# 500GB Seagate DB35 DVR Series Hard Drive - $134 shipped



## jerobi (Sep 28, 2000)

Hot price! TheNerds.net has the popular *500GB Seagate DB35 DVR Series Hard Drive* on sale for $134 AND free shipping on all $100 orders (usually ~$10) = only *$134 shipped*.

I grabbed one of these last month after a lot of research and they really do live up to their claim of being whisper-quiet. Enjoy!


----------



## jerobi (Sep 28, 2000)

Update. This drive is still working wonderfully in my TiVo. I needed another one for a different TiVo and the price has dropped to $110 + $10 shipping = only *$120 shipped*.

Excellent drive, excellent price.


----------



## dwit (May 5, 2004)

jerobi said:


> Update. This drive is still working wonderfully in my TiVo. I needed another one for a different TiVo and the price has dropped to $110 + $10 shipping = only *$120 shipped*.
> 
> Excellent drive, excellent price.


That is a pretty good deal.


----------



## jerobi (Sep 28, 2000)

Another drop! Now the *500GB Seagate DB35 DVR Series Hard Drive* is only $104 + $10 shipping = only *$114 shipped*.


----------



## Beretta1526 (Dec 29, 2004)

I'll certainly be picking up one of these...

.


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Personally I think you're settling when you should go for the gusto...

http://www.thenerds.net/SEAGATE.Seagate_Cheetah_15K5_ST3300655LC_Hard_Drive.ST3300655LC20PK.html


----------



## Tivo_60 (Jun 13, 2003)

Yikes ! That's some spensive drive Lucy.


----------



## HomieG (Feb 17, 2003)

Zipzoomfly.com has the Samsung HD501LJ 500GB internal SATA drive (3-year warranty) for $79.99 with free 5-7 day FedEx delivery. Not too shabby a price for a decent drive.


----------



## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

That's a good price on the Samsung. I wouldn't spend the extra money just to get a DB35 seeing as how they're nothing more than a rebadged Seagate drive that you can buy for much less. The DB35 just exceeds certain parameters vs. any other standard Seagate drive. The difference in performance is virtually invisible to the end user and certainly not worth the premium price they attach to the DB35 line. I've had DB35 drives and other drives from Seagate and Western Digital of the same capacity and can't see any performance improvement with the DB35 models vs. any others. Save your money and go with one of the standard drives at a lower price.


----------



## Tivo_60 (Jun 13, 2003)

It's really not a matter of perfromance is it ? It's a matter of designed to
run 24/7 under dvr conditions. IMO that may be worth the peace of mind for the extra $. Having said that, I had a Seagate 120 gb drive in my Hughes dvr for 4 yrs without a hic up.


----------



## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

The DB35 drives aren't going to hold up under those conditions any better than your stock off-the-shelf retail drive. I don't honestly know which parameters are tested that makes the DB35 drives better in certain areas. 

The one thing I've learned about drives designed for multimedia applications has to do mostly with thermal calibration. Most hard drives have to be recalibrated on the fly to make sure the heads can track the data properly. The platters get hot and expand, causing the tracks to shift on the platter. The heads have to be recalibrated for this shift or else the drive would have no idea where to look for the requested data. During the calibration period, the drive stops reading and writing data to the platters, which could result in a slight recording or playback glitch. 

Multimedia drives are supposedly designed to eliminate the need for thermal calibration and thereby prevent any interruption in data flow to and from the platters. The Quantum Quickview drives were of this type but I don't know if the DB35 drives fit into this category. All I know is that my DB35 drive has as many glitches as the standard drives I've been using that cost me about half as much as the DB35 model.


----------



## dwit (May 5, 2004)

" Seagate DB35 - Drives Built for your DVR, PVR and Consumer Electronics Devices

When searching for a new or additional hard drive for your TiVo (or other digital video recorder), it is critical to understand that the quality and type of drive used matters tremendously. DVR manufacturers such as TiVo, DIRECTV and others spend countless hours and resources "qualifying" hard drives to ensure that they choose drives that will provide optimal performance.

Almost since its inception, WeaKnees has been using high-end drives made specifically for DVRs. Initially, we used the Maxtor QuickView hard drives are drives specifically manufactured for the PVR market. In mid-2006, Seagate purchased Maxtor and with it, Maxtor's QuickView line. In addition, Seagate has developed its own line of DVR-specific hard drives, the DB35 line, which has been qualified in many TiVo and other DVRs.

Seagate's DB35 drives, and Maxtor's QuickView drives have never been available in retail stores, and can only be purchased through authorized resellers, such as WeaKnees.com.

