# Future availability of PATA/IDE drives for upgrades/repairs?



## goony

There are a few of us that will probably keep our standard-def (SD) Tivos/DTivos for a while... I have 4 DTivos with full 'network enhancements' that I am very happy with.

I've been watching my favorite PC parts website (http://www.newegg.com) and, of course, SATA (Serial ATA) drives are frequently featured and are on sale.

In a few years, IDE/PATA drives will be in the minority and we'll probably have to pay higher prices to upgrade or fix failed drives in our old crusty Tivo/DTivos that were made with an IDE/PATA controller. I want to prepare a strategy now to be able to use SATA drives in my boxes.

I was curious if anyone had tried running an SATA drive in a Tivo/DTivo using a converter card like this one, (home page at http://www.kinamax.com) and if so, how did it work out? NewEgg has them for $9.99 + shipping, FYI.

If you try this, you will also need to get a power adapter cable that will let you run an SATA drive from a IDE/PATA power connector.


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## JamieP

goony said:


> ...
> I was curious if anyone had tried running an SATA drive in a Tivo/DTivo using a converter card like this one, (home page at http://www.kinamax.com) and if so, how did it work out? NewEgg has them for $9.99 + shipping, FYI.


Here's one guy that did it to attach to a SATA raid array. photos.


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## litzdog911

PATA/IDE drives will likely be available long after our current Tivos have died or become obsolete.


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## mr.unnatural

I agree. Many people still use PATA drives in their SATA-compatible PCs. There are lots of PC owners that don't upgrade their PCs to the latest and greatest technology just because the industry thinks it's a good idea to make a change. PATA drives will be avilable for many years to come.


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## goony

litzdog911 said:


> PATA/IDE drives will likely be available long after our current Tivos have died or become obsolete.


That's good to hear - I was under the impression that the hard drive world was eager to say "good bye" to the parallel drives, or at least charge a fortune for them compared to the newer SATA drives.


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## SteelersFan

goony said:


> That's good to hear - I was under the impression that the hard drive world was eager to say "good bye" to the parallel drives, or at least charge a fortune for them compared to the newer SATA drives.


Agreed. Otherwise I might have to stockpile some PATAs in my basement (if I had a basement).


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## Dkerr24

I think we are still years away from becoming concerned about the demise of PATA hard drives.


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## Lensman

Dkerr24 said:


> I think we are still years away from becoming concerned about the demise of PATA hard drives.


Heh, or at least one year...

I know that PATA drives are still available as I just bought a Western Digital 500GB PATA drive ( WD5000AAJB ) to replace my dead Maxtor drive in my Pioneer DVD Tivo.

While shopping, I noticed a couple of things:
1. SATA drives are now cheaper than PATA drives. I view this as the tipping point for the demise of PATA replacement parts. PATA will get progressively more expensive while SATA drives will continue to offer progressively lower price per gigabyte.
2. The newest drive mechanisms aren't being released for the PATA interface, only the SATA interface. I found one 750GB PATA drive, but for the most part, 500GB is the top end for PATA. Even among manufacturers, Seagate and Western Digital seem to be the only folks making PATA anymore.
3. It was darned hard to find a place selling the Western Digital PATA drive. Newegg is sold out and only has the Seagates. I'm biased against Seagate because I want to turn acoustic management on and I still have my worries about the level of quietness of Seagate drives. BTW, as an aside, is the DB35 any quieter than their desktop drives?

Anyway, as this was my *second* replacement drive for my Pioneer, I was trying to figure out if I should try to mitigate against the future availability and pricing of 500GB PATA drives by getting one or two and, say, using them in my NAS device or something so I'll have them for my next drive failure.


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## flatcurve

I wouldn't worry. They still sell 3.5" floppies after all.


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## classicsat

You can probably use SATA to IDE adapters too. I heard they will work with TiVo.


