# Hard disk upgrade?



## SJBrooks (Apr 24, 2004)

I have upgraded my Tvo once already from one 40gb to two disks totalling 320gb.

I am think of going back down to one, but 500gb.

Maybe this unit:
Samsung 500GB S300 16MB 7200RPM (&#163;62 from DABS).

Anyone any other recommendations? Any gotchas?

Thanks,
Simon


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

One big "gotcha" - thats an SATA drive.

TiVos use IDE (PATA) drives. 

Though you could use a converter at a push.


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## SJBrooks (Apr 24, 2004)

Thanks Mike,
my mistake!
This drive is available for 120-125 quid in a number of places:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB PATA100 7200rpm 16Mb Cache 11ms 100Mb/s


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

SJBrooks said:


> Thanks Mike,
> my mistake!
> This drive is available for 120-125 quid in a number of places:
> 
> Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB PATA100 7200rpm 16Mb Cache 11ms 100Mb/s


Should work fine but blindlemon of Tivoheaven claims these drives are prone to higher failure rates than Samsung 400Gb IDE drives due to running too hot and/or the drive technology used to cram in the extra capacity. Also the Samsung 400Gb IDE drive is believed to run much quieter and cooler than the Seagate 750Gb drive. Another issue with the Seagate 750Gb is that you must run it as your only Tivo drive as the BIOS of the drive will not let Tivo handle two of them together. Two of the 400Gb HDLD Samsung drives in a Tivo is no problem.

The Samsung 400Gb drives are from £69.99 plus delivery.

But the Seagate drive has a 5 year warranty compared to 3 years for the Samsung.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

You really are on a commission of Samsung and Freesat! 

Maybe someone should get your standard replies added to the FAQ to save your keyboard from wear!


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Should work fine but blindlemon of Tivoheaven claims these drives are prone to higher failure rates than Samsung 400Gb IDE drives due to running too hot and/or the drive technology used to cram in the extra capacity.


Please don't speak for me Pete - I've never said any such thing!

I said that *500gb* Seagate drives ran a lot hotter than 400gb Samsung ones. I've never tried putting a 750gb drive - of any make - in a TiVo.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I said that *500gb* Seagate drives ran a lot hotter than 400gb Samsung ones. I've never tried putting a 750gb drive - of any make - in a TiVo.


Well isn't it about time that you did so then given the increasingly attractive pricing of these drives and the general shortage of any other near large IDE single drive alternative?


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

For normal people, a 750Gb drive would render TiVo unusable.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> For normal people, a 750Gb drive would render TiVo unusable.


I don't think 263 hours at Best is unusable provided you have a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM. 800Gb is one of Tivoheaven's standard upgrade kit offerings.

And who said anything about people in Tivocommunity being normal Tivo users?


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Matter of opinion I guess; how many "page downs" does it take to get the bottom of Now Playing with a disk that size? How can you find that particular episode of The West Wing from the 30 on hard disk? 

The TiVo interface was never designed to cope with that many items in NP, and it's horrific in practice.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Hence my sort now playing hack and folders for large now playing lists.. 
..or the tivoweb search & play module... plug plug 

Speaking of large hard drives, I've just got one of these SATAWestern Digital Green power  
silent, low power 1TB drives - half the power and noise of a samsung  !!

It hasn't seen the inside of a tivo yet though...!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Speaking of large hard drives, I've just got one of these Western Digital Green power
> silent, low power 1TB drives - half the power and noise of a samsung  !!
> 
> It hasn't seen the inside of a tivo yet though...!


Sounds impressive for Tivo use but is it available only in SATA format? Does that mean you are going to try it with an SATA adapter?

Hmmm a 2TB Tivo would give me just slightly more recording capacity than I have now at Basic.

I can't really recommend that though and I think a single 1TB drive with Cachecard and 512MB of RAM would be the optimum setup before heavy Tivo menu slow down occurs.


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## PaulWilkinsUK (Mar 20, 2006)

The question has got to asked...

Who, in all honesty, has the time to watch a 4 or 5 hundred hours worth of TV recordings?! 
I've a wopping 250Gb drive in my machine and there is no way I've ever come close to filling it nor having the time to watch it all.

Are we getting to a 'my mums fatter than your mum' situation here ??? 
I've always lived by the rule "Its not how big it is, but how you use it!!" 

A 1Tb TiVo !! I mean come on, this is "never mind the quality feel the width" territory.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Well I wasn't going to put it in a tivo actually, but a single 1TB is not much bigger than the 2x 400GB setup some of us have,
it would have substantially lower noise, power and heat output.

