# Hard Drive Upgrade Info



## amseven11

Upgrade your Roamio with a new drive. No discs needed.

*What you need:*
T8 Screw driver
T10 Screw Driver
New Hard Drive


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## Philmatic

No one knows anything yet... the only way to expand it as of now is to plug in an external TiVo certified drive.


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## amseven11

gotcha, so the process to upgrade the premiere's won't work (for now at least)?


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## Philmatic

amseven11 said:


> gotcha, so the process to upgrade the premiere's won't work (for now at least)?


Maybe? We will honestly find out tomorrow when normal people start getting and tinkering with them. It's possible they didn't change anything and the existing tools will just work?

Although my gut tells me that *some* changes were required to support drives greater than 2TB. And some forum member alluded to TiVo moving the OS to some onboard flash storage, which would change how the OS is structured and likely break existing upgrade tools.


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## MeInDallas

Philmatic said:


> And some forum member alluded to TiVo moving the OS to some onboard flash storage, which would change how the OS is structured and likely break existing upgrade tools.


I read this somewhere and now I cant find it, what thread is that in?


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## amseven11

oh ok cool, well hopefully we can use this thread to keep track of the status. I know with directv's THR22 the OS was on the board like all other D boxes so just replacing the drive made it reload the OS on first boot. Would be sweet if it was that easy but like you said we will wait and see.


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## Philmatic

MeInDallas said:


> I read this somewhere and now I cant find it, what thread is that in?


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9776866


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## MeInDallas

Thank you


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## JohnnyO

As a few other posts today have asked -- I wonder if the base unit has a 2.5" form factor drive. That could be the reason the base unit is only 500 GB.


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## tivogurl

I'm waiting to see what Weaknees offers.


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## ppartekim

tivogurl said:


> I'm waiting to see what Weaknees offers.


Weakness or any how-to-doc since 500GB is just WAY too small.. I live near Fry's (electronics wonderland), just need instructions..


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## sdsvtdriver

They have them on their website already.

http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-roamio-series5.php

2Tb and 3Tb


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## ppartekim

sdsvtdriver said:


> They have them on their website already.
> 
> http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-roamio-series5.php
> 
> 2Tb and 3Tb


Cool. Since they are able to offer it so quickly it most be a fairly simple upgrade..

But if I want the free Stream do I have to order from TiVo vs Amazon vs Weaknees..


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## aaronwt

sdsvtdriver said:


> They have them on their website already.
> 
> http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-roamio-series5.php
> 
> 2Tb and 3Tb


That was quick. Although with the discount coupons the 3TB Roamio Plus with coupon is only $15 less than the Roamio Pro price with coupon.

And I don't see an option for a 4TB drive yet.


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## Am_I_Evil

aaronwt said:


> That was quick. Although with the discount coupons the 3TB Roamio Plus with coupon is only $15 less than the Roamio Pro price with coupon.
> 
> And I don't see an option for a 4TB drive yet.


i'm curious if the same process used for the premiere works for these...if no one tries before i get mine i may just pull out the drive and attempt it...


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## NYHeel

If that earlier rumor about the OS being on Flash is correct it's possible you just need to stick a new drive in and that's it. Now it's unlikely that it works this way but it's certainly possible. 

If you look at weaknees, they're only marking up the Plus $100 for 2TB and $170 for 3TB. They charge $200 for a simple premiere 2TB upgrade drive. Maybe they're charging less because the upgrade is so simple.


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## ppartekim

NYHeel said:


> If that earlier rumor about the OS being on Flash is correct it's possible you just need to stick a new drive in and that's it. Now it's unlikely that it works this way but it's certainly possible.
> 
> If you look at weaknees, they're only marking up the Plus $100 for 2TB and $170 for 3TB. They charge $200 for a simple premiere 2TB upgrade drive. Maybe they're charging less because the upgrade is so simple.


Huh? My math on the 3TB is $449 - $199 (base) = $250 difference (not $170).


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## aaronwt

NYHeel said:


> If that earlier rumor about the OS being on Flash is correct it's possible you just need to stick a new drive in and that's it. Now it's unlikely that it works this way but it's certainly possible.
> 
> If you look at weaknees, they're only marking up the Plus $100 for 2TB and $170 for 3TB. They charge $200 for a simple premiere 2TB upgrade drive. Maybe they're charging less because the upgrade is so simple.


Don't they also keep the original drive? That would account for the price difference. Since when you buy a standalone drive, you are keeping the drive you are replacing.


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## Dan203

ppartekim said:


> Huh? My math on the 3TB is $449 - $199 (base) = $250 difference (not $170).


He's talking about the Plus. It's $399 stock with a 1TB drive. They're charging $499 for 2TB and $569 for 3TB.


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## tivogurl

The 2TB base Roamio from Weaknees looks pretty sweet.


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## Dan203

I can't decide between a Plus and a basic. I really wish we knew if these could be upgraded ourselves. If they can I'll probably pick up a basic from TiVo, with free Stream, and a 2TB drive from Amazon. I should be able to sell the Stream to offset the cost of the drive and get a 2TB upgrade for free.

However if Weaknees has some secret sauce that makes it so only they can upgrade then I'll probably just buy one from them.


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## ppartekim

Dan203 said:


> I can't decide between a Plus and a basic. I really wish we knew if these could be upgraded ourselves. If they can I'll probably pick up a basic from TiVo, with free Stream, and a 2TB drive from Amazon. I should be able to sell the Stream to offset the cost of the drive and get a 2TB upgrade for free.
> 
> However if Weaknees has some secret sauce that makes it so only they can upgrade then I'll probably just buy one from them.


Since I need OTA, I am stuck with the Basic.. So, really want to upgrade myself so I can get the free Stream and a 3TB drive..


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## innocentfreak

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-08/weaknees-tivo-roamio-drive/

Looks like the base model needs different tools to upgrade, T8.


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## ppartekim

innocentfreak said:


> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-08/weaknees-tivo-roamio-drive/
> 
> Looks like the base model needs different tools to upgrade, T8.


Easily obtainable from a computer/hardware store...


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## bradleys

innocentfreak said:


> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-08/weaknees-tivo-roamio-drive/
> 
> Looks like the base model needs different tools to upgrade, T8.


Different physical tools to open the box, but do the current software tools work on the new models?

That there is the question!

Since they got this done so quickly, I am optimistic!


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## innocentfreak

bradleys said:


> Different physical tools to open the box, but do the current software tools work on the new models?
> 
> That there is the question!
> 
> Since they got this done so quickly, I am optimistic!


They don't say. They actually had a bit of a backlash around the launch of the Premiere because they wouldn't share how they were able to upgrade the drives.


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## steve614

innocentfreak said:


> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-08/weaknees-tivo-roamio-drive/
> 
> Looks like the base model needs different tools to upgrade, T8.


Wow, I expected things to be tight due to the smaller form factor, but that's crazy. Very little free space in that thing.
The hard drive makes everything else look miniaturized. 









Photo courtesy of Dave's blog


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## innocentfreak

Almost looks like a 2.5 drive would have been a better option.


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## ppartekim

steve614 said:


> Wow, I expected things to be tight due to the smaller form factor, but that's crazy. Very little free space in that thing.
> The hard drive makes everything else look miniaturized.


Actually looks like a lot more room in there than in my Mac Mini....  And I still upgraded all those I had..


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## Dan203

So who's going to try upgrading first?


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## MeInDallas

Holy moly that thing is little!


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## Dan203

I was just about to pull the trigger on a Basic when I remembered that it doesn't do MoCa and I use my current Elite as a MoCa bridge for my entire entertainment center. Hmmm.... Now I have to decide if I should just get a Plus or buy another MoCa adapter.


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## amseven11

Mine arrive tomorrow so if no one has tried by then I will certainly give it a shot.


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## aaronwt

innocentfreak said:


> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-08/weaknees-tivo-roamio-drive/
> 
> Looks like the base model needs different tools to upgrade, T8.


Well that looks rather tight. Plus no fan?


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## Dan203

aaronwt said:


> Well that looks rather tight. Plus no fan?


No fan = quiet


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## amseven11

I believe the fan is on the same side as the coax so it might not be viewable?


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## amseven11

nevermind I see the fan right below the hard drive in the pic.


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## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> I believe the fan is on the same side as the coax so it might not be viewable?


The pictures of the back of it from the Tivo website, and other places here have no fan on the back.


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## aaronwt

amseven11 said:


> nevermind I see the fan right below the hard drive in the pic.


The only thing I see below the hard drive is the power and SATA connector for the hard drive.

Or is that it between the PCB and the hard drive? It certainly needs a fan otherwise it would get very hot in that small case without some active air movement.


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## MeInDallas

Oh I see it now, its beside the drive and it blows from side to side!


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## Dan203

Anyone taken a stab at this yet. Trying to decide if I want a Pro or a Plus and the potential for upgrade is going to be the deciding factor.


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## NYHeel

Dan203 said:


> Anyone taken a stab at this yet. Trying to decide if I want a Pro or a Plus and the potential for upgrade is going to be the deciding factor.


I'd be really interested if someone tries on a 4TB drive. I believe Seagate has one that's rated for A/V use. I think it's going for around $200.


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## darkstar757

I am so torn on this device. I currently have Window Media Center with a Ceton device and I am not sure if switching to TIVO would be better than what I currently have. Does anyone have any thoughts?


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## mr_smits

MeInDallas said:


> Oh I see it now, its beside the drive and it blows from side to side!


Ah well. Was hoping for a fanless, lower power Tivo.


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## Dan203

NYHeel said:


> I'd be really interested if someone tries on a 4TB drive. I believe Seagate has one that's rated for A/V use. I think it's going for around $200.


I think we need to know if it's even possible to upgrade before we start trying to find the upper limit.

But in any case if anyone except Weaknees has had success upgrading a Roamio please let us know.


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## bradleys

Dan203 said:


> Anyone taken a stab at this yet. Trying to decide if I want a Pro or a Plus and the potential for upgrade is going to be the deciding factor.


I am sure it will eventually be available, even if the existing tools require a minor tweek. Weeknees did it in a day - so I cannot be too difficult!

Is the guy that put together the consolidated tools still around? I cannot remember his user name.


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## ggieseke

bradleys said:


> I am sure it will eventually be available, even if the existing tools require a minor tweek. Weeknees did it in a day - so I cannot be too difficult!
> 
> Is the guy that put together the consolidated tools still around? I cannot remember his user name.


Both comer (jmfs) and spike (mfslive & WinMFS) have been awol for a while.

I'd like to take this opportunity to shamelessly beg for virgin DvrBARS Full backup images of all three models, and perhaps even the Weaknees upgrade versions. If I can figure it out I will happily post the results.

We can work something out via Dropbox - just send me a PM.


