# How to upgrade the performance of the TIVO? faster HD, more RAM,etc?



## Johnny Danger (Dec 27, 2016)

Hello. 

I was wondering if there was a way to increase performance of my Tivo Roamio. 

There sometimes seem to be rare instances where the video is slowed down(perhaps Tivo was overworked when recording was done?) , the tivo seem sluggish, etc..


I have 6 tuners often fully used, house full of the Mini, it has a 8TB 5900RPM seagate drive. 

Are there any upgrades that might help? 

Perhaps a way to expand RAM? 
Maybe a hard drive with 7200 RPM, 10,000 RPM, 15,000 RPM, etc...? 

are there defrag options or other hard drive tools on the Tivo that might help?


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

No. There is nothing you could do that would improve the performance of your Roamio in any way that would be noticeable to you, except possibly replace your HD with 8 TB of RAIDed SSD drives. That might improve your TiVo's boot time, with the downside that, since TiVos are constantly writing to the their drives, the SSD drives would be wearing out and will at some point fail without warning.

Bolts are noticeably faster than Roamios, but less reliable and less flexible; you'd need an external drive from Weaknees to match your 8 TB Roamio capacity.

The most common reason for sluggish TiVo performance is problems with the TiVo servers. Unless you have a ****e network or an absurdly slow Internet connection, there is nothing you can do about that.

Edit: Some people say that a full TiVo will be slower; I don't have that experience. Also, I just ignored your comment about slow video; I assumed you were talking about the UI and not the actual video. Nobody on TCF has ever complained about slow video before.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Johnny Danger said:


> There sometimes seem to be rare instances where the video is slowed down(perhaps Tivo was overworked when recording was done?) , the tivo seem sluggish, etc..


The video is slowed down? Never heard anything like that from a performance perspective. This is while playing a recording or streaming? Is it brief or sustained? Do you have to do anything to fix it?

Scott


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Johnny Danger said:


> I have 6 tuners often fully used, house full of the Mini, it has a 8TB 5900RPM seagate drive.


Probably sticking with a stock drive (or 3TB or smaller) and keeping utilization at sub-50%.


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## OrangeCrush (Feb 18, 2016)

You can't upgrade the processor or memory, that's all soldered to the motherboard. Are the slowdowns something that only recently started happening? Do you have a tuning adapter?


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Johnny Danger said:


> Hello.
> 
> I was wondering if there was a way to increase performance of my Tivo Roamio.
> 
> ...


Remove the hard drive, hook it up to a computer and run the manufacturers diagnostic utilities to verify that there are no issues with the hard drive.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

You never answered any question in this thread: 8TB Roamio upgrade stability issues when 98% filled?

Will this time be different?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> You never answered any question in this thread: 8TB Roamio upgrade stability issues when 98% filled?


e.g.


jrtroo said:


> Seems you already know the answer, clear some space, the box was not designed to handle that much capacity of shows to organize. Plus, there is not any memory you can update, hard drive and fan are the only internal parts you can "upgrade".


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## Johnny Danger (Dec 27, 2016)

HerronScott said:


> The video is slowed down? Never heard anything like that from a performance perspective. This is while playing a recording or streaming? Is it brief or sustained? Do you have to do anything to fix it?
> 
> Scott


I'm not sure if it slowed down or if it was more like it was skipping small section over because it was not written correctly and the end result felt like the video slowing down or not playing right at one part. It seem to have to do with more of the writing process than the reading process because when I went back to replay the same thing, it did it again.

I was thinking maybe I needed a hard drive that could spin faster(like server level design for business type of hard drive or something but you don't think that would make a difference right?

This is not like all the time, its kind of a freak occurrence.

Thanks.


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## Johnny Danger (Dec 27, 2016)

JoeKustra said:


> You never answered any question in this thread: 8TB Roamio upgrade stability issues when 98% filled?
> 
> Will this time be different?


So its organizing so many shows is what is causing the problems?