A 2TB tivo sounds cool though - maybe a christmas present to myself


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

My MCE setup runs at around 282 hours at broadcast quality. I'll never watch more than a fraction of it, but the point is to have the choice at any given moment of time. 

There are probably only five or six hours of TV a week which I will definitely make a point of watching at some point. The rest is "maybe" stuff.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> My MCE setup runs at around 282 hours at broadcast quality. I'll never watch more than a fraction of it, but the point is to have the choice at any given moment of time.


Indeed that is the point of the arrangement. I think most of us who are Tivo fans have somewhat control freakish personalities where we like the way in which Tivo's advanced recording system puts us in total control of the broadcasting schedule (unlike the BBC's Iplayer service which still limits when you can view the recording and is hard work to use) and lets us only watch high quality programs and avoid the dross. There is also the enjoyment of the technical challenge in finding that the quality of the software on the Tivo S1 machine is to up handling capacities far larger than the designers could have originally envisaged and that it all still works. It is the same fascination that the Custom Car upgrader has.

An asset of say a 1TB or 2TB Tivo is that one would really never need to worry about using Keep Until I Delete on any program because it would be so long before it fell off the end of the perch that by then we would almost certainly never get round to watching it. Anything set to KUID should only be some exceptional set of programs that for whatever reasons one likes to watch more than once.

As to our colleague from Honda not being able to ever fill up his Tivo with 250Gb he clearly does not seem to be using it correctly as if one has a large hard drive and Suggestions turned on and enough Season Passes there should be no trouble at all in letting a good quantity of stuff you hope to have time to watch eventually (if you travel hopefully but unrealistically as so many of us do) but have not managed to so far get round to. The only programs I ever actively delete are ones I watch. I don't go round deleting all the other stuff that I hope to watch but haven't got to yet. They just fall off the perch in the end apart form certain preferred series I set at KUID.

A 750 GB Tivo at Best would be about 260 hours so 300 shows. There are 7 shows (allowing for the one show overlap) per Tivo screen so that is only 37 Page Downs. Its not a lot especially if you do a lot of the recording management through Tivoweb and/or even use Mike's utility to start old programs playing from Tivoweb (if and when you ever get round to watching them.)

Some of you may see no need for the extra space but the horders amongst us know precisely why we want the space and why it would make our Tivos even better. Having said that hording only works if your hard drives don't fail as backing up all Tivo shows elsewhere on to other drive is highly impractical and very slow. So for that reason I won't be changing from my current ultra reliable 2 x 250Gb HA250JC Samsung drives until such time as one of them actually fails. That might not happen within the remaining lifetime of the Tivo UK service or it might happen tomorrow.


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## jeremy Parsons (Jan 6, 2002)

I have to sort of echo the options above I like a load of crap which I watch occasionally , I find tivo 2 with 2 x 120gb drives I clear out now and agin , Tivo 1 with 400gb I sort of leave alone to stack up. Tivo 1 is on its second set of hard drive replacments and tivo 2 is on its second set pal receiver a testiment to the product. I suspect when the time comes to replace the hard disks 750gb may well be affordable and I suspect give the amount of SD stuff (I have V+ as well upstaries) at least one of my tivos will be kept going providing the service is still availble from tivo themselves


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> A 750 GB Tivo at Best would be about 260 hours so 300 shows. There are 7 shows (allowing for the one show overlap) per Tivo screen so that is only 37 Page Downs..


Only 37!!!!!!!!!!

Quite!

It's manageable in MCE as it has folders (each series appears only once), you can switch instantly from by-name to by-date, and when in by name you can jump directly to any given show by starting to type its name, either on the keyboard or SMS style on the remote control. Plus, episode names are displayed to help you find stuff.

Without any of these features, TiVo is really not designed to navigate large collections of shows.

Using TiVoweb to do it is not a real world solution.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

pete77 said:


> backing up all Tivo shows elsewhere on to other drive is highly impractical and very slow


Always amazes me when people say backup is not worth it.
They change their tune once they have lost stuff 

500GB would cost £70 and take a day or so to backup (outside the tivo).



TCM2007 said:


> It's manageable in MCE [ ... ]
> Plus, *episode names are displayed *to help you find stuff.
> 
> Without any of these features, TiVo is really not designed to navigate large collections of shows.


..did I mention my tivo hack adds episode titles too ? 


> Using TiVoweb to do it is not a real world solution.


