# 2TB Hard Drive Recommendation for Premiere XL 748000



## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

Which one would you choose and why? Have you used any of these? If so, any issues?

WD Blue WD20EZRZ 2TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive

WD AV-GP WD20EURX 2TB IntelliPower Hard Disk Drive 

WD Purple WD20PURX 2TB Surveillance Hard Disk Drive


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Sparky1234 said:


> Which one would you choose and why? Have you used any of these? If so, any issues?
> 
> WD Blue WD20EZRZ 2TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive
> 
> ...


A TCF member here who's looked into the matter fairly extensively, and had considerable hard drive knowledge going in, has indicated that he feels the Purple is not an optimal choice for TiVos and a WD Red would be better, though I don't think he'd recommend it over the Blue or the Green.

Based on my experience with the previous model, the WD20EURS, and one WD20EURX purchased in 2014, as well as the experiences of others with the WD Green A/V models, I would have pushed for the EURX above all others.

But, as I learned the hard way, WD has either started shipping the EURX with Power Up In Standby enabled, or made a bunch of them that way for a particular manufacturer that wanted that for something they were building, and WD allowed a bunch of them to get into the regular "retail" supply chain.

(I put retail in quotes because you don't go into a store and buy a WD A/V Green in a retail box, with instructions and maybe screws and a data cable, you get just the drive in an anti-static bag inside a brown cardboard box, sort of like Original Equipment Manufacturers, i.e., OEMs, would, and usually have to order it online)

By the time another TCF'er here found out about this and posted about it, I'd already wasted a bunch of time and wound up returning a couple of these to newegg, because the TiVos couldn't see the drives.

It turns out that you can use special utility programs to disable PUIS, so that when power is applied to the drive it goes ahead and spins up right then, and I feel confident I could have done so if I'd known to do so, but since I didn't actually go through that, I can't do what I would otherwise have done--enthusiastically recommend the EURX.

Use this site's Search function and look for PUIS and see if you think you could make yourself a bootable UBCD cd-r and run HDAT-2 and disable PUIS, and if so, then maybe you'll be comfortable with the EURX.

As for the Blue, WD seems to be mixing or combining the Blue and the regular Green lines, so also familiarize yourself with their Intellipark feature used on some of their Green drives, and the

wdidle3.exe

utility necessary to disable it to make a regular Green usable in a TiVo, and consider the possibility that you may wind up needing to do the same on a Blue, especially if it's a 5400RPM and not a 7200RPM drive.

(7200 is faster than a TiVo needs, so while usable, a 5400 drive will be just as fast as far as a TiVo is concerned, and probably run cooler)


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

unitron - 

As always a wealth of knowledge and thanks for the detailed response. I'm familiar with the PUIS issue and widdle3.exe process, neither are show stoppers at this point for me. 

I know it's subjective but how quiet is the EURX as compared to the others? Specs are 23 dBa idle and 24 dBa seek (average), I have a 1TB WD blue in my computer and during seek it sounds like a truck - operates fine though.

Sparky1234


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## TiVoTJung (Jan 29, 2014)

ive got a 4tb purple. no issues


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Sparky1234 said:


> unitron -
> 
> As always a wealth of knowledge and thanks for the detailed response. I'm familiar with the PUIS issue and widdle3.exe process, neither are show stoppers at this point for me.
> 
> ...


The WD A/V Greens I've used so far haven't been any louder than the stock TiVo drives they replaced and there's almost always something else in the room that's louder and covers up any noise they might make, at least for me.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

TiVoTJung said:


> ive got a 4tb purple. no issues


4TB in a Premiere XL... Thought limit was 2TB or has something changed? How did you expand to 4TB and does the TiVo recognize the entire 4TB?


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

My WD40EFRX is the quietest drive I have ever used. The green drive in my other Tivo isn't quite so silent.


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## MeInDallas (Jul 31, 2011)

Sparky1234 said:


> 4TB in a Premiere XL... Thought limit was 2TB or has something changed? How did you expand to 4TB and does the TiVo recognize the entire 4TB?


With the DVRBars program found in the upgrade forum, I think you can upgrade to a 4TB drive. Also you can buy them ready to install from Weaknees, or from DVR_DUDE on Ebay.


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## TiVoTJung (Jan 29, 2014)

Sparky1234 said:


> 4TB in a Premiere XL... Thought limit was 2TB or has something changed? How did you expand to 4TB and does the TiVo recognize the entire 4TB?


