# Tivo BOLT with Toshiba HDKFB06 good option?



## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

Wondering if anyone has tried this hard drive in the BOLT yet. I have my BOLT coming, but finding a suitable internal upgrade hard drive has proven difficult. It seems all but Seagate have current drives larger than 2TB so I am hoping this new 3TB Toshiba might be a good choice.

That said, right now I am leaning towards pulling a 3TB 3.5" drive from my NAS and using it externally to the BOLT and then replacing the 3TB in the NAS with a hot spare WD 8TB RED.

Does anyone have any recommendations for 2.5" hard drives of at least 3TB that work well in the BOLT at this time?

Thanks,
craigr


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> That said, right now I am leaning towards pulling a 3TB 3.5" drive from my NAS and using it externally to the BOLT and then replacing the 3TB in the NAS with a hot spare WD 8TB RED.


If you were to go the external route, if it were me, I would put the WD 8TB Red in the Bolt and leave the NAS as is.

I don't know if HDKFB06 is the same drive as MQ03ABB300. The latter is what most people have been using. Not saying anything about whether that is good or bad. Just mentioning it in case you wanted to look into it further.


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

I hear you, but I don't need an 8TB drive on my BOLT. I have a Premiere now with a 2TB drive in it and I have found that totally adequate. Even with indefinitely storing a lot of kids shows we have still never gone above 80% full. And I plan to keep the Premiere in the system so that will be 2TB plus whatever I put in the BOLT. I think adding three TB will be more than I already need. Besides, any shows can be offloaded to the NAS for backup if necessary.

That aside, I did not do my home work before buying the BOLT and didn't realize it can only house a 2.5" drive. That was IMHO a poor decision on TiVo's part. A 3.5" drive is much more suited to a DVR than a little 2.5".

Do you have any links for the MQ03ABB300? That drive is old now and very difficult to find ;(

Thanks,
craigr


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

CIR-Engineering said:


> Do you have any links for the MQ03ABB300? That drive is old now and very difficult to find ;(


I don't understand why that 3TB drive has gotten to be so hard to find--it's a great size, value and solution, and seemingly without equivalent. Push it out, Toshiba!


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

Seems all the reputable HD manufacturers have pulled 2.5" drives larger than 2TB. Other than the Toshiba HDKFB06, I can find nothing other than Seagates... and I won't use Seagate 2.5" drives in anything let alone the BOLT. Every one I have ever owned has failed in a year or less in my laptops, even when they were OEM.

craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

I also can't figure out if the HDKFB06 is using SRM or PRM...


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> Do you have any links for the MQ03ABB300? That drive is old now and very difficult to find ;(


Toshiba MQ03ABB300 3.0TB 2.5-inch 15.0mm SATA... at MacSales.com


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

Mikeguy said:


> I don't understand why that 3TB drive has gotten to be so hard to find--it's a great size, value and solution, and seemingly without equivalent. Push it out, Toshiba!


Mostly laptops use 2.5" drives and they are all moving to SSD. It isn't a one to one replacement but laptop users don't usually need 3TB and prefer paying more per GB for a much faster more reliable drive.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> I hear you, but I don't need an 8TB drive on my BOLT.


I hear you also, but it seemed like you were saying you would pull the 3TB from a NAS you had, where presumably the other drives were also 3TB, and replace it with an 8TB, running as a 3TB to match the other drive(s) I am assuming you are running RAID on the NAS since you said hot spare.

I figure instead of having 5TB of the 8TB unused, you could put it in the Bolt where the 5TB might also be unused (by choice) but it is at least there if you want to use it vs sitting in the NAS unusable, until you upgrade the other drive(s).

Of course you know what is best for your set up.


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

sfhub said:


> Mostly laptops use 2.5" drives and they are all moving to SSD. It isn't a one to one replacement but laptop users don't usually need 3TB and prefer paying more per GB for a much faster more reliable drive.


I can't argue with that logic, makes perfect sense really.

craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

sfhub said:


> I hear you also, but it seemed like you were saying you would pull the 3TB from a NAS you had, where presumably the other drives were also 3TB, and replace it with an 8TB, running as a 3TB to match the other drive(s) I am assuming you are running RAID on the NAS since you said hot spare.
> 
> I figure instead of having 5TB of the 8TB unused, you could put it in the Bolt where the 5TB might also be unused (by choice) but it is at least there if you want to use it vs sitting in the NAS unusable, until you upgrade the other drive(s).
> 
> Of course you know what is best for your set up.