I'll agree to that (unless you use a phone / PDA in the lounge), but most other PVRs are in the same boat without folders.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> Only 37!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Quite!


Yes but most of the time one only operates in the top 5 or 6 pages and one only ever goes pages back to watch old stuff down at the bottom very occasionally. I will agree this gets in the way of Suggestions as Tivo's own interface has no flexible options to present Suggestions anywhere other than at the bottom of the list but if I want to view recorded Suggestions I do that using mikerr's Now Playing module in Tivoweb. If I see a Suggestion I like I set an expiry date at which point it now appears at the top of the list back on the Tivo interface. I have my notebook pc sitting on a table 12 foot away from the tv. It seems quite manageable to me. Also MCE doesn't have Suggestions anyway does it?



> It's manageable in MCE as it has folders (each series appears only once), you can switch instantly from by-name to by-date, and when in by name you can jump directly to any given show by starting to type its name, either on the keyboard or SMS style on the remote control. Plus, episode names are displayed to help you find stuff.
> 
> Without any of these features, TiVo is really not designed to navigate large collections of shows.


I find it can be navigated quite easily. Its piles of important papers sitting all over the place here that I have trouble with navigating. I have no trouble navigating computerised data.



> Using TiVoweb to do it is not a real world solution.


Sorry you are wrong because I'm doing it and am quite happy with it. You just want to justify to me the large additional financial investment you made in your Windows MCE box. Also my situation is single user whereas yours is family multi user. I will agree your MCE solution may possibly work better for your circumstances but probably not for mine.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Always amazes me when people say backup is not worth it.
> They change their tune once they have lost stuff
> 
> 500GB would cost £70 and take a day or so to backup (outside the tivo.


Yes but to do it properly one would need some kind of incremental tracking of new Tivo recordings and deletion from the backup of recordings one has deleted from the Tivo.

I'm not aware of any software that can interact with Tivo's file system for extracting programs that can also handle this sophistication in backup.

I do back up my crucial computer data but if I lost all the programs on my Tivo it would be a modest inconvenience but would not have any significant impact on the more mission critical aspects of my life.

I do have a backup on my PC and its backups of the directory structure of all my additional hacks and Tivoweb and SPs on the Tivo which I can easily restore if I have to build another one from scratch with replacement hard drives. I know it works as I have already replicated all this on my second Tivo that has a Cachecard.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Pete77 said:


> Yes but to do it properly one would need some kind of incremental tracking of new Tivo recordings and deletion from the backup of recordings one has deleted from the Tivo.
> 
> I'm not aware of any software that can interact with Tivo's file system for extracting programs that can also handle this sophistication in backup.


eTivo automatically does backups of your shows continuously.
It doesn't delete shows though.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> eTivo automatically does backups of your shows continuously.
> It doesn't delete shows though.


OK thanks for the info.

I suppose archiving most of the stuff I would really care about losing is all that really matters and that is no more than 150Gb of the 500Gb or so.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Also MCE doesn't have Suggestions anyway does it?


I've never used Suggestions on the TiVo. An overhyped feature that IMHO.



> Sorry you are wrong because I'm doing it and am quite happy with it.


I would suggest that you are, um, not normal in in that respect.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

mikerr said:


> ..did I mention my tivo hack adds episode titles too ? .


Indeed, and it's a nice hack, but as with all such things it's not as good as "the real thing". For example, when you scroll the rough the "No Playing" equivalent in MCE, the details of the program the selection bar is on (channel, time, duration, the first few lines of the description) is shown at the bottom of the screen.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

mikerr said:


> eTivo automatically does backups of your shows continuously.
> It doesn't delete shows though.


The most recent beta (18 months ago!) does.

I had talked to Sahar about releasing the eTiVo code as open source, and he was going to do so but obviously forgot and I haven't chased him on it.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> OK thanks for the info.
> 
> I suppose archiving most of the stuff I would really care about losing is all that really matters and that is no more than 150Gb of the 500Gb or so.


Much less - eTivo re-encodes as WMV or DiVx.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> I would suggest that you are, um, not normal in in that respect.


Not normal = not doing things the TCM way so far as I can tell.

In which case I have no wish to be "normal"

In fact I have never had any wish to be Mr and Mrs Normal with their 2.2 kids and a dog on a large faceless housing estate in Bracknell. But perhaps this is a model to which you yourself aspire?


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## SJBrooks (Apr 24, 2004)

Thanks for all the constructive and helpful feedback.

I guess 750gb is getting a little excessive and 400gb is more than enough.

