# Roamio Drive Upgrade



## troasti (Nov 13, 2008)

I currently have two premieres I use with OTA. I just called Tivo and received the 99$ upgrade on one of them. My plan is to sell it on ebay and buy the Roamio base model for OTA, upgrade the hard drive and buy and mini to replace the second premiere. In theory my monthly payment should go down. Currently 14.99 + 12.99 vs 14.99 + 5.99. My question is what hard drives work in the roamio? Is there a list of verified ones? Only up to 3 gb? I have the 1TB DVR expander now. So I could have 4 TB total on the new roamio and share everything with the mini?
Thanks


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## StevesWeb (Dec 26, 2008)

Most likely any drive you throw in there will work, but most are choosing the drives that are explicitly optimized for DVR use such as the Western Digital AV-GP series
http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=150

WD green drives are a favorite, WD red (NAS) drives should be fine too.

3TB is the limit for drop it in and go upgrades. I suggest you consider leaving it at 3TB and not use an external eSata as it increases the risk you will lose all of your recordings. I used this drive.

I also suggest you consider the lifetime subscription because you'll want to keep a Roamio for a long time.


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## troasti (Nov 13, 2008)

Thanks Steve,
Is there known issues of 3TB internal drives failing with an addition 1 TB DVR Expander? If thats the case maybe Im better off buying a 2TB drive and keep using my 1TB expander to bring it to 3TB at slightly lower cost. I see the 2TB WD Green drives are only 79$. Question: The only way to port recordings from the expander is to copy them to the new Tivo Roamio with the old Premiere attached to DVR Expander or I guess I could copy them to my PC using tivo desktop and then copy them back?


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## kbmb (Jun 22, 2004)

troasti said:


> Thanks Steve,
> Is there known issues of 3TB internal drives failing with an addition 1 TB DVR Expander? If thats the case maybe Im better off buying a 2TB drive and keep using my 1TB expander to bring it to 3TB at slightly lower cost. I see the 2TB WD Green drives are only 79$. Question: The only way to port recordings from the expander is to copy them to the new Tivo Roamio with the old Premiere attached to DVR Expander or I guess I could copy them to my PC using tivo desktop and then copy them back?


Careful....you don't want just the normal WD Green drives....you want to make sure it's the WD AV-GP models.

And yes....only way to get recordings off an external is to copy to another Tivo or computer with the external still hooked up.

Personally.....I'd spend money to get the largest internal and skip the external. Those externals, if they fail, take everything with them....and they are much more likely to fail than the internal drives.

-Kevin


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

kbmb said:


> Careful....you don't want just the normal WD Green drives....you want to make sure it's the WD AV-GP models.
> 
> .
> 
> -Kevin


Any WD green or red drive will work without problems, TiVo system does not make use of the special AV drivers built into the WD AV drives, I have tried them all, no difference in any of them, so just get the best price for the size drive you want. (in the way past I have had problems with drives other than WD so now I only use WD but other drives may now work)


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## StevesWeb (Dec 26, 2008)

troasti said:


> Thanks Steve,
> Is there known issues of 3TB internal drives failing with an addition 1 TB DVR Expander?


No, I did not mean to suggest this specific configuration is a problem, rather that having any external eSATA drive connected at least doubles your chances of losing all of your recordings. You are now also depending on two power supplies, and a cable that could easily come loose while dusting, etc.

3TB is a lot!


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## ltxi (Feb 14, 2010)

Using an expander is a problem waiting to happen. Unnecessarily using an expander to save 20 or 30 bucks is a real false economy risk. Attempting to reuse an existing, already paired expander to try to save 20 or thirty bucks is down right....unwise.


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## troasti (Nov 13, 2008)

ltxi said:


> Using an expander is a problem waiting to happen. Unnecessarily using an expander to save 20 or 30 bucks is a real false economy risk. Attempting to reuse an existing, already paired expander to try to save 20 or thirty bucks is down right....unwise.


Except I already have 2 expanders. One I've had since my tivo HD 4+ years and one I purchased 3 years ago. I've never had a problem with either of them. Even if I purchase a 3TB internal drive why shouldn't I use it? Have there been tons of reported problems with them and I have just been one of the lucky ones?


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## StevesWeb (Dec 26, 2008)

If there is any reason you should not use it, it's only the higher risk of failure. 

If you balance risk vs benefit and choose to use it, that's fine too.


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

I went with a WD 3TB Red drive because it was easy to find a deal on, and it runs impressively cool and silent.


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## troasti (Nov 13, 2008)

In the end I went with the WD30EZRX. The Roamio Basic, Mini and hard drive was dropped off today. Will be tinkering tonight to get everything together. Still on the fence about using the 1TB DVR expander. Would be nice to have 4TB. I currently have 2 500GB Premieres with 2 1TB DVR expanders.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

troasti said:


> Except I already have 2 expanders. One I've had since my tivo HD 4+ years and one I purchased 3 years ago. I've never had a problem with either of them. Even if I purchase a 3TB internal drive why shouldn't I use it? Have there been tons of reported problems with them and I have just been one of the lucky ones?


If your expander dies, you lose all shows on BOTH drives.


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## troasti (Nov 13, 2008)

mattack said:


> If your expander dies, you lose all shows on BOTH drives.


Understood. Maybe worth the risk to me. Has anyone here lost a DVR expander?


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## kbmb (Jun 22, 2004)

troasti said:


> Understood. Maybe worth the risk to me. Has anyone here lost a DVR expander?


I've lost 2 and my Dad has lost 2.

We've given up on them as they aren't reliable.

-Kevin


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

troasti said:


> In the end I went with the WD30EZRX. The Roamio Basic, Mini and hard drive was dropped off today. Will be tinkering tonight to get everything together. Still on the fence about using the 1TB DVR expander. Would be nice to have 4TB. I currently have 2 500GB Premieres with 2 1TB DVR expanders.


No reason to use the expander now. Just wait and see what happens if the 3TB gets almost full plug the expander in and use it then.

I personally didn't even upgrade the drive at all, with the Roamio and OTA it is very easy to just move stuff to my computers, I picked several shows to watch this summer and have them auto copied to my computer via the free version of TiVo Desktop, works great.


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## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

Newegg has the Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB for $129.99 & free shipping. Use PROMO CODE:
EMCPWWF23


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

troasti said:


> Understood. Maybe worth the risk to me. Has anyone here lost a DVR expander?


Yes, I lost one on my OLED S3 - I will never use an expander again!

There is a reason everyone is cautioning you not to use an expander... In my case, the drive was fine - the TiVo just lost the connection to it and I could not re-establish it. I worked on it for hours... Finally I removed it altogether and reset the TiVo just to make sure everything was configured properly. I lost all my recordings anyway, so I figured it was the most prudent thing to do.

My observations when it was working?

The extender was loud and ran very warm sitting in the cabinet that I kept it in.


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## troasti (Nov 13, 2008)

Ironically, the DVR expanders seems to still be worth a bit of money on Ebay. Ill stick with the 3TB (WD30EZRX) drive I dropped in for now and put the expanders away. It's taking forever to transfer two full Premieres over Ethernet to the new Roamio. If I get desperate for space maybe Ill plug one in in the future. Thanks!


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