# TIVO Edge: + more storage?



## angelsix

I'd like more than 2tb storage for the TIVO Edge (Cable).

#1 -- does the TIVO Edge allow use of an external drive? Specs?

#2 -- any idea if TIVO is planning to release a TIVO Edge with larger internal HD?


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## angelsix

I just found an article saying that for the Edge they deleted the E-Sata port. 2 USB ports, which theoretically could handle external drives (but I doubt it on the Edge).
TiVo Updates DVRs with Dolby Vision and More

Limiting the storage to 2TB just seems weird to me. It isn't easy to even find a HD that's only 2TB. With 4k, I assume the files will be even bigger, and we'll still be limping along with only 2TB.

I am glad to see TIVO claims that the Edge will be quieter than the Bolt.


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## tarheelblue32

angelsix said:


> Limiting the storage to 2TB just seems weird to me. It isn't easy to even find a HD that's only 2TB. With 4k, I assume the files will be even bigger, and we'll still be limping along with only 2TB.


In the 2.5" drives that the Edge uses, 2TB is the largest A/V hard drive that is currently in production. And it's highly unlikely that TiVo will ever allow users to use an external USB drive.


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## Radiolarian

tarheelblue32 said:


> In the 2.5" drives that the Edge uses, 2TB is the largest A/V hard drive that is currently in production. And it's highly unlikely that TiVo will ever allow users to use an external USB drive.


Do you think Tivo would consider selling cloud storage options at varying price levels depending on the amount of storage you use? That would give them some additional revenue.


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## seaninde

Do we need more then 2 TB of storage? I know 4K video takes a lot of space, but that's still a lot of hours of programming. I mean I don't use my Tivo as a storage library. I record shows and watch them and delete them.


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## tarheelblue32

Radiolarian said:


> Do you think Tivo would consider selling cloud storage options at varying price levels depending on the amount of storage you use? That would give them some additional revenue.


I think it's been rumored before that they might do some kind of cloud storage, but it has never materialized. But with them inserting pre-roll ads before recorded programming for some extra revenue, it's possible that they might eventually sell extra cloud storage. But that's purely speculation on my part.


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## mrsean

Tivo/Arris could easily commission WD, etc. to make higher capacity 2.5" drives for them although that would drive the price of the DVR up a bit.


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## JoeKustra

seaninde said:


> Do we need more then 2 TB of storage? I know 4K video takes a lot of space, but that's still a lot of hours of programming. I mean I don't use my Tivo as a storage library. I record shows and watch them and delete them.


Here's something to ponder. Everyone fixates on GB of storage. But TiVo makes it somewhat difficult to find the size of a program. They quote hours of HD/SD on the box and in System Information. But just over the last 5 years the size of a 1 hour of HD program has decreased by about 30% on average. I used to complain how bit-starved my ABC and Fox channels were. But in looking back at old copies of CBS and NBC, they have become 2GB smaller. I have several TiVo boxes, and wish the year was part of the date. But just using CBS, a program that was 8GB in 2014 is now under 6GB. Why? Because my local station has added 3, then 4 sub-channels in three years. It still looks good, but it used to look great. End of mini-rant. 

I record watch delete 80% of my programs every year. The other 20% are saved for summer.


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## ggieseke

mrsean said:


> Tivo/Arris could easily commission WD, etc. to make higher capacity 2.5" drives for them although that would drive the price of the DVR up a bit.


Assuming that it's even possible to build a 2.5" PMR drive over 2TB with today's technology, I doubt that WD or anyone else would make the effort for a few thousand sales per year at most. The only other real market for AV drives is security camera DVRs, and most of them use 3.5" WD Purple drives.

TiVo didn't learn that lesson despite all the failures of 3TB Bolt drives, so the saga continues with the Edge.


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## tarheelblue32

ggieseke said:


> Assuming that it's even possible to build a 2.5" PMR drive over 2TB with today's technology, I doubt that WD or anyone else would make the effort for a few thousand sales per year at most. The only other real market for AV drives is security camera DVRs, and most of them use 3.5" WD Purple drives.
> 
> TiVo didn't learn that lesson despite all the failures of 3TB Bolt drives, so the saga continues with the Edge.


It really does irk me that TiVo keeps sticking with the 2.5" drives, despite their limitations, just to make the box a little smaller. It's not like we're talking about a phone that you want to be as thin and light as possible because you're always carrying it around in your pocket. It's just a freaking box sitting on a shelf. It really doesn't matter if it's a couple of inches shorter.


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## lessd

tarheelblue32 said:


> It really does irk me that TiVo keeps sticking with the 2.5" drives, despite their limitations, just to make the box a little smaller. It's not like we're talking about a phone that you want to be as thin and light as possible because you're always carrying it around in your pocket. It's just a freaking box sitting on a shelf. It really doesn't matter if it's a couple of inches shorter.