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## nooneuknow

ggieseke said:


> Both comer (jmfs) and spike (mfslive & WinMFS) have been awol for a while.
> 
> I'd like to take this opportunity to shamelessly beg for virgin DvrBARS Full backup images of all three models, and perhaps even the Weaknees upgrade versions. If I can figure it out I will happily post the results.
> 
> We can work something out via Dropbox - just send me a PM.


True, but Comer dis make his email address part of the boot screens for JMFS. Anybody tried emailing him?


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## ncbill

If WK did it so quickly I wonder if they had to use anything other than JMFS?


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## innocentfreak

ncbill said:


> If WK did it so quickly I wonder if they had to use anything other than JMFS?


They did the same thing with the Premiere and the DVRupgrade guy on ebay does also. The ebay guy doesn't use the tools, but a straight copy and then modifies the partitions manually to incorporate the extra space iirc.

Weaknees never shared how they were able to do it.


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## davezatz

innocentfreak said:


> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-08/weaknees-tivo-roamio-drive/
> 
> Looks like the base model needs different tools to upgrade, T8.


Here's the Pro/Plus chasis, which they tell me is more similar to the Premiere line


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## MeInDallas

I love all those heat sinks!  So glad they moved that hard drive around too and got the wires away from the heat sink this time.


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## NYHeel

By the way, I just emailed Weaknees about a 4TB upgrade and they told me there's a bug they're working to overcome. So maybe we'll have 4TB upgrades soon.


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## davezatz

innocentfreak said:


> Almost looks like a 2.5 drive would have been a better option.


Probably cheaper and more reliable with the larger one, assuming they can vent the heat. Also, remember, the stock Roamio is a half height drive whereas the upgrades are full height. Although I assume TiVo specced it out for full height to leave the door open for larger drives later on in this product's lifecycle.


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## nooneuknow

NYHeel said:


> By the way, I just emailed Weaknees about a 4TB upgrade and they told me there's a bug they're working to overcome. So maybe we'll have 4TB upgrades soon.


"Deja Vu, all over again". At least they caught it before selling and shipping this time, like what happened with the 4TB 2x2TB Premiere original upgrade..


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## nooneuknow

innocentfreak said:


> They did the same thing with the Premiere and the DVRupgrade guy on ebay does also. The ebay guy doesn't use the tools, but a straight copy and then modifies the partitions manually to incorporate the extra space iirc.
> 
> Weaknees never shared how they were able to do it.


I can attest to that. I have repeatedly posted about how I don't consider taking (essentially) a stock Premiere drive, doing a DD_Rescue-type copy, then tacking on a ~1.7TB partition at the end of it all "optimized", "aligned", and/or anything special. Most of DVR_DUDE's claims are scare-tactics, myths, and half-truths. The only bonus I could find, was whatever he did to allow you to still use a TiVo-approved external expander (which JMFS doesn't allow for).


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## NYHeel

nooneuknow said:


> I can attest to that. I have repeatedly posted about how I don't consider taking (essentially) a stock Premiere drive, doing a DD_Rescue-type copy, then tacking on a ~1.7TB partition at the end of it all "optimized", "aligned", and/or anything special. Most of DVR_DUDE's claims are scare-tactics, myths, and half-truths. The only bonus I could find, was whatever he did to allow you to still use a TiVo-approved external expander (which JMFS doesn't allow for).


Well, if it works, it works. Isn't that all that really matters? Who cares how you got there.


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## nooneuknow

davezatz said:


> Probably cheaper and more reliable with the larger one, assuming they can vent the heat. Also, remember, the stock Roamio is a half height drive whereas the upgrades are full height. Although I assume TiVo specced it out for full height to leave the door open for larger drives later on in this product's lifecycle.


Technically, a 3.5" full-height drive is twice the height of what we now commonly call "full-height", which makes the thinner ones technically "quarter-height".

I do know that as of 2 years ago, WD's 2.5" 1TB (WITH Advanced Format) drives were full-height, and wouldn't even fit in a laptop (or any I'm aware of). They just recently got those down to half-height. Not sure if they've pulled that of with 2TB, yet...


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## nooneuknow

NYHeel said:


> Well, if it works, it works. Isn't that all that really matters? Who cares how you got there.


I just don't like the not-so-truth in advertising. But, all the vendors are doing it, so I understand why he joined-in. I'd never buy another drive from him again, though (unless it was my only choice). I wanted 4K aligned and an optimized partition structure. That's what I paid for, not what I received. I have no desire to add an external expander, and know all the DIY methods. He claimed his were something special and superior to all others. I firmly disagree with those claims.


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## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> I just don't like the not-so-truth in advertising. But, all the vendors are doing it, so I understand why he joined-in. I'd never buy another drive from him again, though (unless it was my only choice). I wanted 4K aligned and an optimized partition structure. That's what I paid for, not what I received. I have no desire to add an external expander, and know all the DIY methods. He claimed his were something special and superior to all others. I firmly disagree with those claims.


I had good experiences with DVR-Dude and the three or four drives I got from him. But that was also many years ago. His were certainly cheaper than ones I got from Weaknees and DVR Upgrade. Although doing it myself wasn't bad either.

How recent was your purchase from DVR_Dude?


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## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> I had good experiences with DVR-Dude and the three or four drives I got from him. But that was also many years ago. His were certainly cheaper than ones I got from Weaknees and DVR Upgrade. Although doing it myself wasn't bad either.


I'm not saying that others shouldn't buy from him. If they really want that external expander to be an option post-upgrade, he does have the best prices, and ships quickly. But, when you can get the same drives on sale from Newegg, don't care about the external expander, and have the know-how to DIY, his profit can be more than the price of the drive, and your wallet that much lighter.

There will always be a need for drop-in-and-go drives, and a semi-DIY way. It took me quite a while to learn the Linux basics, for doing things the tools couldn't do within guided menus. Even good-old WinMFS needs additional know-how, beyond what is provided with/by it, to upgrade to 2TB, especially on the S3 OLED.


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## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> How recent was your purchase from DVR_Dude?


I guess you tacked this on while I was responding. Less than 1 year ago, IIRC.


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## amseven11

Mine arrived today. About to put in a 2TB drive. Will post pics in a minute before then afterwards as well.


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## Dan203

amseven11 said:


> Mine arrived today. About to put in a 2TB drive. Will post pics in a minute before then afterwards as well.


What method are you going to try first? There was some speculation that the OS might be on flash memory and that if you simply inserted a blank drive the TiVo would format it automatically. It's unlikely, but perhaps worth a quick try?


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## amseven11

Mine has a 500GB Seagate drive inside.


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## amseven11

Dan203 said:


> What method are you going to try first? There was some speculation that the OS might be on flash memory and that if you simply inserted a blank drive the TiVo would format it automatically. It's unlikely, but perhaps worth a quick try?


Thats exactly what I'm trying as we speak. Fingers crossed we have this simple method. Will follow up shortly.


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## amseven11

progress..

Tools needed:

To open the case (only 2 screws on the back) you need a T8 screw driver bit.
Top unscrew the hard drive brackets and mounts you need a T10 screw driver bit.


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## MeInDallas

Holy mother of God you made it past the first screen?


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## amseven11

Done. Confirmed: the OS is on the motherboard. No need for tools just change out the hard drive. Hope this helps everyone!


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## Bwatford141

amseven11 said:


> Done. Confirmed: the OS is on the motherboard. No need for tools just change out the hard drive. Hope this helps everyone!


Wow! Great job and great news!!


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## KenVa

OMG this is awesome!


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## aaronwt

Seagate shows that model is a 5900rpm drive.



amseven11 said:


> Mine has a 500GB Seagate drive inside.


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## ppartekim

amseven11 said:


> Done. Confirmed: the OS is on the motherboard. No need for tools just change out the hard drive. Hope this helps everyone!


Hope this helps? Are you kidding?...  Sir, I think you just opened the flood gates..


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## MeInDallas

And I dont know what to make of the Seagate drives, I've only ever had one and someone gave it to me, so I dont have much experience with them. Some people say they are really good though.


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## MeInDallas

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!! Thank you!!


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## ppartekim

So, now who is going to try a 3TB or 4TB drive.... 

I see Amazon has a 3TB WD green for $129 w/prime - http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Green-Desktop/dp/B004RORMF6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1377217612&sr=8-2&keywords=3tb+internal+hard+drive


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## aaronwt

amseven11 said:


> Done. Confirmed: the OS is on the motherboard. No need for tools just change out the hard drive. Hope this helps everyone!


Wow!! So that is new. So I wonder if that will work with a 3TB drive with no issue? I wonder if a 4TB will work? If this works with the Roamio Plus then I just might need to pick up the Roamio Plus(instead of a Pro)and put in a 3TB drive that I will have after Newegg sends me back an exchange drive.


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## MeInDallas

Be sure and check your recording capacity when done and let us know too, thanks!


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## amseven11

It couldn't be easier. What a relief. Happy to to try this method so we all know how easy it is. I put in a WD EURS 2TB green drive from amazon ($95.00)


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## Dan203

Holly crap that is awesome!!!!

Crap now I'm reconsidering my decision to buy the Pro.


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## Am_I_Evil

*waits for some to try a 3TB and a 4TB*

but AMAZING news either way


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## pig_man

Post a screen shot of the System Information screen so we can see if it is using all the space on the new drive.

Edit - Oops, somebody already posted about checking size.


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## aaronwt

MeInDallas said:


> And I dont know what to make of the Seagate drives, I've only ever had one and someone gave it to me, so I dont have much experience with them. Some people say they are really good though.


They work great in my unRAID storage. But I have never tried them in a DVR. But the newer ones do run cool. My 7200rpm 3TB Seagates run as cool or cooler than the 5400rpm WD 3TB drive I have.


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## MeInDallas

I bet with the OS on flash this thing must run so good! OK you sold me on it now!


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## amseven11

MeInDallas said:


> Be sure and check your recording capacity when done and let us know too, thanks!


sure thing! Just closing it up and will go through the setup and post a pic of the record capacity screen.


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## aaronwt

Dan203 said:


> Holly crap that is awesome!!!!
> 
> Crap now I'm reconsidering my decision to buy the Pro.


Yes this is gigantic news if this works for all the Roamios and all drive sizes.
GIGANTIC NEWS!!!!!!


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## nooneuknow

I now have to retract a former statement that there will always be a need for pre-imaged drop-in-and-go drives (at least when it comes to the Series 5/Roamio).

Weaknees did report a 4TB issue, correct?

I wonder how they could overcome that, if all that is needed to get to 3TB is a bare and blank drive...

Now we need to know: Does it work with a non-AV-rated drive? Even if it does, has TiVo enabled using the streaming command set, finally?


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## ppartekim

Amazon does have this Seagate 4TB available for $190 +$8 shipping http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Video-6Gbs-Drive-Internal/dp/B00C46L1IS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377217794&sr=8-1&keywords=4tb+internal+hard+drive+pipeline


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## MeInDallas

aaronwt said:


> They work great in my unRAID storage. But I have never tried them in a DVR. But the newer ones do run cool. My 7200rpm 3TB Seagates run as cool or cooler than the 5400rpm WD 3TB drive I have.