Yea my premiere sees 4TB love the added space

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Sparky1234 said:


> 4TB in a Premiere XL... Thought limit was 2TB or has something changed? How did you expand to 4TB and does the TiVo recognize the entire 4TB?


Until 20.3.8 came out Premieres would boot loop on any drive over 2TB, but since then expansion has been possible.

MFS Tools 3.2 is probably the best tool for that right now. It can copy and expand your existing drive up to 4TB and keeps the standard two media partitions.

There is also a modified version of jmfs and some scripts that can do it.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10122059#post10122059

6TB is possible, but tricky.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=530517

Note: DvrBARS is just for backup/restore. It doesn't do expansion and can't handle drives over 2TB.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

ggieseke said:


> Until 20.3.8 came out Premieres would boot loop on any drive over 2TB, but since then expansion has been possible.
> 
> MFS Tools 3.2 is probably the best tool for that right now. It can copy and expand your existing drive up to 4TB and keeps the standard two media partitions.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the guick response and clarification. Just purchased a WD20EURX 2tb hard drive for one Premiere XL. 2nd XL may be getting a 4tb upgrade. Any suggestions on a 4tb drive?


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Sparky1234 said:


> Thanks for the guick response and clarification. Just purchased a WD20EURX 2tb hard drive for one Premiere XL. 2nd XL may be getting a 4tb upgrade. Any suggestions on a 4tb drive?


WD40EFRX. Quieter, uses less power then even a green drive.


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## Captain_WD (Sep 29, 2014)

Sparky1234 said:


> ~snip~


Hey Sparky1234,

Here's some info from my side on our HDD drives and their purposes:

WD Blue is your regular everyday drive that is most commonly used for regular computing, light gaming and workloads and combined with SSD. It is fully capable to run most games as well as many programs for editing or programming. 
WD Green is your energy-efficient drive that works cool, quiet and saves a lot of power. It is designed for backups and secondary storage. Its features allow it to be a great choice for quiet backup builds or for archiving. It is mostly chosen for massive media storage (up to 6TB) in builds that have another drive for the OS and active programs and games.
WD Green is getting integrated in the WD Blue family as the following: All WD Blue drives above 1TB will be exactly like the WD Green with a fixed rpm at 5,400 and all the other features. The 1TB WD Blue has two versions - one 7,200 rpm (the regular WD Blue that you know) and the 5,400 rpm (the equivalent of the 1TB WD Green).  
Here's info on both drives:
WD Blue: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=asAHch
WD Green: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=oCS9fS

WD AV-GP is an older model with the most current version being the WD AV. WD AV is a drive that is designed specifically for 24/7 streaming and PVR, DVR and IPTV environments. It is an earlier version of the WD Purple and is still used for constant streaming in TVs, media players, etc. http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=ZidjCk

WD Purple is your surveillance-class drive, designed specifically for surveillance storage, video recording and streaming. It has optimized noise reduction (being the most quiet drive in the consumer line with only 22dBA nooise level during seeking time), significantly reduced frame loss nad optimized firmware. This drive is also used often for desktop computers due to its low noise levels. It has optimized sequential read/write speeds but the random read/write speeds are lower than normal and some people experience problems with it in regular desktops. This is the drive I'd recommend for a normal DVR system. http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=lNuL9e

Have in mind that any drive would work but for the best and most secure performance I'd go with a WD Purple 

Captain_WD.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Mustn't forget the WD Red drives.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Captain_WD said:


> WD Purple is your surveillance-class drive, designed specifically for surveillance storage, video recording and streaming. It has optimized noise reduction (being the most quiet drive in the consumer line with only 22dBA nooise level during seeking time), significantly reduced frame loss nad optimized firmware. This drive is also used often for desktop computers due to its low noise levels. It has optimized sequential read/write speeds but the random read/write speeds are lower than normal and some people experience problems with it in regular desktops. This is the drive I'd recommend for a normal DVR system. http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=lNuL9e
> 
> Have in mind that any drive would work but for the best and most secure performance I'd go with a WD Purple
> 
> Captain_WD.


