# Bolt hard drive upgrade?



## mcf57 (Oct 19, 2012)

i have two roamios and I have read here that upgrading their storage is a simple matter of swapping the drives. The required software to install them is on the TiVo board.

Can a simple drive swap also be done with a bolt? If so, what is the largest drive the bolt will accept?


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## MrCoolDu4 (May 18, 2002)

I have the 500 GB Bolt too and will be swapping the drive out at some point. From what I have read here on the forum you can swap the drive out with a 3TB drive without any special files loaded. I think the problem is that anything larger than 3 TB won't be accessible for recording.


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## Robbo1 (Oct 31, 2015)

3TB or less is a simple drive swap (although the case is a PITA to open/close). For 4TB drives you need to pre-condition the drive as described here -- http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#BOLT

This video was also helpful--


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Or just use MFS Reformatter (mfsr). Much quicker and better.

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428

Plus it


> aligns the MFS file (application) and inode "zones" correctly for Advanced Format (4K) drives. That should improve performance and reduce wear & tear on the drive.


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## jpierce237 (Oct 19, 2007)

Has anyone tried cloning the drive with Acronis to maintain all shows/settings on the larger drive? I can see potential problems, but if it worked it'd be a huge time/effort saver.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jpierce237 said:


> Has anyone tried cloning the drive with Acronis to maintain all shows/settings on the larger drive? I can see potential problems, but if it worked it'd be a huge time/effort saver.


What would using Acronis get you that just "Xeroxing" it with

dd

or

ddrescue

or

dd_rescue

wouldn't?

Either way, you're going to need something else to expand into the extra space aren't you?


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

Robbo1 said:


> 3TB or less is a simple drive swap (although the case is a PITA to open/close). For 4TB drives you need to pre-condition the drive as described here -- http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#BOLT
> 
> This video was also helpful--


Not sure about anybody else, but I've found it virtually impossible to find a 3TB drive.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

sangs said:


> Not sure about anybody else, but I've found it virtually impossible to find a 3TB drive.


I've had no problem finding them. I can do a search for the Toshiba 3TB model number and several places to purchase it from will pop up. But they are not the usual suspects. And the prices are 50% higher than the 4TB drive from the external enclosure.

So you either go with the 2TB drive, or pay only 25% more and get the 4TB drive.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I've had no problem finding them. I can do a search for the Toshiba 3TB model number and several places to purchase it from will pop up. But they are not the usual suspects. And the prices are 50% higher than the 4TB drive from the external enclosure.
> 
> So you either go with the 2TB drive, or pay only 25% more and get the 4TB drive.


Did that and only a couple places are "selling" it. And by that I mean they have none in stock. Care to send me a PM with other sites offering it that actually have it in stock? Thanks.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

sangs said:


> Did that and only a couple places are "selling" it. And by that I mean they have none in stock. Care to send me a PM with other sites offering it that actually have it in stock? Thanks.


I see it here
http://www.serversupply.com/product...2t5pLwFsFxaXyIYmlRUVwekfvoWGk8FQ-txoCfuTw_wcB

and here

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Toshiba/MQ03ABB300/

and here

https://www.redcorp.com/en/toshiba/...00/product-details/5730t277.aspx#.VrIOTPkrJnI

but I have no idea if they are in stock.

EDIT: Here is an Amazon Japan site
http://www.amazon.co.jp/Toshiba-MQ03ABB300-高さ：15mm-2-5インチ-並行輸入品/dp/B015SP8D5K


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I see it here
> http://www.serversupply.com/product...2t5pLwFsFxaXyIYmlRUVwekfvoWGk8FQ-txoCfuTw_wcB
> 
> and here
> ...


Yeah, those are the ones I've found and contacted. None have it in stock. Thanks though.


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## georgeorwell86 (Sep 15, 2015)

jpierce237 said:


> Has anyone tried cloning the drive with Acronis to maintain all shows/settings on the larger drive? I can see potential problems, but if it worked it'd be a huge time/effort saver.