I just looked at the 3TB Pipeline on Newegg and it only shows a 1 year warranty. I thought they would offer more.


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## monkeydust

MeInDallas said:


> I bet with the OS on flash this thing must run so good! OK you sold me on it now!


Then why does it take so long to boot up?


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## vurbano

If its as easy as slapping in the drive then weaknees should be arrested.


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## aaronwt

MeInDallas said:


> I just looked at the 3TB Pipeline on Newegg and it only shows a 1 year warranty. I thought they would offer more.


The hard drives now typically have a shorter warranty. And the ones that still have 5 years are expensive. But one year is certainly very short. All the 3TB Seagates I've purchased have a 2 year warranty.


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## ppartekim

vurbano said:


> If its as easy as slapping in the drive then weaknees should be arrested.


Well not arrested.. but surely not paid $120 premium (for the 3TB) over the currently easy DIY version..


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## MeInDallas

monkeydust said:


> Then why does it take so long to boot up?


Ya got me on that one, I have no clue.


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## MeInDallas

aaronwt said:


> The hard drives now typically have a shorter warranty. And the ones that still have 5 years are expensive. But one year is certainly very short. All the 3TB Seagates I've purchased have a 2 year warranty.


I'm thinking its a misprint on Neweggs part. If you look at that other Pipeline models they have 3 years.


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## nooneuknow

vurbano said:


> If its as easy as slapping in the drive then weaknees should be arrested.


Maybe... But, we're breaking our the champagne (or beer) before we see a pic of the recording capacity, as well as other system info. Let's not forget the "Try filling the drive to capacity, then celebrate" approach...


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## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> I now have to retract a former statement that there will always be a need for pre-imaged drop-in-and-go drives (at least when it comes to the Series 5/Roamio).
> 
> Weaknees did report a 4TB issue, correct?
> 
> I wonder how they could overcome that, if all that is needed to get to 3TB is a bare and blank drive...
> 
> Now we need to know: Does it work with a non-AV-rated drive? Even if it does, has TiVo enabled using the streaming command set, finally?


What does the streaming command set do?

In the past I've never used an AV drive as a replacement drive in a TiVo and they always worked great. But I wonder if it will make any difference now in these Roamio TiVos using a non A/V drive since it is dealing with more read/write streams than in the past?


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## ppartekim

MeInDallas said:


> Ya got me on that one, I have no clue.


True test will be the next reboot since the first one did actually have to find the new drive, connections, etc.

Second time should have all that cached and be faster.


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## vurbano

Sales of the pro model will end pretty quick.


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## amseven11

Booted again going through the set up. Its doing the usual "connecting to tivo, downloading, etc" Once it's done I will update with a status. It should be noted even in the setup you can tell how much faster this thing is.


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## GoHokies!

No way, that's freaking amazing.

I can have a drive here before my unit arrives on Tuesday.


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## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> Maybe... But, we're breaking our the champagne (or beer) before we see a pic of the recording capacity, as well as other system info. Let's not forget the "Try filling the drive to capacity, then celebrate" approach...


Yes. Assuming everything else looks ok, amseven11 needs to be using all four tuners recording for the next few days to fill up the hard drive to make sure there aren't any issues.


----------



## ppartekim

aaronwt said:


> Yes. Assuming everything else looks ok, amseven11 needs to be using all four tuners recording for the next few days to fill up the hard drive to make sure there aren't any issues.


Six tuners? I thought he had a basic?


----------



## vurbano

amseven11 said:


> Done. Confirmed: the OS is on the motherboard. No need for tools just change out the hard drive. Hope this helps everyone!


I just remembered I already have that exact hard drive new in the wrapper stored in a drawer.


----------



## Dan203

ppartekim said:


> aaronwt said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. Assuming everything else looks ok, amseven11 needs to be using *all four tuners* recording for the next few days to fill up the hard drive to make sure there aren't any issues.
> 
> 
> 
> Six tuners? I thought he had a basic?
Click to expand...

Where does he say six?


----------



## TC25D

ppartekim said:


> I thought he had a basic?


He does.


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> Booted again going through the set up. Its doing the usual "connecting to tivo, downloading, etc" Once it's done I will update with a status. It should be noted even in the setup you can tell how much faster this thing is.


And what are you doing with that Uverse box down there?


----------



## ppartekim

vurbano said:


> I just remembered I already have that exact hard drive new in the wrapper stored in a drawer.


Scientific tests always require duplication....


----------



## vurbano

ppartekim said:


> Scientific tests always require duplication....


If that works I will probably run the experiment next week.


----------



## aaronwt

Dan203 said:


> Where does he say six?


I changed it to four after I remembered he showed a picture of a 500GB drive which the Roamio comes with. And that has four tuners instead of six.

But either way now we need someone to try this out on the Roamio Plus. If this is confirmed to work then I will plan on getting the Roamio Plus instead of the Roamio Pro.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> What does the streaming command set do?
> 
> In the past I've never used an AV drive as a replacement drive in a TiVo and they always worked great. But I wonder if it will make any difference now in these Roamio TiVos using a non A/V drive since it is dealing with more read/write streams than in the past?


In the most basic way I can put it (for brevity's sake):

An AV drive acts/reads/writes/seeks & uses the same exact error correction protocols, as a non-AV drive, UNLESS the device it is in, and the software used, support and enable the ATA Streaming Extensions command set. Then, the software will tell the drive to process the AV data streams with a whole different form of error correction. It can tell the drive to only use it for the AV data, and use the standard error correction protocols for the databases and non-AV data, and there can be different "zones" on the drive for where each kind of data goes.

This whole forum is full of posts over many threads with a TONS of false information on AV versus non-AV, what it means in a TiVo, and what it means in a computer. It's also one of those half-truths I didn't like about DVR_DUDE's advertising.


----------



## Dan203

aaronwt said:


> I changed it to four after I remembered he showed a picture of a 500GB drive which the Roamio comes with. And that has four tuners instead of six.
> 
> But either way now we need someone to try this out on the Roamio Plus. If this is confirmed to work then I will plan on getting the Roamio Plus instead of the Roamio Pro.


Serious ninja edit if you beat the quote.


----------



## Dan203

This brings up other questions... Is all the software related stuff on flash? (i.e. the DB, guide data, settings, etc...) And only recordings are stored on the HDD? Or Once you go through setup does it put some of that on the HDD? What happens if you remove the drive after setup and put a new one it? Does it just reset and repeat setup? Or does it remember everything and just lose the recordings? If only recordings are stored on the HDD could you simply image a smaller drive with recordings on it to a bigger drive, drop it in, and have the TiVo automatically expand to fill the extra space?


----------



## amseven11

Hey guys just a update, its going through a system update then I should be good to go for the system info screen. I dont have cable installed yet for TV so I can't test actual recording (which is why you see U-verse box on my stand) but hopefully Charter will be out here next week. They have to install a new drop first so that part sucks but anything I can do to help I'm more then willing.


----------



## jmpage2

If they put a firmware image on there, then it's highly likely it includes everything that's needed to get things going initially... guide data and settings would have defaults and it would get other stuff online from TiVo mothership.

This is pretty good news. I might just buy a 2TB Red drive to drop into the Plus I have coming next week. I can keep the original drive as a spare/backup.


----------



## Goober96

This is great news, indeed, but if I have to buy another drive and then void my warranty by opening the box, wouldn't it still make more sense to buy the Pro over the Plus? It's still "only" going to be about $100 more and I don't have to worry about warranty issues.


----------



## jmpage2

Unless something has changed, TiVo has never put any warranty void stickers on their boxes and has never denied a warranty claim based on doing something like this.

They have very mildly discouraged it lately but traditionally they actually were quiet fans of people tinkering and hacking with these boxes.

The key thing would be keeping the original drive and reinstalling it if you run into trouble later and it needs service.


----------



## amseven11

Here you go guys..


----------



## jmpage2

You sir are a ROCK STAR!!

In light of this news, what would everyone recommend for a good replacement drive? I won't want something noisy. I'm leaning towards a WD RED.


----------



## brianric

nooneuknow said:


> Technically, a 3.5" full-height drive is twice the height of what we now commonly call "full-height", which makes the thinner ones technically "quarter-height".


There are some of us that can remember 5.25 full height hard drives, big suckers, all of 80 MB.


----------



## nooneuknow

amseven11 said:


> Hey guys just a update, its going through a system update then I should be good to go for the system info screen. I dont have cable installed yet for TV so I can't test actual recording (which is why you see U-verse box on my stand) but hopefully Charter will be out here next week. They have to install a new drop first so that part sucks but anything I can do to help I'm more then willing.


You could always set it to Antenna/OTA-only, then put a big custom bent paperclip into the coax center hole.


----------



## amseven11

jmpage2 said:


> You sir are a ROCK STAR!!
> 
> In light of this news, what would everyone recommend for a good replacement drive? I won't want something noisy. I'm leaning towards a WD RED.


Ive never had a red drive how are they? I've always had good luck with WD green drives in directv boxes which is why I went with the same thing for Roamio.


----------



## TC25D

Why not use the same drive?


----------



## MeInDallas

jmpage2 said:


> If they put a firmware image on there, then it's highly likely it includes everything that's needed to get things going initially... guide data and settings would have defaults and it would get other stuff online from TiVo mothership.


This is what the newer Motorola boxes do. They store the bare minimum on flash and then when you put a new drive in, it will format it and begin download from the head end the software for the box. Its limited to 1TB drive somehow, so putting anything in a Motorola box will only format out 1TB. I hope Tivo didnt do this.


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> Ive never had a red drive how are they? I've always had good luck with WD green drives in directv boxes which is why I went with the same thing for Roamio.


You might wanna stick with the EURS models for DVR's, they are the only ones left that have AAM settings on them.


----------



## Goober96

jmpage2 said:


> Unless something has changed, TiVo has never put any warranty void stickers on their boxes and has never denied a warranty claim based on doing something like this.
> 
> They have very mildly discouraged it lately but traditionally they actually were quiet fans of people tinkering and hacking with these boxes.
> 
> The key thing would be keeping the original drive and reinstalling it if you run into trouble later and it needs service.


In that case would this be a good 3TB drive to use?
http://www.amazon.com/AV-GP-3TB-Vid...=UTF8&qid=1377220828&sr=8-1&keywords=Wd30eurs
What would be recommendations on what drive to get (3TB or larger)?


----------



## nooneuknow

brianric said:


> There are some of us that can remember 5.25 full height hard drives, big suckers, all of 80 MB.


I actually remember taking apart an old server that had drives as tall as they were wide (roughly). They were SCSI drives, in raid (IIRC), and the tower was at least 4 feet tall.

Then, only 15 years ago, I actually worked at a place where the drives were single platters, about 2 feet wide, 1/2" thick, and encased in a "pack" that looked like a flying saucer, and weighed about 30 pounds. Each day I had to take one out and install the "scratch pack", which somehow worked as a backup system...

