External TiVo hard drives now available

Good news: the reported TiVo OS upgrade capability to add external storage is now a reality.

TiVo began selling the Western Digital 500Gb external drives for TiVo HD and Series 3 TiVo DVRs. [via uncrate]

Comments

[Michael Pate]

It says it doesn't work with a Series 2. I can't help but wonder if it will work with a Series 1?

Seriously, though, Amazon has some 750GB drives available for just a little bit more.

http://tinyurl.com/2oxyz4

[MegaZone]

Michael,

That's an external eSATA drive - the S1 and S2 are PATA based systems. It won't work with either.

And it is more expensive than a bare drive since it includes the enclosure and power supply. External drives always cost more than the same size internal drive due to the added components.

[0x15e]

Wow, it's a real shame they're basing these on the Western Digital MyBook series. I just had one die at three months old and take 400GB of data with it. From what I've read, that's not uncommon for these.

Hopefully, there isn't really anything special about these (no special firmware or anything) and you'll be able to use whatever eSATA drive you want.

[MegaZone]

You can use any eSATA drive with the Series3, but the TiVo HD is locked down to accept only approved drives. To use other drives with the HD you need to open it up and manually 'marry' the second drive.