SEANHAWG 1 Posted July 22, 2010 I have never messed with putting in or taking out a hard drive out of DVR's so I dont really know alot about the subject, I usually get them with a hard-drive already installed. I recently got in a Samsung single channel SSCDVR and it did not come with a hard-drive. My question is are most consumer grade hard drives compatible with each other. I was considering buying a hard drive from Samsung but I am sure the hard-drive will cost more than what I can re-sell the whole unit for if I bought a new one from Samsung. I was hoping to buy a used compatible hard-drive if it is possible to inter-swap brands. Furthur if anyone has any used hard-drives they want to sell, let me know, size doesnt matter too much. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted July 23, 2010 There should be no compatibility issues from one brand to the next. The main concern will be the interface type (IDE/PATA vs. SATA). Other considerations with SATA will be the power connector: all have the SATA power connector... some have the legacy IDE power connector. If the DVR uses the legacy connector, you may need to make sure the drive has one as well; sometimes you can use an adapter cable, but some DVRs may not have room for it. Also, many SATA drives have a jumper to select 150Mbps vs. 300Mbps transfer speeds... I don't know about DVRs, but I've run into a few motherboards that don't support the latter and won't recognize the drive unless it's set to 150Mbps. In the same vein, with IDE drives, you sometimes have to be wary of jumper settings: if the DVR will work with CS (cable select), you're usually okay. If it requires Master or Slave settings, you may have issues depending on what the drive supports: some have separate jumper configurations for Single/Master/Slave and may need to be set to Single if it's the only drive on the bus. And in both cases, some DVRs may not work with drives over a certain size. If you're just looking to pop in a smaller used drive, this probably won't come up... but it's something to keep in mind. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SEANHAWG 1 Posted July 23, 2010 and thats why I try to get them with pre-installed hard drives, LOL. Thanks for the info!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
