# SSD in Bolt OTA...



## bur1196 (Aug 13, 2018)

Has anybody successfully installed a SSD in the Bolt OTA and if so, what SSD did you use and what steps were taken to accomplish this? I have tried two different SSDs and both get stuck at the starting up screen.


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## ke3ju (Jan 5, 2004)

I wouldn't recommend it anyway. SSD HDs have a very finite write cycle, meaning you can only over-write data a few hundred times before the sector is dead. It's why they're not used in servers.


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## bur1196 (Aug 13, 2018)

ke3ju said:


> I wouldn't recommend it anyway. SSD HDs have a very finite write cycle, meaning you can only over-write data a few hundred times before the sector is dead. It's why they're not used in servers.


I appreciate the concern but I am not looking for why I shouldn't do it...


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## stile99 (Feb 27, 2002)

*looks at last reply, then goes to pop some corn*

This is going to be a hell of a show.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

stile99 said:


> *looks at last reply, then goes to pop some corn*
> This is going to be a hell of a show.


Good for at least 10 pages. Too bad there's no way to search the forum for SSD. (993 posts, 155 in Bolt forum).


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## bur1196 (Aug 13, 2018)

JoeKustra said:


> Good for at least 10 pages. Too bad there's no way to search the forum for SSD. (993 posts, 155 in Bolt forum).


I did search but nothing that really answers the question especially with the latest update and specifically the Bolt OTA (not sure if that matters since they are pretty much the same minus the cable card hardware)...


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## schatham (Mar 17, 2007)

Never mind.


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## bur1196 (Aug 13, 2018)

schatham said:


> It will work. Is your SSD smaller than the original hard drive. If so it won't work. It must be equal or greater. You must also format it properly.


I actually tried a smaller one and one that is the same size (1TB). I did try the DVRBars copy process and it did not work. How should it be formatted?


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

bur1196 said:


> I actually tried a smaller one and one that is the same size (1TB). I did try the DVRBars copy process and it did not work. How should it be formatted?


For 3TB or less, just let the Bolt auto-format it. The Full backup mode in DvrBARS _should_ work if all you want to do is xerox the drive and the source drive is 2TB or less, but it was designed for Series 1 through Series 4 (Premiere) TiVos. Roamios and Bolts are completely different critters, so it won't even recognize them as TiVo drives in the Truncated or Modified backup modes.

Several recent posts seem to indicate that the auto-format process on Bolts running the latest version of Hydra is screwed up, so you may have to use the factory drive and revert to the older TE3 interface before attempting to install the new drive.

FWIW, I agree that using SSDs in a TiVo is a bad idea but it's your money. I would expect about a one year lifespan with a 4-tuner model like the OTA, and since the OS and database is in flash memory on the motherboard it won't run any faster than a platter drive.


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## bur1196 (Aug 13, 2018)

ggieseke said:


> For 3TB or less, just let the Bolt auto-format it. The Full backup mode in DvrBARS _should_ work if all you want to do is xerox the drive and the source drive is 2TB or less, but it was designed for Series 1 through Series 4 (Premiere) TiVos. Roamios and Bolts are completely different critters, so it won't even recognize them as TiVo drives in the Truncated or Modified backup modes.
> 
> Several recent posts seem to indicate that the auto-format process on Bolts running the latest version of Hydra is screwed up, so you may have to use the factory drive and revert to the older TE3 interface before attempting to install the new drive.
> 
> FWIW, I agree that using SSDs in a TiVo is a bad idea but it's your money. I would expect about a one year lifespan with a 4-tuner model like the OTA, and since the OS and database is in flash memory on the motherboard it won't run any faster than a platter drive.


Thank you for the reply. I think my problem is the Hydra version and its not working with the new drive. What is the easiest way to get the old TE3 version working on the new drive (my original drive has Hydra). I am assuming then it will work as long as I don't upgrade/update to Hydra?