God, do I feel old...


----------



## jmpage2

> In that case would this be a good 3TB drive to use?
> http://www.amazon.com/AV-GP-3TB-Vide...words=Wd30eurs
> What would be recommendations on what drive to get (3TB or larger)?


The EURS drives have the profile that is DVR optimized. However, RED drives have similar "always on, always writing" characteristics.... they are designed for NAS applications.... they also use low power, run cool and are very quiet.


----------



## MeInDallas

This is so awesome, I hope that the other Tivo models do the same thing


----------



## vurbano

Goober96 said:


> In that case would this be a good 3TB drive to use?
> http://www.amazon.com/AV-GP-3TB-Vid...=UTF8&qid=1377220828&sr=8-1&keywords=Wd30eurs
> What would be recommendations on what drive to get (3TB or larger)?


Yup. That line has never failed me in a DVR


----------



## GoHokies!

amseven11 said:


> Here you go guys..


I don't think that I record anything in SD anymore, but over 2,000 hours of SD recordings makes my head utterly spin.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> The EURS drives have the profile that is DVR optimized. However, RED drives have similar "always on, always writing" characteristics.... they are designed for NAS applications.... they also use low power, run cool and are very quiet.


IIRC, the RED line has the best warranty, and roughly the same power profile as a "Green" model (if always running), but dual-processors and higher performance, without having to run at high RPMs.


----------



## aaronwt

What about these new Seagate video drives? They run at 5900 rpm and are designed to run up to 16 simultaneous HD streams and be used in DVRs.

http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/consumer-electronics/video-3-5-hdd/?sku=ST4000VM000


----------



## innocentfreak

I have read in the past to avoid Red drives for DVRs and Media Center. I want to say it had something to do with how they handled errors since they were designed for RAID environments.

Now someone needs to try this on the Plus.

In some ways this makes sense. The MSOs can easily repair their units. Also they can easily field upgrade them rather than needing new hardware.

One thing that concerns me a bit is if there is no negative to doing it this way, why doesn't Weaknees have "upgrade" drives ready to go? If they don't do anything different to them, they should be able to just sell bare drives.

They told Zatz


> Self-install kits will be made available once these guys catch their breath and it sounds like the team is hopeful of ultimately offering 4TB drive expansion options.


----------



## innocentfreak

aaronwt said:


> What about these new Seagate video drives? They run at 5900 rpm and are designed to run up to 16 simultaneous HD streams and be used in DVRs.
> 
> http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/consumer-electronics/video-3-5-hdd/?sku=ST4000VM000


Those are probably the Pipeline drives which are designed for DVRs.


----------



## jmpage2

aaronwt said:


> What about these new Seagate video drives? They run at 5900 rpm and are designed to run up to 16 simultaneous HD streams and be used in DVRs.
> 
> http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/consumer-electronics/video-3-5-hdd/?sku=ST4000VM000


I have had more trouble with Seagate drives in the past few years than any others. Purely anecdotal I know, but no Seagate drives for me.


----------



## nooneuknow

I, nooneuknow, hereby foresee a spike in 2 & 3 TB drive sales, along with shortages of the TiVo Roamio (basic), and a sudden price shift in the other models.

Either that, or TiVo will quickly start limiting the size the drive will yield, by modifying their servers/software, before too many of these can happen...

Either they were just dumb, while actually being innovative and smart, and this wasn't foreseen (or was a programming error), or I don't know how this can be?


----------



## jmpage2

innocentfreak said:


> I have read in the past to avoid Red drives for DVRs and Media Center. I want to say it had something to do with how they handled errors since they were designed for RAID environments.
> 
> Now someone needs to try this on the Plus.
> 
> In some ways this makes sense. The MSOs can easily repair their units. Also they can easily field upgrade them rather than needing new hardware.
> 
> One thing that concerns me a bit is if there is no negative to doing it this way, why doesn't Weaknees have "upgrade" drives ready to go? If they don't do anything different to them, they should be able to just sell bare drives.
> 
> They told Zatz


Well, maybe they caught some glitch that we don't know about yet with just popping in a bare drive and going to the races.

On the flip side, they are in business to make money, so if they can sell some "drive kits" at a profit before everyone and their grandma knows how to upgrade a TiVo then tip of the hat to them.


----------



## innocentfreak

jmpage2 said:


> Well, maybe they caught some glitch that we don't know about yet with just popping in a bare drive and going to the races.
> 
> On the flip side, they are in business to make money, so if they can sell some "drive kits" at a profit before everyone and their grandma knows how to upgrade a TiVo then tip of the hat to them.


I guess that is my point. Why not sell the kits immediately? I guess they might need to order the T8s since they include tools.

It could also be they knew how easy it was and didn't want the backlash when someone tried it.


----------



## Dan203

nooneuknow said:


> Either they were just dumb, while actually being innovative and smart, and this wasn't foreseen (or was a programming error), or I don't know how this can be?


As I said in another thread this was probably added for their MSO partners. Competing MSO DVRs have this same feature. It makes it easy for the MSO to repair a broken unit by simply popping in a new drive and redeploying the unit. That's probably why they went with the external power brick on the Basic too. All about ease of maintenance for their MSO partners.


----------



## jmpage2

I agree with you Dan, this is likely a move to make their MSOs happy. Retail consumers getting this benefit is just a bonus... because even with it being this easy, 90% of customers won't attempt it.


----------



## PaulNEPats

With the weaknees $40 off coupon, why not just grab the pro model over the plus?


----------



## ncbill

I think I would stick with the Seagate Pipeline "AV" series for an upgrade since it is used in the Basic (and I assume the other models)

Hope someone can figure out how to use the 4TB Seagate Pipeline drive since those are available for around $200 and should result in around 600(!) hours.

Of course, the Western Digital "AV-GP" drives seem to be the same price in 2TB & 3TB capacities, so if you have more confidence in that brand...


----------



## amseven11

Here is a summary of the posts made so you dont have to go through and read them all. I will also add this to the first post in the thread.


----------



## Am_I_Evil

here's to hoping someone tries a 3TB (and even better a 4TB) to see how those work (in a plus would be nice since that's what i've ordered lol)

almost ordered a 3TB but decided to wait and see 4TB results...


----------



## innocentfreak

ncbill said:


> I think I would stick with the Seagate Pipeline "AV" series for an upgrade since it is used in the Basic (and I assume the other models)
> 
> Hope someone can figure out how to use the 4TB Seagate Pipeline drive since those are available for around $200 and should result in around 600(!) hours.
> 
> Of course, the Western Digital "AV-GP" drives seem to be the same price in 2TB & 3TB capacities, so if you have more confidence in that brand...


The Plus uses the Av-GP drive.


----------



## nooneuknow

innocentfreak said:


> I have read in the past to avoid Red drives for DVRs and Media Center. I want to say it had something to do with how they handled errors since they were designed for RAID environments.
> 
> Now someone needs to try this on the Plus.
> 
> In some ways this makes sense. The MSOs can easily repair their units. Also they can easily field upgrade them rather than needing new hardware.
> 
> One thing that concerns me a bit is if there is no negative to doing it this way, why doesn't Weaknees have "upgrade" drives ready to go? If they don't do anything different to them, they should be able to just sell bare drives.
> 
> They told Zatz


There's two lines (or more) of Red drives: NAS & Enterprise are the two I know. I can see where the latter may become an issue. The former has a programmable TLER, which can be tweaked to suit the environment you use it in. It adjusts how long the drive can dwell on an error before moving on.

As far as weaknees... Maybe they booted the TiVo with the stock drive, then analyzed the drive, copied it to a larger one, then expanded it, and it worked, and are now about to find out they did it all for nothing....

Only time, and many more pioneers willing to open their TiVos, will tell.


----------



## Dan203

PaulNEPats said:


> With the weaknees $40 off coupon, why not just grab the pro model over the plus?


That's what I did. But kinda wish I'd known about this before I did. There is a $185 difference between the Plus and the Pro with the respective coupons. A 3TB drive is only $130 on Amazon and when you're done you have an extra 1TB drive.

Oh well, an extra $55 isn't going to kill me and this way I can buy the extended warranty and not feel guilty if something breaks and I need to use it.


----------



## Goober96

PaulNEPats said:


> With the weaknees $40 off coupon, why not just grab the pro model over the plus?


Good question. The $40 off definitely makes buying the Pro and not having to open the box worth it.


----------



## lpwcomp

I would advise everyone to calm down a bit until we get confirmation that:

a. This works as intended w/no problems.

b. It works on the plus.

It beggars belief that TiVo would think they could get away with this, but I suppose they have done stranger things. At the very least, I suspect they will be more aggressive in enforcing the "cracking the case voids the warranty" rule.

Looking at weaKnees, if the only difference between the Plus and the Pro is drive size, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would pay $599 for a Pro when you can get a Plus with a 3TB drive for $569.

In any case, I still see a need for DIY tools for doing after use upgrades and failing drive replacements. Of course if it automatically formats a drive if it senses a change in hd s/n, then...never mind.

As to what is in the on board flash - it could be just a stub - enough to format the drive and d/l and install the full O/S.


----------



## Am_I_Evil

Question for the OP:
Did you plug in and boot up at all before the upgrade or was the upgrade the very first boot for the TiVo?


----------



## amseven11

lpwcomp said:


> I would advise everyone to calm down a bit until we get confirmation that:
> 
> a. This works as intended w/no problems.
> 
> b. It works on the plus.
> 
> It beggars belief that TiVo would think they could get away with this, but I suppose they have done stranger things. At the very least, I suspect they will be more aggressive in enforcing the "cracking the case voids the warranty" rule.
> 
> Looking at weaKnees, if the only difference between the Plus and the Pro is drive size, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would pay $599 for a Pro when you can get a Plus with a 3TB drive for $569.
> 
> In any case, I still see a need for DIY tools for doing after use upgrades and failing drive replacements. Of course if it automatically formats a drive if it senses a change in hd s/n, then...never mind.
> 
> As to what is in the on board flash - it could be just a stub - enough to format the drive and d/l and install the full O/S.


It's not uncommon at all, All directv DVR's as well as U-verse DVR's allow you to change out the hard drive with no problems. Even on cable DVR's you can swap out the drive and the motherboard will format and prepare the drive for use. Normally though there are limitations (Cable 1 TB, Directv 2TB or 3TB with a Genie, 1TB with U-Verse). If anything this is Tivo actually getting on par with other manufacturers.


----------



## amseven11

Am_I_Evil said:


> Question for the OP:
> Did you plug in and boot up at all before the upgrade or was the upgrade the very first boot for the TiVo?


I upgraded it before ever booting it.


----------



## nooneuknow

Dan203 said:


> As I said in another thread this was probably added for their MSO partners. Competing MSO DVRs have this same feature. It makes it easy for the MSO to repair a broken unit by simply popping in a new drive and redeploying the unit. That's probably why they went with the external power brick on the Basic too. All about ease of maintenance for their MSO partners.


