# TiVoPony, What about ESATA, in an interview you said ESATA was coming....



## MediaLivingRoom (Dec 10, 2002)

Pony,

What about ESATA, in an interview you said ESATA was coming....http://www.gearlive.com/videocast/gearlivetivoseries3.mp4

Can you give us a time frame on this feature and tell us what happened? Was there a software/programming issue? or was it related to CableLabs??

Can you please tell us?


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## NJ Webel (Dec 8, 2004)

You're Soooo bad!


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

It's coming in November.

BTW, link is bad.


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## Canoehead (Sep 12, 2006)

Bierboy said:


> It's coming in November.
> 
> BTW, link is bad.


Will it be arriving on the same truck as my S3?


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Canoehead said:


> Will it be arriving on the same truck as my S3?


It will if you get your S3 in November.


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## SCSIRAID (Feb 2, 2003)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> Pony,
> 
> What about ESATA, in an interview you said ESATA was coming....http://www.gearlive.com/videocast/g...tivoseries3.mp4
> 
> ...


Some details on the implementation would also be nice.... Like... 1) will recordings be distributed between the two drives or will a single show be confined to a single drive. 2) Can you remove a drive and then replace it at a late date and be able to view the content. 3) Can you build a 'library' of shows on multiple drives and switch back and forth. 4) if an external drive fails do you lose everything (even the stuff on the good drive).

Thanks...


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

SCSIRAID said:


> Some details on the implementation would also be nice.... Like... 1) will recordings be distributed between the two drives or will a single show be confined to a single drive. 2) Can you remove a drive and then replace it at a late date and be able to view the content. 3) Can you build a 'library' of shows on multiple drives and switch back and forth. 4) if an external drive fails do you lose everything (even the stuff on the good drive).
> 
> Thanks...


My expectations:

Yes, Maybe, No, No.


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

SCSIRAID said:


> Some details on the implementation would also be nice.... Like... 1) will recordings be distributed between the two drives or will a single show be confined to a single drive. 2) Can you remove a drive and then replace it at a late date and be able to view the content. 3) Can you build a 'library' of shows on multiple drives and switch back and forth. 4) if an external drive fails do you lose everything (even the stuff on the good drive).
> 
> Thanks...


From what Pony said at the TC-Con in Vegas, if I remember correctly

1. No way to tell. 
2. No. You cannot remove a drive and then replace it. It's "married" to the unit, I believe
3. No
4. Did not address this question.

In addition I believe this is an extension of the MFS file system Tivo has developed, not a normal Linux file system. MFS gets very unhappy when the disks on 2 disk systems are divorced, and I would think this would also be the case.


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## TiVotion (Dec 6, 2002)

Second half! 

BTW, is that video link not supposed to work? If so, it's working as intended.


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## alee (Mar 24, 2002)

Gregor said:


> In addition I believe this is an extension of the MFS file system Tivo has developed, not a normal Linux file system. MFS gets very unhappy when the disks on 2 disk systems are divorced, and I would think this would also be the case.


This is pretty poor if that is indeed the case.

If you look at the S3 hardware, we have a MTBF of X hours. If the hardware fails, you go through your normal warranty channels to get the issues addressed to your satisfaction, or if you are out of warranty you go out and buy a new TiVo, rebuild it, etc.

With an ESATA disk, the consumer can buy a second piece of hardware which has MTBF of Y, and can fail independently of the S3 hardware.

I can be 8 months into an S3 ownership, and 1 month into an ESATA disk ownership and if the external disk goes, it would be really poor design if my S3 also becomes unusable.

Hardware will always fail; however, the failure of an accessory should not render the entire system useless. Here's to hoping TiVo manages the relationship between the external disk and the parent hardware properly.


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

alee said:


> This is pretty poor if that is indeed the case.
> 
> If you look at the S3 hardware, we have a MTBF of X hours. If the hardware fails, you go through your normal warranty channels to get the issues addressed to your satisfaction, or if you are out of warranty you go out and buy a new TiVo, rebuild it, etc.
> 
> ...


Note that these are my thoughts, I don't speak for Tivo.

This scenario is nothing new, it happens now with two drive Tivos, perhaps Tivo is working on this problem...

edited to clarify.


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## alee (Mar 24, 2002)

Gregor said:


> Note that these are my thoughts, I don't speak for Tivo.


Noted... I won't shoot the messenger. 

I'm still dreaming of the day when TiVos become NAS or SAN aware, and all you buy from TiVo is a smart "head". All your shows are centrally stored and served from your storage array, and heads can punt recording jobs to each other if they're busy recording something else.

(in my dreams)
User requests to record a show
Living room head: I'm busy, tuner 1 and tuner 2 are recording
Network broadcast... who's not doing anything?
Bedroom head responds... I'm not recording anything right now
Living room head passes job to bedroom head
Show gets stored to centralized storage to be accessed from either head


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

I would love to see cooperative scheduling, a "thin" client at the TV and a big media storehouse in the basement.

However, media companies hate the idea of consumers storing large quantities of their content in a private cache.


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## Canoehead (Sep 12, 2006)

Bierboy said:


> It will if you get your S3 in November.


Well at this rate maybe I will. Sure as hell don't know if I'll be getting it this week or when - CSR can't tell, _should _ get an email in the next few days....


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

Gregor said:


> I would love to see cooperative scheduling, a "thin" client at the TV and a big media storehouse in the basement.
> 
> However, media companies hate the idea of consumers storing large quantities of their content in a private cache.


I am going to pre-complain about the price of this right now!!! 

-smak-


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## drusoicy (Feb 10, 2004)

I run Gear Live. Here is the true link, with MP4 and H.264 versions of the video:

http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/n...ries-3-video-interview-first-look-0108051437/

Also, if you want to see more of our cool video stuff, head to http://www.bleedingedgetv.com


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## comicsacrifice (Sep 14, 2006)

bump. whats the deal with e-sata yo?


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## herfmonster (Jul 12, 2006)

I am just curious about the drive configurations in the S2 as well as the S3.
If an S2 has two drives how are they configured? Are they a RAID0 or are they JBOD or separate drives? 
Can an S3 have two drives internally and if so are they RAID0 or JBODor separate drives?
When the ESATA connection is enabled will an external drive configure itself as RAID0, JBOD or as another hard drive?
Lastly, do you think it will be possible to attatch an external RAID5 enclosure with say perhaps five 500GB SATA drives within the enclosure? (That would give you a really cool 2Terrabyte hot swapable backup with parity.)