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

OS isn't on the drive. Can you temporarily find another hard drive and use long enough to downgrade? Then you can put in the SSD and let Tivo format it, and a year or two from now you can do the same thing again with an new SSD.


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## bur1196 (Aug 13, 2018)

mdavej said:


> OS isn't on the drive. Can you temporarily find another hard drive and use long enough to downgrade? Then you can put in the SSD and let Tivo format it, and a year or two from now you can do the same thing again with an new SSD.


So if I understood correctly, I need to find another similar non-SSD drive, downgrade (not exactly sure how yet) to the old version, once that happens, then I can put the ssd in (let it format), and then I should be good. After that would upgrading from the old version to Hydra break the drive?


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

How to Rollback Hydra from Roamio and Mini's v1

Works on Bolts too.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

bur1196 said:


> So if I understood correctly, I need to find another similar non-SSD drive, downgrade (not exactly sure how yet) to the old version, once that happens, then I can put the ssd in (let it format), and then I should be good. After that would upgrading from the old version to Hydra break the drive?


My quick search yielded no reports of anybody successfully running TE4 on a Bolt with an SSD. So I'd say odds of breaking it right now are pretty high.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

bur1196 said:


> Thank you for the reply. I think my problem is the Hydra version and its not working with the new drive. What is the easiest way to get the old TE3 version working on the new drive (my original drive has Hydra). I am assuming then it will work as long as I don't upgrade/update to Hydra?


Put the original drive in and run the downgrade. Once the motherboard is on TE3 it should be able to format the new drive successfully.


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## wtherrell (Dec 23, 2004)

Friends don't let friends SSD their Tivo.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

wtherrell said:


> Friends don't let friends SSD their Tivo.


Yes, they are enabling bad behavior.


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## aspexil (Oct 16, 2015)

ke3ju said:


> I wouldn't recommend it anyway. SSD HDs have a very finite write cycle, meaning you can only over-write data a few hundred times before the sector is dead. It's why they're not used in servers.


Interesting statement. I was just with a customer that had to switch their VMware images from SAN to local flash drives to get good performance because they were too lazy to investigate their SAN issues. Working with Flash Devices I don't know how the flash drives work but I'm also familiar with a few other cloud environments where the database storage will switch to flash if they need more performance.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

ke3ju said:


> I wouldn't recommend it anyway. SSD HDs have a very finite write cycle, meaning you can only over-write data a few hundred times before the sector is dead. It's why they're not used in servers.


Yes they are used with servers and SAN's?

Scott


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

I also use SSDs in servers and all my PCs. But they don't have anywhere near the number of write cycles a Tivo has. And there is virtually no performance benefit in a Tivo. Setting a pile of cash on fire would have the same net effect.


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## Qnapfan (Feb 13, 2019)

mdavej said:


> My quick search yielded no reports of anybody successfully running TE4 on a Bolt with an SSD. So I'd say odds of breaking it right now are pretty high.


Has anyone tried making an exact copy from a HDD docking station (with cloning feature)? ... AFAIK this process has the potential to make an EXACT copy of the target drive ... providing that the receiving drive is equal to or greater in capacity? The beauty of this method is that it is not OS or language limited, providing that there is enough space to hold the tranferred data/format. Case in point, I've heard from reliable sources that this technique has worked for things like the Nvidia Shield (which is fairly resistant to 'casual' upgrades).


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## bur1196 (Aug 13, 2018)

Qnapfan said:


> Has anyone tried making an exact copy from a HDD docking station (with cloning feature)? ... AFAIK this process has the potential to make an EXACT copy of the target drive ... providing that the receiving drive is equal to or greater in capacity? The beauty of this method is that it is not OS or language limited, providing that there is enough space to hold the tranferred data/format. Case in point, I've heard from reliable sources that this technique has worked for things like the Nvidia Shield (which is fairly resistant to 'casual' upgrades).


