# What is Best Replacement Drive for HR10-250



## dougfetter (May 14, 2006)

I have had my HR10-250 for over a year and had to have D* replace it several months ago when the drive died. I have read here that the disk drives used in these units are not designed for the 24/7/365 type of operations required by a TIVO. So I thought I would buy a more reliable replacement drive, copy all of the programs I presently have onto it per the WeaKnees upgrade instructions, and then swap in this new drive. I will do a simple 1 to 1 replacement, but will probably bump up to either 320 or 400MB capacity.

My question is, what brand of disk drive do people recommend for longer TIVO disk life?


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

The Maxtor QuickView drives are specially designed for DVR applications. Weaknees sells them, both blank and pre-formatted for your Tivo. Seagate drives also tend to get high marks from folks here.


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

litzdog911 said:


> The Maxtor QuickView drives are specially designed for DVR applications.


Which means, as near as I can tell, that they are more expensive. I can't imagine how they could possibly be better than a typical hard drive...


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## Ein (Jul 7, 2004)

cheer said:


> Which means, as near as I can tell, that they are more expensive. I can't imagine how they could possibly be better than a typical hard drive...


Marketing works. 

I don't think there is any test that shows Quickview drive is any better. The Quickview drive in my first Tivo died in 6 months.


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## Richard Chalk (May 13, 2004)

I have two units running dual Seagate 300 GB drives, one for 12 months, and the other for 18 months.

I bought them specifically for the 5-year warranty, but I also noticed that the power consumption figures noted on the drives is about 60% of what is shown on the WD drives. I don't know if these are accurate, but the power supply doesn't have any problem starting both drives together, and the internal operating temperature is similar to the original single-drive system.


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## shanew1289 (May 7, 2004)

And, as always, the Seagates do not have acoustical noise settings. So if it is in your bedroom, you will hear your Tivo at night.

I have a 300 GB in my bedroom, it ticks when silent, but my wife always has a fan running (Before we ever got Tivo) and it masks it completely.

Sensitive to noise, get the Maxtor.


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## Runch Machine (Feb 7, 2002)

I picked up two 500 gig Seagates at Outpost.com for $137 after rebate. I got the Seagates because of the 5 year warrenty. I now have space for 130 hours of HD programs and/or more than 800 hours of lowdef programming. They aren't on sale right now, but I saw the 400 gig Seagates for $109. 

They run quietly and though I don't know if the drives are any better, they have the best warrany I've seen. I upgrade and repair Tivos for people in the Minneapolis area and have seen a lot of Western Digital and Maxtor drive fail in Tivo receivers.


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## Krookut (Apr 7, 2002)

I have a 250 GB Quickview in my SV-2000 and I'm very happy with it. Maxtor says they design it to be less finicky than a HD meant to be used in a computer, where any data loss no matter how minor would be bad. Since such minor data loss in a DVR doesn't affect picture quality, it doesn't try to go back and retrieve it, making for better playback. I wish I had put one in my Hughes, it has a regular Maxtor 250 GB and is much less smooth, often pausing when using the 30 sec skip and the ff and rewind, as well as occasional "stutter", the SV-2000 never does any of that.


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## BigBearf (Aug 18, 2005)

I have used Seagate 400 Gig with 16 meg cache with great results on 7 or 8 SD and HD units. I got most from outpost for $109. I will eventually get a 750 Seagate when the price is $250 or less.
Hope this helps,
BigBearf


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## WO312 (Jan 24, 2003)

FWIW, I bought 6 Quickviews (120mb) a couple of years ago for my various Tivos. 3 or 4 died within a year. I have since switched to Seagate (250 and 300 mb) and have been very happy with them.


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

shanew1289 said:


> And, as always, the Seagates do not have acoustical noise settings. So if it is in your bedroom, you will hear your Tivo at night.


Tune your tuner(s) to non-existent channels (or music channels) before you go to bed and you'll hear practically nothing.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

cheer said:


> ...I can't imagine how they could possibly be better than a typical hard drive...


Maybe not "better" as is typically thought of for HDDs, but "better" as in more well-suited to the task at hand.

A computer hard drive is typically considered "better" if it has more burst throughput than another drive. That makes it "faster" for the kinds of short, intense tasks that computers do. Sustained throughput is not a priority, as a pause for Tcal or whatever every once in a while is well-tolerated for computer tasks.

