# Supersize Hard Drive



## jamesweber (Oct 24, 2007)

other than the obvious, (gaining a few extra hours of recording space) is there any benefit to supersizing the hard drive?

Also is there any cons to doing so? What does supersizing actually do? Does it increase the file compression or lower the quality? Should it really be done?

I will be using WinMFS to copy over the original 160g to the 1TB WD AV 10EVCS tomorrow and have looked arround but could not find the answers to my questions.

Thanks for any advice.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

I only noticed the increased recording hours but I read somewhere that the larger swap file helps but I'm can swear to that. I store recordings like the complete MASH series on my Tivo which is why I like the extra room.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

MFS Supersize frees up extra space reserved for storing tivoclips; the advertising videos that are downloaded. It will not affect TiVo's capabilities.

A visit to the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion sticky thread is in order. Even though it started out as an eSATA drive thread, it has everything you need to know about upgrading your TiVo including recommended hard drives and Section III, #30 covers internal upgrades.

BTW, the WD10EVCS is a good choice. :up:

Happy upgrading!


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

The only con I know of is that you should turn it off before expanding otherwise you will not be able to turn it off ever again. You can then turn it back on after expanding.

Otherwise you should know that the TiVo HD XL is already supersized from the factory!


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

ciper said:


> The only con I know of is that you should turn it off before expanding otherwise you will not be able to turn it off ever again. You can then turn it back on after expanding.
> 
> Otherwise you should know that the TiVo HD XL is already supersized from the factory!


And the XL has a 128KB software swap file size (same as any other Series 3)


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

The OP's question depends a lot on what kind of Tivo you have, but the principle is the same whether you're recording standard NTSC broadcasts or HD programs. A stock drive is fine for occasional recording, but if you're a diehard couch potato like me, the stock drive will fill up in a hurry. You can easily max out the drive's capacity with just a few season passes, especially if you mark them as "Keep until I delete." Having a large hard drive has numerous benefits.

1. Never worry about not having room for new recordings. If you are one of those people that likes to keep shows until you delete them, you could prevent new shows from being recorded. The Tivo accounts for shows already recorded and also reserves space for new recordings listed in the upcoming guide that have been marked as KUID. If the total space utilized meets or exceeds the capacity of the drive the Tivo simply stops recording new shows until you make room for them.

2. Never worry about recorded shows being deleted prematurely. If you don't mark your shows as KUID and allow them to be deleted to make room for new recordings, you could run the risk of losing your recorded shows if you haven't gotten around to watching them.

3. Allows you to archive shows that you might watch repeatedly. Those of you that have small children appreciate this feature more than most. Kids can watch the same episode of Barney a hundred times and never get bored with it.

Personally, I don't like to keep any shows on my Tivo for the long term. I usually have way more space available than I'll ever use, mainly because I try to keep up with the shows that I record. I'll never have the time to watch every show I record within a short time frame so I generally stretch out my viewing to maybe 3-4 hours of TV watching a night when I'm home. This tends to cause a tremendous backlog of shows on my Tivo. The upside is that when all of my shows go into reruns or extended hiatus, as many of the cable shows do, I always have new episodes of my favorite shows to watch. A stock Tivo drive would never allow me to do this. 

A large drive gives me peace of mind and ensures that I'll never miss any show, even if I don't get around to watching it for a few months. I've got several series on my Tivos that I haven't watched a single episode of this season (True Blood, Sanctuary, Stargate Atlantis, last 9 episodes of The Shield, and many more), mainly because I've been watching other things. Lots of shows won't start back up with new episodes until next month so I'll be getting caught up with many of the shows I haven't viewed yet. 