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## boywaja (Sep 30, 2001)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> Can you give us a time frame on this feature and tell us what happened? Was there a software/programming issue? or was it related to CableLabs??


I cant imagine its a cable labs issue. My SA 8300 provided by Cox can use a SATA external hard drive. Hopefully they just have a few flaws to work out.


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

boywaja said:


> I cant imagine its a cable labs issue. My SA 8300 provided by Cox can use a SATA external hard drive. Hopefully they just have a few flaws to work out.


The SA8300 doesn't use a cablecard.


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## Canoehead (Sep 12, 2006)

vman41 said:


> The SA8300 doesn't use a cablecard.


It has a digitial decoder built in - which is what the Cable Card does (or what it unlocks, depending how you look at it). If an ESATA drive can "safely" (from a DRM perspective) be married to a CableCo DVR, then it can work with an S3.


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## bap (Dec 7, 2003)

alee said:


> Hardware will always fail; however, the failure of an accessory should not render the entire system useless. Here's to hoping TiVo manages the relationship between the external disk and the parent hardware properly.


I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head as to why ESATA support wasn't included at the time of release. The 'E' part makes it much more complex than just adding a second drive to a unit. I'm willing to bet they want ESATA to be as simple to use and user friendly as the rest of the whole unit, which means cleanly handling drive failures, unexpected disconnects, etc. They've got a lot of work on their hands to support all that.


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## herfmonster (Jul 12, 2006)

BAP your reply almost answered my questions.

I just want to know so I will know how they will behave and what kinds of backup plans I need to instate.


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## comicsacrifice (Sep 14, 2006)

esata in november? is november also when every single cablecard 1.0 self destructs? har harrrrrrgggh.


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## JerryInPhoenix (Sep 19, 2006)

boywaja said:


> I cant imagine its a cable labs issue. My SA 8300 provided by Cox can use a SATA external hard drive. Hopefully they just have a few flaws to work out.


Ever had power fail with that external drive? SA8300 recovers by reformating the external drive. Not the best way to recover.

Think there is any chance TIVO will support a SATA hub such as this one at sataport,com

That could easily give you a couple of TBytes.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

Take a deep breath and relax....


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

herfmonster said:


> If an S2 has two drives how are they configured? Are they a RAID0 or are they JBOD or separate drives?
> Can an S3 have two drives internally and if so are they RAID0 or JBODor separate drives?


The S3 only has one sata port on the motherboard. So, I assume, it can only have one internal drive.
http://www.tivolovers.com.nyud.net:8080/Photos/Series3-Review/Large/Inside-16.jpg

A 2 drive S2 is not RAID anything. They are just Master & Slave on PATA connector, but married by the filesystem(?). One fails, you loose everything.


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## Bodshal (Jan 4, 2005)

JerryInPhoenix said:


> Ever had power fail with that external drive? SA8300 recovers by reformating the external drive. Not the best way to recover.
> 
> Think there is any chance TIVO will support a SATA hub such as this one at sataport,com
> 
> That could easily give you a couple of TBytes.


Not convinced it will, since that unit I think presents mutiple drives on different device ID's. Would need support in the TiVo software, which I doubt they'll do.

If you find a unit that will stripe/jbod/raid multiple drives and that presents the array as a single SATA device, that would be uber cool. I've not really looked, yet, though.

Chris.


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## djones18 (Jan 6, 2006)

I've had an eSATA (SATA II) external drive connected to my Cableco SA8300HD DVR for several months. Cablecos don't readily admit their boxes support this. The boxes must contain compatible sofware versions which the customer can readily figure out. I can understand why TIVO wants to work out the kinks. Even with the right software, many have been trying to connect these drives to Cableco HD/DVRs for several months with mixed results.

Among the problems are incompatability with certain brands and models of SATA hard drives, external cases and eSATA cables, drive size limitations, varying degrees of pixelation and picture degradation which didn't exist before the external drive was connected, total crashes to the Cableco box when the drive was connected, and on, and on.

I've been lucky. The external drive was recognized immediately but it had to be connected, powered on, and the DVR powered on in a specific sequence to be recognized. The drive was formatted by the DVR and locked to it for encryption purposes. Programs are then recorded to the drive with the most space remaining (some say to balance the system). 

If the external drive is removed or turned off, it retains program data. The DVR simply reverts to the internal drive for recording and playback. Once plugged back in, in the correct sequence, the external drive is recognized by its host DVR as if it had not been dis-connected. However, if the eSATA external drive is connected to another DVR or to a computer, its contents will be reformatted and lost. Don't know of anyone who has been able to defeat this so far.

As I said earlier, this has not been a simple plug-and-play experience for many folks. Hopefully, TIVO will review the lessons from users of Cableco HD/DVRs and apply them to ensure implementation is hiccup free.

Cheers.


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

herfmonster 

why just use 500gb hard drives? why not go for the 750gb hard drives from Seagate.
That way you could have 3 Terabytes not just 2 

TexasGrillChef


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

Bodshal said:


> If you find a unit that will stripe/jbod/raid multiple drives and that presents the array as a single SATA device, that would be uber cool. I've not really looked, yet, though.


There seems to be a good selection of such devices. Some much more $$$ than others.

Here is one I have my eye on.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822102002

I have a SataVault on loan from work that seems kinda loud, but they may be dependent more on the drives than the enclosure.
http://www.satagear.com/SV-2RSA1_SATA_RAID.html


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## JerryInPhoenix (Sep 19, 2006)

Bodshal said:


> Not convinced it will, since that unit I think presents mutiple drives on different device ID's. Would need support in the TiVo software, which I doubt they'll do.


You're correct, it is just a way of hanging extra drives. The port multiplier will only work if they write the driver to support more than 2 drives. It would be a lot simpler and cheaper than one of the hardware raid solutions.

Of course even the RAID solutions will only work if they allow large physical drives. Even XP has a 2 TB limit.


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## comicsacrifice (Sep 14, 2006)

so whats the answer from tivo?


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

I already got the data from TiVo and put it in the review and FAQ and past threads - nothing has changed in the past week.

eSATA is 'future' - no commitment for 'November', I don't know where that came from. They will not give out an date beyond 'future'. It was not included in the launch strictly as a development schedule measure, it wasn't felt to be a critical feature for product launch. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Cable Labs.

