# Tivo Bolt - Raid 1



## Ed C (Oct 22, 2017)

Hi,
I have returned my Bolt 3 times already because the hard drive died. My wife is tired of losing everything that she has recorded. Has anybody used a raid 1 setup? I was thinking about snaking the hard drive connection outside the Bolt and connecting it to an external raid enclosure. I considered a raid 5 but drives are cheap and I am looking for dependability. If this will work, would I be able to use MFS Reformatter and use 6tb drives?

Any advise would be appreciated.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

If the external enclosure does all the work without any drivers and the Bolt thinks it's just a 6TB drive it should work.


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## Ed C (Oct 22, 2017)

Well I tried it and every light on the Bolt lit up. So, other than making a nice Christmas decoration it was a fail. If anybody was able to do this, please leave details. Thanks.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Ed C said:


> Well I tried it and every light on the Bolt lit up. So, other than making a nice Christmas decoration it was a fail. If anybody was able to do this, please leave details. Thanks.


How did you hook it up?


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## Ed C (Oct 22, 2017)

jmbach said:


> How did you hook it up?


I used a Mediasonic ProRaid 3.5" enclosure set as a raid 1 with 2 3tb drives. I connected them with an Esata to Sata cable.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Ed C said:


> I used a Mediasonic ProRaid 3.5" enclosure set as a raid 1 with 2 3tb drives. I connected them with an Esata to Sata cable.


If you hook it up the same way to a desktop system, is it seen as a raid drive or regular drive.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Roranji Sutoratosu (Sep 19, 2018)

I think you are probably better off getting desktop and transfer the shows regularly using tivo desktop or pytivo. But Ed's idea is pretty slick. Tivo should just see it as a regular drive.


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## dougdingle (Jul 4, 2007)

Transfer of shows to a computer is severely limited. You can dump shows from CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and PBS. After those, all shows on all channels are copy protected and won't transfer no matter what.


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## osu1991 (Mar 6, 2015)

dougdingle said:


> Transfer of shows to a computer is severely limited. You can dump shows from CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and PBS. After those, all shows on all channels are copy protected and won't transfer no matter what.


That blanket statement doesn't hold true for all systems. It varies from company to company and city to city. I can offload/transfer programs from any channel via pytivo on my cable system.


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## dougdingle (Jul 4, 2007)

osu1991 said:


> That blanket statement doesn't hold true for all systems. It varies from company to company and city to city. I can offload/transfer programs from any channel via pytivo on my cable system.


Then you are the very lucky exception. All the medium and large cablecos I know of have the "Do Not Copy" bit set on all channels you can't also get with an antenna.


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## Roranji Sutoratosu (Sep 19, 2018)

So far all 500gb of my shows from old drive transfer out and back in with no issues.. tons of disney stuff, cbs shows, mom, big bang, etc.. haven't ran into 1 show that didn't work. Off FIOS currently


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

dougdingle said:


> Then you are the very lucky exception. All the medium and large cablecos I know of have the "Do Not Copy" bit set on all channels you can't also get with an antenna.


Comcast only protects the premium movie channels like HBO, and maybe some of the FOX channels.


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## dougdingle (Jul 4, 2007)

Spectrum (the merged entity of Time Warner and Charter) protects everything you can't get with an antenna, at least in Southern California. I've read lots of complaints on Tivocommunity about shows being protected by various cablecos across the country, some even locking the channels they're not allowed to lock. 

I would love if all my channels were open and I could back up to a NAS, but alas, it's not to be. It's one of the reasons I have two WD 4TB Red drives I clone/rotate into my Roamio every 60-90 days - if a drive dies, I don't lose everything.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

dougdingle said:


> Then you are the very lucky exception. All the medium and large cablecos I know of have the "Do Not Copy" bit set on all channels you can't also get with an antenna.


Not Comcast. Only premium movie channels like HBO, Showtime and the Encore movie channels.

Scott


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

ggieseke said:


> Comcast only protects the premium movie channels like HBO, and maybe some of the FOX channels.


Oops didn't see your reply before I posted but ditto (not sure about any Fox channel issues here although I've heard Fios copy protects them).

Scott


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

dougdingle said:


> Spectrum (the merged entity of Time Warner and Charter) protects everything you can't get with an antenna, at least in Southern California. I've read lots of complaints on Tivocommunity about shows being protected by various cablecos across the country, some even locking the channels they're not allowed to lock.
> 
> I would love if all my channels were open and I could back up to a NAS, but alas, it's not to be. It's one of the reasons I have two WD 4TB Red drives I clone/rotate into my Roamio every 60-90 days - if a drive dies, I don't lose everything.


