5 years for most hard drives??

Sonny300

It has been my experience with computers that hard drives usually fail after 5 or 6 years. Wouldn`t the hard drive in the Shaw HD PVR be the same ? I`m thinking now of just buying the Shaw HD box for about $300 less and also purchasing a DVD recorder instead. Besides, I have a "hell-of-a-time" just figuring out how to work the VCR. Good thing we dont plan on purchasing the TV,HDbox, etc, until January. Prices are still dropping, and that looks like a good time to buy. I really just want to be able to record shows that come on after 10pm, after we have gone to bed. Yes,yes ,we old foggies aren`t usually up after that. Any opinions and advice would be much appreciated.. Thanks, retiredgeorge

MikeRox

I think thats just unlucky mate, I've never had a Hard Drive fail on me *touch wood* and some of them are 10-12 years old now in my older PCs.

Chris Gerhard

I would say 5 years in a PVR is better than average. I have been using many PVR's since October 2000 and have had several hard drive failures and without doing the math, I would say having a PVR running 24 hours a day and getting over 5 years is better than normal for me and the hundreds of PVR users I have communicated with at the TiVo Community and AVSforums. I have had 3 PVR's running for most of the last 7 years and I am trying to think of how many failed hard drives I have replaced. Maxell did a warranty exchange on 2 drives for me and I had one failure out of warranty I just replaced, another Maxell I happen to have sitting beside me right now, a model 4R120LO, 120GB IDE. I have replaced many other smaller drives with larger drives without failures just for greater capacity. Right now, I have 4 PVR's running. Two DirecTV HR20-700's with 350GB drives, one TiVo HDR212 with new 40GB, and one Motorolla DCT6412III with 120GB drive. All drives are less than a year old. I have never had even one of my PVR's run over 5 years without failure, I have ended up replacing the PVR or the drive before that time. I would consider myself lucky if I did run one 5 years without failure. The PVR usage is much tougher on a drive than PC usage.

Although I have had IDE drives fail in PC's as well, I would say my PC drive failure rate is not nearly as high as my PVR drive failure rate and over 5 years of use would be normal for a PC application.

Chris

Sonny300

Thanks Chris:

I wont be buying the PVR, rather just the HD box without it, and maybe a DVD recorder, so I can just record on disks. Cant justify buying a PVR at $700 plus every couple of years. It`s taken some time to convince the wife to go high-def, and even then she insists I wait until Jan when the price drops even more. I hate to agree with her, but she is right about that . It is people like you that help people like me make informed decisions, and for that I am truly grateful... retiredgeorge

JohninTenn

Do the separate DVD recorders have any compression built it? I just think it isn't that easy.

chrpai

Ya sure.....

redito

Actually, if you buy the PVR from Shaw they will replace it free of charge if the drive fails before the end of 5 years. Frankly, one of the things they do well, at least in my experience, is service.

I've had a drive get corrupted because I placed it somewhere without enough ventilation. They replaced the unit within 2 days with a brand new updated model (from a 6412 P2 to a P3). No charge, no fuss, no muss. Guy unhooked the old one, hooked up the new one. Gone in less than 20 mins.

And I know quite a few people with this experience.

Let me also say this. The PVR has changed the way we watch TV. We record everything. Buzz through the commercials and crap we don't care about. When we do watch live TV (football games, for example) we don't worry about missing anything because we just hit the Pause button.

Trust me. It's easy to use. You use the on-screen guide to choose what programs to record and then sit back and relax. Piece of cake.

Also, and I'm not advocating a mutiny here, you might want to check out the Digital Home Canada forum. There is lots of info there on different boxes and all kinds of help if you get into trouble. Plus it's canadian so it's specific to what's available in your area.

__________________
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Sonny300

That`s interestiing cause they only state a 3 year warranty. But if you can still swap it out within 5 years if there is a problem,well, now ya got me thinking. I`m not buying a larger TV until Dec.08, and with this new info, maybe will have to save for the PVR as well I will keep my HD box , and see if they will give me anything for my Digital box? (only paid a hundred for that one). Thanks for answering my other post about comparisons in pricing for HD channels. Yea, I think that Shaw gives us a fairly decent bang for the buck.

sethiano

sorry i have to post 2 more times so i can ask my question in the forums and link a page *stuuupid* heh