A PVR drive needs better sustained throughput, because the tasks in a PVR can't afford interruptions. Streaming recording is quite a different task than crunching a spreadsheet or accessing a web page. Burst throughput is not a priority, because even at 4400 or 5400 RPM, all of the tasks that a PVR might do, even simultaneously, are significantly below the threshold of any ability to burst data, even on a "slow" drive. IOW, better burst performance doesn't help here.

IOW, even "slow" drives can do everything inside a PVR that is needed, as long as they can do it continuosly. That makes a "faster" drive (good burst throughput but poor sustained throughput) not as good as a slower multimedia drive (mediocre burst throughput but good sustained throughput) for a PVR. Slower RPM drives also generate a lot less heat.

The Maxtor QV's are designed for streaming multimedia, do not pause for Tcal, and have large buffers, again, all to provide good sustained throughput. But whatever the reason, I think it makes sense to use the drives that the third-party vendors such as Weaknees have proven will do the job the best, and it probably doesn't make as much sense to try this weekend's bargain drive from CompUSA.


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## tebbens (Jul 12, 2004)

I'm also interested in replacing my HR10-250 HD.
Do I have to get a ATA-133 drive, or does the HR10-250 have SATA ?


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

The HR10-250 has PATA. It does not have to be a ATA-133, ATA-100 drives work just fine.


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

I just ordered the 40 hour HD add-a-drive upgrade from Weaknees, 300gb Seagate DB35 drive.
I'm computer literate, but didn't want to take a chance on messing something up, 
so Weaknees seemed the right option.

Hope it works.

After seeing the fall schedule, and the S3 not materializing yet, I had to do something so I can see as much as possible in HD.
Couple of nights I'll have to resort to watching something in SD due to 3+ programs at the same time,
but at least I won't be running out of space as quickly as I did at the end of last season.


phox


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## kturcotte (Dec 9, 2002)

Would 10,000 RPM drives make much difference (Provided you could do something about the heat)? What about drives with 16MB Cache?


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

kturcotte said:


> Would 10,000 RPM drives make much difference (Provided you could do something about the heat)? What about drives with 16MB Cache?


The way the TiVo works on the IDE bus using a faster drive or one with a large cache will only give you a very minimal improvement if any.


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

rminsk said:


> The way the TiVo works on the IDE bus using a faster drive or one with a large cache will only give you a very minimal improvement if any.


You won't get any improvement with >5400 RPM, and in fact I'd argue a faster drive is worse since it likely runs hotter.


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## rbreding (Dec 12, 2004)

Sounds like you need to setup extraction on your TiVo so that you can archive them off and watch them later  Don't have to worry about it filling up then.

I am about a year behind on some of my shows, but still have them all to watch.


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## ShiningBengal (Mar 19, 2001)

Runch Machine said:


> I picked up two 500 gig Seagates at Outpost.com for $137 after rebate. I got the Seagates because of the 5 year warrenty. I now have space for 130 hours of HD programs and/or more than 800 hours of lowdef programming. They aren't on sale right now, but I saw the 400 gig Seagates for $109.
> 
> They run quietly and though I don't know if the drives are any better, they have the best warrany I've seen. I upgrade and repair Tivos for people in the Minneapolis area and have seen a lot of Western Digital and Maxtor drive fail in Tivo receivers.


I have IBM, Western Digital, and Maxtor in 2 different TiVo's. I don't know what is in my HR10-250, though. The drives I mentioned have all been working flawlessly for over 4 years. Probably doesn't prove much, but I sell office automation, and we service all the computers we sell. We have everything including 15,000 RPM SCSI RAID arrays, to the lowliest cheap drives. We don't see very many drives fail at all. Most drives last well over 5 years, and these typically never shut down.

Personally, I prefer Hinsdale's InstantCake approach to upgrading TiVo's (or replacing a failed drive.) He includes a very effective disk cache for speeding up the TiVo interface. You can get the software and download it for $19.95 online.

It is very simple to use, but does require a complete "Clear & Delete Everything" to complete your installation. It can be used for both single and dual drive systems, and is available for the HR10-250. I have no issues with the drive in that machine, but may upgrade it to get more capacity. I would expect to see some improvement in the TiVo interfce based on what I saw with my old Philips DSR6000. I just used a single 7200 RPM 250 GB PATA drive (a Samsung) that I paid $59.00 for at Micro Center. I am very happy with the results.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

kturcotte said:


> Would 10,000 RPM drives make much difference (Provided you could do something about the heat)? What about drives with 16MB Cache?