But, wouldn't TiVo KNOW what DVRs were going to their MSO partners, as well as what went to retail channels, and be able to make it where (as somebody else mentioned) the drive can only yield what they allow, and give the MSOs what they want, and nip retail units in the bud?

Essentially, at boot-up, the TSN goes to TiVo, they know if it's MSO or retail, and the allowed image size is put onto the drive. That would've been their ticket out of this.

On the other hand, how many warranties might they choose not to honor, even if you put the original drive back in... They have allowed people to get away with it before, but maybe that will change now. The more upgrades, the less warranties they have to honor, right? Just spitballing...


----------



## Goober96

nooneuknow said:


> But, wouldn't TiVo KNOW what DVRs were going to their MSO partners, as well as what went to retail channels, and make it where (as somebody else mentioned) the drive can only yield what they allow, and give the MSOs what they want, and nip retail units in the bud?
> 
> Essentially, at boot-up, the TSN goes to TiVo, they know if it's MSO or retail, and the allowed image size is put onto the drive. That would've been their ticket out of this.
> 
> On the other hand, how many warranties might they choose not to honor, even if you put the original drive back in... They have allowed people to get away with it before, but maybe that will change now. The more upgrades, the less warranties they have to honor, right? Just spitballing...


That's what I'm afraid of. It's too much money to spend to risk voiding the warranty and being stuck with a brick.


----------



## innocentfreak

lpwcomp said:


> I would advise everyone to calm down a bit until we get confirmation that:
> 
> a. This works as intended w/no problems.
> 
> b. It works on the plus.
> 
> It beggars belief that TiVo would think they could get away with this, but I suppose they have done stranger things. At the very least, I suspect they will be more aggressive in enforcing the "cracking the case voids the warranty" rule.
> 
> Looking at weaKnees, if the only difference between the Plus and the Pro is drive size, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would pay $599 for a Pro when you can get a Plus with a 3TB drive for $569.
> 
> In any case, I still see a need for DIY tools for doing after use upgrades and failing drive replacements. Of course if it automatically formats a drive if it senses a change in hd s/n, then...never mind.
> 
> As to what is in the on board flash - it could be just a stub - enough to format the drive and d/l and install the full O/S.


$30 isn't a big deal when you are looking at $569 vs $599 especially when you consider potential warranty issues.

I do agree, as great as this is I am still hesitant to dive in with a Plus.

TiVo has never tried to stop drive upgrades, but that doesn't mean it couldn't change. It somewhat makes you question the pricing of the Pro now though. Why not make it the same price or cheaper than DIY so $549. This would guarantee at least for now people would buy over upgrade.


----------



## Dan203

lpwcomp said:


> Looking at weaKnees, if the only difference between the Plus and the Pro is drive size, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would pay $599 for a Pro when you can get a Plus with a 3TB drive for $569.


With the $40 off coupon the Pro is $559 and with the Plus the coupon is only $25 making it $544. So for $15 you get the peace of mind that the unit has never been opened and you're guaranteed to get the manufacturer warranty. It also allows you to purchase the TiVo extended warranty without fear of rejection if something goes wrong.


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> I upgraded it before ever booting it.


How many times did it say downloading an update and did it reboot? Seems like I remember my XL4 rebooted like 2 or 3 times and downloaded an update once.


----------



## Dan203

nooneuknow said:


> But, wouldn't TiVo KNOW what DVRs were going to their MSO partners, as well as what went to retail channels, and be able to make it where (as somebody else mentioned) the drive can only yield what they allow, and give the MSOs what they want, and nip retail units in the bud?
> 
> Essentially, at boot-up, the TSN goes to TiVo, they know if it's MSO or retail, and the allowed image size is put onto the drive. That would've been their ticket out of this.
> 
> On the other hand, how many warranties might they choose not to honor, even if you put the original drive back in... They have allowed people to get away with it before, but maybe that will change now. The more upgrades, the less warranties they have to honor, right? Just spitballing...


At this point the cats out of the bag. It's kind of like how S3 units can use any eSATA drive while Premiere units can only use WD drives. They couldn't just stop supporting non-WD drives on the S3 because that would break TiVos that were in the field.

If they were going to add any sort of restriction or limitation they would have done it already. Now it's too late. All they can do now is get more strict on warranty claims.


----------



## innocentfreak

amseven11 said:


> I upgraded it before ever booting it.


Looks like another test someone will need to try.

Thinking out loud.

1. Can you upgrade after booting and activating with the stock drive?

2. Is the functionality the same on the Plus and Pro?

3. What is the bug with the 4TB drive?

4. Is this the Weaknees method or did they discover problems with this?

5. What will TiVo's response be?


----------



## puffdaddy

lpwcomp said:


> I would advise everyone to calm down a bit until we get confirmation that:
> 
> a. This works as intended w/no problems.
> 
> b. It works on the plus.


From the software point of view, there's no difference between the base, plus, and pro when it comes to rebuilding the data disk.


----------



## Series3Sub

vurbano said:


> If its as easy as slapping in the drive then weaknees should be arrested.


Well, they are also selling a SERVICE for those intimidated by such an easy task. I do see your point, but SERVICES will always be the money maker if we don't know DYI. The same for all SERVICE providers.


----------



## aaronwt

I hope it can work with a 4TB drive. I would like to get the Plus and the 4TB Seagate video drive for $200. Then my cost will be basically the same as getting the Pro. Plus I will still have the 1TB drive to put back in the Plus if needed.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> I would advise everyone to calm down a bit until we get confirmation that:
> 
> a. This works as intended w/no problems.
> 
> b. It works on the plus.
> 
> It beggars belief that TiVo would think they could get away with this, but I suppose they have done stranger things. At the very least, I suspect they will be more aggressive in enforcing the "cracking the case voids the warranty" rule.
> 
> Looking at weaKnees, if the only difference between the Plus and the Pro is drive size, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would pay $599 for a Pro when you can get a Plus with a 3TB drive for $569.
> 
> In any case, I still see a need for DIY tools for doing after use upgrades and failing drive replacements. Of course if it automatically formats a drive if it senses a change in hd s/n, then...never mind.
> 
> As to what is in the on board flash - it could be just a stub - enough to format the drive and d/l and install the full O/S.


I fully agree.

What we have just seen could even be a hoax, for all anyone knows.

I'M NOT ACCUSING THE POSTER.

It's just, until we've done it ourselves, or seen some more time go by, like I said earlier, we're celebrating, and we haven't even seen if this unit can record, since they don't have cable service, nor can we know if the drive will fill up with all four tuners working and not run into problems.

I'm sure this thread alone will go viral, and weaknees will have some 'splainin' to do.

Let's celebrate once repeated, and fully tested, several times, over the different models...


----------



## MeInDallas

Before anyone asks or says it, I can confirm that if you take a larger size drive out of a 2 tuner Premiere, say like 2TB and put it into an XL4, boot it up and do a clear and delete everything, when it boots back up again after, it will download the correct software and install it on the drive. I have done this before.

And dont ask me what that has to do with the price of tea in China


----------



## amseven11

MeInDallas said:


> How many times did it say downloading an update and did it reboot? Seems like I remember my XL4 rebooted like 2 or 3 times and downloaded an update once.


It did it 2 times, first on initial boot then once going through the setup it said a update was available and installed.


----------



## puffdaddy

Dan203 said:


> This brings up other questions... Is all the software related stuff on flash? (i.e. the DB, guide data, settings, etc...) And only recordings are stored on the HDD? Or Once you go through setup does it put some of that on the HDD? What happens if you remove the drive after setup and put a new one it? Does it just reset and repeat setup? Or does it remember everything and just lose the recordings? If only recordings are stored on the HDD could you simply image a smaller drive with recordings on it to a bigger drive, drop it in, and have the TiVo automatically expand to fill the extra space?


No
No
Yes
Yes
No
No

Okay, so you should have numbered your questions, but you probably weren't expecting definitive answers. Here they are in context.

1. The "software" is split between Flash and the Hard disk.

2. Setup is not really related to rebuilding the "data disk" (harddrive), but much of the information populated and configuration done is recorded on the data disk. So removing the drive after setup and putting in a fresh drive returns you to square one. The unit will power up, see the data drive isn't initialized, will initialize it, complete booting, and go into guided setup.

3. You can't just copy a drive to a new drive and hope that the tivo will expand to fill the drive. The tivo will regard the new drive as a valid drive and not fiddle with it (and thus not expand it). Likewise, imaging a smaller drive with the recordings and restoring to a new drive has the same effect: no expansion.


----------



## puffdaddy

nooneuknow said:


> I fully agree.
> 
> What we have just seen could even be a hoax, for all anyone knows.
> 
> I'M NOT ACCUSING THE POSTER.
> 
> It's just, until we've done it ourselves, or seen some more time go by, like I said earlier, we're celebrating, and we haven't even seen if this unit can record, since they don't have cable service, nor can we know if the drive will fill up with all four tuners working and not run into problems.
> 
> I'm sure this thread alone will go viral, and weaknees will have some 'splainin' to do.
> 
> Let's celebrate once repeated, and fully tested, several times, over the different models...


Lower probability it's a hoax if someone else previously noted the behavior and asked for confirmation.


----------



## innocentfreak

puffdaddy said:


> No
> No
> Yes
> Yes
> No
> No
> 
> Okay, so you should have numbered your questions, but you probably weren't expecting definitive answers. Here they are in context.
> 
> 1. The "software" is split between Flash and the Hard disk.
> 
> 2. Setup is not really related to rebuilding the "data disk" (harddrive), but much of the information populated and configuration done is recorded on the data disk. So removing the drive after setup and putting in a fresh drive returns you to square one. The unit will power up, see the data drive isn't initialized, will initialize it, complete booting, and go into guided setup.
> 
> 3. You can't just copy a drive to a new drive and hope that the tivo will expand to fill the drive. The tivo will regard the new drive as a valid drive and not fiddle with it (and thus not expand it). Likewise, imaging a smaller drive with the recordings and restoring to a new drive has the same effect: no expansion.


So any idea what the 4TB bug might be that Weaknees mentioned? Might TiVo have a limit on expansion capabilities so only would only use 3TB of a 4TB drive.

Also any thoughts on if this is something TiVo might be able to stop/block in the future?


----------



## Millionaire2K

What 3TB drive should I try?


----------



## innocentfreak

Millionaire2K said:


> What 3TB drive should I try?


I would opt for either the Pipeline series from Seagate or the AV-GP from WD since that is the drive in the Pro.


----------



## nooneuknow

Dan203 said:


> At this point the cats out of the bag. It's kind of like how S3 units can use any eSATA drive while Premiere units can only use WD drives. They couldn't just stop supporting non-WD drives on the S3 because that would break TiVos that were in the field.
> 
> If they were going to add any sort of restriction or limitation they would have done it already. Now it's too late. All they can do now is get more strict on warranty claims.


