# Upgrading my TIVO Bolt VOX to 3 TB internal and 10 TB external Hard Drives using Weaknees



## joe90 (Jun 5, 2009)

Hello there Guys.


I’ve got an email with a promotion to upgrade my TIVO (Premier) and transfer my “lifetime” service to the new unit (TIVO Bolt VOX) I called weaknees and they will add the external HD for $250 if I give them the drive. If I do not give them the drive, and they put it themselves they will charge me $650

My question to you is: Does anybody know what drive it is? Is it a Western Digital? Seagate?

Also they have a 3TB upgrade for the internal drive. Does anybody know which drive the 3TB HD is?


If there is no answer to the 10TB HD, would anybody be interesting in “splitting” the cost with me? I will go ahead and do the upgrade and when I get the TIVO Box upgraded, I can tell you which drive it is for a small contribution maybe?


Your input will be appreciated.


Thank you


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

They are asking you to send in the Tivo Bolt's drive that is inside, not some other drive, which would be blank. They need that drive because it has the necessary information and to pair the external drive with it.


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## joe90 (Jun 5, 2009)

ThAbtO said:


> They are asking you to send in the Tivo Bolt's drive that is inside, not some other drive, which would be blank. They need that drive because it has the necessary information and to pair the external drive with it.


Thank you for your feedback ThAbtO

Sorry I was not clear on my post. Let me clarify a few things.

I will be buying a TIVO Bolt VOX 500 G unit

If I know which 10 Tb hard drive is compatible with that TIVO, I can buy it myself, make it "external" (buy a case and power supply) and send Weaknees my TIVO box and the "external" HD and they will pair the 2 for $250.

If I just send them the TIVO box and they do everything for me they charge me $650 to "attach/pair" the TiVo with the 10TB hard drive.

So my question is: Does anybody know which 10TB hard drive is compatible with the TIVO Bolt VOX or has anybody done this upgrade?

Same story with the internal hard drive, If I just sent them the TIVO and they upgrade it to 3 TB (Internal) they charge $299 to replace my 500G Tivo with this 3 TB hard drive, but If I know which drive is compatible with the TIVO, I buy the drive, and send it to them along with the TIVO, they will replace it for me, and charge me $99.

As you guys can see, there will be some saving if I buy the drives myself and send them to Weaknees

Your input will be appreciated.

Thank you


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Its more difficult to find the right drive because the internal is a laptop drive. Most of us do not recommend a 2 drive Tivo system as when either drive/parts fail, you lose the shows. The storage process spans across both drives. 

As you are going through with this method, 5400 RPM drives should be used for less power consumed, less heat produced. Even though it will be an external. The WD Red (not pro) like is always the recommended choice. 

There has not been anyone yet who has experienced the usage of a total of 13TB or how the Tivo will perform, or even with an external.

Most would simply go with a single 8TB or the more courageous, 10TB. The process can be a little daunting.


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## joe90 (Jun 5, 2009)

ThAbtO said:


> Its more difficult to find the right drive because the internal is a laptop drive. Most of us do not recommend a 2 drive Tivo system as when either drive/parts fail, you lose the shows. The storage process spans across both drives.
> 
> As you are going through with this method, 5400 RPM drives should be used for less power consumed, less heat produced. Even though it will be an external. The WD Red (not pro) like is always the recommended choice.
> 
> ...


Thank you ThAbtO I really appreciate your suggestion. One final question, When you say "Most would simply go with a single 8TB or the more courageous, 10TB" you mean an external drive correct?

J


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

joe90 said:


> Thank you ThAbtO I really appreciate your suggestion. One final question, When you say "Most would simply go with a single 8TB or the more courageous, 10TB" you mean an external drive correct?
> 
> J


For the Bolt and a 3.5inch drive, it would be a single external drive, modded Bolt case for the SATA cable to the MB.


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## joe90 (Jun 5, 2009)

Hello there ThAbtO

Thank you again.

Let me just make sure of something. If I understand correctly, you are saying that un upgrade to the 8TB or 10 TB involves only ONE external Hard Drive? In other words the internal drive has bee taken out and it is not longer part of this picture correct?

Let me know please

Thank you


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Yes, due to the way Tivo stores the shows recorded, spanning between the 2 drives. If anything between the 2 drives or the drives themselves fail, you lose shows. Using a single drive setup, there is no dual drive spanning. The external drive setup is due to the space of the internal available only for a 2.5inch drive, a 3.5inch drive would not fit inside, therefore its put into a compatible external case connecting to the internal SATA connector.


