# Replacing the Tivo Bolt internal HD



## bmwtriker (Aug 21, 2016)

Tivo forum newbie.

I have a Tivo Bolt 500GB. Bought this year. (2016)

I tried connecting an external 3TB Fantom esata drive and Bolt says it doesn't support it (formatted for NTFS), and still doesn't (formatted for MAC extended (journaling)).

So, I am planning to order a 
Seagate 4TB Laptop HDD SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 2.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive (ST4000LM016) from Amazon.

What steps to replace it as the internal Bolt HD? And, will it use the entire 4TB, or format it up to 2TB and quit?

Any special software needed to prepare it?

Any special hardware setup needed to test/format/??

[For testing, formatting, etc I have an iMac with latest OS X El Capitan. I also have Parallels with Win 7 Pro installed on the iMac, so I can run either Mac or Win software on it. Does that even matter?]


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## bkc56 (Apr 29, 2001)

There's some useful information in this thread (where at the end I asked basically the same question):

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=542550


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## manderson96 (Jul 11, 2016)

bmwtriker said:


> Tivo forum newbie.
> 
> I have a Tivo Bolt 500GB. Bought this year. (2016)
> 
> ...


bmwtriker

Check out jmbach's response to my post in the MFS Tools 3.2 thread, post #425.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10982713#post10982713

I asked if the process for upgrading a Tivo Roamio are the same for the Bolt and the consensus is yes.

The check out the post from Sleepdragon #212 where he outlines which posts will give a good overview.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=529148&page=8

You will want read the entire thread though.


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## mitch672 (Aug 31, 2016)

I would recommend AGAINST using the Samsung/Seagate ST4000LM016.

I have now gone through two of them, in less than 2 weeks.. I used MFS tools, and it all works just fine.. until the drive dies a horrible death and will no longer boot. I have been getting mine from COSTCO, they have the "Seagate Backup Plus 4GB" portable drive in an external enclosure for $120, you open it up, and take it out... it also has the USB 3.0 adapter so you can temp connect it to your PC, after doing the initial format in the Bolt, then remove it and run MFS tools.

I think I am going to try just a 960GB SSD drive, as these 2.5" notebook PC drives cannot handle the intense demands of the Bolt.

Mitch


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## bmwtriker (Aug 21, 2016)

I read enough posts about the failure rate of the 2.5 inch drives that I decided to put the internal drive into an external enclosure. (See my post "eSATA or SATA"). As I mentioned in one reply, my feeling is that the increased capacity is creating extra heat and causing the premature failures. I'm not sure how to increase the airflow in the Bolt, but if that could be done, it might allow the larger capacity 2.5 inchers to work successfully. My external enclosure has its own fan to keep it cool.


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## bmwtriker (Aug 21, 2016)

bmwtriker said:


> Tivo forum newbie.
> 
> I have a Tivo Bolt 500GB. Bought this year. (2016)
> 
> ...


Totally changed the plan. Went with the Seagate Barracuda 3TB, Rosewill external enclosure. Still waiting on answer regarding the correct cable to use before opening up the Bolt.


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## bkc56 (Apr 29, 2001)

bmwtriker said:


> As I mentioned in one reply, my feeling is that the increased capacity is creating extra heat and causing the premature failures.


Perhaps a small low RPM (ie, quiet) fan to increase the airflow around the unit would help with heat.

I just checked my bolt (setup but no cablecard installed yet) which is in standby mode and it's warm to the touch on the top. Some extra airflow may be good even with just with the default 1TB drive.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Just saw WD 3TB WD30NPRZ. It is a blue drive. Right now it appears difficult to source. Wonder if it is in WD Ultra Portable Passport external drives.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

My only concern about using external drives for TiVo drives is that they may have encryption enabled which adds some overhead to the read/writes. Not sure if that is significant or not. I guess my concerns is if that extra overhead would show up as glitches in video.


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## gespears (Aug 10, 2007)

jmbach said:


> Just saw WD 3TB WD30NPRZ. It is a blue drive. Right now it appears difficult to source. Wonder if it is in WD Ultra Portable Passport external drives.


I still haven't run across any reports of WD drive failures. I'm not sure why more people aren't using them.


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## leswar (Apr 14, 2005)

Because, not cheap here:
Western Digital Blue 3TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gbps 64MB Cache 2.5-inch Internal Hard Drive Mfr P/N WD30NPRZ
 
Mfg Part No: 
WD30NPRZ
$338.00 $450.67
at
WD30NPRZ Western Digital Hard Drive


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

leswar said:


> Because, not cheap here:
> Western Digital Blue 3TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gbps 64MB Cache 2.5-inch Internal Hard Drive Mfr P/N WD30NPRZ
> 
> Mfg Part No:
> ...


The 2TB (WD20NPVZ) version of the WD30NPRZ is relatively inexpensive. I've purchased two of them, each under $120. They're designed for use as primary drives in notebooks and external enclosures, so they are not using SMR.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

gespears said:


> I still haven't run across any reports of WD drive failures. I'm not sure why more people aren't using them.


I am pretty certain that those 2.5" WD drives in the enclosures have a special usb only interface, no sata connection. This was discussed some time ago in one of the threads. So far, the Toshiba 3TB MQ03ABB300 is the only 2.5" PMR which is readily available and reasonably priced. Toshiba MQ03ABB300 3.0TB 2.5-inch 15.0mm... in stock at MacSales.com


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