My previous post on upgrading my Bell Expressvu receiver with an external hard drive has become one of my most popular posts. I’m continually answering questions about which external hard drive would be compatible with the Bell Expressvu receivers.
The specifications that are published by Bell about which hard drives are compatible with the Expressvu receivers are as follows:
- 7200 RPM rotation speed
- Between 40 and 750GB of capacity
- Holds a single hard drive (enclosures holding 2 disks are not supported)
- Plugs into an AC power outlet
- USB 2.0 connection
- No sleep mode (cannot power down when idle)
However, through experience I have found that 1 TB drives do work. There is an issue when some drives get close to full which causes some of the receivers to lock-up. USB keys do not work on your receivers. These have no power source and this is a requirement for external hard disk drives to work with the bell receiver.
The best drives I have found are the cheap Retail Plus drives that I’ve purchased at Wal-Mart. These drives range in price from $50 – $80 for drives ranging from 500 GB to 750 GB.
I have also built drives that work fine. Maybe in the near future I will post which external case and drive you can combine to create your own external hard disk drive for your Bell Expressvu receiver.
Hi, love the blog.
Can you confirm that the 9200 model is not able to use an external drive. I read online you can plug a usb key into it to show photos (of no interest to me), but using a ext hd would be nice. Of course bell’s site reads as if they can only sell and service the 9241.
thanks
We have a Bell ExpressVu 9241 PVR. We just bought 2 Lacie 1T drives and they work beautifully. Just like your posts — plug in and they format and you’re ready to go. And the drives were on sale at Best Buy for $59 which makes it a very cheap way to expand your PVR!
Thanks for the great info. Your posts set us in the right direction with good info and technical details.
1. Can you connect an external drive to a 9200?
2. Is it possible to share an external drive between 2 receivers? ie record on one top play on another.
I bought a Seagate Free agent Goflex portable hard drive USB 3.0, 1 TB. It does not have an AC source but is powered by the USB port. Will it work on a Bell Express Vu 9241 PVR receiver or do I have to get an external hard drive with a AC power source?
Shawn, the drives must have an external power source according to Bell.