# 4TB 2.5" drive for Bolt



## Kremlar

I have one! My new Bolt will likely be here within an hour or so.

Question for those who have been around the block. Based on past experiences with the Roamio, what happens when you try to use a 4TB drive without the special format utility? Does it see only 3TB or does it error out or what?

I found this page with the special Roamio format instructions that I can try if there's an issue:
http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#roamio

Is this the best method?


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## Kremlar

I see now on the site what happens if it's 4TB (formats only to 2TB). Will report back soon...


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## fcfc2

Kremlar said:


> I see now on the site what happens if it's 4TB (formats only to 2TB). Will report back soon...


Hi,
You really need to check out this thread, 
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428
I am pretty certain that if you use this MSFR software, it will work fine. What I am curious about is what is that 4TB 2.5" drive that you are talking about and where did you get it?


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## Kremlar

Thanks for that link, I did find that after I posted. Drive was pulled from a USB drive. Will report back details and pics!


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## Kremlar

No luck so far... TiVo boots to the "Please wait, this will take a few minutes" screen then comes up to a red screen saying:

"There is a serious problem with the information on the TiVo box's hard drive, and it can't be fixed. The hard drive must be reformatted. All recordings and most settings will be cleared. To continue, press the SELECT button on your remote control." ...

First time this came up I hit the SELECT button and it rebooted, and eventually came back to this same screen. At this point hitting the SELECT button does nothing - it stays on this screen, and a reboot brings it back to this screen as well.

Not sure if I should try the format method listed in the first link I posted or what...


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## MrSinatra

if it were me, i would try what fcfc2 posted next. from what i've read, if a drive is bigger than 3TB you always need to prep the drive first. (it might be >2TB for the bolt).

i would not have thought that just dumping a 4TB drive into the bolt would be enough, and it seems thats the case.

also, could you be more specific about make / model / etc for the 4TB drive ur using? it should have some info on it.


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## Kremlar

Hi -

From what I understand the MFS Reformatter works AFTER the TiVo has formatted it. I'm not sure this has happened yet, but maybe I will try that first.

The drive is pulled from a Seagate STDR4000100 USB portable. Inside the drive is a Samsung Momentus ST4000LM016. Not a lot of info available on this drive.

Thanks


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## fcfc2

Kremlar said:


> No luck so far... TiVo boots to the "Please wait, this will take a few minutes" screen then comes up to a red screen saying:
> 
> "There is a serious problem with the information on the TiVo box's hard drive, and it can't be fixed. The hard drive must be reformatted. All recordings and most settings will be cleared. To continue, press the SELECT button on your remote control." ...
> 
> First time this came up I hit the SELECT button and it rebooted, and eventually came back to this same screen. At this point hitting the SELECT button does nothing - it stays on this screen, and a reboot brings it back to this screen as well.
> 
> Not sure if I should try the format method listed in the first link I posted or what...


Hi again,
Try connecting the 4TB drive to the windows machine and use the disk manager to delete all partitions / volumes so it looks like a new bare drive and then put the 4tb into the Bolt and power it up. Let it do it's thing, hopefully, it will boot up ok, if so, then pull it out and use msfr software to prepare the drive. Good luck
EDIT: Even if you get to the error screen again, I would still try the MSFR software and see if it does anything, and then reinstall in the Bolt.
EDIT 2: Did you allow the Bolt to update it's software before attempting the hd switch?


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## MrSinatra

Kremlar said:


> From what I understand the MFS Reformatter works AFTER the TiVo has formatted it. I'm not sure this has happened yet, but maybe I will try that first.


ah right, good point. the question is has the bolt reformatted your drive or not, since thats required prior to the MSFR.

the hope is it has, but i don't know how you would know or how long it should take. (MSFR says ~4min with a roamio, but with a bolt?)

perhaps a workaround would be to let a roamio format it, then msfr it, then put it in the bolt?

EDIT: just now seeing fcfc2's reply, which sounds sensible and better to try first to me.


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## Kremlar

> Try connecting the 4TB drive to the windows machine and use the disk manager to delete all partitions / volumes so it looks like a new bare drive and then put the 4tb into the Bolt and power it up. Let it do it's thing, hopefully, it will boot up ok, if so, then pull it out and use msfr software to prepare the drive. Good luck
> EDIT: Even if you get to the error screen again, I would still try the MSFR software and see if it does anything, and then reinstall in the Bolt.


Just did that. Disk Management saw the drive but asked me to initialize as MBR or GPT before it could access. I chose GPT and Disk Manager shows no partitions on the drive - it looks clean, so perhaps the Bolt wiped it. MFS Reformatter says "No Roamio drive found".


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## fcfc2

Kremlar said:


> Just did that. Disk Management saw the drive but asked me to initialize as MBR or GPT before it could access. I chose GPT and Disk Manager shows no partitions on the drive - it looks clean, so perhaps the Bolt wiped it. MFS Reformatter says "No Roamio drive found".


Did you put the drive back into the Bolt before running MFSR?


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## Kremlar

No not yet. This is what FSUTIL reports in Windows:

C:\Windows\system32>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo i:
NTFS Volume Serial Number : 0x7434589c345862e2
NTFS Version : 3.1
LFS Version : 2.0
Number Sectors : 0x00000001d1bcafff
Total Clusters : 0x000000003a3795ff
Free Clusters : 0x000000003a3671d5
Total Reserved : 0x0000000000000000
Bytes Per Sector : 512
Bytes Per Physical Sector : 4096
Bytes Per Cluster : 4096
Bytes Per FileRecord Segment : 1024
Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0
Mft Valid Data Length : 0x0000000000040000
Mft Start Lcn : 0x00000000000c0000
Mft2 Start Lcn : 0x0000000000000002
Mft Zone Start : 0x00000000000c0000
Mft Zone End : 0x00000000000cc820
Resource Manager Identifier : 60C988A1-6B9C-11E5-82A9-001CC0FEA8FF


If I'm reading this correctly, I believe this is a 512e drive (4KB physical sectors, 512b emulated).


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## Kremlar

Put it back in the Bolt and I got the same results. However, I don't think the TiVo was stuck like I thought it was. I opened the Slide Pro remote I got and hitting SELECT there causes the TiVo to reboot and I assume try again. Maybe something is wrong with the new remote that came with the Bolt. However, the results are the same - the TiVo seems to be stuck in a loop where it keeps trying to format it and it fails.

Has anyone used a 512e drive in a TiVo before?


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## aaronwt

Kremlar said:


> Put it back in the Bolt and I got the same results. However, I don't think the TiVo was stuck like I thought it was. I opened the Slide Pro remote I got and hitting SELECT there causes the TiVo to reboot and I assume try again. Maybe something is wrong with the new remote that came with the Bolt. However, the results are the same - the TiVo seems to be stuck in a loop where it keeps trying to format it and it fails.
> 
> Has anyone used a 512e drive in a TiVo before?


Are the large WD drives like this? I have a 5TB in my Roamio Pro.


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## jonw747

This is disappointing. I was hoping the Bolt would include native support for larger drives, but perhaps they consider it a mistake they made it as easy as they did to upgrade the HD (internally) in the Roamio.


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## aaronwt

So then I wonder if a 3TB drive would work. We know the 2TB drives do.


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## Bigg

So the case can handle a 15mm drive?


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## Kremlar

I haven't tried to put the cover back on but don't see why not.


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## aaronwt

Any progress on getting the 4TB drive working?


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## Kremlar

Had to go train for a while.

Working on it now.. making progress, but not sure yet... will post back later tonight or tomorrow AM with my results!


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## Blakeintosh

Kremlar said:


> Hi -
> 
> From what I understand the MFS Reformatter works AFTER the TiVo has formatted it. I'm not sure this has happened yet, but maybe I will try that first.
> 
> The drive is pulled from a Seagate STDR4000100 USB portable. Inside the drive is a Samsung Momentus ST4000LM016. Not a lot of info available on this drive.
> 
> Thanks


Yikes...The ST4000LM016 utilizes SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording). Not sure how well that drive will work in a DVR. You should read this article regarding SMR, and why it's different from PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording), which has been the standard. http://www.storagereview.com/what_is_shingled_magnetic_recording_smr

The TiVo OS may not be able to interpret SMR correctly. I'll be interested to see if you can get the drive working and if so, how reliable it is with your recordings.


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## Kremlar

> The TiVo OS may not be able to interpret SMR correctly.


I don't think the OS will care about that. From what I understand the biggest drawback with SMR is slow write performance with lots of small files, so perhaps fewer large files like on a DVR would not be an issue.

We'll see. If it works for a while and I end up swapping it out it's not the end of the world for me. I don't care much if I lose any recordings. My wife might think differently however. 

It's installing updates now. Will report back soon!


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## Kremlar

OK, it's up and running. No Cable Card yet - will save that for tomorrow. Total capacity shows 490 HD hours which I believe comes to about 3TB+. Not 4TB, but not too shabby!


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## waynomo

So what were the steps you used to get it working?


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## Kremlar

So, here's my walkthrough.

- Purchased a Seagate STDR4000100.
- Carefully pried the top off the drive.
- Removed the drive from the enclosure, removed the USB adapter.
- Opened the TiVo. 2 screws under the Cable Card cover, 1 on the back. This allows you to pry off the portion of the case on the side of the bend. You have to manhandle it a bit, but be careful to avoid breaking clips. Then remove 3 screws on the side and you can them remove the whole top. Same thing - kind of have to manhandle it.
- Pry off the stickies holding the cable to the hard drive, remove one screw and you can pull out the hard drive & bracket.
- Remove the old drive from the bracket and install the new one.

At this point I tried booting and ended up in a red screen hard drive error loop. TiVo would keep trying to prep the drive I assume and failed. Tried the MFS Reformatter but it did not detect the drive.

So, I went back to this page and tried the steps here:
http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#roamio

In short Downloaded the Ubuntu ISO, attached ONLY the new 4TB drive to my PC, booted to the disc and ran the commands Ross provided. After about 10-15 minutes the procedure completed. Pulled the drive and reinstalled in my TiVo and the guided setup started and completed!

Showing 490 HD hours which I thought was low, but based on another thread showing 243 hours for a 2TB drive I guess this is right.

I will report back once I get my Cable Card installed and actually start using it.


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## Kremlar

More pics.


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## Kremlar

And even more pics.


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## Kremlar

Thanks for Ross Walker for making this happen!!! I exchanged some emails with him and told him he is free to use any of the info or pics I provided in this thread.


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## Kremlar

Cover back on, fits fine. I moved the plastic clips holding the wire a bit to avoid the case hitting them.


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## Kremlar

Couple more comments. 

When taking apart the Bolt, be careful with the plastic on the right side of the connections. That part seems stubborn to unclip and I think the clip could break fairly easily.

Also, although there is good clearance a 15mm drive is the max drive height I'd say. I had to rotate the SATA cable so there would not be so dramatic of a bend. Oriented the original way there was decent pressure between the SATA cable bend, drive and plastic cover. I don't know of any drives thicker than 15mm, but then again I had not seen anything bigger than 9mm until recently either.


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## Andrew_S

Kremlar said:


> From what I understand the biggest drawback with SMR is slow write performance with lots of small files, so perhaps fewer large files like on a DVR would not be an issue.


I believe it's sustained write performance that is the problem. I don't know how much stress a DVR puts on a drive while writing but it could be an issue while recording 4 shows. Then again, a DVR may be well within the limits of even a conventional drive and it won't matter.

I did read that SMR drives are susceptible to vibration so be sure not to move the tivo while in use. New tech, new problems.


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## Kremlar

Recorded 4 simultaneous shows this AM and played them back - no issues so far that I can see. Will report back if I have any, otherwise things look good from here! Still waiting for my TiVo to activate itself, but TV is working well!

Here is a review from Anandtech on the drive which indicates performance is good:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9489/seagate-backup-plus-portable-4tb-usb-30-drive-review/3

Will report back any issues.


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## aaronwt

From what I've read people have used the 8TB SMR drives in unRAID setups and it has worked fine.

But I was wondering what would happen if you take a 4TB drive, boot it up in the ROamio, then use MFS Reformatter on it and then stick it in the Bolt. SInce you were able to use that ross walker procedure on it which I would think has the Roamio version software.


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## Kremlar

No idea. This is my first TiVo in a couple decades so I have no Roamio. Sounds plausible though.


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## Kremlar

Software version is 20.5.4.RC6-USC-11-849


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## nobody0101

Will be following your findings with that disk, as an internal 4TB disk inside the tiny Bolt case would be ideal. 

I am currently running a 3TB WD Red (3.5inch) disk in an external enclosure via a SATA cable running out of the unit. I'd certainly prefer to not have an external disk hanging off the unit, but am waiting to see any reports of how that disk holds up.


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## Kremlar

Activated about 30-40 minutes later. Much better than the 'up to 24 hours' TiVo says.


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## nobody0101

My Bolt was activated fairly quickly as well, as far as being able to use the box itself even though the online status still showed the 24hour period.

I couldn't get my Mini to connect to the Bolt, even though it did appear in the list. I couldn't convince it that the Bolt was indeed activated.

This morning attempted to force a call in to the mothership, hoping to get it straighten everything out - but instead it failed to talk to the service every time. Network test checked out just fine, just failed to communicate to the service.

I really wish there was a better way to make all of the devices less reliant on "the service" just in order to satisfy an account status.


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## Kremlar

Hoping to install my Minis (or at least a couple) this evening. Will report back any trouble.


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## aaronwt

Kremlar said:


> No idea. This is my first TiVo in a couple decades so I have no Roamio. Sounds plausible though.


I'll find out. I ordered a 500GB Bolt and the Seagate STDR4000100 this morning. So I'll try attaching it to my Roamio Basic and then using MFS Reformatter before sticking it in the Bolt.


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## Kremlar

Should be interesting. Might also be interesting to see if you have the same trouble I had if you try to just let the Bolt prep it like you would with a Roamio.

Attached is an anomaly I had.

"Please Activate Service. Go to UNKNOWN and enter your service number xxxxx to activate this UNKNOWN. The UNKNOWN will not work without an active service subscription."

Lots of references to UNKNOWN before activation. I did a search and apparently some say it may be because of the hard drive upgrade, but some say it can happen with new TiVos as well and when customer service was asked they said it was no big deal.

I just ignored it and everything seems OK.


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## fcfc2

nobody0101 said:


> Will be following your findings with that disk, as an internal 4TB disk inside the tiny Bolt case would be ideal.
> 
> I am currently running a 3TB WD Red (3.5inch) disk in an external enclosure via a SATA cable running out of the unit. I'd certainly prefer to not have an external disk hanging off the unit, but am waiting to see any reports of how that disk holds up.


Hi,
Could you give some details on exactly how you made your connection to the hd enclosure? Did you have to modify the Bolt case? Leave it partially disassembled? Is there any way to snake a sata/esata cable though the cable card access door? Please and thanks.


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## nobody0101

Right angle SATA cable connected to the Bolt motherboard. Used a right-angle to cable be to have the clearance to close the top case of the Bolt. Might actually work with a straight cable, but it would be tight without a kinked cable.

Can put small notch in the back plate to allow the case to be put back together without pinching the SATA cable that is now running outside.

I used a round SATA cable, so only requires a very small notch. Could also just run the cable out the short side of the bent case, but youd have to leave the case open. I preferred the cable just coming out the back of the case.

As for the 3.5inch disk enclosure- picked up a cheapo enclosure from my local Microcenter. it had eSATA and USB3.0, but I'm not using either. Cut a hole just large enough for the SATA cable to run through, and connected to the 3.5inch disk.

The 3.5inch is powered by the external enclosure. As a added benefit, the enclosure I bough has a fan. 

So it makes for a bit of a "tether" between the Bolt and the disk enclosure, but this is equipment that will be out of sight when all is said and done, so it doesn't bother me at all.


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## shoeboo

Kremlar said:


> Should be interesting. Might also be interesting to see if you have the same trouble I had if you try to just let the Bolt prep it like you would with a Roamio.
> 
> Attached is an anomaly I had.
> 
> "Please Activate Service. Go to UNKNOWN and enter your service number xxxxx to activate this UNKNOWN. The UNKNOWN will not work without an active service subscription."
> 
> Lots of references to UNKNOWN before activation. I did a search and apparently some say it may be because of the hard drive upgrade, but some say it can happen with new TiVos as well and when customer service was asked they said it was no big deal.
> 
> I just ignored it and everything seems OK.


I got this weird message on a stock bolt 500gb that I haven't upgraded yet, so it isn't due to HD upgrade.


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## Kremlar

> I got this weird message on a stock bolt 500gb that I haven't upgraded yet, so it isn't due to HD upgrade.


Thanks, that's a bit reassuring.


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## jmbach

Kremlar said:


> Software version is 20.5.4.RC6-USC-11-849


Interesting. Looks to be a release candidate version if they follow standard nomenclature.


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## Craig-Tx

Kremlar said:


> Thanks, that's a bit reassuring.


I also got the same UNKNOWN message during my activation process on my new stock 500GB BOLT.


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## tivoboy

It's funny, it seems we're sort of back to the hacking my tivo days of the early 00's ;-)


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## jcthorne

UNKNOWN goes away after activation once the Tivo's given name is sent.


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## jonw747

aaronwt said:


> I'll find out. I ordered a 500GB Bolt and the Seagate STDR4000100 this morning. So I'll try attaching it to my Roamio Basic and then using MFS Reformatter before sticking it in the Bolt.


It sounds like this should work, and if it does, we'll have a short-term path to creating a 6TB Bolt using an external 3.5" HD that was first prep'd in a Roamio.


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## ggieseke

aaronwt said:


> I'll find out. I ordered a 500GB Bolt and the Seagate STDR4000100 this morning. So I'll try attaching it to my Roamio Basic and then using MFS Reformatter before sticking it in the Bolt.


Let me know how it goes. I may need to tweak mfsr a bit, but apparently the basic file system is the same between Roamios and Bolts. It looks like Ross Walker is using the same 4TB image and installer (telemark's 4TB community edition) for both models.


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## aaronwt

ggieseke said:


> Let me know how it goes. I may need to tweak mfsr a bit, but apparently the basic file system is the same between Roamios and Bolts. It looks like Ross Walker is using the same 4TB image and installer (telemark's 4TB community edition) for both models.


I just setup the Bolt I got from BestBuy. The 4TB drive is coming from Newegg so hopefully I'll have it by the weekend..


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## waynomo

What are the standard drives that come in the Bolt?


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## Kremlar

500GB and 1TB.


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## MrSinatra

has anyone gotten a 3TB or 4TB drive working in a bolt yet?


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## Andrew_S

MrSinatra said:


> has anyone gotten a 3TB or 4TB drive working in a bolt yet?


Yes.


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## waynomo

waynomo said:


> What are the standard drives that come in the Bolt?





Kremlar said:


> 500GB and 1TB.


I meant brands and model numbers, etc.


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## MrSinatra

Andrew_S said:


> Yes.


care to expound? what sizes? what makes / models? what process was used to make a success? links?


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## aaronwt

MrSinatra said:


> care to expound? what sizes? what makes / models? what process was used to make a success? links?


Look at the first few posts of this thread. It has the info. Here a a quote from post 7.



Kremlar said:


> Hi -
> 
> From what I understand the MFS Reformatter works AFTER the TiVo has formatted it. I'm not sure this has happened yet, but maybe I will try that first.
> 
> The drive is pulled from a Seagate STDR4000100 USB portable. Inside the drive is a Samsung Momentus ST4000LM016. Not a lot of info available on this drive.
> 
> Thanks


My 4TB external Seagate arrived today. Hopefully I will feel like messing with it tomorrow. I'm out with a respiratory infection so not sure if I will be worse tomorrow since I only just starting taking the medicine the doctor prescribed tonight.


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## MrSinatra

aaronwt said:


> Look at the first few posts of this thread. It has the info. Here a a quote from post 7.


i see post 25 now.

i'd be curious tho to find out what other ones work, and if u can use a roamio to format then do MSFR?

but at least one way is now known, as far as how to go from 500gb to 4TB.

can you attach the 500gb drive to the ext esata port and use it there?


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## mrsean

aaronwt said:


> My 4TB external Seagate arrived today. Hopefully I will feel like messing with it tomorrow. I'm out with a respiratory infection so not sure if I will be worse tomorrow since I only just starting taking the medicine the doctor prescribed tonight.


I hope you feel better today. I plan on doing the same upgrade on a new Bolt as a birthday gift for a friend next week.

Btw, the Seagate STDR4000100 is $159.99 on Amazon right now which is the cheapest I've seen it for.


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## aaronwt

mrsean said:


> I hope you feel better today. I plan on doing the same upgrade on a new Bolt as a birthday gift for a friend next week.
> 
> Btw, the Seagate STDR4000100 is $159.99 on Amazon right now which is the cheapest I've seen it for.


 Now I wish I would have waited. I would have price matched at Best Buy for that price.


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## TrackZ

We know for certain that the STDR4000100 drive can be harvested and used in the Bolt?


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## Kremlar

> We know for certain that the STDR4000100 drive can be harvested and used in the Bolt?


Mine worked. Older Amazon reviews of the item indicated 2x 2TB drives instead, but newer reviews indicate 1x 4TB inside. Mine was 1x 4TB.


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## TrackZ

Well, there's the Backup Plus and Backup Fast Plus. They are listed together on Amazon. The Fast is 2x2TB drives in a raid array within the enclosure. The non-Fast is the single drive. It didn't change. They have sold both drives for a while.

The Fast version is excellent for an Xbox One external HD for games. Lots of space games and raided 200MB+ performance for faster loading.

So, basically a 2TB 2.5" Samsung bare drive can be had for ~$95. A 3TB Toshiba 2.5" bare drive can be bought for almost $200. Or you can harvest the 4TB from an external enclosure for $160 right now. Seems like an easy choice despite the extra setup steps required for the 4TB.


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## Kremlar

> So, basically a 2TB 2.5" Samsung bare drive can be had for ~$95. A 3TB Toshiba 2.5" bare drive can be bought for almost $200. Or you can harvest the 4TB from an external enclosure for $160 right now. Seems like an easy choice despite the extra setup steps required for the 4TB.


Right. I probably would have went with the 3TB Toshiba if availability was better. As far as I know there's one shop I found on the web that said they had them, but who knows if they really do or not.

Picking a 4TB up at Best Buy for less money seemed like the better option.


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## gigaguy

I'm a newbie at upgrading. 
So I could buy the Fast drive case with the 2 2TB drives and easily harvest/remove them and put each in 2 Bolts and have two 2TB bolts?
Does the 4TB drive yield only 3TB and you need a PC to format it? I use Macs.
thanks..


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## Kremlar

> Does the 4TB drive yield only 3TB and you need a PC to format it? I use Macs.


As far as I can tell all 4TB is recognized. I used a Linux boot CD to format it per the steps indicated in my post in this thread.


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## mrsean

Kremlar said:


> As far as I can tell all 4TB is recognized. I used a Linux boot CD to format it per the steps indicated in my post in this thread.


If this is the case, then why does a 4TB drive yield 490 HD hours vs. 638 in a Roamio?


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## atmuscarella

mrsean said:


> If this is the case, then why does a 4TB drive yield 490 HD hours vs. 638 in a Roamio?


We don't know what is going on with the Bolt and rated hours of HD, all size drives (including the stock ones) are showing less than the same size drive in the Roamios. I think some said it seemed to be the same percentage for each size drive but I might have that wrong.


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## peroulas

thanks for the info here! Bought the 4TB external drive mentioned, set it up with the linux boot CD, installed in TIVO and now going through the guided setup. 

First time back to tivo since series 2. Defected to Sagetv for a while, glad to be back.

Thanks everyone!


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## Bigg

atmuscarella said:


> We don't know what is going on with the Bolt and rated hours of HD, all size drives (including the stock ones) are showing less than the same size drive in the Roamios. I think some said it seemed to be the same percentage for each size drive but I might have that wrong.


Maybe they are just using a different calculation? As it is, it can vary widely, since the bitrates for channels are all over the place, and some systems have content in MPEG-4, which makes it that much more complicated.


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## peroulas

Not sure what happened, but after the 4tb upgrade everything worked except the apps (netflix, pandora, etc). I kept getting error v312. What I did was a clear and delete everything and all seems good now. Just posting in case anyone else runs into this.


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## aaronwt

I got my 4TB drive installed in my Bolt and am also showing 490 HD hours.

I went a different route for the install. I put the 4TB drive in a Roamio Basic and let it boot to where the guided setup showed up. Then I connected the 4TB drive to a PC and ran MFS Reformatter on it


> It aligns the MFS file (application) and inode "zones" correctly for Advanced Format (4K) drives. That should improve performance and reduce wear & tear on the drive.


Then I put the drive in my Bolt. It went through the guided setup and then it installed a software update. And it automatically repopulated the twenty, One Passes I had setup. Now I need to contact FiOS to pick up another cable card. If I weren't sick I could have done this a couple of days ago. I just hope I don't get any worse and end up with pneumonia.

 MFS Reformatter (mfsr) thread


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## johndoedoes

I'm considering the upgrade in HD for my Bolt. I already set up my current Bolt and had the FiOS Rep Install the cable cards so I'm all good. 

If I go with the 2TB Drive would I have to get another Cable Card?


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## andyw715

johndoedoes said:


> I'm considering the upgrade in HD for my Bolt. I already set up my current Bolt and had the FiOS Rep Install the cable cards so I'm all good.
> 
> If I go with the 2TB Drive would I have to get another Cable Card?


No, but you might have to call the FiOS people again to repair the CC.


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## jmbach

For those of you wanting to upgrade the bolt, follow  this thread here. At this point there are enough differences in the drive and flash layout that raises concern using Roamio based expansion methods in a Bolt that it may introduce problems down the road. The effort needs more data points to develop ways to expand the bolt and keep it consistent with the Bolts architecture. I encourage all early Bolt adopters to participate.


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## mrsean

I finally received the Bolt that I purchased as a birthday gift and would attempt to upgrade with a 4TB drive. My first impressions? What a crappy piece of sh-t! I can't believe I paid full MSRP for this very cheap plastic contraction. The starting price for Bolt should be no more than $199. I truly feel ripped off. It's like those $30 DVD players they sell at Walmart. You know the ones that you buy as a gift for your 70 year old aunt because you know it will not last too long and neither will she. One 3ft drop on a hardwood floor and the Bolt will surely crack into pieces. The Roamio Basic is built like a tank in comparison and you all remember the complains about the design of that box. I shudder to think what a Bolt Plus/Pro will be like if it's anything similar.

Anyhow, I carefully followed the YT take apart video, but the disassembly is not as easy as it appears. He must have done it once before he shot the video because the top piece at the bend on my Bolt refused to give as easy even though I did everything exactly the same. As a result, I ended up breaking off 2 of the 4 top tabs which is extremely easy to do. Another broke off during reassembly.  This will not affect the top cover replacement though because it is secured by screws from below. These tabs demonstrate how low quality of a product this is. You'll never think of a Tivo as "high-end" again after seeing the internals of a Bolt.

I have to say I, really don't like the new Tivo color scheme. It looks sort of washed out and devoid of character which adds to the overall feeling that the Bolt is a cheap mass-market DVR. If it had debuted at $99, I like think sells would be going through the roof because aesthetics aside, it's still the best and most powerful DVR we all know and love.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I used the Ross Walker method on the 4TB drive because I did have time to wait for telemark's Bolt upgrade method to come out.


----------



## djjuice

Bigg said:


> So the case can handle a 15mm drive?


while it fits it won't close. you'll have to move the sata & power cables, but the 2 middle clips won't close all the way. I tried this with a WD 2TB drive of the same size. I ended up snapping my middle clips trying to get it to clip.


----------



## aaronwt

djjuice said:


> while it fits it won't close. you'll have to move the sata & power cables, but the 2 middle clips won't close all the way. I tried this with a WD 2TB drive of the same size. I ended up snapping my middle clips trying to get it to clip.


I don't understand why there was an issue with yours. I had no issue with the sata/power cables. They fit with no issue in mine with the 15mm 4TB drive(I wonder if the WD 2TB drive is slightly taller than the Seagate/Samsung 4TB drive). And that cover over the hard drive snapped right back in place. I guess when I open up another Bolt I'll see if something is different.

I remember the video talking about that cover how it had to be lifted straight up to get it on and off properly. I remember being a little worried prior to the upgrade, but that cover came off and on very easily for me. It was the other, large, cover that I had issues getting back on.


----------



## Kremlar

> I don't understand why there was an issue with yours. I had no issue with the sata/power cables. They fit with no issue in mine with the 15mm 4TB drive(I wonder if the WD 2TB drive is slightly taller than the Seagate/Samsung 4TB drive). And that cover over the hard drive snapped right back in place. I guess when I open up another Bolt I'll see if something is different.
> 
> I remember the video talking about that cover how it had to be lifted straight up to get it on and off properly. I remember being a little worried prior to the upgrade, but that cover came off and on very easily for me. It was the other, large, cover that I had issues getting back on.


