I had a Western Digital hard drive connected to my old DVR. When I got my new Quantum TV server, I found an esata port to connect it, but there is no software with which to make the connection.
@LIC wrote:I had a Western Digital hard drive connected to my old DVR. When I got my new Quantum TV server, I found an esata port to connect it, but there is no software with which to make the connection.
You cant use external HD's with the new media servers yet. They are working on a new firmware to allow the option.
When will that be out? No one knows yet.
Can't be too hard if we've done it before????
Did a self install from my old DVR to the new Quantum Media Unit. Tried plugging my WD External Media Drive in and...nothing. Wish the account Representative had told me that my external would not be able to be installed immediately when they contacted me to renew my contract and I ended up upgrading my service to the FiOS Quantum. Glad to see a thread about it at least. Hopefully the engineers will take note and work on the issue. One would think that the feature would already be active on the new Quantum Media Units to fully support subscribers who had the additional storage on their older DVR units. Hope they come out with the firmware soon. With the number of shows my family DVRs, we need all the storage we can get.
I had the exact same issue where the agent never mentioned anything about Quantum DVR boxes not being compatible with external hard drives. He just told me it would operate the exact same way as the old DVR boxes without the large boxes in each room... Verizon says they're working on making the boxes compatible, but give me a break. Like they really don't know how to do that yet??? They probably have the firmware on each box already and they simply need to activate it if they ever decide to. My first thought is that it is an attempt to get people to upgrade to the Premium package so they can get the extra 1TB of storage, in which case, they will most likely NEVER come out with the firmware to make the externals compatible. I sincerely hope this isn't the case however.
Verizon has not said they are working on External drive support with quantum.
Just to expand:
Rational is that they already meet or exceed what other providers provide, so no reason to support even more storage.
This of course does not include TIVO, but that is not a direct offering from other providers.
This is the second time that I know of that a FiOS upgrade has wiped out our DVR recordings. I'm not sure about other people but I am ALWAYS behind a few weeks with one series or another and ... if I attempt to catch up ... I will not be able to watch things being recorded while I catch up.
I don't care about my external hard drive as they are certainly providing more than enough space (for now). The problem is that we must sacrifice all of our existing DVR content. So, I have to wipe 80 hours of saved recordings ... some unwatched ... to get 200 hours of blank space?
This means that I completely missed the last two episodes of The Voice. This means that my 18-month old daughter can cry all she wants but she will not be able to watch "Minnie Mouse's Winter Bow Show" for a very long time.
Would you upgrade your computer if it meant you would lose all your data (spreadsheets, music, pictures, etc...).
*** VERIZON NEEDS TO FIND A WAY TO TRANSFER EXISTING DVR CONTENT WITH UPGRADES ***
@jaja714 wrote:This is the second time that I know of that a FiOS upgrade has wiped out our DVR recordings. I'm not sure about other people but I am ALWAYS behind a few weeks with one series or another and ... if I attempt to catch up ... I will not be able to watch things being recorded while I catch up.
I don't care about my external hard drive as they are certainly providing more than enough space (for now). The problem is that we must sacrifice all of our existing DVR content. So, I have to wipe 80 hours of saved recordings ... some unwatched ... to get 200 hours of blank space?
This means that I completely missed the last two episodes of The Voice. This means that my 18-month old daughter can cry all she wants but she will not be able to watch "Minnie Mouse's Winter Bow Show" for a very long time.
Would you upgrade your computer if it meant you would lose all your data (spreadsheets, music, pictures, etc...).
*** VERIZON NEEDS TO FIND A WAY TO TRANSFER EXISTING DVR CONTENT WITH UPGRADES ***
I was all set to "upgrade" to Quantum TV, but my family & I as well have 80 hrs of programs we haven't gotten to watch yet.
I will upgrade - when there is a whole month that none of the programs we record are airing. I did some figuring and it turns out switching to Quantum will save me a few bucks a month by eliminating one of our two DVR's, and the set top box replacements will be the same price as the existing.
Does anyone know if we are capable of connecting the new and old DVR's to our homes at the same time so at least we can watch our recordings on the old equipment while the new equipment records the new programs?
Verizon will charge us hundreds of dollars for unreturned equipment if they do not receive the old stuff within 30 days - might it not be more customer friendly to make that a 60 or 90 day window for us couch potatoes that have excessive recordings?
In any case jaja714, your question of:
"Would you upgrade your computer if it meant you would lose all your data (spreadsheets, music, pictures, etc...)." was inappropriate.
