Originally Posted by aclowers

It is a one-time activation fee. You can use as many hard drives as you wish. This was very appealing to me, as I use up a lot of space very quickly. If you are recording in HD, you use up more memory a lot faster than standard definition. I like being able to record several seasons of different shows and just keep them to watch whenever. I also like the option of recording movies and keeping them as long as I want.