# Is it okay to turn the TiVo off (i.e. unplug) every night?



## ibergu (May 9, 2004)

Planning on moving my Series 3 to the bedroom, but my wife has bionic ears and swears that she won't be able to sleep because of the noise.

Will we damage the TiVo if we turn it off every night? I know it won't record shows, but that's fine. Just want to make sure that it has no ill effects on the box.

Thanks!


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

I don't recommend simply unplugging it - if you do that regularly you may corrupt the disk contents. If you must remove power, do a restart through the menus and cut the power once the screen goes blank. I doubt, however, you'll have the discipline to do that every night.

Another issue is that some TiVo updates come in on programs recorded late at night, so you may prevent the TiVo from getting updates. If it is connected to the network that may be less of an issue.

Maybe think of other options - I read about a TiVo Mini which might be usable in a bedroom.


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## ibergu (May 9, 2004)

Thanks Steve. 

I'm not that tech savvy. Why would unplugging it corrupt the disk contents?

In any case, I was doing some research and read that putting the TiVo in Standby (and turning suggestions off) might also reduce noise. I'll give that a try.


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

A TiVo is always writing to disk. If you simply interrupt power, you may cause a disk transfer to be incomplete. The TiVo's file system is designed to allow for that, but there is a risk of an issue. Also, the disk drive itself would "prefer" to be parked and spun down rather than have the plug pulled.

Yes, putting it in standby and disabling recording of suggestions might help, but you should experiment.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

There is one very big ill effect from unplugging it overnight, it won't be able to record anything. A Tivo's goal in life is "record record record" and you're preventing it from doing that


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

ibergu said:


> Planning on moving my Series 3 to the bedroom, but my wife has bionic ears and swears that she won't be able to sleep because of the noise.
> 
> Will we damage the TiVo if we turn it off every night? I know it won't record shows, but that's fine. Just want to make sure that it has no ill effects on the box.
> 
> Thanks!


I have had a timer on my TiVo (was the TiVo Series 3, now the TP) for many years, it turns off the unit at 4am and back on at 5PM, software updates happen at about 2am so that never been a problem, and i have never corrupted the hard drive and never had a hard drive or TiVo fail, TiVo is designed to have the power removed without causing any problems, so is your PC. I have nothing i want to record in that time frame, if there was i would turn the timer off for a day or so. I know this is one person with one TiVo doing this, but i would think I would have seen a problem sometime from 2007 to now if there is any problem doing this.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lessd said:


> I have had a timer on my TiVo (was the TiVo Series 3, now the TP) for many years, it turns off the unit at 4am and back on at 5PM


There is very little or no reason to do that. It's isn't very likely to do anything directly, but it will tend to reduce the lifespan not only of the hard drive but also the electronics.



lessd said:


> TiVo is designed to have the power removed without causing any problems


A more accurate statement would be the design of the TiVo is highly tolerant of such interruptions. Everything critical is read-only.



lessd said:


> so is your PC.


Absolutely not. Your average desktop PC is rather intolerant of sudden power interruptions, especially if it is running Windows or certain versions of Unix, or even Linux with certain file systems. Suddenly killing the power to a PC is an excellent way to cause a wide range of issues, including a total corruption of the OS.



lessd said:


> I have nothing i want to record in that time frame, if there was i would turn the timer off for a day or so. I know this is one person with one TiVo doing this, but i would think I would have seen a problem sometime from 2007 to now if there is any problem doing this.


That is only 5 years, and you have been lucky. Every time almost any component is shut down it causes thermal shock. Every time it is turned on, most components - especially motors (like in a hard drive) and power supplies are placed under high loads from inrush current. Many logic circuits are stressed by low supply voltages until the supply rails stabilize.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

ibergu said:


> In any case, I was doing some research and read that putting the TiVo in Standby (and turning suggestions off) might also reduce noise. I'll give that a try.


Another trick is to turn off Suggestions and then tune the TiVo to a channel you don't get, this will stop the recording and should reduce all hard drive noise.

