# Western Digital 1TB SATA upgrade for UK Tivo



## jeremy Parsons (Jan 6, 2002)

My Tivo 1 harddisks are on the fritz again so its upgrade time.

Given this will be my last upgrade and the 1TB WD green drives are now under £100 and the SATA to ide converter is under £5 on ebay.

1. Will Tivo 1 with Cachecard support this config is 1TB too big for tivo
2. Has anyone done this yet

Ideally I would like to hear from someone else with a single 1TB WD Tivo

This should in theory be the be an efficent drive for tivo.

incidently tivo 2 is still going strong the samsungs are excellent


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I believe it has been done - mikerr should be along to verify that shortly


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I believe it has been done - mikerr should be along to verify that shortly


Yes Mike has done it but so did some other guy before him in a rather extensively detailed thread on this forum.

I don't have the time at the moment to hunt for the thread but a search for Green Power 1TB etc ought to find it. No one yet seems to have managed a 2TB S1 Tivo due to a lack of dual channel IDE to SATA adapaters. Mind you 2TB at Best would be around 750 hours. Not to mention around 2,500 hours in Basic recording mode.

In my experience Tivo is not actually capable of properly handling more than 400 or so items in Now Playing without a rapid slow down in the user interface though. This is even with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Yes, 1TB drives work in tivos with no problems at all,
I've been running my tivos with 1TB drives for a few months now.

Much quieter than 400Gb samsungs (HD400LDs), and as quiet as a HA250JC
- though I can just about hear the seek noise with the lid off!

Just reference the drive as /dev/sda instead of /dev/hda when doing the mfsrestore.


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## warrenrb (Jul 21, 2002)

This thread, and particularly the quote "as quiet as a HA250JC" has piqued my interest in changing my drive again, and I would appreciate some advice.

I'm on my second upgrade. My first was a 120Gb Samsung, I believe from the same family as the HA250JC, and was really quiet. When I decided to increase the size again, this time to 200Gb (I think - this is all from memory, sorry), I thought, foolishly, that a 7200 rpm drive would be as good, if not better, than a 5400 (hey, it's a bigger number - it MUST be better  )

Anyway, I posted back in the day about how whatever frequency the drive spun at, it resonates with my wooden TV stand and gives off a terrible hum. To this day, we have to leave the drawer in the bottom of the unit slightly open to counteract it slightly.

So, I have no real capacity issues (and no cachecard to handle massive Now Playing lists), but I have often thought I'd like to sort the hum problem out. I know the HA250JC's are now hard to come by and a bit expensive for their size, and the little research I've done suggests 5400's are generally harder to find these days...but I know nothing about SATA and the like.

All I want is a reasonable sized drive (250-500), which is fairly cheap, won't hum, and won't request lots of trickery or madz skilz outside of what I've previously managed in two upgrades so far.

Can anyone advise me?

For Example: I notice Amazon sell a 500Gb version of the drive mentioned above.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Dig...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1217548973&sr=1-2

But isn't this 7200rpm too? So would I be likely to get the 'hum' I already have with my current drive?


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

The 1TB WD is actually 5400rpm, as this leads to lower power usage, and less noise.
Marketing a 5400rpm these days is hard -7200rpm sounds better than 5400 -
so WD don't directly advertise it as such:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page2.html
(On page 3 of that article they also compare it to a samsung P120...)

For PC use a 7200 rpm drive would tend to have faster seek times than a 5400, 
but this isn't much of an issue in a tivo.

Oh, and yes, the 500GB WD you mention is also 5400rpm,
basically if it says Green-power, its 5400rpm.


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## Foxy (Mar 7, 2003)

jeremy Parsons said:


> ...
> Given this will be my last upgrade and the 1TB WD green drives are now under £100 and the SATA to ide converter is under £5 on ebay.





mikerr said:


> The 1TB WD is actually 5400rpm, as this leads to lower power usage, and less noise.
> Oh, and yes, the 500GB WD you mention is also 5400rpm,
> basically if it says Green-power, its 5400rpm.


Mike,

Is/Are the magic word(s) "Green" or "Green Power"? There seem to be 2 1TB WD drives, one described by WD as WD Caviar® Green (WD10EACS)
 £98.78 inc vat  at Dabs, but described (by Dabs) as "Western Digital Caviar 1TB 7200RPM 16MB S300 Green Power" and WD RE2-GP (WD1000FYPS) £133.12 inc vat at Dabs, but described (by Dabs) as "Western Digital WD RE2-GP 1TB 5400RPM Up To 7200RPM 16MB S300 GREEN POWER DRIVE". Have Dabs screwed up their descriptions? Which is the one that we should be using?