The appropriate question is:
"Would you upgrade your computer if it meant you would lose all your data (spreadsheets, music, pictures, etc...) on the computer, AND LOSE ALL YOUR BACK-UPS ON REMOTE MEDIA AS WELL?".
What with today's technology (Cloud storage and such) Verizon should be able to have customers upload their recordings to "the cloud" and get them back after the switch.
JMO.
Keep in mind that if the DVR you have the drive attached to were to need to be replaced, you would also lose all of your recordings as well.
You can keep both, but there is a cach. The old DVR can't be used to watch live tv. It can't be connected to the network. You can use it like a standalone vcr- to view your old recordings.
You will be charged for it.
And if it ever loses power, you can't use it anymore.
how do you set it up to watch just the old recordings ?
Disconnect it from the cable, but don't power it off.
Connect to an unused port on your TV.
Watch away.
If you lose power though, you can't watch anything any more.
Don't forget to leave yourself enough time to return before the 30 days are up or you will get charged for it.
I have the same problem. Just upgraded and plugged in external 1TB drive - NADA. So now with whoopdeedo Quantum, I have 1TB storage instead of the 1TB plus 80GB with my old system. The Customer Service slimeball who sold me the upgrade said the external drive would work with the new set top box. Of course, he lied about a few other things also, but I didn't know that at the time either. Verizon needs to reign in their sales people if it really cares about its customers. Instead, I think it has simply trained all of its people to "apologize for the inconvenience." I've heard that about a hundred times in the eight calls I had to make to get the delivery sorted out and to get the darned new system working. Please note that every problem was at Verizon's end, not mine.
Such a scam. Not only is it $20 more a month but you also lose the $20 lifetime promo discount from when you signed up. So, it's actually an extra $40 a month.
Then, when you realize that you are actually losing hard drive space ... I went from 1.5TB (500 internal + 1TB external) to 1TB (external disabled)., reversing the upgrade only gets you back half the money. When I reversed the upgrade to go back to the original equipment, I was told I would never get that lifetime $20 discount I got when I signed up.
So, I am now being charged $20 extra ... per month ... lifetime! ... just becasue I tried to upgrade and was dissatisfied.
I feel everyone's pain here with regards to an external (WD) hard drive compatible with the Quantum media server boxes. I just don't understand why Verizon would bother put both an eSATA and USB port onboard without any intentions for (future) usage with an external drive. Can anyone at a senior level at Verizon confirm a future firmware upgrade that would make an external drive compatible with this hardware as your (phone) tech support and CSR's seem split and/or clueless on the matter supplying false details just to make a sale. Just not cool.
btw, with regards to customers not having enough HD space with the new media servers to record all their TV shows, you do realize you can access aired episodes via On-Demand.
Last word I had heard was that they had no plans to enable eSATA as they felt that the current recording size met or exceed the competition.
DVR is no intended to be a personal library. It is to record to view things later.
And I don't believe that Verizon built these boxes.
They bought an off the shelf product that the vendor had.
I just received my new boxes and same issue, when i plugged in the external, there was nothing.
The Agent explicitly told me that I would be able to use my external drive, and i wish I read these forums first. I wish they would have had all the information.
I will say for me, its actually a little lower cost as i had 4 boxes and upgraded to a 5th, so even with the 5th, I am paying the same price as 4 previsously. Still very disappointed about not able to connect the external drive.
The Agent told you that the external drive would work? Of course he did. He wanted you to pull the trigger on the upgrade and he knows full well that, when you call back later to complain that statement can easily be denied. My Agent promised me the same thing and ... guess what? The external drive is not recognized and all of the other Verizon Agents deny that I was promised oherwise.
The bottom line is that I paid $150* to upgrade and an extra $40 a month ... for less space!
*NOTE: why was my fist bill $150 higher even though I was promised a one-time upgrade fee of $50? If anyone out there knows the answer to this question, please tell me because the Verizon agents cannot.
Here's the real kick!!!! I was told by 2 different sales people the WD ESata drives I used on my old DVR's would work on the Quantum VMServers. Hooked up the units and spent 2 1/2 hours on the phone with tech support trying to get them to work. Frustrated I hung up and told tech support I would call back at a later day and time. Just got off the phone with a support supervisor to be informed the no external drives currently work with Quantum system. I wish I could backcharge Verizon for wasting my time because of misinformation supplied to customers and their own people. **bleep**!
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