With a 15mm drive in mine it's definitely a tight squeeze and I had to rotate my SATA/power cable to get it to fit comfortably.

I didn't notice any clips not closing, but I guess the hard drive cover is raised slightly in the middle. It's not really noticeable unless you're looking for it and does not bother me.

As far as I could tell all clips seated properly, but I certainly wouldn't take the cover on and off for no reason - broken clips would be inevitable.


----------



## aaronwt

Kremlar said:


> With a 15mm drive in mine it's definitely a tight squeeze and I had to rotate my SATA/power cable to get it to fit comfortably.
> 
> I didn't notice any clips not closing, but I guess the hard drive cover is raised slightly in the middle. It's not really noticeable unless you're looking for it and does not bother me.
> 
> As far as I could tell all clips seated properly, but I certainly wouldn't take the cover on and off for no reason - broken clips would be inevitable.


I'm curious what I did now. When I pull out the 4TB drive later this month, I'll need to take a picture to see how I put it in there.

I don't know where the temp sensor is but I notice that the Bolt with a 500GB drive is showing the same temps as the Bolt with a 4TB drive. They both really only go up a lot(to over 70) in temp when transferring a bunch of content. Otherwise they both show normally 63 when buffering tuners and 57 when it first comes out of standby(while it wasn't buffering).


----------



## djjuice

aaronwt said:


> I don't understand why there was an issue with yours. I had no issue with the sata/power cables. They fit with no issue in mine with the 15mm 4TB drive(I wonder if the WD 2TB drive is slightly taller than the Seagate/Samsung 4TB drive). And that cover over the hard drive snapped right back in place. I guess when I open up another Bolt I'll see if something is different.
> 
> I remember the video talking about that cover how it had to be lifted straight up to get it on and off properly. I remember being a little worried prior to the upgrade, but that cover came off and on very easily for me. It was the other, large, cover that I had issues getting back on.


the WD drive is bigger than the seagate/samsung one. I returned the samsung one as it made random chirp noises which appear to be a known issue in low power mode


----------



## Kremlar

djjuice said:


> the WD drive is bigger than the seagate/samsung one. I returned the samsung one as it made random chirp noises which appear to be a known issue in low power mode


WD has a 2TB drive that's larger than 15mm? Do you have a model # for the drive?


----------



## djjuice

Kremlar said:


> WD has a 2TB drive that's larger than 15mm? Do you have a model # for the drive?


samsung spinpoint ST2000LM003 = 9.50mm height

WD 2TB WD Green SATA III Intellipower 8 MB Cache WD20NPVX = 15 mm

possibly because of the 7200rpm


----------



## aaronwt

djjuice said:


> samsung spinpoint ST2000LM003 = 9.50mm height
> 
> WD 2TB WD Green SATA III Intellipower 8 MB Cache WD20NPVX = 15 mm
> 
> possibly because of the 7200rpm


That's a 5400 rpm drive. Well actually Intellipower. But it's not anywhere near 7200 rpm. It's just an old design since it first came out in 2013. That is why it's so thick since it uses lower density platters for 2TB. The Seagate/Samsung 4TB drive is also 15mm high. While that 2TB Samsung at 9.5mm high is also using higher density platters.


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## djjuice

aaronwt said:


> That's a 5400 rpm drive. Well actually Intellipower. But it's not anywhere near 7200 rpm. It's just an old design since it first came out in 2013. That is why it's so thick since it uses lower density platters for 2TB. The Seagate/Samsung 4TB drive is also 15mm high. While that 2TB Samsung at 9.5mm high is also using higher density platters.


everything I find online about the drive mentions it's 7200rpm (and intellipower) but thats not my issue at all.

I mean either way there is a thickness difference. I went with the WD drive as I got tired of those random chirps in the samsung drive which seem to be very well known when searching that model. I didnt want to fork out the extra $$$ for a 3TB drive


----------



## aaronwt

djjuice said:


> everything I find online about the drive mentions it's 7200rpm (and intellipower) but thats not my issue at all.
> 
> I mean either way there is a thickness difference. I went with the WD drive as I got tired of those random chirps in the samsung drive which seem to be very well known when searching that model. I didnt want to fork out the extra $$$ for a 3TB drive


Luckily I have not had any chirping issues with the Samsung 4TB drive.


----------



## djjuice

aaronwt said:


> Luckily I have not had any chirping issues with the Samsung 4TB drive.


i considered the 4TB drive but I only could find the portable drive and from youtube vids the sata was soldered together so I passed. plus everything to make the 4TB drive work.. i just wanted to drop it in


----------



## wscottcross

Kremlar said:


> So, here's my walkthrough.
> 
> - Purchased a Seagate STDR4000100.
> - Carefully pried the top off the drive.
> - Removed the drive from the enclosure, removed the USB adapter.
> - Opened the TiVo. 2 screws under the Cable Card cover, 1 on the back. This allows you to pry off the portion of the case on the side of the bend. You have to manhandle it a bit, but be careful to avoid breaking clips. Then remove 3 screws on the side and you can them remove the whole top. Same thing - kind of have to manhandle it.
> - Pry off the stickies holding the cable to the hard drive, remove one screw and you can pull out the hard drive & bracket.
> - Remove the old drive from the bracket and install the new one.
> 
> At this point I tried booting and ended up in a red screen hard drive error loop. TiVo would keep trying to prep the drive I assume and failed. Tried the MFS Reformatter but it did not detect the drive.
> 
> So, I went back to this page and tried the steps here:
> http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#roamio
> 
> In short Downloaded the Ubuntu ISO, attached ONLY the new 4TB drive to my PC, booted to the disc and ran the commands Ross provided. After about 10-15 minutes the procedure completed. Pulled the drive and reinstalled in my TiVo and the guided setup started and completed!
> 
> Showing 490 HD hours which I thought was low, but based on another thread showing 243 hours for a 2TB drive I guess this is right.
> 
> I will report back once I get my Cable Card installed and actually start using it.


I followed the same steps with the same drive. It worked for about 2 hours and then started rebooting constantly. I reran the steps and it lets me go though the initial setup, but after the system update it gets stuck in the reboot loop again. Any ideas?


----------



## Kremlar

Not sure, mine has been running fine. I did see someone else post about a rebooting issue but not sure how he made out.

You may want to test the Bolt with your original drive to be sure it's OK, and test the 4TB drive on a PC with the manufacturer's diagnostics utility.


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## wscottcross

Kremlar said:


> Not sure, mine has been running fine. I did see someone else post about a rebooting issue but not sure how he made out.
> 
> You may want to test the Bolt with your original drive to be sure it's OK, and test the 4TB drive on a PC with the manufacturer's diagnostics utility.


Original 500 GB drive works fine. I'm running with that now. The quick test in SeaTools found a problem it couldn't correct. I'm running the long generic test now which may be able to correct the errors. It will take 14 hours if the status screen is accurate.

I hope this fixes it. I can't exactly RMA the drive since I ripped it out of an external enclosure.


----------



## aaronwt

I did a quick test on mine before I pried the enclosure off to hopefully make sure it was fine.


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## Kremlar

I would put it back in the enclosure and RMA it if you can. I removed mine carefully and believe I could reinstall it without issue if needed.


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## aaronwt

Kremlar said:


> I would put it back in the enclosure and RMA it if you can. I removed mine carefully and believe I could reinstall it without issue if needed.


I saw your pictures. You seemed to do a great job getting it out. I tore my enclosure up getting it out. And then with all the pieces. I couldn't get it back to the way it was if my life depended on it. I was glad the drive has been working fine for me since it is a good chunk of money.


----------



## wscottcross

Kremlar said:


> I would put it back in the enclosure and RMA it if you can. I removed mine carefully and believe I could reinstall it without issue if needed.


Not gonna happen. It didn't come apart easily and there's no way it will go back together without it being very obvious it was opened.


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## mrsean

I just wanted to report back that my birthday surprise of 4TB Bolt was a bust. Everything was going well until the dreaded two words were mentioned..."On Demand". This was a FIOS installation and my friend was already happy with her VZ provided DVR except for the availability to transfer shows when swapping out the box.

Now, I have this Bolt sitting around that I must sell because I have no desire to keep this device based on the comments I may earlier in this thread. The odd design, cheap materials and lack of build quality really let's down the device's interior powerhouse.

Rip-off bay\Pay-alot here I come. Sigh. I'll get my friend on Tivo one day soon, but Fios on Demand is going to have to come to it first.


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## aaronwt

Newegg has the Seagate external drive, Seagate Backup Plus STDR4000100, on sale today for $150. With their daily deals and promo code.


----------



## fcfc2

wscottcross said:


> I followed the same steps with the same drive. It worked for about 2 hours and then started rebooting constantly. I reran the steps and it lets me go though the initial setup, but after the system update it gets stuck in the reboot loop again. Any ideas?


Hi, I would pull the drive and run the manufacturers extended test on it....fair chance it is going to come up bad. I would recommend anyone planning on popping open an external enclosure to get the drive to run the manufacturer diagnostics software (extended version) before doing the surgery.


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## wscottcross

fcfc2 said:


> Hi, I would pull the drive and run the manufacturers extended test on it....fair chance it is going to come up bad. I would recommend anyone planning on popping open an external enclosure to get the drive to run the manufacturer diagnostics software (extended version) before doing the surgery.


Good advice. I haven't had a drive failure in anything in a long time so I was lax in checking it beforehand.

My drive failed the quick check and it recommended running the "long generic" test, stating that it might fix errors found. It took all night, but it did go all the way and said the drive passed. I'm rerunning the config on it now and I'll try it again in the Bolt.


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## chuck.patterson.

While I would like to upgrade my 500GB Bolt to a 4TB, I want to avoid any compatibility issues with the Bolt and the need for a special image or format. From what I have read, extracting and installing a 2TB Seagate Slim is pretty much "plug and play" and the transplant is relatively easy. Is that pretty much the consensus?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


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## aaronwt

chuck.patterson. said:


> While I would like to upgrade my 500GB Bolt to a 4TB, I want to avoid any compatibility issues with the Bolt and the need for a special image or format. From what I have read, extracting and installing a 2TB Seagate Slim is pretty much "plug and play" and the transplant is relatively easy. Is that pretty much the consensus?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


From what I've read of other people doing it with a 2TB and 3TB drive that is correct.

I picked up a second 4TB drive while Newegg had them on sale for $150. I was going to wait for the Seagate 5TB drives later this year but that price seemed to good to pass up. So I'll put the 4TB drive in my second Bolt at some point soon hopefully.


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## moveandstore

I upgraded to a 2tb drive with no problems. My Bolt is running just fine. No heat issues either. From what I have researched, it is best at present to use the 2tb solution, although you can go 3tb without issue. I didn't want to take the the chance with a larger drive and formatting thru Linux via the Ross Walker method. And I saw a YouTube video on how to change the Hard drive in the Bolt. The hardest part of the process is getting the top to flush.


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## aaronwt

moveandstore said:


> I upgraded to a 2tb drive with no problems. My Bolt is running just fine. No heat issues either. From what I have researched, it is best at present to use the 2tb solution, although you can go 3tb without issue. I didn't want to take the the chance with a larger drive and formatting thru Linux via the Ross Walker method. And I saw a YouTube video on how to change the Hard drive in the Bolt. The hardest part of the process is getting the top to flush.


I didn't use the Ross Walker method. I used a Roamio and MFS reformatter in Windows. Then placed the drive in a Bolt.

Yes that large section of the enclosure was the hardest part for me. But now after opening up the Bolt enclosure three times between two bolts, I think I have it figured out now where I can get it on the first try.


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## wscottcross

Update on my drive issue: The "long generic test" appeared to resolve the issue. I was able to complete the Bolt guided setup and the update that follows. Everything appeared to work until I started transferring the archived recordings I have on my PC. Then the Bolt started the infinite rebooting again. I'm back to the original 500GB drive and waiting for another 4TB to try again. I'll run every test I can find on the new drive before cracking the case on that one.


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## Kremlar

> Update on my drive issue: The "long generic test" appeared to resolve the issue. I was able to complete the Bolt guided setup and the update that follows. Everything appeared to work until I started transferring the archived recordings I have on my PC. Then the Bolt started the infinite rebooting again. I'm back to the original 500GB drive and waiting for another 4TB to try again. I'll run every test I can find on the new drive before cracking the case on that one.


Failure would have been inevitable anyway. If a hard drive fails a test out of the box I would never put it to any real use.


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## wscottcross

Kremlar said:


> Failure would have been inevitable anyway. If a hard drive fails a test out of the box I would never put it to any real use.


True. If I had tested it before ripping it out of the case, I could have RMA'd it. Now I'm stuck with an unreliable drive. I'll use for transporting media files when I travel, but never depend on it for anything important.


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## jmbach

wscottcross said:


> True. If I had tested it before ripping it out of the case, I could have RMA'd it. Now I'm stuck with an unreliable drive. I'll use for transporting media files when I travel, but never depend on it for anything important.


If you are getting the same unit, see if you can extract it from the external case without damaging the case and put the bad drive back in it to RMA it.


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## wscottcross

jmbach said:


> If you are getting the same unit, see if you can extract it from the external case without damaging the case and put the bad drive back in it to RMA it.


Will try. Now that I have the first case open and I can see how it's held together, I might be able to open the second one without deforming it.


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## aaronwt

I see BestBuy also has the 4TB Seagate for $150.


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## wscottcross

aaronwt said:


> I see BestBuy also has the 4TB Seagate for $150.


Amazon does as well.


----------



## primaryforce

What is the best choice for a 3TB HDD for the Bolt? 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


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## Kremlar

> What is the best choice for a 3TB HDD for the Bolt?


I'm not sure if there are any. There's a Toshiba drive that sells for $200 (last I checked) and is hard to find. As far as I know no one has located a 3TB in a USB enclosure that had an actual SATA port.

From what I've seen people are going with 2TB drives formatted in the Bolt, or 4TB drives with the Linux format method. Except that one guy who hooked up a 3TB 3.5" drive outside his Bolt.


----------



## aaronwt

Kremlar said:


> I'm not sure if there are any. There's a Toshiba drive that sells for $200 (last I checked) and is hard to find. As far as I know no one has located a 3TB in a USB enclosure that had an actual SATA port.
> 
> From what I've seen people are going with 2TB drives formatted in the Bolt, or 4TB drives with the Linux format method. Except that one guy who hooked up a 3TB 3.5" drive outside his Bolt.


Really outside? Who used the drive outside of the Bolt? Did they have pictures? That seems like extra work though for only 3TB. I would expect to use 5TB or 6TB if running a 3.5" drive.


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## Kremlar

Sorry, don't recall which thread. Not sure what he ended up doing by he had it hooked up outside with longer SATA cable and power extension.


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## wscottcross

aaronwt said:


> Really outside? Who used the drive outside of the Bolt? Did they have pictures? That seems like extra work though for only 3TB. I would expect to use 5TB or 6TB if running a 3.5" drive.


Anyone know if larger than 4TB will work? Will the Linux initialization work with larger than 4TB?


----------



## aaronwt

wscottcross said:


> Anyone know if larger than 4TB will work? Will the Linux initialization work with larger than 4TB?


The method I used with a Roamio and MFS reformatter I would think should work since it works in Romaios with 4TB to 6TB size drives. But I guess you never know. But if that Ross Walker method works with 5TB and 6TB drives in Roamios then I would think it would work in the Bolt, since the 4TB worked.

But in the upgrade thread they did mention that there were some differences between the Bolt and the ROamio. Like the swap file size. So they didn't know if using the Roamio formatting in the Bolt would cause an issues in the Long term. But I know they were working on getting a solution out specific to the Bolt.

I only know that with my 4TB drive, I filled it up to 100% and it was working fine at that point doing everything. So my only real concern now is longevity of the drive. But of course there could still be an update that could bork me because of the Roamio formatting used. But only time will tell if there is a problem.


----------



## ggieseke

wscottcross said:


> Anyone know if larger than 4TB will work? Will the Linux initialization work with larger than 4TB?


The Ross Walker Linux method won't work on drives over 4TB. It's a fixed image for a drive with exactly 7,814,037,168 sectors. Actually it's telemark's "4TB Roamio Image community edition" redistributed without permission or all the safeguards that he wrote into the installation scripts. You could install it on a bigger drive but it wouldn't use the extra space.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860

I hope to release a Bolt-specific version of MFS Reformatter this weekend. I don't think anyone has tried to exceed 4TB on a single drive yet, so whether it will work or not is anyone's guess.


----------



## primaryforce

I just did a 4TB Seagate Plus swap for my 500GB Bolt using the Ross Walker method and while I didn't need to call Comcast to reset the cable card, the Bolt is now "stuck" in "Preparing" on the "Getting Program Information" screen.


----------



## chuck.patterson.

primaryforce said:


> I just did a 4TB Seagate Plus swap for my 500GB Bolt using the Ross Walker method and while I didn't need to call Comcast to reset the cable card, the Bolt is now "stuck" in "Preparing" on the "Getting Program Information" screen.


While the "preparing" took over an hour, the "blessing" finally arrived. I am now seeing 480 hours of HD recording space. 

Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk


----------



## ggieseke

I rewrote MFS Reformatter to handle Bolts this weekend, but I need a guinea pig to test it before making a general release. Apply via PM if you are interested.


----------



## fcfc2

ggieseke said:


> I rewrote MFS Reformatter to handle Bolts this weekend, but I need a guinea pig to test it before making a general release. Apply via PM if you are interested.


Hi,
Thank you for your efforts. I haven't gone to the Bolt yet but I have a question, is your new beta software expected to work on both Roamios and Bolts, or is it going to be a separate versions for each series?


----------



## ggieseke

fcfc2 said:


> Hi,
> Thank you for your efforts. I haven't gone to the Bolt yet but I have a question, is your new beta software expected to work on both Roamios and Bolts, or is it going to be a separate versions for each series?


Both. Even when a Bolt tries to format a drive over 3TB and fails, it creates a partition table and that's enough to let me determine if I'm dealing with a Roamio or a Bolt.


----------



## aaronwt

They must have changed something with the new Bolt software. I put a new 4TB in my second Bolt and it booted up to the Guided Setup Screen. I didn't get a red screen like Kremlar got the first week the Bolt was out.


----------



## HarperVision

aaronwt said:


> They must have changed something with the new Bolt software. I put a new 4TB in my second Bolt and it booted up to the Guided Setup Screen. I didn't get a red screen like Kremlar got the first week the Bolt was out.


So does that mean that no extra prep work is needed for drives over 3TB now? If so that'd be so cool! :up:


----------



## aaronwt

HarperVision said:


> So does that mean that no extra prep work is needed for drives over 3TB now? If so that'd be so cool! :up:


I have no idea but I guess I'll find out in a few minutes once the guided setup program info download finishes.

EDIT: Looks like it comes up with 219 HD hours. Which I guess corresponds to a 2TB drive?


----------



## jmbach

That is the same behavior I see with the Roamio OS of late. Need to tests ggieseke MFSR beta out on it.


----------



## ggieseke

MFS Reformatter 1.0.0.2 is now available.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10501034#post10501034


----------



## aaronwt

ggieseke said:


> MFS Reformatter 1.0.0.2 is now available.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10501034#post10501034


SO for me to run this on the first 4TB I used, the one I put in a Roamio first and then ran v1 of mfsr on it before putting it in the Bolt. If I just connect it to the PC, reformat it, put it in the Bolt and have it boot up to the guided setup. And run v2 mfsr on it. Will that work properly?


----------



## jmbach

Yes. Just have to wipe the APM on the drive so the Bolt will reformat it. I would use disk utility to write zeros to the first several blocks of the drive. The manufacturer utility can do that or HDDGuru, Mini-partition tools, easus all have utilities can do that in a Windows environment.


----------



## solstice

Please forgive any misunderstanding or ignorance but I figure best to ask and learn from those who know than not.

Is it as simple as (for a new BOLT):

1) Buy a BOLT and a (up to a 15mm) 2.5 in 4TB internal drive. (What are the current HDD recommendations?)
2) Activate and setup the BOLT with the stock drive, assuring the OS level is at 20.4.6 or later.
3) Remove both BOLT covers (yes, I have read about the difficulties) and remove the stock drive.
4) Attach the 4TB drive and boot up the BOLT so that it can initially configure the drive and wait to get to first guided setup screen. (How long does this usually take?)
5) Once the initial configuration completes, shut down the BOLT, remove the drive and attach it to a Windows PC (in my case as a USB drive) and then run ggieseke's MFS Reformatter 1.0.0.2 program pointing to the 4TB USB drive.
6) Once that completes, replace the 4TB drive into BOLT and then power up to complete the BOLT initial setup.

Thanks for any clarification and confirmations.


----------



## aaronwt

solstice said:


> Please forgive any misunderstanding or ignorance but I figure best to ask and learn from those who know than not.
> 
> Is it as simple as (for a new BOLT):
> 
> 1) Buy a BOLT and a (up to a 15mm) 2.5 in 4TB internal drive. (What are the current HDD recommendations?)
> 2) Remove both BOLT covers (yes, I have read about the difficulties) and remove the stock drive.
> 3) Attach the 4TB drive and boot up the BOLT so that it can initially configure the drive and wait for the setup to fail. (How long does this usually take?)
> 4) Once the initial configuration completes, shut down the BOLT, remove the drive and attach it to a Windows PC (as a USB drive I presume) and then run ggieseke's MFS Reformatter 1.0.0.2 program pointing to the 4TB USB drive.
> 5) Once that completes, replace the 4TB drive into BOLT and then power up to complete the BOLT initial setup.
> 
> Thanks for any clarification and confirmations.


Setup doesn't fail now. It will boot to the guided setup with a 4TB drive(it did on both of my 4TB drives). Then remove the drive and connect it to a PC and run mfsr v2 on it. And when it's done put it back in the Bolt. Then the Bolt will power up, install an update, reboot, then it will be at the guided setup screen again.


----------



## ggieseke

solstice said:


> Please forgive any misunderstanding or ignorance but I figure best to ask and learn from those who know than not.
> 
> Is it as simple as (for a new BOLT):
> 
> 1) Buy a BOLT and a (up to a 15mm) 2.5 in 4TB internal drive. (What are the current HDD recommendations?)
> 2) Activate and setup the BOLT with the stock drive, assuring the OS level is at 20.4.6 or later.
> 3) Remove both BOLT covers (yes, I have read about the difficulties) and remove the stock drive.
> 4) Attach the 4TB drive and boot up the BOLT so that it can initially configure the drive and wait to get to first guided setup screen. (How long does this usually take?)
> 5) Once the initial configuration completes, shut down the BOLT, remove the drive and attach it to a Windows PC (in my case as a USB drive) and then run ggieseke's MFS Reformatter 1.0.0.2 program pointing to the 4TB USB drive.
> 6) Once that completes, replace the 4TB drive into BOLT and then power up to complete the BOLT initial setup.
> 
> Thanks for any clarification and confirmations.


2) Bolts should come in with 20.5.4 or 20.5.4a. Either one will work, and whether it goes to a red screen error message or Guided Setup you're good to go at that point to run mfsr.

4) I don't have any direct Bolt experience, but on a Roamios it's slightly less than 4 minutes (3:48 according to my iPhone's stopwatch).

You have the basics covered. Let me know how it goes.


----------



## kcossabo

peroulas said:


> Not sure what happened, but after the 4tb upgrade everything worked except the apps (netflix, pandora, etc). I kept getting error v312. What I did was a clear and delete everything and all seems good now. Just posting in case anyone else runs into this.


Same issue here. Reran the guide setup but no help.


----------



## aaronwt

Yes you need to do a C&D for Netflix and Amazon to work with the different drive. Not sure if it's needed if you never logged into Netflix or Amazon with the Stock drive though.

EDIT: I'm not sure if I did a C&D on my second 4TB drive. I need to go check. I never checked Netflix and Amazon after I installed it.


----------



## kcossabo

aaronwt said:


> Yes you need to do a C&D for Netflix and Amazon to work with the different drive. Not sure if it's needed if you never logged into Netflix or Amazon with the Stock drive though.
> 
> EDIT: I'm not sure if I did a C&D on my second 4TB drive. I need to go check. I never checked Netflix and Amazon after I installed it.


Thank you, Aaron, but what is a C&D? is that a Clear and Delete? In the process of cTiVo the content incase that is the answer


----------



## aaronwt

Yes. Clear and Delete. I did a C&D everything. Not sure if deleting everything was needed though. But once it was done I had no issues accessing Netflix or Amazon.


----------



## Blakeintosh

For those of you who updated your Bolt's to the 4 TB drive...Just curious how things working? Have you noticed any performance issues?


----------



## Kremlar

> For those of you who updated your Bolt's to the 4 TB drive...Just curious how things working? Have you noticed any performance issues?


No, everything has been great here. It's nice to know better tools are now available, but unless something goes wrong I don't feel I have a reason to reformat my drive.


----------



## aaronwt

WoW!! Newegg on Ebay has the STDR4000100 for $130 right now. That is a great deal. I thought the one I got for $150 from Newegg was good.


----------



## kcossabo

aaronwt said:


> Yes. Clear and Delete. I did a C&D everything. Not sure if deleting everything was needed though. But once it was done I had no issues accessing Netflix or Amazon.


Update....

Used cTiVo to save the recordings
Did the Clear and Delete

All is working great now.


----------



## TiKevin

aaronwt said:


> Yes. Clear and Delete. I did a C&D everything. Not sure if deleting everything was needed though. But once it was done I had no issues accessing Netflix or Amazon.


Yes, Clear and Delete was necessary for me.

I even called TiVo tech support before the C&D. Spent about an hour on the phone with them. The guy I talked to was unclear what a 312 error was about. I almost want to call them back to enter a note in their tech support files.


----------



## aaronwt

I just tried thirteen concurrent HD streams with a Bolt and the 2.5" 4TB drive. I could skip, ff, rew, etc from the different streams without issues.

Four HD streams were sent to Minis, Three HD streams were sent to ROamios, one HD stream was sent to a Premiere. Four HD shows were being recorded on the Bolt and one HD show was being watched on the bolt. For a total of thirteen concurrent HD streams.


----------



## wscottcross

aaronwt said:


> I just tried thirteen concurrent HD streams with a Bolt and the 2.5" 4TB drive. I could skip, ff, rew, etc from the different streams without issues.
> 
> Four HD streams were sent to Minis, Three HD streams were sent to ROamios, one HD stream was sent to a Premiere. Four HD shows were being recorded on the Bolt and one HD show was being watched on the bolt. For a total of thirteen concurrent HD streams.


Wow! Nice to know it can keep up with that demand. I don't think I'll need that capability any time soon, but makes me feel better that it can do it and know that I won't be anywhere near the limit with the 1 Bolt, 1 Roamio, and 3 Minis that I have.


----------



## dant98

So, I had an idea and I wonder if this works, cause I've never quite seen it.

As I understand it, you could use an external drive on the bolt if you run a SATA cable out of the case and connect to an eSATA enclosure.

Obviously we've made it past the 3TB limit too (I see weaknees is doing 6 TB drives now).

What about multi-bay enclosures with built-in RAID? I've seen these on NewEgg for under $150 and will usually hold 4 drives or so. I think you set the RAID level using jumpers or dip switches and the raid is handled internal to the unit, so I think the storage is presented as a single drive to the host. Could you get, say, 4 X 2 GB 3.5" drives this way and setup RAID 5? This should give you great drive speed vs a single drive and some level of redundancy, or you could have a 4 GB RAID 10 configuration and be fully redundant.

Has this been tried?


----------



## ggieseke

dant98 said:


> So, I had an idea and I wonder if this works, cause I've never quite seen it.
> 
> As I understand it, you could use an external drive on the bolt if you run a SATA cable out of the case and connect to an eSATA enclosure.
> 
> Obviously we've made it past the 3TB limit too (I see weaknees is doing 6 TB drives now).
> 
> What about multi-bay enclosures with built-in RAID? I've seen these on NewEgg for under $150 and will usually hold 4 drives or so. I think you set the RAID level using jumpers or dip switches and the raid is handled internal to the unit, so I think the storage is presented as a single drive to the host. Could you get, say, 4 X 2 GB 3.5" drives this way and setup RAID 5? This should give you great drive speed vs a single drive and some level of redundancy, or you could have a 4 GB RAID 10 configuration and be fully redundant.
> 
> Has this been tried?


I think it would work given the right conditions, but I haven't heard of anyone trying it. Everything would have to be handled internally in the enclosure so that anything you plug it into would see it as a single drive without any additional drivers, and 6TB is still the single-drive limit.

I would also look at read/write performance vs a single drive carefully. Most RAID setups are slower unless you hit the exact right combination of controller, backplane & drives. TiVos only need about 1.5Gbps but I wouldn't want anything less than that.


----------



## Mendezbp1212

TiKevin said:


> Yes, Clear and Delete was necessary for me.
> 
> I even called TiVo tech support before the C&D. Spent about an hour on the phone with them. The guy I talked to was unclear what a 312 error was about. I almost want to call them back to enter a note in their tech support files.