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

They are both the same physical drive, (5400rpm) and firmware/warranty is the only difference.
WD10EACS has a 3 yr waranty, WD1000FYPS has 5 yr

The WD1000FYPS is the RAID version which is rated for 24/7 use, the WD10EACS doesn't actually mention that.

Performance is more or less identical
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2223981,00.asp

Is an extra 2 yr warranty worth £30 ?


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## warrenrb (Jul 21, 2002)

And so using an SATA on a tivo? Is that just a converter cable or something? Anything more complicated than that?

i.e. something like this: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=36036&doy=search


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## warrenrb (Jul 21, 2002)

Or indeed this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124850


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Both those are the "wrong way round", i.e. for connecting IDE to SATA motherboard,
so look for "bidirectional" convertors like this:
http://www.kenable.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=1610


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## jeremy Parsons (Jan 6, 2002)

Can someone point me at the correct link where this has been done before despiet searching on green and 1TB I don;t seem to be able to find details about how to go about this


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## djs42 (Jul 5, 2006)

I bought a WD10EACS 1GB drive and an IDE/SATA converter
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nexons-Converter-Connect-Drive-Controller/dp/B001CYXMDA/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1218141847&sr=8-13

I managed to connect it up to my PC, did all the mfstools stuff to copy over my system from my current 160GB disk (I increased the swap to 500MB), did a copykern and all looked good. But when I put it into my TiVo and powered up, nothing, it won't boot. For now I have put the original disk back in as I want to record the Olympics, so debugging will have to wait a while

Any suggestions on what to try next? I guess I'll have to dive in at the unix command line and see what's happened.

mikerr, what IDE/SATA converters have you used? ...and you're right, the drive is VERY quiet!

Thanks,

--Dave


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

djs42 said:


> I managed to connect it up to my PC, did all the mfstools stuff to copy over my system from my current 160GB disk (I increased the swap to 500MB), did a copykern and all looked good. But when I put it into my TiVo and powered up, nothing, it won't boot. For now I have put the original disk back in as I want to record the Olympics, so debugging will have to wait a while
> 
> Any suggestions on what to try next? I guess I'll have to dive in at the unix command line and see what's happened.


This thread by Dougal back at the start of this year seems to be the most thoroughly documented example so far of someone successfully managing to upgrade a UK S1 Tivo to a Western Digital 1TB Green Power drive in conjunction with an IDE to SATA converter.

See www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=380949&highlight=green+power+1tb


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## djs42 (Jul 5, 2006)

Thanks Pete,

I read that thread but I'm now more confused than ever. It looks like getting these big SATA disks to work on a Series 1 TiVo is tricky. I'll do some more reading and will try again in a couple of weeks, after the Olympics 

--Dave


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

djs42 said:


> I read that thread but I'm now more confused than ever. It looks like getting these big SATA disks to work on a Series 1 TiVo is tricky. I'll do some more reading and will try again in a couple of weeks, after the Olympics


You mean you record the Olympics?!

Half of it is on interactive channels that you cannot program a Tivo to record and there is so much in total you would never catch up on all the viewing. Better just to stick to catching whatever one can live I would have thought.

I'm sure if you indicate where you have got stuck that mikerr can help out as he has also been through the whole process for a 1Gb drive upgrade on several different Tivos.


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## Tim L (Jan 5, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Half of it is on interactive channels that you cannot program a Tivo to record and there is so much in total you would never catch up on all the viewing. Better just to stick to catching whatever one can live I would have thought.


I'm sorry, did you just recommend watching TV _live_?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Tim L said:


> I'm sorry, did you just recommend watching TV _live_?


Yes I find watching live sport often a better strategy than recording loads of it on a Tivo with a large amount of recording capacity. My 20 unwatched Grand Prix races are testament to that fact.

The problem with live sport is that if you don't view it live at the time you will usually get to hear the result on radio or tv or in a newspaper before you view it and there is then very little point in watching it............


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## djs42 (Jul 5, 2006)

I work fairly odd hours, so just being in when even the highlights are on would be tricky. Plus I NEVER watch anything live 

I have just connected up my 1TB disk to my test PC and booted up using an mfslive 1.3b CD. I took a look at the /dev/hdc4 and the /dev/hdc9 partitions and it looks like eveything is there, including my hack directory, so I'm assuming my copy using mfstools must have worked. The problem I got when I put the drive in the Tivo was that it didn't even attempt to boot. Is there anything I can look at on the disk to see if the boot info is correct?

--Dave


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## ghstone (Apr 12, 2003)

Pete77 said:


> Yes I find watching live sport often a better strategy than recording loads of it on a Tivo with a large amount of recording capacity. My 20 unwatched Grand Prix races are testament to that fact.
> 
> The problem with live sport is that if you don't view it live at the time you will usually get to hear the result on radio or tv or in a newspaper before you view it and there is then very little point in watching it............


