# Best size for TiVo drive?



## asfafa (Jan 14, 2004)

Hi All

I currently have a TiVo with a 200GB hard drive, plus a Cachecard with 512MB RAM installed, and TiVoWeb installed with several modules. It has 70 recordings (about 70% full) and all recorded in Mode 0. The menu response is pretty good.

I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to a 1TB drive (a Samsung HD103SI EcoGreen F2). I used WinMFS to copy the original drive (along with all the recordings and settings) and expand it and this was done successfully. I placed this in the TiVo and allowed it to boot up.

A couple of times, it rebooted, which gave me some concern, and some parts of the TiVo intro movie played with a little sound distortion. I have read the numerous threads in this forums of those who have gone down the 1TB route, but what I was not prepared for, was how sluggish it was to navigate the menus, play and stop TV programmes. When I pressed the TiVo button to quit watching a programme, you had a screenshot of the TV programme and it took an age to exit. It's not acceptable to me, and so I am slightly miffed that I have a 'wasted' drive. I've gone back to the 200GB drive for now.

Can anyone recommend what size drive would be best to get to ensure that the experience remains zippy? 250GB, 320GB, 500GB?

Thanks in advance.

Paul


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## michael401 (May 20, 2011)

That sounds like a problem with your IDE-to-SATA converter - are you using one of the 2 recommended ones?


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## asfafa (Jan 14, 2004)

Hi Michael

Yes, I think so. I purchased the StarTech IDE2SAT convertor from Amazon. I've been using the recommendations from spitfires' thread at http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=463047

Paul


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

It's to do with the number of recordings, not the size of the drive. If you've just copid the disk, there should be no difference in speed.


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

Just curious, would Tivo work with 2 x 3Tb drives?

Automan.


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## spitfires (Dec 19, 2006)

Sorry no -

- there's a 1 TiB partition limit (Linux kernel limitation) - so to use >1 TiB you may have to expand more than once

- a 2 TiB partition limit (Apple Partition Map limitation)

- limitations in the TiVo software (tivoapp) restrict the total MFS size to 2 TiB.

So the theoretical max is 2 TiB - probably as 2 x 1TiB.


(You will also need WinMFS 9.3(?) or better for anything over 1 TiB - until recently none of the MFS tools worked with >1 TiB)


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## asfafa (Jan 14, 2004)

So, going back to my issue, is it a problem with the copying process? Or a PSU problem?

When I used WinMFS, the additional parameters I used was a 500MB swap partition, and 'no optimised partition layout' ticked, as otherwise it would not even boot up (I guess due to the kernel being outside the 137GB range).

I do have a backup TiVo which is not networked and has not been used much, as it still has it's original 40GB drive. I did put the 1TB drive and it suffered the same laggy response. Should I just do a 'clear and delete' and start again?

Thanks

Paul


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## spitfires (Dec 19, 2006)

Have you run the manufacturer's test tool (ESTOOL for Samsung) ?

It's not unknown for a drive to be faulty on delivery.

I have no speed problems at all with my Samsung HD103SI, and I don't even have a cachecard. Although I did have one that was FOA (err "faulty" on arrival).

You could also try removing the memory from the cachecard in case that is faulty. (With only 70 recordings you won't see any difference with it anyways).


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## mutant_matt2 (Dec 16, 2008)

Also, as you're using your 200GB drive in "production" whilst you sort the problem, you could re-image the drive to the standard altEPG ISO image, which will then have no recordings. You could then put that in and record a couple of things and see if it is responsive then or not. If not, it's almost certainly a hardware issue.

If it looks like the drive, you could run ESTOOL, and I would recommend Spinrite as well (in fact, over ESTOOL, if you have it  ).

HTH!

Matt


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## asfafa (Jan 14, 2004)

Just a small update...

I put my 1TB drive in the spare TiVo and left it to run by itself overnight. When I returned to it, the TiVo was responsive and zippy, so maybe it was just getting up to speed (so to speak) and not quite ready to use immediately?

Anyway, the next step is to copy my 200GB drive once more (later this week) and then swap in the 1TB once more and let it acclimatise. I've also switched over to the AltEPG service so hopefully it won't be too drastic and update 

Paul


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## asfafa (Jan 14, 2004)

Still tearing my hair out over this...

I did another copy over from the 200GB to the 1TB drive using winMFS and although initially responsive, the TiVo became more and more unresponsive: menus were slow to occur, TiVoWeb became unresponsive, and it even kicked me out of telnet:

[pauls-imac:~] paul% telnet 192.168.1.200
Trying 192.168.1.200...
Connected to 192.168.1.200.
Escape character is '^]'.
/bin/bash: error in loading shared libraries
libc.so: failed to map segment from shared object: Cannot allocate memory
Connection closed by foreign host.

or

[pauls-imac:~] paul% telnet 192.168.1.200
Trying 192.168.1.200...
Connected to 192.168.1.200.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.

It's as if there is too much happening on the TiVo, or there's a runaway process, and eventually freezes up.

So I've decided to do a clear and delete of everything of the 1TB drive and see what happens. I did have about 60 SPs (all WLs) and 100 WLs, but I can't believe that this is the problem.

I haven't used the ESTOOL, as I don't have a PC to boot off.

Paul


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

What hacks are installed?


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## asfafa (Jan 14, 2004)

I have endpad, autospace, cron, tracker, blocklist, setpri and Hackman installed as well as TiVoWeb.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Swapfile initialised properly ?

TiVo: {/var/hack} % *cat /proc/meminfo*

total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 14151680 13979648 172032 59351040 65536 4145152
Swap: 524279808 118784 524161024
MemTotal: 13820 kB
MemFree: 168 kB
MemShared: 57960 kB
Buffers: 64 kB
Cached: 4048 kB
SwapTotal: 511992 kB
SwapFree: 511876 kB


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## velocitysurfer1 (Sep 6, 2006)

Daft question, but have you checked the log files for any errors or repeated messages?


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## asfafa (Jan 14, 2004)

I don't think that winMFS has correctly configured my 1TB drive each time I ran the upgrade:










When I was finally able to access the 1TB drive, it gave the following:

Bash /var/tmp #cat /proc/meminfo
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 14151680 13627392 524288 34156544 81920 1716224
Swap: 0 0 0
MemTotal: 13820 kB
MemFree: 512 kB
MemShared: 33356 kB
Buffers: 80 kB
Cached: 1676 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB

So even though the swap partition had been created, no actual swap space had been allocated. Humph!

Now to try MFSLive! At least I have more of an idea what is happening this time (and all done via a Mac).

Paul


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## asfafa (Jan 14, 2004)

A final update.

Amidst the glorious sunshine and warm weather today, I used MFSLive and the instructions at the following thread:

Success - Upgrade 200GB to 1TB with recordings

and voila! Success!

Paul


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