# Storage dock/cable suggestions for Bolt



## hunter69 (Feb 9, 2002)

I have a Bolt on the way with a 500gb drive that I want to swap out. Has anyone used an external dock or cable to add on a 3.5" drive? 

I see lots of docks to go from 3.5" to 2.5" but not much going in the other direction. Does anyone have a suggestion? My bolt lives inside of an AV cabinet, so appearance does not matter to me.

Along the same lines, any ideas on how the WD red drives do for TIVOs?

Thanks


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Its not clear if you are looking to "swap out" or "add on".

Only the tivo approved add on works. So there is that. 

Just replace the internal, already a lot of how tos on that. You can swap it out internally, or use a 3.5 with a cord/power supply that you plug into the tivo MB.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

hunter69 said:


> I have a Bolt on the way with a 500gb drive that I want to swap out. Has anyone used an external dock or cable to add on a 3.5" drive?
> 
> I see lots of docks to go from 3.5" to 2.5" but not much going in the other direction. Does anyone have a suggestion? My bolt lives inside of an AV cabinet, so appearance does not matter to me.
> 
> ...


Hi, if you are going to go the external enclosure, you will need one that supports esata and whatever hd size you want to try. Edit: Assumes you are going to replace the existing internal drive.
The WD Reds are commonly used with success in the Roamio line, early results on adding a 3.5 drive to the Bolt is uncertain. My guess is that they will work, but there are only a few reports of any drives up to 4TB (2.5 or 3.5") working...would you like to be a beta tester?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

So are you talking about drilling a hole in the case so you can feed the internal connector from an external drive?


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## Blakeintosh (Sep 8, 2014)

fcfc2 said:


> Hi, if you are going to go the external enclosure, you will need one that supports esata and whatever hd size you want to try. Edit: Assumes you are going to replace the existing internal drive.
> The WD Reds are commonly used with success in the Roamio line, early results on adding a 3.5 drive to the Bolt is uncertain. My guess is that they will work, but there are only a few reports of any drives up to 4TB (2.5 or 3.5") working...would you like to be a beta tester?


The WD Red's have been used successfully, however using a WD AV drive would be preferable, since that is what TiVo uses in the Roamio line. They are available up to 4 TB (WD40EURX). If you want something bigger than 4 TB, then a WD Red would be the next option.


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## nobody0101 (Oct 5, 2015)

You can do an internal SATA to eSATA connection and then just use a readily available HDD enclosure for 3.5 drive.

But I just ran a rounded SATA cable out of the Bolt, and directly into the WD Red drive that is in an external enclosure, which the drive uses only the power from. (It has a fan inside to keep the drive cool as well).

Either way you are going to have an eSata cable dangling off the back of the Bolt, or like my hacky solution to go direct from the Bolt motherboard to the external 3.5in. disk. They will both work fine, and provide a readily available 3TB+ option for the Bolt.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I have not seen one in person, that full sized drive is ~half the size of the Bolt!


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## nobody0101 (Oct 5, 2015)

It really is. Fairly standard stereo remote also for further comparison.


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## hunter69 (Feb 9, 2002)

Thanks everyone for all of the help. My hope was that I could leave the drive bay door open and just run the cable out that way without having to mod the case, but that may not be possible from the descriptions. I had such a bad experience using the WD eSata expander on my old HD, I wanted to avoid a two drive solution 

I have a 3TB AV drive on order (Did not want to have to worry about special formatting requirements.), and will give it a try with just a long SATA cable and an external power supply.


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## nobody0101 (Oct 5, 2015)

You can certainly leave the smaller top section open and run the SATA cable out that way, and not have to mod the case at all. I just wanted mine to at least look relatively normal, even if it's only me that ever sees it.


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