Most 10k drives are built for burst throughput, and not for sustained throughput like multimedia drives. Since a 4400 RPM drive is plenty fast in a garden-variety PVR, and since the HR10 can handle 3 HD streams without even breathing hard and has a 5400 RPM drive, more burst throughput is probably a wasted feature in this application.

A larger cache is definitely better than a small one, as that impacts sustained throughput, though probably only marginally.

Bottom line, probably too much expense and no benefit in a Raptor or other 10k drive, and if not designed for multimedia, it would possibly have a greater tendency to stutter than the drives typically used.

BTW, I have done 3 Weaknees upgrades, and had nothing but stellar results. Highly recommended.


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

TyroneShoes said:


> BTW, I have done 3 Weaknees upgrades, and had nothing but stellar results. Highly recommended.


Good to know.
UPS dropped mine off today, planning on tackling it tomorrow.

phox


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## tnedator (Dec 4, 2003)

What's this cache on Instant Cake all about? I have a 750gb drive on the way, and have to decide whether to go instant cake, or MFS Tools and preserve my recordings. Preserving my recordings has a lot of appeal, but if there is a performance benefit to Instant Cake, I would possibly go that way.


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## ShiningBengal (Mar 19, 2001)

tnedator said:


> What's this cache on Instant Cake all about? I have a 750gb drive on the way, and have to decide whether to go instant cake, or MFS Tools and preserve my recordings. Preserving my recordings has a lot of appeal, but if there is a performance benefit to Instant Cake, I would possibly go that way.


Go to Hinsdale's website, http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/ and you can research it there. I have used MFS tools, and they work fine, except without the disk cache, the performance with greater recording capacity takes a hit. With InstantCake, performance improves considerably.

It is also a lot easier to upgrade with InstantCake--no arcane linux command structures to copy 

When I do upgrade my HR10-250's, I will most likely use InstantCake.


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## tnedator (Dec 4, 2003)

ShiningBengal said:


> Go to Hinsdale's website, http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/ and you can research it there. I have used MFS tools, and they work fine, except without the disk cache, the performance with greater recording capacity takes a hit. With InstantCake, performance improves considerably.
> 
> It is also a lot easier to upgrade with InstantCake--no arcane linux command structures to copy
> 
> When I do upgrade my HR10-250's, I will most likely use InstantCake.


I've spent a fair amount of time searching their site and have found nothing, other than some references to cachecards and PTVNet that aren't installed with Instant cake. So, I am a bit confused about what exactly this cache is. However, since I am worried about the performance after upgrading to a 750gb drive, if there is a performance improvement with Instant Cake, it would be worth losing my saved shows and having to redo my season passes.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

ShiningBengal said:


> Go to Hinsdale's website, http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/ and you can research it there.


Hinsdale site is 
http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

phox_mulder said:


> Good to know.
> UPS dropped mine off today, planning on tackling it tomorrow.


Done.

20 minutes, maybe 30 because I took it slow.

70 hours of HD, can't beat that with a stick.
(2 more tuners would be great, c'mon S3)

Seems to be quiet as well, tonight will be the test, as the unit resides in my bedroom.

phox


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## steff3 (Sep 17, 2005)

Can someone tell me if this drive will work, or if it is recommened? SEAGATE 400GB PATA ST3400632A-RK. 

Seagate 3.5" PATA Internal Hard Drive:

$99.00 at Outpost 

Thanks.


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## spankspank (Nov 7, 2000)

steff3 said:


> Can someone tell me if this drive will work, or if it is recommened? SEAGATE 400GB PATA ST3400632A-RK.
> 
> Seagate 3.5" PATA Internal Hard Drive:
> 
> ...


Yes, it will work fine. $99 no rebate is a good buy, too.


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## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

spankspank said:


> Yes, it will work fine. $99 no rebate is a good buy, too.


Here's a Seagate rebate for $25 for this drive:

http://upload.ohshare.com/v/5759780/seagatetour2.pdf.html

Go to "Downloads" at the top of the page for a PDF form.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I've used Maxtor drives(over 60) for 10 years and over 5 years in my TiVos. I just purchased several of the new Seagate drives with perpendicular technology for a PC RAID. They are much quieter than the MAxtors(with AM enabled) have ever been. They are so quiet I'm thinking about replacing my TiVo Maxtor drives with the Seagates before the new TV season starts. I'll probably order a couple from Newegg to try out later this week and if that goes OK I'll just replace all of them.