Seagate DB35 drives and Maxtor QuickView drives have a few key differences from normal desktop drives that make them far superior to desktop drives for PVR usage:

Thermal Control: On board sensors monitor temperature and adjust characteristics as necessary to keep the temperature optimal. 
Durability: These drives run at 7200 RPM - more than fast enough for every PVR (providing about three times the necessary peak throughput) but not fast enough to wear out sooner. 
Acoustic Management: DVR-specific drives are specially tuned to run as quietly as possible. 
A/V Streaming: DVR-specific drives have been optimized and tuned to provide consistent data to the PVR processor. Standard desktop drives can hang while retrying drive reads - QuickView drives know to move ahead and provide more data to keep video smooth. 
Error Recovery: Desktop drives retry on errors to make sure that your Excel spreadsheet is exactly right - it's imperative. But when watching video, if one block of data is bad, you may not even notice a dark spot on one frame for 1/30th of a second. So these drives are tuned to move past errors faster, putting the stream of data as top priority. Where desktop drives often cause stutters, these drives run smooth. 
More information about Seagate DB35 drives is in this PDF.

For a white paper discussing the benefits of the DB35 in DVRs, click here.

More information about Maxtor QuickView drives is in this PDF..."


----------



## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

And if you really believe all that crap I've got some swampland you ought to buy. That's nothing but sales hype from Weaknees designed to sell you a more expensive drive at an even more inflated price. FWIW, the drives that come in a stock Tivo or DirecTivo are just plain vanilla OEM drives and not multimedia drives. If the multimedia drives were really that much better, don't you think it would make sense for Tivo and/or DirecTV to use them? On paper they perform better than stock drives but the reality is that you probably won't be able to see any difference.


----------



## dwit (May 5, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> ...That's nothing but sales hype from Weaknees designed to sell you a more expensive drive at an even more inflated price...


Provided by Seagate/Maxtor:

For a white paper discussing the benefits of the DB35 in DVRs, click here."

"More information about Maxtor QuickView drives is in this PDF"



> ...FWIW, the drives that come in a stock Tivo or DirecTivo are just plain vanilla OEM drives and not multimedia drives...


Original drives in my Tivo units:

Toshiba sdh400-Maxtor Quickview 80g

Tivo 540040- Maxtor Quickview 40g

Tivo HD- WD1600*AV*BS (Wonder what AV means? Of course we know what the "BS" means?)

Tivo 649080- WD800BB ("plain vanilla oem"?).

So apparently, Tivo may at times use non-multimedia drives, but for the most part, I guess they are in on(taken in by?) the "marketing hype".

FWIW, my upgraded drives:

Toshiba sdh400-plain ole 400g Seagate-noisy as hell(at times), can be heard across room.

Tivo 540040-plain ole Seagate 300g-about as noisy as above.

Tivo 649080-plain ole Seagate 750g-pretty quiet.

Tivo HD internal- Hitachi Deskstar 1TB(removed from external usb drive)-very quiet, silent to me.

Tivo HD external- WD10EACS- again, silent to me.


----------



## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

I guess I should have rephrased my statement to indicate that _most_ drives used in a Tivo are plain OEM drives. Every drive I've ever seen in the dozens of Tivos I've owned have all been standard OEM drives. I have heard that some models may contain different drives but I haven't seen any hard data to indicate that specific models come with specific drives. I think it pretty much boils down to what brand they have in house at the time they build the Tivo. Tivo apparently gets them from several different manufacturers, which may or may not include drives "optimized" for use in a DVR.

The point I'm trying to get across is that although the multimedia drives look good on (white) paper, in reality the end user will see little or no difference in the way the DVR performs. In the end, isn't that what really matters? Why pay a hefty premium for an imperceptible increase in performance? A standard OEM drive can last as long as any given DB35. Life spans of a hard drive are so inconsistent it's extremely difficult to say how long any drive will actually last. I've had drives that have lasted for 5 years or more while others were DOA right out of the box.


----------



## therain93 (Mar 22, 2007)

Soapm said:


> Personally I think you're settling when you should go for the gusto...
> 
> http://www.thenerds.net/SEAGATE.Seagate_Cheetah_15K5_ST3300655LC_Hard_Drive.ST3300655LC20PK.html


That costs as much as my car did brand new (2000 Hyundai Elantra!)


----------



## Tivo_60 (Jun 13, 2003)

therain93 said:


> That costs as much as my car did brand new (2000 Hyundai Elantra!)


That drive is only 300gb, what makes it so expensive ?


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Tivo_60 said:


> That drive is only 300gb, what makes it so expensive ?


That is an Ultra SCSI 2 drive with a rotational speed of 15000 RPM (most desktop drives currently have a rotational speed of 7200 RPM) and is designed for use in Enterprise level server and SANs.


