Bell Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receivers External Hard Drive

Expressvu (Bell) 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receivers – External Hard Drive Options

Bell Expressvu LogoIn a previous article I blogged about adding an external hard drive to a Bell Expressvu 6141 receiver.  In several emails I have been asked about adding an external hard drive to a Bell Expressvu 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver.  Several readers have written:

    Is it possible to add an external hard drive to a Bell Expressvu 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver using the same method you have described for the Bell Expressvu 6142 receiver.

The answer is Yes.

Even though the Bell Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receivers already have an internal hard disk drive, you can expand your recording capacity in three easy steps since Bell has activated the USB port on the back of these receivers:

    Purchase an external hard disk drive for your Bell Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver
    Plug the external hard disk drive into the USB port on the back of your HD PVR
    Transfer your PVR recordings to the external hard drive

Once you connect the external hard drive to your Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver and power it on, you will be prompted to format the drive.  This will erase all information that may be contained on the drive.  Once formatted, the storage capacity of the external hard drive becomes available to the 9241 / 9242 receivers.

You can connect an external hard drive to your Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver if it has the following specifications:

    7200 RPM rotation speed
    40 GB – 750 GB capacity
    Single hard drive enclosure, enclosures with 2 or more drives are not supported
    AC power source, drives supplied power by the USB port are not supported
    No sleep mode on the enclosure (drive cannot power down when idle)

While Expressvu states it will support only drives that are between 40 GB and 750 GB, I have successfully tested drives with 1.0 TB of storage.  I have also successfully tested many different drive types, including Western Digital, Seagate and Maxtor in a variety of enclosures that I already owned.

If you are thinking of building an external drive for your Expressvu receiver because it is cheaper, shop around for an enclosure that is already built.  Walmart in my area was carrying 1 TB external hard disk drives for $94!  The drive was a no-name drive, but when I cracked it open to look, it had a western digital drive inside.  I could not find anywhere online to even purchase the drive alone for that price.  These cheap Walmart drives worked great.  My only complaint was the flashing blue light on the drive but I fixed that with a piece of black tape.

It really is that simple to add an external hard drive to an Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus receiver.