Although if your wife is so sensative to this why are you even considering doing it? Why do you need a TiVo in the bedroom?



lessd said:


> I have had a timer on my TiVo (was the TiVo Series 3, now the TP) for many years, it turns off the unit at 4am and back on at 5PM.


Why? TiVos don't use much power so I can't imagine this saves much.


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## destek (Jan 15, 2001)

we have TIVO in our bedroom, but we did it through a wired remote system that Radio Shack used to sell (sadly they no longer sell this unit). It sends the video and remote signals back on one wire. I tried a wireless system, but it looked very bad.There are newer units on the market now, ones that support full HD. Take a look at:
http://hometheater.about.com/od/aud...ess-A-V-Sender-And-Remote-Extender-Review.htm

... there are several others out there as well.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Another trick is to turn off Suggestions and then tune the TiVo to a channel you don't get, this will stop the recording and should reduce all hard drive noise.
> 
> Although if your wife is so sensative to this why are you even considering doing it? Why do you need a TiVo in the bedroom?
> 
> Why? TiVos don't use much power so I can't imagine this saves much.


You will still hear the fan from the TiVo even it's it's not writing to the hard drive. I can easily hear the fan or hard drive in any TiVo from twenty feet away in a quiet room. But it doesn't keep me from sleeping. I would rather have the noise from the TiVo than for the room to be completely quiet. If it is completely quiet, then I have difficulty sleeping. Because I'm then able to hear all the creaks from the building, pipes, etc. or crickets and other noise from outside. And those noises really keep me up when I hear them.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

The two biggest arguments (IMO) against unplugging every night is that it prevents the TiVo from doing what it's suppsed to do (Suggestions, downloading program info) and increased thermal cycling as the system warms to operating temp during the day and cools down to ambient overnight which is more stressful than just turning it on and leaving it running.


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## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

If you replace the hard drive with an ssd, you can probably get by with unplugging the fan and reduce your noise to zero.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

I'd be concerned that an SSD wouldn't have the service life (write cycles) that a TiVo needs.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Well, I would try testing it to see if its bothersome or not. Unplugging it a few times for a test should not impact a drive in good working order. Then make your decision.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

lrhorer said:


> There is very little or no reason to do that. It's isn't very likely to do anything directly, but it will tend to reduce the lifespan not only of the hard drive but also the electronics.
> 
> A more accurate statement would be the design of the TiVo is highly tolerant of such interruptions. Everything critical is read-only.
> 
> ...


Hard to argue with your ideas about power shut off (in Windows I do close all programs before turning off any computer), because they sound good and many people have your belief, it just my not true, as running something does reduce its life also, most people turn their TVs off when they stop watching, never been a big problem. If one turned your TiVo on than off every 10 minutes 24/7 your TiVo life would most likely go down, but twice a day, you will get longer life for your TiVo. But this is somewhat like religion, you may have yours I may have mine, if they are not the same we should not tell (with force) the other, that their life is not being lived correctly.

PS I don't do this for power savings as that amounts to about $1/month, but it does add about 70% to the life of the hard drive (IMHO).


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

lessd said:


> PS I don't do this for power savings as that amounts to about $1/month, but it does add about 70% to the life of the hard drive (IMHO).


This argument is as old as time, and as far as I know there has never been any real proof in either direction. Both sides have theoretical merit, but all the "proof" I've seen is anecdotal.

Dan


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> This argument is as old as time, and as far as I know there has never been any real proof in either direction. Both sides have theoretical merit, but all the "proof" I've seen is anecdotal.
> 
> Dan


I agree !!
We all have our own beliefs and its very hard to change ones beliefs, look how hard it was to convince people that the world was round back in the 14th & 15th century, or where was Barack Obama birth place again ?? LOL


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## retired_guy (Aug 27, 2004)

I've had nine TiVos over the last ten years or so and have had disk failures only in two cases which both were while powering off and on. I had a third case of file corruption when power failed but was able to recover the disk in that case. I know that anecdotal evidence won't necessarily be meaningful for others but it was sufficient for me to justify getting UPS systems and minimizing powering off/on. Have not had a disk failure since.