As for the implementation - based on conversations at CES:
1. The drive is wed to the unit. You cannot take the drive to another S3.
2. Shows will be striped across the drives just like a unit with two drives today.
3. If you unplug the drive then any shows with data on the external drive are gone. The unit will still function, of course. What wasn't clear at the time is if you can reconnect the drive and get those shows back, but that was likely.
4. You cannot swap multiple eSATA drives back and forth as a libary.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

JerryInPhoenix said:


> The port multiplier will only work if they write the driver to support more than 2 drives.


A port multiplier requires a PM-aware host, which I don't think the Broadcom chip is. It's a hardware limitation, not driver.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

TexasGrillChef said:


> herfmonster
> 
> why just use 500gb hard drives? why not go for the 750gb hard drives from Seagate.
> That way you could have 3 Terabytes not just 2
> ...


Seagate drives are LOUD, as they have no acoustic management capabilities.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

BobCamp1 said:


> Seagate drives are LOUD, as they have no acoustic management capabilities.


There are some that are not loud. The fact that it has no acoustic management support in and of itself doesn't mean its loud. It all depends on the default acoustic sound they hard code into the drive firmware. But I would agree, you have to be careful because most of the Seagate drives are set for performance and not for sound.


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## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

megazone said:


> As for the implementation - based on conversations at CES:
> 
> ...
> 
> 3. If you unplug the drive then any shows with data on the external drive are gone. The unit will still function, of course. What wasn't clear at the time is if you can reconnect the drive and get those shows back, but that was likely.


This is the information I'm most interested in. My hope is that after the drive is reconnected you can indeed get those shows back. However, I'm curious what the "stripe" recovery process will be, for example, if the eSATA drive dies.

Example: You record a four hour baseball game and the "stripes" for this recording occupy space on the internal and external. For the sake of argument, let's say it's 50% on each drive. Suddenly your eSATA drive dies.

Based on what we already know, you can't watch the ball game because half the data is not there.

But will the title for the ball game still appear in the Now Playing List?

If it does appear, will you be allowed to delete the title, which would free up the striped data for this title that resides on the internal drive?

If it doesn't appear in the list, how can you delete the recording and recover that space? Or will TiVo have some kind of time-sensitive internal recovery process, for example: the eSATA drive has been disconnected for XXX hours so it will free up al stripe data associated with the external drive?


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

drew2k said:


> This is the information I'm most interested in. My hope is that after the drive is reconnected you can indeed get those shows back. However, I'm curious what the "stripe" recovery process will be, for example, if the eSATA drive dies.
> 
> Example: You record a four hour baseball game and the "stripes" for this recording occupy space on the internal and external. For the sake of argument, let's say it's 50% on each drive. Suddenly your eSATA drive dies.
> 
> ...


someplace there is a post that described the situation as the box will prompt you if the extrenal drive gets disconnected or dies. It would ask if you want to kill off the recordings that span onto that drive or do you want to reconnect it to get the recordings back. I got the impression that you had to pick then and there if you were going to kill off thesecond drive or not. SO if you accidently unplugged it or somethign the tivo would reconnect but it wasn't like you cold pull the drive and then come back in a week and reconnect it.

nothin official- I think it was based on Pony's comments in vegas- but it made sense when i read it...


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Since its not available yet, its possible none of this has even been decided or worked out yet. So any information now would be pure speculation.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

rainwater said:


> There are some that are not loud. The fact that it has no acoustic management support in and of itself doesn't mean its loud. It all depends on the default acoustic sound they hard code into the drive firmware. But I would agree, you have to be careful because most of the Seagate drives are set for performance and not for sound.


There is NO acoustic firmware in the Seagate drive to even program! I agree that some drives with acoustic managment are still loud, but I haven't heard of a quiet consumer-level Seagate hard drive in a long time. But people consider different things to be "noise" -- ultimately a consumer needs to just try it and see if its quiet enough for him.

Also, larger hard drives tend to be noisier than smaller ones, but two quiet hard drives may be noisier than one large one. It just depends on the models.

My advice is to buy from a place that accepts returns on opened hard drives, and save the receipt.


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## djones18 (Jan 6, 2006)

Got my Series 3 up and running today. Connected the eSATA external drive from my SA 8300HD using same procedure as connecting to 8300HD and got nothing. No indication that TIVO recognized the eSATA port had a connection. Plugged the drive back into my 8300HD with no problem. So, now it's a waiting game for port to be active.

Regarding how TIVO will split programs between internal and external drives, won't know till port is active but I suspect the software will not split a single program between both drives in case of a single drive failure. This is how 8300HD handles data and makes logical sense. Unfortunately the not-so-smart user interface still sees the program in its library file (which is stored on the main drive) and displays it on screen. Clicking play button simply has no effect. Expect TIVO to detect no external disk is active and gray out or blank out programs stored there.

TIVO should think this through from the user's perspective and provide detailed guidance, along with list of compatible drives, cases, and cables.

Cheers.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

djones18 said:


> Got my Series 3 up and running today. Connected the eSATA external drive from my SA 8300HD using same procedure as connecting to 8300HD and got nothing. No indication that TIVO recognized the eSATA port had a connection. Plugged the drive back into my 8300HD with no problem. So, now it's a waiting game for port to be active.


What software and version are you running on the SA8300HD?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

BobCamp1 said:


> There is NO acoustic firmware in the Seagate drive to even program!


Yes, that is the point. Seagate however sets the acoustics in the drive in the factory. It doesn't use the AAM standard, but they can definately set acoustics in the drives. I never said AAM was enabled in Seagates (since they are not going to pay the license fee). Just because it doesn't have AAM doesn't mean Seagate doesn't tailor certain drives for performance and some for sound.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

Somewhere there was posted an interview in a publication with someone from TiVo engineering where I think I remember his discussing the challenges of modifying the file system. Those comments reveal some of what they might be planning.

Anyone remember?


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## djones18 (Jan 6, 2006)

TonyD79 said:


> What software and version are you running on the SA8300HD?


