I was delighted to discover this afternoon that the Western Digital My DVR Expander is finally available directly from Amazon.com. At first they had none at all, and searches led users just to the WD My Book drives and, amusingly, to the TiVo HD and accessories for it. I frequently searched for it and when asked if I'd found what I was looking for, clicked "No" and filled in a request that they add the product.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed they had a third-party seller offering the My DVR Expander, as well as the Apricorn DVR Xpander, which I'd never heard of. I briefly considered trying the Apricorn, but decided if it were a good idea, I'd have heard of it from one of you fine folks.

Well, just today I did another search for the Western Digital product, and saw that it's finally available through Amazon directly. That means I can get it with free shipping via Amazon Prime, or can pay $4 for overnight. I've got one on its way! Looking forward to hooking it to my TiVo HD, so I can fit a little more high definition entertainment on the poor thing without it overflowing.

If you're not familiar with the idea, the My DVR Expander is simply a big hard drive with an E-SATA port (an external version of the SATA port common inside many machines these days) that's designed to run constantly. It should in theory be a little more reliable than any ol' E-SATA hard drive, and is officially compatible with the TiVo HD and TiVo Series3. Amazon is currently selling it for $192.23 (discounted from $199.99), and they even have one of their "better together" bundles, offering the drive with a TiVo HD for $420.32. Not too bad, especially compared to full prices.