Can you comment on the following regarding using the Purple line in TiVo's (quote from another post by nooneuknow)



> Regardless of NewEgg claiming there is a newer model available (WD Purple Surveillance PURX series), it is a whole different product, made for use in RAID arrays for motion-activated surveillance cameras. It's not made for consumer DVR use, and while it will "work", the TLER/ERC function can cause problems in a TiVo, which is not designed to work with TLER/ERC enabled RAID drives. They also only have a 60TB/yr total workload rating per drive, which even a 4-tuner TiVo will exceed, due to constant buffering of all tuners, all the time.
> 
> The problem with TLER/ERC enabled drives, is they take away control of error recovery from the TiVo. Since TiVos do not have TLER/ERC enabled drive controllers, any sector with a read or write error gets essentially stuck in limbo, only attempting retries for 7 seconds, per failed read/write, then moving on, rather than letting the drive keep trying, until the TiVo can realize there's a problem, and deal with it.


Scott


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

PUIS issues, widdle3.exe process and TLER/ERC function makes selecting correct Green, Red, or Purple 4TB drive difficult. Only TiVoTJung's posting above references experience with a Purple 4TB drive but don't know if it was a do it yourself upgrade or a Weaknees like product. I'm an experienced "do it yourselfer" so the challenges to get to a 4TB or larger solution cheaply are not a problem for me.


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## TiVoTJung (Jan 29, 2014)

Sparky1234 said:


> PUIS issues, widdle3.exe process and TLER/ERC function makes selecting correct Green, Red, or Purple 4TB drive difficult. Only TiVoTJung's posting above references experience with a Purple 4TB drive but don't know if it was a do it yourself upgrade or a Weaknees like product. I'm an experienced "do it yourselfer" so the challenges to get to a 4TB or larger solution cheaply are not a problem for me.


i am not trying to sound rude but what does it matter if it was purchased upgrade? Or if i did it myself? It works thats what you wanted to know correct?


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

TiVoTJung said:


> i am not trying to sound rude but what does it matter if it was purchased upgrade? Or if i did it myself? It works thats what you wanted to know correct?


Sorry if I offended you, that was not my intention. From my posts I was trying to ascertain the best "fitting" 2TB drive and you offered a 4TB solution I was unaware of. I was seeking clarification on your solution. Again sorry.


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## TiVoTJung (Jan 29, 2014)

Dude no worries 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I'm just throwing this out there - others will certainly disagree, and that's cool.

I wouldn't put any SMR drive in a TiVo, including the Purple line from WD and the new "archive" drives from Seagate. The fact that they publish a rated workload/year rating that's about equal to what a 4-tuner DVR would record just buffering live TV for one year scares me.

There are lots of drives up to 6TB that are known to work reliably for years in a TiVo. Why risk it for $20?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Captain_WD said:


> Hey Sparky1234,
> 
> Here's some info from my side on our HDD drives and their purposes:
> 
> ...


How about some info on why PUIS was enabled without warning on the WD20EURX and why my request to WD Customer Service for someone who could explain why that model worked for me in 2014 but not 2015 went unanswered.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

unitron said:


> How about some info on why PUIS was enabled without warning on the WD20EURX and why my request to WD Customer Service for someone who could explain why that model worked for me in 2014 but not 2015 went unanswered.


Should receive the WD20EURX 2tb hard drive from Newegg on Friday. I'll post the drive info and status of PUIS on/off status as shipped.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

Installed a purple drive 13 October 2014 in TiVo Elite XL4
Model: WD20PURX 64P6ZY0
Working fine so far.

So, not making a recommendation just adding a data point.
If I would have known then about the PURX I would not have put one in.


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## Captain_WD (Sep 29, 2014)

HerronScott said:


> ~snip~


I believe this is more of a question for the TiVo support team to as why the DVR has problems working with TLER/ERC and if that is true. The WD Purple drive does have these functions. If the manufacturer of the DVR listed the drive as compatible you shouldn't have problems using it. 



unitron said:


> ~snip~


I'm sorry for the lack of response from our side. Something might have gone wrong. Apologies for that. WD AV-GP or WD20EURX features WD's Intellipower function. You can read a bit more on this here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=4Of0xh . This function is aprt of the drive's firmware and helps the drive work as a low-power and quiet drive. Feel free to ask if you need more info on this or feel free to contact our live support here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=7uLNU5 

Captain_WD.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Captain_WD said:


> I believe this is more of a question for the TiVo support team to as why the DVR has problems working with TLER/ERC and if that is true. The WD Purple drive does have these functions. If the manufacturer of the DVR listed the drive as compatible you shouldn't have problems using it. .


Since TiVo drives are not user-replaceable components there is no list of supported drives but so far we've not seen TiVo use any Purple series drives.

I'll let Unitron respond to the other but he was talking about PUIS and not Intellipark.

