iomega does it again with another simple storage device that adds storage capacity to my Tivo Series 3 HD DVR. It's simple I plugged it in rebooted and presto it worked!

Connects quickly. Required one reboot to recognize and format the drive and then another to ensure that it was used for recording. Quadruples the capacity of the standard Scientific Atlanta 8300HD.

Does this DVR Expander do the job? An emphatic YES it does. During the Olympics in Beijing, I kept running out of disk space on my Time Warner DVR. I lost out on recording a lot of my favorite programs because of no room in the Inn.
However, the drive is a little noisy. Maybe it's the drive. Maybe it's the fan. Don't know. It's annoying, but you can't hear it when viewing/listening to the TV. Also, a little more technical information about the drive in the instructions from Iomega and how it functions would've been appreciated.
Lastly, I think that the drive that I rec'd (very fast delivery, by the way) may have been returned by someone else. The plastic stand and the power cord were not in their plastic bags. The empty bags and the items were lying separately in the box. I was a little aprehensive about that, but like I said, everything worked perfectly. My DVR space went from 99% full to 23% full immediately upon connecting up. Thank you so much.

DVR drives never have enough space. The Iomega DVR Expander Drive is the perfect solution to the problem. It worked like a charm right from the start and was easy to hook up by just following the instructions. We have a Scientific Atlanta 8240HDC DVR from Cox Cable, but it has an eSATA connection on the back even though that model is not supposed to have one. I called Cox to make sure the Iomega DVR Expander would work even though Iomega only advertises it to work with the 8300 series and above. Cox assured me it would work as long as my 8240 had the eSATA connection, and they were right. My storage immediately went from around 93% to 21%. We used to run out of space all the time, but so far we are still below 35% usage. The Iomega DVR Expander has made it possible to really enjoy our DVR. The Iomega has a cooling fan which makes a slight hum in the background, but it is not noticeable at all when the TV is on. One reason I ordered the Iomega rather than a competing brand was I thought the drive would run cooler and last longer because it does have a cooling fan (some brands don't) and also has an aluminum casing to help dissipate the heat from the drive. This is important because these eSATA DVR Expander drives all run constantly 24/7. Heat is the biggest enemy of long drive life, so the Iomega should last longer. You won't regret this purchase!

My Scientific Atlanta was the 160 gig model. A bit small. The newer model has a 320 gig hard drive, but no other enhancements. So this external hard drive is the perfect solution. Easy to setup up. Small and attractive. Yes the blue light stays on all the time. I don't mind the blue light. Thanks Iomega and Amazon for solving my problem. Now I can record all the HD I want.

Iomega DVR Expander Drive, eSATA, 500GB - 34172
I don't know what else this works with but I have the cable supplied Explorer 8300 series DVR. I'm not technically challenged but if I was this is still the easiest installation I've ever encountered. Typical DVR's are advertised as having X number of hours recording capacity (mine says 30) but if you're recording all HD that drops to somewhere around 15 hours which isn't much if you time shift a lot. With a few simple connections this memory device adds fully 60 HD hours and much more standard signal. It's controlled through the existing DVR so no hassle.

I purchased this to go with my Scientific Atlanta 8300 HDC Cable Box from Time Warner Cable. It works great. Just follow the instructions and you'll be able to get it up and running in no time. Great product!

Just an FYI - It does not work with TIVO HD, it will work with Series 3. I had to return mine and now the the WD unit.

I have not been able to tape a huge percentage of the programs I have attempted to . Customer service gives nothing but lip service. I had 20 minutes of the first 2 hours of "24", 1:10 of the next 2 hours and so on.Very disappointing.

The Iomega expander drive does everything it claims. It's very easy to set up, works seamlessly with my DVR, quiet and small. Your storage capacity immediately goes from 90% to 10% full.
Now the downside... you have no control over where it stores your movies, as far as I know it only is compatible with Scientific Atlanta and maybe a couple other DVR's, it is not portable, that is when you attempt to connect it to another DVR it is reformatted and you lose all stored data.