Software and ver: SARA 1.87.16.1

After lots of trial and error, hard drives having the following specs seem to have the fewest problems when connected to HD/DVRs:

Drive Type: SATA or SATA II
Capacity: 500GB or less (limitation in Cablebox software)
Speed: 7200RPM (mixed results with 5400RPM)
Cache: 16.0MB Buffer (some getting results with 8.0MB)
Drive Enclosure and cabling : eSATA (SATA II) (enclosure w/fan is preferable but not essential)

I'd think TIVO would have similar specs to ensure the external drive system can handle encrypted HD video data rates and storage requirement glitchfree.

Cheers.


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## TiVoPony (May 12, 2002)

rainwater said:


> Since its not available yet, its possible none of this has even been decided or worked out yet. So any information now would be pure speculation.


This is correct, it's not available yet. I haven't posted in this thread, because there's nothing to say that I haven't said already. Given that, there have been much more important issues that I've dedicated my time to.

Demanding that I post the details on something that isn't available yet...that seldom produces the result you're asking for. 

I do need to correct one thing:



megazone said:


> It has nothing whatsoever to do with Cable Labs.


MegaZone is correct 99.99999% of the time, but in this case, well...he wasn't. Probably some miscommunicaton from someone on our team, I don't know. But in a CableCard device digital content can only be moved off of the box through approved outputs with approved content protection technology, including transfers to an external drive. We have submitted our protection technology to CableLabs for their consideration.

They're not bad guys over at CableLabs, and while the blame game is fun, it's not warranted. We look forward to continuing to offer improvements to the Series3, and we are working with them on it.

Cheers,
Pony


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

TiVoPony said:


> This is correct, it's not available yet. I haven't posted in this thread, because there's nothing to say that I haven't said already. Given that, there have been much more important issues that I've dedicated my time to.
> 
> Demanding that I post the details on something that isn't available yet...that seldom produces the result you're asking for.
> 
> ...


Pony - While disappointed to hear this, I appreciate you making a statement on the issue. My fear is that we're going be waiting a long, long time for the eSATA port to be enabled if you're at the mercy of CableLabs making a decision.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

TiVoPony said:


> ..... We have submitted our protection technology to CableLabs for their consideration.
> ....
> 
> Cheers,
> Pony


anychance you are allowed to say when you guys submitted it to cablelabs for their consideration?


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## MediaLivingRoom (Dec 10, 2002)

TiVoPony said:


> This is correct, it's not available yet. I haven't posted in this thread, because there's nothing to say that I haven't said already. Given that, there have been much more important issues that I've dedicated my time to.
> 
> Demanding that I post the details on something that isn't available yet...that seldom produces the result you're asking for.
> 
> ...


Thank you for your detailed information.

I do appreciate it.


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> Thank you for your detailed information.
> 
> I do appreciate it.


Who are you, and what have you done with the real MediaLivingRoom?


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## DCIFRTHS (Jan 6, 2000)

TiVoPony said:


> ... MegaZone is correct 99.99999% ...


Who the heck is the MegaZone guy?


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## skanter (May 28, 2003)

djones18 said:


> Software and ver: SARA 1.87.16.1
> 
> After lots of trial and error, hard drives having the following specs seem to have the fewest problems when connected to HD/DVRs:
> 
> ...


Have you heard of success with SATA and Passport software with SA8300?


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## djones18 (Jan 6, 2006)

skanter said:


> Have you heard of success with SATA and Passport software with SA8300?


Passport software (versus SARA software) used by many Cablecos in SA 8300HD/DVRs has not supported external drives until recently. I've heard of a few successes but they are based on the city and the Passport version folks are using. For example, Kansas City Cableco and New York City Time Warner Cable uses Passport version 2.5.066 and some folks successfully connected their external SATA drives.

My advice is contact your Cableco and ask if their software is activated to support external drives. Unfortunately many Cablecos treat external drive issues like they have Series 3 cablecard issues. Accurate answers are hard to get.

Bringing this back to the Series 3 external drive subject, the technical challenges to move encrypted video to an external drive and ensure a seamless user experience are far more significant than simply connecting an external hard drive to a computer USB port.

When TIVO activates their SATA port there will be a huge third party combination of hard drives, enclosures, and cables to choose which can be connected. TIVO's close collaboration with the user community to accurately articulate the specs and provide very specific connection/startup guidance may eliminate the hit-and-miss approach we've experienced making our existing Cableco HD/DVRs work with external drives.

Cheers.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

Bodshal said:


> If you find a unit that will stripe/jbod/raid multiple drives and that presents the array as a single SATA device, that would be uber cool. I've not really looked, yet, though.


1) It's called a RAID array
2) A good one is not cheap
3) JBOD just shows every disk individually, so it would not present them as a single drive.

I want one of the RAIDs that my company uses - 16 Bay X 400GB drives. More than 6 TB.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

djones18 said:


> Regarding how TIVO will split programs between internal and external drives, won't know till port is active but I suspect the software will not split a single program between both drives in case of a single drive failure. This is how 8300HD handles data and makes logical sense.


It may sound like common sense but if you think about it, it is not logical to store shows on a "per drive" basis, both from a security standpoint and from performance standpoint.

With one internal drive, there is no choice but to write to that drive. With two drives, there is a significant performance gain from striping the data across both drives. Also, you cannot take that drive to another computer and "crack" the file system to copy shows.

Also, it's a good idea to stripe to keep a balance between drives. If you have 250GB internal and 750GB external, if you are not striping, you may end up with a lot of unused space on the internal drive that you cannot use because a show would take up more space than the drive allows.

For instance, without striping, and assuming you have only 4GB left on each drive, if you want to record show that would end up taking up 7 GB, you cannot do it until you free up space on one of the drives. With striping, that 8GB of net space is usable.

My company stripes video in this way specifically for this purpose (and others). You maximize the usable space on your storage media.


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## jrog (Sep 5, 2004)

classicX said:


> 1) It's called a RAID array
> 2) A good one is not cheap
> 3) JBOD just shows every disk individually, so it would not present them as a single drive.
> 
> I want one of the RAIDs that my company uses - 16 Bay X 400GB drives. More than 6 TB.


I use this device on my media computer to store my videos and music. I can't really afford to lose all that stuff as re-ripping my music collection alone would cost me money in the time it would take. http://www.sansdigital.com/MS2UT.htm It's an eSata/USB2.0 drive bay system, it has two bays, and can mirror the drives and present itself as only one, or stripe them. I played around with two drives in a mirror, failed by extracting a drive, then re-inserted... it recovered just fine, and the onscreen display, while bright, had all the important info readily at hand. You also can't accidentally extract a drive, as you need a key, which is nothing more than a long thin rod to push into the hole to pop the latch.

