DVR cable box and Sata drive

[mytzen]

I would like to add an external hard drive to my DVR and I wanted to make sure I am buying the correct items prior to doing so. I have Cox cable and they said the option to add the external drive is available.

From what I have read I will need to get a standard 3.5" Sata hard drive, an external case and sata cable. My questions are about the case and cable as I am not sure what I need to get. Does anyone have any suggestions for these? I read that I might need a special cable but there wasn't any other information about it.

Thanks for the help.

 

[MDS]

You don't necessarily have to buy a separate enclosure and drive and put it together yourself. Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate et al all sell complete external drives. All you need to do is determine what type of interface the cable box provides for an external drive - USB or Firewire or both.

The majority use USB 2.0 but there are also many models that also support Firewire. I use a 300 GB Maxtor external drive to store music ripped from CDs and it is connected to the computer via Firewire.

 

[Hi Ho]

The cable box has an E-SATA connection, not USB or Firewire. You can find pre built hard drives or you can buy the enclosure and drive seperately and possibly save a few bucks.

Enlcosures
Hard Drives
Complete Drives

You will also need an E-SATA Cable if nothing else you get includes one. I would stick with Seagate or Western Digital drives. Make sure you get a SATA hard drive if you decide to put it together yourself. Silverstone makes particularly nice external enclosures but they are a bit pricier. It's definetely a good idea to try and find an enclosure with a fan to keep the drive nice and cool.

 

[Adam]

Another brand you could consider is Other World Computing. A little pricey, but they are nice looking.

Some possibilites are here.

 

[mytzen]

I'm going to go with one of the pre-built ones, thanks for the help.