Hard drive with Dish 211K for RV?

I've had one for 4-5 years. Works great. A one time $40 activation fee & then no monthly dvr charge. Saved a lot of money. I think I have a WD 1tb portable drive. I use it at home & then take it with me in my Class B with my home box. Some limitations have already been mentioned; only can record one channel at a time, and then the sat cannot be switched to watch another channel. I can watch OTA and any already recorded shows on the HD while the dvr is recording.

i do not have dish or any sat receiver

BUT every prior comment on here has been that, the recordings are encrypted and can NOT be viewed on another receiver or PC.

they can only be watch on the box that recorded them

this is also commonly stated on the video forums
i visit

maybe this only applies to built in DVR hard drives
but i am of the opinion it applies too all hard drives internal and external

We have a WD 1TB "My Book AV DVR Expander" connected to our 211K. We can record a sat program while watching on OTA program, watch a sat program while recording a an OTA program, watch and record either sat or OTA while also recording the one we're not watching, or record both sat and OTA programs while watching a recorded program. It's not quite as flexible as our three tuner plus OTA Hopper of course, but it is quite usable for the DVR features.

We have a Seagate Backup Plus 2TB Desktop External Hard Drive bought from Amazon. Works great.
Only downside is that you cannot record one program while watching another program at the same time.
Haven't used it in the RV yet, but will take it along this spring/summer/fall with a library of programs for when the weather does not cooperate.

Despite what Dish says on their web site, the small, portable hard drives powered through the USB port work just fine - have been using one for a long time without any problems. There is a one-time activation fee for the HD and DVR functions ($10, if I recall). The 211 series receivers are single-tuner receivers, so you cannot watch a second channel while you're recording a program on the first. You can, however, watch a program you've already recorded while the receiver is recording a program from a live broadcast. We've been very happy with the setup.

I haven't tried it, but Dish says you can remove the hard drive for playback on other devices (such as a PC), but I haven't tried it. After it's been formatted by the Dish receiver, it cannot be used for other purposes (such as PC backup) unless you reformat/partition the HD for PC use again.

Rob

I've had great results using a hard drive with my VIP 211k + Tailgater.

The connection on the receiver is USB 2.0, the older USB standard. Virtually ANY USB 3.0 drive should work with this. I happened to have an old, powered USB 2.0 drive box, and I used a WD 2TB 3.5" hard drive.

2TB is the limit to the drive, and dish says that the receiver cannot recognize a larger drive. The receiver will erase EVERYTHING on the hard drive when it originally formats it.

Many here are using 2.5" laptop hard drives, and dish says that is OK, along with 3.5" desktop hard drives. Dish insists that the hard drive have a separate power supply, which all 3.5" USB drive boxes have. I've read reports here that some are using UNpowered 2.5" USB drive boxes, and that the reciever is supplying enough power to make it work. I would not do this, because even if it works now it may hiccup at some point in the future and destroy all your data, if that matters.

The programs seem to be stored in the identical quality of the original beam. A 2TB drive shows a capacity of roughly 200 hours of HD programming or 900 hours of SD, IIRC. The interface for selecting your shows is very clunky, and although you can add custom names to your shows the process for doing that is clunky also.

I am told you can swap out your HD for another one, and in this way store more than 2tb of programming, although you cannot access more than one drive at a time. Occasionally on restart the receiver will insist on scanning the drive, which adds another 10 minutes to the process but doesn't destroy any data.

All in all I am very happy with the HD PVR function. It is very simple, once you see it set up, and as the OP noted it is not dependent on proprietary hardware. You supply the drive and that's where your shows are.

I did NOT ask Dish, and I do not know if a drive used with one reciever can be used with another--say if you upgrade or replace your reciever. But I suspect it cannot be used with another customer account.

Took one out of an old laptop, don't remember the size. I works fine and you can watch shows that have been recorded without the dish. You can also record off antenna (if you have the tuner) but the dish has to be up and running.

ReneeG wrote:
We have one and believe it's a Western Digital, but can't remember the size. It works well, but you can't record without the satellite up. I guess that's obvious and one that I often forget. Also, you have to turn it on at the same time as your receiver or you have to reboot the receiver in order to get it to recognize the hard drive. You also have to notify Dish that you have that option on the Dish.

I called Dish because I have a problem with a receiver in my house and if I replace it I loose all my movies and shows I have recorded. So then I thought about buying a hard drive to store them and can use it in the RV. does it work as well as the DVR receivers?

We have one and believe it's a Western Digital, but can't remember the size. It works well, but you can't record without the satellite up. I guess that's obvious and one that I often forget. Also, you have to turn it on at the same time as your receiver or you have to reboot the receiver in order to get it to recognize the hard drive. You also have to notify Dish that you have that option on the Dish.