I'm actually running unRAID (not sure if you are familiar with that NAS OS or not). One of the nice things about unRAID is that it allows you to add discs at any time and to also use discs of various sizes to their FULL capacity. Right now the unRAID server has two 8TB drives, two 5TB drives, five 4TB drives, and four 3TB drives. If I pull a 3TB drive and replace it with an 8TB drive (I have two RED's on hand) than when unRAID rebuilds the 3TB drive it will restore all data and increase the capacity to the server by 5TB. It's really an awesome OS for a media server.

Best,
craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

sfhub said:


> Toshiba MQ03ABB300 3.0TB 2.5-inch 15.0mm SATA... at MacSales.com


Thanks for the link. I may get it, but it's probably more cost effective to just pull the 3.5" 3TB from my server.

On that note, *does anyone know if the HDKFB06 is using SRM or PRM. *If it's PRM I may give it a shot.
*
Thanks,
craigr*


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## zombiephysicist (Sep 22, 2017)

I just upgraded my 3TB bolt to the 5TB Seagate (fingers crossed), but when I pulled my 3TB drive, it was a WD Blue drive. See here:

#1056


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

I just sent you a PM... I think.

Craig


zombiephysicist said:


> I just upgraded my 3TB bolt to the 5TB Seagate (fingers crossed), but when I pulled my 3TB drive, it was a WD Blue drive. See here:
> 
> #1056


I just sent you a PM... I think.

Craig


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> Thanks for the link. I may get it, but it's probably more cost effective to just pull the 3.5" 3TB from my server.


If you have the drives lying around already I am SURE it will be more cost effective


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> On that note, *does anyone know if the HDKFB06 is using SRM or PRM. *If it's PRM I may give it a shot.
> *
> Thanks,
> craigr*


Does this help
Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

I normally would never buy a hard drive "used," but I grabbed a WD40NPZZ from this seller on eBay central_valley_computer_parts_inc. They've got loads of 3TB and 4TB 2.5" WD drives with very low hours. They also have a 30 day guarantee. I plan to put the drive in my unRAID server and run three "preclear" tests on it. preclear randomly reads and writes to every sector on the drive and then reads is all back again. It stress tests the drive and also makes sure there are no bad sectors. I'll also be able to use smartmontools to check the hours and status of the drive. If I don't like it I'll send it back and exchange it for another drive.

craigr


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> I normally would never buy a hard drive "used," but I grabbed a WD40NPZZ from this seller on eBay central_valley_computer_parts_inc.


They have 0hr ones, but without packaging, for $2-$9 more.


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

They were having a sale on 70 hour drives for $162 so I grabbed that. On a used drive I'd rather have a few hours on it to make sure it's not a dud. If I hadn't gone with the cheaper 70 hour drive I would probably take one of their 300 or 500 hour drives over the 0 hour drive. At least there will be some SMART data on drives with time on them ;-)

craigr


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> On a used drive I'd rather have a few hours on it to make sure it's not a dud.


Not disagreeing with your thinking, but you could say that for any drive actually. You are going to burn-in test the drive either way (or I would do that) and that will result in probably 10-20hrs. They were selling the 0hr drive as a new drive without packaging, not a used drive. One can debate whether they felt a 0hr drive is considered new or not.


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

EDIT: Read on because I found a way to check the drive hours.

The drive arrived today very efficiently and well packed. This seller clearly knows what they are doing.

I'm putting it through stress testing now which will probably take about two days. It is a very fast drive though in spite of being only 5400 RPM. I guess the density really helps with speed, as I am getting continuous read speeds of 280 MB/s. The drive looks brand new and shows no physical wear.

I am a bit miffed though at Western Digital because they have locked out most of the SMART data that should be available on any drive. While the following two are available:

Raw read error rate
Reallocated sector count

The data values that I care about which are missing include IMHO some pretty critical information such as:

Retired block count
*Power on hours and msec*
Power cycle count
*Load cycle count *
Reallocated event count
*Current pending sector
Offline uncorrectable*

So there is no way to verify how many hours this drive actually has. There is also no way to know if a sector is pending relocation until it is actually relocated, but since I can't see offline uncorrectable there could be bad sectors that can't be reallocated (though that is unlikely).

