# Ultimate HDD upgrade?



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Who's going to be the first to put one of these in their TiVo?

http://www.tech.co.uk/tech/computin...hdd/news/ces-2007-worlds-first-1tb-hard-drive


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

Potentially 550hrs mode @ with 2 drives.......the ultimate TiVo ?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Hmmm. That's a 'leading edge' 5-platter Hitachi drive....

My guess would be that it would last around a month in a TiVo :down:


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

Sounds like they've addressed that concern:


> Hitachi has also released software designed to best manage hard drives used in set-top box situations - especially when constant access is required for applications such as IPTV or HD streaming. Called AVSM, or Audio-Visual Storage Manager, Hitachi's aim is to increase duty cycles by up to 50 percent.


But fundamentally it's still an IBM / Hitachi drive so it'll run hotter & be noisier than many others, shame really


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Blacque Jacque said:


> Sounds like they've addressed that concern


But not for UK TiVos though. It's only useable if the PVR implements software to take advantage of it.

And yes, "hot & noisy" pretty much sums up Hitachi drives IMHO. Their recent 500gb 5-platter drive was one of the hottest drives around according to reviews


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

I won't be bothering with one of these no doubt hot and short lived Hitachis but when Samsung launch their 1 Terrabyte drive I may well be interested. Although I may have to wait until they launch their 2TB drive in order to make the price of a 1TB drive affordable.  

I could then replace my 2 x 250Gb Samsung HA250JC's with one of these drives and still have the option of chucking in say a further 500Gb or 1TB drive later if Samsung drives continue to only require modest power consumption.

However I note that 1TB = about 250 hours at Mode 0 with no VBR enabled or about 325 hours at Mode 0 with VBR enabled. So while a 2TB Tivo would be possible (subject to power supply constraints) as it would provide 500 hours at Mode 0 with no VBR or 650 hours at Mode 0 with VBR most of you will find that menu speeds at this capacity are unacceptably slow as you then on occasion have to wait 7 or 8 seconds to go into a recording item from a Now Playing list or to stop a recording when you press left rocker arrow - even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM. How do I know this - well from my 500Gb Tivo with 613 hours capacity at Basic.

So in all practical terms I really think a single 1TB drive is the most that would be sensible for most of you with a UK S1 Tivo + a Cachecard and 512Mb of RAM to consider. You can then just leave your Tivo running away happily until such time as its motherboard dies (although no doubt even then a Tivo heart transplant or subscription transfer via Ebay may still keep you going) or until no one is providing a UK EPG service any more (not even a hacked EPG service that may well follow on from any withdrawal by Tivo of their official UK service).


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## Duncan (Nov 1, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I won't be bothering with one of these no doubt hot and short lived Hitachis but when Samsung launch their 1 Terrabyte drive I may well be interested. Although I may have to wait until they launch their 2TB drive in order to make the price of a 1TB drive affordable.


See this wired article which says that Seagate are planning to hit the market with a 300 terabit (that's 37.5TB) 3.5 inch drive within the next decade.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> I won't be bothering with one of these no doubt hot and short lived Hitachis but when Samsung launch their 1 Terrabyte drive I may well be interested. Although I may have to wait until they launch their 2TB drive in order to make the price of a 1TB drive affordable.  .


The Hitachi will be $399 apparently - rather reasonable in fact!

There seems to be a point with storage where more makes no practical difference. For me its when normal TiVo/MCE operation gives a programme a life expectancy of 3 months. If a programme can sit on the disk for three months and not be watched, it'll never be watched in my experience. So more space becomes redundant; you just start collecting shows for the sake of it. I had a neigbour once who has the entire wall of her livingroom covered with VHS tapes recorded off air; i gess having vast amounst of storage space is the PVR equivalent.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> So more space becomes redundant; you just start collecting shows for the sake of it. I had a neigbour once who has the entire wall of her livingroom covered with VHS tapes recorded off air; i gess having vast amounst of storage space is the PVR equivalent.


In principle I think you are right but I do think about 300 hours recording capacity gives a lot of flexibility.

