Upgrade to SATA hard Drives

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Product listing for spares including frames, trays and hard drives

All Videoswitch DVRs are capable of supporting SATA hard drives if fitted with the correct drive frames and trays. The comments below apply to VDM, VDC and Vi-series DVRs. All M-series DVRs support SATA anyway so no special action is required.

What action is required to fit a SATA drive?

1. If the DVR is already fitted with the correct type of drive frame, then it is simply a matter of replacing the existing PATA/IDE tray with a SATA version of the tray. These may be purchased from Videoswitch (with or without hard drives) and you may fit them yourself.
2. If the DVR is fitted with an older type of drive frame and tray, it is also necessary to change the drive frame that is fitted within the DVR and the drive tray. The DVR may be returned to Videoswitch for this to be performed.

Identifying the type of drive frame fitted

To identify whether your DVR has the correct type of tray fitted, please refer to these images. They show the required type of frame (trays have been removed). Note that some DVRs support a single drive frame, others support a dual drive frames. If your DVR has a different type to either shown, it will need to be upgraded in order to support SATA drives.

Vi-BAY3F - Single drive frame	Vi-BAY3DF - Dual drive frame

What type of drive tray is required?

When your DVR has the correct type of drive frame installed you can use either PATA/IDE or SATA drive trays. Note that they look very similar but can be distinguished as follows:

• PATA/IDE drive trays have 40-way ribbon cables to connect to the hard drives (Single: Vi-BAY3T and Double: Vi-BAY3DT)
• SATA drive trays have SATA connectors that the hard drives plug directly into (Single: Vi-BAY3TS and Double: Vi-BAY3DTS)

These images show you the drive trays that are required to install SATA drives in a Videoswitch DVR.

Vi-BAY3TS - Single SATA drive tray	Vi-BAY3DTS - Dual SATA drive tray

To summarise

1. You either need to just buy the trays: Vi-BAY3TS (single) or Vi-BAY3DTS (dual) together with SATA hard drive(s), or
2. You need to get the DVR upgraded with new frames: Vi-BAY3F (single) or Vi-BAY3DF (dual). You also need to buy the the SATA trays Vi-BAY3TS (single) or Vi-BAY3DTS (dual) together with SATA hard drive(s).

Click here to see the spare parts section: Product listing for spares including frames, trays and hard drives