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## Worf

SATA and PATA aren't actually terribly different from each other - they're basically different physical interfaces. That's why there's PATA to SATA (and vice-versa) adapters out there - all that's really done is change the physical interface from one to the other. They're fairly cheap adapters too - and sites like ptvupgrade sell them. The physical signalling is different, but the logical layer remains pretty much the same. The early SATA drives just had a chip in them, and quite likely, PATA drives will have a chip that takes the SATA native interface into a PATA one.

They will also be around as a lot of embedded processors don't have SATA interfaces, but PATA ones instead (think iPods and other portable media players), and the embedded processor market is a much slower moving one (mostly because embedded operating systems - not ones like Linux, but think VxWorks and the like - don't incorporate new technology all that rapidly). (Think - only the past couple of years has USB host interfaces been popular additions to embedded processors, and most are still USB 1.1, while PCs have had them for nearly 10 years now).

(In fact, SATA has a few deficiencies in its physical interface that can cause issues, hence the longevity of the PATA interface, especially in the enterprise area).


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## tivoupgrade

Seagate made an official announcement to mitigate some concerns floating around about this a couple of months ago. Nothing to worry about for some time...


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## ZombiE

Hmmm,

I bought a WD 500GB drive about three weeks ago and upgraded one of my DT's. I went back to buy the same drive at newegg to do the same for my other DT and the biggest drives they have offered by WD are 320gb. 
There are plenty of Seagate drives, but it's obvious why 

I wonder if there is a shortage right now on WD 500GB drives? I have looked at other places and they all seem to be 'Out of Stock'.


Z


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## rbtravis

ZombiE said:


> Hmmm,
> 
> I bought a WD 500GB drive about three weeks ago and upgraded one of my DT's. I went back to buy the same drive at newegg to do the same for my other DT and the biggest drives they have offered by WD are 320gb.
> There are plenty of Seagate drives, but it's obvious why
> 
> I wonder if there is a shortage right now on WD 500GB drives? I have looked at other places and they all seem to be 'Out of Stock'.
> 
> Z


 I sent an Email to Newegg and am awaiting their response ( not yet 1 day waiting). I asked if they were discontinuing the drives as ZIPZOOMFLY has done (they stated that they believed that all demand was going to SATA II) you can always try www.thenerds.net who also carry Seagate DB35 drives. I will post when I get a reply from Newegg, if I do not post you will know their customer support is non-responsive.


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## rbtravis

"We thank you for your prompt attention. However, please kindly note that every product we carry is listed on our website, pricing and availability posted in real time. Please check all prices and availability at www.newegg.com for our most up-to-date status. When an item is out of stock, we usually provide an ETA on our website. Unfortunately if we do not have a date provided then the ETA is undetermined. We do provide an Auto Notify link for out of stock items. By utilizing this feature an email would be sent once the item is made available again on our website. Please kindly note that any item that is removed from our website usually will be out of stock for longer than 2 weeks."

Newegg failed to answer question about whether or not the Items were discontinued and why auto-notify had been discontinued. Either they have bad relations with their suppliers or bad customer support to emailed questions.


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## rbtravis

You can find plenty of WD drives here
http://www.thenerds.net/WESTERN_DIG...viar_SE_WD5000AAJB_Hard_Drive.WD5000AAJB.html
a little more expensive but plenty of stock, they also carry DB35 Seagate drives for DVR's


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## ZombiE

Nice work Travis,

Yep more expensive, I bought my Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJB 500GB for 99 bucks at Newegg. The total was $104 with shipping.

That is still a pretty decent price, $124, $135ish with shipping since Newegg doesn't seem to carry them anymore. I received the same email response from them as well. Just a blanket email to shut most people up.