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## joe90 (Jun 5, 2009)

Thank you for your prompt reply ThAbtO

The external Hard drive has to have its own power supply I assume correct?

J


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Yes, and it would not impact the Tivo's PS.


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## joe90 (Jun 5, 2009)

Sounds good

I appreciate all your help

J


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

ThAbtO said:


> Yes, due to the way Tivo stores the shows recorded, spanning between the 2 drives. If anything between the 2 drives or the drives themselves fail, you lose shows. Using a single drive setup, there is no dual drive spanning. The external drive setup is due to the space of the internal available only for a 2.5inch drive, a 3.5inch drive would not fit inside, therefore its put into a compatible external case connecting to the internal SATA connector.


I haven't followed all the upgrade threads, but I was under the impression that only works with TE3. The external drive via the internal SATA connector doesn't work with TE4 (although I thought I read about one person who had it working with a specific external drive bay? or maybe drive? or a drive with a specific firmware version?).

FWIW, I just took apart my Bolt this morning, and am waiting for the FedEx truck with a 3TB 2.5" Toshiba drive from macsales.com to replace the 500GB drive. Disassembly took about 10 minutes, just needed a T9 Torx and a half dozen pieces of old, cut up credit cards to use as opening pics.


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## Jalag (Aug 6, 2019)

Justen_m, I hate to threadjack joe90's post, but I'd love to hear how it goes with the Toshiba. I just bought the 500gb Bolt (thanks Summer Sale!) to upgrade my 1TB Premier XL, so I'd like to replace the internal drive just to get to parity. (I wanted the OTA functionality that wasn't in the 1 TB Bolt model). I've read a ton of threads, very old to very new, and would love to confirm that the MQ03ABB300 from MacSales is still the best choice for a quick/easy internal drive swap. There's a lot of outdated or not applicable info out there, and it looks like your experience will be the freshest and most similar to my scenario. Do you plan to use the reformatting utility (mfsr) with it, or just plop it in?

Unfortunately I also learned after purchasing that the OTA Bolt only supports TE4, even with an internal drive. Ugh. I like my old school text-heavy lists.

Thanks!


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

justen_m said:


> I haven't followed all the upgrade threads, but I was under the impression that only works with TE3. The external drive via the internal SATA connector doesn't work with TE4 (although I thought I read about one person who had it working with a specific external drive bay? or maybe drive? or a drive with a specific firmware version?).
> 
> FWIW, I just took apart my Bolt this morning, and am waiting for the FedEx truck with a 3TB 2.5" Toshiba drive from macsales.com to replace the 500GB drive. Disassembly took about 10 minutes, just needed a T9 Torx and a half dozen pieces of old, cut up credit cards to use as opening pics.


I have tested my Bolt VOX with TE4 with several 3.5 inch drives and have had no issues.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Jalag said:


> Justen_m, I hate to threadjack joe90's post, but I'd love to hear how it goes with the Toshiba. I just bought the 500gb Bolt (thanks Summer Sale!) to upgrade my 1TB Premier XL, so I'd like to replace the internal drive just to get to parity. (I wanted the OTA functionality that wasn't in the 1 TB Bolt model). I've read a ton of threads, very old to very new, and would love to confirm that the MQ03ABB300 from MacSales is still the best choice for a quick/easy internal drive swap. There's a lot of outdated or not applicable info out there, and it looks like your experience will be the freshest and most similar to my scenario. Do you plan to use the reformatting utility (mfsr) with it, or just plop it in?
> 
> Unfortunately I also learned after purchasing that the OTA Bolt only supports TE4, even with an internal drive. Ugh. I like my old school text-heavy lists.
> 
> Thanks!


Have you tried to revert it to TE3. I know that when I reverted my Bolt VOX to TE3to do some testing, the sequence to revert required a quick consistent cadence in the button pressing to do it. Took me multiple attempts to get it to work.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

Jalag said:


> and would love to confirm that the MQ03ABB300 from MacSales is still the best choice for a quick/easy internal drive swap. There's a lot of outdated or not applicable info out there, and it looks like your experience will be the freshest and most similar to my scenario. Do you plan to use the reformatting utility (mfsr) with it, or just plop it in?


