I need a external drive to connect to my TV's USB socket in order to record TV programs when we are out and dont know whether to get a 100gb or 250gb.Will not be doing much recording.

100 is plenty big enough then.

If you are getting a YouView box you may not need to record much of anything as you can stream it.

Have you thought about how this hard disk will be powered?

Just get a 500GB or 1TB drive, you can get them (host powered) for £40-ish or even less. You don't need an SSD for this.

It can be either USB powered which I prefer or mains powered

I'd get a PVR. Although it will cost a bit more it will be far more convenient and suitable for the purpose, once you get one you'll probably find you'll use it a lot more than you thought.

If it's a choice between the two then iiuc the 250GB ain't gonna be all that more expensive than the 100GB so get the bigger one. You say you won't be doing much recording but (1) that could change (2) with more room you can keep a bunch of recordings on the drive without that meaning there ain't no room to record other stuff and (3) when the next Comic Relief or The Grammies comes on tv and you're off out and would like to see a particular bit but don't know when it will happen, all that room means you can simply record all 4-5 hours of the show without it putting much of a dent in your recording capacity.

Other posts have addressed the "maybe a bigger drive would be better" situatution.

ps. oh yes, and when you next go on holiday, big drive = record EVERYTHING you could possibly conceivably want to watch.

Silly question but wouldn't the TV need to be switched on to allow the recording to take place?

I also always thought the TV needs to be left on to record to hard drive.

Also I doubt the recording process is going to be particularly reliable.

A better use of money would be a PVR.

My TV can record to USB when in standby, I belive most can these days.

Dual tuner pvr with 500GB (or greater) hard disc drive is the way to go. Single tuner recording is actually more limited than the old days of video tape.

I've got a 1TB western digital 2.5" plugged into my Sony TV - got a bit carried away when I bought the TV and saw it supported hard drives - completely overlooked the problem of it being single tuner which limits the thing to scheduled recording when you can't view live TV - I only use it for pausing live TV - bit of waste.
I've also got a Humax HDR Fox T2 which is far more useful and I can archive HD video from it.

2tb WD USB powered drive hanging out of my samsung smart tv f7000 which is dual tuner (can watch one, record another at the same time) ideal for the odd series link / live event. Do need to hold its hand ie constant notifications 'do you want to double check' etc

100gb = 50 hours of freeview SD / 35 hours of HD (approx)

I've used an 8GB usb stick before. Now I have a 240GB SSD attached.

I'd have thought an SSD was a poor choice for this application because of the continual writes. The speed is no advantage over a normal drive here.

I was just mucking about with it. I don't record that many programmes. Speed wise the Samsung is very picky over what speeds it likes.

In other threads, the OP has said he has a Humax box, so why the need for a HDD?

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...34&postcount=5

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