# Dual drive 4tb upgrade



## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

Weakness is selling a dual drive (internal/external) upgrade for the Romios.

I don't want to spend the money for that. I already have several spare 4tb drive av drives.

If they can make it work, why can't we?

How are they getting it to work?

What is the process?

Thanks

Tgc


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## Keen (Aug 3, 2009)

Ask them.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

TexasGrillChef said:


> Weakness is selling a dual drive (internal/external) upgrade for the Romios.
> 
> I don't want to spend the money for that. I already have several spare 4tb drive av drives.
> 
> ...


It being work on by some people in their spare time, as of yet we don't have the means of DIY on the 4Tb drives and the Roamio. WK makes money on their 4Tb conversion so I am sure they not going to tell you what they are doing.


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

LOL very true I wouldn't expect them to tell me how they do it! 

It is nice to know that if they got it to work, then it is possible to have a dual 4tb system.

It would be interesting to find out how it's done

TGC


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

I would love a DIY external esata drive plug n play. Slap a nice 3TB to the estat port on the back.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

BlackBetty said:


> I would love a DIY external esata drive plug n play. Slap a nice 3TB to the estat port on the back.


I don't think it will ever be plug and play unless TiVo changes their policy that restricts you to very specific WD drives. There was a kickstart code that worked on the original S3 OLED, but other than that using an unapproved drive requires hooking both drives to a computer.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I've never liked the external drive solution with TiVos. SInce if the external drive has issues you also lose everything on the internal drive. 

This is one area where the cable company DVRs typically have a better solution. Most of the cable company DVrs will not lose the recordings on the internal drive if the external drive fails.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> I've never liked the external drive solution with TiVos. SInce if the external drive has issues you also lose everything on the internal drive.
> 
> This is one area where the cable company DVRs typically have a better solution. Most of the cable company DVrs will not lose the recordings on the internal drive if the external drive fails.


I agree 100% :up:


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## anthonymoody (Apr 29, 2008)

I wonder if TiVo will offer cloud storage in lieu of an external drive. (Not that I want it).


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

BlackBetty said:


> I would love a DIY external esata drive plug n play. Slap a nice 3TB to the estat port on the back.


Why just 3tb why not a 4tb!

Speaking of which, anyone know how large you actually could go?

I have an external eSata case that can hold 4 drives, and it does jbod and raid 5, and could give up to 16tb!!! (With four 4tb drives)

TGC


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

anthonymoody said:


> I wonder if TiVo will offer cloud storage in lieu of an external drive. (Not that I want it).


Cloud storage is nice, except when the internet is down for a few days!

Then you wouldn't be able to watch anything!

Tgc


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

TexasGrillChef said:


> Cloud storage is nice, except when the internet is down for a few days!
> 
> Then you wouldn't be able to watch anything!
> 
> Tgc


Netflix is cloud service and because their stuff has no commercials the system is acceptable, try to go back and it a pain, I can't imagine commercial skipping with the Netflix interface, and that is one of the best, a cloud DVR service will never compete with a standalone DVR, except maybe to download program you have stored on the cloud thus needing a much smaller hard drive, but with the price of hard drives getting so low I don't know how big a demand for even that would be.


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

lessd said:


> Netflix is cloud service and because their stuff has no commercials the system is acceptable, try to go back and it a pain, I can't imagine commercial skipping with the Netflix interface, and that is one of the best, a cloud DVR service will never compete with a standalone DVR, except maybe to download program you have stored on the cloud thus needing a much smaller hard drive, but with the price of hard drives getting so low I don't know how big a demand for even that would be.


I also have a 2tuner older premier that I like to download movies shows too and use it in my RV! So never internet connection there, and I don't even use it to watch live tv!


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

TexasGrillChef said:


> Speaking of which, anyone know how large you actually could go?
> 
> I have an external eSata case that can hold 4 drives, and it does jbod and raid 5, and could give up to 16tb!!! (With four 4tb drives)
> 
> TGC


The current limit is just under 4TiB per drive, and that's pushing it since the Apple Partition Map uses 32-bit fields to describe the start and length of each partition in 512 byte sectors.

Theoretically, using your case in JBOD mode should let you add up to 4 external drives but I have no idea if the eSATA port on a TiVo supports the port multiplier function.


