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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 132
Enthusiast
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 132 |
 I have recently seen on e-Bay various makes/models of Freeveiw Recorders for sale which seem quite cheap,but are sold without Hard drives installed. Are Hard drives a universal fitting? Are they the same as a Hard drive from desk top pc and are they easy to install? 
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Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 21,269 Likes: 4
Wiki Master
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Wiki Master
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 21,269 Likes: 4 |
You have IDE and ATA (sata).
I just pulled my old sky HD box apart, to find a 500mb Sata Drive.
That is not your only concern, you need to correctly format the drive or it's UN usable.
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 574
Smartchild
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Smartchild
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 574 |
Steve. As Mark said, some use IDE (also known as ATA or PATA) drives and some use SATA drives. The connections are different, so you need to find out which the unit you are looking at has. Also check whether you need 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch (more likely the latter).
IDE drives are obsolete and supply of new ones has all but dried up, so you'll most likely have to buy a second hand one.
Yes, they're the same as desktop PC hard drives.
As regards capacity, you'll get about 1 hour of recording per GB, so a 500GB drive would hold very roughly about 200 full-length standard definition movies.
When you fit a new drive in the PVR it'll usually offer to format it, so don't worry about formatting. The format is not compatible with Windows - if you take a drive from the PVR and put it in a desktop PC, it wont be able to read the files.
Are you looking at the Topfield 5810 PVR by any chance? I got one of those minus the hard drive from ebay a couple years ago and fitted a drive. It's a nice machine, a bit quirky but I don't think any of them is perfect.
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 2,293 Likes: 3
Forum Master
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Forum Master
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 2,293 Likes: 3 |
Best Freeview recorder I've found is the Humax.
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Joined: Dec 2011
Posts: 1,026
Forum Guide
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Forum Guide
Joined: Dec 2011
Posts: 1,026 |
Think I've got a hard drive recorders hard drive somewhere from when I bought a loa of electricals and the HDD recorders were faulty so I just took out the hard drives and chucked the rest. Ill see if I can lay my hands on it. From memory it was a 500gb.
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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 132
Enthusiast
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 132 |
Thanks T. That would be great.
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 574
Smartchild
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Smartchild
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 574 |
These adapters can be a very mixed bag. Some work with PVRs, some don't. I had to try a few but found one that works with a 1TB SATA drive in the Topfield I have. Oddy enough, it was the cheapest (99p from Ebay, though I had to wait for it to come from China.)
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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 132
Enthusiast
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 132 |
Thanks to all who contributed,I am always grateful for your superior intellect! I have tried to PM, but,am "Chuffin
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