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## spciesla (Oct 9, 2004)

Product Currently Unavailable - 09/04/06 - 09:40 PM (Pacific Time)


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## steff3 (Sep 17, 2005)

A J Ricaud said:


> Here's a Seagate rebate for $25 for this drive:
> 
> http://upload.ohshare.com/v/5759780/seagatetour2.pdf.html
> 
> Go to "Downloads" at the top of the page for a PDF form.


Thanks!


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## steff3 (Sep 17, 2005)

spciesla said:


> Product Currently Unavailable - 09/04/06 - 09:40 PM (Pacific Time)


Yep, I see that. Going ahead and trying to order. Will see if they cancel.


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

steff3 said:


> Can someone tell me if this drive will work, or if it is recommened? SEAGATE 400GB PATA ST3400632A-RK.
> 
> Seagate 3.5" PATA Internal Hard Drive:
> 
> ...


I bought a few of them at that price.


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## spciesla (Oct 9, 2004)

The dilemma is "Is it worth buying one to upgrade a HR10-250 at this point?"


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

I bought them for my other TIVO's. For the HR10-250, I don't use anything smaller than a 500GB drive.


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## kbohip (Dec 30, 2003)

steff3 said:


> Can someone tell me if this drive will work, or if it is recommened? SEAGATE 400GB PATA ST3400632A-RK.
> 
> Seagate 3.5" PATA Internal Hard Drive:
> 
> ...


It will definitely work as it's the one I just put it my HR10-250 (or should I say HR10-400?) last month. I will say that this drive has very noisy seeks! I'm legally half deaf and I can hear it accessing from 20' away. When I rearrange my SP's it really makes a lot of noise. Other than that I think Seagate's are the best drives out there, if only because of the long 5 year warranty.


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

I have never had a problem w/ Seagate's noise, and I've got several TIVO's with them.


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## AstroDad (Jan 21, 2003)

I just bought a 400gb Seagate drive with the HR10 image off Ebay from this guy for $169 (compared to Weaknees $300 for the same thing).

I can't say enough about how flawless the transaction was. He shipped it the same day I won the auction and I had it 2 days later. Working great!


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## steff3 (Sep 17, 2005)

AstroDad said:


> I just bought a 400gb Seagate drive with the HR10 image off Ebay from this guy for $169 (compared to Weaknees $300 for the same thing).
> 
> I can't say enough about how flawless the transaction was. He shipped it the same day I won the auction and I had it 2 days later. Working great!


Thanks for the link. Sounds interesting


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> ...They are much quieter than the MAxtors(with AM enabled) have ever been. They are so quiet I'm thinking about replacing my TiVo Maxtor drives with the Seagates before the new TV season starts....


Interesting.

Just yesterday I had a Maxtor loose out on the desktop and powered up. It was so quiet I thought the power was not properly connected. I had to put my hand on it to see if it was spinning, and I had to put my ear about 2" away to finally be able to hear it.


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## jluzbet (Apr 20, 2004)

With the new season coming up I am tempted to add another drive...
? Can I just add a second drive to the unit even if its a different drive, or am I just better getting like a 500 gig and do a new intall?

Thanks for the input


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

jluzbet said:


> With the new season coming up I am tempted to add another drive...
> ? Can I just add a second drive to the unit even if its a different drive, or am I just better getting like a 500 gig and do a new intall?
> 
> Thanks for the input


The drives do not have to be the same. It is typically better getting a single larger drive as you have less of a chance of drive failure. Also it is a bit hard to try to fit two drives inside the HR10-250.


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

Personally, I like one big drive rather than two mid-size ones--much easier to Zipper the single one, and fewer moving parts altogether.


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

I just did a Weaknees 350gb add a drive kit a couple weeks ago.
Comes with the drive, bracket and a fan (if selected), tools and hardware and excellent instructions.

More than doubled my hours, and it took less than 20 minutes to install.

I'm happy for now.


phox


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## kbohip (Dec 30, 2003)

Lord Vader said:


> I have never had a problem w/ Seagate's noise, and I've got several TIVO's with them.