Worked for me too. 642 HD Hours. All Apps worked after C&D.


----------



## Mendezbp1212

4TB Seagate drive works great, but I had to repair my cable card to get Comcast On Demand to work properly. Could have been a glitch, but just a heads up after you do C&D. Only concern about the bigger HD is space above for cooling since it's double the height of the 500GB HD.


----------



## clark_kent

aaronwt said:


> WoW!! Newegg on Ebay has the STDR4000100 for $130 right now. That is a great deal. I thought the one I got for $150 from Newegg was good.


Picked mine up last night at BB for the same price


----------



## clark_kent

My experience with the 4TB Bolt upgrade:

Took the Bolt apart; Removed stock 500GB drive; Installed 4TB drive.

Plugged in power; Bolt started up and came up to the Guided Setup (did not time this); went through Guided Setup; Bolt connected to the mothership (for a long time, did not time this); came up with the notice that Software Update Restart will start shortly, which it did on it's own; on restart Software Version was 20.5.6 and recording capacity was 285 HD hours.

Using the SATA to USB3 that came with the Seagate box, connected the 4TB drive to PC; ran MFSR as administrator, found the drive and reported it as 3726.02GB; when MFSR finished, it reported 3723.21GB allocated.

Put the 4TB drive back into the Bold; plugged in power; Bolt started up and came up to the Guided Setup (did not time this); went through Guided Setup; Bolt connected to the mothership (did not time this); came up with the notice that "important service update available.. should take less than an hour.. box will restart twice" press TiVo to continue; Bolt connected to the mothership; restarted on it's own (only once); Software Version 20.5.6 and recording capacity is now 639 HD hours. :up:

Thinking the 4TB HDD will run a little warmer, I took a look at the fan just in case it's an easy upgrade. The fan is made by JMC - P/N 05001A0063 (5015-12) - 12VDC 0.07A - www.jmcproducts.com - the website does not list this part number, perhaps it's a TiVo exclusive. Doesn't look like an easy upgrade since the stock fan performance characteristics are an unknown.

Question to moderator: shouldn't this Thread be moved to the Upgrade Center?


----------



## aaronwt

Mine have been running now since October and so far have been fine.


----------



## Mendezbp1212

clark_kent said:


> Picked mine up last night at BB for the same price


Costco has it on sale for $128. Price match at BB.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

I have a new TiVo Bolt coming today and the same 4TB hard drive mentioned in this thread coming on Wednesday. I'm brand new to TiVo. Do I need to do any sort of prep work to my new Bolt BEFOREHAND like sign up for TiVo through it or something? Or should I just start using it today and upgrade the hard drive when it comes in?


----------



## atmuscarella

JOSHSKORN said:


> I have a new TiVo Bolt coming today and the same 4TB hard drive mentioned in this thread coming on Wednesday. I'm brand new to TiVo. Do I need to do any sort of prep work to my new Bolt BEFOREHAND like sign up for TiVo through it or something? Or should I just start using it today and upgrade the hard drive when it comes in?


When you swap out the drive you will have to go through setup again. I personally would go through setup and use it some before swapping the drive just to make sure there are no out of the box hardware issues. But I am OTA and don't have to deal with a cable card setup.


----------



## aaronwt

Yes it can sometimes be a pain setting it up twice with a cable card because of the cable company. I typically run it on OTA first before changing the hard drive. And then I get the cable card paired.


----------



## ggieseke

It also needs to update to 20.4.5a or later before you can use mfsr, or it will just boot loop in the Bolt.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Another question. When you disassemble the Bolt, what Tools are required? I saw a video on YouTube where a guy mentioned a T-10 Torx and was also using a power drill. I have a T-10 drill bit, but I don't have a power drill, I could probably get ahold of one as I know plenty of people, but to be honest, my hand isn't steady enough to hold it.

That said, what I do have, is a very small, manual screw driver with decent grip. I don't have very good motor skills, TBH. Is a "power tool" required to undo any of these T-10 screws? Would I be in danger of stripping the screws by using a manual tool?


----------



## JOSHSKORN

solstice said:


> 3) Remove both BOLT covers (yes, I have read about the difficulties) and remove the stock drive.
> 4) Attach the 4TB drive and boot up the BOLT so that it can initially configure the drive and wait to get to first guided setup screen. (How long does this usually take?)
> 5) Once the initial configuration completes, shut down the BOLT, remove the drive and attach it to a Windows PC (in my case as a USB drive) and then run ggieseke's MFS Reformatter 1.0.0.2 program pointing to the 4TB USB drive.
> 6) Once that completes, replace the 4TB drive into BOLT and then power up to complete the BOLT initial setup.
> 
> Thanks for any clarification and confirmations.


So let me get this straight, after initially configuring your Bolt out of the box with the latest firmware, you do NOTHING to the 4TB hard drive YET, right? See the questions in RED. And THEN:

3) ON THE BOLT: Disassemble & Remove stock hard drive
ON THE 4TB HD: Disassemble the case and remove the hard drive
4) Attach the 4TB hard drive to the BOLT and go through Setup like normal, THEN Shut it down.

How do I shut it down, just unplug the power?
Do I need to put all of the covers back on, considering I'm later told to remove the drive?
I feel like I'm missing something right here. I don't complete the setup, do I or just stop RIGHT AT at the first screen?
Is there no way to avoid this step? Why/Why not?
5) After the drive is removed, connect it to a PC and run the reformatter tool.

What cable do I use to actually connect it, considering it will no longer be attached to the USB case that it came with?
6) Reattach the 4TB hard drive, seal up the case and run the entire setup (or run setup and then seal it up, either way).


----------



## Robbo1

JOSHSKORN said:


> Another question. When you disassemble the Bolt, what Tools are required? I saw a video on YouTube where a guy mentioned a T-10 Torx and was also using a power drill. I have a T-10 drill bit, but I don't have a power drill, I could probably get ahold of one as I know plenty of people, but to be honest, my hand isn't steady enough to hold it.
> 
> That said, what I do have, is a very small, manual screw driver with decent grip. I don't have very good motor skills, TBH. Is a "power tool" required to undo any of these T-10 screws? Would I be in danger of stripping the screws by using a manual tool?


You need a Torx 10 and a Torx 8. It appears the first set of Bolts only had T-10 screws, but recent builds have a T-8 over the HDMI port. No power drill necessary, screws come out very easily. You may want to get a spludger tool ( http://www.amazon.com/Leegoal-Tools...id=1451512836&sr=1-2&keywords=plastic+spudger ) to help pry open the case.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Robbo1 said:


> You need a Torx 10 and a Torx 8. It appears the first set of Bolts only had T-10 screws, but recent builds have a T-8 over the HDMI port. No power drill necessary, screws come out very easily. You may want to get a spludger tool ( http://www.amazon.com/Leegoal-Tools...id=1451512836&sr=1-2&keywords=plastic+spudger ) to help pry open the case.


Would guitar picks work in place of the pry tools? I've got plenty of those, just no pry tools, although in my situation, it may be better.


----------



## Mendezbp1212

JOSHSKORN said:


> So let me get this straight, after initially configuring your Bolt out of the box with the latest firmware, you do NOTHING to the 4TB hard drive YET, right? See the questions in RED. And THEN:
> 
> 3) ON THE BOLT: Disassemble & Remove stock hard drive
> ON THE 4TB HD: Disassemble the case and remove the hard drive
> 4) Attach the 4TB hard drive to the BOLT and go through Setup like normal, THEN Shut it down.
> 
> How do I shut it down, just unplug the power?
> Do I need to put all of the covers back on, considering I'm later told to remove the drive?
> I feel like I'm missing something right here. I don't complete the setup, do I or just stop RIGHT AT at the first screen?
> Is there no way to avoid this step? Why/Why not?
> 5) After the drive is removed, connect it to a PC and run the reformatter tool.
> 
> What cable do I use to actually connect it, considering it will no longer be attached to the USB case that it came with?
> 6) Reattach the 4TB hard drive, seal up the case and run the entire setup (or run setup and then seal it up, either way).


I would get it registered with TiVo first. Once it is all up and running, then do the HDD replacement. Don't bother with customization yet, because it will just be a waste of time since this process will wipe everything out.

Follow the video to replace the drive (no power tool needed). When you put in the new drive, don't put the cover back on. Power it up and let it run through it's setup. Once the language screen pops up, unplug and remove the drive and put it back into the USB case it came in if you bought the USB portable drive. Connect it to your PC and run the reformatter utility. Once that is done connect it back up, close it up, and power it back up and finish the setup. Once all this is done. Go into the settings and due a Clear and Delete Everything. This should get all the apps working properly. After all this is done, call your cable card provider.


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## Mendezbp1212

JOSHSKORN said:


> Would guitar picks work in place of the pry tools? I've got plenty of those, just no pry tools, although in my situation, it may be better.


Yes.


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## aaronwt

Mendezbp1212 said:


> I would get it registered with TiVo first. Once it is all up and running, then do the HDD replacement. Don't bother with customization yet, because it will just be a waste of time since this process will wipe everything out.
> 
> Follow the video to replace the drive (no power tool needed). When you put in the new drive, don't put the cover back on. Power it up and let it run through it's setup. Once the language screen pops up, unplug and remove the drive and put it back into the USB case it came in if you bought the USB portable drive. Connect it to your PC and run the reformatter utility. Once that is done connect it back up, close it up, and power it back up and finish the setup. Once all this is done. Go into the settings and due a Clear and Delete Everything. This should get all the apps working properly. After all this is done, call your cable card provider.


No need to do a C&D if you never used those apps with the stock drive. The only time I needed to do a C&D was when I logged in and used some of the apps. I think Netflix was one. Although I remember it wasn't an issue with all the apps. One of my Bolts I never logged into any of the apps and when I installed the 4TB drive, everything was fine when I logged into the apps.


----------



## DC_SnDvl

I had had a STDR4000100 in my bolt for about a month and have started to have issues with the bolt freezing and then rebooting. The reboot loops until I pull the power and then it starts up normally. Any way to tell if it is the drive or something else with the unit?


----------



## Mendezbp1212

DC_SnDvl said:


> I had had a STDR4000100 in my bolt for about a month and have started to have issues with the bolt freezing and then rebooting. The reboot loops until I pull the power and then it starts up normally. Any way to tell if it is the drive or something else with the unit?


I had that problem intermittently before I swapped my drive. I opened a ticket with Tivo. No issues for about a month.


----------



## razor237

Quick question . does the cable card need to be repaired if it was already working. I've had my bolt for about a month and im thinking about doing the upgrade since it seems much easier then past tivos i've done


----------



## speedy2

DC_SnDvl said:


> I had had a STDR4000100 in my bolt for about a month and have started to have issues with the bolt freezing and then rebooting. The reboot loops until I pull the power and then it starts up normally. Any way to tell if it is the drive or something else with the unit?


I have experienced this same exact issue. Mine would reboot about 5 times then stay up and running until the next time. Very strange.


----------



## DC_SnDvl

speedy2 said:


> I have experienced this same exact issue. Mine would reboot about 5 times then stay up and running until the next time. Very strange.


What drive are you using in yours?


----------



## speedy2

DC_SnDvl said:


> What drive are you using in yours?


I'm using the STDR4000100 drive pulled from an external drive case.


----------



## Mendezbp1212

razor237 said:


> Quick question . does the cable card need to be repaired if it was already working. I've had my bolt for about a month and im thinking about doing the upgrade since it seems much easier then past tivos i've done


Yes. Mine lost On Demand and pay channels after the harddrive swap.


----------



## DC_SnDvl

Mendezbp1212 said:


> I had that problem intermittently before I swapped my drive. I opened a ticket with Tivo. No issues for about a month.


So you had the issue with the stock drive, but no longer have it after putting in the Seagate?


----------



## Mendezbp1212

DC_SnDvl said:


> So you had the issue with the stock drive, but no longer have it after putting in the Seagate?


Yes, with the stock drive. It would freeze and reboot and go to the Tivo screen, then go to "Just a few minutes more" screen, then start over. It did that over and over until I unplugged it. I had other issues with "freeze and reset" also with the stock drive. I have only had the new drive for about a month and I think it reboot once. I also noticed a couple of hiccups with playback a few times with the new drive, but don't know if it was a reception issue. Only had it happen a couple of times. Other than that, the new drive has been fine. Need 6 tuners!


----------



## elas123

i upgrade mine to the 4tb and used the mfsr 1.2 everything seemed fine for about a week. hulu was acting up which it didn't before but chaulked it up to a bug. then i paused a recording for like 15 min and it went into a reboot loop. it would boot up and kept restarting and wouldn't quit rebooting. i pulled plug and waited and tried again. nothing would get it to boot it so swapped drives again and it booted right up. i redid the formatter and put back in and it booted up the guided setup. but all my recordings and season passes are still there? gonna try a c&d and see if that fixes it since the last time i didnt do it.


----------



## tivoboy

Is there a link to the best 3TB drive for the bolt?


----------



## JOSHSKORN

elas123 said:


> i upgrade mine to the 4tb and used the mfsr 1.2 everything seemed fine for about a week. hulu was acting up which it didn't before but chaulked it up to a bug. then i paused a recording for like 15 min and it went into a reboot loop. it would boot up and kept restarting and wouldn't quit rebooting. i pulled plug and waited and tried again. nothing would get it to boot it so swapped drives again and it booted right up. i redid the formatter and put back in and it booted up the guided setup. but all my recordings and season passes are still there? gonna try a c&d and see if that fixes it since the last time i didnt do it.


Please keep us posted. I've had my Bolt and 4TB HDD for a few weeks and haven't swapped it out yet.


----------



## elas123

JOSHSKORN said:


> Please keep us posted. I've had my Bolt and 4TB HDD for a few weeks and haven't swapped it out yet.


i know that the pausing triggered it but i didnt try with stock drive to see if a bug in the tivo or the drive


----------



## aaronwt

elas123 said:


> i know that the pausing triggered it but i didnt try with stock drive to see if a bug in the tivo or the drive


I've been running two of the 4TB drives in Bolts since October. I have not seen this behavior in the five Bolts I have had the drives in.


----------



## elas123

well mine reboot again today and wouldnt stop until i pulled plug for over a min. it wasnt the pausing this time,was watching tive tv. think im gonna have to go back to my orignal drive. this is unreliable now


----------



## speedy2

elas123 said:


> well mine reboot again today and wouldnt stop until i pulled plug for over a min. it wasnt the pausing this time,was watching tive tv. think im gonna have to go back to my orignal drive. this is unreliable now


This is the same exact issue I was having with my 4tb drive. Same model as yours. I'd pull the power and after 4 or 5 reboot attempts it would finally boot again. I pulled the drive and used the formatting tool again then it would be fine for maybe a day then the reboot problem came back. I put a 2tb drive in and everything has been fine for over a week now. There must be an issue with a drive that size or we both had bad 4tb drives.


----------



## DC_SnDvl

speedy2 said:


> This is the same exact issue I was having with my 4tb drive. Same model as yours. I'd pull the power and after 4 or 5 reboot attempts it would finally boot again. I pulled the drive and used the formatting tool again then it would be fine for maybe a day then the reboot problem came back. I put a 2tb drive in and everything has been fine for over a week now. There must be an issue with a drive that size or we both had bad 4tb drives.


My STDR4000100 died Friday, It no longer powers up. I put the original drive back in the bolt and it works like a champ but now only has 75 hours of capacity. I tried hooking the 4TB drive to my PC but it never spins up. Does anyone know how similar this is to the 2TB Samsung? It makes my hesitant to use one of those.

Luckily I had copied all but the last few days of recording of the drive.


----------



## nyjklein

elas123 said:


> well mine reboot again today and wouldnt stop until i pulled plug for over a min. it wasnt the pausing this time,was watching tive tv. think im gonna have to go back to my orignal drive. this is unreliable now


Exact same symptom here. It was fine with the 4TB drive for a couple of months. But now it spontaneously reboots randomly every couple of days or more. Won't come fully back up until I pull the plug. Sometimes that doesn't work unless i try it several times. Recently I noticed that doing a Kickstart 57 does get it to restart successfully.

Don't really want to put back the original small drive but it is getting too unreliable.

Jeff


----------



## elas123

nyjklein said:


> Exact same symptom here. It was fine with the 4TB drive for a couple of months. But now it spontaneously reboots randomly every couple of days or more. Won't come fully back up until I pull the plug. Sometimes that doesn't work unless i try it several times. Recently I noticed that doing a Kickstart 57 does get it to restart successfully.
> 
> Don't really want to put back the original small drive but it is getting too unreliable.
> 
> Jeff


yeah i dont wanna put the original drive back in but i dont think i have a choice. i dont know if its the bolt or the 4tb drive itself. i took out the drive and ran seagate utility on it and all was good. so i dont know


----------



## bpunc

After mine failed like above, I took a more drastic approach http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=536782 I don't think a laptop drive supposed to run 24/7.


----------



## elas123

bpunc said:


> After mine failed like above, I took a more drastic approach http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=536782 I don't think a laptop drive supposed to run 24/7.


i been thinking abou that. i have a wd red drive from a nas that i could use but i have no external enclosure to power it yet. mine rebooted on me twice while it was on pause and then the last time was watching a recording. i thought the pause was the cause but i was wrong. could it be somthing with the formatter?


----------



## tivobw

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to share my experience for anyone else who is trying to upgrade a Brand-New, out of the box Tivo Bolt which had never been activated before. I tried to follow the upgrade steps noted here in Ross's Guide (I like this guide very much, thank you Ross!) but encountered some hiccups. Not sure if these were breaking issues or not, but it was a bit confusing and hopefully this post helps other new Bolt folks.

For the record, I have previously upgraded a Tivo Series 2 to 1TB, and a TivoHD to 2TB, so I'm not an upgrade newbie. 


Bought a 500GB BOLT and a 4TB Seagate STDR4000100 (both at Best Buy). Could have saved ~$3 (HAH!) by buying online from Amazon, so decided to just pick this up in person and get the project started.
Removed Seagate HD from its case (not as easy as I thought it would be; this video on YouTube was helpful).
Open the Bolt. Not as easy as previous Tivos (I've also upgraded Tivo Series 2 and Tivo HD; those were much easier to open). This video from Intellibeam was very helpful (thanks!).
Took out stock Bolt HD and put it aside. Watch out for the wires connecting the other components! Be careful you don't rip those wires off while taking the stock HD out. Yikes.
Installed the Seagate. Did not bother putting the case back on, as it was such a pain to take off in the first place, and I knew I would have to take the case off again anyway for further preparing the drive in mfsr.
Powered on the Bolt. Showed "starting up" and "almost there" screens, etc. After a couple of minutes, popped up error message warning "problem with the drive and it needs to be reformatted; press select to continue" (words to that effect). Pressed select. Same message as last time (problem with drive). Pressed select. This time after it came up it went to a red screen, which was disheartening. Unplugged the Tivo.
Did some research on the forums here; looks like you need to register the Tivo first and have it upgrade the system, to ensure it could support a 4TB HD. (Really glad I didn't put the case back on yet! ).
Took out the Seagate and put the stock HD back in. Powered up Tivo, activated it, upgraded it. This took about an hour. (Why doesn't Tivo's software support WiFi Protected Setup for connecting to a wireless network? Such a pain to use that remote to punch in a 25+ character wireless network password, ugh...).
Next, swapped out the drives; stock HD comes out, Seagate goes in. Power up Bolt; "Starting up" and "Almost there" screens. Get the "problem with the drive, needs to be reformatted; press select" message. Hold my breath and press Select. Upon reboot, "Starting up" and "Almost there" screens, then... I notice it's taking a while.. 2 min, 3 min.. good sign! I get close to the HD and notice it sounds like it is being formatted. Yesssssssssss. After several minutes (perhaps 4min?) it was done and went to begin guided setup (select country; USA or Canada). I unplugged the power from the Tivo.
Removed the Seagate from the Bolt, connected it to my Dell PC and tried using mfsr. Had some issues, see my post (#579) on the mfsr thread. Finally got it working, and the drive was reformatted to use all the capacity (yes!).
Placed reformatted Seagate in Tivo and was sure to put the clips to the far right of the drive (so as far away from the left, open edge of the case as possible). Thanks to the tip from Intellibeam (above video regarding taking the case of the Bolt) for this info. After doing so was able to have the case close flush. Tightened the screws, hooked up the Tivo and plugged it in.
About an hour later (had to go through guided setup, upgrade), I was finally able to check the system screen: 639 total HD recording hour capacity. Yes!
Comcast was closed last night (11:30PM) so I couldn't activate the Cablecard yet. Will try to do that today.

Hope other new Bolt users (who are buying a brand-new Bolt and just want to upgrade it to 4TB right away) find this information helpful. I'll update the thread after my Cablecard gets activated, and let you know how that goes.

Thanks to everyone for all the helpful tips and advice on these forums. I find them to be a fantastic resource!


----------



## bpunc

elas123 said:


> i been thinking abou that. i have a wd red drive from a nas that i could use but i have no external enclosure to power it yet. mine rebooted on me twice while it was on pause and then the last time was watching a recording. i thought the pause was the cause but i was wrong. could it be somthing with the formatter?


That external power source is critical. It's a different voltage compared to a laptop drive.


----------



## tivobw

tivobw said:


> [...]Hope other new Bolt users (who are buying a brand-new Bolt and just want to upgrade it to 4TB right away) find this information helpful. I'll update the thread after my Cablecard gets activated, and let you know how that goes.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for all the helpful tips and advice on these forums. I find them to be a fantastic resource!


Update: Cablecard activated this morning; took about 40 minutes. Went a little more smoothly than the last time we had to do this with the TivoHD.

All the apps work great: NetFlix, Amazon, etc. Really like having 4 tuners! This is an upgrade for us (as TivoHD only had 2 tuners and 2TB HD). The Bolt is also faster, quicker and a lot more responsive than the old Tivo HD (of course, right?).

Thanks everyone.


----------



## aaronwt

bpunc said:


> After mine failed like above, I took a more drastic approach http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=536782 I don't think a laptop drive supposed to run 24/7.


Then don't run it 24/7. I use high power saving mode with my bolts. But one of them is recording around twenty hours a day. So the hard drive in that one is probably always spinning. Hopefully my drives keep running without issues. So far they have been fine for the last 3+ months in the Bolts.


----------



## bpunc

aaronwt said:


> Then don't run it 24/7. I use high power saving mode with my bolts. But one of them is recording around twenty hours a day. So the hard drive in that one is probably always spinning. Hopefully my drives keep running without issues. So far they have been fine for the last 3+ months in the Bolts.


What's high power saving mode?


----------



## aaronwt

bpunc said:


> What's high power saving mode?


It puts the TiVo in standby after two hours. No buffers for tuners and only recordings will happen. The disc will spin down in standby when not recording.


----------



## saydar

If it helps anyone I'll add my experience with the 4TB drive and the Bolt.

I installed the 4TB in my Bolt in December (using the Ross Walker blessed drive method).

Hulu was missing and I called Tivo (they manually installed it for me).

The Tivo would randomly reboot. I did the kickstart code 57 (found on the bottom of the Ross Walker page). I needed to try kickstart code 2 or 3 times before it worked ("worked" = a green screen of death which forces a filesystem check/repair).

It rebooted once again after that so I did the kickstart code 57 again. It has worked perfectly ever since.


----------



## elas123

saydar said:


> If it helps anyone I'll add my experience with the 4TB drive and the Bolt.
> 
> I installed the 4TB in my Bolt in December (using the Ross Walker blessed drive method).
> 
> Hulu was missing and I called Tivo (they manually installed it for me).
> 
> The Tivo would randomly reboot. I did the kickstart code 57 (found on the bottom of the Ross Walker page). I needed to try kickstart code 2 or 3 times before it worked ("worked" = a green screen of death which forces a filesystem check/repair).
> 
> It rebooted once again after that so I did the kickstart code 57 again. It has worked perfectly ever since.


i didnt know the kickstart worked with the bolt. i google it but didnt see anything comfirming. did u cahange to ir mode? i ahvent had tivo for many many years

ok i did the kickstart 57

yesterday i was skipping through a show. 30sec skip and the tivo locked up and rebooted to a boot loop.


----------



## ggieseke

Two questions for those having problems with the 4TB drives:

1. Have you tested the drive by hooking it up to a computer and running the long test with something like Seatools or WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics?

2. Did you use the original Ross Walker method that puts telemark's 4TB Roamio image on the drive, or MFS Reformatter?


----------



## primaryforce

I was an early adopter of swapping the 500 GB for a 4TB Seagate from a Backup Plus external. I used the Roamio Ross Walker and everything was great for several months. Like others in this group, I am now getting random reboots and they are occurring a couple of times a week. I was thinking about taking off the top side cover of the Bolt if this reboot issue was caused by a heat issue with the drive.


----------



## Kremlar

For the record I was the first to go with a 4TB and worked with Ross Walker to test and provide him with some of the pics on his site. Other than the recent firmware related HDMI and Plex issues things have been good here.


----------



## Kremlar

My Bolt is kept on top of a bureau in an open air conditioned bedroom.


----------



## saydar

elas123 said:


> i didnt know the kickstart worked with the bolt. i google it but didnt see anything comfirming. did u cahange to ir mode? i ahvent had tivo for many many years
> 
> ok i did the kickstart 57
> 
> yesterday i was skipping through a show. 30sec skip and the tivo locked up and rebooted to a boot loop.


To use kickstart codes you need to use a remote in IR mode. I used my IR remote from the old Tivo Premiere XL, but you can switch the Bolt remote to IR.

I can confirm kickstart 57 works, but I needed to do it a few times to get it to work (and see the green screen of death). The timing needs to be perfect.

From the Ross Walker site:


> TiVo Roamio, Roamio Plus, Roamio Pro, Roamio OTA and BOLT
> 
> 1. If your Roamio remote control is in RF mode, you will need to put it in IR mode before running the kickstart procedure. Press and hold TiVo + C until the activity indicator on the remote lights up to enter IR mode.
> 2. As the TiVo DVR restarts, the green LED light on the front bezel of the box will be lit.
> 3. When you see the yellow/amber light begin to flash, press and hold the Pause button on the remote for two seconds, then release it.
> 4. Within 10 seconds, press the kickstart code ('57') on the remote control.
> 5. If successful, the green and amber lights will blink in alternating patterns to indicate the code has been accepted and the TiVo will reboot showing a recovery screen. Leave your TiVo on and it should reboot normally once the recovery is complete, typically 30 mins to several hours.
> 6. Return your remote to RF mode byt holding TiVo + D until the activity indicator on the remote lights up.


----------



## saydar

My Tivo also runs a little warmer than I'd like. I put a Cooler Master Ultra-Slim Laptop Cooling Pad between the box for my cable card and the Tivo Bolt (increasing airflow for both of them).


----------



## DC_SnDvl

ggieseke said:


> Two questions for those having problems with the 4TB drives:
> 
> 1. Have you tested the drive by hooking it up to a computer and running the long test with something like Seatools or WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics?
> 
> 2. Did you use the original Ross Walker method that puts telemark's 4TB Roamio image on the drive, or MFS Reformatter?


I used MFS reformatter

Prior to putting it in the Bolt I tested the drive with Seatools and it tested normal. I tried hooking it to the PC the other day but it does not show up in disk management. MFS reformatter does see the drive.


----------



## elas123

ggieseke said:


> Two questions for those having problems with the 4TB drives:
> 
> 1. Have you tested the drive by hooking it up to a computer and running the long test with something like Seatools or WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics?
> 
> 2. Did you use the original Ross Walker method that puts telemark's 4TB Roamio image on the drive, or MFS Reformatter?


i did test the drive before putting it in the tivo and tested good. i used the mfs method. i did run the kickstart 57 a couple of times after i read that post so we will see


----------



## elas123

ok i finally gave up on the 4tb. i switched to external 3tb wd red drive to see if thats any better. i rebooted and i couldnt get it back up no matter what i did. im done messing with that drive to get it to work with this tivo


----------



## elas123

well, i had to exchange my bolt tonight at best buy. the 4tb didn't work for me so i went with the external 3tb wd red drive, it worked ok but i was messing with streambaby and that's when my tivo died. the stream stopped and the tivo was unresponsive. i pulled plug and the red light stayed on and no green light. tried unplugging got a long time but would never come back up. i dont think im gonna upgrade this new one lol


----------



## aaronwt

elas123 said:


> well, i had to exchange my bolt tonight at best buy. the 4tb didn't work for me so i went with the external 3tb wd red drive, it worked ok but i was messing with streambaby and that's when my tivo died. the stream stopped and the tivo was unresponsive. i pulled plug and the red light stayed on and no green light. tried unplugging got a long time but would never come back up. i dont think im gonna upgrade this new one lol


COuld the bad Bolt be the reason you had issues with the 4TB drive in it?