My intention for this post was not to trigger a war or words or any insults between members of the forum. I am not sure what that will achieve.

Simon


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Oh don't worry about the banter, we're all friendly here 

Owning a tivo is not normal, in a good way
Normal = mundane


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

SJBrooks said:


> Thanks for all the constructive and helpful feedback.
> 
> I guess 750gb is getting a little excessive and 400gb is more than enough.


I don't know that it is so execessive. 265 hours at Best (which is what 750Gb will give you) is a nice amount to have on a Tivo with a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM that should not slow it to a crawl but allow you never to see the words "There Is Insufficient Disk Space" in most normal circumstances.



> My intention for this post was not to trigger a war or words or any insults between members of the forum. I am not sure what that will achieve.


Can I take it that Question Time is not your favourite tv program then?

But seriously these vigorous little exchanges more often than not tend lead to the disclosue of new and valuable information such as Mike's discovery of the Green Power 1TB Western Digital drives (although I think they would need an SATA converter).


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

SJBrooks said:


> My intention for this post was not to trigger a war or words or any insults between members of the forum.


*You* don't have to do anything for that to happen. Some forum members are prone to spontaneous altercation


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

Speaking of SATA Converters folks with Pixel Magic Media Boxes have been trying such devices but with no room inside existing case 

Tivo has more room and has anyone fitted big (or little) sata drives inside with converters?

See http://www.pixelmagicforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2996 for Pixel Magic upgrade thread for that device.

Automan.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Not normal = not doing things the TCM way so far as I can tell.


Selecting a programme to watch on a TV by using a web browser on a laptop to trigger lots of down arrows to get to the relevant page, while admirably lunatic in a techhead way, surely cannot be considered "normal", even by yourself.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> Selecting a programme to watch on a TV by using a web browser on a laptop to trigger lots of down arrows to get to the relevant page, while admirably lunatic in a techhead way, surely cannot be considered "normal", even by yourself.


Surely in the longer run the distinction between a PC and a television as a means of viewing moving images is going to disappear so I would have thought that this was merely a sign that I am ahead of the game.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

I'm with TCM here - using a computer to drive TiVo while sitting in front of the TV is counter-intuitive. I'm as gadget freaky as the rest of us here (funds, and Automan excepted  ) but I can't justify having the computer on 'to watch TV'. The WAF is also extremely low - something you don't have to deal with, Pete.

I'm also with Paul - watch it or lose it. Anything worth keeping gets archived to other media. TiVo was meant to help you watch TV as you require - not be an archive device. Considering it's heavy use of hardware, I'd suggest it's foolhardy to use it as such when you're a serious TV addict. 

But hey -the world is full of different people. Live and let live. Especially at this time of year. :up:


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

As we're talking about hard drives - is anyone in a postion to comment on the continued evolution and availability of IDE drives?

I've got an ancient original 30GB and a fairly old 120GB - I figured as I couldn't save my recordings and upgrade I'd run them until the wheels came off then do a new install on a bigger disk - add my hack backup and reload my season passes.

Now it looks like there are no larger Samsungs than 400GB on IDE. I'm wondering if I should pick one up now or continue to wait until I need to and buy whatever the biggest IDE drive I can get next day?


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

AMc said:


> As we're talking about hard drives - is anyone in a postion to comment on the continued evolution and availability of IDE drives?


It's possible (and simple) to image or copy an IDE drive onto a SATA drive (with SATA convertor), and these SATA convertors work without issue in tivos.

Only problem going the SATA route is that it currently limits you to a single drive setup 
(I haven't seen SATA convertors that have 2 sata leads yet).

[edit] actually there are sata convertors with master/slave jumpers, so 2 drives should be ok now too.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

AMc said:


> Now it looks like there are no larger Samsungs than 400GB on IDE. I'm wondering if I should pick one up now or continue to wait until I need to and buy whatever the biggest IDE drive I can get next day?


But don't forget there is a 750Gb IDE Seagate with a 5 year warranty now at around £125 but bound to come down to only £65 if you give it another year or 18 months. OK the drive BIOS issue means you can only run one of these in a Tivo and not two but one is likely to be enough for most people.

blindlemon says current Seagate drives run a little warmer than is to his liking compared to Samsungs but admits to not having tested a 750Gb Seagate (which unlike the smaller drives he is used to uses perpendicular recording technology). I know blindlemon was also sceptical of the proven nature of the perpendicular recording systems but these drives have now been out for over a year and are still being made so its likley any early issues have been addressed. I have a WD 160Gb Scorpo drive in this notebook that I fitted recently and that uses Perpendicular recording and it seems to be fine and is nice and quiet and runs much cooler than its 80Gb Samsung predecessor (which used to make the palmwrest of the computer warm) that only lasted 30 months.

