“The DVR Expander typically lasts one year.” That’s what the first support tech at Western Digital told me, when I called in to try and have my second DVR Extender replaced.

The DVR Expander is an external hard drive by Western Digital which is recommended by TiVo for adding many hours of additional recording capability to the Series 3 and HD TiVo boxes. It’s suppose to have “maximum reliability and performance” which is why it is TiVo Certified and you pay a premium for.

I purchased a DVR Expander on October 23rd of 2007 from TiVo. It worked perfectly for about 10 and a half months until one day the TiVo notified me that the external storage had been disconnected. I checked all the connections and everything seemed okay, so I restarted my TiVo. The TiVo once again did not find the storage, and it advised that if the storage was not reconnected almost all my recording would be gone. Sure enough, all the recordings except one or two had been deleted.

I called WD and they offered to replace the drive, with very few questions asked. I received my “new” drive on October 5th 2008. It was obvious that my “new” drive was actually a refurbished drive. It had a few scuff marks on it and it looked kind of used. Regardless, I was glad to have a replacement and it worked great, until 11 months later (to the day), which once again failed.

So, two dead drives in less then two years. The first one died after about 11 months, and the replacement died 11 months to the day. Again, all my saved TiVo shows were gone. This made me a bit more sad then before because I had a few weeks of True Blood to catch up on, which are now gone.

So once again I call WD support to get another replacement, but this time the support agent notifies me that my second drive is out of warranty. I try to hopelessly explain that I’ve had the replacement drive just about as long as I had my original, but he won’t budge, and here’s is the real kicker… The support agent tells me that “these DVR Expander drives typically last one year.”

I shit you not, he actually said that. Obviously, my second dead drive would support what he said, but I couldn’t believe that a: WD would admit that their drives last less than a year, and b: they still would not replace it.

Dumbfounded by the “support” experience and the support agent repeating some nonsense, I ask for a supervisor which at this point I’m placed on hold for about 10 minutes. While waiting I get another call which is the supervisor calling me back…. while I’m on the phone waiting for him to pick up. He basically tells me that my drive is out of warranty, and he cannot help me at all. When I ask him twice about the comment which his support person made about the drives lasting one year, he ignores my question, both times.

So, here I am with another dead WD DVR Expander, except this time no replacement on order. The supervisor has “escalated” my case and a Mr Kuris Glass or a Ms Dallas will be calling me on Tuesday.

So at this point I really do wonder how many other people have had failure issues with these “TiVo Certified” drives. Do they really only last one year? My two dead drives definitely seem to suggest so, and at $150 for a 500 GB drive that is a seriously high premium to pay for, specially for a drive that lasts less than a year.