Ext. hard drive for Dish VIP211k?

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I received the VIP211Z a couple of days ago with the Winegard X2 package. It took THREE attempts to get DISH to activate the external hard drive option. First person said it didn't have that ability and disconnected from chat while I was looking for information. Second person (I contacted them by phone) said I did not need to do anything, it would just work. I explained that there was a one time charge of $40 dollars, and he said not to worry, it would work--it didn't. Third person asked me for the S/N of my hard drive, I told her that that didn't matter, as I should be able to use any compatible hard drive, so she transferred me to advanced technical support. They knew exactly what I was asking, and although it took some time, I at least left with a VIP211Z that now will record externally.

jram116 wrote:
I just installed the WD mybook from Dish. It is the 2tb hard drive and works great. The only thing that I do not like is that if you are recording a show you cannot watch a different channel than what is being recorded.

If you have your OTA antenna connected to the 211k you can watch an OTA channel while recording a satellite channel, or record an OTA channel while watching a satellite channel.

I just installed the WD mybook from Dish. It is the 2tb hard drive and works great. The only thing that I do not like is that if you are recording a show you cannot watch a different channel than what is being recorded.

I use a WD hard drive for mine we record movies at home so we can watch camping it works good except we exclusively dry camp with out hookups and it seems to use a lot of power. If I did it again I would try to find a drive that runs on 12 volts
So I did not have to run it thew an inverter .

This "WD MyBook AV DVR Expander" is one of the recommended drives in the Dish VIP211k manual. I have one for mine, and it works perfectly.

I just used, and am using at this moment, an old hard drive i had been using with my desktop in my office. This works very well.

Get a WD Passport. Works fine.

p.s. I believe that the largest I have tried is a 500GB.

I bought mine as part of the dishformyrv.com package deal. It is a Toshiba 500 Gb. I think any external hard drive up to 1 Tb with USB connection and external 120 vac power will work.
Some have reported using a thumb drive successfully. Have not tried that.