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## rhettf (Apr 5, 2012)

has your wife ever tried earplugs? 

you could also put the TiVo in your main room and then get a TiVo Mini when it becomes available, its doesn't have a Hard Drive or Fan.


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## P42 (Jan 7, 2003)

Doesn't the Mini require a 4 tuner Premier? The OP has a Series3.
But yes, that would be a solution, but quite the $ jump.


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## dsnotgood (Aug 26, 2010)

Maybe stick it in a closet and use the slide remote?


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## rhettf (Apr 5, 2012)

P42 said:


> Doesn't the Mini require a 4 tuner Premier? The OP has a Series3.
> But yes, that would be a solution, but quite the $ jump.


You're correct. I missed that the OP has a Series3.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> This argument is as old as time, and as far as I know there has never been any real proof in either direction. Both sides have theoretical merit, but all the "proof" I've seen is anecdotal.


Not at all. First of all, many companies and even some individuals have enough systems in service that the number is statistically significant. Indeed, with more than 30 hard drives in my house and more than 100 under my administration at work, I can tell you the systems that are online 24 x 7 have far lower failure rates than those that are shut off. Of the 70 drives in embedded systems that have been running for between 15 and 18 years continuously in our Nortel systems, fewer than 5 have failed in under 10 years, and fewer than 20 have failed, total. Compare that with a roughly 40% failure rate of desktop drives over a 10 year period, per our company records.

The same holds true of other systems, including even internal combustion engines. In the field, diesel generators and pumps last far longer than those in automobiles and trucks. It is not at all uncommon for a diesel field generator or pump to run continuously for 50 years, with down-time only for maintenance, while engines in a start-stop environment often require replacement after only a few years.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

retired_guy said:


> I've had nine TiVos over the last ten years or so and have had disk failures only in two cases which both were while powering off and on. I had a third case of file corruption when power failed but was able to recover the disk in that case. I know that anecdotal evidence won't necessarily be meaningful for others but it was sufficient for me to justify getting UPS systems and minimizing powering off/on. Have not had a disk failure since.


Three data points is indeed a very small sample, making this, as you say, rather anecdotal, but there is plenty of evidence of a statistical significant sample size out there, as well. I have certainly had hard drives fail while in continuous use. In fact, I had one fail just a couple of weeks ago. The failure rate in intermittently operational systems, however, is quite strikingly higher.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lessd said:


> Hard to argue with your ideas about power shut off (in Windows I do close all programs before turning off any computer), because they sound good and many people have your belief


Well, first of all, in the case of a computer, there is a much more susceptible failure mode. No matter what, if a power failure occurs in a non-batery backed drive system while a write is underway, that data is lost, period. If the write happens to be to a file allocation table, potentially serious corruption of the entire file system can result. Journalling file systems like ext3 or XFS have ways to help alleviate the data loss in such a scenario, but simple file systems like ext2 or FAT, and to some extent NTFS can easily be trashed in part or even completely by a power interruption prior to flushing the file system write buffers.

Even with more sophisticated file structures and error recovery, however, the loss of power can, to put it quite simply, knock a drive system right on its tucus. 'Just ask me what I had to do when a power outage followed by kernel panic during a RAID reshape on a 12 Terabyte array happened. Backups are a man's best friend.



lessd said:


> it just my not true, as running something does reduce its life also


No, in general not. Certainly wear and tear does occur, but for the most part there is less wear and tear on continuously running systems, unless they are run near or over their design limits.



lessd said:


> most people turn their TVs off when they stop watching, never been a big problem.


That is a little different. In the past almost all TVs were CRTs, and CRTs have a hot filament in them. A hot filament suffers from sublimation over time while hot, so turning off the filament while not in use can significantly extend its life. The phosphors also age during illumination, so turning the set off when not in use will extend its life. Even so, failure of the CRT filament is most likely when the set is turned on or off. With items that do not have a fairly fixed operational life, however, like phosphors and filaments, continuous use tends to be less stressful than starting and stopping.



lessd said:


> If one turned your TiVo on than off every 10 minutes 24/7 your TiVo life would most likely go down, but twice a day, you will get longer life for your TiVo.