I Have been pleased with the performance, it is a little loud, but you can get some longer eSata cables these days and put it just about anywhere. It runs cool and seems to be very fast. They also have a 5 bay unit which can do raid 5, but it's significantly more expensive.

What I'm thinking, is forget about eSata, and just extend the on-board Sata out of the box and into a box like this. Then put a second drive in and you have mirroring instantly. No worry about downtime. Or put larger drives and either stripe if you so desire, or mirror, which would be my first choice. I hate losing data.

-jrog


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## djones18 (Jan 6, 2006)

classicX said:


> It may sound like common sense but if you think about it, it is not logical to store shows on a "per drive" basis, both from a security standpoint and from performance standpoint.
> 
> With one internal drive, there is no choice but to write to that drive. With two drives, there is a significant performance gain from striping the data across both drives. Also, you cannot take that drive to another computer and "crack" the file system to copy shows.
> 
> ...


ClassicX,

Technically your explanation makes sense as I'm no expert on striping video. However, if video programs are striped across both drives, do you loose your ability to play any striped video program if one of the drives fails? If so, from a practical end users perspective I'd rather loose just a few programs than my entire library if one disk drive fails.

Taking the external drive to another computer or DVR to crack the data or play the program is a significant issue. Current Cableco HD/DVRs reformat the external drive on first connection and lock that drive to the DVR for encryption and data storage. The encrypted data on that drive cannot be read by connecting it to another DVR or a computer. There is some risk here but apparently one the Cablecos can live with for now.

Cheers.


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## jrog (Sep 5, 2004)

djones18 said:


> ClassicX,
> 
> Technically your explanation makes sense as I'm no expert on striping video. However, if video programs are striped across both drives, do you loose your ability to play any striped video program if one of the drives fails? If so, from a practical end users perspective I'd rather loose just a few programs than my entire library if one disk drive fails.
> 
> ...


If you stripe across the drives, then you have striped the file system, and removal of one of the drives will likely cause ALL of the data to be unuseable. In a mirror configuration, however, you could removed a drive leaving the box running on a single drive, and then place that mirrored drive in another chassis and fully recover the data. Not sure if swapping drives on a Tivo allows you to actually watch the shows or if they are somehow paired to that unit.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

classicX said:


> Also, you cannot take that drive to another computer and "crack" the file system to copy shows.


I think this is the issue holding up Tivo from releasing eSATA. They don't want an entire HD show stored on the external drive. I think they have to ensure that each show using the external drive is significantly striped across both drives. However, if you stripe all the shows across both drives, then when the external drive is unpluged ALL the shows are gone.

This problem is made worse when the external drive will be 2 or 3 times larger than the internal drive. You still have to store some chunk on that smaller internal drive while maximizing the available storage on the external drive. If the room runs out in the internal drive, do you reshuffle a few shows that were stored only on the internal drive so that they now occupy both drives? Or do you just lie and say there's no more room?

And what happens if the external drive's power isn't there (it has its own power brick), then suddenly returns? People would expect true hot insertion and removal Plug and Play without requiring a Tivo reboot (or maybe Tivo drops this feature).

It's not as easy as it appears, especially with the Linux kernel they're using. Maybe they even have to rewrite parts of the eSATA driver to make it compatible with their kernel.

It's not as easy as it looks.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

djones18 said:


> if video programs are striped across both drives, do you loose your ability to play any striped video program if one of the drives fails?


In my company's case, no, but our DVRs are for a different type of application (not "end user" or consumer electronics). If one drive fails, I can still play back whatever video is still on the other drives.

In Tivo's case, assuming that they are doing this, I doubt it would be useful playing part of a TV show.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

jrog said:


> I use this device on my media computer to store my videos and music. I can't really afford to lose all that stuff as re-ripping my music collection alone would cost me money in the time it would take. http://www.sansdigital.com/MS2UT.htm


I was thinking more along the lines of this beast:










It is EXTREMELY loud though, and weighs a ton. I wouldn't put this thing in my living room. My basement, maybe. It also has three power supplies (with three seperate power cables) and you can feel the fans from 15 feet away.


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## Franco (Feb 24, 2002)

You guys are beating a dead horse that isn't even alive yet. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but please stop guessing if/when/how eSata will be implemented. You people are driving me crazy! You even made my avatar flip upside-down!  

(Hey TiVo, please enable eSata for just my account. I won't tell anyone.)


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## jrog (Sep 5, 2004)

No such thing as too much, I suppose... I bet the MSRP on that is about 10-20 times more than on the two drive unit I was suggesting... then again, with that, the sky's the limit.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

Franco said:


> You guys are beating a dead horse that isn't even alive yet. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but please stop guessing if/when/how eSata will be implemented. You people are driving me crazy! You even made my avatar flip upside-down!
> 
> (Hey TiVo, please enable eSata for just my account. I won't tell anyone.)


Beating a dead horse? We aren't even discussing when eSATA will be enabled anymore, it's become a raid discussion.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

jrog said:


> No such thing as too much, I suppose... I bet the MSRP on that is about 10-20 times more than on the two drive unit I was suggesting... then again, with that, the sky's the limit.


I'll just say, with drives, > $10K.


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## jrog (Sep 5, 2004)

Franco said:


> You guys are beating a dead horse that isn't even alive yet. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but please stop guessing if/when/how eSata will be implemented. You people are driving me crazy! You even made my avatar flip upside-down!
> 
> (Hey TiVo, please enable eSata for just my account. I won't tell anyone.)


I don't think I was beating a dead horse at all. I was suggesting that you take the onboard sata port, and run a cable out the back or an opening elsewhere and connect that to an external raid array. Then you have external with RAID reliability, and expansion if you can afford it all. Then you never have to worry about data loss, and you can grow most of those systems if you need to.

And there's no heat build up or noise created by the internal SATA drive on the Tivo. 

-jrog


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

The internal and esata are going to have to be independent. You can't corrupt the file system because someone unplugs the esata while vacuuming. 

I'd like to see the esata moveable to any S3 with the same MAK.


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## MediaLivingRoom (Dec 10, 2002)

megazone said:


> Who are you, and what have you done with the real MediaLivingRoom?