So a 1TB Tivo is only 320 hours of Mode 0 with VBR so in my view about right as the sensible maximum bound of a Tivo S1. Beyond this the number of Now Playing items slows down the menu system horribly and unacceptably (due to processor speed and memory limitations) even with a Cachecard and 512Mb of RAM.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Duncan said:


> See this wired article which says that Seagate are planning to hit the market with a 300 terabit (that's 37.5TB) 3.5 inch drive within the next decade.


Within the next decade I'm sure that's highly likely but I very much doubt any such drives in this capacity will still be using an IDE interface.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

TiVo isn't very efficient at recording. My MCE box has 190 hous of recodings taking up about 220Gb - that's at full off air quality, better than Mode 0.


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

I have been looking at moving my DVD collection to hard drives so I can pick any movie from one remote control.

Twelve of those new drives should do the job just right 

At the moment I use for a partial collection

1 x 500 USB2 SATA
2 x 300 USB2 IDE
2 x 250 USB2 SATA
1 x 320 CAT5 IDE

Only 1.9Tb 

Also what has this got in it then?
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/32302...00Gb_1Tb_USB_External_Hard_Drive/Product.html

Automan


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

play.com said:


> Get extraordinary capacity or extra data protection with this *dual-drive*, triple-interface RAID storage system from WD.


 Think that one might be 2x 500gb drives then


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## manolan (Feb 13, 2001)

Automan said:


> I have been looking at moving my DVD collection to hard drives so I can pick any movie from one remote control.
> 
> Twelve of those new drives should do the job just right
> 
> ...


That's why you need a ReadyNAS NV+ 3TB:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=327509&page=2&p=4684818
http://www.ultimatestorage.com/infrantnvplus.html
http://www.nasdatastorage.co.uk/productsinfrantreadynasnv+.htm

Go on!


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

mikerr said:


> Think that one might be 2x 500gb drives then.


Anybody would be mad to trust their media collection to a 1TB drive with no practical backup. It would have to be configured as a mirrored 500GB drive.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> Anybody would be mad to trust their media collection to a 1TB drive with no practical backup. It would have to be configured as a mirrored 500GB drive.


No single fixed point storage solution is protected against fire or burglary or water pipe burst, even if its a mirrored RAID system.

If its really important you need to keep another copy backed up off site as well.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Fortunately, it's only TV!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> Fortunately, it's only TV!


But some people take their tv very seriously.


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## johala_reewi (Oct 30, 2002)

Duncan said:


> See this wired article which says that Seagate are planning to hit the market with a 300 terabit (that's 37.5TB) 3.5 inch drive within the next decade.


Just spotted a 750Gb Seagate Barracuda but a bit pricey at the moment.
Isn't there a danger that newer larger drives will only be available in SATA and not IDE?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

johala_reewi said:


> Just spotted a 750Gb Seagate Barracuda but a bit pricey at the moment.
> 
> Isn't there a danger that newer larger drives will only be available in SATA and not IDE?


Not within the foreseeable maximum recording capacity abilities of the Thomson Tivo S1 which realistically top out at about 2TB (2 x 1TB drives) when you will have about 500 hours of Mode 0 recording capacity on the Tivo with no VBR enabled or 650 hours and upwards with VBR enabled. At this capacity there will be serious slow down in the speed on the Now Playing and other menu operations even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM installed. Many users will find this slow down an unacceptable trade off for extra Tivo recording capacity.

It seems highly unlikely that hard drive manufacturers will not produce an IDE/PATA variant of their various hard drive models any time within the next five years because loads of devices in the marketplace still only handle IDE/PATA drive technology. And much of the demand for these very large hard drive capacities will be from HD tv boxes, most of which still use pretty primitive and basic computer technology.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Actually I'd fully expect any huge drives to be SATA only; it's been quite a while since a montherboard without SATA shipped. Certainly anyone at the cutting edge will be SATA enabled.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> Actually I'd fully expect any huge drives to be SATA only; it's been quite a while since a montherboard without SATA shipped. Certainly anyone at the cutting edge will be SATA enabled.


And does a Sky HD box, a TV Drive box, a BT Vision box or most Freeview PVRs support SATA then? 

And surely it is these devices plus Windows Media Centre Edition that are most likely to want to incorporate the very large hard drive capacities. Especially once HD broadcasting and recording becomes more frequent.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> And does a Sky HD box, a TV Drive box, a BT Vision box or most Freeview PVRs support SATA then?


SkyHD is SATA, yes.