On the first point: Yes, except they made sure the TiVo HD only accepted approved drives, then kept going with that. If I didn't point it out, somebody else would anyway. I seem to recall a window where the HD allowed the drives, and they let them work, only on the ones that already had them, but I'm not sure on that... So, that raises a question for me. The cat may be out of the bag, but couldn't they grandfather those who upgraded already, then deny the rest?

On the second point: Yes, I'd be surprised if they DIDN'T crack down hard on denying warranty claims for units that logged tampering. It could save (make) them a lot of money, denying warranty to upgraders. I think I'll re-read their new TOS, which I already plan to opt-out of.


----------



## lpwcomp

brianric said:


> There are some of us that can remember 5.25 full height hard drives, big suckers, all of 80 MB.


The first disk drives _*I*_ worked with looked like this:

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cdc/cyber/brochures/844-21_Feb74.pdf


----------



## amseven11

Here is a quick YouTube video to show its not a 'hoax'
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqnNhcmwlyM[/media]


----------



## innocentfreak

nooneuknow said:


> On the first point: Yes, except they made sure the TiVo HD only accepted approved drives, then kept going with that. If I didn't point it out, somebody else would anyway. I seem to recall a window where the HD allowed the drives, and they let them work, only on the ones that already had them, but I'm not sure on that... So, that raises a question for me. The cat may be out of the bag, but couldn't they grandfather those who upgraded already, then deny the rest?
> 
> On the second point: Yes, I'd be surprised if they DIDN'T crack down hard on denying warranty claims for units that logged tampering. It could save (make) them a lot of money, denying warranty to upgraders. I think I'll re-read their new TOS, which I already plan to opt-out of.


I don't remember that in the TiVo HD at all.


----------



## innocentfreak

amseven11 said:


> Here is a quick YouTube video to show its not a 'hoax'
> [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqnNhcmwlyM[/media]


Peel the plastic man, peel the plastic .


----------



## puffdaddy

innocentfreak said:


> So any idea what the 4TB bug might be that Weaknees mentioned? Might TiVo have a limit on expansion capabilities so only would only use 3TB of a 4TB drive.
> 
> Also any thoughts on if this is something TiVo might be able to stop/block in the future?


Now that's a good question. The short answer is, I don't know, but there are a myriad of bugs and issues that can occur towards as one stretches the MFS partitions beyond what tivo has developed to and tested.

It's something that TiVo could block if they wished.


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> Here is a quick YouTube video to show its not a 'hoax'
> [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqnNhcmwlyM[/media]


Thanks!! Its nice to see the menus moving around so fast!


----------



## amseven11

Yeah it kills me I can't watch TV on it but all the screens and everything fly compared to the premiere.


----------



## MeInDallas

Do you not have any rabbit ears?


----------



## puffdaddy

Also, to state the obvious.

As was pointed out elsewhere, the developers inadvertently left a kickstart code present on the s3 that allowed one to add any eSATA drive (not just the approved Western Digital ones). TiVo chose to leave that be (as the horse had already left the barn). They did close it later for the TiVoHD.

Given that this aspect will torpedo their sales of the Pro model (which only differs in the size of the internal HD), I'd wager that tivo will push an update to units to close this. Folks would be wise to perform this drive upgrade as the very first action they take with a newly received unit, as after going through the Guided Setup, a unit will take a software upgrade, and that will write the new software to the Flash boot disk. For the Roamio/Series5 units, one you take an upgrade, there's no more "rolling" back the software (as was possible to do with the series4 and earlier hardware).

Note that I'm speculating that tivo much roll out such an update. Speculating.

(though reasonable speculation given how much revenue they may stand to lose).


----------



## amseven11

No unfortunately not, Where I am in GA I never got into OTA because I would only get like 2 stations, both local. Charter put a rush on my new drop install so I'm hoping next week everything can get installed.


----------



## nooneuknow

puffdaddy said:


> Lower probability it's a hoax if someone else previously noted the behavior and asked for confirmation.


Did you think I wouldn't follow the link? It's you, in the post, WONDERING if it may be possible. You, NOT observing it actually happen and looking for another with the same results for confirmation that it FULLY WORKS WITHOUT ANY ISSUES.

Plenty have been asking the same thing: Why doesn't TiVo do it this way?

It's been an idea, wondered about, compared to other devices, by other manufacturers, largely dismissed with "never going to happen".

I don't feel you speculating something that just happens to seem to have materialized, lowering the possibility of it being a hoax, nor at minimum an INCOMPLETE assessment of if it will work. No cable to hook up, didn't try using an antenna, can't even verify it will record on even one tuner, or that the drive won't flake-out when full.


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> No unfortunately not, Where I am in GA I never got into OTA because I would only get like 2 stations, both local. Charter put a rush on my new drop install so I'm hoping next week everything can get installed.


Understandable. I'm lucky I can get them all here with a strong signal, I know a lot of people cant though. I have cable but I'd like to have that entry level for the OTA channels, then maybe later get one of the 6 tuner ones.


----------



## innocentfreak

puffdaddy said:


> Also, to state the obvious.
> 
> As was pointed out elsewhere, the developers inadvertently left a kickstart code present on the s3 that allowed one to add any eSATA drive (not just the approved Western Digital ones). TiVo chose to leave that be (as the horse had already left the barn). They did close it later for the TiVoHD.
> 
> Given that this aspect will torpedo their sales of the Pro model (which only differs in the size of the internal HD), I'd wager that tivo will push an update to units to close this. Folks would be wise to perform this drive upgrade as the very first action they take with a newly received unit, as after going through the Guided Setup, a unit will take a software upgrade, and that will write the new software to the Flash boot disk. For the Roamio/Series5 units, one you take an upgrade, there's no more "rolling" back the software (as was possible to do with the series4 and earlier hardware).
> 
> Note that I'm speculating that tivo much roll out such an update. Speculating.
> 
> (though reasonable speculation given how much revenue they may stand to lose).


Of course if the Pro was more reasonable like $499-$549 then it wouldn't even be a question since it would be the same price as someone who updated on their own.

Also people who buy Pluses due to the price difference might wait to upgrade the drive space but they definitely wouldn't sell the Plus just to buy a Pro or at least very few would.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> The first disk drives _*I*_ worked with looked like this:
> 
> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cdc/cyber/brochures/844-21_Feb74.pdf


That's THE ONE I was talking about in an earlier post in this thread, with the huge single platter "disk packs" that came in flying-saucer shaped cases. I was in charge of swapping out one per day, known as the "scratch pack".

Boy, do I feel old!


----------



## vurbano

Dan203 said:


> With the $40 off coupon the Pro is $559 and with the Plus the coupon is only $25 making it $544. So for $15 you get the peace of mind that the unit has never been opened and you're guaranteed to get the manufacturer warranty. It also allows you to purchase the TiVo extended warranty without fear of rejection if something goes wrong.


Just tried RoamioTivos coupon and it isn't working. Is there a different one?


----------



## nooneuknow

innocentfreak said:


> I don't remember that in the TiVo HD at all.


But, you aren't saying I'm completely wrong, right? Many never even knew about it (it was a TiVo mistake, and you weren't supposed to know).


----------



## astrohip

puffdaddy said:


> 2. Setup is not really related to rebuilding the "data disk" (harddrive), but much of the information populated and configuration done is recorded on the data disk. So removing the drive after setup and putting in a fresh drive returns you to square one. The unit will power up, see the data drive isn't initialized, will initialize it, complete booting, and go into guided setup.


So I'm thinking one could fill a hard drive, pull it out, put a blank one in, lather, rinse, repeat. Swap drives anytime you wanted.

Yeah, it's a PITA to do, but could be done?



puffdaddy said:


> Given that this aspect will torpedo their sales of the Pro model (which only differs in the size of the internal HD), I'd wager that tivo will push an update to units to close this.


I think the number of TiVo buyers is 100's of times bigger than forum readers. I know 4 people personally that have TiVos. Not a one read any of the TCF forum.

Doesn't mean TiVo won't do something, just that the number of people who will know about this is probably in the mid three figures, maybe low four. Versus the tens of thousands they hope to sell.


----------



## puffdaddy

nooneuknow said:


> Did you think I wouldn't follow the link? It's you, in the post, WONDERING if it may be possible. You, NOT observing it actually happen and looking for another with the same results for confirmation that it FULLY WORKS WITHOUT ANY ISSUES.
> 
> Plenty have been asking the same thing: Why doesn't TiVo do it this way?
> 
> It's been an idea, wondered about, compared to other devices, by other manufacturers, largely dismissed with "never going to happen".
> 
> I don't feel you speculating something that just happens to seem to have materialized, lowering the possibility of it being a hoax, nor at minimum an INCOMPLETE assessment of if it will work. No cable to hook up, didn't try using an antenna, can't even verify it will record on even one tuner, or that the drive won't flake-out when full.


Fair enough.

You probably aren't privy to what I am.

So while I could share that my prior speculation was founded upon a detailed inspection of the new disk initialization process, that probably wouldn't give you any more confidence.

I could further elaborate, giving details of how the software internals between the base, plus, and pro are identical in the aspect of disk initialization. Perhaps even noting that the same pieces of software that build the filesystem on an externally married drive are employed to initialize a new disk. But that wouldn't provide you with the confirmation you're looking for.

We can collectively hang back until the public, empirical evidence is enough for you.


----------



## amseven11

I highly doubt they will do anything about it. if anything it will increase sales. Remember just because you can add a 2TB drive to the entry level one it still has only 4 tuners instead of 6, so no matter the case there is still incentive to buy the mid level box if you need more tuners.


----------



## Dan203

vurbano said:


> Just tried RoamioTivos coupon and it isn't working. Is there a different one?


The coupons are....

ROAMIO
ROAMIOPLUS
ROAMIOPRO

all caps and matched to the model you're buying. The values are $10, $25 and $40 respectively.


----------



## puffdaddy

astrohip said:


> So I'm thinking one could fill a hard drive, pull it out, put a blank one in, lather, rinse, repeat. Swap drives anytime you wanted.
> 
> Yeah, it's a PITA to do, but could be done?


Yes, I believe you can do this. However, if you swap in an "older" data drive (and have since taken an upgrade), you'll have to wait for the data drive to be upgraded (though that tends to be much quicker with so much more of the data in SQLite and not MFS). But this should work.



> I think the number of TiVo buyers is 100's of times bigger than forum readers. I know 4 people personally that have TiVos. Not a one read any of the TCF forum.
> 
> Doesn't mean TiVo won't do something, just that the number of people who will know about this is probably in the mid three figures, maybe low four. Versus the tens of thousands they hope to sell.


Fair point. The classic egocentric fallacy. Time will tell.


----------



## Goober96

Dan203 said:


> The coupons are....
> 
> ROAMIO
> ROAMIOPLUS
> ROAMIOPRO
> 
> all caps and matched to the model you're buying. The values are $10, $25 and $40 respectively.