Scott


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Captain_WD said:


> I believe this is more of a question for the TiVo support team to as why the DVR has problems working with TLER/ERC and if that is true. The WD Purple drive does have these functions. If the manufacturer of the DVR listed the drive as compatible you shouldn't have problems using it.
> 
> I'm sorry for the lack of response from our side. Something might have gone wrong. Apologies for that. WD AV-GP or WD20EURX features WD's Intellipower function. You can read a bit more on this here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=4Of0xh . This function is aprt of the drive's firmware and helps the drive work as a low-power and quiet drive. Feel free to ask if you need more info on this or feel free to contact our live support here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=7uLNU5
> 
> Captain_WD.


So are Intellipower and Power Up In Standby the exact same thing?

Because PUIS used to be a "set with a jumper" thing, which is why it never crossed my mind as the reason the WD20EURX I got recently didn't behave the same as the one I got back in 2014.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

Captain_WD said:


> I believe this is more of a question for the TiVo support team to as why the DVR has problems working with TLER/ERC and if that is true. The WD Purple drive does have these functions. If the manufacturer of the DVR listed the drive as compatible you shouldn't have problems using it.
> 
> I'm sorry for the lack of response from our side. Something might have gone wrong. Apologies for that. WD AV-GP or WD20EURX features WD's Intellipower function. You can read a bit more on this here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=4Of0xh . This function is aprt of the drive's firmware and helps the drive work as a low-power and quiet drive. Feel free to ask if you need more info on this or feel free to contact our live support here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=7uLNU5
> 
> Captain_WD.


Assuming you work for WD?

It's a shame that the original drive in my TiVo failed in just 2 years in a "lightly" used TiVo.
I pulled the drive and entered the serial number in the WD warranty claims, but it was out of warranty. Case closed.

The PURX installed as a replacement was considerably cheaper than the "preferred" (by this forum) drive and is why I chose it.
If I get 2 years, out of the purple drive, or more I will be happy.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

unitron said:


> So are Intellipower and Power Up In Standby the exact same thing?
> 
> Because PUIS used to be a "set with a jumper" thing, which is why it never crossed my mind as the reason the WD20EURX I got recently didn't behave the same as the one I got back in 2014.


PUIS was verified off - I did not note the WD20EURX manufacture date and the drive is already installed in the TiVo and running well.

HDAT2 can be found on the Ultimate Boot CD (ver 5.34) under: 
-HDD
--Diagnosis
--HDAT2

1. Select HDAT2 then load all drivers
2. Select the drive you want to check the PUIS setting on
3. Select command menu/command feature sets
a. 'Power-Up in Standby (PUIS) feature set is near bottom with a status of enabled or disabled. If enabled, arrow down until the feature set is highlighted then select return. It will ask for confirmation that you want to change the status. Enter Y to proceed with disabling PUIS.
4. My drive arrived with PUIS disabled.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

Update to my last post:

1. New WD20EURX appears very stable. No faster/slower than the 1TB original WD it replaced but more stable for watching and streaming content across home network via Cat 6 cable.
2. Awaiting delivery of WD40EURX for my TiVo Premiere XL4 upgrade from 2TB to this 4TB drive.
3. Will move old TiVo Premiere XL4 hard drive to 3rd Premiere so that TiVo will go from 1TB to 2TB.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

Done:
2. Awaiting delivery of WD40EURX for my TiVo Premiere XL4 upgrade from 2TB to this 4TB drive.
Done:
3. Will move old TiVo Premiere XL4 hard drive to 3rd Premiere so that TiVo will go from 1TB to 2TB.

One bad TiVo hard drive on the first XL was causing problems across my ethernet connected TiVos until this upgrade. After first hard drive was replaced system was stable. Upgrade to other now provides lots of storage capacity.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Sparky1234 said:


> Done:
> 2. Awaiting delivery of WD40EURX for my TiVo Premiere XL4 upgrade from 2TB to this 4TB drive.
> Done:
> 3. Will move old TiVo Premiere XL4 hard drive to 3rd Premiere so that TiVo will go from 1TB to 2TB.
> ...


Wow, that's strange/interesting/baffling/scary.

And I bet it makes troubleshooting a real mommy.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

unitron said:


> Wow, that's strange/interesting/baffling/scary.
> 
> And I bet it makes troubleshooting a real mommy.


This may have been a contributing factor. Bad hard drive / corrupted recording trying to stream....

Fixed with firmware 20.5.9: Issue 411595: Multi-room-streaming a corrupted recording causes crash


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