On the Bolt one can take out the 2.5" hard drive and use a cable to connect a normal size hard drive (almost any size) outside the Bolt itself, I have tried it and it works great and easy to do, I don't have an Edge so I don't know if it would be as easy.


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## chicagobrownblue

seaninde said:


> Do we need more then 2 TB of storage? * I know 4K video takes a lot of space*,


I wasn't aware of any recordable 4K content. Is there any?


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## sangs

chicagobrownblue said:


> I wasn't aware of any recordable 4K content. Is there any?


FiOS offers some sports in 4K, and those are recordable.


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## seaninde

chicagobrownblue said:


> I wasn't aware of any recordable 4K content. Is there any?


Right, that enhances my point. There is very little 4K anyway, so even 1080P content doesn't take that much that we really need over 2 TB for DVR. If you want to save movies forever, buy the Blu-ray or buy it on an online service to stream anytime you want. These are not movie servers, they are DVR's. People are asking Tivo to make their DVR a movie server too.


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## Mikeguy

seaninde said:


> Right, that enhances my point. There is very little 4K anyway, so even 1080P content doesn't take that much that we really need over 2 TB for DVR. If you want to save movies forever, buy the Blu-ray or buy it on an online service to stream anytime you want. These are not movie servers, they are DVR's. People are asking Tivo to make their DVR a movie server too.


And what's wrong with that, and with TiVo supplying what people want? Sounds like good business to me. 

One of the benefits of a TiVo box is to be able to record shows as they become available from a broadcaster, and for free. And not just movies--save a season of an episodic show for later viewing. Why have to go out and buy it on DVD instead or pay per episode on a streaming service?

None of this is new: people have been using their TiVo boxes for more than simply next-day playback for many years at this point, and with TiVo catering to that (note especially the Roamio and Bolt 3TB models). Seemingly, a main reason why the Edge model doesn't have a larger capacity is the absence of larger-capacity 2.5" form factor hard drives, along with TiVo having found that the 1TB Bolt model was outpacing in sales the 3TB model. I still wish, given the hard-drive-availability factor, that TiVo hadn't succumbed to the "smaller is better" mentality for the Edge line, especially where the size difference to use a 3.5" hard drive is so small and the boxes are not meant to be portable in use*--would users really would have cared about a slightly taller box?

* TiVo even could have saved and/or made some money in the process, 3.5" drives being less expensive than 2.5" drives.


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## snerd

seaninde said:


> People are asking Tivo to make their DVR a movie server too.


This forum has a long tradition of enhancing TiVo capabilities beyond what a stock TiVo can do. Thanks to the tireless efforts of TCF pioneers, some here had autoskip well before TiVo built it into TE4/Hydra. Others found a way to make a Roamio into a great server by upgrading the hard drive to 10TB (or beyond). That makes a perfectly fine movie server.

So, TCF isn't asking TiVo to be things that it isn't, in some cases we're showing TiVo how to become better.

It is perfectly OK if you're not interested in doing that, but we're not going to stop pushing the limits just because it doesn't fit your vision of how we should use our TiVos.


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## chicagobrownblue

seaninde said:


> If you want to save movies forever, buy the Blu-ray or buy it on an online service to stream anytime you want. These are not *movie servers*, they are DVR's. People are asking Tivo to make their DVR a movie server too.


I'm downloading TV shows and movies to my PC. I play them through my Smart TV. My primary 750GB drive is not full and my secondary 750GB drive is empty -- just started though. I've yet to find any 4K movies that "fell off the truck".

Plus I have 2TB free on my 3TB Roamio, archival and OTA backup, and a 500GB Comcast X1 for current cable content.

Not really feeling the need for a new TiVo just yet.


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## chiguy50

chicagobrownblue said:


> I'm downloading TV shows and movies to my PC. I play them through my Smart TV. My primary 750GB drive is not full and my secondary 750GB drive is empty -- just started though. I've yet to find any 4K movies that "fell off the truck".
> 
> Plus I have 2TB free on my 3TB Roamio, archival and OTA backup, and a 500GB Comcast X1 for current cable content.
> 
> Not really feeling the need for a new TiVo just yet.


Does that X1 store your recordings on the HDD or on the cloud or both? Can you designate which one or move from one to the other? Or is every recording on the HDD mirrored on the cloud?


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## seaninde

chiguy50 said:


> Does that X1 store your recordings on the HDD or on the cloud or both? Can you designate which one or move from one to the other? Or is every recording on the HDD mirrored on the cloud?


The latest X1 is cloud only, no more HDD locally, so that's why the picture is so bad because they have to compress things so much. The boxes are just these lightweight junk things with a circuit board in them. Not like my old motorola box. See even live TV has to be compressed so it goes through the cloud DVR so you can pause live TV.


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## chicagobrownblue

chiguy50 said:


> Does that X1 store your recordings on the HDD or on the cloud or both? Can you designate which one or move from one to the other? Or is every recording on the HDD mirrored on the cloud?


