# Max drive size that won't cause performance drops?



## Ocean (Jan 3, 2004)

Upgrading a Series 2 DirecTV Tivo, what's the largest size hard drive supported that won't cause a significant performance drop (menu speed, indexing, etc...)?


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## Pauli (Mar 1, 2004)

Ocean said:


> Upgrading a Series 2 DirecTV Tivo, what's the largest size hard drive supported that won't cause a significant performance drop (menu speed, indexing, etc...)?


Hard drive performance is not related to size, i.e. hard drives do not become slower as they get bigger. On the contrary, the largest hard drives are the fastest -- each new generation is larger and faster than the previous. Any 7200 RPM drive currently available should be just fine.


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## Ocean (Jan 3, 2004)

Pauli said:


> Hard drive performance is not related to size, i.e. hard drives do not become slower as they get bigger. On the contrary, the largest hard drives are the fastest -- each new generation is larger and faster than the previous. Any 7200 RPM drive currently available should be just fine.


I'm not talking about the physical drive, but the processing required to accomodate the additional space. For example, don't you think it would take longer to pull up your saved program list if it contains 300 items, as opposed to 40? It's more to keep track of, more items that go into certain menus, more data to index, more data to defragment, etc...

Some of that doesn't normally show up as a delay that would be noticeable, but some of it does - and that's what I'm asking about.


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## supasta (May 6, 2006)

The TiVo indexes.
I do not see any performance differences in my 80GB (Empty) TiVo vs. my 320GB (3/4 full) TiVo.


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## Pauli (Mar 1, 2004)

Ocean said:


> I'm not talking about the physical drive, but the processing required to accomodate the additional space. For example, don't you think it would take longer to pull up your saved program list if it contains 300 items, as opposed to 40? It's more to keep track of, more items that go into certain menus, more data to index, more data to defragment, etc...
> 
> Some of that doesn't normally show up as a delay that would be noticeable, but some of it does - and that's what I'm asking about.


Oh, OK -- I misunderstood. My 320GB Series 2 does not seem any slower than when it had a 40GB drive in it. I also have suggestions enabled.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

My 700gb S1 gets noticeably slower as it gets filled even with a cachecard installed. The OP's question may still be valid depending on the number of shows stored.


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## IminMs (Sep 10, 2006)

Ocean said:


> Upgrading a Series 2 DirecTV Tivo, what's the largest size hard drive supported that won't cause a significant performance drop (menu speed, indexing, etc...)?


I would have to say the size that was installed from the mfg of the Tivo.
If it came with a 40/80 gig i would say that is what the machine was "designed" to utilize. The older units came with smaller drives than the newer ones because the larger drives weren't cost effective,or they didn't think that the users would store more than 40 gigs.

I also would think that adding a larger drive would not speed up nor slow down the unit.

As mentioned already, the more data a computer has to sort through, will take it longer to get it. It indexes but still, all the data for one file is not kept in the same sectors and it takes longer to get pieces from all over the drive. 
I'm sure the rpms play a factor but I think that the read time would be more of a factor.

Just my 1.25 cents worth (inflation/recession)


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## wkearney (Jan 30, 2008)

With the latest versions of tivo software the size of the drive, and number of recordings in the NPL, has little or no impact on the speed. It's more or less the same (somewhat slow) speed regardless. The *tiny* amount of data even a massive NPL contains is trivial to sort through. Likewise, MFS (the format Tivo uses) isn't going to suffer from fragmentation. These are VERY large files, not teeny bits of text. Drive speed is also pretty much irrelevant as the tasks do not benefit from a faster drive, don't waste the money on a 10k or even 7200 RPM drive as a 5400 is more than sufficient for a Tivo.

The size drive that came with the unit was a compromise over price. I've always made it a habit to buy the smallest drive possible with the unit and then add my own aftermarket with the largest one my wallet would tolerate at the time. Thus my most recent purchase was a TivoHD and a 750gb drive. I keep the old factory drives around in the unlikely event I ever need to return the unit while in warranty. Once the factory warranty expires then I reuse the drives somewhere else.


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## tivoupgrade (Sep 27, 2000)

You won't be able to get an accurate or definitive answer to this question because its really not directly related to the size of the drive, but more related to how you use your TiVo.

Specifically, the larger number of season passes you have, and the longer your now playing list becomes, will have a definite impact on the performance of your TiVo, regardless of hard drive size.

Now, its usually the case that folks with larger hard drives will tend to have longer now playing lists, but that is not always the case.

For instance, many years ago, I once saw an unupgraded Series1 SVR-2000 that was the slowest unit, EVER. The customer had made HUNDREDS of 3-minute recordings; he liked to record commercials, and his now playing list was HUGE. We had to wait a very long time to bring up his now playing list and regardless of whatever drive size he used it wouldn't matter. A CacheCard definitely sped up his unit.

Similarly, I had a friend who had 100+ season passes; try re-arranging the priorities on those and you'll experience a huge slowdown. Again, the CacheCard helps in situations like that, but still, the working set of these large indexes and the processing power required to deal with the dependencies just chews up memory and CPU time.

So, there really is no definitive answer to your question, although it is safe to say that chances are that if you use a bigger drive, you most likely will have more recordings and it will slow down your unit. Performance will vary, of course, and what is 'acceptable' to you is subjective, as well.

One thing I can say, for sure, is that with all of the capacity upgrades we've sold, we've never had a customer complain about performance. What is probably safe to assume is that the benefit of increased capacity outweighs any performance impact, so my recommendation would be go with the largest drive you can afford or are comfortable purchasing, and that will reduce the chances of you having to upgrade again...


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## sirfergy (May 18, 2002)

As a previous poster mentioned, S1 are negatively effected by large drives because of the way it handles the NPL. S2 and higher were updated to better handle large NPLs.


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