Deal of the Day: eSATA Drives

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segate-esata.jpg

Want to upgrade your TiVo Series3 with external storage? Me too. After a failed journey Micro Center yesterday, I started researching online deals for eSATA drives. In addition to finding a good price, my criteria also included 500GB drives that come enclosed and with an eSATA cable.

So far I’ve found two decent deals worth sharing:

11 thoughts on “Deal of the Day: eSATA Drives”

  1. That Seagate looks like a great drive and a great price. However, check out the reviews on Amazon:

    One person said it was a great drive for his Scientific Atlanta HD DVR, but another person wrote “The power switch automatically resets to the default “OFF” position when the mains power to the drive is cut. This switch must then be pressed (and held for a few seconds) when attempting to power the drive up again, and is successful only AFTER the computer has reached some (as yet to me unclear) point in bootup… The power switch should simply stay in whatever position the user leaves it in. This irritates me almost enough to give the drive THREE stars, but it is better than that.”

    That sounds like a deal-breaker for a TiVo add-on drive. I’d hate to come home some day and find out that a power failure caused my TiVo to reboot, but the eSATA drive is off, and the TiVo has since decided to remove everything from the “Now Playing” list that had been stored to the now “missing” eSATA drive…

    I suppose I should ask about this on TiVo Community but if anyone knows about this power switch I’d love to hear about it. Otherwise I’d be seriously considering the Seagate drive as I’d expect it to be reliable and quiet. I wonder if it’s possible to just crack the eSATA case and hard-wire the switch to “on”… :-)

  2. Hm, that’s a good point and you just stopped me from pulling the trigger. (I’d rather have a Seagate than a no-name brand.) If true, I wonder if there’s some sort of management widget that allows you to go in and change the default setting without opening the case. Then again, this may be another good reason to have the Series3 on a UPS. ;)

  3. Its not much more expensive to just blow $240 on a 750gb disk and enclosure at Microcenter after rebate. (Seagate 750gb and $25 powerspec esata enclosure with cable)

  4. Hmmm. The other thing I’m curious about is noise… People were initially concerned with getting Seagate DB35 drives to keep the TiVo quiet, and now we’re shoving any old drive into an eSATA box and hanging it off the back? If you’re willing to have a noisy external drive, then you might also consider just sticking that drive inside. It’s a slight hassle to copy the original drive but at least you get to keep that drive as a backup… (I think I still have my original S1 15GB pre-upgrade “backup” drive laying around somewhere…)

  5. After reading that the power “on” is crucial to have, does anyone know if the CAXM37500 500GB 7200 RPM has this feature, also is it cooled by a fan?

  6. Regarding the Cavalry 500GB (CAXM37500) drive, you can find 31 reviews of it at Buy.com (http://www.buy.com/prod/q/loc/101/203268361.html). $129.95 after $10 rebate and free shipping too (from Buy.com).

    One review notes that the fan is switch-controlled (rather than temperature-controlled), two more talk about the cheesy power button, and another notes that the drive has a slight hum noticeable when the room is otherwise quiet (which might be kind of a bummer when watching movies).

    Most reviewers noted that the drive is a great value, except one that says”avoid this drive” after getting a DOA. Several noted that it does run a bit warm even with the fan on. Sounds like the actual drive is usually WD or Samsung.

    I’m still undecided. I wish the internal 750GB DB35 drives would get a little cheaper, but the easy-install external drive option (heat, noise, extra power consumption and all) is looking really attractive, especially at $130 for 500GB.

    I wonder if TiVo will ever provide content-management options so you can move shows from one drive to another to faciliate upgrading of the external drive without losing your saved shows… Yeah, right. Doubtful. I won’t hold my breath. :-(

  7. Yeah, I’m having the same debate. I may just hold off on any sort of expansion until Comcast gives me more HD cable channels and/or TiVo gives me HD-only Suggestions.

  8. Hmmm. Lots more reviews for the USB version of this Cavalry drive (), including another really negative one and a bunch of positive ones. Sounds like a good one may stay a good one, but never forget “you get what you pay for”. After shelling out $800 for a Series 3 TiVo, I’m thinking the internet DB35 is the (best, quietest, and most reliable) way to go, especially since it was designed for PVRs. But how long can they demand top dollar (still nearly $300 for the 750GB DB35) for it?

  11. Well, that 500GB Cavalry drive is down to $99.95 at Buy.com (after $20 rebate), and it looks like they changed the case. The new case is smaller and has a real power switch.

    And, they now have a 750GB version for $165 (no rebate): http://www.buy.com/prod/cavalry-750gb-dual-interface-usb-2-0-esata-external-hard-drive/q/loc/101/202734456.html and a 1TB version for $226 (no rebate): http://www.buy.com/prod/cavalry-1tb-dual-interface-usb-2-0-esata-external-hard-drive/q/loc/101/205986373.html

    Of course, TiVo is still selling the 500GB WD drive for $200… Come on, TiVo! Where’s the 1TB “official” drive?

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