----------



## elas123

aaronwt said:


> COuld the bad Bolt be the reason you had issues with the 4TB drive in it?


im not sure. was hoping it was a it would work but i don't know if i wanna try it again. the kids are getting pissed cause its loosing there recordings


----------



## CoxInPHX

elas123 said:


> well, i had to exchange my bolt tonight at best buy. the 4tb didn't work for me *so i went with the external 3tb wd red drive*, it worked ok but i was messing with streambaby and that's when my tivo died. the stream stopped and the tivo was unresponsive. i pulled plug and the red light stayed on and no green light. tried unplugging got a long time but would never come back up. i dont think im gonna upgrade this new one lol


I'm confused,
Does the Bolt now support any External 3TB HDD?

If you meant an Internal WD Red 3TB, I cannot find any 2.5" WD Red 3TB HDDs

What did you actually use?


----------



## elas123

CoxInPHX said:


> I'm confused,
> Does the Bolt now support any External 3TB HDD?
> 
> If you meant an Internal WD Red 3TB, I cannot find any 2.5" WD Red 3TB HDDs
> 
> What did you actually use?


i put the wd red in an external enclosure and put the sata to the bolt mb. the drive was outside the tivo


----------



## sangs

elas123 said:


> i put the wd red in an external enclosure and put the sata to the bolt mb. the drive was outside the tivo


Did you use a SATA to eSATA cable and use the external enclosure's eSATA port? Or did you modify the external enclosure so that the SATA cable connected directly to the HD?


----------



## elas123

sangs said:


> Did you use a SATA to eSATA cable and use the external enclosure's eSATA port? Or did you modify the external enclosure so that the SATA cable connected directly to the HD?


used sata from mb to sata on drive and enclosure was the power


----------



## sangs

elas123 said:


> used sata from mb to sata on drive and enclosure was the power


And is it working properly? I wasn't sure if you stopped using the 4TB, the 3TB or both.


----------



## elas123

sangs said:


> And is it working properly? I wasn't sure if you stopped using the 4TB, the 3TB or both.


they both seems like they were working till they reboot and wouldnt stop. the 4tb was a 2.5 drive and 3tb was a 3.5. i tried both ways


----------



## sangs

elas123 said:


> they both seems like they were working till they reboot and wouldnt stop. the 4tb was a 2.5 drive and 3tb was a 3.5. i tried both ways


Ah, doesn't sound like the headaches are worth it then. Thanks.


----------



## aaronwt

sangs said:


> Ah, doesn't sound like the headaches are worth it then. Thanks.


I've been using two, 2.5", 4TB drives in Bolts since October. There were no headaches with mine. Well except for having to install them in multiple Bolts. But that was because of the eBay Scam Bolts I had purchased. At least now I'm an expert in removing and installing the Bolt cover.


----------



## sangs

aaronwt said:


> I've been using two, 2.5", 4TB drives in Bolts since October. There were no headaches with mine.


I'm not as technical as you unfortunately.  I just wanted to hook up an external using the internal SATA connection, but doesn't sound like it's a reliable setup. As we discussed in the other thread, my best case scenario would be to find that elusive Toshiba 3 TB 2.5 inch HD.


----------



## elas123

aaronwt said:


> I've been using two, 2.5", 4TB drives in Bolts since October. There were no headaches with mine. Well except for having to install them in multiple Bolts. But that was because of the eBay Scam Bolts I had purchased. At least now I'm an expert in removing and installing the Bolt cover.


i wish mine worked cause 500 gig isnt gonna cut it


----------



## sangs

elas123 said:


> i wish mine worked cause 500 gig isnt gonna cut it


Just for the record, both my 1TB Bolts have been working flawlessly with the 1TB WD DVR Expanders (knock wood). I just wanted to tinker with one of them to see if I could expand the storage even more.


----------



## Wolfnards

nyjklein said:


> Exact same symptom here. It was fine with the 4TB drive for a couple of months. But now it spontaneously reboots randomly every couple of days or more. Won't come fully back up until I pull the plug. Sometimes that doesn't work unless i try it several times. Recently I noticed that doing a Kickstart 57 does get it to restart successfully.
> 
> Don't really want to put back the original small drive but it is getting too unreliable.
> 
> Jeff


Same here with the Samsung 4TB drive. Reboots about once every two days and many recordings get interrupted. Very annoying. I'm curious if it's because of the tall HD (15mm) as the box gets hot or if it is a motherboard issue. I'm planning to try a Samsung 2TB drive and see if it's more stable.

Can anyone provide guidance as how to transfer all my recordings from the 4TB drive to the 2TB drive successfully?

Also what if I plan to install the 2TB on a new Bolt box? I know there's the issue of"marrying" serial numbers if changing hard drives or physical Bolt box.

It appears Tivo for rod of the Tivo Desktop Software to do transfers. So is the something that will retain all recordings even those that are encrypted as well as meta data?

Thanks in advance!


----------



## Wolfnards

tivobw said:


> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I wanted to share my experience for anyone else who is trying to upgrade a Brand-New, out of the box Tivo Bolt which had never been activated before. I tried to follow the upgrade steps noted here in Ross's Guide (I like this guide very much, thank you Ross!) but encountered some hiccups. Not sure if these were breaking issues or not, but it was a bit confusing and hopefully this post helps other new Bolt folks.
> 
> For the record, I have previously upgraded a Tivo Series 2 to 1TB, and a TivoHD to 2TB, so I'm not an upgrade newbie.
> 
> 
> Bought a 500GB BOLT and a 4TB Seagate STDR4000100 (both at Best Buy). Could have saved ~$3 (HAH!) by buying online from Amazon, so decided to just pick this up in person and get the project started.
> Removed Seagate HD from its case (not as easy as I thought it would be; this video on YouTube was helpful).
> Open the Bolt. Not as easy as previous Tivos (I've also upgraded Tivo Series 2 and Tivo HD; those were much easier to open). This video from Intellibeam was very helpful (thanks!).
> Took out stock Bolt HD and put it aside. Watch out for the wires connecting the other components! Be careful you don't rip those wires off while taking the stock HD out. Yikes.
> Installed the Seagate. Did not bother putting the case back on, as it was such a pain to take off in the first place, and I knew I would have to take the case off again anyway for further preparing the drive in mfsr.
> Powered on the Bolt. Showed "starting up" and "almost there" screens, etc. After a couple of minutes, popped up error message warning "problem with the drive and it needs to be reformatted; press select to continue" (words to that effect). Pressed select. Same message as last time (problem with drive). Pressed select. This time after it came up it went to a red screen, which was disheartening. Unplugged the Tivo.
> Did some research on the forums here; looks like you need to register the Tivo first and have it upgrade the system, to ensure it could support a 4TB HD. (Really glad I didn't put the case back on yet! ).
> Took out the Seagate and put the stock HD back in. Powered up Tivo, activated it, upgraded it. This took about an hour. (Why doesn't Tivo's software support WiFi Protected Setup for connecting to a wireless network? Such a pain to use that remote to punch in a 25+ character wireless network password, ugh...).
> Next, swapped out the drives; stock HD comes out, Seagate goes in. Power up Bolt; "Starting up" and "Almost there" screens. Get the "problem with the drive, needs to be reformatted; press select" message. Hold my breath and press Select. Upon reboot, "Starting up" and "Almost there" screens, then... I notice it's taking a while.. 2 min, 3 min.. good sign! I get close to the HD and notice it sounds like it is being formatted. Yesssssssssss. After several minutes (perhaps 4min?) it was done and went to begin guided setup (select country; USA or Canada). I unplugged the power from the Tivo.
> Removed the Seagate from the Bolt, connected it to my Dell PC and tried using mfsr. Had some issues, see my post (#579) on the mfsr thread. Finally got it working, and the drive was reformatted to use all the capacity (yes!).
> Placed reformatted Seagate in Tivo and was sure to put the clips to the far right of the drive (so as far away from the left, open edge of the case as possible). Thanks to the tip from Intellibeam (above video regarding taking the case of the Bolt) for this info. After doing so was able to have the case close flush. Tightened the screws, hooked up the Tivo and plugged it in.
> About an hour later (had to go through guided setup, upgrade), I was finally able to check the system screen: 639 total HD recording hour capacity. Yes!
> Comcast was closed last night (11:30PM) so I couldn't activate the Cablecard yet. Will try to do that today.
> 
> Hope other new Bolt users (who are buying a brand-new Bolt and just want to upgrade it to 4TB right away) find this information helpful. I'll update the thread after my Cablecard gets activated, and let you know how that goes.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for all the helpful tips and advice on these forums. I find them to be a fantastic resource!


Similar experience for me. Ended up having to call Verizon to register the MCard correctly.


----------



## Wolfnards

saydar said:


> My Tivo also runs a little warmer than I'd like. I put a Cooler Master Ultra-Slim Laptop Cooling Pad between the box for my cable card and the Tivo Bolt (increasing airflow for both of them).


What USB port did you use to power this? Also I assume you placed it under the bolt? Wasn't sure what you meant by between the cable car and the bolt which sounds like you placed it between the actual MCard and bolt internally?


----------



## Kremlar

Wolfnards said:


> What USB port did you use to power this? Also I assume you placed it under the bolt? Wasn't sure what you meant by between the cable car and the bolt which sounds like you placed it between the actual MCard and bolt internally?


Perhaps he means his tuning adapter.


----------



## aaronwt

Wolfnards said:


> Same here with the Samsung 4TB drive. Reboots about once every two days and many recordings get interrupted. Very annoying. I'm curious if it's because of the tall HD (15mm) as the box gets hot or if it is a motherboard issue. I'm planning to try a Samsung 2TB drive and see if it's more stable.
> 
> Can anyone provide guidance as how to transfer all my recordings from the 4TB drive to the 2TB drive successfully?
> 
> Also what if I plan to install the 2TB on a new Bolt box? I know there's the issue of"marrying" serial numbers if changing hard drives or physical Bolt box.
> 
> It appears Tivo for rod of the Tivo Desktop Software to do transfers. So is the something that will retain all recordings even those that are encrypted as well as meta data?
> 
> Thanks in advance!


I hope this is not what is in store for my two 4TB, 2.5" drives. So far everything has been fine. Four months now on the 4TB drives. I've not seen any reboot issues yet. One 4TB drive is spinning between 20 and 24 hours a day. While the other one is probably only spinning around 8 to 12 hours a day.

No idea how accurate the temp sensor is the the Bolts. But these two Bolts I have now run several degrees cooler than the first three Bolts I had when the 4TB drives were in them.


----------



## Mendezbp1212

aaronwt said:


> I hope this is not what is in store for my two 4TB, 2.5" drives. So far everything has been fine. Four months now on the 4TB drives. I've not seen any reboot issues yet. One 4TB drive is spinning between 20 and 24 hours a day. While the other one is probably only spinning around 8 to 12 hours a day.
> 
> No idea how accurate the temp sensor is the the Bolts. But these two Bolts I have now run several degrees cooler than the first three Bolts I had when the 4TB drives were in them.


Mine resets from time to time, but it did that before the HDD swap too.


----------



## MichaelK

I've got a 4tb in mine too getting reboots too.

I noticed the reboots are related to how hard the box is working.

it does it much more often if all 4 tuners are "recording"- i know all 4 are recording buffer all the time anyway so no idea why it cares when it's actually saving the 4th recording to the NPL or not.

I put the power save mode to high save to get it to shut down more often to try and minimize the 4 tuners recording at once and that helped for a little bit.

Just now i killed it by trying to download a show to my phone while it was recording 3 shows and my daughter had netflix playing something. Just got in the reboot loop - i tried to pull the plug and that didn't work- just tried pulling the plug and letting it sit for a little bit and trying it now. If letting it sit works works- I'm thinking it's an overheating issue and it cools off and all is well and need to do something about the cooling in this stupid odd shaped box.... Well that didn't work it still reboot looped again- so i put it in the freezer for a few minutes and then plugged it back in and it looped twice before it came back finally- not sure if that indicates anything about heat....

probably gonna shut off suggestions if i can find that setting to minimize the 4th tuner too...

also noticed the daily call can make it choke too. i guess maybe processing the data is just a teeny bit more work and kills it.

(in the interest of looking for a pattern- besides the expanded drive- I'm also using a "vintage" m-card from an old premiere- and the box is in a cabinet. Also I've yet to come close to filling the drive- system info says 388HD hours of free space - my shows has 39% free- wondering if it happens as the drive fills up? )

maybe i'll try some kickstart fun...


----------



## MichaelK

nyjklein said:


> .... Recently I noticed that doing a Kickstart 57 does get it to restart successfully.
> ....
> 
> Jeff


can you give some pointers on getting the kickstart to take?

I know to put the remote in IR mode but can't seem to hit the right timing for pause button

edit: found it here:
http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/



> TiVo Roamio, Roamio Plus, Roamio Pro, Roamio OTA and BOLT
> 
> If your Roamio remote control is in RF mode, you will need to put it in IR mode before running the kickstart procedure. Press and hold TiVo + C until the activity indicator on the remote lights up to enter IR mode.
> As the TiVo DVR restarts, the green LED light on the front bezel of the box will be lit.
> When you see the yellow/amber light begin to flash, press and hold the Pause button on the remote for two seconds, then release it.
> Within 10 seconds, press the kickstart code ('57') on the remote control.
> If successful, the green and amber lights will blink in alternating patterns to indicate the code has been accepted and the TiVo will reboot showing a recovery screen. Leave your TiVo on and it should reboot normally once the recovery is complete, typically 30 mins to several hours.
> Return your remote to RF mode byt holding TiVo + D until the activity indicator on the remote lights up.


took me a few tries but i got it eventually. Did the Kickstart 57

Got the GSOD- it warned could take a few hours but took just a few minutes and rebooted. Fingers crossed


----------



## Wolfnards

Can anyone provide guidance as how to transfer all my recordings from the 4TB drive to the 2TB drive successfully?

Also what if I plan to install the 2TB on a new Bolt box? I know there's the issue of"marrying" serial numbers if changing hard drives or physical Bolt box. 

It appears Tivo Desktop Software for PC to do transfers no longer exists. So is there a orogram that will retain all recordings even those that are encrypted as well as meta data when I transfer to a new box with new HD? Or can I use the same HD on a new box


----------



## jmbach

You can kmttg to transfer what is not copy protected. Or you might be able to get away the MFSTools 3.2 to copy to a smaller drive. Never tried that but it might work from reading the changes the developer did with the original MFSTools.

Just wipe the drive to use it in a new bolt.


----------



## aaronwt

Archivo is also another option. It works very well too for pulling shows off the TiVos.


----------



## saydar

Wolfnards said:


> What USB port did you use to power this? Also I assume you placed it under the bolt? Wasn't sure what you meant by between the cable car and the bolt which sounds like you placed it between the actual MCard and bolt internally?


Sorry I meant to say tuning adapter. I plugged the Cooler Master into one of the usb ports on my Bolt and I put it between the tuning adapter and Bolt (tuning adapter on bottom, Cooler Master Ultra-Slim Laptop Cooling Pad in the middle, and Bolt on top).


----------



## Wolfnards

jmbach said:


> You can kmttg to transfer what is not copy protected. Or you might be able to get away the MFSTools 3.2 to copy to a smaller drive. Never tried that but it might work from reading the changes the developer did with the original MFSTools.
> 
> Just wipe the drive to use it in a new bolt.


Thanks, jmbach! I've read some threads about serial numbers needing to "match" and when putting in new drives, a C&D needs to be done first, so does that come into play here?.

To make sure I understand your very helpful suggestion, I would theoretically use MFSTools 3.2 to copy my [old] 4TB drive to the [new] 2TB drive and I can stick the [new] 2TB in the [new] Tivo box? Or do I need to use the [old/original] Tivo box for it to work?

I will also look into kmttg, but would like to get some feedback first 

Thanks in advance!



aaronwt said:


> Archivo is also another option. It works very well too for pulling shows off the TiVos.


Thanks, aaronwt! Theoretically, can I use Archivo to pull off shows from my [old] Tivo box, then push it to my [new] Tivo box? I'm thinking the following steps for this case:
1) Use Archivo to pull shows from [old] 4TB drive / [old] Tivo to a PC
2) Register the [new] Tivo box with the [new] 2TB Drive
3) push the copied shows from the PC to the [new] Tivo Drive.

Thanks in advance, as well.

wolf


----------



## Blakeintosh

I've been using a TiVo Bolt, upgraded with the Seagate 4TB hard drive since Christmas. I setup the drive using MFS Reformatter. Up until today, things were working fairly well. I occasionally had a random reboot....possibly one a week. This morning, I discovered that my Bolt had completely reset to factory defaults overnight. I have been careful to not record anything of value on the Bolt, since others have reported issues. I have two other Roamios that I use for primary recording jobs. Needless to say, upgrading drives to a drive that is not designed for DVR purposes is definitely not something that you should do if you aren't ok with loosing all of your recordings. I will probably give it another shot to see if this happens again, and then I'll look at going with either a 3.5 inch 4TB WD AV drive in a external dock, or the 2.5inch 1TB WD AV drive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## MichaelK

i was upgraded with the 4tb and getting reboots anytime i "taxed" the system- 4 recordings, streaming, even a daily call could kill it as an example

Yanked the 4TB and put in a 2. Was able to record 4 shows, watch another, copy a show from a different box, copy a show to a different box, stream to my phone, stream to a tablet, and copy a transcoded show to my tablet with no issue- i even tossed in a daily call in there somewhere without a hitch. 

so i think the downgrade from 4->2 fixed my issues.

I didn't have time to put connect the 4tb to my computer to test it. So not sure if they're just too big for some tivo's, the drive itself was bad, or the increased size makes it too hot on something inside.


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## jmbach

What is the power ratings of the two drives. Or better yet what are the model numbers of the two drives. When I see spontaneous reboots I think first of a bad drive and second of a power supply being taxed close to its limits.


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## Blakeintosh

jmbach said:


> What is the power ratings of the two drives. Or better yet what are the model numbers of the two drives. When I see spontaneous reboots I think first of a bad drive and second of a power supply being taxed close to its limits.


I'm using the Seagate STDR4000100. It seems to be a similar issue as what MichaelK described. The drive stalls out when it is being taxed with multiple recording/streaming activities hitting it at once. It really doesn't surprise me that the drive is occasionally choking. It came out of a USB external enclosure which would have a very different anticipated duty cycle than what a DVR requires. I'm also contemplating adding a WD expander to see if splitting the workload among two drives would make the STDR4000100 more reliable.


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## jmbach

Hmm. Can't find much in the way of specifications on the drive. 

There are some reports of people not having any issues with the drive in a Bolt. Maybe they can comment on their usage and compare notes.


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## Kremlar

jmbach said:


> Hmm. Can't find much in the way of specifications on the drive.
> 
> There are some reports of people not having any issues with the drive in a Bolt. Maybe they can comment on their usage and compare notes.


First person to do the update here and still no issues so far, using the Ross Walker method. I do often have 4 recordings going around prime time and I have 4 Minis so multiple tuners often in use.


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## jmbach

Which method of his did you use. One based off of telemark's image or the one based off of MFSR. 


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## Kremlar

jmbach said:


> Which method of his did you use. One based off of telemark's image or the one based off of MFSR.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


I used the Linux boot disc method, so I believe the first option you listed. I helped him by testing with the Bolt and supplied some of the photos he used.


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## jmbach

Anybody know the specifications of the Bolt Power adapter?


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## aaronwt

Blakeintosh said:


> I'm using the Seagate STDR4000100. It seems to be a similar issue as what MichaelK described. The drive stalls out when it is being taxed with multiple recording/streaming activities hitting it at once. It really doesn't surprise me that the drive is occasionally choking. It came out of a USB external enclosure which would have a very different anticipated duty cycle than what a DVR requires. I'm also contemplating adding a WD expander to see if splitting the workload among two drives would make the STDR4000100 more reliable.


I can still have over eight concurrent read/write streams with my 4TB Bolts. It doesn't cause any issues. Ive tested with at least a dozen read/write streams in the past, and there were still no issues.

On a daily basis both Bolts will have four concurrent recordings. I've never seen it cause any problems. So far they have both worked as well as my Roamio Pro with a 5TB Red Drive. Only I can reach 500 Mbps transfer rates with the Bolts. (Under the proper conditions) the Pro can't hit speeds anywhere near that.


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## Wolfnards

Wolfnards said:


> Thanks, jmbach! I've read some threads about serial numbers needing to "match" and when putting in new drives, a C&D needs to be done first, so does that come into play here?.
> 
> To make sure I understand your very helpful suggestion, I would theoretically use MFSTools 3.2 to copy my [old] 4TB drive to the [new] 2TB drive and I can stick the [new] 2TB in the [new] Tivo box? Or do I need to use the [old/original] Tivo box for it to work?
> 
> I will also look into kmttg, but would like to get some feedback first
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> Thanks, aaronwt! Theoretically, can I use Archivo to pull off shows from my [old] Tivo box, then push it to my [new] Tivo box? I'm thinking the following steps for this case:
> 1) Use Archivo to pull shows from [old] 4TB drive / [old] Tivo to a PC
> 2) Register the [new] Tivo box with the [new] 2TB Drive
> 3) push the copied shows from the PC to the [new] Tivo Drive.
> 
> Thanks in advance, as well.
> 
> wolf


Bump.


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## jmbach

The only thing I would do to prep a drive to go from a Roamio or Bolt to another Roamio or Bolt is erase the partition table. This can be accomplished with the WD diagnostic writing zeros to the drive and choosing the quick erase. No C&DE is needed. 

I theory if the recordings are less than the new drive space, MFSTools 3.2 should be able to copy the 4TB drive to the smaller 2TB drive. I have not tried this myself so I do not know the functionality of this process. You and I would be learning together. Once the copy is done, the new drive should work without issue in the TiVo. 

Something to consider is a new power brick for your bolt that is about 0.5 to 1 amp higher than the one that came with it. Some people who have experienced issues with upgrading the base Roamios had booting/rebooting issues that resolved with a slightly more robust power brick. I have upgraded my base Roamio power brick to 3.33A. Have not had an issue since with my 6TB upgrade.


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## jmbach

From this thread aaronwt measured the average power consumption of his 500GB Bolt and his 4TB Bolt and the 4TB Bolt consumed an average of 1 watt more. (15 vs 16 watts) and the Bolt power supply is 12 volts at 3 amps. Roamios consume about the same power and their power supply is 12 volts at 2 amps. Thinking out loud here. Some of the Roamio boot problems seem to be fixed with an "upgraded" power supply. Based on the measurements, the power supplies would seem adequate. Most problems occur spinning up the drive. For sub 2TB drives the average peak watts required are usually up to 14.4 depending on the size of the drive. For 6TB drives the average peak watts are about 21 watts. So it is easy to see that anytime the platter spins up the larger drives demand a lot from the power supplies than the smaller drive. This is especially true of the Roamios with the smaller power supplies which can be easily overwhelmed and cause booting/rebooting issues unless an "upgraded" power supply is used. Since the Bolt power supply has a higher power rating and it uses smaller drives that usually require less power, it would seem that this scenario is less likely. I have not been able to find much in the way of power specifications of the 4TB drives being used in the Bolts to do much of a comparison. However, it would be interesting if a power supply "upgrade" would fix these rebooting issues on the Bolts.

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## nyjklein

Because the instability issues on my Bolt with a 4TB drive did seem similar to power supply related issues I've seen on other TiVos, I tried an upgraded power adapter. 

I ordered a 5A power adapter and used it on my Bolt. At first, results were promising. But after a couple of days, I still had a spontaneous re-boot. So, i'm not sure that it's power related.

Jeff


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## jmbach

Which method did you use to create the 4TB version and what power supply did you get?


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## Eldragun

Does anyone know if you have to pair the Cablecard with the bolt again if you swap out the hard drive for bigger hard drive.


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## aaronwt

Eldragun said:


> Does anyone know if you have to pair the Cablecard with the bolt again if you swap out the hard drive for bigger hard drive.


I had to with FiOS, every time I upgraded the Bolt drive. Which was five times using MFS Reformatter (mfsr) .. Without pairing I could still get most of the channels. But I needed to re-pair the card to get the Fox owned channels as well as HBO and Cinemax.


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## toricred

I have a 4TB drive in my Bolt and was having occasional reboot issues. I noticed that the ODT was over 72 a lot of the time so I bought a laptop cooler to put under it. It is now down to 51. I'm hoping that was the issue for me. The room it is in has been around 68 degrees the times it rebooted and it is in an open area so I don't think the environment is my problem.


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## aaronwt

toricred said:


> I have a 4TB drive in my Bolt and was having occasional reboot issues. I noticed that the ODT was over 72 a lot of the time so I bought a laptop cooler to put under it. It is now down to 51. I'm hoping that was the issue for me. The room it is in has been around 68 degrees the times it rebooted and it is in an open area so I don't think the environment is my problem.


Both of mine show around 59 degrees in a 68 degree environment. The three other Bolts I owned showed temps around 63 degrees in the same 68 degree environment. I use no extra cooling with my Bolts. But there was certainly a varianace in temps reports between some of the Bolts.


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## nyjklein

jmbach said:


> Which method did you use to create the 4TB version and what power supply did you get?


MFSR and here's the power adapter I used:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Z6ZR5O?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00

Jeff


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## Mendezbp1212

Eldragun said:


> Does anyone know if you have to pair the Cablecard with the bolt again if you swap out the hard drive for bigger hard drive.


Yes


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## Blakeintosh

Has anyone using the 4 TB drive Seagate (Samsung) drive tried running SeaTools on it? Thats Seagate's diagnostic tool. I tried it and got a passed SMART test, as well as passed Short diagnostic test. However when I did a longer read test, it failed. So, Im wondering if I have a bad drive, or if the Seatools tester program isn't fully compatible with a SMR hard drive.


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## aaronwt

Blakeintosh said:


> Has anyone using the 4 TB drive Seagate (Samsung) drive tried running SeaTools on it? Thats Seagate's diagnostic tool. I tried it and got a passed SMART test, as well as passed Short diagnostic test. However when I did a longer read test, it failed. So, Im wondering if I have a bad drive, or if the Seatools tester program isn't fully compatible with a SMR hard drive.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I only did a short test on my two drives. I was too impatient to run the long test.


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## Blakeintosh

And I assume that they both passed on the first shot?


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## aaronwt

Blakeintosh said:


> And I assume that they both passed on the first shot?
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


yes. That was back in October or November. I think one of them I did when I moved it to another Bolt.


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## Blakeintosh

aaronwt said:


> yes. That was back in October.


Alright, so let's say I have a bad drive. How do I RMA a drive that has been harvested out of it's original USB3 enclosure? Does Seagate require a bad drive be sent back to them? Has anyone had a bad drive that they had replaced?

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## Kremlar

> Alright, so let's say I have a bad drive. How do I RMA a drive that has been harvested out of it's original USB3 enclosure? Does Seagate require a bad drive be sent back to them? Has anyone had a bad drive that they had replaced?


Put it back in the enclosure and call for an RMA. If the enclosure has been damaged you may be out of luck.


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## aaronwt

Blakeintosh said:


> Alright, so let's say I have a bad drive. How do I RMA a drive that has been harvested out of it's original USB3 enclosure? Does Seagate require a bad drive be sent back to them? Has anyone had a bad drive that they had replaced?
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


If you can put it back in the enclosure then you can RMA it. I destroyed my enclosures removing the hard drives. So if I have any issues with my 4TB drives I will be SOL. But I knew this before I decided to go the 4TB route. And now I remember, I did the quick short drive tests before I removed the drives from the enclosures.


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## Blakeintosh

aaronwt said:


> If you can put it back in the enclosure then you can RMA it. I destroyed my enclosures removing the hard drives. So if I have any issues with my 4TB drives I will be SOL. But I knew this before I decided to go the 4TB route. And now I remember, I did the quick short drive tests before I removed the drives from the enclosures.


My external case isn't destroyed, but the top front metal lid did bend a bit. Even if I do put it back together, it's pretty obvious that the external case was either opened, or damaged.

This might be a good reason to just buy the naked drive, instead of harvesting one from an external drive. Granted, the external drive is currently $37 more expensive on Amazon, but it would make an RMA a lot easier if the drive has any issues. Here is the internal drive: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Momentus-2-5-inch-Drive-ST4000LM016/dp/B016YFEYK6/


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## aaronwt

Blakeintosh said:


> My external case isn't destroyed, but the top front metal lid did bend a bit. Even if I do put it back together, it's pretty obvious that the external case was either opened, or damaged.
> 
> This might be a good reason to just buy the naked drive, instead of harvesting one from an external drive. Granted, the external drive is currently $37 more expensive on Amazon, but it would make an RMA a lot easier if the drive has any issues. Here is the internal drive: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Momentus-2-5-inch-Drive-ST4000LM016/dp/B016YFEYK6/


At least it's available now. Back in OCtober, the external drive was the only way to get the 2.5", 4TB drive. And that price, $157, is around the cheapest price I paid for the external drive back then.

So if I were starting from scratch now, I would definitely purchase the stand alone drive since it's available.


