Sorry for starting a thread completely unrelated to games but am looking for some GOG community expertise..

I've just bought a budget TV with a PVR function. The specs state that it's compatible with a powered HDD up to 1TB. It seems these are not easy to come by as most are usb plug in and go. In fact the few that I've found are more expensive than newer 2tb portable HDDs!

I'm happy with a 250GB unit but as above, they seem few and far between.

Soooo.....do you have any links for a suitable HDD or even better, is it possible for a technically inept simpleton (such as me) to build one!?

Thanks.

It is overwhelmingly likely that any USB drive will work, as long as it doesn't require one of those Y-cables for extra power. Some drives even work with just one cable plugged in, but it's probably not a good idea to rely on it.

If you still want an externally powered USB drive, one option might be this 2TB Samsung drive for about £66. You could also grab something like this enclosure and just put any internal 3.5" SATA hard drive in there, but unless you have one lying around, it's probably cheaper to go with the complete 2TB solution.

Thank you. The calculation is apparently 2GB + 1 hour of recording. Therefore, I was hoping that I could pick up something like a 250GB as 125 hours is more than enough. My logic was that it would be significantly cheaper than a 1 or 2TB but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Also, if the limit according the specs is 1TB does that mean that a 2TB won't work or it will just the excess would be wasted?

I can't say without trying it. Most likely it will just not see all of the drive, but if it complains, re-partitioning the drive to make the first partition less than 1TB will probably stop it from complaining.

I'm actually a little unsure as to why it says 1TB, since I would expect any limitations to come from the partition table - which has a limit of 2TB.

Come to think of it, you could probably get a standard USB drive working perfectly fine if you buy a powered USB hub or maybe even a cellphone charger and using that as the power source for one of the cheaper 2.5" USB drives, and that would be a bit cheaper - that is, if plugging it straight in doesn't work well enough.

If you have any USB hard drive already, or you can borrow one from someone, I'd suggest trying that first so you can try to figure out what really works.

Thanks - I'm trying to do this on a budget as even 80GB would suffice as 40 hours of recorded tv is plenty. How does the cellphone charger work?

Well, most cellphone chargers these days are USB-based, and at least the ones that come with the phone should allow the USB cable to be detached, essentially leaving you with a USB port on a power plug. There are "stand-alone" USB power supplies available like this as well, this one is £6, but you might be able to find something cheaper (you only need a charger with an output of 500mAh).

Anyway, the idea is that you should be able to plug one end of a Y-cable into one of those to provide the extra power needed. You might have to use an extension cord or something in order to connect the drive to both the TV and the charger, but it could be a way to handle it.

Note that this assumes the harddrive you're using actually *uses* a Y-cable, since you still need to connect the drive to the TV; if it doesn't, then the only way to get external power would be to use a powered hub, unless the TV for some reason can't figure out how to use the hub (I've no idea if that might be an issue).

Have you tried a 2.5" drive on it, yet. Usually they just say that so someone doesn't think a larger 3.5" drive doesn't need the power adapter that comes with it.
You could always go with the larger 3.5" USB drive, all of them come with power adapters as they require more power than USB can supply. If you have a spare desktop hard drive laying around you can by an external enclosure for under $30USD.

Are you sure it uses USB drives? My DirecTV box only uses eSATA drives which are very hard to find and are quite a bit more expensive than USB drives.

Thanks for the suggestions. Although the manual states it needs a powered HDD, it actually worked with a 8GB memory stick. This only allows about 4 hours of recording so I've seen a good deal for a 64GB stick (£18!) and am hoping this will work. If not, I can use it for other purposes.

Keep in mind that usb-sticks don't last as long as hd-drives, which means every sector can only bei rewritten a few time (in comparison to a HD). Used for a PVR you will heavily record and delete files on the stick, so I would recommend to use a hard-drive and not an usb-stick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_sticks#Longevity

Thanks - I wasn't aware of the limitations of USB memory sticks. As mentioned I can still use it for other purposes but was hoping this was a cheap and cheerful solution.

I think that a powered USB hub would be good enough. I assume that the reason a powered drive is required is because the TV can supply only limited amperage through the USB slot. A memory stick would use little power so it's okay, but a disk drive without external power might use too much. A powered hub could supply the required power.

OK. So would something as basic as [url=http://www.lambda-tek.com/USB-H70-1A2-0-DYNAMODE-7-PORT-ACTIVE-POWERED-USB-HUB-2-0~cs/B56585]This[/url] work as a powered USB hub?

Probably. I can't guarantee it, but since it's not expensive it may be worth buying it and seeing if it works (even with a memory stick).