We use Tivo for 'Delayed Live' Grand Prix viewing. We sit down to watch around 45 - 60 minutes after the program has started, which means we can skip through the ads and the bits that were on the Qualifying program the day before and be right up to date at the end.

Of course if there was a TivoWEB feature to pre-key the Red button and selection, with a couple of second delay following the channel change then we could get Red button sports coverage too. Wouldn't be 100% but for stuff like the Olympics where you know it's there.

btw, Did you all relaise they are transmitting Olympics 'Red button' coverage on the BBC Parliament channel ??

Graham

Oh, wrong place to post, but I just found a new use for a lapsed monthly Tivo - hooked it up to a CCT Camera (£20 from ALDI), and set it to record all day every day in 2 hour chunks - works a treat. Another 4 and I'll have the house & Garden covered !!


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## djs42 (Jul 5, 2006)

I got my 1TB disk working now. I ended up using the MFSLive linux command line to do a truncated backup followed by WinMFS to do the mfsadd, as suggested by Dougal, and all was then good!

I now have a VERY quiet system and 364 hours of recording time!

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction guys.

--Dave


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

djs42 said:


> I got my 1TB disk working now. I ended up using the MFSLive linux command line to do a truncated backup followed by WinMFS to do the mfsadd, as suggested by Dougal, and all was then good!


Good to hear it worked out in the end and that Dougal's method proved a success.


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## jeremy Parsons (Jan 6, 2002)

Getting back th the thread it looks like this is an emerging process I will have to put it in the spare weekend box as it looks like a difficult process given what I do for a living its a bit of a busmans holiday


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## jdwood37 (Dec 6, 2002)

Just installed a 500GB WD Green Power drive with SATA convertor by 'Newlink'. Replaces a Samsung 400GB which is pretty quiet and cool. Works fine so far, the main thing that concerned me was the 'no sound without soft reset' problem with some disks like Seagate, Maxtor - but it's ok. The drive is virtually silent even outside the case. On the face of it probably the ideal upgrade disk quite cheap but you have to add the convertor cost as well..


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## cpitchford (Oct 20, 2004)

Hi all,

Please forgive my ignorance. I upgraded my S1 UK tivo from 40Gig single to 2 x 320Gig a number of years ago but I faced a serious problem

When using mfsrestore to copy all data from my single drive to my two new replacements, it created partitions larger than 250Gig (ie on the first disk it added two partitions application+media that used the new remaining 280gig on the second it created two partitions using the full 320)

When booting the Tivo with these disks, it green-screened and remained very very unhappy 

Sooo, I used pdisk to manually create partitions smaller than 250Gig. That didn't work because mfs_restore wouldn't allow me to specify partition names... Sooo I used Linux LVM2 to create a block device that appeared to be smaller than 320 gig (ie the free space was smaller than 250) and used mfs_restore to grow onto this "truncated" disk. Then removed LVM2 and grew the disk again to use the full 320Gig.. 

I have the Howto I wrote years ago and it still works as I had a disk failure and replaced them both with WD raid-edition hard drives (I still have my original 40gig drive just incase!)

Question is, How are you guys using 500+ gig drives? How are you instructing MFS_restore NOT to create partitions larger than 250gig?

What tools are you using? And where can I get them! I don't seem to be able to find an original source for mfs_backup/restore but I also seem to remember it was closed source (which is a pitty since there were so many things I wanted to patch!)

My tivo isn't easily growable now.. the first disk has all 16 partitions used and the second disk has 4 used.. so I could upgrade the second disk, I suppose..

I'd love to hear how you guys did your large upgrades and what tools you're all using!

Thanks

Cp


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

cpitchford said:


> Question is, How are you guys using 500+ gig drives? How are you instructing MFS_restore NOT to create partitions larger than 250gig?
> 
> I'd love to hear how you guys did your large upgrades and what tools you're all using!


See www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/upgrade3.html



> If you are restoring to individual drive(s) 300GB or greater in size, you need to add an extra parameter to the restore command to overcome the next Tivo threshold at 274Gb:
> 
> restore -x -r 4 -s 300 -zpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc Single drive
> 
> restore -x -r 4 -s 300 -zpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb dual drives


and

www.mfslive.org


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

Hello everyone. Sorry for the cross post but please add any information you have to this thread

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7010418

Thank you


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## Fred Smith (Oct 5, 2002)

Ciper, are you US based?

UK users only have one model and it has already been covered this in the thread and in this one:

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=406102

Apart from the 'Chipset on the adapter', which I don't know and can't find without opening up my TiVo.


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