# Before I open my TCD240080...



## annenoe (Oct 19, 2003)

Just got my upgrade - we're going from one drive (original setup) to double drive config. Other than what I've read here, is there anything else you might want to advise/warn me about having to do with actual drive installation?

Thanks
anne


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Make sure your Master Slave is set up correctly, I would reconsider the two drive option as hard drives are so cheep now and your TiVo will much more reliable with only one drive.


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## annenoe (Oct 19, 2003)

lessd said:


> Make sure your Master Slave is set up correctly, I would reconsider the two drive option as hard drives are so cheep now and your TiVo will much more reliable with only one drive.


Hmm, less reliable huh? Didn't want to hear that... Can you elaborate?

BTW, this is a drive swap only - I'm not actually formatting any drives. We have an original 80 hour tivo with a drive that has been "squealing" for some time so decided to swap drives. Going thru Weaknees, we didn't like the one drive option (largest single drive is 250gb) so we went with a two-drive option.

Does your comment still apply?


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## Narf54321 (Mar 30, 2005)

annenoe said:


> Hmm, less reliable huh? Didn't want to hear that... Can you elaborate?


I think he means a two-drive setup doubles your chances (or more than doubles) of a critical drive failure. Tivo still doesn't have a good way of 'divorcing' the drives when there is a problem, so if/when either of your drive fails you'll lose everything. Dual drives also increases the power draw and the heat output inside your little Tivo, which can increase the liklihood of failure.

Besides, you'd be surprised at how much "stuff" a 250GB (single drive) Tivo can hang onto.

("Squealing" can also sometimes be the exhaust fan going bad.)


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## annenoe (Oct 19, 2003)

Narf54321 said:


> I think he means a two-drive setup doubles your chances (or more than doubles) of a critical drive failure. Tivo still doesn't have a good way of 'divorcing' the drives when there is a problem, so if/when either of your drive fails you'll lose everything. Dual drives also increases the power draw and the heat output inside your little Tivo, which can increase the liklihood of failure.
> 
> Besides, you'd be surprised at how much "stuff" a 250GB (single drive) Tivo can hang onto.
> 
> ("Squealing" can also sometimes be the exhaust fan going bad.)


Thanks.

Hmm, guess I won't tell my husband about this - I sort of talked him into the two drive upgrade! We did purchase the fan upgrade. <sigh> I really hope I haven't jumped into the fire on this.

But I will try to remember to monitor the internal temp.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

annenoe said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Hmm, guess I won't tell my husband about this - I sort of talked him into the two drive upgrade! We did purchase the fan upgrade. <sigh> I really hope I haven't jumped into the fire on this.
> 
> But I will try to remember to monitor the internal temp.


They have the 300G drives that would just drop in place of your current drive, Weaknees is good at doing an exchange if you call them, with my 300G drives I get 348 hours. You will have less hardware to deal with and less noise, a very easy upgrade and you will have your old drive as a backup if you need it 4 or 5 years down the road. (or you could sell it on E-Bay to cut your cost more)


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## Narf54321 (Mar 30, 2005)

annenoe said:


> Hmm, guess I won't tell my husband about this - I sort of talked him into the two drive upgrade! We did purchase the fan upgrade. <sigh> I really hope I haven't jumped into the fire on this.
> 
> But I will try to remember to monitor the internal temp.


Well, I don't necesarily want to scare you away or anything. I myself have one of my tivos with dual-300GB drives (which I set up myself) and bought a TwinBreeze bracket. Still going strong. But I'm prepared to replace the drives if/when they fail.

One thing to note is that these drives (Seagates in case anyone is wondering) and the twinbreeze kit make this Tivo rather LOUD. Mine is behind a glass case, but I'd never recommend this for, say, a bedroom.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Narf54321 said:


> Well, I don't necesarily want to scare you away or anything. I myself have one of my tivos with dual-300GB drives (which I set up myself) and bought a TwinBreeze bracket. Still going strong. But I'm prepared to replace the drives if/when they fail.
> 
> One thing to note is that these drives (Seagates in case anyone is wondering) and the twinbreeze kit make this Tivo rather LOUD. Mine is behind a glass case, but I'd never recommend this for, say, a bedroom.


Weaknees sells 300 Maxtor QV drives which are not available in the retail channel, these drives are very quite as their made for DVR use. I bought a non QV drive and it made too much noise, called Maxtor and they replaced my drive with the QV type but told me next time buy from Weaknees and others they sell QV drives to.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Practicially, there is risk running two drives in a Series 2 TiVo. 
The risk is only worth it when both drive are somewhat large, and just dumb if one or more of the drives is small <200 GB, IMO), as large drives are getting cheap.


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## annenoe (Oct 19, 2003)

Narf54321 said:


> Well, I don't necesarily want to scare you away or anything. I myself have one of my tivos with dual-300GB drives (which I set up myself) and bought a TwinBreeze bracket. Still going strong. But I'm prepared to replace the drives if/when they fail.
> 
> One thing to note is that these drives (Seagates in case anyone is wondering) and the twinbreeze kit make this Tivo rather LOUD. Mine is behind a glass case, but I'd never recommend this for, say, a bedroom.


A postscript. We upgraded our box this weekend, replacing the single original drive with two drives plus the upgraded fan system.

Couple of things to report:
1) It went very smoothly; took about 45 minutes.
2) We now hear absolutely NOTHING!!! YEAH!! The squealing we heard before is gone. Not sure if it was the old drive or original fan (which we replaced with the Weaknees fan upgrade system)
3) The sw included was not current (didn't have clip or delete folder) but was fully upgraded the next day.

However.... The box has now rebooted twice (that I know of for sure) at around 5 am. Am going to report that in another thread. I'm not convinced it's the new drive setup based on this other thread (find by searching "reset").


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