All in all I think this was a good purchase and with the seller's return policy I am quite pleased in case I find any issues.

I also strongly considered another seller who has 2TB WD Green WD20NPVX drives for $80 plus reasonable shipping. The seller states "Min Use!" so I sent a question asking how many hours are on the drives... the seller never responded. Who knows on a drive that's three years old, but for a little over $80 a 2TB upgrade could be very nice.

As I expected WDIDLE3 also does not work on the late 2016 WD40NPZZ, I am sure WDIDLE3 would work on the WD20NPVX drive and that is also worthy in weighing the cost benefit analysts.

Best,
craigr


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> As I expected WDIDLE3 also does not work on the late 2016 WD40NPZZ, I am sure WDIDLE3 would work on the WD20NPVX drive and that is also worthy in weighing the cost benefit analysts.


I don't believe WDIDLE is critical anymore after the OS moved to flash instead of being on disk, but I could be wrong. I know when my Roamio and Bolt go to standby, the drives power down, because I can hear them spinning up when I hit the TiVo button. It seems to work fine despite the drives taking a few seconds to spin up.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> So there is no way to verify how many hours this drive actually has. There is also no way to know if a sector is pending relocation until it is actually relocated, but since I can't see offline uncorrectable there could be bad sectors that can't be reallocated (though that is unlikely).


Curious, how did the seller come up with the hours used? Are there WD Data Life Guard proprietary tools that pull up that information?


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> Raw read error rate
> Reallocated sector count
> ...
> *Current pending sector*


Can't speak for every manufacturer, but the times I've seen Current pending sector have non-zero values, it has been to the point where the drive has exhausted the ability to remap sectors and pending sector starts growing.

Read errors or reallocated sectors is probably all you really need from SMART in terms of drive health. If they start growing in a short period of time, time to look for another drive. A few here and there should be ok. At these densities, the drives are expected to have errors that get remapped.


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

sfhub said:


> I don't believe WDIDLE is critical anymore after the OS moved to flash instead of being on disk, but I could be wrong. I know when my Roamio and Bolt go to standby, the drives power down, because I can hear them spinning up when I hit the TiVo button. It seems to work fine despite the drives taking a few seconds to spin up.


Yeah, however I am not sure I am going to allow this BOLT to go into standby as I would like it to record suggestions and live TV. So hopefully that will be enough data NOT to allow the heads to park every 8 seconds... that's another reason I would like to have load unload cycle count in SMART.

But you are right, aside from hours, there probably is enough SMART data to decide if the drive is good or not. That said, if I find even one reallocated sector on a 70 hour drive I'm getting it replaced.

I am unaware of any way to retrieve anymore SMART data using WDTools than is available with smartmontools. I am sure WD can get any of the data recorded in house though 

craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

sfhub said:


> Curious, how did the seller come up with the hours used? Are there WD Data Life Guard proprietary tools that pull up that information?


Just sent this to the seller:

First let me say that I am impressed with your efficient and thorough packing and quick shipping speed.

Could you please explain to me how you know that these are 70 hour drives? smartmontools is unable to report most of the common SMART parameters including:

Power on hours and msec
Power cycle count
Load cycle count
Current pending sector

I really would like to know the values for all of the above. All this drive reports is:

Raw read error rate
Spin up time
Reallocated sector count
High fly writes
Temperature celsius
Unknown attribute

Are you aware of a way to get additional SMART data?

Thank you and kind regards,
Craig


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

So I found a way to get the lifetime hours off the drive, just run a short SMART self test:

Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short captive Completed without error 00% 52 -

52 hours 

craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

Also the seller is awesome. He replied to my question regarding the total hours and was able to supply all the information from their testing which they put the drives through before selling. They use SCSI Toolbox Version 9.2.



> SCSI Toolbox Version 9.2 on a Super Micro Super Server with a C612 Chipset. The software keeps track of all testing done by a hard drives Serial Number.
> 
> If you can give me the S/N on your drive i can get you the report that is saved from its testing.


I then received three eBay messages (that's how many it took to send all the data) about my drive. Honestly, at this point I'd rather get a drive from this seller rather than a new drive.