Z


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## rbtravis

Coupon code for thenerds.net:
$5 off of $100 (affgoo2*)


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## spike2k5

ZombiE said:


> Nice work Travis,
> 
> Yep more expensive, I bought my Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJB 500GB for 99 bucks at Newegg. The total was $104 with shipping.
> 
> That is still a pretty decent price, $124, $135ish with shipping since Newegg doesn't seem to carry them anymore. I received the same email response from them as well. Just a blanket email to shut most people up.
> 
> Z


How was your drive shipped?

Last time I got few drive from Newegg, they were wrapped in bubble wraps by twos and shipped in a box full of peanut shells. Problem with that is drives sink down to the bottom w/ little protection and gets banged around.

Drives were DOA on two separate occasions.


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## rbtravis

Yes Spike2k5 Newegg does have shipping problems especially from their New Jersey warehouse. I use to purchase from ZipZoomFly but they have stopped ordering parallel IDE ATA100 drives because they are shifting to entirely to SATA & SATA II drives ( so I was informed by their customer support) hence due to Inventory issues as well as customer support issues I am now suggesting ordering from thenerds.net


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## pcar1947

I had a Seagate 320 GB SATA drive sitting around. I ordered a SATA to IDE Mini Vertical Bridge adapter and used that drive in my Pioneer 810 H Upgrade http://www.cooldrives.com/satoidecofor.html. It worked great


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## ZombiE

Hey Spike,

Yep that is how I have received all of my Western Digital drives I have ordered from them. I have been lucky; you can read the reviews to see how many people get DOA drives. Not just from Newegg but other sites as well. 
The first one is in my computer, 2 years old still going, another one in an external enclosure, one in my S2 ST Tivo and one in my DT. I have been very lucky. It's a crap shoot with OEM drives from most places. They are not going to spend the extra money on packaging, that is what a retail version gives you.
So I consider myself lucky that I have had zero issues so far with any of the drives I have ordered online. Keeping my fingers crossed for the next one.

I live in Florida; they ship most of my items from their Tennessee warehouse, so maybe that helps a little.

Pcar1947, 

That is the first I have heard of someone using that in a Tivo. Very glad to hear that it is working. Did you have to update firmware or do anything different other than just plugging it in?

Z


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## rbtravis

Good Price on Maxtor 500 GB at TigerDirect
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3167558&CatId=525


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## ZombiE

travis,

Maxtor, are you insane? 

Z


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## rbtravis

Maybe, but this is my third 500 GB Maxtor the first two are quiet and work great  Besides didn't your Mother teach you it is not polite to make fun of the mentally retarded.


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## epsilondelta

@rbtravis:

I googled for SE WD5000AAJB, and the link for newegg said this (small print) at the top:

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but the item you are looking for has been deactivated. Here are some similar products that you may wish to consider:"

"Deactivated" is certainly a stronger term than "Out of Stock;" it would be nice if they could make a canned email to cover that case...
___

And thanks to all for the reassuring thread. 

Ken


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## rbtravis

epsilondelta said:


> @rbtravis:
> 
> I googled for SE WD5000AAJB, and the link for newegg said this (small print) at the top:
> 
> "We apologize for the inconvenience, but the item you are looking for has been deactivated. Here are some similar products that you may wish to consider:"
> 
> "Deactivated" is certainly a stronger term than "Out of Stock;" it would be nice if they could make a canned email to cover that case...
> ___
> 
> And thanks to all for the reassuring thread.
> 
> Ken


The replacement drives are still available at quality Etailors such as TigerDirect and TheNerds.net. (Zipzoomfly and Newegg it looks like they are abandoning the Market) it is their money and what they want to spend money on. They are like the thundering herd all rushing to sell something you don't want at twice the price. Best Buy has the proper drive for the S3 TiVo only at the tremendous bargain of twice the going price. (not for me thank you) There are still good bargains out there you just have to look for them. You can still go to Spike2k5's site www.mfslive.org and get the software for marrying drives for Free. Just keep posting sites with good prices. We have to abandon Etailors who have abandoned us.  Although I only have RCA Directv TiVos, Here is what Western Digital and BestBuy view as what is the future for TiVo drives:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8477105&type=product&id=1185271084416

Search for best prices here:
http://www.pricespider.com/index.aspx

Good Luck


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## jmace57

Dkerr24 said:


> I think we are still years away from becoming concerned about the demise of PATA hard drives.