'Not likely.



lessd said:


> PS I don't do this for power savings as that amounts to about $1/month, but it does add about 70% to the life of the hard drive (IMHO).


Opinion, neither yours nor mine, is relevant in this case. This is something easily measurable.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

lrhorer said:


> Not at all. First of all, many companies and even some individuals have enough systems in service that the number is statistically significant. Indeed, with more than 30 hard drives in my house and more than 100 under my administration at work, I can tell you the systems that are online 24 x 7 have far lower failure rates than those that are shut off. Of the 70 drives in embedded systems that have been running for between 15 and 18 years continuously in our Nortel systems, fewer than 5 have failed in under 10 years, and fewer than 20 have failed, total. Compare that with a roughly 40% failure rate of desktop drives over a 10 year period, per our company records.
> 
> The same holds true of other systems, including even internal combustion engines. In the field, diesel generators and pumps last far longer than those in automobiles and trucks. It is not at all uncommon for a diesel field generator or pump to run continuously for 50 years, with down-time only for maintenance, while engines in a start-stop environment often require replacement after only a few years.


A drive that will last 15 to 18 years running at 24/7 is not the type of hard drive that most people have, just a guess on my part, a consumer type drive running at 24/7 has about 5 to 8 years of life, but run it for 1 hour once a year against a drive running 24/7 and i am sure you would get a longer life on the once a year drive.
On your comment about internal combustion engines I find interesting, so if the cost of fuel was not in the equation one could leave your car/truck running 24/7 and get a much longer life on the engine, like 50 years, I don't know the cost of replacing a big truck engine vs the extra cost of fuel by keeping it running at idle 24/7, I hope somebody has looked at that.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

lrhorer said:


> Not at all. First of all, many companies and even some individuals have enough systems in service that the number is statistically significant. Indeed, with more than 30 hard drives in my house and more than 100 under my administration at work, I can tell you the systems that are online 24 x 7 have far lower failure rates than those that are shut off. Of the 70 drives in embedded systems that have been running for between 15 and 18 years continuously in our Nortel systems, fewer than 5 have failed in under 10 years, and fewer than 20 have failed, total. Compare that with a roughly 40% failure rate of desktop drives over a 10 year period, per our company records.
> 
> The same holds true of other systems, including even internal combustion engines. In the field, diesel generators and pumps last far longer than those in automobiles and trucks. It is not at all uncommon for a diesel field generator or pump to run continuously for 50 years, with down-time only for maintenance, while engines in a start-stop environment often require replacement after only a few years.


Desktop drives fail more because they use cheaper parts and are attached to cheap PC power supplies plugged directly into the noisy wall socket. I'd bet the Nortel system has several improvements over a typical desktop system, but price isn't one of them. 

Diesel generators owned by companies are much more likely to be operated and maintained correctly than those owned by the average person. Oh, was I supposed to change the oil 10,000 miles ago?

Powering a hard drive on puts a lot of initial stress on the disk motor and the internal power supplies. But leaving it powered on puts constant stress on the actuator, a little on the disk motor, the power supply, the voice coil, and the pre-amp on the heads.

By far the most common failure is an externally caused failure (shock, power surge, temperature, etc.). That's a toss-up. When off, it's protected from surges, but the temperature isn't probably constant. Also when off, it might be getting transported. (Don't ever move a hard drive while it's spinning).

The next two most typical hard drive failures are the bearing(s) on the disk platter and misc. electrical part failure. They both get worse with use.

The fourth is the platter itself which gets better the more you use it. Defragmenting is useless for speed, but is excellent for refreshing the data.

In the end, mechanically, it's a toss up or maybe a very, very slight edge to powering it off.

Software-wise, the file system is journaled, so powering it off mid-write won't usually impact anything. I say "usually" because there's a 0.1% chance of something bad happening. It's nothing a "clear to do list and guide data" or "clear and delete everything" wouldn't fix, though most people aren't happy to have to do that. So there's fairly strong incentive to leave it on.


