srk1407 wrote:1. Can I purchase a 1TB drive and plug in and play. Can find lots of posts, but they are old and not sure if the software has been changed to do this
No - You will only get 492GB capacity by doing this.
Only the new Amstrad boxes are capable of correctly formatting disks over 508GB in size.
2. How long does it take to copy theold drive to the new one? Roughly how long per gig?
Depends entirely how you connect you drive and how many recordings you copy.
Via USB doing a direct copy (rather than backup and restore) you can get about 40-80GB per hour or better.
Using eSATA is even quicker if you have that option.
3. Is Samsung the best one? I saw niges had said it is, but others say dont. I have the Thomson with software 3004.
No idea - sorry.
Check out the other posts here and on digitalspy for people who have actually tried the drive you are considering.