# Drive expanders for new Bolt



## Wexlerbob (Apr 4, 2015)

I am planning on buying 2 new Tivo Bolts from Amazon.
I am switching from Dish Hopper to Cox Tivo.
I currently have a half dozen 2 TB external drives full of content for the Hoppers. That content will all be lost once I switch to Tivo.
Can I use those drives as expanders on the Bolt and swap them to view my Tivo content, OR was the Tive salesman correct when he said disconnecting a drive from the Bolt will erase all the content, because of DRM. It doesn't make sense to me that unplugging a hard drive could erase it.

On another note, can one Bolt View content on another Bolt through MOCA or Ethernet?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Sorry you can not use your existing 2TB external drives with a TiVo. For some unknown reason TiVo only supports one external drive, it is a 1 TB western digital. This drive is an eSATA drive and if you unplug it you do loose all your recordings because of the way the TiVo marries the drive to your main drive (you do not see it as a separate drive, you only see one large drive).

On the bright side Bolts can stream recordings to each other (or Minis) over your network (MoCA or Ethernet) easily.


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## mark1958 (Feb 13, 2005)

Wexlerbob said:


> I am planning on buying 2 new Tivo Bolts from Amazon.
> I am switching from Dish Hopper to Cox Tivo.
> I currently have a half dozen 2 TB external drives full of content for the Hoppers. That content will all be lost once I switch to Tivo.
> Can I use those drives as expanders on the Bolt and swap them to view my Tivo content, OR was the Tive salesman correct when he said disconnecting a drive from the Bolt will erase all the content, because of DRM. It doesn't make sense to me that unplugging a hard drive could erase it.
> ...


As far as the external drives go if I'm not mistaken it works similar to a raid configuration, and once disconnected you lose all the information on both drives. I think this is the only one that will work (https://www.tivo.com/shop/detail/westerndigital) but I have read Weekness has some sort of way
to configure external drives, but I can't confirm this. hope this helps.


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## pwlcheng (Dec 6, 2007)

I would suggest to build a file server with your 6 drives and then copy and save your TiVo recordings to it.


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## Wexlerbob (Apr 4, 2015)

pwlcheng said:


> I would suggest to build a file server with your 6 drives and then copy and save your TiVo recordings to it.


Would the recordings then be playable from the file server, on any of the TIVO devices (Bolt or Mini)?

Would a Linux server work?
Any software required to provide TIVO bidirectional access?


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## exraytheontom (May 11, 2011)

I just tried to hook up my brand new 1TB expander to my new Bolt today and it doesn't seem to recognize the expander. I followed the instructions four times. Any idea's?


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

Word is the cable included does not seat deep enough in the Bolt. Fits other Tivos fine.
http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=533021


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## cyclone23 (Jul 3, 2016)

foghorn2 said:


> Word is the cable included does not seat deep enough in the Bolt. Fits other Tivos fine.
> http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=533021


That's not the answer. Requested and received Tivo's ESATA cable and when the Bolt powers up, it sees that there is an external device, but then says it's not compatible.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

cyclone23 said:


> That's not the answer. Requested and received Tivo's ESATA cable and when the Bolt powers up, it sees that there is an external device, but then says it's not compatible.


That is the answer if you are using the one and only currently available SATA External WD expander currently on the market that Tivo is compatible with.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

foghorn2 said:


> That is the answer if you are *not* using the one and only currently available SATA External WD expander currently on the market that Tivo is compatible with.


fyp

I think TiVo long ago decided that external expansion was not worth the trouble to support.


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## razor237 (Feb 1, 2002)

ej42137 said:


> fyp
> 
> I think TiVo long ago decided that external expansion was not worth the trouble to support.


Yet they still add the eSATA port to the new TiVo's  ..... why tease us  If im not mistaken the only external drive that is supported is no longer made and is hard to find


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