FiOS TV Technical Assistance

[#1]

Some posts from 2008 said that it was expected that we would be able to use the eSATA port on the 7216 to add an external drive, has this happened yet? I want to expand the capacity on my DVR...

[#2]

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psycd4u wrote:

Some posts from 2008 said that it was expected that we would be able to use the eSATA port on the 7216 to add an external drive, has this happened yet? I want to expand the capacity on my DVR...

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There are no U.S. cable providers that offer eSATA on their Motorola boxes.

I don't think anyone said the Motorola boxes would get eSATA.   It was always a possibility, but not a likely one.   System bandwidth on the QIP6416 and QIP7216 is very limited which makes it difficult to support encrypted eSATA storage that works reliably.

Verizon is expected to offer a new DVR with at least 320GB this year, although it's unclear when that will happen.  That new DVR may or may not support eSATA expansion at launch.

Two third-party HDTV DVRs are already available for FiOS with functional external drive expansion.  Moxi features 500GB internal with eSATA support, and TiVo is expected to introduce a next-generation DVR tomorrow (March 2 @ 7pm) with eSATA support.  More information at Engadget here.

[#3]

No cable companies offer.....    

When you say that are you excluding dish and directv style companies...  because they have esata support.

[#4]

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Hubrisnxs wrote:

No cable companies offer.....    

When you say that are you excluding dish and directv style companies...  because they have esata support.

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While that is true, their external storage implementation isn't perfect.

With DirecTV, connecting an external drive disables the internal drive.   With Dish Network, you can't directly record to the external drive, you can only move recordings from the internal to an external drive using a menu; if you fail to move recordings, and the internal drive fills up, older recordings are deleted just as they are on the FiOS DVR.