A large Tivo drive allows me to set my TV viewing to my own personal schedule and doesn't dictate when I have to watch any show because I might be worried about it getting deleted. OTOH, I don't like the idea of filling up the drive just because I can. The extra space is simply insurance and not really meant to be used to the max. If the hard drive dies, and it's only a matter of time before it happens, I'd end up losing everything I've recorded. The trick is to find a happy medium between what you watch, how much you record, and how much time you have to watch what you've recorded.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> The OP's question depends a lot on what kind of Tivo you have, but the principle is the same whether you're recording standard NTSC broadcasts or HD programs. <snip>


Nice dissertation and couldn't agree more with all of it. :up:

But I think you may have misunderstood the post. The OP simply wanted to know what the MFS Supersize option (during a DIY HDD upgrade) does and what if any effect it has on TiVo. As mentioned previously, it basically adds a couple of more hours of recording capability. Since he's upgrading to a 1TB drive he would seem to already understand the benefits of a larger HDD.


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## jamesweber (Oct 24, 2007)

Thanks for the opinions all.

Since I haven't received any posts about the supersize option being a bad idea, I guess I'll go that route. I plan on doing the upgrade tonight after my recordings are finished.

TiVo HD (upgrading to 1TB)
TiVo S3 (stock) will upgrade if it ever gets full M-card support
TiVo DT (stock)
TiVo S2 (stock)


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

richsadams said:


> Nice dissertation and couldn't agree more with all of it. :up:
> 
> But I think you may have misunderstood the post. The OP simply wanted to know what the MFS Supersize option (during a DIY HDD upgrade) does and what if any effect it has on TiVo. As mentioned previously, it basically adds a couple of more hours of recording capability. Since he's upgrading to a 1TB drive he would seem to already understand the benefits of a larger HDD.


My bad. I wasn't aware of the Supersize option in WinMFS as I've only used it once to upgrade an internal drive. I just thought the OP was looking for reasons to upgrade to a large drive, which is what prompted my long dissertation. After perusing the link to the eSATA drive FAQ it appears I have a bit of reading to do to get caught up.


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

One more use of the TiVoClips allocation area is for streaming video, e.g. YouTube and tivostream streaming. That's currently limited to 1GiB, as far as anybody can tell, but eventually someone may figure out how to lift that limit. If they do, using supersize to reduce the size TiVoClips allocation could limit your ability to stream large files.

Just in case you are wondering how I determined this: You can look through the tvlog logs to see how much space is being allocated and from which logical region (i.e. TiVoClips or User).


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Oh, that supersize... I thought they were just talking about a huge drive.

I forgot about that setting in WinMFS.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

I'd like to know the before and after reserved space on a stock THD drive.

Wasn't there was a thread on the MFSLive forums that said the THDXL already had the supersize option enabled from the factory? That means NOT supersizing a 1TB drive is the less "appropriate" configuration.

edit: These aren't the exact thread I was talking about but 


spike said:


> 150 hrs on 9.4.1 Tivo HD XL (mfssupersize is not needed for this version)


from http://www.mfslive.com/forums/viewt...xl&sid=e74686ebeeac1c0fb412fe72fa0cd848#p4411


spike said:


> Also, w/o mfssupersize option, Tivo reserves why too much space anyways so maybe they finally come to their senses.


from http://www.mfslive.com/forums/viewt...ze&sid=e74686ebeeac1c0fb412fe72fa0cd848#p4272


spike said:


> Don't do mfssupersize since software 9.4.1 seems to be adjusted already to be supersized.


From a thread about upgrading the THDXL http://www.mfslive.com/forums/viewt...ze&sid=e74686ebeeac1c0fb412fe72fa0cd848#p4314



JamieP said:


> One more use of the TiVoClips allocation area is for streaming video, e.g. YouTube and tivostream streaming. That's currently limited to 1GiB, as far as anybody can tell, but eventually someone may figure out how to lift that limit. If they do, using supersize to reduce the size TiVoClips allocation could limit your ability to stream large files.


I'm not sure I follow. If someone lifted the limit wouldn't that mean adjusting the same option that SuperSize modifies?


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

ciper said:


> I'm not sure I follow. If someone lifted the limit wouldn't that mean adjusting the same option that SuperSize modifies?


No. If the tivostream hme/vlc developers figure out a way to specify a stream size > 1GiB, they might still be constrained by a TiVoClips allocation that was artificially reduced in size by supersize.

