# SATA -> PATA converter (or adapter, if you will)



## bsnelson (Oct 30, 1999)

OK, I did a pretty thorough search, and I haven't seen any recent talk on this topic: Has anyone done a successful TiVo upgrade using a SATA drive and one of these? Looks like it would be just the ticket. Our local Fry's has a SATA Maxtor 500GB drive for $209, but the PATA is $299 for the same capacity. If I thought I had a good chance at success, I might pull the trigger, but I'm hoping I would be a follower, not a leader! 

Anyone?

Brad


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

You can be the first... or look for a sale somewhere else. Compusa has a 500G Maxtor PATA-133 for $230 this week.


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## TydalForce (Feb 9, 2006)

If I had to guess, I'd say it'll work. But don't quote me on that in case I'm wrong 

Have yourself a good backup plan:
- What's the store's Return Policy?
- Are you willing to Trade Up to the PATA?
- Do you have a computer you could use it in if the TiVo doesn't like it?

Let us know (c: hehe


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## mick66 (Oct 15, 2004)

Weaknees is now offering a 849 hour upgraded DT Tivo (TCD649080) that uses a single 750GB HD that looks to be a SATA drive - so I'm guessing that something like what the OP is looking at may work.

http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/dual-tuner-tivo-850-hours.php

http://www.seagate.com/newsinfo/newsroom/papers/D2c24.html


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## MurrayW (Aug 28, 2005)

I am in for one. I have an extra 200G SATA drive that's just sitting around on a shelf, so I will give it a try and report back.
Murray


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## JohnTivo (Dec 2, 2002)

Not that I know, but I would suspect that weaknees is using the PATA version of the Seagate 750GB drive.


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## Tviodit (Aug 8, 2005)

I see no reason why it would not work, the specs say:

100% hardware bridge converter to support PC, MAC and Linux environment

So it does not need any special software drivers to operate.


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## mick66 (Oct 15, 2004)

MurrayW said:


> I am in for one. I have an extra 200G SATA drive that's just sitting around on a shelf, so I will give it a try and report back.
> Murray


I'm sure you're right. I had just done a quick search and didn't see anything that mentioned PATA


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

I'm anxious to put a 1TB drive in my Series 2 and since they are all SATA I'd like to know if this worked.


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## stamasd (Jun 26, 2002)

Any updates on this? I'd like to use a SATA drive in my series1 TiVo using this:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=RXD639-IDE-SATA-ADP&cat=HDD
The reason being that lately large SATA drives are easier to find (and cheaper per GB) than IDE drives.


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

I found someone at mfslive.org who claims it will work. He used this adapter, but I think any adapter would do since the TiVo shouldn't notice a difference.

Once I clear my Series 2 DT TiVo I'll try to connect a 1TB WD drive and see if it works. I'll probably go with the one he recommended. Even though it costs a little more it has been verified to work.


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## Firewalker239 (Feb 13, 2008)

> I found someone at mfslive.org who claims it will work. He used this adapter, but I think any adapter would do since the TiVo shouldn't notice a difference.
> 
> Once I clear my Series 2 DT TiVo I'll try to connect a 1TB WD drive and see if it works. I'll probably go with the one he recommended. Even though it costs a little more it has been verified to work.


I have been wanting to add a 1tb drive to my series 2 DT (TCD649080) as well, and have been wondering if this would work. If you could let us know if this works for you it would be much appreciated!


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## SNJpage1 (May 25, 2006)

I have used one of those adapters to connect a ide drive to the sata ports on my computer. However I have found that you can only use one of them. A second hard drive connected using the adapter did not show up.


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## Worf (Sep 15, 2000)

PATA to SATA adapters aren't actually doing anything special - the only real difference between them is physical layer signalling. The reason these exist is a few years ago, a SATA drive was a PATA drive with a SATA->PATA bridge on it. And SATA ports on motherboards were often regular PATA boards with PATA->SATA bridges on them.

The only thing is, SATA supports one drive only - the master/slave of PATA doesn't exist.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

The adapters should work fine. I use the Rosewill SATA to IDE adapter sold by Newegg for upgrading my SATA Tivo drives using MFSTools and it works great. There's no reason to believe it won't work for adapting an SATA drive for use in an older Tivo.


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## Firewalker239 (Feb 13, 2008)

In case anyone was following this thread I have tried using one of these adapters in my Tivo Series 2 DT and it did work. I did notice that sometimes it would just hang on the powering up screen when starting up, however after a few tries it seems to boot up fine, and once booted there seems to be no problem at all. Seeing as I never restart my Tivo anyway I really don't have a problem with that.

The adapter I used was:
http://www.censuspc.com/product.php?productid=3326&cat=0&page=1


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Worf said:


> The only thing is, SATA supports one drive only - the master/slave of PATA doesn't exist.


Actually... You can connect upto 15 drives to a single SATA port assuming the controller compliant to the standard. In fact the Tivo HD is using a port multiplier aware *single port* SATA chipset with a port multiplier attached.


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

Just wanted to let everyone know you can get an adapter guaranteed to work at Weaknees for $17.


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## MtBiker (Nov 14, 2004)

Does anyone know if the higher transfer rate of a SATA drive will be realized when using a converter for an upgrade where the original hard drive was a PATA drive?


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## halfempty (Oct 17, 2008)

MtBiker said:


> Does anyone know if the higher transfer rate of a SATA drive will be realized when using a converter for an upgrade where the original hard drive was a PATA drive?


Don't think it would speed anything up. IIRC from the boot logs the series 2 Tivos configure the IDE host for ATA/33, so that's the fastest anything will go through the motherboard.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

halfempty said:


> Don't think it would speed anything up. IIRC from the boot logs the series 2 Tivos configure the IDE host for ATA/33, so that's the fastest anything will go through the motherboard.


If the system is hackable you can improve the speed slightly with the right HDPARM settings. I did this on my S1 for a measurable improvement in disk IO speed.


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