Need a Recorder???

You should be able to record on your Wally by connecting an external hard drive. Here's a link:
https://www.mydish.com/support/products/receivers/hopper/how-to/receiver-to-ehd

Tom_M, thanks for that info, was aware of it from my Dish account. What I need is a Model Number for the recorder. What are folks out there using/recommending? Thanks.

I bought this one. 2TB DVRdaddy External DVR Hard Drive Expander For DISH Network ViP 211K 722 722K 622 612 922, Hopper and Wally DVRs. +2000 Hours Recording Capacity!. I think it would have been cheaper to buy one from Dish.

Maybe I am not understanding. If you pay/activate the service, Dish Wally is your recorder and the external, USB harddrive is your storage. See step 2 in the link above.

The Wally is the recorder, but it has no internal hard drive, thus the need for the external drive.

Sorry for using the incorrect terminology. Got it now I think, my Wally does the recording but it gets stored on an external hard drive, correct? If so, I need recommendations for the external hard drive. Thanks a bunch guys, appreciate all the help.

Just about any USB external hard drive will work. I've never had any problem plugging one in and having it accepted by the receiver. Once plugged in, you'll see a message on the screen letting you know the drive needs to be reformatted to be used by the receiver. Accept that prompt and wait for it to finish. Then go into the guide and set up a schedule you'll like to record. You can record the remainder of an event by pressing the record button on your remote.

I took one out of an old laptop and put it in a case. When I plugged it in it formated and I called dish. I paid them $40 I think and they turned it on. The VIP doesn't have power enough to run it so I have a "Y" cord one end for data plugged into the VIP and the other plugged into a usb wall wort.

When I referred to an external hard drive, I meant one in an enclosure that had it's own power supply - a 3-1/2 inch hard drive works fine. Some of the 2-1/2 inch notebook drives would work but most of the enclosures for them don't have an external power supply.

First, determine whether your Wally requires a USB-2.0 or USB-3.0 hard drive (so you don't order the wrong one). We use portable USB hard drives that do not have an external power supply and they work just fine with both our 211Z and our Wally.

Rob