I've been experimenting with using external drives with enclosure with Roamios. The best way is to run a Sata cable from the Roamio MB direct to the Sata connection on the enclosure drive. Use the power in the enclosure (have to find an enclosure where you can hookup power separately from the drive connection, most just plug in directly to a slot). Another way not quite as good is to use an Esata external. Run Sata to Esata cable from motherboard to the enclosure. Not as good as straight Sata to Sata but has worked so far for me (am using a "toaster" so can pop drives in and out in a few seconds.) I've done it with OTA so can use any drive at any time, all recordings and settings stay intact on all drives. If you want to do it with cable the "extra" drives would have to be created with images of your main drive with cable card info intact. Then should be able to swap drives anytime AND record any cable shows including premium. Have not experimented with that yet but am looking into it.


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## dougdingle (Jul 4, 2007)

tommage1 said:


> I've been experimenting with using external drives with enclosure with Roamios. The best way is to run a Sata cable from the Roamio MB direct to the Sata connection on the enclosure drive. Use the power in the enclosure (have to find an enclosure where you can hookup power separately from the drive connection, most just plug in directly to a slot). Another way not quite as good is to use an Esata external. Run Sata to Esata cable from motherboard to the enclosure. Not as good as straight Sata to Sata but has worked so far for me (am using a "toaster" so can pop drives in and out in a few seconds.) I've done it with OTA so can use any drive at any time, all recordings and settings stay intact on all drives. If you want to do it with cable the "extra" drives would have to be created with images of your main drive with cable card info intact. Then should be able to swap drives anytime AND record any cable shows including premium. Have not experimented with that yet but am looking into it.


What I've done to rotate drives is this:

My Roamio is inside an entertainment cabinet, so I spliced an on-off switch, one of those old fashioned bakelite ones I got from Amazon:

(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FPANMK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

that you activate with your thumb into the Roamio's power cable to turn the Roamio off and on without having to pull the plug.

Then I got a SATA extension cable about 18 inches long from Newegg:

(StarTech SLSATA20EXT 20" Slimline SATA Extension Cable Male to Female - Newegg.com)

that I plugged into the Roamio's SATA cable, cut a small notch into the Roamio's cover to get it outside the box, and I run the drive sitting on a piece of foam outside the Roamio. I use WD Red drives, which are quiet, and sitting on the foam inside the cabinet, I have to concentrate to hear the drive seeking when the room is otherwise silent. It takes literally 10 seconds to swap drives from when I power down the Roamio to disconnect one drive, connect the other, power back up, and get to the "Welcome' prompt.

There is very little downside. The only thing I notice on the drive I just swapped in is that the station logos are gone and don't reappear until after the next connect to mom. I usually time things so that I clone the drive overnight, insert the cloned drive first thing in the morning, and by that afternoon, it's all working splendidly as it should.

Two reasons I do this. Should a drive fail, I've still got most of the programming intact on the other, and having each drive in there half the time should lengthen the drive life (it says here).


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

dougdingle said:


> What I've done to rotate drives is this:
> 
> My Roamio is inside an entertainment cabinet, so I spliced an on-off switch, one of those old fashioned bakelite ones I got from Amazon:
> 
> ...


That is a really good method since Sata to Sata. I still kind of like the enclosures though for a few reasons. One can use the enclosure to power the drive, might be less "stress" on the Roamio since it would not longer be powering a drive. Second a bit "neater" since the drives will be in enclosures. I have multiple cables, regular Sata, Sata male to female, Sata to Esata etc etc. Run one cable out of the Roamio with an open end, then cables from the enclosures that connect to the cable coming from the Roamio. Going to be a long term project, still have some cables on the way. My purpose is mostly to have multiple drives available with different recordings, maybe one for movies, one for old TV show series etc etc, pretty much unlimited storage too, unlimited drives. Can "clone" all drives occasionally when needed for backup. Cloning dock works well for that if same size drives.

Oh, I have my Tivos plugged into one of those under the monitor type surge suppressors. With power switch for each outlet. That way can just push the switch for whatever device I want to power off/on.

Have gotten a bit off the original topic though, I think the OP is using a Bolt? None of the multiple drive scenarios will work with a Bolt though can use one drive in an external, nice as 3.5"s are way better than 2.5", cheaper, more reliable and can have much larger capacities. Not to mention it is very hard to find large capacity 2.5" drives that are not SMR.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

Ed C said:


> Hi,
> I have returned my Bolt 3 times already because the hard drive died. My wife is tired of losing everything that she has recorded. Has anybody used a raid 1 setup? I was thinking about snaking the hard drive connection outside the Bolt and connecting it to an external raid enclosure. I considered a raid 5 but drives are cheap and I am looking for dependability. If this will work, would I be able to use MFS Reformatter and use 6tb drives?
> 
> Any advise would be appreciated.