It is strange. All of the Seagates I've had before I've never noticed this much seek noise. It's bad enough that my wife hears the noise too, and she doesn't normally notice those things.


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

Do what I do when I hear strange noises coming from my car--turn up the radio.


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## jluzbet (Apr 20, 2004)

If any1 interested that 400 Gig seagate is $99.00 with free shipping - Hurry up

http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4596287


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

Indeed. It's back in stock now.


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## Dignan (Jan 27, 2002)

AstroDad said:


> I just bought a 400gb Seagate drive with the HR10 image off Ebay from this guy for $169 (compared to Weaknees $300 for the same thing).
> 
> I can't say enough about how flawless the transaction was. He shipped it the same day I won the auction and I had it 2 days later. Working great!


I just ordered, thanks for the tip, I'll let you know how it goes. :up:


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## miketx (Sep 22, 2005)

FYI about the $99 Seagate drive at Outpost.....

I purchased one last week. It showed "Backordered" on my order, so I called this past Wednesday to find out when I might possibly get my drive. I spoke to a customer service rep who looked up the drive. He said they got swamped by the orders and processed what they could last week. He said my order (placed last week) was in the first "backordered" batch and would get processed when Outpost got their next shipment of the Seagate 400gb drives......in EARLY OCTOBER.

Anyway, I canceled my order since I needed a drive ASAP, as my current drive in my Tivo is running on it's last leg. I went to Fry's yesterday and got a Maxtor 300gb (new) for $79. Maxtor is not my first choice, but it will work until next year, when I'll probably bump up the size again.

Mike


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

cheer said:


> Tune your tuner(s) to non-existent channels (or music channels) before you go to bed and you'll hear practically nothing.


Am I the only one that

1. has suggestions turned on for space left determination

2. records things after they go to bed



just wondering if i'm in the minority or not


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## jluzbet (Apr 20, 2004)

miketx said:


> FYI about the $99 Seagate drive at Outpost.....
> 
> I purchased one last week. It showed "Backordered" on my order, so I called this past Wednesday to find out when I might possibly get my drive. I spoke to a customer service rep who looked up the drive. He said they got swamped by the orders and processed what they could last week. He said my order (placed last week) was in the first "backordered" batch and would get processed when Outpost got their next shipment of the Seagate 400gb drives......in EARLY OCTOBER.
> 
> ...


that is crazy... I order mine two days ago and i got my shipping info today  
So now I guess I just have to order the cake


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

Indeed. I just ordered a few more a couple days ago and got them in yesterday.


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## jluzbet (Apr 20, 2004)

So what does the 6.x does to us now? 
Can we upgraded and it will get teh new 6.x ? or if we upgrade we dont get it?
Any1 knows?


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

Upgrading a hard drive will not effect getting 6.3.


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## thumperxr69 (Mar 22, 2004)

cheer said:


> Tune your tuner(s) to non-existent channels (or music channels) before you go to bed and you'll hear practically nothing.


I guess every situation is different but I just got a TiVo off EBay and it was incredibly loud. Changing to a nonexistent or music channel made no difference.

T


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## JoeSchueller (Jun 16, 2004)

I asked a similar question RE: the 6.3 upgrade in the underground forum because I also have a HR10 coming off of warranty that I want to finally upgrade and enhance. 

My plan is to replace the drive with something in the 300GB range (or that nice 400 at Outpost now that I found this thread) and keep the 250 as a spare/hotswap.

The reco on the underground forum was to let the 6.3 upgrade play out on my virgin drive, then build the new drive when the Zipper (or similar tools) are updated to work with the 6.3 image. 

I do have a question for rminsk though. Theoretically, if you replaced the HDD between the time the 6.3 slices are downloaded and before they are activated, will you lose them? Or will they simply re-download?

Please be gentle. I'm a horrible noob when it comes to upgrading the HR10.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

Depending on how you do the copy the drive you will not lose them. I do not how often than plan to stream the slices over the satellite. It does not matter if you loose the slices or not. If your machine is authorized to installed 6.3 and the slices are not cached it will download the software over the phone.


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

rminsk said:


> Depending on how you do the copy the drive you will not *loose* them.


But will you "tighten" them?


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## fasTLane (Nov 25, 2005)

Has to be one of the most common internet spell variations. Almost legendary by now. Should be anyway.


