# Upgrade Hard Drive tivo roamio Plus



## paulb7873 (Jan 14, 2015)

Have the plus and want to upgrade the hard drive to 4tb. I have done some research but have a few questions. Is the 4tb now as easy as the 3tb? just pop it in? If so what kind of prepping do I do? Would I format fat32 or NTFS? Also I se the AV-GP WD hard drives. Is that what is in there now? Can I simply use a WD green? 

Thanks


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

paulb7873 said:


> Have the plus and want to upgrade the hard drive to 4tb. I have done some research but have a few questions. Is the 4tb now as easy as the 3tb? just pop it in? If so what kind of prepping do I do? Would I format fat32 or NTFS? Also I se the AV-GP WD hard drives. Is that what is in there now? Can I simply use a WD green?
> 
> Thanks


Anthing bigger than a 3Tb drive is not as easy, for a 4Tb drive go here:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860
This should give all the information about the 4Tb upgrade
For a 6Tb upgrade go to WeaKnees.com


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## paulb7873 (Jan 14, 2015)

thanks I will probably just go with a 3tb. Under known limitations I see something about fsck and wont reliability over an extra tb. I have the basic idea of getting it apart and putting it in but what about the drive? Does It have to be AV-GP? Also when you buy a drive it is unallocated and has no partition on it. Do I need to format first before installing a 3TB?

Weeknees can do a 6tb.. wow. wonder how they do it. You couldn't just clone the existing hard drive on to a 6tb?

Thanks So much

WD GREEN, PURPLE , Or AV-GP? All Good??


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

WD30EURS/X (3 TB, green)
WD30EFRX (3TB, Red)

Not all Green drives can be easily used for Tivo, mostly AV-GP (Green), or red which are generally used for NAS purposes. The other green drives has a set head parking timer function which interfere with Tivo where it may or may not boot, only cold boot not warm boot (menu restart), and must be disabled or extended. AV-GP has it already disabled.

Windows drive manager will damage the drive so it will not boot up in a Tivo and format is not needed. Tivo is not FAT, FAT32 or NTFS. Its a form of MFS.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

ThAbtO said:


> WD30EURS/X (3 TB, green)
> WD30EFRX (3TB, Red)
> 
> Not all Green drives can be easily used for Tivo, mostly AV-GP (Green), or red which are generally used for NAS purposes. The other green drives has a set head parking timer function which interfere with Tivo where it may or may not boot, only cold boot not warm boot (menu restart), and must be disabled or extended. AV-GP has it already disabled.
> ...


My understanding is that the WD parking timer is no longer a problem for the Roamios, I never had a green or red WD drive not work for Roamio use, much has been written about what drive is best to use, IMHO it makes no difference as long as you stay away form high speed/high power drives, 5400 to 5900 RPM will do the job and keep your TiVo cool. The drives you purchase today may have newer firmware than any review of that model from the past, so the best drive is hard to ever know (maybe 5 to 9 years down the road some drive types may fail more that others but who knows). Purchase a WD red or green drive with the lowest cost for the size you want and be done with it. I know nothing about the new WD purple drives, and I have not seen anything on this BB about anybody using them and if they did, having any problems with them.


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## paulb7873 (Jan 14, 2015)

THANKS! I have one of these in my pc now WD40EZRX 

I am going to take it out and put It in. Do I need 2 secure erase or just delete all partions and put it in unallocated.
thanks


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

paulb7873 said:


> THANKS! I have one of these in my pc now WD40EZRX
> 
> I am going to take it out and put It in. Do I need 2 secure erase or just delete all partions and put it in unallocated.
> thanks


Unless that was a typo, it isn't going to work without preparation since that is a 4TB drive.


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## paulb7873 (Jan 14, 2015)

Yeah I am going to do the prep and try it out. Also I can run WDIDLE3 and disable it from parking the heads if you think I should? I will let yo know how it turns out!


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

WD has a utility for the red drives on their Web site that will extend the timer. They have both Linux and Windows versions.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

paulb7873 said:


> Yeah I am going to do the prep and try it out. Also I can run WDIDLE3 and disable it from parking the heads if you think I should? I will let yo know how it turns out!


Has anybody found any problem with the Roamio and the WDIDLE3 timer, I have done about 20 Roamio upgrades and never had any problem, and never changed the timer on the WD green drives. The first few I tested the soft reboot, no problem.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

lessd said:


> Has anybody found any problem with the Roamio and the WDIDLE3 timer, I have done about 20 Roamio upgrades and never had any problem, and never changed the timer on the WD green drives. The first few I tested the soft reboot, no problem.


One way to find out is to check/enable that Intellipark idle and plant it in the Roamio, let it boot, etc. Put it back in the PC and do WDIdle3 /r again. Its just a big hassle at least.


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