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Many sellers on certain auction sites are selling Sky boxes with bigger hard drives. This can be done by anyone who can undo a few screws and buy the right hard drive. Remember that if you decide to upgrade your hard drive then your warranty with sky will be void. However, most hard drives come with 3 to 5 year warranties so if any problems occur that can be replaced. I have decided to provide anyone who is thinking of doing this with some advice.

So heres the list of boxes that can be upgraded
Pace 3100 (PVR2)
Pace TDS470N (PVR3)
Amstrad DRX180 (PVR2)
Amstrad DRX280 (PVR3)
Thomson DSI 6210 Sky+ 160
Thomson DSI 8210CS (PVR3)
Thomson DSI 8215 (Sky High Definition)

What is the difference between a regular desktop PC hard disk and a Consumer Electronics (CE) drive? Consumer Electronics (CE) hard disks are specifically manufactured for the PVR market. CE drives are not generally available in retail stores, and can only be purchased through authorized resellers. A CE hard drive is needed when upgrading your Box. Once the new Hard drive is fitted the planner will automatically detect this and show the correct space used.

The upgrade procedure is very straightforward and anyone who feels confident with a screwdriver will easily be able to complete the upgrade. No computer or computer experience is required on hard drives upto 500GB.

The maximum drive size that can be fitted to a PVR2 or PVR3 Sky+ receiver is 500GB. This limitation is due to to the firmware in the receiver preventing larger drives from being formatted. In the past there was a limitation of 250GB. This limitation was removed with a firmware update from Sky around September 2007.

It is possible to use larger drives in a SkyHD receiver, but they must first be prepared while connected with a PC. This also means that if the drive needs to be reset in the future the drive must be removed from the receiver and prepared again in a PC. This is due to a limitation in the SkyHD receiver's firmware that is not able to format a hard drive above a capacity of 500GB. If you know how to prepare the hard drive then you just need to be aware that you cannot perform a full system reset which no one needs to do, so you can have a hard drive above 500GB with no real problems.