Heavyweight DVR Repair - DataVideo DN-300

On the lookout for a tapeless recording solution for my HDV cameras I spotted this old DataVideo DN-300 going cheap on eBay.  It was described as having a faulty hard drive so I assumed I would be able to open it up, replace the drive and get the recorder working again.

However when I received it I realised that the DN-300 features a removable hard drive.  Not something that was mentioned in any of the reviews.  So the hard drive wasn’t faulty, it was completely missing.  Along with the caddy/enclosure needed to mount it.

Of course DataVideo no longer have spares for this model in stock, and also they used a completely different drive enclosure in the DN-400 and newer models.

It was the change in caddy that gave me a clue how to find a solution.  The hard drive slot in the DN-300 is really well built, and it seemed unlikely that DataVideo would develop a proprietary removable hard drive for this model then ditch it for the next… so the hard drive caddy had to be an off the shelf product.

A bit of Google searching and I was able to find the OEM version of the drive housing.  It’s a StarTech 2.5 SSD/HDD rack with hot swap removable rack.  These drives are also out of production, but I was able to find some for sale on Amazon US.  Keeping my fingers crossed, I ordered one.

The package arrived in the mail a couple of weeks later and sure enough, the hard drive enclosure is a perfect fit for the DataVideo unit.  All I needed to do was throw in a spare HDD and it was good to go.

The DN-300 recognised the disk, prompted me to format it and then it the recorder was ready for action.  I’ve tested it with HDV and Analogue connections and it works a great.  The only downside is the lack of built-in screen on the DN-300 so you really do have to assume it’s recording the correct input (or run the device with and external monitor).

I’m really happy that this purchase worked out so well, it’s added some serious horsepower to my vintage camera editing station, and it should give some much needed tapeless recording options for some of my cameras with more temperamental tape drives.

In the meantime I will need to stock up on BNC adaptors.  I could only find one in my parts box.