# weakness drives



## chalooch101 (Nov 30, 2005)

anyone know of any special holiday coupon codes to be used at weakness.com for replacement hard drive purchases? thanks and happy holidays 

ALSO, ARE THESE DRIVES RELIABLE?


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

1. No
2. Yes, they're reliable.


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## dongrocker (Jan 3, 2006)

No to be disagreeable but...

1.) No
2.) No

Western Digital have a failure rate far greater than any other brand.
I say, if you wouldn't put one in your computer, you shouldn't put one in your tivo.


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## Gunnyman (Jul 10, 2003)

fwiw, they stand behind their products and wouldn't be a sponsor here if they didn't.


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## kap0w (Jan 27, 2005)

They claim on the site to have some special sort of HDs that are just for DVR usage. All drives die from time to time and I can't think of any particular brand that is really that bad - you'll find people that hate or love any brand. All things considered, I'd take one built for DVRs over a standard drive.


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## xnevergiveinx (Apr 5, 2004)

i'm pretty sure they use seagate drives in the terabyte tivo.

drives are getting better. i have alot of old maxtor and especially western digital drives that are loud and whiny.
now they put in fluid bearings and it keeps them from whining. plus, you can use the hitachi program to set the acoustics of the drive and make it not crunch as loud when seeking.

as for reliability, seagate seems to be the winner. they have the longest warranty. 
i'm not too sure how they make a drive specifically for tivo applications, it would just have the following optimal specs:
5400 rpm for heat reduction compared to 7200 rpm (although this is debatable as technology gets better and better)
quiet motor and seek
maybe low power consumption

cache buffer and transfer speed don't matter as the tivo will not benefit from a super fast drive compared to a standard 5400 rpm drive.
thats about it, it's possible for the best drive available to fail for any number of reasons.

i trust weaknees, they seem to know what they are doing, but they seem to have wised up enough to pick the most reliable drive (in my opinion) for they're top tivo, the terabyte tivo (the one for d*)

also, reverse it, i 2 of the drives from my tivos in one of my computers and haven't had a problem.


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## kap0w (Jan 27, 2005)

The weaknees page says a little more. They say something like "regular drives, upon encountering an error, will try over and over again to get the right data. In a DVR, upon encountering an error, it's best to just keep going so you see a little block or two on one frame but then keep going instead of freezing on it". Supposedly that is the big difference with their drives.

A few years ago Fluid Dynamic Bearings (FDB) were rare but they come on basically everything built in the last year or so. Some of them still make more noise than others. Also, acoustic management programs are available, but don't work on some drives because of a licensing fight - I wish I could remember the brand, but I ran into this recently, so watch yourself out there.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

kap0w said:


> The weaknees page says a little more. They say something like "regular drives, upon encountering an error, will try over and over again to get the right data. In a DVR, upon encountering an error, it's best to just keep going so you see a little block or two on one frame but then keep going instead of freezing on it". Supposedly that is the big difference with their drives.
> 
> A few years ago Fluid Dynamic Bearings (FDB) were rare but they come on basically everything built in the last year or so. Some of them still make more noise than others. Also, acoustic management programs are available, but don't work on some drives because of a licensing fight - I wish I could remember the brand, but I ran into this recently, so watch yourself out there.


Seagate is the company that doesn't support acoustic management anymore.

The Weakness PVR drives greatly reduce the amount of (or eliminate) error correction, which in turn makes the errors less noticable, which makes it seem like the drives are more reliable when they are not. This approach will work for the occasional sector that goes bad, which is pretty rare. Usually when a hard drive goes bad, it usually fails dramatically, and no amount of error correction will save it.

For the part of the hard drive that is holding the recordings, which is >99% of the hard drive, I agree with this limited/no error-correction approach. But is it worth the extra money? An optimist would say these drives are a better fit for a PVR application. A pessimist would say you are paying more for less functionality and the same reliability and warranty. Which one are you?


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## dfriedland (Apr 6, 2002)

So what are these "DVR" specific hard drives? What models and can they be bought at places besides Weaknees?


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## xnevergiveinx (Apr 5, 2004)

i'm pretty sure maxtor quickview drives are dvr specific


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## kap0w (Jan 27, 2005)

Weaknees says on their site that the drives ship in most DVRs, but generally aren't available for sale to end users, so their site is supposed to be the only place you can get them.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

The Maxtor Quickview hard drives are modified for use in PVRs (by limiting/disabling error correction). But since they are expensive, the market for them is limited, so they are difficult to find.

Many people use a regular hard drive without any problems. Just stay away from Maxtor Diamondmax 10 drives, as they seem to have a problem working with Tivo.


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## xnevergiveinx (Apr 5, 2004)

i've had a maxtor diamondmax 10 drive in my series 2 for a couple of months now, i haven't had a problem with it yet


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

The early Diamondmax 10s didn't have a problem. The ones made recently do. The problem is immediate and obvious -- there is a lot of stuttering the moment you boot the Tivo. You obviously have a good one.

There's no way to tell (at this time) which ones are good and which ones will have the problem. To anyone who wants to buy one, better make sure the shop has an excellent return policy with no restocking fee.


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## xnevergiveinx (Apr 5, 2004)

hmm, i just bought my diamondmax 10 drive the day after thanksgiving, that seems pretty recent, unless i got some old stock.

oh well, if it craps out, i'll just get a nice seagate replacement


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## lexsar (Dec 16, 2003)

BobCamp1 said:


> The early Diamondmax 10s didn't have a problem. The ones made recently do. The problem is immediate and obvious -- there is a lot of stuttering the moment you boot the Tivo. You obviously have a good one.
> 
> There's no way to tell (at this time) which ones are good and which ones will have the problem. To anyone who wants to buy one, better make sure the shop has an excellent return policy with no restocking fee.


I already bought one at a great price intending to put it into a PC. Does anyone know if I decide to try it in my Series 2 Tivo and it stutters, can I just reformat it and put it into a PC?!?!?


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

lexsar said:


> I already bought one at a great price intending to put it into a PC. Does anyone know if I decide to try it in my Series 2 Tivo and it stutters, can I just reformat it and put it into a PC?!?!?


Yes you can.


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## xnevergiveinx (Apr 5, 2004)

getting a little off topic here, but i think the question was answered well.
of course you can put it in a pc. think of it this way, when you put a tivo system on the drive, it's like putting a linux operating system on it. unless you physically harm the drive, it's always erasable

by the way, did you get the drive from staples on black friday? i think compusa and circuit city had the same deal, but i went with staples because of less people and online rebates are awesome!


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