# 2.5" hard drives in tivo?



## mikeyp (Dec 22, 2005)

I was thinking about one of Pete's comments earlier today in the possible hard drives thread. Has anyone ever thought about using 2.5" drives with the appropriate adapter cable in their tivo? Wouldn't they be inherantly quieter, use less power since they're designed for laptops, and run that little bit cooler since they do spin slower? Not that I'm going to do it. 3.5" drives are much cheaper, just wondering about the theory and practicality of it...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikeyp said:


> 3.5" drives are much cheaper, just wondering about the theory and practicality of it...


And surely that point is always going to stop most of us from trying it.

£60 for a 160Gb 2.5" IDE vs £60 for a 400Gb 3.5" IDE drive is quite a difference.

Also the largest 2.5" drives IDE currently available are 250Gb and are only available from Western Digital..........


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

3 years ago &#163;60 was the going rate for a 160gb Samsung 3.5" drive. 

If you don't need a bigger drive then it's not a bad price, especially if it's really quiet, cool and reliable.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> If you don't need a bigger drive then it's not a bad price, especially if it's really quiet, cool and reliable.


My experience suggests the 2.5" Samsung MP0804H drive was neither cool or reliable. The only area in which it scored was being extremely quiet.

You can get the 250Gb Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" drive for around £85 delivered if you shop around. Unlike their 3.5" drives the WD Scorpio range seems to be both cool and quiet (in my experience and according to most reviews) but they are not espcially fast in data transfer terms.


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## mikeyp (Dec 22, 2005)

In my eyes, the largest problem would be that of mounting it, as it won't mount to the Tivo's existing brackets. You'd have to obtain some sort of mount for it. I think the biggest benefits and arguments for would be lower power consumption and improved airflow for cooling.
I'm not sure that data transfer would be such a problem, as the original tivo drives weren't the fastest were they?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikeyp said:


> In my eyes, the largest problem would be that of mounting it, as it won't mount to the Tivo's existing brackets.
> 
> You'd have to obtain some sort of mount for it. I think the biggest benefits and arguments for would be lower power consumption and improved airflow for cooling.


Tivo's aren't exactly normally moved around are they though so I can't see how that is such a big issue. Probably sitting them on some bubblewrap would be ok so long as they didn't overheat. The main thing is not to short out the electrical circuits that are exposed on the bottom of the drive.



> I'm not sure that data transfer would be such a problem, as the original tivo drives weren't the fastest were they?


I don't think data transfer rate would be any problem. The latest 2.5" IDE drives are miles faster than the original 3.5" IDE Quantum units.

Personally I think fitting SATA 3.5" drives in the Tivo and how that can be done is a more interesting question as some of those drives are now available in 1TB sizes.

Having said that 1TB is about the most storage a Tivo can sensibly handle even at Best or in Mode 0 using a high CBR setting. At that stage a Tivo has over 350 hours or more in Now Playing and at anything over 400 hours a Tivo's menus start to slow down horribly, even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM. Mind you it doesn't crash and the programs still play normally so long as you don't mind waiting for a while between Tivo menu operations.

But I think a 2TB Tivo S1 would be so slow in it menus that many people would find it difficult to live with.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Having said that 1TB is about the most storage a Tivo can sensibly handle even at Best or in Mode 0 using a high CBR setting. At that stage a Tivo has over 350 hours or more in Now Playing and at anything over 400 hours a Tivo's menus start to slow down horribly, even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM. .


For most folks half that would be OTT. You don't need to get so far as menu slowdown before the interface becomes effectively unusable, simply through having hundreds of items in date order. Navigating through the pages and finding what you want becomes impractical way before you hit the limits of the software.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> You don't need to get so far as menu slowdown before the interface becomes effectively unusable, simply through having hundreds of items in date order. Navigating through the pages and finding what you want becomes impractical way before you hit the limits of the software.


I don't agree.

Both Tivoweb and mikerr's new hack that lets you order Tivos own Now Playing menus by date and use Folders overcomes most of those issues.

Mike has even further developed the Tivoweb hack that lets you start a recording playing from Tivoweb to a point where it now works successfully.

Speaking as one with 600 items permanently in Now Playing it is a perfectly workable Tivo. The only issue is ever finding time to catch up on the backlog of recordings.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

I would not regard having to use TivoWeb play stuff from my TiVo as being a practical solution for normal life.

I'm sure it works for you, but it has a WAF of zero.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> I would not regard having to use TivoWeb play stuff from my TiVo as being a practical solution for normal life.
> 
> I'm sure it works for you, but it has a WAF of zero.