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## jmr50 (Dec 27, 2003)

Make your wife happy. If you have to replace your TiVo early as a result, you really won't mind that much


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

lessd said:


> a consumer type drive running at 24/7 has about 5 to 8 years of life


I have a S3 unit that I bought as soon as they were released in 2006. It's connected to a UPS so it never loses power unless I specifically cut the power to it for some reason. (only happened a few dozen times ever) The hard drive still works fine, but the power supply is giving up the ghost. My point is... the hard drive isn't the only part in a TiVo you have to worry about. You could do everything right to make your drive last 10 years and something else, like the power supply, could cause it to die after 5.

Luckily the drive and the power supply are both easy to replace so neither one dying will render your TiVo completely useless.

Dan


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## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

lessd said:


> A drive that will last 15 to 18 years running at 24/7 is not the type of hard drive that most people have, just a guess on my part, a consumer type drive running at 24/7 has about 5 to 8 years of life, but run it for 1 hour once a year against a drive running 24/7 and i am sure you would get a longer life on the once a year drive..


according to western digital, their av-gp drives are expected to be able to run 24/7 and the mtbf (average time before a drive fails) is 1 million hours or just over 114 years. Many on this forum have such drives in their tivo.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

poppagene said:


> according to western digital, their av-gp drives are expected to be able to run 24/7 and the mtbf (average time before a drive fails) is 1 million hours or just over 114 years. Many on this forum have such drives in their tivo.


How many people have a series 1 purchased in say the year 2000 to 2001 and still have it running with the original drive, I will admit that drives today are better than drives from 10 years ago, but 114 years at 24/7 *WOW*. (OK I know that at 114 years 1/2 the drives would have failed, but I still say *WOW*) But than again another poster in this thread said that a diesel generator, with proper maintenance, could last 50 years running 24/7, this is sure new information for me. (unless proper maintenance is replacing the barrings, rings and all other moving parts plus gaskets at regular intervals as I do agree that the oil pan and engine block should last 50 years as my 1927 Packard original oil pan and engine block are 85 years old and have no problems)


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

lessd said:


> How many people have a series 1 purchased in say the year 2000 to 2001 and still have it running with the original drive, I will admit that drives today are better than drives from 10 years ago, but 114 years at 24/7 *WOW*. (OK I know that at 114 years 1/2 the drives would have failed, but I still say *WOW*) But than again another poster in this thread said that a diesel generator, with proper maintenance, could last 50 years running 24/7, this is sure new information for me. (unless proper maintenance is replacing the barrings, rings and all other moving parts plus gaskets at regular intervals as I do agree that the oil pan and engine block should last 50 years as my 1927 Packard original oil pan and engine block are 85 years old and have no problems)


I replaced the hard drive in my Series 1 in 2001, and it's been running 24/7 ever since. It's a Samsung Spinpoint 120 GB hard drive. I can tell you that drives today are worse than they were 10 years ago, because like most other things it's about how cheap it can be made. The sizes aren't helping either, we are approaching the physical limits of what you can do with magnetic media while maintaining that form factor.

As you know, don't believe the reliability numbers of any electronic product. They are just educated guesses.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I have a S3 unit that I bought as soon as they were released in 2006. It's connected to a UPS so it never loses power unless I specifically cut the power to it for some reason. (only happened a few dozen times ever)
> 
> Dan


Was your UPS an offline/standby model? I hope so. Online UPSs generate insanely noisy power that will eventually ruin whatever power supply is attached to it. Of course, the UPS switching from offline to online can also fry a poorly designed power supply. The best thing you can do is to just use a surge suppressor without a UPS and hope for the best.

Also, the comment "few dozen times" means you power cycled it a lot. It obviously can't be helped, it's just one of those things. Since 2000, I power cycled my Series 1 no more than a dozen times. There are some years I never powered it off or lost power, but I had to power it off to move it a few times and once to put a bigger hard drive in. Also once a year or so the modem would get stuck (remember they had modem problems) and a hard reboot was needed to get it working again.

Having said that, my brother has gone through 4 Tivos so far. In each one either the power supply or the motherboard went bad. Sometimes you just can't win.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

I pity the OP who just wanted to know if he could up-plug his TiVo at night, now he knows a diesel generator will last 50 years running 24/7 ETC ETC.


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