At the end of the day even if the 750Gb Seagate drives don't last 5 years you can RMA them and can get another one.

So I see no need to stockpile 400Gb Samsungs now, especially when it seems to be established that SATA converters only cost £15 to £20 and there should be room to fit one of those inside a Tivo.

Perhaps waiting till the super quiet and super cool Western Digital Green Power 1TB drive (quieter and cooler than any current Samsung 3.5" drive) is cheap enough and fitting it using an SATA adapter is the way to go.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Only problem going the SATA route is that it currently limits you to a single drive setup (I haven't seen SATA convertors that have 2 sata leads yet).


So the 2TB UK Tivo is currently out of the question then?:down:


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

As these 1TB Green Power Western Digital drives cost £170 delivered compared to £125 for a 750Gb Seagate IDE drive on a per Gb basis they are hardly any more expensive. The only significant additional cost is the modest extra cost of the IDE to SATA adapter at between £15 and £20.

See www.pricerunner.co.uk/pl/36-982184/...-Caviar-GP-1TB-SATA-II-7200rpm-Compare-Prices

And of course the WD drives are meant to run much quieter and cooler than the equivalent Seagate ones.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> blindlemon says[...]


Will you please STOP telling people what *I* think. Thanks.



Pete77 said:


> Perhaps waiting till the super quiet and super cool Western Digital Green Power 1TB drive (quieter and cooler than any current Samsung 3.5" drive) is cheap enough and fitting it using an SATA adapter is the way to go.


You can get SATA adapters for less than £10 so it won't be long before a single large SATA drive is the most economical big upgrade. At that point I will probably start offering them.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Will you please STOP telling people what *I* think. Thanks.


I didn't think I had misrepresented any of your views but apologies if you do not like them being quoted back by others.

I have to put up with numerous other people here quoting back their own interpretation of Pete77's views.



> You can get SATA adapters for less than £10 so it won't be long before a single large SATA drive is the most economical big upgrade. At that point I will probably start offering them.


A 1 TB Green Power Western Digital is already only £170 delivered (see above) and is signiificantly quieter and cooler than a Samsung HD400LD (perhaps as quiet even as a Samsung HA250JC) so has that moment already arrived?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I didn't think I had misrepresented any of your views but apologies if you do not like them being quoted back by others.


Direct quotes are fine. What bugs me is all this "blindlemon says..." and "blindlemon seems to think..." stuff which invariably supports _your_ idea of whatever it was you vaguely remembered me saying.



Pete77 said:


> (perhaps as quiet even as a Samsung HA250JC)


Now them's fighting' words Pete!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Now them's fighting' words Pete!


Its certainly a fair bit quieter than the Spinpoint T series or any other major 3.5" high capacity drive currently widely available according to:-

http://techreport.com/articles.x/13379/14

I suspect that probably has it tieing with the HA250JC range.

Of course who knows if it will be as reliable as the HA250JC though. However I have a feeling that Western Digital are currently refocusing their efforts on quality at precisely the same time as Seagate/Maxwell is becoming obsessed solely with cranking out as many cheaply made units as possible at the maximum possible profit.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Which do you think you will be recommending to customers between two HA250JCs with only 500Gb and one WD Green Power with 1000Gb (with all the advantages of only one drive) for only around the same total cost?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Which do you think you will be recommending to customers between two HA250JCs with only 500Gb and one WD Green Power with 1000Gb (with all the advantages of only one drive) for only around the same total cost?


Clearly the 1TB drive would seem a better deal on paper.

As long as it's at least as reliable as the current Samsung T133 drives then I see no reason not to offer it at some point. The fact that it has a low spindle speed (like the HA250JC) bodes well for reliability and low vibration too.

Hopefully somebody will try using one in a TiVo soon and we'll see how it works out :up:

(of course, if you would like to pony up the R&D cash, Pete, then I could do one for you and you could beta-test it.... )


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

blindlemon said:


> You can get SATA adapters for less than £10 so it won't be long before a single large SATA drive is the most economical big upgrade....


Well that's good to know. I doubt I will have any need of that much space. At the moment I have about 150GB and that is enough for everything at Mode 0 VBR except for the occasional holiday period.

