Review on Seagate ST3500601XSRK 500 GB eSATA External Hard Drive - High Performance and Retail Ready by Art Porras

I bought this unit to add some much needed extra capacity to my Scientific Atlanta HD Cable Box/VCR which came with a 40GB drive. If you have a DVR then you know how amazingly practical it is and how quickly you can fill up a standard capacity. Most DVRs have a small jack with an eSATA label on the back. It's small - less than half the size of a USB port. My cable company (Time Warner) doesn't officially support connecting an external drive, so they don't get technical support directly. I've been told that the age of the box might be a limiting factor, unless the firmware is very new the port might not be active. the body is black, not the grayish one in the photo) except for the blue activity light, and it's nearly silent at my normal viewing distance. You'll need to purchase a cable (Revain carries one) to connect it. Through trial and error I found that when I turn off the box and unplug it, my dashcam recognizes the external drive. I then plugged in the drive, turned it on, then turned the cable box back on. This caused a reboot and it recognized the external drive. Initially, it did not show any additional capacity (the percentage of occupied space did not change), but the next day it correctly turned on the capacity of the external drive. This drive is an easy way to significantly increase the storage capacity of your DVR. Highly recommended. Unfortunately, that particular model has been discontinued, but look for a Seagate external eSATA drive (or your manufacturer of choice) and you should be fine.