Any idea how long these codes are good?


----------



## nooneuknow

puffdaddy said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> You probably aren't privy to what I am.
> 
> So while I could share that my prior speculation was founded upon a detailed inspection of the new disk initialization process, that probably wouldn't give you any more confidence.
> 
> I could further elaborate, giving details of how the software internals between the base, plus, and pro are identical in the aspect of disk initialization. Perhaps even noting that the same pieces of software that build the filesystem on an externally married drive are employed to initialize a new disk. But that wouldn't provide you with the confirmation you're looking for.
> 
> We can collectively hang back until the public, empirical evidence is enough for you.


Fair enough. I'm cool with that.


----------



## puffdaddy

amseven11 said:


> I highly doubt they will do anything about it. if anything it will increase sales. Remember just because you can add a 2TB drive to the entry level one it still has only 4 tuners instead of 6, so no matter the case there is still incentive to buy the mid level box if you need more tuners.


It was the plus/pro I was thinking of.. Why buy the $600 flagship unit when you can get the $400 one and throw in a 2TB or 3TB drive.

But as astrohip pointed out, the unwashed masses probably wouldn't know any better.

It will be interesting to see how tivo reacts.


----------



## innocentfreak

puffdaddy said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> You probably aren't privy to what I am.
> 
> So while I could share that my prior speculation was founded upon a detailed inspection of the new disk initialization process, that probably wouldn't give you any more confidence.
> 
> I could further elaborate, giving details of how the software internals between the base, plus, and pro are identical in the aspect of disk initialization. Perhaps even noting that the same pieces of software that build the filesystem on an externally married drive are employed to initialize a new disk. But that wouldn't provide you with the confirmation you're looking for.
> 
> We can collectively hang back until the public, empirical evidence is enough for you.


So do you think TiVo could block this for retail customers while still allowing MSOs to utilize the feature?

I am trying to see the advantage of blocking it from TiVo side. Denying warranty claims seems the easier way to go. TiVo doesn't sell drive upgrades so they aren't losing the sale there. I doubt they expected to sell many Pros over the Plus model.

TiVo had to know this would get out there since I think it is the first thing anyone checks.


----------



## Series3Sub

nooneuknow said:


> There's two lines (or more) of Red drives: NAS & Enterprise are the two I know. I can see where the latter may become an issue. The former has a programmable TLER, which can be tweaked to suit the environment you use it in. It adjusts how long the drive can dwell on an error before moving on.
> 
> As far as weaknees... Maybe they booted the TiVo with the stock drive, then analyzed the drive, copied it to a larger one, then expanded it, and it worked, and are now about to find out they did it all for nothing....
> 
> Only time, and many more pioneers willing to open their TiVos, will tell.


I think Weeknees knew all about this (they must have spies in Alviso), probably from the start, but are keeping mum for now, and clearly see the 4TB as the upgrade that can stem the loss of some business. They are probably working like crazy to get 4TB to work.


----------



## jmpage2

Dan203 said:


> With the $40 off coupon the Pro is $559 and with the Plus the coupon is only $25 making it $544. So for $15 you get the peace of mind that the unit has never been opened and you're guaranteed to get the manufacturer warranty. It also allows you to purchase the TiVo extended warranty without fear of rejection if something goes wrong.


There's another option. The 2TB option that puts you into double the plus capacity for about $90.

I also agree that while lots of forum members might go this route, they are a pretty small subset of TiVo customers.

I don't see TiVo doing anything as inane and punitive as logging "warranty violations".


----------



## vurbano

Dan203 said:


> The coupons are....
> 
> ROAMIO
> ROAMIOPLUS
> ROAMIOPRO
> 
> all caps and matched to the model you're buying. The values are $10, $25 and $40 respectively.


Got it. Actually I ordered the plus standard unit for 375.00 and with a 135 dollar WD30 av gp drive that's 500 dollars for an equivalent 560 dollar Pro unit. A savings of 60 dollars.


----------



## nooneuknow

innocentfreak said:


> So do you think TiVo could block this for retail customers while still allowing MSOs to utilize the feature?
> 
> I am trying to see the advantage of blocking it from TiVo side. Denying warranty claims seems the easier way to go. TiVo doesn't sell drive upgrades so they aren't losing the sale there. I doubt they expected to sell many Pros over the Plus model.
> 
> TiVo had to know this would get out there since I think it is the first thing anyone checks.


Unless... It could've been an oversight, coding error, server malfunction, or any number of things that let something meant only for MSOs occur on retail units. TiVo DOES make mistakes, and they aren't immune to system malfunctions. An example is how some people used the new online TSN transfer (when it was first new) to transfer lifetime service between units, when that wasn't supposed to be possible. It happened. I missed that small window of opportunity by a few hours...

Let's not forget the legal might of TiVo. They do reserve the right to change their TOS/policies/rules AT ANY TIME, and will give you 30 days notice.

They can always grandfather those that took advantage of it, and allow them to keep their upgraded unit in operation, or give them a choice of putting the original drive back in and in return, not voiding their warranty.

Have you read the new TOS and policies, which we have less than 30 days to opt-out of? There are LOTS of mentions in BOLD PRINT about them leveraging punitive penalties against users, up to, and including TERMINATION OF TIVO SERVICE, as well as punitive financial penalties.


----------



## puffdaddy

innocentfreak said:


> So do you think TiVo could block this for retail customers while still allowing MSOs to utilize the feature?


Easily.



> I am trying to see the advantage of blocking it from TiVo side. Denying warranty claims seems the easier way to go. TiVo doesn't sell drive upgrades so they aren't losing the sale there. I doubt they expected to sell many Pros over the Plus model.
> 
> TiVo had to know this would get out there since I think it is the first thing anyone checks.


This clearly crosses into the speculative realm, but my belief is that management will be disheartened enough at the thought of losing sales of the Pro unit to a request a fix from development. It would take a clear, calm management head to not have a knee jerk reaction to this news, but even if management did request a fix, development might respond that these images are built months in advance, so even a requested fix would be too long after launch to make a difference. Then it gets closed in a future release still under active development.

It's hard not to believe that tivo knew this would happen, though often times there can be a gulf between development (where everyone on the development team has known for months that moving the Series5 units over to a Flash based boot drive would mean that anyone can drop in a new, bigger drive and increase the recording space) and marketing (who agonized over the pricing structure for the Roamio rollout based on numerous hours of number crunching, surveys, and focus groups) had no clue that this was possible.


----------



## Series3Sub

I subscribe to the "meeting the demands" of the MSO's theory. Cheaper just to have ONE box to manufacture and one software. The majority of TiVo owners aren't DYI people. How about the theory that if this simple slap in a new HDD and away we go is true, is that it will STIMULATE sales of the Roamio line with power users/DYI folks, likely MULTIPLE Roamio purchases over time. TiVo has always known they can't get DYI folks to buy the higher end models because DYI folks are interested in higher capacity, not THX Certification. So, why not embrace the DYI and meet the MSO's requests. Completely cheap skate the Roamio and put a small, slightly inferior to the WE EURS in IMHO, save tons of costs and let the DYI folks bear the cost of more capacity. Sounds like good business to me. 

I suppose TiVo is sorry they didn't pay for--I mean get--THX Certification for the Pro, as that had always been the "difference" with the flagship model. Now, TiVo can't even say that! One would think TiVo would have crowed about some difference, other than stock drive size, between the Plus and Pro, but, so far, nothing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the market will be sold on the more expensive units or multiple base Roamios just as always. It really makes no difference to TiVo, only to TiVo owners who may have an EASY way to increase capacity and who would've have done so any way with the old methods, and to DVRDudes and Weaknees who will have something of a disturbance to their business model.


----------



## innocentfreak

I still think if they hadn't priced the Pro so high this wouldn't have even been a question in people's mind. If anything they sort of put themselves in this position.

At $599 I went from a day one purchase to waiting to see if we might get an upgrade offer. At $499 or even $549 people would opt to buy over upgrade and the only upgraders would be for the ones who opted for the Plus and upgraded down the road when 3TB AV drives dropped in price. 

I do agree it will be really interesting to see how TiVo responds. I think with this out there it might hurt them to be too aggressive especially when it has been such a well received launch except for the pricing.


----------



## aaronwt

Series3Sub said:


> I think Weeknees knew all about this (they must have spies in Alviso), probably from the start, but are keeping mum for now, and clearly see the 4TB as the upgrade that can stem the loss of some business. They are probably working like crazy to get 4TB to work.


If Weaknees knew about this and this is the method they are upgrading with, then I guess a 4TB drive would not work? If I get a 3TB drive I will just go with the WD AV drive instead of the Seagate since it's cheaper.


----------



## innocentfreak

aaronwt said:


> If Weaknees knew about this and this is the method they are upgrading with, then I guess a 4TB drive would not work? If I get a 3TB drive I will just go with the WD AV drive instead of the Seagate since it's cheaper.


They might have to do some additional hacking like manually expanding one of the partitions. Of course this makes you wonder if Roamio would just try to reformat the drive.

I wonder what happens if you put a drive from another Roamio in? Does it just work or does it detect a non-matching TSN and rebuild? or something else entirely? Works for future recordings, but won't play original recordings?


----------



## nooneuknow

puffdaddy said:


> Easily.
> 
> This clearly crosses into the speculative realm, but my belief is that management will be disheartened enough at the thought of losing sales of the Pro unit to a request a fix from development. It would take a clear, calm management head to not have a knee jerk reaction to this news, but development might response that these images are built months in advance, so even a requested fix would be too long after launch to make a difference.
> 
> It's hard not to believe that tivo knew this would happen, though often times there can be a gulf between development (where everyone on the development team has known for months that moving the Series5 units over to a Flash based boot drive would mean that anyone can drop in a new, bigger drive and increase the recording space) and marketing (who agonized over the pricing structure for the Roamio rollout based on numerous hours of number crunching, surveys, and focus groups) had no clue that it was possible.


Very well put. It may be speculative, but I share your speculation, and will raise you one invitation to read the new TOS/User Agreements, and invite further speculation of such a "very feasible" nature.

If this was born out of giving the MSOs what they wanted, and a retail accident, one could say TiVo may worry about retail sales. Reasonable, but I think TiVo cares more about MSO contracts and less and less about retail.

It's not unreasonable to think that TiVo may eventually abandon retail, if they can get enough MSO contracts. Then they can shut down their so-called "support center", save money there, and cash in on the MSO deals.


----------



## nooneuknow

Series3Sub said:


> I think Weeknees knew all about this (they must have spies in Alviso), probably from the start, but are keeping mum for now, and clearly see the 4TB as the upgrade that can stem the loss of some business. They are probably working like crazy to get 4TB to work.


I'd almost bet on a 4TB workaround being their golden ticket with the Roamio line. If they know anybody that can swap a drive can get to 3TB, they should be working hard at coming up with a way to do something that the everyday Joe DIYer can't.