From my experience, the PC will not even see the Tivo drive (except as a new drive that it wants to initialize and format), so that a program like Acronis will not work to clone.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I've had no problem finding them. I can do a search for the Toshiba 3TB model number and several places to purchase it from will pop up. But they are not the usual suspects. And the prices are 50% higher than the 4TB drive from the external enclosure.
> 
> So you either go with the 2TB drive, or pay only 25% more and get the 4TB drive.


Was finally able to find a pair of the Toshiba drives in stock. Hopefully the upgrade process goes smoothly.


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## Dan3 (Jan 18, 2009)

There don't seem to be any good solutions, right now, outside of getting it from Weaknees but they keep the crappy 2.5" internal drive and the box will die killing all recorded content a lot sooner than you'd like - Current 2.5" drives are either small or unreliable (not much point in filling up 3 to 4 TB only to have it die in a year, wiping all of your shows).
There isn't a known way to add an external drive (WDs product is both too small and has been discontinued) for the DIY crowd. You can replace the internal drive with a large, good quality SSD, but that's really expensive even if you don't increase it much.
Getting a good quality 3.5" drive, putting it in an external enclosure and drilling holes in the case to run it off the internal SATA port seems to be the best bet. I've been having issues with MFS Reformat giving an error when trying to expand past 2tb (on a 6tb drive). Error is "Invalid Bolt Drive Format" Line 325 Error 0x00000000D 13).
If I attach that drive to the Tivo (Internal) port it starts right up, so the Bolt thinks the drive is just fine.
Unless / Until Greg Gieseke gets a chance to update mfsr, you may want to hold off, let Weaknees do it for you, or get a roamio.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

Dan3 said:


> There don't seem to be any good solutions, right now, outside of getting it from Weaknees but they keep the crappy 2.5" internal drive and the box will die killing all recorded content a lot sooner than you'd like - Current 2.5" drives are either small or unreliable (not much point in filling up 3 to 4 TB only to have it die in a year, wiping all of your shows).
> There isn't a known way to add an external drive (WDs product is both too small and has been discontinued) for the DIY crowd. You can replace the internal drive with a large, good quality SSD, but that's really expensive even if you don't increase it much.
> Getting a good quality 3.5" drive, putting it in an external enclosure and drilling holes in the case to run it off the internal SATA port seems to be the best bet. I've been having issues with MFS Reformat giving an error when trying to expand past 2tb (on a 6tb drive). Error is "Invalid Bolt Drive Format" Line 325 Error 0x00000000D 13).
> If I attach that drive to the Tivo (Internal) port it starts right up, so the Bolt thinks the drive is just fine.
> Unless / Until Greg Gieseke gets a chance to update mfsr, you may want to hold off, let Weaknees do it for you, or get a roamio.


Why exactly do you think it'll "die within a year?" We have a pair of MacBooks using the same 2.5" HDs they came with in 2010. They work perfectly fine. Is this just speculation?


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## gespears (Aug 10, 2007)

sangs said:


> Why exactly do you think it'll "die within a year?"


I can't put words in his mouth, but reading here on the forum and from my own PC and Laptop repair experience, the 2.5 inch drives are normally not run in a 24/7 environment. Even if you leave your laptop on 24/7 the drive is normally in power saving mode. In the TiVo it's rarely if ever in standby mode. There is a thread or two talking about the 4TB drives seeming to die prematurely. It could be just a batch of bad ones or something like that, but it's something that will be interesting to follow. Time will tell.