I believe that a "supersized" drive has a TiVoClips allocation that is just as large as a stock drive. It's just smaller than an expanded drive that was not supersized, and there may be streaming reasons why it would be nice to have the larger TiVoClips allocation.

If this doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. It's unlikely to affect you.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

JamieP said:


> No. If the tivostream hme/vlc developers figure out a way to specify a stream size > 1GiB, they might still be constrained by a TiVoClips allocation that was artificially reduced in size by supersize.
> 
> I believe that a "supersized" drive has a TiVoClips allocation that is just as large as a stock drive. It's just smaller than an expanded drive that was not supersized, and there may be streaming reasons why it would be nice to have the larger TiVoClips allocation.
> 
> If this doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. It's unlikely to affect you.


That makes more sense. tivostream comes to mind. Unfortunately unhacked Tivos obviously have the small "buffer" space and many of the hacked units were supersized in the wrong order so they cannot revert. I don't see how many would be able to use the feature.


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

ciper said:


> That makes more sense. I'd argue that developing an application that requires a larger that stock size streaming "buffer" probably won't happen since it wouldn't be supported on both non hacked Tivos and a good portion of hacked units with supersize enabled.


I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion. If there turns out to be an easy (but undocumented) way to specify the stream size in HME, the tool writers will likely use it. IIRC, the standard TiVoClips allocation on large drives is 10GB, and that's still a lot larger than the 1GiB default stream buffer size currently used. Still might not be large enough for a full HD movie though.


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## jamesweber (Oct 24, 2007)

We'll the upgrade is complete and took about 5 minutes. I used the WD 10EVCS and it is working beautifully.

I was messing around with MinMFS with an old TiVo drive so that I could be comfortable when it came time to do my upgrade and I apparently turned off the supersize option during my testing. So I ended up with 142 hours of HD and didn't feel like taking the TiVo apart again to redo the image. Perhaps sometime in the future I will add the extra 15hours of space by supersizing it.

Thanks for your input everyone
James


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

jamesweber said:


> We'll the upgrade is complete and took about 5 minutes. I used the WD 10EVCS and it is working beautifully.
> 
> I was messing around with MinMFS with an old TiVo drive so that I could be comfortable when it came time to do my upgrade and I apparently turned off the supersize option during my testing. So I ended up with 142 hours of HD and didn't feel like taking the TiVo apart again to redo the image. Perhaps sometime in the future I will add the extra 15hours of space by supersizing it.
> 
> ...


Nice. :up:


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## Dreman01 (Jul 29, 2003)

Sorry in advanced in this has been answered before (I looked for a few days before posting)

I Just upgraded My TIVOHD from a Seagate 500GB HD (70 HD Recording ) to a Seagate 1.5tb HD ST315005n1a1as (shows 180hd).

My Question is will I be able to gain any added space on a drive this large by using Winmfs to Supersize the drive? or have a reached a limit with 180hr of HD and 1500+hrs of SD. 
I finshed with MFSCopy, Confirmed it worked in the tivo, I just don't want to mess this up and have to copy the HD again.

thanks


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## rbtravis (Aug 9, 2005)

With 1500+ hrs of SD you are at the 1.5 Gb level


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## Dreman01 (Jul 29, 2003)

RBTravis,

Thanks for the quick reply, Will I screw up the system if I supersized I mostly use my tivo for HD programming, I have seen bits of different posts where some have be able to tweak out 200+ hours of HD recording time, but it does not mention the use of MFS supersize on a drive of this size.

so if what your saying is I have maxed out to 180hrs HD on the 1.5tb and cannot gain anymore space without any mods to the tivo Kernal?

Here's what WinMFS log shows............