Get the wife her own Tivo and telly then.:up:


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

mikeyp said:


> In my eyes, the largest problem would be that of mounting it, as it won't mount to the Tivo's existing brackets. You'd have to obtain some sort of mount for it.


The required brackets are readily available:
 2.5" to 3.5" HDD bracket 
as are the 3.5" to 2.5" power/IDE connectors.


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## DJWillis (Apr 18, 2003)

Drifting off topic .



Pete77 said:


> Personally I think fitting SATA 3.5" drives in the Tivo and how that can be done is a more interesting question as some of those drives are now available in 1TB sizes.


Hmmm, I can't see that being a problem.

I booted one of my friends TiVo's just fine using an LBA48 image on a 250GB SATA2 disk and a £10 SATA>PATA(IDE) conversion board. I had to use a power splitter to provide the few volts the board needed but that was no major issue.

It did not run it for very long in that setup as I was just using it to test a new power supply I fitted but it did not exhibit any odd issues. Ok, you push the drive back to PATA UDMA speeds but in all honesty that would not cause the TiVo the slightest problem. The biggest issue is PATA>SATA converters are far more common and it's easy to get the wrong one with online shops having very poor/ambiguous descriptions .

I plan to use a Seagate or WD AV friendly 500 or 750GB SATA disk when I rebuild my main TiVo (I need to get a cheap Cachecard 1st) and I don't see it causing any major issues (unless I am missing something ). I understand a number of US series 1s have also been upgraded in this manner.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

DJWillis said:


> I plan to use a Seagate or WD AV friendly 500 or 750GB SATA disk when I rebuild my main TiVo (I need to get a cheap Cachecard 1st) and I don't see it causing any major issues (unless I am missing something ). I understand a number of US series 1s have also been upgraded in this manner.


Interesting to hear that you managed to make it work with an SATA drive but as Seagate already do a 750Gb IDE drive there seems no need to use a converter in their case.

The main interest is in Samsung who still seem to make the quietest and coolest drives but where their top IDE unt is only 400Gb.

Seagates are not generally liked now though as a Tivo can only handle one of them due to a glitch in the drive's BIOS. Could a tivo handle two SATA Samsung drives with two of these converters I wonder? Also were you able to get the case back on the Tivo and mount the drive in the bracket with the SATA converter in place?


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## DJWillis (Apr 18, 2003)

Pete77 said:


> Interesting to hear that you managed to make it work with an SATA drive but as Seagate already do a 750Gb IDE drive there seems no need to use a converter in their case.
> 
> The main interest is in Samsung who still seem to make the quietest and coolest drives but where their top IDE unt is only 400Gb.
> 
> Could a tivo handle two SATA Samsung drives with two of these converters I wonder? Also were you able to get the case back on the Tivo and mount the drive in the bracket with the SATA converter in place?


You caught me there, I meant Samsung not Seagate . Early on a Monday and lacking my usual Coffee.

Regards the circuit, the ones I have used are based on the jMicron 20330 chip. I understand that it can address two SATA channels (one as PATA Master, one as Slave) so it would just be a case of finding a conversion board with both the SATA headers wired up, most just seem to have just one wired. Good idea mind you, I will ask my friendly man in Hong Kong to see if he can track one down for me as it would be a handy board for the toolbox anyway.

As for the physical fitting issues. I have one converter that sits in the back of the drive. This type is a poor choice for the TiVo for the very reasons you mention, it does not fit!.

However there is a second version of the circuit that fits into the motherboard PATA(IDE) header and gives you a SATA lead to the drive. That fits and is so much more elegant as you have a tiny SATA wire around the TiVo not a big fat IDE lead . This auction on eBay shows the version that sits in the motherboard slot, I have also seen a variant that sits above and level with the motherboard so is much lower profile but dont have one of those to try

Note: I have no idea about the eBay seller I linked, it's just so you get an idea of how it looks.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

DJWillis said:


> As for the physical fitting issues. I have one converter that sits in the back of the drive. This type is a poor choice for the TiVo for the very reasons you mention, it does not fit!.
> 
> However there is a second version of the circuit that fits into the motherboard PATA(IDE) header and gives you a SATA lead to the drive. That fits and is so much more elegant as you have a tiny SATA wire around the TiVo not a big fat IDE lead . This auction on eBay shows the version that sits in the motherboard slot, I have also seen a variant that sits above and level with the motherboard so is much lower profile but dont have one of those to try
> 
> Note: I have no idea about the eBay seller I linked, it's just so you get an idea of how it looks.


