External drive for DirecTV DVR

dllmrobinson · Post by **dllmrobinson** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 4:06 pm

Very cool. Thanks for the info. I've got one HR20 getting installed tomorrow and another one coming in a month. I'm already shopping for an expansion!

You are correct - there is no eSATA port on the back of this unit. There is what appears to be a firewire port on the front - is this implemented as a drive interface?

I wouldn't think a firewire port would be over-saturated by the older video standards. The older standard is 480x480 before it's converted to the 352X240 for NTSC. That'd require about 15MB/sec throughput, x3 for two tuners recording while watching another video. Providing the device caches well enough to avoid thrashing the harddrive on the back end, a firewire would handle that much IO.

Has anyone tried plugging a drive into this front port?

pzieger · Post by **pzieger** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 7:26 pm

Referring back to the same system manual mentioned before, it says the port on the front behind the door is a USB as is the one on the back. I doubt it has been enabled for an external drive. Throughput on a USB port is about one third that of an ESATA port.
Pete

regman · Post by **regman** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 2:36 am

No you're not correct - both of my HR20-700 and HR20-100S both have eSATA ports on the rear. If you are using a Seagate FreeAgent 750G drive you will have to purchase an eSATA to eSATA cable as it it not supplied with the unit. They are about 10 bucks at Fryes. Do not buy a SATA to eSATA cable. Even though that rear port is marked SATA it is an eSATA receptacle.

There is no firewire and the USB port has no drivers installed. One tech told me that they weren't even plugged into the motherboard but I didn't open it up so I can't confirm that. The CAT5 port is not functional at this time either. I can only guess that the USB port might be used for some kind of external controller in the future.

pzieger · Post by **pzieger** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 9:10 am

regman wrote:No you're not correct - both of my HR20-700 and HR20-100S both have eSATA ports on the rear.

The CAT5 port is not functional at this time either .

If you read the thread more carefully you will see he was talking about the R15, which does NOT have an ESATA port.

And the "Cat5 port" better known as an RJ45 is definitely enabled on the HR20-700. That is how mine connects to "phone home" to DirecTV. I have mine patch cabled to one of my local network hubs. To setup this port go to Menu-> Help & Settings-> Setup->Network. You can also test the connection there. The confirmation that it is working is listed under Info & Test with both "Network" and "Internet" showing "Connected".

And you can get the eSATA cable from www.monoprice.com (part# 2882) for only $3.50 each. I got 4 including shipping for $18.60 total.
Pete

regman · Post by **regman** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 4:00 pm

Missed the H15. So you're tying up a RJ45 for the telephone on your LAN? I wish I had the luxury of more ports in my theater. Unfortunately i only installed 2 from my router and the reciever uses one of them.

What I meant by "functional" is that there has been discussions about making streaming video available from devices like Blu Ray players on your LAN so you can view videos on your computer. I can view videos on my receiver from other computer's on my LAN as well as WAN.

pzieger · Post by **pzieger** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 4:34 pm

I'm not really tying up anything on my LAN. It's connected to a 10/100 4-port switch connected to my main 10/100 24-port switch. Rumors are that the new Video on Demand feature from DirecTV will be via broadband so I figured I'd be ready with the DSL hookup to the RJ45 port in case they enable that route.
Pete

jerfilm · Post by **jerfilm** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 6:20 am

Easy solution - Dump DirecTV and switch to DishNet. USB port now enabled for 39 bucks and you can add at least 750 gigs of hard drive storage. Then, the only problem you'll have is: how do I rip the programs from the HDD unto my computer and then burn them onto DVDs.......but one of these days, someone will write that program and then this will all be an unhappy memory of the past......

pzieger · Post by **pzieger** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:23 am

jerfilm wrote:Easy solution - Dump DirecTV and switch to DishNet. USB port now enabled for 39 bucks and you can add at least 750 gigs of hard drive storage.

Why would I do that when my HR15-700 has it's eSATA port enabled for free and I already have a 750gb already attached. Besides eSATA is 2-3 times faster than USB.
Pete

wdonovan · Post by **wdonovan** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 7:49 am

Hi Guys,

I've been watching this post with interest, as I just got an HR20-700. I have a question, can you use more than one extra drive? By that I mean have two extra drives when one fills switch to the next one, or will you not be able to replay off the first extra drive when it is reconnected. Thanks

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