Actually, it doesn't matter. Without internet access, I can not get to the locally stored content on my local X1 hard drive. I use the Roamio in OTA mode to have an alternate source of content in case of an internet outage.


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## chiguy50

seaninde said:


> The latest X1 is cloud only, no more HDD locally, so that's why the picture is so bad because they have to compress things so much. The boxes are just these lightweight junk things with a circuit board in them. Not like my old motorola box. See even live TV has to be compressed so it goes through the cloud DVR so you can pause live TV.


No, OP has already stated that he has one of the Comcast DVR's with a 500GB HDD.


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## NYHeel

seaninde said:


> Right, that enhances my point. There is very little 4K anyway, so even 1080P content doesn't take that much that we really need over 2 TB for DVR. If you want to save movies forever, buy the Blu-ray or buy it on an online service to stream anytime you want. These are not movie servers, they are DVR's. People are asking Tivo to make their DVR a movie server too.


We've been through this a million times here. People use their TiVos differently. I don't use it as a movie server but I have a major backlog of TV seasons from a few years ago. Will I watch them all? No. But I'm not sure which ones I'm going to watch so I keep them on the TiVo. My current TiVo has a 3 TB drive and is around 94% full. A large drive is one of the most important features for me in a DVR. Limiting the top of the line DVR to 2 TB seems like a poor decision.


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## chicagobrownblue

chiguy50 said:


> Does that X1 store your recordings on the HDD or on the cloud or both? Can you designate which one or move from one to the other? Or is every recording on the HDD mirrored on the cloud?


OK, so now the cable TV went down. After they fixed it my Comcast X1 DVR looks like it has a dead hard drive. I may get a cablecard from Comcast and switch back to my TiVo. This is the fourth time Comcast has gone out. I'm in a building with 100+ units so I have no need to call in a building wide problem...; but RCN was more reliable.

So, I watched the ABC World News on my TiVo and was delighted the skip mode is implemented on OTA shows. Watched a movie from my PC and now it's bedtime.


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## MysticVenom

ggieseke said:


> Assuming that it's even possible to build a 2.5" PMR drive over 2TB with today's technology, I doubt that WD or anyone else would make the effort for a few thousand sales per year at most. The only other real market for AV drives is security camera DVRs, and most of them use 3.5" WD Purple drives.
> 
> TiVo didn't learn that lesson despite all the failures of 3TB Bolt drives, so the saga continues with the Edge.


Agreed, no chance you get WD (or any other storage OEM, for that matter) to one-off a line of drives for such a small run (don't kid yourself here, this would be a tiny run). Then qualify it, etc. That would make extremely pricey drives.

A better decision would be using 4TB+ MLC/QLC SATA SSDs into these (I would say go M.2 NVMe, but that's higher $$). Slightly higher price, but not much (and that's at retail prices, cheaper in B2B/Wholesale). They don't generate much heat (use less power) and their MTBF is drastically higher than spinning disks. Oh, and no noise. And still fit in 2.5" SFF.


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## Mikeguy

MysticVenom said:


> Slightly higher price, but not much (and that's at retail prices, cheaper in B2B/Wholesale).


You must have a great source.


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## shwru980r

angelsix said:


> I'd like more than 2tb storage for the TIVO Edge (Cable).
> 
> #1 -- does the TIVO Edge allow use of an external drive? Specs?
> 
> #2 -- any idea if TIVO is planning to release a TIVO Edge with larger internal HD?


I think you will have to use an external 3.5" drive if you want more than 2TB of storage.


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## SC0TLANDF0REVER

Mikeguy said:


> ... along with TiVo having found that the 1TB Bolt model was outpacing in sales the 3TB model. ...


I think at least when it comes to us long-time TiVo users, a lot of us were buying the 1Tb in order to buy a larger drive and upgrade it ourselves to more storage for less money.

I'm holding off on this model until there's a larger storage solution. My S3 still has some old programs I watch from time to time.


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## trip1eX

You would think they would have a larger HD option and do like Apple does and charge an arm and a leg for that higher storage option. And then Tivo could just sell it via their site and put a longer wait time on it. 

But yeah I guess they limited by their design choice of the 2.5" drive in the first place.

PErsonally 1 tb on my Roamio Plus is fine. I think the meat of the market doesn't care about having gobs and gobs of storage. They aren't archiving. Just time shifting short term.


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## apexadam

seaninde said:


> Right, that enhances my point. There is very little 4K anyway, so even 1080P content doesn't take that much that we really need over 2 TB for DVR. If you want to save movies forever, buy the Blu-ray or buy it on an online service to stream anytime you want. These are not movie servers, they are DVR's. People are asking Tivo to make their DVR a movie server too.


This guy says, "don't need the extra TBs because you can use BluRay disks." Oh my. And so went Tivo. I recommend Tivo not follow this advice, ever. Too late. It's 2022 and they died. Lesson learned, never pat yourself on the back for listening to the customer that begs for limitations.


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