I don't know much about raid but if you can't get it to work I'd suggest using the connection outside the Bolt to a single 3.5" drive in an enclosure. Try to stick to Sata to Sata if possible, not Esata. Maybe consider a cheap lifetime Tivo to use for backups, maybe a Premiere? Not sure which software you are running on the Bolt, gen3 or gen4. If gen3 can transfer recordings to the Premiere or your computer I think. If all else fails sell the Bolt and get a Roamio. Roamio 3.5 drives can be cloned/backed up. Bolt drives cannot, every time you put in a different drive you lose the recordings on the old/original.


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## dougdingle (Jul 4, 2007)

_Roamio 3.5 drives can be cloned/backed up. Bolt drives cannot, every time you put in a different drive you lose the recordings on the old/original._

Seriously? I had no idea. That's obnoxious.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

tommage1 said:


> Roamio 3.5 drives can be cloned/backed up. Bolt drives cannot, every time you put in a different drive you lose the recordings on the old/original.


That is not entirely true about the Bolts. You can clone Bolt drives and with MFSTools beta that I am testing, can copy and expand Bolt drives without loss of programming. (Have not tested Hydra yet) However if a Bolt formats a new drive, the recordings on the old drive are lost.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

jmbach said:


> That is not entirely true about the Bolts. You can clone Bolt drives and with MFSTools beta that I am testing, can copy and expand Bolt drives without loss of programming. (Have not tested Hydra yet) However if a Bolt formats a new drive, the recordings on the old drive are lost.


That is good, I know you were working on it, did not know it had been tested and working. But say you copy and expand, the new drive would work but wouldn't the original get wiped if you put it back in? And then if you swap back to the newly copy/expanded drive it would get wiped? So kind of a one time shot? Or can you swap drives back and forth? If so I might actually use a Bolt again. One more question, a basic clone to the same size drive, would they be swappable? After the clone has been used awhile so has different info/recordings on it than the original? I got some Bolt Voxes in the promo, was going to sell them since I prefer Roamios (anyone interested, lifetime 500GB models?) but might keep one to run these tests with the beta.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

Oh, by wiped I mean lose recordings and maybe some settings. I'm sure the drive would still work.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

tommage1 said:


> That is good, I know you were working on it, did not know it had been tested and working. But say you copy and expand, the new drive would work but wouldn't the original get wiped if you put it back in? And then if you swap back to the newly copy/expanded drive it would get wiped? So kind of a one time shot? Or can you swap drives back and forth? If so I might actually use a Bolt again. One more question, a basic clone to the same size drive, would they be swappable? After the clone has been used awhile so has different info/recordings on it than the original? I got some Bolt Voxes in the promo, was going to sell them since I prefer Roamios (anyone interested, lifetime 500GB models?) but might keep one to run these tests with the beta.


The Bolts are interesting. So if you copied and expand your original drive, ran it in your Bolt and did some recordings, then put the original drive back in, you would see a listing for all the recordings of your expanded drive. The recordings of your original drive you would still have and of course, not have access the recordings that were recorded on the expanded drive. However if you deleted the entries in your expanded drive that were present when you did the copy and expand, they would be "deleted" in your original drive. Bolts push most of the record keeping of the recordings on the internal flash drive. This is why if the Bolt formats a new drive, the recordings are lost on the original drive as that area is wiped clean.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

jmbach said:


> The Bolts are interesting. So if you copied and expand your original drive, ran it in your Bolt and did some recordings, then put the original drive back in, you would see a listing for all the recordings of your expanded drive. The recordings of your original drive you would still have and of course, not have access the recordings that were recorded on the expanded drive. However if you deleted the entries in your expanded drive that were present when you did the copy and expand, they would be "deleted" in your original drive. Bolts push most of the record keeping of the recordings on the internal flash drive. This is why if the Bolt formats a new drive, the recordings are lost on the original drive as that area is wiped clean.


Interesting yes, though I'd say "pain in the rear" compared to previous models  I like being able to copy, copy expand, keep backup drives I can swap in and out at will. Due to what is stored on the flash drive on the Bolt I don't think that will ever be possible, not all of it. Will probably stick with my Roamios though may keep one Bolt for fun. Thanks for info and nice work, just being able to copy/expand and keep recordings is a BIG step for Bolt users!