The converter that fits on the Motherboard certainly sounds like the way to go in terms of updating a Tivo to handle one these drives.

But are there any downsides to converting an SATA drive for IDE use compared to using an IDE drive of precisely the same capacity?


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## DJWillis (Apr 18, 2003)

Pete77 said:


> But are there any downsides to converting an SATA drive for IDE use compared to using an IDE drive of precisely the same capacity?


The risk as I see it our that not many people do it. There should not be a technical downside other then running the SATA drive at IDE specs. I can't see how it would affect anything like LBA48 translation or stuff like that.

The jMicron chip seems to generate no heat (well mine don't) and the power it eats is negligible. I guess the extra power used could push a fully loaded borderline TiVo PSU over the edge if you have a Cachecard etc. in there. But that could be traded against the fact that a lot of current gen SATA drives are more frugal with power then there PATA siblings.

All this post has done is tempted me to find a cheap S/H TiVo and tape several hundred hours at Mode 0 onto a SATA disk as a test. I guess that is the only way to be sure.

The only other thing that springs to mind is you will need an MFSTools disk with SATA support (or just use the tools on a Linux box) or a motherboard that supports enumerating SATA drives as IDE (rather then AHCI). If your board does that then its just a backup and restore to the SATA drive just like any other upgrade. Easy peesy.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

DJWillis said:


> All this post has done is tempted me to find a cheap S/H TiVo and tape several hundred hours at Mode 0 onto a SATA disk as a test. I guess that is the only way to be sure.


It sounds like you need to sell your technical services to blindlemon and Tivoheaven as dedicated testbed to allow them to gradually roll out a new and expanded range of upgrade drives to their customers.

How far away are you from Malmesbury (Tivoheaven HQ)?


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## DJWillis (Apr 18, 2003)

Pete77 said:


> It sounds like you need to sell your technical services to blindlemon and Tivoheaven as dedicated testbed to allow them to gradually roll out a new and expanded range of upgrade drives to their customers.


There may be some merit in working out if this is a viable upgrade for series ones anyway as I guess PATA drives will fade out at some some point and people seem to be determined to keep there TiVo's going for ever . If I do it I will be sure to keep a log.



Pete77 said:


> How far away are you from Malmesbury (Tivoheaven HQ)?


Flippancy aside, not to far at all, few junctions on the motorway .


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

DJWillis said:


> The only other thing that springs to mind is you will need an MFSTools disk with SATA support


...or, presumably, you could use the SATA/IDE converter board in your PC to do the upgrade before installing it and the drive in your TiVo


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## DJWillis (Apr 18, 2003)

blindlemon said:


> ...or, presumably, you could use the SATA/IDE converter board in your PC to do the upgrade before installing it and the drive in your TiVo


Good call 

There, I think that's just about all the issues I can think of on the table now.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> ...or, presumably, you could use the SATA/IDE converter board in your PC to do the upgrade before installing it and the drive in your TiVo


Surely many older desktop PCs (typically used for Tivo upgrades by people who otherwise use Notebook Pcs as their main PC) don't have SATA to IDE converter boards in them though?


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## DJWillis (Apr 18, 2003)

Pete77 said:


> Surely many older desktop PCs (typically used for Tivo upgrades by people who otherwise use Notebook Pcs as their main PC) don't have SATA to IDE converter boards in them though?


No but if you think about it your going to be buying a board to put it in the TiVo anyway if your going SATA .


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

Pete77 - you need the convertor to be attached the SATA drive in the Tivo. So you use it in the PC to do the upgrade then transfer it to the Tivo once you're done 

EDIT - Too slow!


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## Mike500 (Jun 29, 2004)

Pete77 said:


> And surely that point is always going to stop most of us from trying it.
> 
> £60 for a 160Gb 2.5" IDE vs £60 for a 400Gb 3.5" IDE drive is quite a difference.
> 
> Also the largest 2.5" drives IDE currently available are 250Gb and are only available from Western Digital..........


Here's a photo of my Series 2 from the USA.

A Seagate PATA 2.5 160 GB laptop drive. Great 5 year warranty from Seagate.

It's been working great for one month with NO ISSUES!

It is ULTRA QUIET. I only hear the fan. Anyone interest, I have several of the adapter kits. I can ship cheap from the USA. Price would be cheaper than AMAZON.COM delivered. Send PM, if interested.


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