On my end the drive is still being stress tested which will continue. I go out of town for weekend work and will be back Sunday morning early. I'll most likely install the new drive Sunday before football and let you (all) know how it goes.

craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

Still plenty fast, but the drive is significantly slower with write speeds compared to read speeds during stress testing. 120 MB/s writes, but preclear tries to stress the drive and spread the data around. So, chances are in real world recording the write speed would be even higher than in my testing.

I can't wait to get this drive installed!

craigr


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## ajbeaman (Jul 24, 2004)

FWIW I also bought that drive from that vendor and it is installed in my bolt now. His pricing (for a 55 hr used drive) I thought was fair based on the other prices for a brand new one. I had to rely on his honesty on the hours (he had very good feedback) but after your communication with him I feel that it was a good investment. I went this way after reading that some of the Toshiba 3T drives were doing a four light flashing mode.


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

ajbeaman said:


> FWIW I also bought that drive from that vendor and it is installed in my bolt now. His pricing (for a 55 hr used drive) I thought was fair based on the other prices for a brand new one. I had to rely on his honesty on the hours (he had very good feedback) but after your communication with him I feel that it was a good investment. I went this way after reading that some of the Toshiba 3T drives were doing a four light flashing mode.


That's kind of how I feel after hearing a lot of bad results with the Toshiba drives. I do wonder if I should have just gone with a 3TB instead of a 4TB WD drive though.

Right now the drive is at the final phase of stress testing. It's taken longer than I expected, but so far the drive has passed everything perfectly. I set my stress test to test the drive three times in a row. Tomorrow morning it should finally be ready to put in the bolt.

craigr


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

CIR-Engineering said:


> Right now the drive is at the final phase of stress testing. It's taken longer than I expected, but so far the drive has passed everything perfectly.


Did the drive maintain the initial rates you saw? I've often found in testing my drives the inner tracks read/write faster than the outer tracks so time estimates based on the initial rates tend to underestimate the amount of time needed to complete the whole disk.


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

sfhub said:


> Did the drive maintain the initial rates you saw? I've often found in testing my drives the inner tracks read/write faster than the outer tracks so time estimates based on the initial rates tend to underestimate the amount of time needed to complete the whole disk.


No and yes.

I expected what you described based on experience with 3.5" and 5.25" drives, but that did not happen. I figured since the platters are so small that throughput must not have fallen due to the higher density to area ratio (even when the heads were close to center). Speed did drop some, but not much on the _first _read cycle.

However, the drive was very fast on the first read cycle only. The subsequent write and read cycles have all been only around 110 MB/s. Still plenty of bandwidth, but no 250 MB/s. So this is an average speed drive, not super fast after all.

craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

Just a heads up. The seller has the same drives on sale right now for $10 off with 300 hours for $157 and free shipping. Sale is only another five and a half hours.

"*300 Hours* WD GREEN WD40NPZZ 4TB IntelliPower 8MB 15mm SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" (Blue)"

craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

After 97:37:21 of stress testing the drive came out perfect. It's installed in the BOLT now and is happy. 

On a side, rather than remove the wire anchors for the wifi antenna from the old drive, I used Kapton tape to hold the wires in place. I figure if I need to put the OEM drive back in for any warranty issues it will be easier and I also didn't have to worry about the OEM wire ties hitting the top of the case.

craigr


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## CIR-Engineering (Sep 24, 2017)

Event: Preclear

Subject: Preclear: PASS! Preclearing Disk sds Finished!!!

Description: Preclear: PASS! Preclearing Disk sds Finished!!! Cycle 3 of 3

Importance: normal


Disk sds has successfully finished a preclear cycle!


Ran 3 cycles.

Last Cycle`s Pre-Read Time: 11:32:41 @ 96 MB/s.

Last Cycle`s Zeroing Time: 11:58:48 @ 92 MB/s.

Last Cycle`s Post-Read Time: 11:32:39 @ 96 MB/s.

Last Cycle`s Elapsed TIme: 35:04:13

Disk Start Temperature: 27 C

Disk Current Temperature: 35 C



S.M.A.R.T. Report

ATTRIBUTE INITIAL CYCLE 1 CYCLE 2 CYCLE 3 STATUS 5-Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0 0 0 0 - 194-Temperature_Celsius 27 34 33 35 Up 8 SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED


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