Mfsinfo (Drive 2)

Boot Page
Boot Page: root=/dev/hda4
Active Boot Partition: 3 Active Root Partition: 4
Backup Boot Partition: 6 Backup Root Partition: 7

MFS Super Header
state=0 magic=ebbafeed
devlist=/dev/hda10 /dev/hda11 /dev/hda12 /dev/hda13 /dev/hda14 /dev/hda15
zonemap_ptr=1121 total_secs=2458213376

Zone Maps
Z0:	type=0
map_start=1121 map_size=1 backup_map_start=589822
next_map_start=263266 next_map_size=6 next_backup_map_start=589816
zone_first=1122 zone_last=263265 zone_size=262144 min(chunk)=262144
free=262144 checksum=69d0d4f5 logstamp=6250852 num_bitmap=1
Z1:	type=2
map_start=263266 map_size=6 backup_map_start=589816
next_map_start=263272 next_map_size=34 next_backup_map_start=589782
zone_first=589824 zone_last=138215423 zone_size=137625600 min(chunk)=20480
free=1761280 checksum=5e79ef8e logstamp=6271756 num_bitmap=14
Z2:	type=1
map_start=263272 map_size=34 backup_map_start=589782
next_map_start=138219520 next_map_size=1 next_backup_map_start=138809343
zone_first=263306 zone_last=589777 zone_size=326472 min(chunk)=8
free=107616 checksum=37b5a555 logstamp=6271756 num_bitmap=17
Z3:	type=0
map_start=138219520 map_size=1 backup_map_start=138809343
next_map_start=138481665 next_map_size=10 next_backup_map_start=138809333
zone_first=138219521 zone_last=138481664 zone_size=262144 min(chunk)=262144
free=262144 checksum=4d953a35 logstamp=6250852 num_bitmap=1
Z4:	type=2
map_start=138481665 map_size=10 backup_map_start=138809333
next_map_start=138481675 next_map_size=34 next_backup_map_start=138809299
zone_first=138809344 zone_last=310718463 zone_size=171909120 min(chunk)=20480
free=4874240 checksum=91b390bd logstamp=6271752 num_bitmap=15
Z5:	type=1
map_start=138481675 map_size=34 backup_map_start=138809299
next_map_start=310728704 next_map_size=17 next_backup_map_start=310730735
zone_first=138481709 zone_last=138809292 zone_size=327584 min(chunk)=8
free=297744 checksum=e6d31cc8 logstamp=6269971 num_bitmap=17
Z6:	type=2
map_start=310728704 map_size=17 backup_map_start=310730735
next_map_start=310728721 next_map_size=67 next_backup_map_start=310730668
zone_first=310730752 zone_last=974917631 zone_size=664186880 min(chunk)=20480
free=13885440 checksum=7783164c logstamp=6271756 num_bitmap=16
Z7:	type=2
map_start=310728721 map_size=67 backup_map_start=310730668
next_map_start=0 next_map_size=0 next_backup_map_start=0
zone_first=974917632 zone_last=2458202111 zone_size=1483284480 min(chunk)=20480
free=1481318400 checksum=8146c8fc logstamp=6271756 num_bitmap=18

Partition Maps
#: type name length base ( size )
1 Apple_partition_map Apple [email protected] ( 31.5K)
2 Image Bootstrap 1 [email protected] ( 512.0 )
3 Image Kernel 1 [email protected] ( 4.0M)
4 Ext2 Root 1 [email protected] ( 256.0M)
5 Image Bootstrap 2 [email protected] ( 512.0 )
6 Image Kernel 2 [email protected] ( 4.0M)
7 Ext2 Root 2 [email protected] ( 256.0M)
8 Swap Linux swap [email protected] ( 128.0M)
9 Ext2 /var [email protected] ( 256.0M)
10 MFS MFS application region [email protected] ( 288.0M)
11 MFS MFS media region [email protected] ( 65.6G)
12 MFS MFS application region 2 [email protected] ( 288.0M)
13 MFS MFS media region 2 [email protected] ( 82.0G)
14 MFS MFS App by Winmfs [email protected] ( 1.0M)
15 MFS MFS Expanded by Winmfs [email protected] (1024.0G)

Total SA SD Hours: 1311	Total DTV SD Hours: 1144 61 &#37; Free
Software: 11.0c-01-2-652	Tivo Model: TCD652160


Followup on my post...I could not wait so I ran MFS super size on the Drive and it went from 180hr HD to 198hr hd & 1733hrs sd recording. that's good enough for me.


thanks again


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