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## Lord Vader (Aug 30, 2004)

Not too unlike "noone" when it should be "no one," or "it's" when it should be "its" for the possessive.


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## jluzbet (Apr 20, 2004)

if amy1 needs a 400 gig HD let me know... I just got mine and decided not to do the upgraded after a bunch of headaches of the instant cake and the lack of support from them.


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## steff3 (Sep 17, 2005)

jluzbet said:


> if amy1 needs a 400 gig HD let me know... I just got mine and decided not to do the upgraded after a bunch of headaches of the instant cake and the lack of support from them.


 I'm curious; my 400 GB is due tomorrow and was planning to go instantcake. What headaches did you experience? I was under the impression this was a fairly simple process. 
Thanks


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## jluzbet (Apr 20, 2004)

steff3 said:


> I'm curious; my 400 GB is due tomorrow and was planning to go instantcake. What headaches did you experience? I was under the impression this was a fairly simple process.
> Thanks


Save your $20.00... I am getting a error right after boting up and their reply to my question was to buy everything done already from them as after I already got the software... Jer ks


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## rmax (Mar 10, 2005)

I bought the instantcake Cd and boot cd and had no problems at all. It was very easy process. Just follow the directions and you will do just fine.


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## mOOn (Nov 2, 2002)

I have upgraded a Series1, Two Series 2's and my HR10-250 using the InstantCake approach and no issues. I do not particularly like the "Clear and Delete Everything", but after it is done, they all operated flawlessly.

The HR10-250 with the original single 250Gig drive was changed to two 300Gig Seagate drives. After I hit the "Clear and Delete Everything" it took about 45 minutes before the system came back but it has operated for a couple of months with no problems. You do get a message in your DirecTV messages that there is a problem but the "Clear and Delete Everything" fixes that. The other interesting thing, is that the temperature dropped from 47 Celsius to 37 after I took out 1 drive and installed two. I guess some combination of the Seagate drives generating low heat and the dual fan drive bracket that I got from Weaknees.

Have fun with the upgrade.


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## steff3 (Sep 17, 2005)

rmax said:


> I bought the instantcake Cd and boot cd and had no problems at all. It was very easy process. Just follow the directions and you will do just fine.





mOOn said:


> I have upgraded a Series1, Two Series 2's and my HR10-250 using the InstantCake approach and no issues. I do not particularly like the "Clear and Delete Everything", but after it is done, they all operated flawlessly.
> 
> The HR10-250 with the original single 250Gig drive was changed to two 300Gig Seagate drives. After I hit the "Clear and Delete Everything" it took about 45 minutes before the system came back but it has operated for a couple of months with no problems. You do get a message in your DirecTV messages that there is a problem but the "Clear and Delete Everything" fixes that. The other interesting thing, is that the temperature dropped from 47 Celsius to 37 after I took out 1 drive and installed two. I guess some combination of the Seagate drives generating low heat and the dual fan drive bracket that I got from Weaknees.
> 
> Have fun with the upgrade.


Okay, thanks! Will give it a whirl tonight.


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## JoeSchueller (Jun 16, 2004)

Gotcha. THX.


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## rbreding (Dec 12, 2004)

mOOn said:


> I have upgraded a Series1, Two Series 2's and my HR10-250 using the InstantCake approach and no issues. I do not particularly like the "Clear and Delete Everything", but after it is done, they all operated flawlessly.
> 
> The HR10-250 with the original single 250Gig drive was changed to two 300Gig Seagate drives. After I hit the "Clear and Delete Everything" it took about 45 minutes before the system came back but it has operated for a couple of months with no problems. You do get a message in your DirecTV messages that there is a problem but the "Clear and Delete Everything" fixes that. The other interesting thing, is that the temperature dropped from 47 Celsius to 37 after I took out 1 drive and installed two. I guess some combination of the Seagate drives generating low heat and the dual fan drive bracket that I got from Weaknees.
> 
> Have fun with the upgrade.


BTW, this "problem" is called the error 51, which if you hack your TiVo there is a util in the tivotools.tar that you can run, reboot, and all is good. no C&DE.


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## steff3 (Sep 17, 2005)

I posted this on another tread in the forum, maybe someone here can help?...................................