I was thinking maybe getting a 10TB drive but only allowing 8TB max, leaving 2TB free might help or maybe something a lost faster RPM but from you said that will not help. 
Also, sorry about not answering questions in that last post. I ended up replacing the TIVO with a more expensive 6 tuner version with a New hard drive as well. So I guess I did not have the same one there is front of me to test out the different suggestions.


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## Johnny Danger (Dec 27, 2016)

krkaufman said:


> Probably sticking with a stock drive (or 3TB or smaller) and keeping utilization at sub-50%.


what about keeping a larger hard drive like 20% free, such as a 10TB hard drive with 2TB free at all times ( 8TB max used) or a 12TB hard drive with only 8TB used,etc..?

Do you think that would work? I really do use a lot of space on my recordings.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Johnny Danger said:


> what about keeping a larger hard drive like 20% free, such as a 10TB hard drive with 2TB free at all times ( 8TB max used) or a 12TB hard drive with only 8TB used,etc..?
> Do you think that would work? I really do use a lot of space on my recordings.


I have a basic Roamio that records a variety of programs and movies on a wide range of networks. It uses a WD Green 3TB drive. I watch it during the morning for an hour or two and never have any speed or stability issues, even with a Mini or three connected. It also records Jimmy Kimmel Live when it's new. Since ABC is a low bit rate channel for me, I can hold a lot of them. On this drive I also have every episode of NCIS: Los Angeles (227). Many are two hours due to padding.

Since adding the 3TB drive in October 2017 it has never become physically full. I only save late night, and I kill all other programs after watching or moving to a "movie server". TiVo has no tool to show physical space used. But you can observe, by checking the Deleted Recordings folder, when the drive is full. Just go to the bottom where the oldest file is found. If that program ever changes, your drive is physically fill. On my 1TB Roamio I save only late night. It takes about three months to become full. My action is to kill off the entire last month.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

The 8TB Seagate could be the problem. I don't think Seagate makes any drives that size that aren't SMR, which drastically slows down the write speed. The WD 8TB Red drives are more than fast enough to write 6 streams simultaneously even at the outside edge of the drive.

I would also check your signal strength. It might just be a crappy signal causing some occasional macroblocking.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Johnny Danger said:


> I'm not sure if it slowed down or if it was more like it was skipping small section over because it was not written correctly and the end result felt like the video slowing down or not playing right at one part. It seem to have to do with more of the writing process than the reading process because when I went back to replay the same thing, it did it again.
> 
> I was thinking maybe I needed a hard drive that could spin faster(like server level design for business type of hard drive or something but you don't think that would make a difference right?
> 
> This is not like all the time, its kind of a freak occurrence.


No a faster drive is not going to help and in fact would typically consume more power and generate more heat which you don't want (stick with 5400rpm drives).

As others have noted this could be in the source or try pulling the drive and running the manufacturers test (or as ggieseke indicated this could be related to the drive possibly being SMR).

Scott


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## TKnight206 (Oct 20, 2016)

*During some transfers* from my Roamio Pro to a Roamio, my Pro had weird issues with the live TV buffer having jumps. I can't remember the details. I can't remember what I was pushing on my remote.


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## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

Over Use of the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down can cause sluggishness on older TiVo's. Since I had stopped using the Tumbs Up/Down feature MANY years ago for precisely this reason (My S3 went from horribly sluggish to snappy as day one once I CLEARED all thumbs and stopped using the feature), I have no idea if overuse of Thumbs UP and down can cause problems with S5 and newer TiVo's. Also, does over use of KUID slow down Roamio's as it is reported to do to older TiVo's? Just suggestions for the OP.

Also, are not 5400 rpm drives preferred for HDD's to be used as DVR's? As Scott stated, stick with the 5400 rpm's. I believe WD's latest HDD's specifically for DVR's (for security cams systems and AV DVR's: The AV Purple) are 5400 rpm's. Faster drives are preferred in PC's.


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