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## Kremlar

aaronwt said:


> At least it's available now. Back in OCtober, the external drive was the only way to get the 2.5", 4TB drive. And that price, $157, is around the cheapest price I paid for the external drive back then.
> 
> So if I were starting from scratch now, I would definitely purchase the stand alone drive since it's available.


Also, just because some oddball vendor sells the bare drive on Amazon doesn't mean Seagate will provide a warranty. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably an OEM drive so the vendor you purchase from would provide the warranty. That listing says 30 days. They may be pulling them from external enclosures too!


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## aaronwt

Kremlar said:


> Also, just because some oddball vendor sells the bare drive on Amazon doesn't mean Seagate will provide a warranty. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably an OEM drive so the vendor you purchase from would provide the warranty. That listing says 30 days. They may be pulling them from external enclosures too!


I didn't look too closely. So if that is the case then I would stick with the external enclosure for only $120.

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Porta...&sr=8-1&keywords=seagate+backup+plus+slim+4tb

It's certainly a much better price than back in October.


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## BobCamp1

Blakeintosh said:


> Has anyone using the 4 TB drive Seagate (Samsung) drive tried running SeaTools on it? Thats Seagate's diagnostic tool. I tried it and got a passed SMART test, as well as passed Short diagnostic test. However when I did a longer read test, it failed. So, Im wondering if I have a bad drive, or if the Seatools tester program isn't fully compatible with a SMR hard drive.


Whoa!!!  You should *NEVER* use an SMR drive for a DVR. The write latency can jump up to 30-40 seconds with just an 20% write mixture, and a DVR's read/write mixture is way higher than 20%. An SMR drive needs idle time to write all its cached data, and a DVR does not provide it any idle time.

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/seagate-8tb-archive-hdd-review,2-822.html

You will get more and more temporary corruption until it happens in a bad spot, and then the DVR will reboot as Linux unsuccessfully tries to cope with 30 second write delays and failed read attempts. The reboot, of course, cements the temporary corruption as permanent but Linux doesn't know any better. Eventually the permanent corruption will happen in a bad spot and the DVR won't boot.

Usually these drives are marketed as "archive" or "backup". Drives marked like this or SMR should be avoided at all costs in Tivos.


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## DC_SnDvl

Unfortunately by going with the 2.5 form factor TIVO has left few good options for expanding storage inside the box. 



BobCamp1 said:


> Whoa!!!  You should *NEVER* use an SMR drive for a DVR. The write latency can jump up to 30-40 seconds with just an 20% write mixture, and a DVR's read/write mixture is way higher than 20%. An SMR drive needs idle time to write all its cached data, and a DVR does not provide it any idle time.
> 
> http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/seagate-8tb-archive-hdd-review,2-822.html
> 
> You will get more and more temporary corruption until it happens in a bad spot, and then the DVR will reboot as Linux unsuccessfully tries to cope with 30 second write delays and failed read attempts. The reboot, of course, cements the temporary corruption as permanent but Linux doesn't know any better. Eventually the permanent corruption will happen in a bad spot and the DVR won't boot.
> 
> Usually these drives are marketed as "archive" or "backup". Drives marked like this or SMR should be avoided at all costs in Tivos.


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## aaronwt

BobCamp1 said:


> Whoa!!!  You should *NEVER* use an SMR drive for a DVR. The write latency can jump up to 30-40 seconds with just an 20% write mixture, and a DVR's read/write mixture is way higher than 20%. An SMR drive needs idle time to write all its cached data, and a DVR does not provide it any idle time.
> 
> http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/seagate-8tb-archive-hdd-review,2-822.html
> 
> You will get more and more temporary corruption until it happens in a bad spot, and then the DVR will reboot as Linux unsuccessfully tries to cope with 30 second write delays and failed read attempts. The reboot, of course, cements the temporary corruption as permanent but Linux doesn't know any better. Eventually the permanent corruption will happen in a bad spot and the DVR won't boot.
> 
> Usually these drives are marketed as "archive" or "backup". Drives marked like this or SMR should be avoided at all costs in Tivos.


No problems here yet with my two 4TB SMR drives in my Bolts(I've been using them since October). From a user perspective they have worked the same as my 5TB RED drive in my Roamio Pro. Both my Pro and Bolts can handle 12+ concurrent HD read/write streams with zero issues.

Hopefully they continue to work without issues. But only time will tell.


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## elas123

i thought it was the power supply to seeing as i went the 4tb route too. i kept getting the reboots. so i changed it up to the external 3tb red drive external power supply with the case off the top. so there was no extra heat being held in there. they both failed. but i had to return mine cause it stopped booting at all even with original drive. so idk. my new one has the 2tb samsung and its been perfect for a month now.


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## Kremlar

aaronwt said:


> No problems here yet with my two 4TB SMR drives in my Bolts(I've been using them since October). From a user perspective they have worked the same as my 5TB RED drive in my Roamio Pro. Both my Pro and Bolts can handle 12+ concurrent HD read/write streams with zero issues.
> 
> Hopefully they continue to work without issues. But only time will tell.


Right. Mine is working great as well.

I believe the issue with SMRs is mostly random write performance, and I feel TiVo use would be more sequential. If SMR was the issue I feel it would be affecting all upgraded units. It's very possible some people simply have bad 4TB drives (or bad Bolts).


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## BobCamp1

Kremlar said:


> Right. Mine is working great as well.
> 
> I believe the issue with SMRs is mostly random write performance, and I feel TiVo use would be more sequential. If SMR was the issue I feel it would be affecting all upgraded units. It's very possible some people simply have bad 4TB drives (or bad Bolts).


When you're writing 4 or 6 tuners at once, that's a combination of random and sequential write performance. Plus Tivo has to download and process guide data and write to its cache partition constantly, and that's totally random. Plus nobody knows how fragmented a Tivo drive gets after it starts to fill up. Plus the Tivo is ALWAYS writing something. It's a recipe for disaster.

I frequently stick a fork in wall outlets. That must mean that there isn't any harm in doing that since I haven't been injured yet. Or it could mean I've just been lucky so far.

Of course, a lot of these drives may arrive DOA. Or it may be a power issue. But doesn't that also make a statement about their reliability and compatibility? It's a new technology, and you can't just assume it's going to follow the bathtub curve. They don't even recommend SMR drives for your main PC's hard drive!

It's only TV, but I'm assuming that people with 4 TB want to build up a library. SMR is great for that, but only if you stop writing to it.


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## BobCamp1

elas123 said:


> i thought it was the power supply to seeing as i went the 4tb route too. i kept getting the reboots. so i changed it up to the external 3tb red drive external power supply with the case off the top. so there was no extra heat being held in there. they both failed. but i had to return mine cause it stopped booting at all even with original drive. so idk. my new one has the 2tb samsung and its been perfect for a month now.


Based on what I've read in this thread, it's not the heat.

If it's power, the problem may not be in the brick. I'm assuming that there's another voltage regulator on the main board between the brick and the hard drive. Any good EE would have designed it like that. Does anybody know how much average and peak power it can provide? If you're good a with a soldering iron, you may be able to replace that with your own circuit that would provide more power (but generate more heat).


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## aaronwt

BobCamp1 said:


> When you're writing 4 or 6 tuners at once, that's a combination of random and sequential write performance. Plus Tivo has to download and process guide data and write to its cache partition constantly, and that's totally random. Plus nobody knows how fragmented a Tivo drive gets after it starts to fill up. Plus the Tivo is ALWAYS writing something. It's a recipe for disaster.
> 
> ..............


The TiVo is not necessarily writing all the time. i use high power savings mode. so it goes into standby after two hours of no interaction. And if nothing is being recorded, the hard drives spin down. So one of my Bolts hard drive spin 20 to 24 hours a day. Since that one records mostly news and reality shows.. While the other Bolt hard drive spins 8 to 12 hours a day. And that one records mostly scripted shows.

Every hard drive will fail at some point. It's just a matter of when. I had purchased three of the first consumer 1TB drives, when they first came out in 2007 for close to $300 each. These were five platter drives and ran extremely hot. They ran 24/7/365 in the Series 3(OLED) TiVos. I eventually sold one TiVo and gave the other two to my GF. One drive only failed a few weeks ago. It ran basically 24/7/365 for nine years. I would have never expected them to last so long. Especially with all the heat it produces. And the other drive is still spinning away. But it will die at some point too.

These SMR drives could also last years. But only time will tell. You can point to any drive ever made and find someone who had a failure in the first few months. That doesn't mean that all the drives will fail that quickly. Of course the opposite is just as true. No guarantee any drive will last long either.


----------



## nexus99

Is the consensus that a 2TB drive upgrade only required a physical swap and the TiVo will take care of the dive. But a 3+TB swap will require reformatting of the drive, etc?


----------



## fcfc2

nexus99 said:


> Is the consensus that a 2TB drive upgrade only required a physical swap and the TiVo will take care of the dive. But a 3+TB swap will require reformatting of the drive, etc?


Any drive over 3TB requires MFSR, any 3TB or under will auto format and configure for use in the Tivo. There are very few 3-4TB 2.5" drives available to use. The favorite based on price is to remove the Seagate 4TB from a external enclosure.


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## DC_SnDvl

Any idea what firmware revision your drives are? Mine reports as being version 0105

It passed all the SeaTools tests multiple times before I put it in my bolt. Now it will pass the short and long generic, but not the SMART or short self test.



aaronwt said:


> The TiVo is not necessarily writing all the time. i use high power savings mode. so it goes into standby after two hours of no interaction. And if nothing is being recorded, the hard drives spin down. So one of my Bolts hard drive spin 20 to 24 hours a day. Since that one records mostly news and reality shows.. While the other Bolt hard drive spins 8 to 12 hours a day. And that one records mostly scripted shows.
> 
> Every hard drive will fail at some point. It's just a matter of when. I had purchased three of the first consumer 1TB drives, when they first came out in 2007 for close to $300 each. These were five platter drives and ran extremely hot. They ran 24/7/365 in the Series 3(OLED) TiVos. I eventually sold one TiVo and gave the other two to my GF. One drive only failed a few weeks ago. It ran basically 24/7/365 for nine years. I would have never expected them to last so long. Especially with all the heat it produces. And the other drive is still spinning away. But it will die at some point too.
> 
> These SMR drives could also last years. But only time will tell. You can point to any drive ever made and find someone who had a failure in the first few months. That doesn't mean that all the drives will fail that quickly. Of course the opposite is just as true. No guarantee any drive will last long either.


----------



## aaronwt

DC_SnDvl said:


> Any idea what firmware revision your drives are? Mine reports as being version 0105
> 
> It passed all the SeaTools tests multiple times before I put it in my bolt. Now it will pass the short and long generic, but not the SMART or short self test.


The picture I took, of the second drive I got from Newegg, shows the Firmware as version 0001
EDIT: It has a manufacture date of 07/2015

I found the photo of the first 4TB drive I got. It also has firmware version 0001 with a manufacture date of 06/2015. Both of mine were purchased in October from Newegg. One on 10/6 and the other on 10/19.


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## BobCamp1

aaronwt said:


> The TiVo is not necessarily writing all the time. i use high power savings mode. so it goes into standby after two hours of no interaction. And if nothing is being recorded, the hard drives spin down. So one of my Bolts hard drive spin 20 to 24 hours a day. Since that one records mostly news and reality shows.. While the other Bolt hard drive spins 8 to 12 hours a day. And that one records mostly scripted shows.
> 
> Every hard drive will fail at some point. It's just a matter of when. I had purchased three of the first consumer 1TB drives, when they first came out in 2007 for close to $300 each. These were five platter drives and ran extremely hot. They ran 24/7/365 in the Series 3(OLED) TiVos. I eventually sold one TiVo and gave the other two to my GF. One drive only failed a few weeks ago. It ran basically 24/7/365 for nine years. I would have never expected them to last so long. Especially with all the heat it produces. And the other drive is still spinning away. But it will die at some point too.
> 
> These SMR drives could also last years. But only time will tell. You can point to any drive ever made and find someone who had a failure in the first few months. That doesn't mean that all the drives will fail that quickly. Of course the opposite is just as true. No guarantee any drive will last long either.


These SMR drives are not to be used for this purpose. It's not about long term reliability. It's about compatibility. And I'm the guy that says you can throw in any PMR hard drive, and power issues and weird ATA compatibility issues aside, it should run fine.

SMR write speeds can drop to 20 Mbps, which won't support 2 HD tuner buffers much less 4.

When I said "write all the time" I mean the drive needs a 2 second break every minute or so. I didn't mean putting it in standby mode. Sorry I wasn't clearer about that.

And it's not just me. The reviews for SMR drives are mixed at this point. Generally, people using them as their main OS drive or in RAID are disappointed while people using them for long-term storage say they work great.

The drives you all seek (2.5" PMR 4 TB) are just starting to ship now. They should be available in three months. Until then, I'd either stick with a 3 TB PMR or just wait a little longer to upgrade.


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## aaronwt

BobCamp1 said:


> These SMR drives are not to be used for this purpose. It's not about long term reliability. It's about compatibility. And I'm the guy that says you can throw in any PMR hard drive, and power issues and weird ATA compatibility issues aside, it should run fine.
> 
> SMR write speeds can drop to 20 Mbps, which won't support 2 HD tuner buffers much less 4.
> 
> When I said "write all the time" I mean the drive needs a 2 second break every minute or so. I didn't mean putting it in standby mode. Sorry I wasn't clearer about that.
> 
> And it's not just me. The reviews for SMR drives are mixed at this point. Generally, people using them as their main OS drive or in RAID are disappointed while people using them for long-term storage say they work great.
> 
> The drives you all seek (2.5" PMR 4 TB) are just starting to ship now. They should be available in three months. Until then, I'd either stick with a 3 TB PMR or just wait a little longer to upgrade.


It's a little late for me. I've been running those 4TB SMR drives since October. I don't plan on changing them. And I have no other use for a 4TB 2.5" drive. I have over 140TB of total storage available over my network. Plus over 20TB from USB drives. So I will continue using these 4TB SMR drives in my Bolts.

As I've mentioned, so far I've had zero issues with them. They have performed identically to the 3.5" drives I have in my Roamios.(I've even filled the 4TB drives up to 100% without issues) If that changes at some point, then I will re-access and post about it. But until then I'm not really going to worry about it.


----------



## Blakeintosh

BobCamp1 said:


> These SMR drives are not to be used for this purpose. It's not about long term reliability. It's about compatibility. And I'm the guy that says you can throw in any PMR hard drive, and power issues and weird ATA compatibility issues aside, it should run fine.
> 
> SMR write speeds can drop to 20 Mbps, which won't support 2 HD tuner buffers much less 4.
> 
> When I said "write all the time" I mean the drive needs a 2 second break every minute or so. I didn't mean putting it in standby mode. Sorry I wasn't clearer about that.
> 
> And it's not just me. The reviews for SMR drives are mixed at this point. Generally, people using them as their main OS drive or in RAID are disappointed while people using them for long-term storage say they work great.
> 
> The drives you all seek (2.5" PMR 4 TB) are just starting to ship now. They should be available in three months. Until then, I'd either stick with a 3 TB PMR or just wait a little longer to upgrade.


What 3 TB PMR 2.5" drive would you suggest? I haven't seen any announcements for upcoming 4 TB PMR 2.5" drives. Do you know of a manufacturer that has actually announced a model, or are you simply speculating that one will be available sometime in the future?


----------



## g2so

I have also been experiencing random reboots and it seems to be increasing. Rebooted a few days ago and earlier today. 
I upgraded my bolt to a 2TB Seagate drive when I purchased it back in November. So I don't think this a disk size issue. Going to lower size drive may not be the answer. 

I may need to pull the drive and do a test.. but that might be challenging since the Tivo is always in use.


----------



## Kremlar

aaronwt said:


> It's a little late for me. I've been running those 4TB SMR drives since October. I don't plan on changing them. And I have no other use for a 4TB 2.5" drive. I have over 140TB of total storage available over my network. Plus over 20TB from USB drives. So I will continue using these 4TB SMR drives in my Bolts.
> 
> As I've mentioned, so far I've had zero issues with them. They have performed identically to the 3.5" drives I have in my Roamios.(I've even filled the 4TB drives up to 100% without issues) If that changes at some point, then I will re-access and post about it. But until then I'm not really going to worry about it.


ditto


----------



## primaryforce

I have concluded that my Tivo Bolt with the MFS reformatted 4TB Seagate upgrade is not reliable. It cant go a week without rebooting but then it does so at inconvenient times when I am watching TV. I have throttled back the Bolt settings to incorporate maximum standby, added a Cooler Master laptop cooler, and upgraded the power brick to a 5A adapter. Since I dont want to sacrifice the increased storage gained with the 4TB and uncertain that investing in a replacement 2.5 4TB will resolve my issue, I am thinking about pursuing an external 3.5 inch 4TB. 

I do have a couple of questions about this plan.

Can I first try this out without drilling a hole in the Bolt case for the SATA cable? If this works, I would eventually provide the hole. 

Any recommendations for the 3.5 inch 4TB drive, external enclosure, and SATA cable would be appreciated.


----------



## aaronwt

primaryforce said:


> I have concluded that my Tivo Bolt with the MFS reformatted 4TB Seagate upgrade is not reliable. It cant go a week without rebooting but then it does so at inconvenient times when I am watching TV. I have throttled back the Bolt settings to incorporate maximum standby, added a Cooler Master laptop cooler, and upgraded the power brick to a 5A adapter. Since I dont want to sacrifice the increased storage gained with the 4TB and uncertain that investing in a replacement 2.5 4TB will resolve my issue, I am thinking about pursuing an external 3.5 inch 4TB.
> 
> I do have a couple of questions about this plan.
> 
> Can I first try this out without drilling a hole in the Bolt case for the SATA cable? If this works, I would eventually provide the hole.
> 
> Any recommendations for the 3.5 inch 4TB drive, external enclosure, and SATA cable would be appreciated.


Just run the Bolt with the cover off before cutting the hole.


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## fcfc2

primaryforce said:


> I have concluded that my Tivo Bolt with the MFS reformatted 4TB Seagate upgrade is not reliable. It cant go a week without rebooting but then it does so at inconvenient times when I am watching TV. I have throttled back the Bolt settings to incorporate maximum standby, added a Cooler Master laptop cooler, and upgraded the power brick to a 5A adapter. Since I dont want to sacrifice the increased storage gained with the 4TB and uncertain that investing in a replacement 2.5 4TB will resolve my issue, I am thinking about pursuing an external 3.5 inch 4TB.
> 
> I do have a couple of questions about this plan.
> 
> Can I first try this out without drilling a hole in the Bolt case for the SATA cable? If this works, I would eventually provide the hole.
> 
> Any recommendations for the 3.5 inch 4TB drive, external enclosure, and SATA cable would be appreciated.


Hi,
There is a thread in the upgrade forum with a guy using an external enclosure with a 6TB but he needed a patched MSFR to get the 6TB going. http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=536782
I don't know if there would be an issue with 4TB but I doubt it. The usually recommendations are for the WD AV green, the WD Red, not Pro, and one which I have been using successfully in a Roamio is the Hitachi Cool Spin 4TB.
EDIT: Forgot, you could just leave the end cap covering the hd off and feed whatever sata/esata cable you can find.


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## Blakeintosh

Primaryforce, I have reached the same conclusion as you with my Bolt w/4TB seagate drive. TiVo's preferred drive family is the WD-AV family of drives, however a lot of people have had good luck with the WD Red drives.

The largest 2.5 inch drive in the AV family is the 1 TB WD10JUCT. The largest 3.5 inch drive is the 4TB WD40EURX. If you want maximum capacity and you can wait a bit, WD just announced the WD Red 8TB WD80EFZX drive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## BobCamp1

Blakeintosh said:


> What 3 TB PMR 2.5" drive would you suggest? I haven't seen any announcements for upcoming 4 TB PMR 2.5" drives. Do you know of a manufacturer that has actually announced a model, or are you simply speculating that one will be available sometime in the future?


To my knowledge, there is only one 2.5" 3 TB PMR drive available: Toshiba MQ03ABB300.

Of course I cannot find the article announcing the 4 TB PMR drive.  I know I saw it on Friday but it's not in my browser history list. It was not made by Toshiba -- I want to say HGST but I don't think that's right. If I come across it again I'll let you know.


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## BobCamp1

g2so said:


> I have also been experiencing random reboots and it seems to be increasing. Rebooted a few days ago and earlier today.
> I upgraded my bolt to a 2TB Seagate drive when I purchased it back in November. So I don't think this a disk size issue. Going to lower size drive may not be the answer.
> 
> I may need to pull the drive and do a test.. but that might be challenging since the Tivo is always in use.


That specific drive sounds defective to me. No need to run the test on it. Just yank it out and return it.

There are a few Seagate drives that size that use SMR. I recommend using a PMR drive as a replacement.


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## MichaelK

just another point of information- i upgraded my bolt to the 4tb like others here. It worked for weeks then started rebooting like mad. What was really odd to me was that it was generally fine when just buffering 4 tuners or when "recording" 1,2 or 3. But when 8pm rolled around and all 4 tuners where "recording" it would quickly choke. Makes no sense to me because even when buffering the thing is recording 4 tuners no?

Also I could get it to choke by doing a daily call with recordings in progress.

Anyway- i downgraded to a 2tb and all has been well for weeks now.

Could be an exceptionally high percentage of the 4tbs are bad out of the gate, but i'd lean to something about them (power, random write speed,????) is right at the edge of what tivo needs performance-wise so if you have the wrong combination of certain tivo's and certain drives it chokes.


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## nexus99

Which 2TB drive did you use?



MichaelK said:


> just another point of information- i upgraded my bolt to the 4tb like others here. It worked for weeks then started rebooting like mad. What was really odd to me was that it was generally fine when just buffering 4 tuners or when "recording" 1,2 or 3. But when 8pm rolled around and all 4 tuners where "recording" it would quickly choke. Makes no sense to me because even when buffering the thing is recording 4 tuners no?
> 
> Also I could get it to choke by doing a daily call with recordings in progress.
> 
> Anyway- i downgraded to a 2tb and all has been well for weeks now.
> 
> Could be an exceptionally high percentage of the 4tbs are bad out of the gate, but i'd lean to something about them (power, random write speed,????) is right at the edge of what tivo needs performance-wise so if you have the wrong combination of certain tivo's and certain drives it chokes.


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## indiekiduk

Blakeintosh said:


> Yikes...The ST4000LM016 utilizes SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording). Not sure how well that drive will work in a DVR. You should read this article regarding SMR, and why it's different from PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording), which has been the standard. http://www.storagereview.com/what_is_shingled_magnetic_recording_smr
> 
> The TiVo OS may not be able to interpret SMR correctly. I'll be interested to see if you can get the drive working and if so, how reliable it is with your recordings.


The ST4000LM016 does not use SMR it uses perpendicular (PMR). Both Anandtech's testing proves that and it is also noted in the manual: http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../spinpoint-m-series/en-us/docs/100772113d.pdf


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## JOSHSKORN

I forgot to mentally jot down the amount of HD recording hours I had prior to upgrading my bolt. I had a friend come over and actually do it for me because I don't feel comfortable with upgrading stuff. Here's a walk-through of what we all did.

First of all, supplies needed:

Tivo Bolt (Obviously) - 500gb model
New Hard Drive (Obviously) - Seagate Backup Plus 4TB STDR4000100
Prying Tool - I would suggest guitar picks for this, they're perfect for prying open both the bolt and the Seagate drive.
T10 screwdriver, I believe. I recommend buying this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EVV8LK
A Windows PC
TiVo Drive MFS Reformatter Version 1003 found in this post.
Here's the steps:

Remove the TiVo Hard drive. This video shows you how to replace the hard drive in total but it skips a crucial step (see Steps #5-#8), afterwards. 




Lookup on Youtube how to disassemble the replacement hard drive from the enclosure. Guitar picks worked great on this, as well. On the STDR4000100, not only did I have to remove the cover, but I had to remove the USB 3.0 to SATA adapter as well.
Place the new Hard Drive into the TiVo Bolt and hook it up internally. Do not put the covers back on.
Plug your TiVo Bolt back into the system and turn on your TV and wait until you see the first screen. I believe it's the one that asks you to select the country.
Unplug the Bolt from the back and remove the hard drive
Plug the hard drive into your PC. In my case, I plugged the USB adapter back in but didn't put it back into the case. Plug it into a USB drive on your PC
Run TiVo Drive MFS Reformatter Version 1003
When it says it's finished, unplug the hard drive from the PC, then plug it back into the TiVo Bolt. Assemble the TiVo Bolt back together. When putting on the cover, be careful of the plastic snaps. My friend broke the one in the middle, but it still holds securely.
Run TiVo Bolt setup as you did when you first got it.
After I was done with this, I got somewhere around 660 HD hours of recording. I forgot the exact number. Before, I think it was around 75 hours.

Keep in mind that this was done on Sunday 3/13/2016. My TiVo Bolt was updated up until that date. Also, I'd read comments about having to do a "C&D", or "Clear & Delete". I have no idea how to do this, and as far as I know, my Bolt has been behaving just fine. I even set it back to High Energy Efficiency like I had before and it appears to be running just fine. I also did not put the white clips from the old hard drive onto the new hard drive. In fact, I just put the old hard drive into the new hard drive's old enclosure just to stabilize it, since the new one was much thicker than the other. I also did not have to re-run the setup on my other previously connected TiVo Mini, it was still able to connect and find my Bolt.


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## aaronwt

A clear and Delete was needed if you had used some of the streaming apps. Without a C&D some would not work properly if they had been used prior to the upgrade. 
C&D is located at
Settings>Help>Reset to Defaults>Clear & Delete Everything


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## JCN

indiekiduk said:


> The ST4000LM016 does not use SMR it uses perpendicular (PMR). Both Anandtech's testing proves that and it is also noted in the manual: http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../spinpoint-m-series/en-us/docs/100772113d.pdf


The drive is 15mm. Is that dimension right for the bolt. Also does that model only come PMR. Ebay has it for $138. I have the bolt 500 gig and looking to do this. Has anyone used this drive. Thanks in advance, Jeff.


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## CoxInPHX

indiekiduk said:


> The ST4000LM016 does not use SMR it uses perpendicular (PMR). Both Anandtech's testing proves that and it is also noted in the manual: http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../spinpoint-m-series/en-us/docs/100772113d.pdf





JCN said:


> The drive is 15mm. Is that dimension right for the bolt. Also does that model only come PMR. Ebay has it for $138. I have the bolt 500 gig and looking to do this. Has anyone used this drive. Thanks in advance, Jeff.


See this post:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10655263#post10655263

The Seagate Backup Plus 4TB STDR4000100 contains a Samsung Momentus ST4000LM016 4 TB HDD


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## aaronwt

JCN said:


> The drive is 15mm. Is that dimension right for the bolt. Also does that model only come PMR. Ebay has it for $138. I have the bolt 500 gig and looking to do this. Has anyone used this drive. Thanks in advance, Jeff.


I have two of them. I had no problem putting them in my two Bolts. Just be careful where the SATA cable goes over the drive. So it doesn't hit the case when put back on.

WOW! I can't believe how inexpensive these things are now. $120 is 33% lower than early Autumn.

So far mine are still working great.


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## JCN

Thanks for the update. I was going to ask you if any dependability problems. For a 4 TB upgrade that's a very reasonable price for sure.


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## bcurran3

Costco has the Seagate Backup Plus 4TB Slim Portable Hard Drive for $139.99 normal price. There is a $15 instant rebate from 4/21/2016 to 4/30/2016 making it $124.99 right now. The 5TB version is also available for a few bucks more.

The drive inside is a Seagate ST4000LM016, which I think is also referenced as the Samsung drive.

I just picked up two for my two new Bolts. Deleted the partition on it after hooking up to my PC. Threw it into my Bolt and got a green screen flash followed by a red screen that TiVo wanted to format it. I let it do it, four times. It didn't stick. Right now I'm running MFS Reformatter on it as a test to see if it will work even though the OS wasn't installed fully/correctly/at all/who knows. It recognized it, so that's good. Keep your fingers crossed for me. If it doesn't work, guess I'll have to go the bless route.


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## bcurran3

SUCCESS! Happy Camper.
Now one more to do....

Thanks all for historical reference to trials and tribulations.

Hopefully my recount helps others as well.

Now if only I read this BEFORE I ordered 2x 3TB 3.5" drives last week.. .hahahhahaha. I did that assumption thing that the Bolt would be the same-o same-o. Luckily Costco is close and I didn't have to wait. (Sorry for the returns Amazon!)


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## aaronwt

bcurran3 said:


> Costco has the Seagate Backup Plus 4TB Slim Portable Hard Drive for $139.99 normal price. There is a $15 instant rebate from 4/21/2016 to 4/30/2016 making it $124.99 right now. The 5TB version is also available for a few bucks more.
> 
> The drive inside is a Seagate ST4000LM016, which I think is also referenced as the Samsung drive.
> 
> I just picked up two for my two new Bolts. Deleted the partition on it after hooking up to my PC. Threw it into my Bolt and got a green screen flash followed by a red screen that TiVo wanted to format it. I let it do it, four times. It didn't stick. Right now I'm running MFS Reformatter on it as a test to see if it will work even though the OS wasn't installed fully/correctly/at all/who knows. It recognized it, so that's good. Keep your fingers crossed for me. If it doesn't work, guess I'll have to go the bless route.