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## bpunc (Feb 23, 2005)

Dan3 said:


> There don't seem to be any good solutions, right now, outside of getting it from Weaknees but they keep the crappy 2.5" internal drive and the box will die killing all recorded content a lot sooner than you'd like - Current 2.5" drives are either small or unreliable (not much point in filling up 3 to 4 TB only to have it die in a year, wiping all of your shows).
> There isn't a known way to add an external drive (WDs product is both too small and has been discontinued) for the DIY crowd. You can replace the internal drive with a large, good quality SSD, but that's really expensive even if you don't increase it much.
> Getting a good quality 3.5" drive, putting it in an external enclosure and drilling holes in the case to run it off the internal SATA port seems to be the best bet. I've been having issues with MFS Reformat giving an error when trying to expand past 2tb (on a 6tb drive). Error is "Invalid Bolt Drive Format" Line 325 Error 0x00000000D 13).
> If I attach that drive to the Tivo (Internal) port it starts right up, so the Bolt thinks the drive is just fine.
> Unless / Until Greg Gieseke gets a chance to update mfsr, you may want to hold off, let Weaknees do it for you, or get a roamio.


This issue is discussed here...http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=536782


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

Upgraded two Bolts with the Toshiba 3 TB drives today and it couldn't have gone any smoother. This was also the first time I transferred a lot of content from one Bolt to another Bolt, in preparation for the HD upgrades, and I have to say, the transfer speed was amazing.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

sangs said:


> Upgraded two Bolts with the Toshiba 3 TB drives today and it couldn't have gone any smoother. This was also the first time I transferred a lot of content from one Bolt to another Bolt, in preparation for the HD upgrades, and I have to say, the transfer speed was amazing.


I've hit around 500Mb/s transfer rates between my Bolts with 4TB drives in them. If I remember correctly, this was in standby with no tuners buffering.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I've hit around 500Mb/s transfer rates between my Bolts with 4TB drives in them. If I remember correctly, this was in standby with no tuners buffering.


Didn't measure the speed, but it was very, very fast.


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## nyceis (Mar 18, 2016)

sangs said:


> Upgraded two Bolts with the Toshiba 3 TB drives today and it couldn't have gone any smoother. This was also the first time I transferred a lot of content from one Bolt to another Bolt, in preparation for the HD upgrades, and I have to say, the transfer speed was amazing.


Just to be clear, you were able to put in the 3TB and get all the space or did you have to do the MFSR process to get all 3TB usable?

Thanks for the input; newbie here going to attempt to upgrade my bolt.


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## jth tv (Nov 15, 2014)

I wonder what drive WeaKnees uses for the Bolt. They have a 2TB for $500 vs the standard 500gb for $300. For an extra $200 vs the effort and cost of adding a 2TB oneself, it might be worth it. Especially if it is going to be more reliable.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

jth tv said:


> I wonder what drive WeaKnees uses for the Bolt. They have a 2TB for $500 vs the standard 500gb for $300. For an extra $200 vs the effort and cost of adding a 2TB oneself, it might be worth it. Especially if it is going to be more reliable.


No guarantee one drive is going to be more reliable than the other


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## eric102 (Oct 31, 2012)

jth tv said:


> I wonder what drive WeaKnees uses for the Bolt. They have a 2TB for $500 vs the standard 500gb for $300. For an extra $200 vs the effort and cost of adding a 2TB oneself, it might be worth it. Especially if it is going to be more reliable.


Newegg has the 2TB SAMSUNG Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 for $90 shipped right now so you could save $110 right there and if you pick the Bolt up on sale somewhere then even more.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jth tv said:


> I wonder what drive WeaKnees uses for the Bolt. They have a 2TB for $500 vs the standard 500gb for $300. For an extra $200 vs the effort and cost of adding a 2TB oneself, it might be worth it. Especially if it is going to be more reliable.


You also get a full 180 day warranty from Weaknees which might be worth something to some people.


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## phlegmer (Apr 13, 2016)

So I'm thinking about snagging this model HDD and harvesting the internal drive for my Bolt. Was curious if anyone here has used this and if so, how does it perform compared to the stock HDD?

Thanks


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## Jerky (Apr 8, 2016)

phlegmer said:


> So I'm thinking about snagging this model HDD and harvesting the internal drive for my Bolt. Was curious if anyone here has used this and if so, how does it perform compared to the stock HDD?
> 
> Thanks


Be careful. Some newer external hard drives sometimes have connectors soldered directly to some PCB board making the drive useless outside the enclosure. And then you voided the warranty and probably cannot return it. It could be an expensive discovery.


