Hello FreeSatters,

I am seriously thinking of joining you from the dark side (Sky). When I got my HD box there was not much choice if you wanted to record HD. But I have noticed that I am watching next to no pay TV these days. If I do dump Sky, I intend to get a Grade A FoxSat HDR from Humax Direct. I will be installing my Samsung 1 TB HDD that currently resides in my Thomson Sky+HD box.

Now my question (I did a search for this but could not see an answer so apologies if this is old ground). The Thomson box expects SATA I data speeds (aka SATA 150). I duly downloaded the DOS tool from the Samsung website and set the drive accordingly. What I want to know is what the FoxSat HDR is expecting. I am assuming SATA II (aka SATA 300) but would like confirmation before I re-configure the disk.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

The most important aspect is the drive power consumption - It should be an AV or green drive - I think everyone upgraded using SATA 3gb/s drives.. Here are the power specs for what i have installed.
Electrical Specifications
Current Requirements
12 VDC
Read/Write 1.47 A

Power Dissipation
Read/Write 4.90 Watts
Idle 2.80 Watts
Standby 0.40 Watts
Sleep 0.40 Watts

The HDR will format the drive for you (Max 1TB)

I did exactly the same. got the refurb 320gb and upgrade to 1tb.
You need to ensure you get an PVR disk drive. After lots of reading I got this from SCAN. Note AV-GP means it is designed for PVRs

1TB Western Digital WD10EVDS AV-GP

Thanks for the replies and advice. I am well aware of using low heat generating, low power consumption drives in these kind of units. The original Thomson Sky HD Power Supply Unit was built with such poor capacitors it would typically die at around 16 months (although it was still OK, I rebuilt my PSU at 7 months with parts from Satcure at the same time I installed my first 1TB HDD). Keeping the box as cool as possible would be my priority too.

I have used WD disks in the past, my Thomson is on its 3rd upgraded disk, I work shifts and use it a lot. The first disk was a WD10 EVCS bought in 2008. This started to struggle a bit around last Christmas. The replacement WD Disk was a WD10 EVVS which is designed for PVR use. It was hopeless when playing back HD programming. Over on the Sky HD forum there were a few of us who had fallen out of love with WD and the consensus was that the Samsung SpinPoint F3 was the way to go. I have to say, despite my initial reservations about the brand (bourne out in part by their rubbish FreeSat PVR), the disk has been flawless since I installed it in February, way better than either of my WD disks.

I would find it hard to believe that anyone makes a 1 TB SATA I (1.5 gbps) drive. So does everyone agree I should be reset my drive to SATA II?

yes - It does no harm - so we think.