I am at Stage 4 still.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=318065


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

HDTiVo said:


> The internal and esata are going to have to be independent. You can't corrupt the file system because someone unplugs the esata while vacuuming.


If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Tivo must make the drives independent by not striping information across both drives, simply to prevent data loss if the eSATA is accidentally unplugged?

I do not know the structure of the Tivo drives, but I would think that the operating software and buffer are on seperate partitions to prevent that. Striping the information is more efficient, as I've stated in a previous post.



HDTiVo said:


> I'd like to see the esata moveable to any S3 with the same MAK.


Once MRV is enabled, I don't see how this would be useful to anyone but those using phone lines and those with Tivo's on the same account in different places, like two homes on opposite coasts.


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## fergiej (Oct 9, 2002)

Set one of these bad boys up with a RAID 5 configuration for data redundancy:
http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.php/products_id/1248

I'd be really curious as to whether this configuration would even remotely work. Put 4 500GB drives in for an additional 1.5TB of space (abut 1/4 of total is used for the redundancy).


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## Bodshal (Jan 4, 2005)

fergiej said:


> Set one of these bad boys up with a RAID 5 configuration for data redundancy:
> http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.php/products_id/1248
> 
> I'd be really curious as to whether this configuration would even remotely work. Put 4 500GB drives in for an additional 1.5TB of space (abut 1/4 of total is used for the redundancy).


Nah, that thing has 4 separate esata connectors, one for each drive. The one that is a single connector is multilane, which is in effect 4 sata connections in one connector.

I *do* want to find such a beast that does the jbod/stripe and presents a single esata though.

Chris.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

classicX said:


> Striping the information is more efficient, as I've stated in a previous post.


I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing. "Striping" (RAID 0) means storing one file (large enough) on multiple drives in order to improve performance beyond what a single drive can deliver. If any drive dies, the whole system dies, unless you have redundancy in addition to striping.


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

fergiej said:


> Set one of these bad boys up with a RAID 5 configuration for data redundancy...
> 
> I'd be really curious as to whether this configuration would even remotely work. Put 4 500GB drives in for an additional 1.5TB of space (abut 1/4 of total is used for the redundancy).


That box won't work with the single eSATA port on S3 or the SA cable boxes.
It's basically an external multi-drive enclosure with a power supply, which isn't going to cut it.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

Bodshal said:


> I *do* want to find such a beast that does the jbod/stripe and presents a single esata though.


http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10033


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

http://www.usbgear.com/SV-2RSA1.html
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10038


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## Bodshal (Jan 4, 2005)

ah30k said:


> http://www.usbgear.com/SV-2RSA1.html
> http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10038


Cool. Thems will do nicely.

Chris.


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## classicX (May 10, 2006)

c3 said:


> I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing. "Striping" (RAID 0) means storing one file (large enough) on multiple drives in order to improve performance beyond what a single drive can deliver. If any drive dies, the whole system dies, unless you have redundancy in addition to striping.


I was simply using the term in the sense that it was used by whoever used it first. I was not talking about R0, I simply meant breaking up the video into pieces, and storing those pieces on seperate drives - they could be on the same drive or different once, but all are seperate from the OS partition.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

classicX said:


> I was simply using the term in the sense that it was used by whoever used it first. I was not talking about R0, I simply meant breaking up the video into pieces, and storing those pieces on seperate drives - they could be on the same drive or different once, but all are seperate from the OS partition.


TiVo OS and data are already on separate partitions (since day 1). However, if one drive dies, the whole system is dead. That's "acceptable" before S3 because all drives have been internal. With S3, TiVo has to be able to handle external disconnections gracefully.


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## eisenb11 (Sep 6, 2006)

classicX said:


> I was thinking more along the lines of this beast:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah nice, maxtronic raid chassis... also distributed under OEM by raidweb.

I have the 8 drive version of that, but it's outfitted with a ridiculously overpriced fibre channel connector... not much use with the S3 because of that, but great with my home file server


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## djones18 (Jan 6, 2006)

BobCamp1 said:


> I think this is the issue holding up Tivo from releasing eSATA. They don't want an entire HD show stored on the external drive. I think they have to ensure that each show using the external drive is significantly striped across both drives. However, if you stripe all the shows across both drives, then when the external drive is unpluged ALL the shows are gone.


BobCamp,

You may very well be right. Do you know for sure TIVO "don't want an entire HD show stored on the external drive" and they intend shows to be striped across both drives? I didn't think those sort of details had been released yet on TIVO's eSATA implementation plan.

I still don't believe TIVO's eSATA implementation is gonna allow some rogue third party external drive to crash their system and vaporize the stored library when it is unwittingly unplugged for any number of smart or dumb reasons.

As to this thread being a dead-horse beater, I'm finding the discussion interesting and I may even be learning something,

Thrash that horse!

Cheers


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## vstone (May 11, 2002)

For reference, the SA 8300HD stores a recording on whichever drive (internal or eSATA) has the most space left. If the system is near full this can result in starting on one drive and ending on another (indicated as two separate recordings on the listing). In one case it actually started two shows on one drive and finished both shows on the other drive (4 separate recordings.


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## jlib (Nov 22, 2002)

I like the idea of extending the internal SATA port to an external single lane ESATA device (2 drive RAID is the most I have seen, anything bigger?). So, I connect both the original drive and the RAID to my PC and do whatever upgrade process I would do as if I were replacing the original internal drive with a larger one. Then plug the 1.5 terrabyte RAID into the internal SATA. 

Things are slightly complicated by the fact that the ESATA connector has a slightly different form factor. But someone was thinking about us: SATA to ESATA cable. The one remaining problem is that most of these external RAID enclosures are designed with no concern for noise so most would be inappropriate for DVR use.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

jlib said:


> 2 drive RAID is the most I have seen, anything bigger?


see above


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

classicX said:


> If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Tivo must make the drives independent by not striping information across both drives, simply to prevent data loss if the eSATA is accidentally unplugged?
> 
> I do not know the structure of the Tivo drives, but I would think that the operating software and buffer are on seperate partitions to prevent that. Striping the information is more efficient, as I've stated in a previous post.
> 
> Once MRV is enabled, I don't see how this would be useful to anyone but those using phone lines and those with Tivo's on the same account in different places, like two homes on opposite coasts.


