# New THR-22 Tivo



## SRG (Apr 10, 2012)

Hi so my old Hughes finally died last night, 6+ years of great service. I have put off the purchase of an HD unit until Directv finally offered up a new Tivo, which I have ordered. Now my question is this I want to go ahead and upgrade to a 2 TB hard drive, but my local stores still have limited selections. Here are the 2 I am looking at: Western Digital - Caviar Green 2TB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive model number WDBAAY0020HNC-NRSN or the Seagate - Barracuda 2TB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive for Desktops model number STBD2000101. If needed I could order off Amazon or newegg or some other website, but I would like to drop this in as soon as I get the unit so I can hit the ground with 2 TB and not have to pull it off the shelf and do it at a later point. 

Thanks


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## MacQ2 (Oct 17, 2006)

The THR22 is the HR22 hardware with Tivo software. Thus, the support for eSata plug-in drives is the same as that. You will find lots of info in the D* HRxx forum about it.

Don't forget to get an enclosure as well. The THR22 is a leased unit and mods inside are not allowed. 

Happily, this box supports plugging in an eSata drive. If I recall correctly it replaces the storage inside - it doesn't extend it. 

Weaknees.com offers THR22's with larger built-in drives. I don't know their arrangement with D* to allow that but they do - since it is still a leased box. I bought mine from them - I didn't want to deal with the external drive (more heat, more noise).


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## SRG (Apr 10, 2012)

I'm kind of confused by what you are saying, I know it is a leased box but can they tell if I open it up and swap the hard drive vs using an external esata? I have not had good luck with external drives...

I've looked at multiple forms and sites. I have not seen solid recommendations on anything. There are definitely 2 camps, internal vs external but no advice on what drives to use, could someone please set me straight?


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

Either will work. One is technically a violation of your agreement, one is not. I too am not a fan of external drives for DVRs.


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## MacQ2 (Oct 17, 2006)

SRG said:


> I'm kind of confused by what you are saying, I know it is a leased box but can they tell if I open it up and swap the hard drive vs using an external esata? I have not had good luck with external drives...
> 
> I've looked at multiple forms and sites. I have not seen solid recommendations on anything. There are definitely 2 camps, internal vs external but no advice on what drives to use, could someone please set me straight?


There is a tamper-proof sticker on the mechanical seam on the box. Unless you have a matching fresh one to replace it with, it will be apparent that you've opened the box.

For external recommendations, see:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=160800


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## SRG (Apr 10, 2012)

Wow, thanks for all the help!!  0_o 

So I dropped in a WD 2tb, it formatted just fine on start up. The only hiccup was later that night after I had set up some season passes and On Demand downloads the system crashed and I lost all that. It has been a day or two with no issues so far. I know this much I hate the new remote!

As far as that "tamper" sticker what a joke, that is the farthest thing from a tamper sticker... I slipped a knife under it and slowly peeled it up. A real tamper sticker should shred or leave evidence that it was removed.


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## BOBCAT (Nov 28, 2002)

With the current technology, D* should have used a 1TB drive in these in the first place.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

BOBCAT said:


> With the current technology, D* should have used a 1TB drive in these in the first place.


They do, in the new HR34 Home Media Center DVR. The THR22 has the same 500GB drive as the non-Tivo DVRs with the same hardware platform.


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## BOBCAT (Nov 28, 2002)

.... and it just motivates people to put a larger drive in, and to heck with the "do not open on pain of death" sticker on the back.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

BOBCAT said:


> .... and it just motivates people to put a larger drive in, and to heck with the "do not open on pain of death" sticker on the back.


Or just connect an external eSATA drive, which is even easier.


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## BOBCAT (Nov 28, 2002)

Yea, guess you could, but why burn another 25 watts of power 24/7 on top of the 50 watts that the DVR is burning when swapping out the drive won't spin the power meter any faster.
It is bad enough that DVR's on average burn more power than most other appliances in the house use even though they are not running 24/7.
If you have more than 1 DVR, it really runs up the bill.
So if given a choice, I would swap out the internal drive and save power and space.


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## MacQ2 (Oct 17, 2006)

Agreed Bobcat. I don't know why the software can't spindown the internal drive when it detects the eSata connected one. It's not going to use it - why keep it running? Then it would just have been a waste to manufacture the unused drive - rather than also having to power the useless thing for its entire life.

The unused spinning drive is also another point of potential failure.


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## BOBCAT (Nov 28, 2002)

Another reason not to use the external drive is if you have recordings that you don't want to loose, there is no way to copy them to the external drive.
It would have been a simple routine to do so, and a great feature that TiVo should have added to the operating system.
It would have also motivated users not to open the box and replace the hard drive as anyone that wanted to add a larger drive could have access to the recordings they didn't want to loose.
It is just too much of a pain in the A** to power down the DVR, turn down the external drive and reboot the DVR to view the recordings on the internal drive.
TiVo/D* didn't have much foresight in thinking about this and providing the copy routine to the external drive.
They could have also had the software use the external drive for added storage to work in tandem with the internal drive for added storage of programs.
Not sure if Winmfs or some other program can copy the internal drive to a larger drive in order to save the recorded programs. 
Haven't seen any posts talking about copying the programs to a larger drive then expanding the file system like the HR10-250, but expect down the road someone will figure that out and put out a program like winmfs to do it, just a mater of time. Hope the hackers out there are working on this.
Adding a large hard drive right when you get the DVR is the thing to do if you like saving programs and movies as it is hard to loose all of your recording when you decide to replace the internal drive 6 months or so down the road when you realize that you are running out of space and are confronted with the fact that you will loose your recording and will have to start over with recording your "keeper" movies and programs again to the new larger drive. 
Although D* may not replace the DVR if it has a hardware failure because they think that the subscriber has opened the box and replaced the drive, but before the subscriber tries to get the box replaced, you put the original drive back in. That is a good reason not to reapply the original drive to a PC, just tuck the original drive away in a safe place and hope your DVR runs through its expected lifetime.
Anyway, I don't think that D* will squawk about anyone putting a larger drive in the DVR anyway as you are not messing with their software, just adding storage. They are still receiving their monthly fees and the subscriber is happy with their box with the added storage.
After all, these are just great toys for the adults, and the older you are, the more time you spend in front of the "boob tube", the more storage you need!


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

BOBCAT said:


> Another reason not to use the external drive is if you have recordings that you don't want to loose, there is no way to copy them to the external drive.
> ...


You'll have the same issue if you replace the internal drive. There's simply no way to copy those recordings anywhere, at least not digitally.


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## BOBCAT (Nov 28, 2002)

I would guess that you could do a bit for bit copy, but you wouldn't be able to take advantage of the larger drive as there is no way to expand the partition.
That was the nice thing about the HR10-250, it was possible to add a larger hard drive with winmsf and copy your recordings over.


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