OK - it's now been years since this post!

I am starting to worry though. Between my own and my kids lifetime TiVo's, I have 6 series 2's. I have a couple of old 40 gig and 1 300 gig PATA drive in the cabinet.

I see places like Surplus Computers sell 200 gig PATA drives for $35 or so...should we stock up a few for future replacements? Or am I worrying over nothing? Do SATA to EIDE crossovers work?

Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks.
Jim


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## ciper

jmace57 said:


> Do SATA to EIDE crossovers work?


Most of the time they do work. If you troll the boards enough you will see that people are already using them. I personally remember reading about at least 3-4 S1 using them in the UK forum.


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## tivoupgrade

Seagate DB35 160GB drives should still be in production through the end of this year (unless something changes). Higher capacity Seagate DB35 drives have been discontinued and are no longer available from our distributors. 

I've not heard anything about Western Digital PATA drives becoming unavailable, but if it hasn't been announced, it is probably just a matter of time.

As it turns out, PATA/SATA adapters do work fine (not all of them do, but most do and we offer one for < $20) in all the Series2 units we've tested out (except for the TCD130, from what I recall) but they will not work in Series1 units.

Lou


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## Southcross

jmace57 said:


> Do SATA to EIDE crossovers work?





ciper said:


> Most of the time they do work. If you troll the boards enough you will see that people are already using them. I personally remember reading about at least 3-4 S1 using them in the UK forum.


I just got mine in the mail today... I'm gonna try it out on a 160GB SATA I've got laying around on my S2 tonight.


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## jmace57

Thanks for the responses all. I feel relieved.

Jim


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## bengalfreak

litzdog911 said:


> PATA/IDE drives will likely be available long after our current Tivos have died or become obsolete.


This statement is rapidly becoming not true (awful grammar, I know). More and more retailers are dropping IDE drives. And they are definitely dropping in cost competitiveness with SATA drives.


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## ciper

I want to start a new thread. We need to know which chipset of SATA to IDE adapters work and with which models so others don't end up trapped during an upgrade

If any of you have experience please reply to my thread here

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7010418


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## rbtravis

Have you looked here for drives?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=134&name=ATA-IDE-Hard-Drive&


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## tivoupgrade

bengalfreak said:


> This statement is rapidly becoming not true (awful grammar, I know). More and more retailers are dropping IDE drives. And they are definitely dropping in cost competitiveness with SATA drives.


What is happening is that some vendors are discontinuing the production of certain PATA drives. Clearly, the general trend is in the direction of SATA drives, and it is not cost-effective for the manufacturer's to support both lines indefinitely.

In mid-2008, Seagate announced that they would be discontinuing production of their PATA lines by the end of 2008. As it turns out, they will continue to manufacturer 80GB and 160GB DB35 drives at least until the end of 2009. There is no clear date beyond that for availability of any PATA drives from Seagate, and they are known to change their plans without much notice.

What I can tell you for certain is that 250GB - 750GB PATA drives (Seagate DB35) are no longer available from our suppliers and even though there may still be parts floating around out there, they are no longer in production.

We have not gotten any announcements regarding availability of WD AV drives in the PATA space, and to date, we are still able to place orders and receive stock on the WD AV part, so it seems that at least for now, we should still get PATA parts for the foreseeable future.

We are currently using PATA/SATA adapters in combination with SATA DB35 drives in many cases, but still have small inventories (expected to dry up soon) of PATA drives which we keep for Series1 systems. Unfortunately, Series1 systems will NOT work with any of the PATA/SATA adapters we've tried.

That's all I know, but will let you know if I hear anything beyond that...

