# Enable USB port for external hard drive



## dougadkins

You would have a lot less people hacking their tivos if there was support in using one of the usb ports on the back of the unit to support external usb hard drives to increase the recording capacity of tivo. This might even be an area for you tivo people to make some more money in selling these usb add-on drives...
Doug


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## megazone

The Series3 has a SATA port for an external drive.

I asked about the USB being used for that on the current boxes and was told there are no plans for that.

Personally, based on the low performance of the USB ports for networking, I suspect the HW may not have the power to ensure it could sustain the data transfers needed for recording and playback over USB. And now with TiVoToGo allowing you to use a PC as a media server - moving shows to/from the PC - I see demand for this dropping.


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## classicsat

IMO, a USB HDD would add support woes.


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## gonzotek

I'd be ok with it being not part of the recording space, but just for transfers. e.g.: Plug it in, the (hypothetical TiVo port of) Linux Mass Storage Driver recognizes it, and a new menu item appears under the "Save to DVD/VCR: area, Save to Removable Drive. This would give you a .tivo file identical to one you'd transfer to your pc over the network. And once you had some files on it you wanted to transfer back, it could appear at the bottom of the Now Playing list the way other DVRs and PCs running TiVo Desktop do toady. It'd also be nice to be able to load up home movie mpegs on the drive while it is plugged into the PC and have them show up like the recently added GoBack feature of TiVo Desktop.


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## megazone

Yeah, I suggested the same thing a while back - having the drive not be part of the live recording space, but a 'backup' space. The system could also auto-transfer to the external drive if Now Playing was full. Making the external drive a way station before deletion.


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## TreborPugly

I was just thinking of an external drive as something the Tivo could access for music and photos, much like it does via the network connection. I have a big external drive that I only periodically have accessible via my laptop. I don't have a computer running 24/7 that can run the Tivo server for the Tivo to get music and photos from. But if it can access this stuff over the network (via a USB network card no less), then it could certainly access it directly off a USB hard drive.


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## Technologist

Any Updates as to if TiVo will add this feature (plug External HDD into USB Port)? this would be great, as I offload now through network connection, which is SOOOOOO SLLOOOOOOOWWWWW....


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## megazone

No plans to do this, and it is unlikely we'll ever see it really.


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## mjhilger

Well I think using USB as an external storage is a good idea also, however I would understand. I do however use other TIVOs in the house to transfer around certain programs. So I was wondering if anyone has successfully utilized something like a stand alone NAS? I have a LaCie (320GB model is around $150) that works great as a central storage site for my family (photos, music etc.); so I'm wondering if it is possible to transfer files to it directly from TIVO? I will be upgrading in the future, but my wife will keep entire series locked onto the HD; would be nice to free up the space!


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## classicsat

If the NAS is hacked, you can do some of what you want, but may take some manual operation of it.


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## chip_r

mjhilger said:


> Well I think using USB as an external storage is a good idea also, however I would understand. I do however use other TIVOs in the house to transfer around certain programs. So I was wondering if anyone has successfully utilized something like a stand alone NAS? I have a LaCie (320GB model is around $150) that works great as a central storage site for my family (photos, music etc.); so I'm wondering if it is possible to transfer files to it directly from TIVO? I will be upgrading in the future, but my wife will keep entire series locked onto the HD; would be nice to free up the space!


Galleon on a NAS. It's been working for about 18 months.

http://www.kurobox.com/mwiki/index.php/Debian_Galleon_Media_Server

The Kurobox NAS has a bit more horsepower than most NAS boxes like the LaCie. If you can hack into and run Java, then that's a start.


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## TreborPugly

mjhilger said:


> Well I think using USB as an external storage is a good idea also, however I would understand. I do however use other TIVOs in the house to transfer around certain programs. So I was wondering if anyone has successfully utilized something like a stand alone NAS? I have a LaCie (320GB model is around $150) that works great as a central storage site for my family (photos, music etc.); so I'm wondering if it is possible to transfer files to it directly from TIVO? I will be upgrading in the future, but my wife will keep entire series locked onto the HD; would be nice to free up the space!


I use a standalone networked drive with pyTivo. However, I'm running the software on my computer. So my computer is in the sequence of wireless transfer. It takes it from the hard drive and sends it to the Tivo. (To make it work, I had to have a share with no permissions at all however - the service couldn't get at the hard drive otherwise)

However, that extra failure mode makes it less than reliable. I get much more reliable transfers with stuff that's on my computer than stuff on the network drive. It is generally more reliable to copy what I want from the hard drive to my computer, then transfer it to the Tivo.


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