So is there a 5TB 2.5 inch drive now? Do you know the model number?


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## Mendezbp1212

Anyone know the max amp capabilities of the Tivo Bolt SATA power supply? I am starting to have issues with random rebooting and all 4 lights flashing just started happening. Happened twice in the last week. The original hard drive is .55a at 5v and my Momentus 4TB is .85a at 5v. Could this be the cause of the problems I am having?


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## aaronwt

Mendezbp1212 said:


> Anyone know the max amp capabilities of the Tivo Bolt SATA power supply? I am starting to have issues with random rebooting and all 4 lights flashing just started happening. Happened twice in the last week. The original hard drive is .55a at 5v and my Momentus 4TB is .85a at 5v. Could this be the cause of the problems I am having?


I thought the info was written on the power supply? I'm not home right now so I can't check.


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## Mendezbp1212

Just the Sata power supply, not the Tivo itself.


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## NaperTiVo

OK, unfortunately add me to the list of people having issues using the Seagate Backup Plus 4TB STDR4000100 drive. I upgraded two Bolts and they are both having the same issue others are describing. One reboots weekly the other reboots every couple days. To make it worse, the one rebooting every couple days usually goes into a reboot loop and requires me to pull the power, then it boots fine.


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## phlegmer

It's been said that misery loves company. A little over a month ago I install the innards of a STDR4000100. A week ago I woke up to a constantly rebooting Bolt. Power cycled, it said it fixed some sort of error and worked until this morning. Same sort of perpetual reboot. But this time wasn't able to get it out of the perpetual reboot. Was on my way to work so didn't have time to futz with it. So I just left it unplugged until I get back.

Lots of info to absorb prior to this post so to recap.

1. SMR bad PMR good for Tivo

2. STDR4000100 has an ST4000LM016 drive which is actually PMR (should be good but obviously not)

3. Kickstart 57 might get it going again for a while.

4. Toshiba MQ03ABB300 (3tb) is recommended

Which leads me with a couple questions:

1. Has anyone tried some other alternative drives like
Toshiba 3TB Canvio Connect II
Toshiba 3TB Canvio Basics
HGST 3TB Touro Mobile
Yes I know they aren't 4tb but I would be willing to give up 1tb for a longer lasting drive.

2. Does SeaTools find anything of interested on these drives after they start rebooting our Bolts?

3. Has anyone been successful in exchanging the "bad" Seagates?

Thanks

Update: Just got a coupon in my inbox for a WD 3tb 2.5 external drive (fate?)


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## JOSHSKORN

Please see my longer explanation in this reply: http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10892514#post10892514

Could the problem possibly be that the new firmware update just doesn't play nice with 4TB and up drives (regardless if we put them inside or port them outside of the box) and that a resolution to the problem COULD BE just to reformat the hard drive with a PC and the drive reformatter tool again?


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## jmbach

Would be interesting if the drives are good if a little more robust power brick solves the rebooting issue. 
If the unit is in a perpetual reboot it might not help as the drive more than likely has some corrupt data causing the issue.


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## primaryforce

Replacing the standard Bolt power supply wìth a larger unit was one of the first things I did to address the rebooting issue along with placing the Bolt on a notebook cooler. Neither seemed to help. The Seagate 2.5 4TB drive seemed to be the root cause of the reoccurring boot issue.


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## aaronwt

Could the firmware version on the 4TB drives be an issue? Both of my 4TB drives from October use the first version of the firmware. I'm still having no problems with both 4TB drives in my two Bolts. And the Bolts run relatively cool. The warmest part of each Bolt case is only slightly warm to the touch.


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## phlegmer

Yesterday after work, I plugged the power back into the bolt and was trying to do the kickstart 57. Tried 3 times, and each time I got the LED confirmation on the front but it never did the purple screen. It would just reboot again. After the 3rd attempt I gave up but it booted up normally and could watch shows again.

This morning when I checked, the purple screen was up. No idea when it decided to do it in the middle of the night. So now I guess I'll have to see if the purple screen ever goes away.


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## BobCamp1

jmbach said:


> Would be interesting if the drives are good if a little more robust power brick solves the rebooting issue.
> If the unit is in a perpetual reboot it might not help as the drive more than likely has some corrupt data causing the issue.


That's the failure mechanism of an SMR drive. It's not really a failure as it is an incompatibility. There will be occasional corruption now and then. If the corruption occurs in an empty sector or a sector in the recycle bin, you won't see it. But if it doesn't, or the Tivo panics because it takes more that 20 seconds to write to the drive (which is possible in a perfectly working SMR drive), you'll see it. Depending on where and when the corruption occurs, the Tivo will respond differently. Many times the Tivo can repair it during the reboot. Sometimes it cannot, but a reformat of the drive will fix the corruption. Until it happens again.

There are stories of people using SMR drives in Tivos without problems. There are also stories of people who have survived skydiving without a parachute. I'm not going to recommend people do either, because there is an obvious, glaring flaw in doing those things.


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## BobCamp1

aaronwt said:


> Could the firmware version on the 4TB drives be an issue? Both of my 4TB drives from October use the first version of the firmware. I'm still having no problems with both 4TB drives in my two Bolts. And the Bolts run relatively cool. The warmest part of each Bolt case is only slightly warm to the touch.


It could be hardware differences too. This group has to start thinking about hard drives models like they do cars models. I drive a Honda Accord and I have some problems. The first question you'd ask would be "which year?" as each year has a different design, even though they are all Honda Accords. They are not Honda Fits or Pilots or CR-Zs, but the Accord model does change over time.

For example, a larger write cache would reduce compatibility problems but would increase the unit price. And those parts are usually FFF replacements.


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## fchamber

Well, that didn't take long :-(. I got a new bolt about a week and a half ago, and immediately upgraded it to the 4TB Seagate drive everyone else uses. It worked pretty well for about a week--occasional brief audio stutters on playback, but no other visible issue.

3 or 4 days ago it decided that my entire channel lineup was "new", and I had to manually connect back to the tivo service so it could re-load all the guide data. It again appeared to be fine after that.

Last night it froze mid-playback, and then entered a reboot loop. Unplugging it and giving it some time (tried this 3 times) didn't help. I left it unplugged overnight and plugged it back in again this morning--another reboot loop, but I left it be. When I checked back an hour later, it was up and running.

I'm going to assume that this isn't a one-time thing, and that the box is unstable. Based on the behavior I'm going to further assume that it's the drive. Is there any consensus on a safer choice of drive? I have to admit that my patience for opening up the Bolt box repeatedly is limited, so I'd be willing to give up some capacity for reliability (but with that said, I'd sooner return the unit than live with the 500GB drive that came with it).

Thanks in advance for any advice.


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## jmbach

Just an few ideas that will give us more data points. Can we get a poll on what method the drives we upgraded (ie MFSR version, Ross Walker method using telemark's image, MFSTools 3.2, etc) and whether having problems or not.

I'll see if I can make an online live poll someplace.


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## jmbach

fchamber said:


> Well, that didn't take long :-(. I got a new bolt about a week and a half ago, and immediately upgraded it to the 4TB Seagate drive everyone else uses. It worked pretty well for about a week--occasional brief audio stutters on playback, but no other visible issue.
> 
> 3 or 4 days ago it decided that my entire channel lineup was "new", and I had to manually connect back to the tivo service so it could re-load all the guide data. It again appeared to be fine after that.
> 
> Last night it froze mid-playback, and then entered a reboot loop. Unplugging it and giving it some time (tried this 3 times) didn't help. I left it unplugged overnight and plugged it back in again this morning--another reboot loop, but I left it be. When I checked back an hour later, it was up and running.
> 
> I'm going to assume that this isn't a one-time thing, and that the box is unstable. Based on the behavior I'm going to further assume that it's the drive. Is there any consensus on a safer choice of drive? I have to admit that my patience for opening up the Bolt box repeatedly is limited, so I'd be willing to give up some capacity for reliability (but with that said, I'd sooner return the unit than live with the 500GB drive that came with it).
> 
> Thanks in advance for any advice.


Consider putting in the 500GB drive and once the TiVo is up and running try MFSTools 3.2 and copy it over to the 4TB drive. Other thought would be to use telemark's Roamio image.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## foghorn2

fchamber said:


> Well, that didn't take long :-(. I got a new bolt about a week and a half ago, and immediately upgraded it to the 4TB Seagate drive everyone else uses. It worked pretty well for about a week--occasional brief audio stutters on playback, but no other visible issue.
> 
> 3 or 4 days ago it decided that my entire channel lineup was "new", and I had to manually connect back to the tivo service so it could re-load all the guide data. It again appeared to be fine after that.
> 
> Last night it froze mid-playback, and then entered a reboot loop. Unplugging it and giving it some time (tried this 3 times) didn't help. I left it unplugged overnight and plugged it back in again this morning--another reboot loop, but I left it be. When I checked back an hour later, it was up and running.
> 
> I'm going to assume that this isn't a one-time thing, and that the box is unstable. Based on the behavior I'm going to further assume that it's the drive. Is there any consensus on a safer choice of drive? I have to admit that my patience for opening up the Bolt box repeatedly is limited, so I'd be willing to give up some capacity for reliability (but with that said, I'd sooner return the unit than live with the 500GB drive that came with it).
> 
> Thanks in advance for any advice.


The recommended drive is the one that it came with. If you need more space, Tivo sells the DVR Expander. You and also offload untagged shows to a Netgear Nas or PC.


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## fchamber

jmbach said:


> Consider putting in the 500GB drive and once the TiVo is up and running try MFSTools 3.2 and copy it over to the 4TB drive. Other thought would be to use telemark's Roamio image.


Thanks for the suggestion. I did run MFSR on the 4GB drive during the upgrade--are you thinking that maybe there's an issue there rather than a hardware issue? Apologies if I'm reading too much into your suggestion


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## Kremlar

First guy who installed a 4TB reporting, still no issues here.  Used the Ross Walker method.


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## aaronwt

I think I was the third or fourth to install the 4TB drive. I installed two drives using the mfsr method and I'm still having no issues with either 4TB drive.


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## JOSHSKORN

Kremlar said:


> First guy who installed a 4TB reporting, still no issues here.  Used the Ross Walker method.


What's different about the Ross Walker method?

Sent from my SM-N920F using Tapatalk


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## ggieseke

JOSHSKORN said:


> What's different about the Ross Walker method?


The original Ross Walker method uses telemark's 4TB Roamio "community edition" imaging process. Bolts use a slightly different partition layout, and the most significant change is that the Linux swap partition is twice as big. If a Bolt actually needs that extra swap space and it isn't there...


----------



## NJ Webel

So, if one doesn't want to futz around with formatting to gain larger capacity, is the Toshiba 3TB drive mentioned in Post #300 the current recommended one?


phlegmer said:


> (snip)
> Lots of info to absorb prior to this post so to recap.
> 
> 1. SMR bad PMR good for Tivo
> 
> 2. STDR4000100 has an ST4000LM016 drive which is actually PMR (should be good but obviously not)
> 
> 3. Kickstart 57 might get it going again for a while.
> 
> 4. Toshiba MQ03ABB300 (3tb) is recommended
> 
> (snip)


----------



## JCN

NJ Webel said:


> So, if one doesn't want to futz around with formatting to gain larger capacity, is the Toshiba 3TB drive mentioned in Post #300 the current recommended one?


Yes I also would like to know if this is absolute. With nothing to do but plug and play.


----------



## jmbach

As long as you stay 3TB or less with a compatible drive, then yes it is plug and play.


----------



## phlegmer

So progress in trying to pinpoint the issue seems to be moving along slowly. I'm not 100% convinced that the 4tb drives are the cause of the reboots. If that were the case, all of us 4tb users would be seeing this. HDD version or firmware differences could possibly have a play in this as suggested before.

From what I've can tell (correction is encouraged), their are 2 common reasons this could happen.

1. Bad HDD
2. Bad power or power supply

I personally hadn't had any issues after the upgrade but the reboots started to occur recently (last month or so). I'm seeing reports of similar symptoms on non-upgraded Bolts as well. Granted these all could be legitimate failed HDD too.

One thing that I have tried is to change the HDMI cable. Early on in my research of this problem, I recall reading a thread where the Tivo would have similar symptoms to what we are seeing and he ended up changing out the HDMI cable. For the life of me I can't seem to locate that thread right now but after reading that it stuck in the back of my mind as a really odd solution. I have only had my Bolt running for about a week with the "new" HDMI cable but so far so good.

One time after I did this I did get the flashing LED's in the front (first time ever) where I had to power cycle it. But I think this might have been because I discovered that the morning sun would shine on it in the AM (over heating it?). I have since adjusted the blinds so that doesn't happen.

This seems to be kind of a long shot but its easy enough to try. If mine suddenly reboots again, I'll post the bad news and we can rule that out.


----------



## phlegmer

Just a quick followup. Still no more reboots since replacing the Tivo supplied HDMI cable and it has been several weeks now.

However, I do get the flashing front LED issue about once every week. Haven't quite figured out that problem yet. Every time, except once, it happens sometime in the middle of the night or early morning. Wake up in the AM to find the LED's flashing. Have to power cycle in order for it to stabilize.

Anyone else experiencing this issue?

Thanks


----------



## NealPa

Same problem:
- Bolt
- Seagate 4TB 2.5" drive
- Sometime in the last month it started the LEDs flashing. Happens a couple of times a week.
- Power cycling the Bolt fixes it for a while.

Tried external power for the HDD (didn't help).
Tried more airflow for HDD and Bolt heatsink (didn't help).
Tried removing the cover for the cablecard (didn't help).
Yes, I did all 3 at the same time (didn't help).

I did notice that I just got to about 25% full. Is there a bug when you get past 1TB in the new firmware?

Is there any way to find out if the Tivo software engineers know about this bug? Or is it on purpose to keep us from upgrading the internal drive beyond 1TB?

I'm tempted to copy the internal 2.5" 4TB drive to an external 3.5" 4TB, and run power and sata to the external drive. Can anybody comment as to large 3.5" drives work as the primary drive, or if they have this same problem?


----------



## aaronwt

Both of the 4TB drives in my two Bolts have over 3TB of content on them. It is not causing any issues with the newest TiVo software.

A few days ago I checked the time they had been on since the last reboot. It was around 2.1 million seconds(around 24 days). Which should have been the last time the software was updated.


----------



## fcfc2

NealPa said:


> I'm tempted to copy the internal 2.5" 4TB drive to an external 3.5" 4TB, and run power and sata to the external drive. Can anybody comment as to large 3.5" drives work as the primary drive, or if they have this same problem?


There a few guys on the upgrade forum who have done exactly that. It appears you may have to search a bit to get the right combination of sata to Esata cable, but yes it works.


----------



## NealPa

aaronwt said:


> Both of the 4TB drives in my two Bolts have over 3TB of content on them. It is not causing any issues with the newest TiVo software.
> 
> A few days ago I checked the time they had been on since the last reboot. It was around 2.1 million seconds(around 24 days). Which should have been the last time the software was updated.


Aaron,

what is the model number of the internal 4TB drive that you are using, and what process did you use to expand the storage?


----------



## TivoTodd65

I have had my Tivo since early April 2016. I am using it to record OTA only so no cable card. I upgraded my Tivo with the Seagate STDR4000100. I installed it internally. I used the Ross Walker method and it worked perfectly to get up and running.

I didn't experience my first 4 lights flashing till late May. I then had another incident a week or so later. I then experienced another another week later. It seemed to accelerate after that. I started having it happen every few days and then it happened overnight. I put a small computer fan in front of the Bolt to see if cooling it down would help. No dice...failure the next day. I noticed I was 47% full and had 487ish recommended videos. I deleted a lot of recorded videos that I have duplicated with a Roamio. I also stopped recording recommended videos. I did not change what was recording other than the recommended videos. No flashing lights in 2 days.

This seems to support the corrupted/failed drive theory.


----------



## ggieseke

TivoTodd65 said:


> I have had my Tivo since early April 2016. I am using it to record OTA only so no cable card. I upgraded my Tivo with the Seagate STDR4000100. I installed it internally. I used the Ross Walker method and it worked perfectly to get up and running.
> 
> I didn't experience my first 4 lights flashing till late May. I then had another incident a week or so later. I then experienced another another week later. It seemed to accelerate after that. I started having it happen every few days and then it happened overnight. I put a small computer fan in front of the Bolt to see if cooling it down would help. No dice...failure the next day. I noticed I was 47% full and had 487ish recommended videos. I deleted a lot of recorded videos that I have duplicated with a Roamio. I also stopped recording recommended videos. I did not change what was recording other than the recommended videos. No flashing lights in 2 days.
> 
> This seems to support the corrupted/failed drive theory.


That drive uses SMR technology like their "archive" drives. It's not suited for a device that writes 24/7 like a TiVo.

Even though Drobo SANs are primarily used for archiving, they recently started adding the following notes in fine print to all of their drive selection articles.

 Seagate Archive drives are currently not supported.
 HGST Ultrastar Archive Ha10 10TB drive is not compatible for use with Drobo.

Drive manufacturers have removed all references to SMR the description and the maximum write capacity/year from the spec sheets, but they're still the same cheesy drives.


----------



## TivoTodd65

ggieseke said:


> That drive uses SMR technology like their "archive" drives. It's not suited for a device that writes 24/7 like a TiVo.
> 
> Even though Drobo SANs are primarily used for archiving, they recently started adding the following notes in fine print to all of their drive selection articles.
> 
>  Seagate Archive drives are currently not supported.
>  HGST Ultrastar Archive Ha10 10TB drive is not compatible for use with Drobo.
> 
> Drive manufacturers have removed all references to SMR the description and the maximum write capacity/year from the spec sheets, but they're still the same cheesy drives.


Is there a list of recommended drives. I moved many of the shows off the Bolt with the anticipation of moving to a new drive but there doesn't seem to be a common working upgrade unless I go with a 3.5" external. I am ok with that but only want to do this once if I can.

Is there a 3TB drive that folks have had success with? The extra 1TB is great but not at the expense of problems iMHO.


----------



## ggieseke

TivoTodd65 said:


> Is there a list of recommended drives. I moved many of the shows off the Bolt with the anticipation of moving to a new drive but there doesn't seem to be a common working upgrade unless I go with a 3.5" external. I am ok with that but only want to do this once if I can.
> 
> Is there a 3TB drive that folks have had success with? The extra 1TB is great but not at the expense of problems iMHO.


If you go 3.5" TiVo uses the WD AV drives most of the time. For a 3TB drive that would be the WD30EURX. The WD40EUEX 4TB is the largest one in that line.

A lot of people (myself included) use the WD Red drives for larger capacities. That's the WDxxEFRX line for drives up to 6TB. The 8TB version is the WD80EFZX.


----------



## aaronwt

NealPa said:


> Aaron,
> 
> what is the model number of the internal 4TB drive that you are using, and what process did you use to expand the storage?


I'm using the same one from the beginning of the thread. But I have the first firmware version on the two June/July 2015 drives. And I used msfr on the drives, back in October..



Kremlar said:


> Hi -
> 
> ...............The drive is pulled from a Seagate STDR4000100 USB portable. Inside the drive is a Samsung Momentus ST4000LM016. .............


----------



## nyjklein

aaronwt said:


> I'm using the same one from the beginning of the thread. But I have the first firmware version on the two June/July 2015 drives. And I used msfr on the drives, back in October..


For some reason (maybe the firmware level), Aaron seems to have no problem with that Seagate drive. But almost everyone else I've seen post to this thread (including me) has had problems. Mine started as occasional spontaneous reboots. Then after the latest TiVo software updates the dreaded 4 blinking lights started on a regular basis. This requires manual intervention to recover.

I tried all of the various solutions mentioned above. I finally gave up and purchased the 3.5" WD 8GB Red drive, put it in an external powered enclosure, cut a small slot in the back cover and connected the drive directly on the internal SATA connector.

After several weeks, my Bolt's still working perfectly with lots of space!

Jeff


----------



## Slugger4

Hey guys I've just read this entire thread and I'm completely torn which upgrade path to take. I just ordered a Bolt 500GB and definitely want to upgrade.

I am fine with 2TB space until better 2.5" drives come out but I am NOT OK with having the problems you guys are facing with reboots, etc. I have plenty of tech skills but I don't have the patience to be constantly "fixing" my DVR.

Can anyone comment on the reliability of the 2TB drives that Ross Walker links to in his guide?: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Seag...=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til&tag=freelydownloa-20

Should I go this route?

Or would the external 3.5" enclosure with an WD Red or AV Green be most reliable and give me the space needed for several years? Of course an internal 2.5" is ideal but not at the expense of "fixing" it within the first year...

Please feel free to comment. I would especially like to hear from anyone running the 2TB 2.5"...


----------



## HarperVision

I installed the 2TB Seagate 2.5" drive immediately upon Bolt purchase installation last October and have had absolutely no issues whatsoever with it. I didn't use any methods (Ross Walker, etc) on the drive, just plug and play.


----------



## Kremlar

Slugger4 said:


> Hey guys I've just read this entire thread and I'm completely torn which upgrade path to take. I just ordered a Bolt 500GB and definitely want to upgrade.
> 
> I am fine with 2TB space until better 2.5" drives come out but I am NOT OK with having the problems you guys are facing with reboots, etc. I have plenty of tech skills but I don't have the patience to be constantly "fixing" my DVR.
> 
> Can anyone comment on the reliability of the 2TB drives that Ross Walker links to in his guide?: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Seag...=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til&tag=freelydownloa-20
> 
> Should I go this route?
> 
> Or would the external 3.5" enclosure with an WD Red or AV Green be most reliable and give me the space needed for several years? Of course an internal 2.5" is ideal but not at the expense of "fixing" it within the first year...
> 
> Please feel free to comment. I would especially like to hear from anyone running the 2TB 2.5"...


My 4TB has still been working fine, but based on other experiences I would go with the 2TB 2.5" drive mentioned in the posts. I would only go with a 3.5" drive if I really wanted something over 2TB (or 3TB if you can get the Toshiba). I wouldn't want the look of an external 3.5" drive.


----------



## JCN

ggieseke said:


> If you go 3.5" TiVo uses the WD AV drives most of the time. For a 3TB drive that would be the WD30EURX. The WD40EUEX 4TB is the largest one in that line.
> 
> A lot of people (myself included) use the WD Red drives for larger capacities. That's the WDxxEFRX line for drives up to 6TB. The 8TB version is the WD80EFZX.


I am going to order the WD60EFRX seems to be the best vale per tb. It comes 64mb and 128mb. Is 64 the one I need. I was also thinking of this enclosure, https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-P...1468347181&sr=1-4&refinements=p_89:Mediasonic. Thanks.


----------



## tivoboy

IS this seagate the 3tb that people use that is still plug and play?

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Lapt...1468857827&sr=8-1&keywords=3tb+2.5+hard+drive


----------



## phlegmer

tivoboy said:


> IS this seagate the 3tb that people use that is still plug and play?


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10900030&highlight=3tb#post10900030


----------



## JCN

JCN said:


> I am going to order the WD60EFRX seems to be the best vale per tb. It comes 64mb and 128mb. Is 64 the one I need. I was also thinking of this enclosure, https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-P...1468347181&sr=1-4&refinements=p_89:Mediasonic. Thanks.


I have been waiting for a reply to pull the trigger. My trigger finger is getting numb. Must be a dumb question.


----------



## tivoboy

Will a 3TB allow the bolt to use the full 3TB of space or is it just plug and play but won't allow the use of the full 3TB?

Also, is it best to just do this when the unit is new, first thing - then no need to re-pair cable card etc, or better to let the unit bake in a bit and THEN do it again? Later?


----------



## speedy2

tivoboy said:


> Will a 3TB allow the bolt to use the full 3TB of space or is it just plug and play but won't allow the use of the full 3TB?
> 
> Also, is it best to just do this when the unit is new, first thing - then no need to re-pair cable card etc, or better to let the unit bake in a bit and THEN do it again? Later?


It'll use the entire space. About 450 HD hours.
I usually run it stock for a few days to make sure it operates properly and has no hardware issues.


----------



## elprice7345

speedy2 said:


> It'll use the entire space. About 450 HD hours.
> I usually run it stock for a few days to make sure it operates properly and has no hardware issues.


Is the Ross Walker page incorrect?


> If your new drive is greater than 2TB in size the TiVo BOLT's auto format facility will unfortunately only format the drive to a maximum size of 2.2TB. To access the full capacity of the new drive it is necessary to either reformat it (requires access to a machine running Windows) or bless it (Windows free method but limited to 4TB drives. Read warning before using this approach).


http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#BOLT


----------



## tivoboy

elprice7345 said:


> Is the Ross Walker page incorrect?
> 
> http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#BOLT


yeah, that is sort of what confused me.. that page seems to think anything over 2TB and it will work but not at full capacity.

I've got it running now - not upgraded and will try the upgrade later in the week. It's going to be my Rio olympics test mule!


----------



## speedy2

elprice7345 said:


> Is the Ross Walker page incorrect?
> 
> http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#BOLT


Yes. A 3TB drive will work to full capacity with no additional drive preparation. I have done it on 2 Bolts so far in they've both been fine.


----------



## elprice7345

speedy2 said:


> Yes. A 3TB drive will work to full capacity with no additional drive preparation. I have done it on 2 Bolts so far in they've both been fine.


Curious what capacity does your 3TB show in system info?

My 2TB Bolt shows 317 HD or 2177 SD hours.

You should see ~1.5x the 2TB or 475?

Ross Walker's page says a 4TB drive yields ~490 HD hours

If my 2TB Bolt shows 317 HD hours, doesn't it stand to reason that a 4TB Bolt should have 634 HD hours?


----------



## atmuscarella

elprice7345 said:


> Curious what capacity does your 3TB show in system info?
> 
> My 2TB Bolt shows 317 HD or 2177 SD hours.
> 
> You should see ~1.5x the 2TB or 475?
> 
> Ross Walker's page says a 4TB drive yields ~490 HD hours
> 
> If my 2TB Bolt shows 317 HD hours, doesn't it stand to reason that a 4TB Bolt should have 634 HD hours?


I dropped a 3TB into my base Raomio last summer. No prep at all and it shows 477 hrs. of HD. I haven't done anything yet with my 1TB Bolt and it shows 156 hrs. of HD, which seems to be pretty close to the Roamio as 3X156= 468


----------



## speedy2

elprice7345 said:


> Curious what capacity does your 3TB show in system info?
> 
> My 2TB Bolt shows 317 HD or 2177 SD hours.
> 
> You should see ~1.5x the 2TB or 475?
> 
> Ross Walker's page says a 4TB drive yields ~490 HD hours
> 
> If my 2TB Bolt shows 317 HD hours, doesn't it stand to reason that a 4TB Bolt should have 634 HD hours?


My Bolt is showing 478 HD hours or 3289 SD hours


----------



## elprice7345

FYI ...

Ross Walker updated his blog with the 3TB info we recently discussed:http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/#BOLT


----------



## ParityBit

HarperVision said:


> I installed the 2TB Seagate 2.5" drive immediately upon Bolt purchase installation last October and have had absolutely no issues whatsoever with it. I didn't use any methods (Ross Walker, etc) on the drive, just plug and play.


I did the same thing with the same drive, the last two nights I got the 4 lights.


----------



## HarperVision

ParityBit said:


> I did the same thing with the same drive, the last two nights I got the 4 lights.


Sorry to hear that and worried for my future!


----------



## tivobw

Well, add me to the folks with the broken Seagate STDR4000100. 

I had installed this back in January of this year. Worked pretty well for a couple of weeks and I started to have issues where the DVR would freeze; we'd be watching a show or live TV and the image would freeze. A reboot would typically fix it.

This has been going on since a few weeks after installation. I figured, OK, it's annoying, but I can just reboot it and fix it. But then 2 days ago, it wouldn't come back. I tried multiple reboots, power off/power on, etc. I keep getting the 4 lights on the front. The Tivo will not boot.

I took the Seagate 4TB out and put the original 500GB drive in. Now the Tivo boots, of course. So I know the Seagate drive went bad (may have been bad from the start; I never tested the drive, I just expanded it and started using it).

I'm now going to see if I can find another good 4TB drive that I can do a sector-by-sector copy on, to see if I can salvage the recordings on the Seagate, by following Ross Walker's guide to fixing a broken Tivo.

I'm hoping since January some good 4TB 2.5" drives have come out.. but if not, I suppose I'll have to go the external upgrade route with a 3.5" 4TB drive.

Let me know if anyone has any suggestions. I'll start reading up on the Bolt forum for other threads...