No idea anout the internal working of the other boxes, but as they are typically 80 or maybe 160Gb it's hardly pertinent.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> SkyHD is SATA, yes.
> 
> No idea anout the internal working of the other boxes, but as they are typically 80 or maybe 160Gb it's hardly pertinent.


Surely Tv Drive is also HD compatible so likely to require large hard drive capacities?


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> Actually I'd fully expect any huge drives to be SATA only; it's been quite a while since a montherboard without SATA shipped. Certainly anyone at the cutting edge will be SATA enabled.


There's a lot of non-SATA hardware available... a lot of the low end shuttles for example (great for servers where all you need is lots of memory and hard disk space).

Probably 'user' stuff where they want to run World of Warcraft at an acceptable rate they have SATA on there.. but then they just stick everything on there to justify ramping the price up (gig.ethernet, RAID, etc. that the average gamer wouldn't have a clue how to use).


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Surely Tv Drive is also HD compatible so likely to require large hard drive capacities?


I'm not aware of any PVR which ships with a HD larger than 300Gb, so I don't understand your point?

PATA is yesterday's technology and will disappear from the shelves sooner than you think. This will start with the very high capacity drives which by definition are being fitted to demanding systems which by definition do not require legacy support.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> I'm not aware of any PVR which ships with a HD larger than 300Gb, so I don't understand your point?
> 
> PATA is yesterday's technology and will disappear from the shelves sooner than you think. This will start with the very high capacity drives which by definition are being fitted to demanding systems which by definition do not require legacy support.


These drives are also being fitted by users of various other older legacy systems who merely want larger hard drive storage capacity - our Tivos being a case in point.

Having very large storage needs does not necessarily imply you will be using cutting edge computer technology - the cost for a manufacturer of bringing out an SATA and PATA (IDE) variant of each drive is surely not very significant if it is likely to increase total sales by a fair degree.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

A little bit OT, but still related, what would people's choice be for quiet and reliable drives if they were building a PC to be super quiet? I'm about to order a PC any day now and want to put somewhere between 700GB and 1TB worth of storage inside it (sata ii)and have 400GB-500GB or so outside it (esata?). Having had "the noisemaker" (Dell from hell) for the last 2 years) I'm looking for super quiet components. A Core 2 duo will obviously be the processor of choice, but for Hard drives I hadn't given that enough thought until now because I'd have happily bought a couple of 500GB hitachis.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

b166er said:


> A little bit OT, but still related, what would people's choice be for quiet and reliable drives if they were building a PC to be super quiet? I'm about to order a PC any day now and want to put somewhere between 700GB and 1TB worth of storage inside it (sata ii)and have 400GB-500GB or so outside it (esata?). Having had "the noisemaker" (Dell from hell) for the last 2 years) I'm looking for super quiet components. A Core 2 duo will obviously be the processor of choice, but for Hard drives I hadn't given that enough thought until now because I'd have happily bought a couple of 500GB hitachis.


These look a good choice.

3 year warranty, very good price and Samungs reputation for quietness:-

www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=327715&cks=ASS&assoc=5A39DAA7-10EA-4BCF-889D-E46501023430

And the one review so far written for this new drive I have found:-

www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-036-SA&tool=3


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

Pete77 said:


> These look a good choice ...and Samungs reputation for quietness:-


Well, we have a winner right there. End of search  Thanks Pete!!


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

The the 400GB version of same drive looks better value at £25 less:

400GB SAMSUNG SATA: £69.99
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=320128


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Better to go for the PATA version (HD400LD) which will actually work in your TiVo though...


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

b166er said:


> A little bit OT, but still related, what would people's choice be for quiet and reliable drives if they were building a PC to be super quiet?


I do believe he was after a PC drive though


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

...then why is he asking the question on a _*TiVo *_forum?


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

And therein lies a tale.....(tail?)


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Yeah ok, pay an extra £5 for the PATA version 400GB IDE drive suitable for tivo - £75
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=312836


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

2 quid cheaper from Dabs :up: 
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=44WS


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

blindlemon said:


> ...then why is he asking the question on a _*TiVo *_forum?


This is where the clever people hang out   :up:
As far as my TiVo goes, I'm still perfectly happy with the Samsung 250GB drive I got from you Christmas 2005 :up: :up:


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