Hi,
Attempting to complete the upgrade using instant cake for my HR10-250 to a single new seagate 400gb hd. Everything fine until I get to .....................Just hit enter and we will begin baking your instant cake..... begins to scroll through all of its processes then I receive: 

mount: medium not found 

/etc/rc.d.S: /cdrom/ .live/bin/ptvbake: No such file or directory 

What is happening? It looked as though everything was found as it should have. Problem with the download of instant cake?

Thanks


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## Stephen M. Smith (Mar 22, 2005)

cheer said:


> You won't get any improvement with >5400 RPM, and in fact I'd argue a faster drive is worse since it likely runs hotter.


Are you sure about that?

1) Doesn't the fact that TiVo functionality is significantly faster if both tuners are changed to blank channels (so no buffering) mean that that there is some sort of disk-related bottleneck in the H10-250 (pre 6.3 upgrade at least)?

2) I definitely got a small, but nonetheless still noticeable, improvment in TiVo functional performance after upgrading my HDVR2 w/a 7200 rpm drive.


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## Stephen M. Smith (Mar 22, 2005)

newsposter said:


> Am I the only one that
> 
> 1. has suggestions turned on for space left determination
> 
> ...


I use Suggestions for same purpose. It's a pain though since I turn suggestions on and then micro-manage the suggested recording until I have 5 or 6 recordings at least 2 hours long.


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## jor-el (May 24, 2002)

Stephen M. Smith said:


> Are you sure about that?
> 
> 1) Doesn't the fact that TiVo functionality is significantly faster if both tuners are changed to blank channels (so no buffering) mean that that there is some sort of disk-related bottleneck in the H10-250 (pre 6.3 upgrade at least)?
> 
> 2) I definitely got a small, but nonetheless still noticeable, improvment in TiVo functional performance after upgrading my HDVR2 w/a 7200 rpm drive.


How do you accurately measure a small but noticeable improvement? Merely rebooting the unit will get you that for a few days.

There is a bottleneck, but it's not the drive. They've long been capable of much higher rates. But the io is the problem, and much of it relates to that pokey cpu. People using the one drive mini NAS devices (slug, kuro, linkstation) has seen the same - instead of the 100mbit (12.5Mbyte/s) network being the limiting factor, the units typically top out at half that. But plug it into a PC, either by IDE or USB, the rate goes substantially above.

note - a newer 7200 can run cooler than many (most?) 5400s.


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## kbohip (Dec 30, 2003)

This whole 5400 versus 7200 rpm debate is moot anyway as you can't even buy a new 5400 rpm drive anymore. Personally even way back when I upgraded my Dad's Sony SVR-2000 Tivo I didn't for one second think about going with a 5400 rpm drive. What's the point? It may run a degree cooler?


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## Stephen M. Smith (Mar 22, 2005)

jor-el said:


> How do you accurately measure a small but noticeable improvement? Merely rebooting the unit will get you that for a few days.
> 
> There is a bottleneck, but it's not the drive. They've long been capable of much higher rates. But the io is the problem, and much of it relates to that pokey cpu. People using the one drive mini NAS devices (slug, kuro, linkstation) has seen the same - instead of the 100mbit (12.5Mbyte/s) network being the limiting factor, the units typically top out at half that. But plug it into a PC, either by IDE or USB, the rate goes substantially above.
> 
> note - a newer 7200 can run cooler than many (most?) 5400s.


I notice it w/menus and other things that took 4 or 5 seconds now took 2 or 3 seconds. But this could be due to the 16MB cache in the 7200 rpm drive vs. the 2MB cache in the original 5400 rpm drive.

OK, so it's the PIO disk controller that's the problem here? ie. it needs a lot of CPU to transfer data around?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I have a unit with a 300GB 5400 rpm drive. It is the same speed as with a 250GB 7200rpm drive.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

Stephen M. Smith said:


> I use Suggestions for same purpose. It's a pain though since I turn suggestions on and then micro-manage the suggested recording until I have 5 or 6 recordings at least 2 hours long.


helpful hint if you want to manage suggestions: spend the time occasionally going into your suggestions and doing thumbs up to movies and down to stuff like 1/2 hour shows

actually in my ideal, i'd like all 1 hour shows because i know 1 'page' of SD is 1 hour of HD roughly.

also i've found you can thumb stuff directly from the guide...i did that to get off the 5 minute stuff that was recording on the kids network and replace them with longer shows. I had lots of very short shows which are useless for space determination.

or is this what you already meant by micromanaging


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