Lou


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## ciper

tivoupgrade said:


> Unfortunately, Series1 systems will NOT work with any of the PATA/SATA adapters we've tried.


Some of the UK guys have had success with the adapters. They only have S1 units.


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## Southcross

ciper said:


> Some of the UK guys have had success with the adapters. They only have S1 units.


I too have seen several S1 threads (on this forum) with people able to use them with even the 1TB drive(s).

in any case... I really hate to see any manufacturer totally phase them out, a lot of people still have IDE based computers. AND, not to mention the DVR market... keeping around a subset of DVR drives is a good idea. 160 and 320 are reasonable sizes to keep around for a few more years atleast.


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## lew

OTA will be going to digital sometime this year. Cable systems are moving more and more stations to digital only. I suspect a number of customers may use a failed hard drive as motivation to upgrade their tivo. I suspect many people can get a 80-120G drive from a friend or neighbor who may be junking an old computer.

I agree with the pp, people who are planning to keep their S1 and even S2 tivos "until they are really dead" might want to grab a reasonable sized drive. The only problem is the warranty may be all but gone before you install it.


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## tivoupgrade

ciper said:


> Some of the UK guys have had success with the adapters. They only have S1 units.


I'll have to see if we can find an adapter which supports the older units. We've not seen a lot of demand for S1 upgrades lately, but if the adapters are cheap enough, it would certainly make sense to offer them.



Southcross said:


> I160 and 320 are reasonable sizes to keep around for a few more years atleast.


80GB and 160GB are the sizes that Seagate will continue to manufacturer for awhile. I was told that was due to contractual obligations. (probably with an OEM like Motorola or another DVR manufacturer).

Clearly the larger sizes don't make sense for them, though - not enough demand to warrant the manufacturing and support effort; otherwise they would keep them around, too.

I think Western Digital's outlook is different from Seagate's, though - we were able to get 320GB WD AV parts with no problem, at all.


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## lessd

tivoupgrade said:


> I'll have to see if we can find an adapter which supports the older units. We've not seen a lot of demand for S1 upgrades lately, but if the adapters are cheap enough, it would certainly make sense to offer them.


Addonics Serial to PATA converter will work, making any SATA drive work in any PATA application including TiVo. An E-Bay seller has one for under $5 that i have not tried.


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## lew

lessd said:


> Addonics Serial to PATA converter will work, making any SATA drive work in any PATA application including TiVo. An E-Bay seller has one for under $5 that i have not tried.


Manufactuers have been known to change chipsets, but not change the model number. The problem is a convertor might currently work but customers that purchase the same model in the future might find it doesn't work.


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## lessd

lew said:


> Manufactuers have been known to change chipsets, but not change the model number. The problem is a convertor might currently work but customers that purchase the same model in the future might find it doesn't work.


That is one reason TiVo has their own wireless adapter but this/all SATA-PATA converters uses the standard windows driver so I don't think one may expect the same type of problems, but without trying one you can't tell for sure. We did have a standard 1Tb WD Hard disk drive that would pass all computer tests, work in a TiVo-HD but fail on a soft re-boot in the original Series 3 (It would work great in a hard re-boot in the original Series 3) so anything possible I guess.


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## ciper

lew said:


> Manufactuers have been known to change chipsets


That's why I asked for the chipset in my thread


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## juanian

I guess I was lucky when I got my 500GB DB35 drive.

What about the Seagate SV series of drives - would they be expected to work long-term in TiVos, or is their design not compatible with DVRs?


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## ggieseke

For anyone looking for WD drives (cheap) check out http://www.directron.com/wd5000aakb.html

I have been buying all of my computer parts there for about 10 years.


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## rbtravis

If you have been buying Western Digital for years, you should have registered your drives, then you would have known about their loyalty program under which you could have purchased the same drive for $59.00 (500GB) and kept your old drive. Only WD is continuing to supply PATA drives for Tivo's.


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