30 hours of HD recording got you down? Weaknees is taking pre-orders for S3 units with expanded internal storage. I assume they’ll also offer hard drive upgrades to folks that have already made a purchase or want to get in on the Lifetime Service VIP dealio. Michael tells me he’ll have pricing info up later today, so expect an update from me then.
UPDATE: Weaknees is selling stock S3 (250GB drive) for $799, double storage S3 (500GB) for $1299, and triple storage S3 (750GB) for $1599. Upgrade kits for $399 (500GB) and $599 (750GB) are also available. So the question is, how bad do you want it?
Based on how quick they’ve turned this around, I assume traditional upgrade methods work if you’re comfortable moving drives around and operating from the command line… though there may be some question regarding Western Digital’s unique drive connector.
I only see a listing for the standard 32 hour Series 3 on their website. Did you receive word that they’ll be offering an upgrade?
Yes, I’ve been in touch with them. The page I linked to should be updated later today with options and pricing.
Is that not just standard SATA and SATA-Power connectors? Looks like it to me..
It could very well be… There was some discussion about it on the TCF, but all my experience is with IDE so I’m not sure. I changed the link to another megazone photo with a larger view of the internals, so folks in the know can better inform us.
How long do you think it will be until someone figures a hack around and turns on TiVo to Go?
I will definetely be upgrading. My ideal TiVo would have 100 hours of HDTV recording capacity.
After a closer look, the drive connector looks like SATA date & power. You’ll notice that the traditional IDE power connector is not hooked up at the far right of the drive. SATA does have it’s own power connector design, as well as data connector.
power: http://www.mysuperpc.com/build/sata_hard_drive_connectors_jumpers.jpg
data: http://www.mysuperpc.com/build/sata_hard_drive_connectors_jumpers_2.jpg
Due to the SATA power connector, I would not recommend upgrading via IDE drives, as you’d need to convert both the data and power connectors with adapters.
Also, it looks like the system is designed for only one internal drive, with only one SATA data and power set internally. But the unit does have an external eSATA connector.
I wonder if anyone will figure out how to utilize that!
I think weakness is really jacking up the costs of the complete units. Look at it this way: 800 for the stock unit + $800 for the 750G upgrade. (And they keep the stock 250G drive from the unit.) But you can buy the 750G upgrade drive for $600, plus you keep the $250G stock hard drive.
I guess there are some warranty issues with doing it yourself, but a $200 difference seems like a lot…
Looks like you got really close to the inerts of the S3. Can you see the disk controller chip? Any chance you can get that? I may be able to shed some light on how their storage upgrade might work.