DVR hard drive replacement

[urthegman]

Hello All, A little frustrated here, spent an hour researching this and called Newegg. The hard drive in my security camera DVR needs replacement. This is the drive You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
Can I replace it with any 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive??? Are any of the specifics interchangeable? Or is my best bet purchasing the same one and adding a second one? If I do add a second one, what are the name of the cables I would need? I am attaching a crude picture of the cables from the pdf . Thanks so much for your help!!! One looks like a sata power latching cable.

[tbone321]

If the drive listed is the one that the device is currently using, then yes, you can replace it with just about any SATA drive but there is usually more to it than that.  Where is the OS located for this device and how is the drive formatted?  If the OS is not stored on the drive and has the ability to both partition and format the new drive then you are good to go.  If not, then you may need to image the existing drive to the new one if the existing drive is still working.  If the existing drive is dead, you may have issues there.  Some devices (like my cable DVR) will detect a new drive and ask for permission to format it but the only way to know if it can do that would be to either get a full manual for the device or to plug a new drive in and power it up to see what happens.  In order to add a drive, you would need an open SATA port on the system board.

[urthegman]

Thank you for the reply, The instruction manual : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login doesn't say anything about formatting. I remember when I plugged it in (after getting it back from the NYPD who used it when a jilted neighbors business partner decided to shoot and kill my neighbor, whole other story!)that it did search for drives. And gave information that only one drive was found. I also remember reading to take it off of record mode before powering down. I am looking at putting two of these: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login drives in. At $38 each I will then have more than enough storage.

[tbone321]

Looking at the manual, it appears that the clear function is really just a format option to clear and prepare the drive for use.  You should have no problem replacing the drive.  There doesn't appear to be any size limits either so those large drives should work as well.  The ony issue you may have is the power cable.  Where it should be a standard SATA power cable on one side, it could be a propriatary connector on the other.  If that is the case, you could possibly order it from the manufacturer or you could probably use a SATA power Y cable.  Another issue is the mounting of the second drive.  If the mount is already installed then you should be good to go but if not, it could be a real PITA to mount it.  I guess that the real question is do you need the second drive?  3.2GB is a huge drive and can store a lot of video. 

[caretaker]

One thing to keep in mind is that not all hard drives are created equal, you should look for one specifically designed for DVR use such as this one from New Egg You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login  Which is 3TB.  Besides Enterprise or DVR drives you could use NAS (network attached storage) drives both of these drive provide more dependability than standard drives. 

[urthegman]

I spoke to a geek at geeks.com LOL  and he said in all probability there should be a second internal sata power supply cable, much like the computer power supplies we use have many connectors. I also told him about diylightanimation and he was very interested. When I go to the configuration menu there is an option for HDD management and under that there is an option for HDD setup and HDD information as well as HDD change setup. When I go to HDD Information, it shows the hard drive that is in there under Master-1 and it also shows Master-2 which is blank so it seems pretty intuitive.

[urthegman]

One thing to keep in mind is that not all hard drives are created equal, you should look for one specifically designed for DVR use such as this one from New Egg You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login  Which is 3TB.  Besides Enterprise or DVR drives you could use NAS (network attached storage) drives both of these drive provide more dependability than standard drives.

Thanks for the link, I will look at it now, and as New Egg doesn't offer technical support, I will see if the geeks.com site has the same one and can also give me some feedback.

[drlucas]

Check out this link...should help. has pictures

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[urthegman]

Check out this link...should help. has pictures

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Thanks drlucas!!!! That is awesome!!!

[tbone321]

One thing to look at in this text is that it states that the maximum drive size is 750Gb, not 3.5TB. 

[urthegman]

Ended up getting two Seagate Barracuda ES ST3500630NS 500GB SATA / 300 7200RPM 16MB for $37.00 each. I should take delivery of them on Tuesday, I will keep you all posted on how I make out. Of course the old drive has now stopped giving me trouble after repeatedly giving me a bad cluster error!!!! 

[drlucas]

Ended up getting two Seagate Barracuda ES ST3500630NS 500GB SATA / 300 7200RPM 16MB for $37.00 each. I should take delivery of them on Tuesday, I will keep you all posted on how I make out. Of course the old drive has now stopped giving me trouble after repeatedly giving me a bad cluster error!!!! 

You know the old saying...only three things in life are certain. Death, Taxes and Hard drive failure. Even though you no longer have the error, it will come back. Your $80 investment won't go to waste!

[sirloinofbeef001]

Ended up getting two Seagate Barracuda ES ST3500630NS 500GB SATA / 300 7200RPM 16MB for $37.00 each. I should take delivery of them on Tuesday, I will keep you all posted on how I make out. Of course the old drive has now stopped giving me trouble after repeatedly giving me a bad cluster error!!!! 

You know the old saying...only three things in life are certain. Death, Taxes and Hard drive failure. Even though you no longer have the error, it will come back. Your $80 investment won't go to waste!

you forgot the 4th thing, the honey do list. Man, I got a nice one this morning. I'm in my office with my ssc's looking like dr Frankenstein I just got my first ss to work I scream its alive and my wife says, yep as long as your alive you need to mow the grass. So there is four, not 3.. Just thought I'd help to clear that up...lol

[urthegman]

Thanks everyone for the laughs AND the help!!!!    I received the hard drives today, followed the instructions and so far, so good!!! I just have to see if the second hard drive kicks in when the first one gets full now.   

[tbone321]

I'm not sure that it works that way.  I believe that you have to start a recording on the second drive for it to be used.  In order for the second drive to be used automatically, it would have to be part of the same logical volume as the first one and I didn't see that option in the units drive utility.  Even in Windows, if you run out of space on drive C, it will not just start using drive D but if drive C is composed of two physical drives, if one fills up, then it will use the other.