I tried using the DVRBars program to copy but it did not work for me...I didn't try a true clone program because some of the research that I have done said that it would not work...


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## Qnapfan (Feb 13, 2019)

Not a 'program', but rather a hardware solution. The one caution for the program route is that the OS/language in which the program runs on/recognizes ... may not be compatible with what is on the target drive. Say for example, a program that is written to recognize a windows partition, may (by programmer omission) be blind to a Linux partition structure ...

Now a hardware cloning device merely 'conveys' data from the source disk to a target disk in the EXACT fashion it is read ... thus creating (in theory) a perfect replica of the data, just in a new storage container. Think of it this way ... a physical cloning device is like a person with perfect memory ... now this person is told a message in Mandarin Chinese ... this person can memorize the exact sounds and sequence that they hear - and reproduce it for another to hear (without understanding a word of it). 

Keep in mind, I don't guarantee this will work, but the method is generally successful in that it totally avoids the whole 'language' barrier issue to begin with ...


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

I've seen posts/procedures for this type of clone. Problem reported with TE4 on Bolt and SSD is that even a good, clean, working install eventually stops working. So there is apparently some bug introduced rather recently which breaks things whether you successfully cloned/formatted or not.


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## bur1196 (Aug 13, 2018)

mdavej said:


> I've seen posts/procedures for this type of clone. Problem reported with TE4 on Bolt and SSD is that even a good, clean, working install eventually stops working. So there is apparently some bug introduced rather recently which breaks things whether you successfully cloned/formatted or not.


Yeah, that is why I am holding off for now...


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## Qnapfan (Feb 13, 2019)

mdavej said:


> I've seen posts/procedures for this type of clone. Problem reported with TE4 on Bolt and SSD is that even a good, clean, working install eventually stops working. So there is apparently some bug introduced rather recently which breaks things whether you successfully cloned/formatted or not.


Ah, okay ... interesting, 'eventually stops' ... well, good luck with your project, I'm out of ideas.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

An exact dup with a cloning drive dock or software like the Linux dd command should work, but recent posts suggest that you have to stick with TE3. If you let it upgrade to Hydra it will probably die.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

mdavej said:


> I also use SSDs in servers and all my PCs. But they don't have anywhere near the number of write cycles a Tivo has. And there is virtually no performance benefit in a Tivo. Setting a pile of cash on fire would have the same net effect.


SSDs are quieter than HDDs and have better short-term reliability.

I calculated this at one point. If standby and power savings are not used, I think an SSD lasts around 2.5 years in a Tivo. But if high power savings and standby are used, I'm guessing you'd get 4 or 5 years out of it because the buffers aren't enabled in standby. And that's assuming SSDs haven't had in increase in reliability and the channels' compression hasn't increased over the last time I calculated this 2 or 3 years ago.

Plus SSDs support higher temperatures and don't generate as much heat, which allows you to slow the noisy fan down by connecting it to a +5V source. Or you can drill some holes in the sides and/or top of the case and unplug the fan altogether, making it completely silent.

But if SSDs have a compatibility issue with the new GUI, it makes all this discussion pointless.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Sitting 10 ft away from my Tivo with my Fridge running, HVAC going on and off, and traffic noise outside, I've never heard my HDD or my fan. SSD would make zero difference. You need the fan to cool the CPU. It's much louder than a HDD. And HDD generates very little heat compared to the CPU. You'll never be able to make a totally passively cooled Bolt using SSD or not. Plus I'm not about to drill a bunch of holes in my Tivo, as if that would accomplish anything.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

mdavej said:


> Sitting 10 ft away from my Tivo with my Fridge running, HVAC going on and off, and traffic noise outside, I've never heard my HDD or my fan. SSD would make zero difference. You need the fan to cool the CPU. It's much louder than a HDD. And HDD generates very little heat compared to the CPU. You'll never be able to make a totally passively cooled Bolt using SSD or not. Plus I'm not about to drill a bunch of holes in my Tivo, as if that would accomplish anything.