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

Ed C said:


> Hi,
> I have returned my Bolt 3 times already because the hard drive died. My wife is tired of losing everything that she has recorded. Has anybody used a raid 1 setup? I was thinking about snaking the hard drive connection outside the Bolt and connecting it to an external raid enclosure. I considered a raid 5 but drives are cheap and I am looking for dependability. If this will work, would I be able to use MFS Reformatter and use 6tb drives?
> 
> Any advise would be appreciated.


here is my recommendation and I have done it successfully,do not use the 2.5 drive purchase a western digital red 6tb or 8tb 3.5 drive since green drives are not made anymore and mount it externally on top of the bolt back up recordings to another tivo if you have one, I was able to mount my drive using a sata cable extender and a 12 or 13 dollar enclosure, note you will need to after purchasing a sata cable extender run it through the back of the plastic cover but no cutting is necessary also remember after purchasing drive to reformat it using the mffs bolt reformater following the instructions. If my instructions are not detailed enough I can upload a picture but no raid enclosure necessary. I hope this helps


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

gabrielstern said:


> here is my recommendation and I have done it successfully,do not use the 2.5 drive purchase a western digital red 6tb or 8tb 3.5 drive since green drives are not made anymore and mount it externally on top of the bolt back up recordings to another tivo if you have one, I was able to mount my drive using a sata cable extender and a 12 or 13 dollar enclosure, note you will need to after purchasing a sata cable extender run it through the back of the plastic cover but no cutting is necessary also remember after purchasing drive to reformat it using the mffs bolt reformater following the instructions. If my instructions are not detailed enough I can upload a picture but no raid enclosure necessary. I hope this helps


the answer is yes you can use the mfs reformater and run a 6tb read my recommendation above


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## Morpheus101 (Jan 14, 2006)

Tivo Bolt...

It seems that this topic has gotten off track....

My 4TB hard drive went out. I have installed the original drive and it is back up but I lost everything.

I have 2 6TB Green Drives that I would like to install in a RAID1 enclosure.

Is this possible, and is there a recommendation for an enclosure. Also what about the procedure to prep the RAID1 drives?


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## RIX527 (May 30, 2019)

Morpheus101 said:


> Tivo Bolt...
> 
> It seems that this topic has gotten off track....
> 
> ...


I'd recommend a Mediasonic eSATA enclosure. They're affordable and reliable. Take a look on Amazon. They have a few options with several reviews. You'll have future expansion capability if you go with the 4 bay over the 2 bay for about the same price.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X26VV4/ref=cm_sw_r_oth_api_i_87KfDbSXQ098Q


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## RIX527 (May 30, 2019)

Morpheus101 said:


> Tivo Bolt...
> 
> It seems that this topic has gotten off track....
> 
> ...


I ended up going with a Tivo Bolt 3tb with a life time subscription rather than adding an enclosure.

I have seen weakness offer an upgrades Tivo Bolt to both 7tb and 13tb, so it must be possible.

TiVo BOLT VOX


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

They just add a larger external drive to what ever the internal drive the Bolt came with.


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## RIX527 (May 30, 2019)

jmbach said:


> They just add a larger external drive to what ever the internal drive the Bolt came with.


Understood, but how are they doing it so that it is stable? I've read that the external Tivo port is not reliable and that the only reliable solution is to expand through the internal SATA port.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

RIX527 said:


> Understood, but how are they doing it so that it is stable? I've read that the external Tivo port is not reliable and that the only reliable solution is to expand through the internal SATA port.


The external port is stable. I added an 8TB external drive to my Bolt+. I have had no issues with it for the past 2 years I have had it up. The issue is that it adds another point of failure to lose recordings. So now you have two things that can cause loss of recordings where before you only had one.


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## RIX527 (May 30, 2019)

jmbach said:


> The external port is stable. I added an 8TB external drive to my Bolt+. I have had no issues with it for the past 2 years I have had it up. The issue is that it adds another point of failure to lose recordings. So now you have two things that can cause loss of recordings where before you only had one.


How did you do it? I thought about adding an eSATA enclosure, running a raid 1 (to minimize the failure probability). Does the TiVo automatically recognize the new volume attached to its external port?


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## RIX527 (May 30, 2019)

jmbach said:


> The external port is stable. I added an 8TB external drive to my Bolt+. I have had no issues with it for the past 2 years I have had it up. The issue is that it adds another point of failure to lose recordings. So now you have two things that can cause loss of recordings where before you only had one.


Does your TiVo record to its internal drive first (until full) or does it spread recordings across both the drives you have?


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

RIX527 said:


> How did you do it? I thought about adding an eSATA enclosure, running a raid 1 (to minimize the failure probability). Does the TiVo automatically recognize the new volume attached to its external port?


Used MFSTools 3.x to add the drive. Need to connect the internal and external drive up to your computer when you run the mfsadd command.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

RIX527 said:


> Does your TiVo record to its internal drive first (until full) or does it spread recordings across both the drives you have?


No one knows for sure but most feel like ot is spread out because when you divorce the external drive you lose everything except what was recorded prior to adding the drive.


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## RIX527 (May 30, 2019)

jmbach said:


> Used MFSTools 3.x to add the drive. Need to connect the internal and external drive up to your computer when you run the mfsadd command.


Thx


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