Can you replace the hard drive in HDHomerun Servio?

Best answer: Yes, replacing the hard drive can be done. However, care needs to be taken to make sure you've chosen a compatible replacement drive.

• Ready to serve: HDHomeRun Servio ($150 at Amazon)

Solving storage solutions

HDHomeRun Servio provides a way for an HDHomeRun tuner to record over-the-air television.

While the Servio does come loaded with 2TB of storage, maybe you want more. Perhaps you need to replace the drive because you're out of warranty, and the drive has failed. Regardless of the reason, you need to be aware of some specifics before doing so.

One of the first things you need to know is that only 2.5-inch and 7mm tall SATA hard drives are supported, and the Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB would be a great choice. Something worth noting, while it would be nice to run two hard drives at once, the Servio will only work with one. Also, before you open up your HDHomeRun Servio, be wary if your device is still under warranty. According to the company's website:

Any damage done to the HDHomeRun or the original hard drive as a result of the modification is not covered under warranty. If a hard drive has been replaced and a customer needs to make a warranty exchange, the original hard drive needs to be reinstalled before sending it in.

Before you attempt to do it yourself, double-check to see if it's still covered under warranty. If you're all out of warranty, it's time to give it a go.

Let's crack open that box

If you feel comfortable with swapping out the hard drive on your own, let's cover the rest of the changeover process. Once you install a new hard drive into the HDHomeRun Servio, it'll automatically be initialized, but only if it's blank. Blank doesn't necessarily mean the drive is empty, only that the Servio thinks it's empty. See the documentation for more details . Setting things up takes about 15 seconds for each terabyte of the new drive's size, so things will probably be done fairly quickly. Be sure to give everything a good read before you start, so you understand how to partition or format the drive, and you won't have any trouble.

The hard drive will still need to go through initialization, and HDHomeRun details the process thoroughly in a walkthrough to ensure the process goes smoothly for you.

So whether you want to replace the hard drive to increase storage capacity for your HDHomeRun Servio or because the hard drive failed and it's out of warranty, there is a path to get your DVR back up and running.