If I can jiggle about enough spare space on the main PC I'm going to look at extraction/reinsertion. If I can retrieve my recordings, back up my config and do a straight drive swap to upgrade I may go for 400GB Samsung when my next invoice gets paid.


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## ericd121 (Dec 12, 2002)

I'd like to jump in here on the "how much is too much?" disk space issue.

A great thing about Tivo is that it's all things to all men, and indeed, women.

Some have stated here that a large disk enables them to record shows they *might* want to watch. That is one way to use a Tivo.

However, some of us, myself included, only ever record shows we want to watch, and indeed, can't bear to miss.

Tivo therefore appeals to our inherent control freakery. 

In this circumstance, hard disk size can relate to how wide one's taste is;
my taste is somewhat catholic, so two Tivos with 160GB and 120GB HDDs is sufficient, and indeed, sometimes a necessary limiting factor.


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## laurence (Jun 17, 2007)

OK, I'm ready to upgrade my tivo HD (again).
In the past I used Hindale's guide (or something like that). Current drives are struggling on so I can still back up data.

Thing is, I no longer have a PC with IDE connector that I can put the drive(s) in. The motherboard died.

I have a cachecard and tivoweb installed on my laptop, so I'm wondering, is it possible to install tivo on a new drive using a USB to IDE adaptor? Has anyone tried that - or better still has anyone seen any instructions on doing that? If it is possible, presumably, I wouldn't be able to do a dual drive upgrade...
Loz


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

[email protected] said:


> Thing is, I no longer have a PC with IDE connector that I can put the drive(s) in. The motherboard died.


This may not be the answer you wanted but I found this:-

http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/history/topic/156410-1.html

Basically you either need to acquire a desktop PC via a car boot sale, Ebay or if you are lucky for free via www.freecycle.org/groups/unitedkingdom/

Alternatively if this is too long to wait you need to buy a pre-prepared hard drive to drop in to your Tivo from www.tivocentral.co.uk, www.tivoheaven.co.uk or www.tivoland.com

Sorry but doing a Tivo upgrade on a desktop is not a proven or certainly a documented activity that anyone else seems to have done successfully.


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## laurence (Jun 17, 2007)

Thanks for that Pete.
Ultratec are doing the Samsung HA250JC for 59.95 plus VAT which seems reasonable - I've had problems finding them (at a decent price) when I've looked before. So I've invested in two. If I can't get hold of a suitable PC, I suppose I'll have to get a preconfigured one and put them on sea bay.
Now I just need to find some upgrade instructions...
Loz


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

[email protected] said:


> Thanks for that Pete.
> Ultratec are doing the Samsung HA250JC for 59.95 plus VAT which seems reasonable - I've had problems finding them (at a decent price) when I've looked before. So I've invested in two.


I have got 2 Samsung HA250JCs here in my own Tivo that are 2 years 9 months old and still going strong. The only point of concern would be that you are paying what I paid for them nearly 3 years ago and you can now buy a Western Digital Green Power 1TB drive for use in a Tivo with an IDE to SATA adapter for almost the same money. These are reported as very cool and quiet by those who are now using them in their Tivos.



> If I can't get hold of a suitable PC, I suppose I'll have to get a preconfigured one and put them on sea bay.
> 
> Now I just need to find some upgrade instructions..


Upgrade instructions at www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/upgrade3.html as previously mentioned. Or you could try www.mfslive.org and www.mfslive.org/winmfs/ and ask Spike (the site owner) if there is a way to do a Tivo drive upgrade with WinMFS using a notebook rather than a desktop PC.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

You can use a USB drive caddy, but it will depend on your laptop whether it works or not.

Boot from the LBA48 CD or the MFSLive CD - if the drive is recognised it will show up as /dev/sda1


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> You can use a USB drive caddy, but it will depend on your laptop whether it works or not.
> 
> Boot from the LBA48 CD or the MFSLive CD - if the drive is recognised it will show up as /dev/sda1


OK thanks blindlemon this could also be useful here some time. I think 3.5" USB caddies are well under a tenner if you buy them online with something else you needed (i.e. carriage is already paid for).

Having said that the only USB sockets in my laptop now come from a PCMCIA card due to HP's rubbish construction quality and I expect the LBA48CD may not like that?


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## laurence (Jun 17, 2007)

Thanks Pete and Blinlemon,
You're right about the 1TB drive. I had another reboot loop after installing a hack this morning and ended up panic buying! Don't really think I need 500GB, but as it wasn't any extra shipping... Thanks for the tips about the USB, I'll give it a go and let you know how it goes.
Loz


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