And I can easily hear the fan 15 feet away, and with the fan off I can hear the HDD from about 6 feet away.

If you needed the fan to cool the chipset, the fan would be placed directly on top of the chipset. It is not, and yet there is still around 40-50 C of margin with the chipset temperature. There is no problem there.

If you turned off the fan, you'd need some vent holes on the sides or towards the top for the heat to escape, as there are none. There are already nice vent holes on the bottom. Maybe even just leave a half-inch gap between the two case halves when you put it back together. Or ditch that case alotgether....

People use an SSD drive with their Tablo. Tablo also doesn't use a fan (although to be fair a few people have had overheating problems -- most don't). So if you have one lying around, and you don't mind using the older interface, why not give SSD a try? Just use maximum power savings and put the unit in standby and it should work.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

@BobCamp1, I think you're confusing me with the OP. I have never had the desire to put an SSD in a Tivo. Why on earth would I want to replace my <$100 3TB HDD that will last probably 15 years with a >$500 SSD that will last only 5 years, if I'm lucky, then fail catastrophically? Also, why would I want to start using standby, losing my all my recording buffers and instant startup.

I'm not at all convinced the HDD is the hottest component in a Tivo. I can't hear my HDD at all. I don't have $500 to burn every 5 years. I don't want all my recordings to vanish when my drive dies. I don't want to drill holes in my Tivo because I want to be able to sell it someday. I hate the old interface and would never go back.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

If noise is an issue, you could use a Tivo Mini and locate Bolt in another room. Another option would be to use an external drive and locate the drive in a nearby closet.


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## DINaperville (10 mo ago)

An SSD will last longer, and your Tivo will last longer with an SSD - IF !!! You use an SSD with a long enough duration and especially if you set your Tivo to use power saving when it's not in use. Duration is how many Terabytes or Petabytes the drive can have written to it before it starts having errors. Some manufacturers make it difficult to find, but the spec is usually available. You can look at how much space is used by each show on your Tivo, and estimate how much writing is going on. Remember that it's writing 4 shows at once (or 6 shows) at all times except when it's sleeping. The rate at which it's being written to will depend mainly on whether you're tuned to HD shows or SD shows.
For me, it's typically about 10-15 GB/Hr. My 2TB 860evo SSD is warranteed for 1,200 TB or 1.2 Petabytes or 1,200,000GB. 1,200,000/15=80,000 hours. 80,000/(365*24)=9.13 years. SSD 860 EVO 2.5" SATA III 2TB Memory & Storage - MZ-76E2T0B/AM | Samsung US
Since I have power save on, it's only recording about 1/4 of the time, so the drive will last ~36 years.
I've never had a Tivo box last more than 5 or 6 years (main board or PS fails or a surge gets by the protector and fries everything). I'm hoping that, since heat is what usually kills electronics, the current Bolt will last longer (thanks to the cool running SSD).
I have to run TE3 (tried starting wtih TE3 and letting it upgrade twice - won't work). 
If Tivo stops supporting TE3 and doesn't fix whatever it is that doesn't work with SSDs in TE4, that will be the end of Tivo for me (after having had 2 DirecTivos, 2 Series III Tivos, 1 Romio and 2 Bolts.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

bur1196 said:


> Has anybody successfully installed a SSD in the Bolt OTA and if so, what SSD did you use and what steps were taken to accomplish this? I have tried two different SSDs and both get stuck at the starting up screen.


Hmm, I've tested SSDs in Roamios and Bolts for fun. I got SSD to work in Roamio on both TE3 and TE4. I got SSD to work in TE3 Bolt but not TE4. And I THINK Bolt OTA is TE4 only. So I'll GUESS will not work in Bolt OTA.

Yikes this is a 3 year old post. I saw a 2022 date so thought was current, guess someone else replied after 3 years, that's what I saw


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