----------



## JOSHSKORN

I'm in the middle of trying an experiment. I also own the Seagate STDR4000100 and had the 4 Flashing lights a few months ago like I'd detailed in a thread I'd started. I finally got around to do this, but I purchased a Rosewill Armer RX304-APU3-35B, which is meant for 3.5" drives, and then a ICY DOCK MB882SP-1S-3B EZConvert Lite Light Weight Open Air 2.5 to 3.5 SATA Hard Drive or SSD Converter / Mounting Kit. I have the left cover off of my TiVo and have a wire sticking out that plugs into the external enclosure. I also have disconnected the fan inside the TiVo.

To the hard drive, I ran every test I could think of, the Seagate Short Test, Long Test, I ran Maconit to scan the drive, no errors, I also did a complete Windows format to NTFS. I don't know if any of this was necessary, but I did it anyway. The Enclosure came with a an external eSATA connector which I'd installed onto my computer.

So here's the verdict:


8 hours later, it's still running
I have not configured anything on my TiVo as of yet. No apps, no recordings, I'm just letting it run for a couple of days.
On my enclosure, the temperature of the hard drive is 42.4C. That's on the higher end, whereas if I'd just plugged it in, it's just above 22C.
The TiVo Bolt STILL runs warm, although not as warm as when I had the hard drive installed.

If you look around, some people have modified their Bolt, removing the original cable that came with the Bolt and installing a different SATA connector that could be mounted in the back if you cut a hole. That's the connector I have, it's some Left angle connector. I'll modify my post later on with a link, I just don't have the time right now to do it.


----------



## tivobw

JOSHSKORN said:


> [...]
> So here's the verdict:
> 
> 
> 8 hours later, it's still running
> I have not configured anything on my TiVo as of yet. No apps, no recordings, I'm just letting it run for a couple of days.
> On my enclosure, the temperature of the hard drive is 42.4C. That's on the higher end, whereas if I'd just plugged it in, it's just above 22C.
> The TiVo Bolt STILL runs warm, although not as warm as when I had the hard drive installed.
> 
> If you look around, some people have modified their Bolt, removing the original cable that came with the Bolt and installing a different SATA connector that could be mounted in the back if you cut a hole. That's the connector I have, it's some Left angle connector. I'll modify my post later on with a link, I just don't have the time right now to do it.


Very interesting! Keep us posted.

I find it amazing that after nearly 8 months (I installed the 2.5" 4TB Seagate in mid-January), there are still no good 2.5" hard drives intended for DVR use. I'm going to proceed w/the 3.5" 4TB WD Red drive with the external Rosewill enclosure. Will take a few weeks to get this set up...


----------



## OmeneX

tivobw said:


> Very interesting! Keep us posted.
> 
> I find it amazing that after nearly 8 months (I installed the 2.5" 4TB Seagate in mid-January), there are still no good 2.5" hard drives intended for DVR use.


This is true. But now it makes me curious what TiVo is using in their new announced Bolt+. It is a 2.5 HDD 3TB, no? They were using the Western Digital 2.5 HDD A/V line. 500gb/1TB -- makes one interested in what they are using in the Bolt+.

A wonder...


----------



## aaronwt

OmeneX said:


> This is true. But now it makes me curious what TiVo is using in their new announced Bolt+. It is a 2.5 HDD 3TB, no? They were using the Western Digital 2.5 HDD A/V line. 500gb/1TB -- makes one interested in what they are using in the Bolt+.
> 
> A wonder...


Maybe WD has new drives coming out? And TiVo got early access to them?

They already had 3TB 2.5" drives, just from the Blue line. So maybe WD is finally incorporating 3TB 2.5" drives in their A/V and Red line?


----------



## OmeneX

aaronwt said:


> Maybe WD has new drives coming out? And TiVo got early access to them?
> 
> They already had 3TB 2.5" drives, just from the Blue line. So maybe WD is finally incorporating 3TB 2.5" drives in their A/V and Red line?


This would be sweet! We will find out soon I hope. It would also then make more sense that the Bolt+ is higher priced due to a new A/V || Red style drive. Besides just being a *flagship* offering.


----------



## tivobw

Well, using ddrescue on my 2.5TB Seagate STDR4000100 didn't work. I will post updates to the saga in this thread...

Bolt Drive for Upgrade


----------



## aaronwt

I'm still using my two 4TB drives from OCtober 2015 in my Bolts. Because of all the issues people posted I never sold my Lifetime Roamio Pro last year. So I need to either extend my TiVo subscription on my Bolts, and sell my Romaio Pro. Or let my subscriptions expire and use my Roamio Pro instead of my Bolts. 

I really like the 8TB of storage between eight tuners with my Bolts vs the 5TB with six tuners in Roamio Pro. I've already run into conflicts this season with eight tuners on the Bolts. So I really don't want to go back to only six tuners. So I'm hoping they will offer me at least a little discount on a yearly subscription. I'm not too keen on the $150 a year subscription for each unit. But I would also like to see how long these 4TB drives actually last. But so far they have been rock solid.


----------



## Kremlar

Mine is still good here as well. Was actually 100% full last night.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Question for both you @aaronwt and @Kremlar.

aaronwt, I know you Seagate drive is on the 001 Firmware, as you've stated. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Kremlar, does your Seagate drive have the same firmware? What I'm thinking is, buy that drive during certain manufactured dates or forget it. I tried with the 004 firmware and I think I basically now have a dead drive. I haven't had much of an urge to plug my drive back into the original housing and try it out, but I'm convinced it's dead anyway. I think the combination of the newer drive firmware and the newer TiVo software somehow ruined it.


----------



## Kremlar

I checked my pics, and yes mine is firmware 0001. It's certainly a good theory that the firmware version changed something affecting use on a TiVo. For all we know newer firmware versions could work well once again.

If my drive died I would try to locate and use another 4TB drive.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

Kremlar said:


> I checked my pics, and yes mine is firmware 0001. It's certainly a good theory that the firmware version changed something affecting use on a TiVo. For all we know newer firmware versions could work well once again.
> 
> If my drive died I would try to locate and use another 4TB drive.


I doesn't matter to me, anyway. I've moved on to Bolt+, 3TBs is enough storage for me.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


----------



## JohnnyM

OMG! If I had just looked at the stupid specifications before I bought the Seagate STDR4000100 I would never have gone that route. Here is the root cause of all of the issues with this part. I just ordered a Toshiba TOSMQ03ABB300. Just want to close this issue out.

It's likely all of the Seagate STDR4000100 drives are just fine, by design.


----------



## aaronwt

JohnnyM said:


> OMG! If I had just looked at the stupid specifications before I bought the Seagate STDR4000100 I would never have gone that route. Here is the root cause of all of the issues with this part. I just ordered a Toshiba TOSMQ03ABB300. Just want to close this issue out.
> 
> It's likely all of the Seagate STDR4000100 drives are just fine, by design.


What do the specs show that would cause issues? My two 4TB drives are still working perfectly fine after more than a year of use. With one of them recording from multiple Bolt tuners around twenty hours every day.

EDIT: Unless you think it's an SMR drive which it isn't. The 4TB Seagate is a PMR drive. Unless they changed it to SMR at some point after introduction. Because many of the test results from reviews, when it was first released, show performance that is inline with a PMR drive, not an SMR.

It does have five platters packed in there. But the last five platter drive I owned was the first 1TB, 3.5 inch drive available. From Hitachi. I put them in Series 3 TiVos back in early 2007. And one died earlier this year and another is still humming along.


----------



## JohnnyM

These websites identify it as a shingled drive.

Seagate 4TB Backup Plus Portable Drive Review | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews

Could be wrong however the behavior have been seeing makes sense the unit I have implements SMR. Initially everything is just fine with the Bolt. Then the menus are glacially slow just to move up or down one step. Usually by this point it will have begun corrupting items being actively recorded then, it hangs with the "Blink of Death". Also I have to unplug it and let it sit for minutes to get it to clear. Usually 20 seconds or so is enough with moth electronics but not the Bolt. I also suspect many of the unsuccessful reboot attempts mentioned are the cause of the shingling within the drive trying to recover. The long drive delays caused by shingling would explain all of this. It's possible earlier units/firmware's didn't invoke shingling immediately, hard to tell.

I'm done at this point. The Seagate STDR4000100 will be gone this evening and a 3 TB that for sure conforms will go in ASAP. Haven't gotten too many complaints yet from the family but this isn't worth the complaints.


----------



## aaronwt

JohnnyM said:


> These websites identify it as a shingled drive.
> 
> Seagate 4TB Backup Plus Portable Drive Review | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews
> 
> Could be wrong however the behavior have been seeing makes sense the unit I have implements SMR. Initially everything is just fine with the Bolt. Then the menus are glacially slow just to move up or down one step. Usually by this point it will have begun corrupting items being actively recorded then, it hangs with the "Blink of Death". Also I have to unplug it and let it sit for minutes to get it to clear. Usually 20 seconds or so is enough with moth electronics but not the Bolt. I also suspect many of the unsuccessful reboot attempts mentioned are the cause of the shingling within the drive trying to recover. The long drive delays caused by shingling would explain all of this. It's possible earlier units/firmware's didn't invoke shingling immediately, hard to tell.
> 
> I'm done at this point. The Seagate STDR4000100 will be gone this evening and a 3 TB that for sure conforms will go in ASAP. Haven't gotten too many complaints yet from the family but this isn't worth the complaints.


Yes. Their initial review was wrong. I remember reading it last Summer. Once other review sites started testing it, the results people got were consistent with PMR drives.

it's also possible that they switched to an SMR drive later. But the drives I have did not exhibit any slow speeds during testing like SMR do.

My two 4TB Bolts exhibit none of the behaviors you just mentioned. Even after a year of use and even with the drives full they don't behave the way you described.

I'm just glad I have not run into any of the issues many other people have. (knock on wood)

I keep waiting for something to happen. And even held onto my 5TB Roamio Pro just in case. But so far no issues. of course with my luck, once I do sell my Roamio Pro, then I will start to have issues with the 4TB drives in the Bolts.


----------



## JohnnyM

Anandtech wrote this on 10/21/2016 about the Seagate STDR4000100:

"The drive uses platters that operate partly in PMR mode and partly in SMR, along with multi-tier caching (MTC) which includes DRAM and flash - The efficiency of MTC ensures that an empty drive maintains as much consistency as a PMR drive even under heavy traffic.)

Their initial assessment like all the others was it was pure PMR but they changed that, potentially due to a firmware change. Read the end of the article.

Seagate Backup Plus Portable 4TB USB 3.0 Drive Review

Once any SMR is invoked all hell will break loose with the Bolt not being able to read or write in an efficient manner, looking like a hard drive fault. As the vast majority has been experiencing.

It's highly likely this was what those firmware changes did and why you are still operating OK. For sure, don't update your firmware.


----------



## aaronwt

JohnnyM said:


> Anandtech wrote this on 10/21/2016 about the Seagate STDR4000100:
> 
> "The drive uses platters that operate partly in PMR mode and partly in SMR, along with multi-tier caching (MTC) which includes DRAM and flash - The efficiency of MTC ensures that an empty drive maintains as much consistency as a PMR drive even under heavy traffic.)
> 
> Their initial assessment like all the others was it was pure PMR but they changed that, potentially due to a firmware change. Read the end of the article.
> 
> Seagate Backup Plus Portable 4TB USB 3.0 Drive Review
> 
> Once any SMR is invoked all hell will break loose with the Bolt not being able to read or write in an efficient manner, looking like a hard drive fault. As the vast majority has been experiencing.
> 
> It's highly likely this was what those firmware changes did and why you are still operating OK. For sure, don't update your firmware.


thanks. Then that would definitely explain why I have no issues with my firmware v001 drives.


----------



## Kremlar

> I'm just glad I have not run into any of the issues many other people have. (knock on wood)


Ditto!!


----------



## brandenwan

Hi, I just wanted to throw this question out there as no one seems to definitely speak the answer. Which 3TB hard drive is inside the Bolt+? Is it the Toshiba? I just scored a Bolt with 1 TB drive and I want to replace it. I figured it wasn't rocket science if I replaced it with the same exact one being used in the Bolt+. Can someone please let me know? There must be someone, somewhere that has opened up a Bolt+, even if it were for sh*ts and giggles.


----------



## brandenwan

I got tired of waiting for an answer so I'm going with a hypothesis based on my findings. I believe Tivo is in fact using the Toshiba MQ03ABB300 drive. Mainly due to their reliability and lower temperature. There are no other 2.5 inch 3TB PMR drives that rival the Toshiba on these points that come in a 2.5, 3TB PMR variety with a reasonable cost. They lack the market penetration to have a 3rd party company make a drive especially for them so like the Roamio, they are using existing drives found on the open market.
Recently I scored a brand new Bolt 1 TB with 1 year service included.
I was going to buy a Toshiba HDTB330XK3CA portable drive to dissect to remove the TOSMQ03ABB300 that should be within. BUT WARNING... YOU CAN'T HARVEST THE DRIVE FROM THE EXTERNAL ENCLOSURE! _(you can technically, but it is useless)_ IT WON'T WORK WITH THOSE PORTABLES!!! The eSATA is soldered to the drive! YOU CAN'T EVEN 'MACGYVER' IT! I would have saved 33% of the cost if it were possible. In the end I just paid for the MQ03ABB300 (lowest price I could find was on eBay/Amazon.)


_Just a heads up.. After I get my new Bolt situated I will be offering my Roamio on eBay in the near future, but will post here first to allow my peeps an opportunity before putting on eBay, however the sale WILL be done through eBay to complete. After reading some horror stories on here, for everyone's peace of mind, I think it's for the best. _
_It's going to be a *Tivo Roamio w/LIFETIME (ALL-IN) 3TB WD AV-GP & bonus Tivo Stream incl $499. Shipping will be $15 FLAT. *It will be posted within the next 3 weeks! (in the correct thread)_


----------



## Sixto

Was posted elsewhere. It's the WD30NPRZ.


----------



## brandenwan

Sixto said:


> Was posted elsewhere. It's the WD30NPRZ.


Of course it is.  Super expensive, hard to find, but has 64MB cache as opposed to Toshiba's 16MB.
Whatevs; I got a SquareTrade 3yr warranty so let the Bolt kill after a year, I'll just replace it again. HA!


----------



## aaronwt

How much of a difference does the cache actually make? The 4TB drives I'm using have a cache of 128MB .


----------



## OmeneX

I noted this in a previous post. Inside the STDR4000100 is the ST4000LM016 drive. Has this changed? Because the ST4000LM016 is still listed as PMR on the official data sheet. 
*[[ http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../spinpoint-m-series/en-us/docs/100772113e.pdf ]]*



















I concede though that this could have changed.

Aaronwt is the monkey wrench in that he has yet to have a problem with his HDDs (no jinx). Though I'm sure others out there also don't have issues - since complaints are always loudest on the Internet.

Maybe look closely at the actual firmware update info for these HDDs (check for power draw changes, head parking changes ... etc) - check his power setup vs other power setups (I know he uses UPSs) - does he do normal Soft resets or just pulls the plug on the unit? It's always possible for a bad batch of HDDs or the way he installed them using the format tools.

Would take somebody with time on their hands to try a bunch of variables outside of my scope of commitment to this issue. I don't use this particular drive.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

OmeneX said:


> I noted this in a previous post. Inside the STDR4000100 is the ST4000LM016 drive. Has this changed? Because the ST4000LM016 is still listed as PMR on the official data sheet.
> *[[ http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../spinpoint-m-series/en-us/docs/100772113e.pdf ]]*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I concede though that this could have changed.
> 
> Aaronwt is the monkey wrench in that he has yet to have a problem with his HDDs (no jinx). Though I'm sure others out there also don't have issues - since complaints are always loudest on the Internet.
> 
> Maybe look closely at the actual firmware update info for these HDDs (check for power draw changes, head parking changes ... etc) - check his power setup vs other power setups (I know he uses UPSs) - does he do normal Soft resets or just pulls the plug on the unit? It's always possible for a bad batch of HDDs or the way he installed them using the format tools.
> 
> Would take somebody with time on their hands to try a bunch of variables outside of my scope of commitment to this issue. I don't use this particular drive.


The problem with the drive that we had all tried is that later firmware has enabled SMR partially at least. Most of us have the 0004 firmware which is problematic for this situation. Aarons is 0001. I looked into a downgrade with no such luck. Unfortunately now my drive is dead. Yu might want to look into this further before investing money into it.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


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## OmeneX

**Just read the Anandtech article. Interesting. PMR & SMR // makes me wonder why Aaronwt hasn't had an issue.  I could see SMR having a horrible outcome in a DVR environment.


----------



## OmeneX

JOSHSKORN said:


> The problem with the drive that we had all tried is that later firmware has enabled SMR partially at least. Most of us have the 0004 firmware which is problematic for this situation. Aarons is 0001. I looked into a downgrade with no such luck. Unfortunately now my drive is dead. Yu might want to look into this further before investing money into it.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


Makes sense.

I already upgraded my Tivo's drive a bit ago - I did not use this drive anyways.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

OmeneX said:


> Makes sense.
> 
> I already upgraded my Tivo's drive a bit ago - I did not use this drive anyways.


Here you go. Post #366 on this thread. On my PC, I actually see it on the same page, might be different on my phone, not sure. I actually started a whole thread awhile back based on 4 Lights Flashing on Bolt. I'd updated the original post as much as I needed to, based on my experience. Long story short, DO NOT attempt to use the STDR4000100 unless your drive is old and has the 0001 firmware. It WILL fail. Maybe it'll eventually die (the HDD), like mine did.

I may revisit my thread and post a list of known drives to fail.


----------



## jmbach

Seagate has listed and is selling some ST4000LM016 as an internal laptop drive. The manual on that drive lists it as perpendicular recording. Nothing is mentioned of shingled recording. I wonder if they are using the same drive with different firmware / recording methods based on if the product is used in an external enclosure vs internal laptop drive.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

jmbach said:


> Seagate has listed and is selling some ST4000LM016 as an internal laptop drive. The manual on that drive lists it as perpendicular recording. Nothing is mentioned of shingled recording. I wonder if they are using the same drive with different firmware / recording methods based on if the product is used in an external enclosure vs internal laptop drive.


My concern is,that it's still Seagate. The Seagate I was using ran HOT. May not be the decisive factor in the 4 Flashing LIGHTS but I wouldn't know if it contributes to the problem.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


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## JohnnyM

OK all said and done, the Seagate STDR4000100 4 TB HD is gone and the 3TB TOSHIBA MQ03ABB300 is installed. It has now been solidly reliable for several weeks. In the end the Seagate would not allowing the Bolt to boot at all.

The Seagate STDR4000100 has passed all tests and is back in its original external case. It is working well. Clearly the STDR4000100 is not compatible with the Bolt. It was not defective.

With the significant fallout observed here with the STDR4000100 should not be used in a Bolt or any other DVR for that matter. What a nightmare that was.


----------



## wscottcross

I guess I've been super lucky with mine. Mine has been running for over a year in my Bolt with no issues at all.


----------



## aphoid

I'm following up late here with questions that are almost certainly answered somewhere, but I just installed a STDR4000100 in a brand new Bolt this week.


How do I find out the firmware version of the drive?
I can't seem to find AV/DVR-rated drives that are 2.5" form factor and larger than about 1 TB. What is the largest recommended drive for a Bolt these days? Is it the above-mentioned Toshiba MQ03ABB300? What does the factory Bolt+ use?


----------



## aaronwt

aphoid said:


> I'm following up late here with questions that are almost certainly answered somewhere, but I just installed a STDR4000100 in a brand new Bolt this week.
> 
> 
> How do I find out the firmware version of the drive?
> I can't seem to find AV/DVR-rated drives that are 2.5" form factor and larger than about 1 TB. What is the largest recommended drive for a Bolt these days? Is it the above-mentioned Toshiba MQ03ABB300? What does the factory Bolt+ use?


The firmware version is listed on the sticker on the drive. If the Seagate isn't firmware 0001 then odds are you will have issues. My two 4TB drives are on that firmware and almost fourteen months later are still working great.

If i were to do it now though I wouldn't use the Seagate 4TB drive. At least not one that was above firmware 0001. Too many people have had major issues with the 4TB drives and the higher firmware versions.


----------



## aphoid

Took off the fan cover and it appears to be firmware 003. Le sigh. Might make a good backup drive for my computer, I guess. Is there any way to downgrade the firmware? 

What's the largest drive that doesn't have known issues? should I just go ahead and buy that Toshiba?


----------



## dianebrat

aphoid said:


> Took off the fan cover and it appears to be firmware 003. Le sigh. Might make a good backup drive for my computer, I guess. Is there any way to downgrade the firmware?
> 
> What's the largest drive that doesn't have known issues? should I just go ahead and buy that Toshiba?


There are no reports of issues with the 3TB Toshiba and it has the benefit of being able to be dropped into the Bolt with no prerequisites needed like a 4TB would.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

aphoid said:


> Took off the fan cover and it appears to be firmware 003. Le sigh. Might make a good backup drive for my computer, I guess. Is there any way to downgrade the firmware?
> 
> What's the largest drive that doesn't have known issues? should I just go ahead and buy that Toshiba?


I will say this. The ones that reported problems, including me, all had firmware 004. I've never seen a case of anyone reporting they have firmware 003. If it were me, would I stupidly just gamble and see if it works? Honestly, probably. I could've missed anyone saying they have 003 and also said they had the 4 flashing lights problem.

If you look around the Bolt forum, some have taken off both covers, removed the original SATA cable and cut a hole in the back of the Bolt, feeding an eSATA connection to it, then using WD Red drives, one user was using a 6 TB HDD and another I think mentioned he was going to try an 8 TB WD Red drive. I would touch basis with them before making an investment, though.


----------



## aaronwt

aphoid said:


> Took off the fan cover and it appears to be firmware 003. Le sigh. Might make a good backup drive for my computer, I guess. Is there any way to downgrade the firmware?
> 
> What's the largest drive that doesn't have known issues? should I just go ahead and buy that Toshiba?





JOSHSKORN said:


> I will say this. The ones that reported problems, including me, all had firmware 004. I've never seen a case of anyone reporting they have firmware 003. If it were me, would I stupidly just gamble and see if it works? Honestly, probably. I could've missed anyone saying they have 003 and also said they had the 4 flashing lights problem.
> 
> If you look around the Bolt forum, some have taken off both covers, removed the original SATA cable and cut a hole in the back of the Bolt, feeding an eSATA connection to it, then using WD Red drives, one user was using a 6 TB HDD and another I think mentioned he was going to try an 8 TB WD Red drive. I would touch basis with them before making an investment, though.


Sorry. i didn't realize it was firmware 0004 that was causing the issues.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

aaronwt said:


> Sorry. i didn't realize it was firmware 0004 that was causing the issues.


That's the thing, I don't know if it's 004 or anything but 001.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


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## aphoid

Overnight, my Bolt with the Seagate STDR4000100 4 TB drive (firmware 0003) started going into a reboot loop. Luckily I have the Toshiba drive sitting here ready to drop in.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

aphoid said:


> Overnight, my Bolt with the Seagate STDR4000100 4 TB drive (firmware 0003) started going into a reboot loop. Luckily I have the Toshiba drive sitting here ready to drop in.


What do you mean "reboot loop" ? Did your Bolt have the 4 Flashing Lights?


----------



## aphoid

The TiVo logo would appear, then it went to a black screen for a few minutes. Then the Tivo logo would appear, repeat.


----------



## JOSHSKORN

aphoid said:


> The TiVo logo would appear, then it went to a black screen for a few minutes. Then the Tivo logo would appear, repeat.


OK but did you get the 4 flashing lights on the Bolt?

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


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## aphoid

Never got four flashing lights, but it didn't successfully boot for several hours. Just TiVo boot logo and then blank, repeat...


----------



## mikes781

aphoid said:


> Overnight, my Bolt with the Seagate STDR4000100 4 TB drive (firmware 0003) started going into a reboot loop. Luckily I have the Toshiba drive sitting here ready to drop in.


Hmmm mine did also. Been getting the four flashing lights about once or twice a week for a few months, but have been procrastinating replacing it. It would always boot fine after unplugging it but as of this morning I just keep getting the four flashing lights. Time to start looking for a replacement drive.


----------



## aaronwt

Was it ever figured out what causes this issue with the 4TB drive and the later firmwares?


----------



## JOSHSKORN

aaronwt said:


> Was it ever figured out what causes this issue with the 4TB drive and the later firmwares?


Yes, later firmwares enable SMR abilities, I think. There's a link to an article somewhere in this thread. Right? I seem to remember you commenting on it.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


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## mikes781

My drive was FW 0002. I just popped the original drive in and it appears to be booting fine. Guess I'll order the Toshiba 3.0 TB MQ03ABB300.


----------



## aphoid

Aside: The Toshiba formatted with 3 TB (477 hrs) off the bat. Sadly, I lost all of my OnePasses and Wishlists.


----------



## atseng

Has anyone tried out the Seagate's new Barracuda ST5000LM000 5TB 2.5" 15mm drive yet?


----------



## ggieseke

atseng said:


> Has anyone tried out the Seagate's new Barracuda ST5000LM000 5TB 2.5" 15mm drive yet?


AnandTech has a detailed technical writeup on that drive.

Seagate Introduces BarraCuda 2.5" HDDs with Up to 5 TB Capacity

It would probably make a horrible TiVo drive. Their MTC technology and the flash memory cache sound good in theory for a general-purpose drive, but it wouldn't do a thing for a TiVo that never stops writing at least 4 simultaneous video streams. SMR drives can't handle that kind of load for very long no matter how tricky you get.


----------



## atseng

ggieseke said:


> AnandTech has a detailed technical writeup on that drive.


Thanks ggieseke. I did read about that article as well. I was hoping a more dedicated review will be available from storagereview or tomshardware on the actual drive but have not been able to find it.

A quick search found that Netflix recommends the following:

5.0 Megabits per second - Recommended for HD quality
25 Megabits per second - Recommended for Ultra HD quality
HD they define as 720p or better, and Ultra HD is 4k. So 5x1024/8 = 640KB/second. 640KBx4=2560KB or 2.6MB/second. That should be well within the specifications of SMR drives.

Even if you take the UltraHD suggested connection speed, 25x1024/8 = ~3.2MB/second. 4 simultaneous channels results in ~13MB/second, which is still well within the specifications of any HDD manufactured within the past 20+ years (assuming sequential write speed and not random write speed).

The main reason I asked the question initially was that most people who have used Seagate's 4TB 2.5" drive and have had issues seemed to be using this model, ST4000LM016, Laptop HDD 4TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive, which according to the website, has a transfer rate of "up to 130MB/s". This is slightly below the Barracuda models' 4TB (ST4000LM024) and 5TB (ST5000LM000) which are both rated at "up to 140MB/s".

I am wondering if the firmware is tweaked in the Barracuda version to make it sufficient for Tivo Bolt's use.


----------



## atmuscarella

atseng said:


> ...
> I am wondering if the firmware is tweaked in the Barracuda version to make it sufficient for Tivo Bolt's use.


The issue, as you may have discerned, is that the drive uses SMR tech, which has been identified as having long term reliability issues when the drives are used in a DVR.

Read and write speed has nothing to do with it.

Unless seagate specifically specs this drive for DVRs I would assume long term reliability will be a problem.


----------



## atseng

atmuscarella said:


> Unless seagate specifically specs this drive for DVRs I would assume long term reliability will be a problem.


Thanks for the clarification. I hope they get these issues ironed out. Hopefully they will release one soon so we don't have to get price gouged by Toshiba 

Here's a link to the SMR vs PMR for those that are interested in understanding the technology more.

What is Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR)? | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews​


----------



## aaronwt

ggieseke said:


> AnandTech has a detailed technical writeup on that drive.
> 
> Seagate Introduces BarraCuda 2.5" HDDs with Up to 5 TB Capacity
> 
> It would probably make a horrible TiVo drive. Their MTC technology and the flash memory cache sound good in theory for a general-purpose drive, but it wouldn't do a thing for a TiVo that never stops writing at least 4 simultaneous video streams. SMR drives can't handle that kind of load for very long no matter how tricky you get.


maybe it would be fine If they could put firmware 0001 like my 4TB seagate drives have? After 14+ months of use, my two 4TB Seagate drives are still working great in my two Bolts. With one Bolt recording from multiple channels concurrently for around twenty hours every day.