The data loss issue is the opposite of trivial; it is paramount.

The OS and Buffer have to be on the internal drive alone, they can not be disconnected.

Efficiency is irrelevant. The drives have far more read/write capacity than necessary for the jobs. Adding striping or RAID Anything to the file system would be an enormous job in itself without any real world benefit.

Moving the esata to another device without losing data makes sense for any number of reasons, including changing units or upgrading, and reasons we won't think of for some time. To lose the data would be foolish and a waste.


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## jlib (Nov 22, 2002)

ah30k said:


> http://www.usbgear.com/SV-2RSA1.html
> http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10038


Not the SV-2RSA1. That is RAID 1 only. We need Raid 0 or concatenation.


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## jlib (Nov 22, 2002)

c3 said:


> see above


OK, then the LaCie Biggest S1S seems like the best candidate so far (as long as the lack of mention of Linux anywhere in their documentation is simply because they don't want the hassle of supporting it). It has all the essential features: hardware based (no device driver required) and single lane cable connnection.


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

DCIFRTHS said:


> Who the heck is the MegaZone guy?


Unfortunately, no one can be told who the MegaZone is. You have to read it for yourself.


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## herfmonster (Jul 12, 2006)

Guys I hope the file system is not a RAID0 or even JBOD especially across the ESATA port. first off if it is RAID0 you will have the problem of different drive sizes I will use 500G drives for the ease of the math.

250G internal + 500G external in RAID0 = 500G of space you loose 250G but you get a performance boost.
250G internal + 500G external in JBOD = 750G no lost space but you cant separate the drives and no performance boost.
250G internal + 500G external in RAID1 = 250G you get protection but you loose 500g of space and no performance boost.

The consumer friendly way to arrange it would be to arrange them as master and slave drives with separate drive letters especially if you can decide which drive you want to store the program to. This is also where a free drivespace bargraph would come in handy. this configuration would nive a performance boost either. the really consumer friendly way would be the ability to connect an external raid aray to the ESATA port especially if you could drag and drop files from the internal to the external thereby keeping the internal drive clean.

The most interesting idea I have heard in this thread is running the internal SATA cable outside the box to an external drive array that looks like one drive. Personally I would love to configure a RAID5 since that is where you loose the least ammount of phyisical drive space while still getting protection from data loss. RAID5 can be accomplished with as few as 3 physical drives up to 32 drives I believe. Supposing equal size drives add all the drives together and subtract one. another option would be RAID0+1 but that requires at least 4 physical drives and isn't the most efficient use of space.

Again I will use 500G for ease of math

4X500G drives in a RAID0+1=1TB you end up loosing 1TB
3X500G drives in a RAID5=1.0TB you end up loosing 500g
4X500G drives in a RAID5=1.5TB you end up loosing 500g
5X500G drives in a RAID5=2.0TB you end up loosing 500g
etc etc...

As you see the more drives you add to a RAID5 the more efficient it gets.

To learn more about the different levels of RAID go here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks

Oh...just incase anyone is scratching their heads gecause us geeks keep saying JBOD it stands for
J ust a
B unch
O f
D iscs

Its not used much anymore but, back in the days of 1GIG drives and earlier, having 5 physical drives connected together as one C:\ drive came in handy sometimes.


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

I think you'd want to do it so that all the file system's metadata remains on the internal drive, but a file's data allocation may be from the secondary drive (even the allocation map for the secondary drive would be on the primary. The TiVo could still manage the files if the drive was disconnected, just not be able to play the data.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

vman41 said:


> I think you'd want to do it so that all the file system's metadata remains on the internal drive, but a file's data allocation may be from the secondary drive (even the allocation map for the secondary drive would be on the primary. The TiVo could still manage the files if the drive was disconnected, just not be able to play the data.


What do you want to acheive with that?


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

HDTiVo said:


> What do you want to acheive with that?


The external drive would be dependent on the primary drive, not the other way around -- good fore reliability (as reliable as the internal drive). The external drive is also (nearly) useless without the matching primary drive -- good for content protection.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

c3 said:


> The external drive would be dependent on the primary drive, not the other way around -- good fore reliability (as reliable as the internal drive). The external drive is also (nearly) useless without the matching primary drive -- good for content protection.


How does 1 improve reliability? esata fails, the data is gone, who cares if you can still delete the shows in Now Playing?

2 does that, but its not much fun.


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

HDTiVo said:


> How does 1 improve reliability? esata fails, the data is gone, who cares if you can still delete the shows in Now Playing?


Only the data that is on the esata is lost versus all the data in TiVo's traditional 'married drive' configuration. The TiVo should make a best effort to allocate all a program's segments to the same disk and could make the initial disk preference based on criteria like season pass priority.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

vman41 said:


> Only the data that is on the esata is lost versus all the data in TiVo's traditional 'married drive' configuration. The TiVo should make a best effort to allocate all a program's segments to the same disk and could make the initial disk preference based on criteria like season pass priority.


I see what you want to do now. TiVo would seperate the file system data for each disk my way, allowing esata disconnect and preserving file structure on both disks. Not much point in preserving directory data of a dead drive.

TiVo could duplicate entire directory data on both drives for reliability, but I'm not sure in what situations that would really permit recovery and would involve very complex recovery software to be written.

Even writing one program over both disks causes complications (confusion) on disconnect for the consumer. I'd stay away from that.


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## herfmonster (Jul 12, 2006)

You know personally I could care less about what the companies want. All this talk about protecting my content and piracy arrrrgh. It is getting really tiresome. I realize there are people who will try to use content in a dishonest manner but the average consumer just wants to watch his favorite shows when and where he wants. TiVo has made the recording easier but hoops have to be jumped through to archive it. They made it easy to record in the living room but watch in the office with the S2 but oooh now thats an iffy thint to allow people to do with the S3. We have to have copy protection and disable that function and dont allow archiving to a portable storage medium that takes up less space. you know what I really want is a tivo S3 with a built in eight layer BluRay recorder and an ESATA connection that will recognize a 2terrabyte raid array that i can take from my house to my friends house sit down and watch an entire season of 24 by connecting it to his tivo S3 and then bring it back home. (my friend has a great home theatre and a wood fired pizza oven and a great liquor cabinet and allows cigars in his house) Notice how none of this is contrary to fair use. Why cant the content creators just prosecute people who pirate their content. i thought all this got worked out with VCRs how many of you still have a movie or two you recorded off of HBO to VHS tape still laying around that you never bought an official copy of. Are you bad people for having done so. How many of you have done that and gave it to your mom because she wasnt home to watch it when it aired. How many of you have an archive of wrestling pay per views lining a bookshelf. You know they sell those pay per views on DVD now. I guess you're just evil then.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

herfmonster said:


> you know what I really want is a tivo S3 with a built in eight layer BluRay recorder and an ESATA connection that will recognize a 2terrabyte raid array that i can take from my house to my friends house sit down and watch an entire season of 24 by connecting it to his tivo S3 and then bring it back home. (my friend has a great home theatre and a wood fired pizza oven and a great liquor cabinet and allows cigars in his house)


That would be the S3 laptop.  Don't you want Bluetooth or whatever so your friend's entertainment system recognizes the S3 and streams the HD shows wirelessly? Otherwise its all just alot of lugging around.