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## phlegmer (Apr 13, 2016)

Jerky said:


> Be careful. Some newer external hard drives sometimes have connectors soldered directly to some PCB board making the drive useless outside the enclosure. And then you voided the warranty and probably cannot return it. It could be an expensive discovery.


Noted. I have seen reviewers state just that for this particular model but not for the one I originally posted....yet.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

phlegmer said:


> So I'm thinking about snagging this model HDD and harvesting the internal drive for my Bolt. Was curious if anyone here has used this and if so, how does it perform compared to the stock HDD?
> 
> Thanks


I purchased two of these in October and have been using them in my Bolts for around six months now with no issues. But I did read that some people had some issues with the drives. There is a thread about them somewhere. Or is this the thread?


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## phlegmer (Apr 13, 2016)

aaronwt said:


> I purchased two of these in October and have been using them in my Bolts for around six months now with no issues. But I did read that some people had some issues with the drives. There is a thread about them somewhere. Or is this the thread?


Excellent! How do the 4tb drives compare in performance with the stock drive? Are the RPM speeds and cache sizes similar?

Thanks


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

phlegmer said:


> Excellent! How do the 4tb drives compare in performance with the stock drive? Are the RPM speeds and cache sizes similar?
> 
> Thanks


Offhand I don't know about the performance differences. Although I would expect the 4TB one to be faster because of the higher data density of the platters. But from a user perspective, I see no difference between the stock drive and the 4TB drive when using the Bolts.


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## Blakeintosh (Sep 8, 2014)

phlegmer said:


> So I'm thinking about snagging this model HDD and harvesting the internal drive for my Bolt. Was curious if anyone here has used this and if so, how does it perform compared to the stock HDD?


I've been using that drive in my Bolt since December and it has not been reliable. It started with just random reboots several times a week. It then graduated to turning on the TV and finding the Bolt at the initial setup screen, where I would have to set the TiVo back up. I added a 1 TB drive expander, hoping that the 2nd drive would help share the workload. That worked for about two weeks. Now I'm back to finding the Bolt has reset itself back to factory defaults several times a week. Either my 4 TB drive is defective, or it just isn't up to the task of running all day in a DVR (although I always put the TiVo in standby when I'm not using it). I can't RMA the drive because it is removed from the external case, and it's pretty much impossible to get the drive out without damaging the case.

So I'm in a quandary about what to do next. Get another 4 TB drive and see if it works any better, or put the 1 TB drive back in and live with 2 TB capacity with the drive expander.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Blakeintosh said:


> I've been using that drive in my Bolt since December and it has not been reliable. It started with just random reboots several times a week. It then graduated to turning on the TV and finding the Bolt at the initial setup screen, where I would have to set the TiVo back up. I added a 1 TB drive expander, hoping that the 2nd drive would help share the workload. That worked for about two weeks. Now I'm back to finding the Bolt has reset itself back to factory defaults several times a week. Either my 4 TB drive is defective, or it just isn't up to the task of running all day in a DVR (although I always put the TiVo in standby when I'm not using it). I can't RMA the drive because it is removed from the external case, and it's pretty much impossible to get the drive out without damaging the case.
> 
> So I'm in a quandary about what to do next. Get another 4 TB drive and see if it works any better, or put the 1 TB drive back in and live with 2 TB capacity with the drive expander.


And just for another data point. I have been using two of these 4TB drives for six months now in two Bolts(They have been used in five Bolts total but that was not because of any hardware issues). They have been nothing but reliable. So far I've had zero issues with them. Hopefully they continue to be reliable.

I use high power saving mode but one Bolt records most of the day(around 20 hours or so) while the other Bolt is recording 8 to 12 hours a day.


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## huckl3b3rry (Mar 27, 2008)

For anyone searching to see if they are still safe to upgrade the bolt with the new Tivo release (21.7), I did it without issue using the normal procedure, upgrade to 4TB, no problems.


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