----------



## aaronwt

atseng said:


> Thanks ggieseke. I did read about that article as well. I was hoping a more dedicated review will be available from storagereview or tomshardware on the actual drive but have not been able to find it.
> 
> A quick search found that Netflix recommends the following:
> 
> 5.0 Megabits per second - Recommended for HD quality
> 25 Megabits per second - Recommended for Ultra HD quality
> HD they define as 720p or better, and Ultra HD is 4k. So 5x1024/8 = 640KB/second. 640KBx4=2560KB or 2.6MB/second. That should be well within the specifications of SMR drives.
> 
> Even if you take the UltraHD suggested connection speed, 25x1024/8 = ~3.2MB/second. 4 simultaneous channels results in ~13MB/second, which is still well within the specifications of any HDD manufactured within the past 20+ years (assuming sequential write speed and not random write speed).
> 
> The main reason I asked the question initially was that most people who have used Seagate's 4TB 2.5" drive and have had issues seemed to be using this model, ST4000LM016, Laptop HDD 4TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive, which according to the website, has a transfer rate of "up to 130MB/s". This is slightly below the Barracuda models' 4TB (ST4000LM024) and 5TB (ST5000LM000) which are both rated at "up to 140MB/s".
> 
> I am wondering if the firmware is tweaked in the Barracuda version to make it sufficient for Tivo Bolt's use.


My two 4TB drives had no problem reading/writing thirteen concurrent higher bitrate HD streams when I tested with my Bolts.


----------



## kielsky

I've been experiencing a different set of issues with the Bolt upgraded to 4TB with the Seagate drive (the portable drive version removed from the external drive confines).

It will regularly "lock up" at certain 'key' events:

- selecting a recorded program to play (often)
- pushing Zoom to go to the program being presented in the small window (rare)
- pushing Live TV (rare)

The 'lock up' symptom is that it will instantly display a blank screen, and not display the program. If left alone, it will remain that way (have left it for 24 hours). It is not dead, or shut down, only the function to display programming is frozen, and it continues to record programs as scheduled. No combination of button pushing will get back to any menu or other display. It was possible to use my other Tivo to view the list of recorded (or recording) shows.

After a lot of trial and error and based on something I read at some forum, I figured out that disconnecting the USB cable to the Tuning Adapter would prompt the Bolt to display a menu, after which I could access the menus again.

Trying to play the same or another program would usually 'lock up' again.

Another symptom of this condition was that the list of recorded shows was not 'current'. Some of the most recently recorded shows were not listed.

A third symptom of this condition was that deleting a show would not remove it from the list of shows.

After more trial and error, I figured out that forcing a TiVo Service Connection (an update from the mother ship) would cause the list of recorded shows to refresh, and would almost always avoid the 'lock up' upon trying to play a show.

So, it seems like the list of recorded shows gets out of sync, and in that condition, the attempt to play a show causes the 'lock up'.

Forcing a call home frequently (like every time right before playing a show) avoided the condition.

On rare occasions, it will randomly reboot.

It does 'feel' like forcing a restart (Settings -> Help -> Restart Box) about once a week reduces the random reboots (and reduces the frequency of the needed forced calls home).

Anyone else experience anything like this?

Any thoughts?

Just speculating, but it feels like this might be an issue with the swap partition.

Otherwise, the drive is functioning fine, it regularly records 4 shows at the same time, and it generally at or close to 100% full. It reports 639 HD or 4401 SD hour capacity.

Looking for some ideas on how to fix this issue.


----------



## jmbach

When did this problem start happening? It seems that I have read somewhere on the forums that the TiVo gets flaky when it is close to 100% full. Not sure if it is your same issue though. Might consider off loading a lot of your recordings to another TiVo or PC to get it around 50% full and see if you still have the issue. BTW, after you decrease the drive to 50%, I would reboot the TiVo. Rebooting many times runs a garbage collection routine that cleans up the MFS. Would avoid using any KS commands at this time.


----------



## kielsky

jmbach said:


> When did this problem start happening? It seems that I have read somewhere on the forums that the TiVo gets flaky when it is close to 100% full. Not sure if it is your same issue though. Might consider off loading a lot of your recordings to another TiVo or PC to get it around 50% full and see if you still have the issue. BTW, after you decrease the drive to 50%, I would reboot the TiVo. Rebooting many times runs a garbage collection routine that cleans up the MFS. Would avoid using any KS commands at this time.


It's happened almost since the 4TB upgrade, though the frequency increased seemingly in proportion to the reduction in free disk space.

Not sure what "KS commands" are.


----------



## jmbach

KS are Kickstart commands that are entered at boot time that run certain routines.


----------



## JoeKustra

kielsky said:


> Not sure what "KS commands" are.


TiVo Kickstart Codes and Information

That should help.


----------



## aaronwt

jmbach said:


> When did this problem start happening? It seems that I have read somewhere on the forums that the TiVo gets flaky when it is close to 100% full. Not sure if it is your same issue though. Might consider off loading a lot of your recordings to another TiVo or PC to get it around 50% full and see if you still have the issue. BTW, after you decrease the drive to 50%, I would reboot the TiVo. Rebooting many times runs a garbage collection routine that cleans up the MFS. Would avoid using any KS commands at this time.


There shouldn't be any issues around 100% full. My TiVos behave the same way whether near 100% or 50%. One of the first things I do when I install any new hard drive into a TiVo, is fill the drive up so it can reach 100% or as close as I can get to it. Since with scheduled recordings it can make it hard to reach 100% if there are a lot of them scheduled.

Most recently one of my Bolts was around 97%. But I had a bunch of NFL games and all day RedZone recordings taking up a lot of space. The Bolt worked just fine at that percentage but since I rarely use KUID, I deleted those NFL recordings to make sure some of the content I have from earlier in the year didn't get deleted.


----------



## bcurran3

I had soooooooooooooooooooo many problems with my Seagate 4TB ST4000LM016's with reboots and blinking lights for 8 months, I FINALLY ripped them out and put in Toshiba 3TB MQ03ABB300's about two weeks ago. No more missed recordings. No problems yet. (Fingers crossed!)

FYI: as of 12/10/2016 they were $147.99 on Amazon via Other World Computing.


----------



## slicer

Well, based on everything I read in these threads, in May I bought a Bolt and a Toshiba MQ03ABB300. Was working fine up until a week or two ago when I would start getting the 4 flashing lights.

The few times it happened I would reboot and the Bolt would come back online, but since yesterday, it won't boot at all and keeps flashing 4 lights.

I've since replaced the stock 500gb drive which is working. 

Any fix to get my 3TB back up and running reliably? I don't care about losing my recordings.


----------



## kielsky

I thought I would give an update -- and it remains a puzzle.

After getting very frustrated with the regular issues with my 4 TB TiVo Bolt "locking up", I wanted to see if I could eliminate a few possible causes. Long story short, I obtained a Western Digital Purple 4 TB 3.5 drive (Surveillance), which by all accounts should be more than adequate to handle 4 recording streams.

I pulled my 4 TB 2.5 drive (the Seagate pulled from the portable drive package, Rev. 3 I think), imaged it to the WD drive, ran a SATA cable to an external enclosure with its own power supply holding the WD drive, and started it all up, all my shows and everything was there as if I had not swapped drives.

As far as I can tell, I still see the same symptoms with about the same frequency. My internal 4 TB 2.5 Seagate appears not to have been the reason for my issues. I'm leaving it with the external drive, because the Bolt is running a lot cooler, and it seems the Purple drive is better suited to this use.

So, I think I have eliminated SMR as the primary culprit (unless someone will claim the WD purple uses SMR), and I believe I have eliminated over heating, fan issues, and similar hardware problems as a primary culprit (the Bolt runs very cool now).

Again the symptoms:

It will regularly "lock up" at certain 'key' events:

- selecting a recorded program to play (often)
- pushing Zoom to go to the program being presented in the small window (rare)
- pushing Live TV (rare)

The 'lock up' symptom is that it will instantly display a blank screen, and not display the program. If left alone, it will remain that way (have left it for 24 hours). It is not dead, or shut down, only the function to display programming is frozen, and it continues to record programs as scheduled. No combination of button pushing will get back to any menu or other display. KMTTG will refresh the recorded program list, the todo list, pretty much everything, although it sometimes will time out.

Using KMTTG, there are a few 'tricks' to regain control -- sometimes starting an app (Netflix) works, sometimes selecting another program to play, sometimes requesting a reboot works (and the reboot sequence can sometimes be interrupted, after the screen is no longer gray, but before it reboots, and, almost always, initiating a network connection will get back control AFTER it has completed the whole network connection cycle.

The only work-around that works consistently is to make sure a network connection cycle has just completed, before having another program play. So, I have to plan about 5 minutes ahead, and either via KMTTG or the remote (assuming the Bolt is not locked up), start a network connection, then make sure it is done before a play another show.

This also means that, when I'm planning to watch more than one, I will repeatedly initiate a new network connection, over, and over, and over.

In summary, leaving the TiVo Bolt be for anything more than 30 minutes or so, seems to allow for the list of recorded programs to get out of sync with what is actually on the hard drive, and trying to play that causes it to display nothing -- until it is forced to sync the list of shows with what it actually has recorded.

Still thinking that it feels like this might be an issue with the swap partition, or maybe RAM, but I'm out of ideas on how to narrow it down more.

Final thoughts:

- KMTTG is awesome -- it has reduced my frustration, even though the problem remains
- it would be nice if KMTTG could show a progress bar for the network connection
- is there a way to increase the RAM on the Bolt?

Looking for any other clever ideas.



kielsky said:


> It's happened almost since the 4TB upgrade, though the frequency increased seemingly in proportion to the reduction in free disk space.





kielsky said:


> I've been experiencing a different set of issues with the Bolt upgraded to 4TB with the Seagate drive (the portable drive version removed from the external drive confines).
> 
> It will regularly "lock up" at certain 'key' events:
> 
> - selecting a recorded program to play (often)
> - pushing Zoom to go to the program being presented in the small window (rare)
> - pushing Live TV (rare)
> 
> The 'lock up' symptom is that it will instantly display a blank screen, and not display the program. If left alone, it will remain that way (have left it for 24 hours). It is not dead, or shut down, only the function to display programming is frozen, and it continues to record programs as scheduled. No combination of button pushing will get back to any menu or other display. It was possible to use my other Tivo to view the list of recorded (or recording) shows.
> 
> After a lot of trial and error and based on something I read at some forum, I figured out that disconnecting the USB cable to the Tuning Adapter would prompt the Bolt to display a menu, after which I could access the menus again.
> 
> Trying to play the same or another program would usually 'lock up' again.
> 
> Another symptom of this condition was that the list of recorded shows was not 'current'. Some of the most recently recorded shows were not listed.
> 
> A third symptom of this condition was that deleting a show would not remove it from the list of shows.
> 
> After more trial and error, I figured out that forcing a TiVo Service Connection (an update from the mother ship) would cause the list of recorded shows to refresh, and would almost always avoid the 'lock up' upon trying to play a show.
> 
> So, it seems like the list of recorded shows gets out of sync, and in that condition, the attempt to play a show causes the 'lock up'.
> 
> Forcing a call home frequently (like every time right before playing a show) avoided the condition.
> 
> On rare occasions, it will randomly reboot.
> 
> It does 'feel' like forcing a restart (Settings -> Help -> Restart Box) about once a week reduces the random reboots (and reduces the frequency of the needed forced calls home).
> 
> Anyone else experience anything like this?
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Just speculating, but it feels like this might be an issue with the swap partition.
> 
> Otherwise, the drive is functioning fine, it regularly records 4 shows at the same time, and it generally at or close to 100% full. It reports 639 HD or 4401 SD hour capacity.
> 
> Looking for some ideas on how to fix this issue.


----------



## jmbach

kielsky said:


> I thought I would give an update -- and it remains a puzzle.
> 
> After getting very frustrated with the regular issues with my 4 TB TiVo Bolt "locking up", I wanted to see if I could eliminate a few possible causes. Long story short, I obtained a Western Digital Purple 4 TB 3.5 drive (Surveillance), which by all accounts should be more than adequate to handle 4 recording streams.
> 
> I pulled my 4 TB 2.5 drive (the Seagate pulled from the portable drive package, Rev. 3 I think), imaged it to the WD drive, ran a SATA cable to an external enclosure with its own power supply holding the WD drive, and started it all up, all my shows and everything was there as if I had not swapped drives.
> 
> As far as I can tell, I still see the same symptoms with about the same frequency. My internal 4 TB 2.5 Seagate appears not to have been the reason for my issues. I'm leaving it with the external drive, because the Bolt is running a lot cooler, and it seems the Purple drive is better suited to this use.
> 
> So, I think I have eliminated SMR as the primary culprit (unless someone will claim the WD purple uses SMR), and I believe I have eliminated over heating, fan issues, and similar hardware problems as a primary culprit (the Bolt runs very cool now).
> 
> Again the symptoms:
> 
> It will regularly "lock up" at certain 'key' events:
> 
> - selecting a recorded program to play (often)
> - pushing Zoom to go to the program being presented in the small window (rare)
> - pushing Live TV (rare)
> 
> The 'lock up' symptom is that it will instantly display a blank screen, and not display the program. If left alone, it will remain that way (have left it for 24 hours). It is not dead, or shut down, only the function to display programming is frozen, and it continues to record programs as scheduled. No combination of button pushing will get back to any menu or other display. KMTTG will refresh the recorded program list, the todo list, pretty much everything, although it sometimes will time out.
> 
> Using KMTTG, there are a few 'tricks' to regain control -- sometimes starting an app (Netflix) works, sometimes selecting another program to play, sometimes requesting a reboot works (and the reboot sequence can sometimes be interrupted, after the screen is no longer gray, but before it reboots, and, almost always, initiating a network connection will get back control AFTER it has completed the whole network connection cycle.
> 
> The only work-around that works consistently is to make sure a network connection cycle has just completed, before having another program play. So, I have to plan about 5 minutes ahead, and either via KMTTG or the remote (assuming the Bolt is not locked up), start a network connection, then make sure it is done before a play another show.
> 
> This also means that, when I'm planning to watch more than one, I will repeatedly initiate a new network connection, over, and over, and over.
> 
> In summary, leaving the TiVo Bolt be for anything more than 30 minutes or so, seems to allow for the list of recorded programs to get out of sync with what is actually on the hard drive, and trying to play that causes it to display nothing -- until it is forced to sync the list of shows with what it actually has recorded.
> 
> Still thinking that it feels like this might be an issue with the swap partition, or maybe RAM, but I'm out of ideas on how to narrow it down more.
> 
> Final thoughts:
> 
> - KMTTG is awesome -- it has reduced my frustration, even though the problem remains
> - it would be nice if KMTTG could show a progress bar for the network connection
> - is there a way to increase the RAM on the Bolt?
> 
> Looking for any other clever ideas.


I think for your issue, the drive is not the problem based on your testing. Chances are there is a glitch in the software image someplace and you copied it over when you copied the drive. When your unit updates to the latest OS, your problem may be fixed. Alternatively, there could be a glitch in the flash drive image on the TiVo. One way of testing it out would be to let the TiVo auto format a drive and still see if the condition still exists. However, if you do that, it appears that the Bolts will permanently erase the recordings on your original drive when you place it back in the TiVo. If there is a glitch on the flash drive image, it may be fixed with an OS update as well.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


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## kielsky

Sadly, the recent OS update from 20.7.1 to 20.7.2 (just the other night) did not resolve the issue.

I'm in agreement that the drive is not the problem, and I was reasonably certain that it was not (based on the symptoms), but I wanted to eliminate that variable, as much as possible.

It comes back to this. Why would having a very recent network connection avoid the lock-up? It seems that, once the network connection process is complete, the Bolt has a 'fresh' cached list of shows, in RAM, in Swap, not sure where, but after 15 to 30 minutes, it's not fresh any more, and trying to play another program causes it to enter some kind of twilight state, like it just can't quite find the right 'track', but it doesn't error out.

It relates to the 4 TB of shows (about 600 programs), and it certainly seemed to start about the time I passed about 50% full, but based on reports, there should not be some inherent limitation to the number of programs or the disk space they require.

BTW, early on, I tried to get help from Tivo support, but they were largely clueless.

Their advice included that I needed to open up all ports on my firewall, since the Tivo gets live information over the internet, and they were not going to tell me which ports needed to be open. [email protected]#$!

Later, once they saw that I had 4 TB, they just claimed the Bolt does not support that, and wouldn't be able to help further.



jmbach said:


> I think for your issue, the drive is not the problem based on your testing. Chances are there is a glitch in the software image someplace and you copied it over when you copied the drive. When your unit updates to the latest OS, your problem may be fixed. Alternatively, there could be a glitch in the flash drive image on the TiVo. One way of testing it out would be to let the TiVo auto format a drive and still see if the condition still exists. However, if you do that, it appears that the Bolts will permanently erase the recordings on your original drive when you place it back in the TiVo. If there is a glitch on the flash drive image, it may be fixed with an OS update as well.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


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## indiekiduk

Just catching up on the posts referring to Anandtech suggesting SMR was added to the STDR4000100 (
ST4000LM016 inside) in a firmware update, I find that hard to believe given the drive was manufactured by Samsung, whereas SMR was a Seagate technology and they had never applied it to a portable drive then, and the drive has 5x800GB platters which believe it or not totals the 4TB. It's more likely that Anandtech somehow tested a model that had a different drive from ST4000LM016 inside, possible an early 2017 prototype of the ST4000LM024 which did actually come out right at the time they posted their update. It's possible Seagate do use SMR in their new 2017 portable drives inc. the 5TB STDR5000102 (ST5000LM000 inside) however that has not been confirmed (2015 flat case and 2016 chequered case models should be ok). Maybe they could make a 4TB for cheaper with less platters? Seagate acquired Samsung's portable drive factory however we don't know how much is still Samsung tech in the new drives.

Also I recently learned that it isn't a case of PMR or SMR. PMR is always the recording technique, SMR is just an extra technique on top of it, which as we have found Seagate are not very good at revealing in their product data sheets.

Watch out for new WD drives, apparently they are using shingled now too.


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## kielsky

indiekiduk said:


> Just catching up on the posts referring to Anandtech suggesting SMR was added to the STDR4000100 (
> ST4000LM016 inside) in a firmware update, I find that hard to believe given the drive was manufactured by Samsung, whereas SMR was a Seagate technology and they had never applied it to a portable drive then, and the drive has 5x800GB platters which believe it or not totals the 4TB. It's more likely that Anandtech somehow tested a model that had a different drive from ST4000LM016 inside, possible an early 2017 prototype. It's possible Seagate do use SMR in their new 2017 portable drives inc. the 5TB STDR5000102 however that has not been confirmed (2015 flat case and 2016 chequered case models should be ok). Maybe they could make a 4TB for cheaper with less platters? Seagate acquired Samsung's portable drive factory however we don't know how much is still Samsung tech in the new drives.
> 
> Also I recently learned that it isn't a case of PMR or SMR. PMR is always the recording technique, SMR is just an extra technique on top of it, which as we have found Seagate are not very good at revealing in their product data sheets.
> 
> Watch out for new WD drives, apparently they are using shingled now too.


This, in part was my point, when I described the symptoms (problems) I continue to have with my Bolt at 4TB -- even after swapping out the 2.5 4TB Seagate for a 3.5 4TB WD Surveillance grade -- experience suggests that PMR vs. SMR is not in play with my issues.


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## Kremlar

I think I was Bolt 4TB upgrader #1. 3.5 years later my drive was causing issues, so I'm replacing with a Toshiba 3TB drive.


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## Sparky1234

Kremlar said:


> I think I was Bolt 4TB upgrader #1. 3.5 years later my drive was causing issues, so I'm replacing with a Toshiba 3TB drive.


Good follow up.


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## aaronwt

One of my 4TB drives is still fine, after 42.5 months running in Bolts. If it does crap out, I will put a stock 500GB drive back in there. Since I only use my TiVo for 2% of my TV watching now. 

But it is still recording 25 to 30 hours of content daily. It's just a backup to my streaming shows now. I am only watching news with the 4TB Bolt. And regular TV shows as a last resort since the video quality from FiOS is so bad now.


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## fis

aaronwt said:


> One of my 4TB drives is still fine, after 42.5 months running in Bolts. If it does crap out, I will put a stock 500GB drive back in there. Since I only use my TiVo for 2% of my TV watching now.
> 
> But it is still recording 25 to 30 hours of content daily. It's just a backup to my streaming shows now. I am only watching news with the 4TB Bolt. And regular TV shows as a last resort since the video quality from FiOS is so bad now.


This is sort of sad, but I get it. It the TiVO apps were better, I'd use them MUCH more.


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## steve_scifi

ggieseke said:


> If you go 3.5" TiVo uses the WD AV drives most of the time. For a 3TB drive that would be the WD30EURX. The WD40EUEX 4TB is the largest one in that line.
> 
> A lot of people (myself included) use the WD Red drives for larger capacities. That's the WDxxEFRX line for drives up to 6TB. The 8TB version is the WD80EFZX.


I know this is an old thread but I did the replace in my roamio with the WD30EURX so the roamio would automatically configure for me. Just watched my TV shows down and made note of my season passes. Was not brave enough to go bigger and use the "tools" out there, but maybe some day soon. I have been very happy so far. Not having to constantly cleanup and delete shows that I would rather keep for a while.

I do note the WD30EURX is 7200rpm while some of the larger drives I see mentioned are 5400. Seems like speed would be a factor in recording video especially multiple streams at once. Opinions?

I saw another thread talking about 10TB, is this possible using the tools I see mentioned?

Really enjoying the amount of info on this board, thx.


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## ggieseke

steve_scifi said:


> I know this is an old thread but I did the replace in my roamio with the WD30EURX so the roamio would automatically configure for me. Just watched my TV shows down and made note of my season passes. Was not brave enough to go bigger and use the "tools" out there, but maybe some day soon. I have been very happy so far. Not having to constantly cleanup and delete shows that I would rather keep for a while.
> 
> I do note the WD30EURX is 7200rpm while some of the larger drives I see mentioned are 5400. Seems like speed would be a factor in recording video especially multiple streams at once. Opinions?
> 
> I saw another thread talking about 10TB, is this possible using the tools I see mentioned?
> 
> Really enjoying the amount of info on this board, thx.


WD's EURS/EURX lines (no longer made) didn't actually have an official RPM rating because they were "IntelliPower" drives with a variable rotational speed. That typically boiled down to somewhere in the 5400-5900 RPM range because the TiVos they came in were deliberately limited to SATA I speeds during the boot process. The 5400RPM Red line is usually the favorite around here these days because 7200RPM drives just create more heat and vibration without adding any benefits.

I think the latest developer's version of MFSTools 3.3 will let you push a Bolt to 10TB, but I'd check with jmbach before buying. I know it works on Roamios but I'm not sure about Bolts. 8TB is still the limit for either model with MFS Reformatter, and that's more than big enough for me.


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## JoeKustra

steve_scifi said:


> I do note the WD30EURX is 7200rpm while some of the larger drives I see mentioned are 5400. Seems like speed would be a factor in recording video especially multiple streams at once. Opinions?


First opinion is that this is a Bolt forum, not a Roamio forum. Next opinion is the WD30EURX is a 5400rpm drive. I use two of them. For more help you could try the upgrade forum: TiVo Upgrade Center but if you need more than 3TB of working storage there are several options.

P.S. I don't subscribe to the "7200 rpm" is evil club. Check the specs, not the posts. In a TiVo, my drives are never "idle" since I never use Standby mode.


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## aaronwt

steve_scifi said:


> I know this is an old thread but I did the replace in my roamio with the WD30EURX so the roamio would automatically configure for me. Just watched my TV shows down and made note of my season passes. Was not brave enough to go bigger and use the "tools" out there, but maybe some day soon. I have been very happy so far. Not having to constantly cleanup and delete shows that I would rather keep for a while.
> 
> I do note the WD30EURX is 7200rpm while some of the larger drives I see mentioned are 5400. Seems like speed would be a factor in recording video especially multiple streams at once. Opinions?
> 
> I saw another thread talking about 10TB, is this possible using the tools I see mentioned?
> 
> Really enjoying the amount of info on this board, thx.


Not a factor at all. A 5400 rpm drive has zero issues reading/writing twelve HD streams with a TiVo. A 7200 rpm drive won't make any difference. Except creating more heat.
And a 5400 rpm Drive can easily have 1.4Gbps (1440 Mb/s) throughput. At least the 5400 rpm drives I use at home have that much throughput.


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## Miamiboyca

So intrestingly enough I just dropped this 4TB 3.5 drive into my Bolt+ and to my surprise it powered on just fine and has been working perfectly for the last 3 days.

It does not look pretty as obviously as the drive does not fit inside, and is sitting off to the side. I will be getting an external power unit just in case, but if you don't care about aesthetics because it is in a cabinet - there you go.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EHBERSE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s04?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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## fis

Miamiboyca said:


> So intrestingly enough I just dropped this 4TB 3.5 drive into my Bolt+ and to my surprise it powered on just fine and has been working perfectly for the last 3 days.
> 
> It does not look pretty as obviously as the drive does not fit inside, and is sitting off to the side. I will be getting an external power unit just in case, but if you don't care about aesthetics because it is in a cabinet - there you go.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EHBERSE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s04?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Very consistent with my experience


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## leiff

I flirted with this idea of larger internal drive, but with larger Library navigating the NPL on tivo becomes burdensome. I prefer off loading my shows if you don't need immediate access. kmttg linked to my video redo software works great for storing on my 10tb WD drive I got on sale from Best Buy. Also automatically cuts out commercials with your shows with skip Mark labels.


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## krkaufman

leiff said:


> but with larger Library navigating the NPL on tivo becomes burdensome


Bah, go big. Just Channel Up/Down and Advance (30-sec-skip) your way up and down the listing.


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## Mikeguy

leiff said:


> I flirted with this idea of larger internal drive, but with larger Library navigating the NPL on tivo becomes burdensome. I prefer off loading my shows if you don't need immediate access. kmttg linked to my video redo software works great for storing on my 10tb WD drive I got on sale from Best Buy. Also automatically cuts out commercials with your shows with skip Mark labels.


I find my using the left-hand categories more, to make navigation easier.

This is when user-created folders would come in handy.


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## leiff

Other advantage of having small internal storage is uses less power since I don't keep my 10 TB easystore hard drive spinning all the time. Also I like to use sleep on my bolts but I worry sleep put some more strain on larger sized hard drive.
But yeah I agree if TiVo allowed folders that would prompt me to want to upgrade internal drive


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## shwru980r

Miamiboyca said:


> So intrestingly enough I just dropped this 4TB 3.5 drive into my Bolt+ and to my surprise it powered on just fine and has been working perfectly for the last 3 days.
> 
> It does not look pretty as obviously as the drive does not fit inside, and is sitting off to the side. I will be getting an external power unit just in case, but if you don't care about aesthetics because it is in a cabinet - there you go.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EHBERSE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s04?ie=UTF8&psc=1


I thought you had to use the MFS Reformater utility to utilize the full capacity of a drive larger than 3TB. I think if you just "dropped the drive in", then you are only using 75% of the capacity of the drive.


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## krkaufman

shwru980r said:


> I thought you had to use the MFS Reformater utility to utilize the full capacity of a drive larger than 3TB. I think if you just "dropped the drive in", then you are only using 75% of the capacity of the drive.


Concur. So the System Information screen should report something like "450 HD / 3000 SD hours recording capacity" if it's only seeing 3TB of the 4TB drive.


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## shwru980r

krkaufman said:


> Concur. So the System Information screen should report something like "450 HD / 3000 SD hours recording capacity" if it's only seeing 3TB of the 4TB drive.


I have a white bolt with a 3TB drive and the system information screen shows 478 HD and 3289 SD hours of recording capacity.


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## jmbach

The Bolts/Roamios will do the initial formatting of the drive correctly but the MFS overlay is not done correctly so you get something that is not sized right. It has to do with a 32 bit truncation of a 64 bit number. 

I cannot remember off hand what the size of a 4 TB will auto format to but I believe it is something a little over 2 TB. Larger drives may format higher or lower than that depending on the truncated result.


----------



## krkaufman

jmbach said:


> I cannot remember off hand what the size of a 4 TB will auto format to but I believe it is something a little over 2 TB. Larger drives may format higher or lower than that depending on the truncated result.


Ouch.

So can the OP's drive be pulled and manipulated using MFS Tools to regain the full capacity ... without losing the current content & settings ... or would you recommend starting from scratch?


----------



## jmbach

What he would need to do is use MFSTools to copy the drive to another drive. You could not do an in drive expansion because there is no space to add partitions. The auto format used the whole drive. It is the MFS overlay that is messed up. When you use MFSTools to copy the drive to another, it will format the new drive to use all the space and then place a MFS overlay that will use all the space. 

He could use any 4 TB drive to do the initial copy with MFSTools and then use a cloning dock or dd to copy that image back to his original 4 TB drive.


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## krkaufman

jmbach said:


> What he would need to do is use MFSTools to copy the drive to another drive. You could not do an in drive expansion because there is no space to add partitions. The auto format used the whole drive. It is the MFS overlay that is messed up. When you use MFSTools to copy the drive to another, it will format the new drive to use all the space and then place a MFS overlay that will use all the space.
> 
> He could use any 4 TB drive to do the initial copy with MFSTools and then use a cloning dock or dd to copy that image back to his original 4 TB drive.


Thanks for the feedback!

If he only has a single 4TB drive and he just dropped it in (so not much to lose), seems like he should probably just start from scratch.


----------