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## herfmonster (Jul 12, 2006)

No I just want to unplug my RAID array (basicly a case with 5X500GB hard drives in a RAID5 array and a power supply) unplug it from the wall and the tivo and take just the box and the ESATA cable over to my friends house plug it into the wall hook the ESATA cable into the TiVo and watch all 24 episodes of 24 season 6 from start to finish in 7.1 dts while we smoke all the cigars we want, eat all the wood fired pizza we want, drink all the beer and liquor we want, sit on his comfy leather couches, and then un hook the raid box take it home and hook it back into my S3 in my rather plain abode.

Notice how I said nothing about transfering files to his TiVo. We just watched the programming I recorded and enjoyed ourselves.


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## mrmike (May 2, 2001)

herfmonster said:


> No I just want to unplug my RAID array (basicly a case with 5X500GB hard drives in a RAID5 array and a power supply) unplug it from the wall and the tivo and take just the box and the ESATA cable over to my friends house plug it into the wall hook the ESATA cable into the TiVo and watch all 24 episodes of 24 season 6 from start to finish in 7.1 dts while we smoke all the cigars we want, eat all the wood fired pizza we want, drink all the beer and liquor we want, sit on his comfy leather couches, and then


after a suitable amount of time has passed to allow the aforementioned beer and liquor to exit my system



herfmonster said:


> un hook the raid box take it home and hook it back into my S3 in my rather plain abode.
> 
> Notice how I said nothing about transfering files to his TiVo. We just watched the programming I recorded and enjoyed ourselves.


I fixed that up for you. And except for the cigars, I'm right there with you. Not at your friends place, 'cause I don't know him. But at one of my friends. Without the pizza oven, but with a really excellent grilling and (meat) smoking setup. Well, you get the idea.


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## herfmonster (Jul 12, 2006)

See TiVo I'm not the only one even though minor variables pretaining to personal tastes are different. I still want to emphasize I never suggested doing anything illegal. The 2TB RAID aray I described aside from storage capacity and quality levels of recordings is essentially no different than a VHS tape. People have been recording shows on their home VCR for years and taking the tapes to another location and playing them on even a completely different brand name VCR for decades. you can even hook a Fisher VCR up to cable and tape a movie uncut from HBO then daisy chain a Sony an RCA a Panasonic a Mitsubishi a Toshiba and a Sanyo VCR to the Fisher and in one pass make 6 copies of that same movie that will look decent enough to sell at a flea market. Is that illegal? Definately and I'm sure someone has done it. What I Dont understand is that all these companies that produce content that is released in any form of digital delivery medium and devices that play it, (CD, DVD HDDVD BluRayDVD OTAATSC and more) is just because "someone" CAN do something illegal with the content that "everyone" IS GOING TO do just that. Why must there be all this protection from uses that are clearly FAIR USE?

TiVo you should just go ahead and release the TiVoS3 MarkII with activated ESATA, USB ports that recognize external drives such as backup hard drives DVD burners and such, and a built in BluRay burner that is ready to be firmware upgraded to Eight layer support.


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## hookbill (Dec 14, 2001)

As it stands now all of my shows recorded on my SA 8300 will be on my Quickview Expander come time for install. It sure would be nice just to hook that up and watch through my S3, but no...I'll have to spend all day transfering to DVD prior to cable card install!

We need the eSATA active ASAP (or at least before my Cable Card install on 10/9).


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## tbeckner (Oct 26, 2001)

hookbill said:


> As it stands now all of my shows recorded on my SA 8300 will be on my Quickview Expander come time for install. It sure would be nice just to hook that up and watch through my S3, but no...I'll have to spend all day transfering to DVD prior to cable card install!
> 
> We need the eSATA active ASAP (or at least before my Cable Card install on 10/9).


You wouldn't be able to watch the SA 8300 recorded shows through the TiVo even if the eSATA on the Series 3 TiVo was active, because the recordings are different. In fact, you can't even view a SA 8300 show that might exist on the Quickview Expander on another SA 8300 because of the way SA had to implement the eSATA and the DRM requirements.


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## herfmonster (Jul 12, 2006)

Hello mrmike I just wanted to let you know that it took a day or two for me to realize what it was you were editing in to my post. It struck me in the middle of my forehead yesterday but I haven't had the time to respond until now.

The reasons I didnt realise what it was are three fold. Firstly is is such a common sense thing to do that I do it of my own volition subconsiously. Secondly because both my friend and I will have reached the point of having consumed all the liquor and beer we want BEFORE becoming intoxicated. Thirdly, my friend and i are as much coffee afficionados as anything else. The thought of the return trip being completed being intoxicated never crossed my mind as I would never have done so. You were however quite correct in correcting my omission

Now lets keep talking about what exactly has been determined as FAIR USE and what TiVo can do to promote consumer friendly methods of implementing Fair Use.


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## merced (Nov 11, 2002)

The eRAID system from DAToptic would work well.

Can't post link because of not enough posts...


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

I'd be ok with the following:

eSATA enabled

When you plug a drive in, it says "external HD available, would you like me to format it and use it for Tivo recordings? or just scan it for Music and Pictures?"

When you're running, it says "Record to HD? or Record to eSATA? or "figure it out on my own?" (same could apply to season passes)

And a disclaimer that says "if you record to eSATA, removing the external drive will result in loss of those recordings unless you transfer them to internal HD"

I really could live with those limitations..

Diane


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