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

ggieseke said:


> The current limit is just under 4TiB per drive, and that's pushing it since the Apple Partition Map uses 32-bit fields to describe the start and length of each partition in 512 byte sectors.
> 
> Theoretically, using your case in JBOD mode should let you add up to 4 external drives but I have no idea if the eSATA port on a TiVo supports the port multiplier function.


When it's plugged into my computer, the computer sees it as only one drive. Besides having an esata port it also has a USB port, so when I plug it into my nas or tv's USB port it sees it as one 8tb drive, (using 4 2tb ) drives


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## kturcotte (Dec 9, 2002)

I can't imagine cloud storage being useful to many people at the current time. How fast is the typical upload speed in the country, and how large is a 1 hour show? You're talking probably at least hours to upload just 1, 1 hour show, under ideal conditions.


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## kturcotte (Dec 9, 2002)

I can't imagine cloud storage being useful to many people at the current time. How fast is the typical upload speed in the country, and how large is a 1 hour show? You're talking probably at least hours to upload just 1, 1 hour show, under ideal conditions.


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## kturcotte (Dec 9, 2002)

I can't imagine cloud storage being useful to many people at the current time. How fast is the typical upload speed in the country, and how large is a 1 hour show? You're talking probably at least hours to upload just 1, 1 hour show, under ideal conditions.


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## mcf57 (Oct 19, 2012)

kturcotte said:


> I can't imagine cloud storage being useful to many people at the current time. How fast is the typical upload speed in the country, and how large is a 1 hour show? You're talking probably at least hours to upload just 1, 1 hour show, under ideal conditions.


 I don't think it would really work like this. Rather, you tell the TiVo what you want to record. It is then simply accessed (streamed) from a server somewhere (that has already recorded it). This is how the cable companies are doing it. If TiVo tried to do it, they would most likely have to maintain a server and facility to offer this kind of option so I suspect it would then be an additional fee if you wanted to use their cloud DVR service.

My Comcast internet recently got upgraded for free from 50Mbs/10Mbs to 105Mbs download and 20mbs upload so I suspect I could easily handle a cloud DVR service of some kind. While most of the country is probably nowhere close to this, I think TiVo will consider some sort of hybrid plan for their next line of DVRs; have equipment with traditional hard drives, but then also offer a cloud DVR solution/option within those same DVRs for those that can handle it (& probably have to pay extra). Not only would it free up your current hard drive space, but wouldn't be lost if your unit fails.

I think cloud DVRs are an interesting idea and something that is in the works and coming down the pipe, but not quite ready for prime time just yet.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

I think you are overlooking the vast quantity of data the cloud dvr will use and the 300GB cap Comcast has on Xfinity users.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

The Boxee Tv used cloud DVR storage. I had around one hundred HD recordings in the cloud before they eliminated the feature. It worked but they had issues like only stereo playback of the recordings.

I wouldn't mind a cloud storage option with TiVo. For instance if you could create a Season Pass and have the option to store the recordings locally or in the cloud. That way you could just use cloud storage for the less important SPs and use local storage for the more important ones.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> The Boxee Tv used cloud DVR storage. I had around one hundred HD recordings in the cloud before they eliminated the feature. It worked but they had issues like only stereo playback of the recordings.
> 
> I wouldn't mind a cloud storage option with TiVo. For instance if you could create a Season Pass and have the option to store the recordings locally or in the cloud. That way you could just use cloud storage for the less important SPs and use local storage for the more important ones.


Really depends on your ISP, with FIOS you have acceptable upload/download speads and good over all data limits.

For someone like me with only access to substandard DSL Cloud storage is useless. First at best my upload speed is only 0.36 Mbs and many evenings download speed drops to under 1.0 Mbs. So even if I could get some HD content into the cloud (it would have to record locally then copy the file to the cloud) I would not be able to watch it in HD most evenings.


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## kturcotte (Dec 9, 2002)

I doubt either would work for me then, unless they just give you a set amount of space. I still have stuff on my Roamio from December when I first bought it, and it wouldn't be the first time I just let an entire season of a show record (September through May) and binge watch the entire season in a weekend.
The cloud based DVRs I've seen proposed tends to only keep shows for so long.


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