----------



## Tivo_60 (Jun 13, 2003)

JYoung said:


> That is an Ultra SCSI 2 drive with a rotational speed of 15000 RPM (most desktop drives currently have a rotational speed of 7200 RPM) and is designed for use in Enterprise level server and SANs.


Double the speed, OK, but twelve grand.....c'mon that's just insane !!


----------



## bhlewis (Dec 21, 2001)

The price is for a lot of 20 drives, so it's about $620 per drive.


----------



## Tivo_60 (Jun 13, 2003)

Ok, I missed that about 20 pcs, still a lot per drive for only 300gb IMO.


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Tivo_60 said:


> Ok, I missed that about 20 pcs, still a lot per drive for only 300gb IMO.


You do get that these aren't intended for home PCs?
(In fact, it's the rare home pc that even has an Ultra SCSI 2 interface.)

These drives are intended for corporate servers, server farms, and Storage Area Networks.

Big businesses use these drives for systems that need to be up and reliable in situations where downtime can cost you thousands of dollars a minute.

Putting this drive in a standard desktop pc or TiVo is like putting racing car tires on the Family Truckster.


----------



## DoPeY5007 (Jun 19, 2004)

I just got this drive from PCConnections for 104 shipped!


----------



## ddelora (Aug 17, 2005)

Those are server based drives, not for this types of application (video streaming). The premium is for the 15krpm and the advanced error correction coding needed to applications of this type of drive (Server farms for banks, etc)


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Tivo_60 said:


> Ok, I missed that about 20 pcs, still a lot per drive for only 300gb IMO.


i did too... I thought maybe it made coffee in the morning or kept the server guys from being lonely... :up:


----------



## jerobi (Sep 28, 2000)

Big recent drop! Now the *500GB Seagate DB35 DVR Series Hard Drive* is only $87 + $10 shipping = only *$97 shipped*.

I have had two of these running in my TiVo boxes (one since November 2007) and they're still quiet and worry free.


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

jerobi said:


> Big recent drop! Now the *500GB Seagate DB35 DVR Series Hard Drive* is only $87 + $10 shipping = only *$97 shipped*.
> 
> I have had two of these running in my TiVo boxes (one since November 2007) and they're still quiet and worry free.


Every drive is worry free the day before it goes bad... :up:


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Soapm said:


> Every drive is worry free the day before it goes bad... :up:


Speaking of which I think my drive is taking a dive on me. Now to decide where to buy.


----------



## mandms7 (Mar 11, 2006)

If you want a truly quiet drive, I would not recommend these drives. I purchased one, and it was not remotely quiet. I could hear it clearly from across the room and was louder than the Seagate 400GB drive it was replacing. I tried RMAing it 5 times, because I thought I just had bad units, but they were all the same loudness. I ended up selling it and just this week bought a Western Digital 500GB AV drive (WD5000AVJB). Same concept as the DB35, except Western Digital incorporates acoustic management, and the drive is considerably quieter (and runs cooler) than the Seagate drive. I'd highly recommend it over the DB35.


----------



## tlw_2 (Apr 12, 2008)

I'm going to replace the stock W/D in my series 3 and I'm truly grateful for the advice. I have replaced the Hard drive in my iMac with a 7200.11 Seagate Barracuda and although it performs very well, the acoustics leave something to be desired. I think all Seagate drives are noisy based upon what I know and what you're saying. Thanks for saving me the trouble... I'll just do a W/D to begin with.


Tim


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

mandms7 said:


> If you want a truly quiet drive, I would not recommend these drives. I purchased one, and it was not remotely quiet. I could hear it clearly from across the room and was louder than the Seagate 400GB drive it was replacing. I tried RMAing it 5 times, because I thought I just had bad units, but they were all the same loudness. I ended up selling it and just this week bought a Western Digital 500GB AV drive (WD5000AVJB). Same concept as the DB35, except Western Digital incorporates acoustic management, and the drive is considerably quieter (and runs cooler) than the Seagate drive. I'd highly recommend it over the DB35.


Where did you pick up your WD drive and for how much? The Seagate DB35 I have which is brand new just started making a high pitched noise.


----------



## cdeckert219 (Jan 7, 2006)

innocentfreak said:


> Where did you pick up your WD drive and for how much? The Seagate DB35 I have which is brand new just started making a high pitched noise.


For what it's worth, these drives (WD5000AVJB) are still available... I just picked up one for my Humax DRT400. I had upgraded to a 300GB (about 5 yrs ago?). Recently moved the unit into the bedroom and it was too loud. So, thought I'd switch to a larger and quieter drive.

I ordered from Newegg on Saturday ($84.99) with normal shipping. It was on my doorstep this morning. Sweet!


----------