I don't know if the 3TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300 is the best choice, but it definitely works. Installation went without a hitch in my 2-year-old, formerly 500GB TE3 Bolt. No reformat, I just dropped it in. Straight from the anti-static bag onto the drive tray, then plugged in the power/SATA connector, screwed down the tray, reattached the cable guides, reassembled the Bolt, plugged it back in, went through guided setup, etc. I chose 3TB because of this simplicity. Literally plug and play. Same as when I upgraded my Roamio Plus to 3TB. Simplest option. Everything is up and running now. Still transferring some programs back to it from my Roamio and PC.

The drive is thick, at 15mm, too thick for most laptops, but it fits fine inside the Bolt. For tools, I needed a T9 Torx Screwdriver (11 screws total), and opening picks. I don't have the latter, so I used expired credit cards that I had cut in half. A bit thick, but they do the job. At one point I used five at once. I followed TiVo Bolt Hard Drive Replacement. I used a pair of tweezers from a Swiss Army knife to hold a couple of the screws while reassembling, and superglue and a toothpick to put a microdot of glue to reattach the two cable guides that run over the top of the drive.



> Unfortunately I also learned after purchasing that the OTA Bolt only supports TE4, even with an internal drive. Ugh. I like my old school text-heavy lists.!


So you can't revert back to TE3? Obviously something I haven't tried, as my Bolt came with TE3. Reverting will erase all your recordings, but not really an issue if you are replacing the drive.



jmbach said:


> I have tested my Bolt VOX with TE4 with several 3.5 inch drives and have had no issues.


Thanks for the info. I stand corrected. That's with a SATA cable directly from the drive to the Bolt motherboard? Maybe using an external drive enclosure causes a problem and that's what I was thinking of?


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

For whatever it's worth, I've seen various people post in the forum in the past 1-2 weeks, in answer to inquiries about what drive to use to upgrade a new Bolt Summer Special box with, that their Toshiba 2.5" 3TB replacement drive has been fine for the past 2-3 years, since install.


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## Jalag (Aug 6, 2019)

justen_m said:


> I don't know if the 3TB Toshiba MQ03ABB300 is the best choice, but it definitely works.


Do you (or anyone?) know of a better choice? My criteria for "better" is equally reliable but cheaper. 



> Installation went without a hitch


Thanks for the detailed overview and related tips. I'll definitely reference it (and your linked article) when I get my system (and drive) in.



> So you can't revert back to TE3?


I haven't tried, as I literally placed the order for the Bolt today and have not yet ordered the drive. My information comes (from this message on a separate thread) that I assumed applied to the BOLT cablecard+OTA. Perhaps I'm assuming incorrectly?

And I asked about using the utility to reformat the drive before dropping it into the box because another thread (that I can't find now) mentioned that it would reduce drive wear/increase reliability due to properly aligning the sectors with the Tivo's expectations (or something like that). Is this also inaccurate or unproven?


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

I just read in another thread that the new Bolt OTA that comes with TE4 can't be reverted to TE3.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

justen_m said:


> I just read in another thread that the new Bolt OTA that comes with TE4 can't be reverted to TE3.


Correct, per TiVo (TiVo_Ted here). This is the "Bolt OTA" model (that only does OTA) only--not the "general" Bolt that does OTA and cable.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

ThAbtO said:


> There has not been anyone yet who has experienced the usage of a total of 13TB or how the Tivo will perform, or even with an external.


I have had a 13TB Bolt for over a year now. It doesn't perform any differently from my 3TB Bolt except that it takes longer to page to the bottom of Now Showing. Oh, and it takes longer for kmttg to download the list of recordings as well, for the same obvious reason.

About which external disk Weaknees will use, I would think the right people to ask would be Weaknees, not the TCF forum. But I wouldn't worry about it; the weak point in this scenario isn't the quality of the hard drives, its the fact that you have a drive in an external case.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

ej42137 said:


> I have had a 13TB Bolt for over a year now. It doesn't perform any differently from my 3TB Bolt *except that it takes longer to page to the bottom of Now Showing*. Oh, and it takes longer for kmttg to download the list of recordings as well, for the same obvious reason.
> 
> About which disk Weaknees will use, I would think the right people to ask would be Weaknees, not the TCF forum. But I wouldn't worry about it; the weak point in this scenario isn't the quality of the hard drives, its the fact that you have a drive in an external case.


Just an extra second or 2 to scroll through the 13TB of shows?


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

Mikeguy said:


> Just an extra second or 2 to scroll through the 13TB of shows?


Actually scrolling depends upon how much you have in folders; if your shows are mostly within folders there isn't a significant difference.

On the other hand, the kmttg download of Now Showing is directly proportional to the number of recordings present; it takes about a minute to download the metadata for 13TB of shows from a Bolt.


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