----------



## sbiller

nooneuknow said:


> Very well put. It may be speculative, but I share your speculation, and will raise you one invitation to read the new TOS/User Agreements, and invite further speculation of such a "very feasible" nature.
> 
> If this was born out of giving the MSOs what they wanted, and a retail accident, one could say TiVo may worry about retail sales. Reasonable, but I think TiVo cares more about MSO contracts and less and less about retail.
> 
> It's not unreasonable to think that TiVo may eventually abandon retail, if they can get enough MSO contracts. Then they can shut down their so-called "support center", save money there, and cash in on the MSO deals.


I think the number of potential Pro sales TiVo might lose to consumers purchasing a larger hard drive and the correct tools to open up their Roamio box is extremely small. This is probably a don't care for TiVo and the convenience associated with MSO maintenance and life cycle support makes it a very worthwhile feature.


----------



## sbiller

Also, TiVo doesn't focus on hardware revenue/sales. They are really interested in long term subscriber growth while controlling subscription acquisition costs (SAC). The impact of Roamio, Mini, and Stream is a reduction in churn and the possibility that TiVo might once again start to add Retail subscribers to the books which has been on a slow and steady decline for quite some time.


----------



## Series3Sub

I think we will see the price on the Plus and Pro drop a bit, but mostly the Pro to make it more attractive. Look, this is NOT about the DYI folks on this forum, we/they have NEVER been suckered into the flagship models. The pricing for the Pro is all about the majority of the people who buy TiVo's who are NOT DYI folks and will pay more for the greater capacity of the Pro. I think TiVo had lots of meetings about this and feel the data bears out their pricing for the Pro. I suspect the Pro will be a favorite of Home Theater installers who will gladly spend other (rich) people's money, while the affluent middle class will find the Plus quite sufficient, and OTA folks have no choice, and they may be the least knowledgeable group. We are still the minority. There are lots of those who know nothing more about TiVo than it is a good DVR and they want one. Now, how much money do I hand over to you Mr. Best Buy sales clerk?


----------



## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> I'd almost bet on a 4TB workaround being their golden ticket with the Roamio line. If they know anybody that can swap a drive can get to 3TB, they should be working hard at coming up with a way to do something that the everyday Joe DIYer can't.


I wonder if this is really the reason that Weaknees didn't start out with upgrade drives? That they have not been able to copy any drives yet?


----------



## Dan203

I'm feeling better about my Pro purchase. I could have saved $37 doing it myself, but this way I get a clean out of the box experience with no worries about warranty issues. Now I know I would have ended up with an extra 1TB drive that way, but I know myself and I would have just left that sitting somewhere anyway "just in case" so it wouldn't have had any real value.


----------



## innocentfreak

Dan203 said:


> I'm feeling better about my Pro purchase. I could have saved $37 doing it myself, but this way I get a clean out of the box experience with no worries about warranty issues. Now I know I would have ended up with an extra 1TB drive that way, but I know myself and I would have just left that sitting somewhere anyway "just in case" so it wouldn't have had any real value.


Yeah I am still leaning to the Pro even with the upgrade option. I am probably buying from Best Buy so the only reason I would go Plus is they didn't have the Pro in.

If they had offered a 2TB model I could see opting for that over the 3TB model and upgrading later to if someone got a 4TB working easily.


----------



## nooneuknow

Series3Sub said:


> I subscribe to the "meeting the demands" of the MSO's theory. Cheaper just to have ONE box to manufacture and one software. The majority of TiVo owners aren't DYI people.<snip>


You mentioned "DYI people" a dozen times in your post. As in "Do Yourself In"?

Sorry, I couldn't resist!  

I agree with the one platform (box) part, but TiVo would never put exactly the same software on both versions (MSO & retail), unless it was meant to be so flexible, that the MSOs could have some backdoor way in and tweak it however they like. Now that I typed that, I am thinking maybe that is the case, and that's where this possible overlooked upgrade ability came from.

In this thread, the upgrader stated, more than once, that the box updated itself TWICE. Maybe the first update was the MSO software, and the second the retail software. Since the larger drive was the first drive it saw, the MSO software allowed it. Since it was already there, the retail software didn't flinch. What if it had been started with the original drive first?

One thing we don't know is if there was anything on the original drive. Maybe it wasn't a blank drive. Maybe if it had been allowed to boot, the bigger drive wouldn't have worked the way it did... Or, maybe if they pulled the bigger drive, and attempted again, it wouldn't work again.

Really, there's a lot of things we still don't know. I expect it to take some time, before we can truly be confident in what we know, or think we do.

The upgrader could do the community a great service by doing a full DVRBARS backup of the unbooted original drive, and getting it sent to ggieseke, the author of the software. Maybe there is something on it, as opposed to it being the assumed blank slate. Perhaps the S/N or something else on the drive is what maybe should have flagged the unit as retail...


----------



## Dan203

Yeah if they had a 2TB option I would have gone with that. But 1TB wasn't enough so I had to make the jump to 3TB.


----------



## tivogurl

lpwcomp said:


> The first disk drives _*I*_ worked with looked like this:
> 
> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cdc/cyber/brochures/844-21_Feb74.pdf


Showoff 

My first drives were Fujitsu Eagles attached to PDP-11/70s. A huge 100 megabytes in an eight-inch drive.


----------



## bdspilot

How do you get the $40 off coupon


----------



## ppartekim

tivogurl said:


> Showoff
> 
> My first drives were Fujitsu Eagles attached to PDP-11/70s. A huge 100 megabytes in an eight-inch drive.


My first was the UNIVAC 1100 series in the AF. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_1105


----------



## tivogurl

vurbano said:


> Got it. Actually I ordered the plus standard unit for 375.00 and with a 135 dollar WD30 av gp drive that's 500 dollars for an equivalent 560 dollar Pro unit.


That model of drive is out of stock at Newegg. I can't help but wonder if Roamio upgraders are responsible.


----------



## aaronwt

innocentfreak said:


> Yeah I am still leaning to the Pro even with the upgrade option. I am probably buying from Best Buy so the only reason I would go Plus is they didn't have the Pro in.
> 
> If they had offered a 2TB model I could see opting for that over the 3TB model and upgrading later to if someone got a 4TB working easily.


I was going to get it from BestBuy but their 4 year extended warranty prices are rather high. It's $80 for the Plus and I guess the Pro will be at least $100.

Someone had mentioned that BestBuy sells the Amazon Kindle Gift cards and that they can be used to buy anything at Amazon. In my area Amazon will start charging taxes on 9/1. So I was thinking about getting the Kindle gift cards from Best buy, that way i can use my Reward Zone dollars and gift cards to purchase them. Then just purchase the Plus for $400, without taxes at Amazon, and also get a 3TB WD AV drive for $137 from Amazon.

Or just get the pro for $63 more from Amazon and not have to worry about the warranty from TiVo being honored.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> That's THE ONE I was talking about in an earlier post in this thread, with the huge single platter "disk packs" that came in flying-saucer shaped cases. I was in charge of swapping out one per day, known as the "scratch pack".
> 
> Boy, do I feel old!


While the disk packs in the 844-21 were removable, they looked more like hat boxes than flying saucers.










"CDC Model 881 Disk Packs are used with the 844-21 
Disk Storage Units. The 881 consists of a stack of eleven, 
14-inch diameter, magnetic recording disks. Nineteen 
surfaces are used for data recording and one is used for 
permanently-recorded positioning information."

During "system time" at FSU (this was in the 70's), we would swap out one of the packs and take the rest of the drives off line to avoid screwing up the production data when testing system mods.



nooneuknow said:


> Boy, do I feel old!


Yeah, well _*I'm*_ about to start drawing Social Security retirement. Early yes (turned 62 yesterday), but still...

Not quite to the point of checking the obits to see if I'm in there though.


----------



## jmpage2

Series3Sub said:


> I think we will see the price on the Plus and Pro drop a bit, but mostly the Pro to make it more attractive. Look, this is NOT about the DYI folks on this forum, we/they have NEVER been suckered into the flagship models. The pricing for the Pro is all about the majority of the people who buy TiVo's who are NOT DYI folks and will pay more for the greater capacity of the Pro. I think TiVo had lots of meetings about this and feel the data bears out their pricing for the Pro. I suspect the Pro will be a favorite of Home Theater installers who will gladly spend other (rich) people's money, while the affluent middle class will find the Plus quite sufficient, and OTA folks have no choice, and they may be the least knowledgeable group. We are still the minority. There are lots of those who know nothing more about TiVo than it is a good DVR and they want one. Now, how much money do I hand over to you Mr. Best Buy sales clerk?


I don't know what this DYI is you keep referring to.

Do you mean Do It Yourself...? That's DIY.


----------



## innocentfreak

aaronwt said:


> I was going to get it from BestBuy but their 4 year extended warranty prices are rather high. It's $80 for the Plus and I guess the Pro will be at least $100.
> 
> Someone had mentioned that BestBuy sells the Amazon Kindle Gift cards and that they can be used to buy anything at Amazon. In my area Amazon will start charging taxes on 9/1. So I was thinking about getting the Kindle gift cards from Best buy, that way i can use my Reward Zone dollars and gift cards to purchase them. Then just purchase the Plus for $400, without taxes at Amazon, and also get a 3TB WD AV drive for $137 from Amazon.
> 
> Or just get the pro for $63 more from Amazon and not have to worry about the warranty from TiVo being honored.


Based off the prices of receivers, it looks like $69 is the 4 year for the Plus and $89 is the 4 year for the Pro. You can see the Plus price since you can add it to cart, but I used a receiver for $599 to get the Pro price. I believe it is based off price now. I show $69 for the Plus at 4 years not $80 unless you included tax.

Yes you can buy Kindle cards usually in $25 increments or so. Some stores do have the blank ones where you can create your own.

Squaretrade is $69 for the Plus and $89 for the Pro, but they do have sales sometimes. Of course I don't know if they qualify for lifetime replacement.


----------



## innocentfreak

tivogurl said:


> That model of drive is out of stock at Newegg. I can't help but wonder if Roamio upgraders are responsible.


Amazon is on a 1-2 days to process and ship so possibly. They don't keep a lot of stock on the drive though since they aren't the most popular.


----------



## jmpage2

nooneuknow said:


> You mentioned "DYI people" a dozen times in your post. As in "Do Yourself In"?
> 
> Sorry, I couldn't resist!
> 
> I agree with the one platform (box) part, but TiVo would never put exactly the same software on both versions (MSO & retail), unless it was meant to be so flexible, that the MSOs could have some backdoor way in and tweak it however they like. Now that I typed that, I am thinking maybe that is the case, and that's where this possible overlooked upgrade ability came from.
> 
> In this thread, the upgrader stated, more than once, that the box updated itself TWICE. Maybe the first update was the MSO software, and the second the retail software. Since the larger drive was the first drive it saw, the MSO software allowed it. Since it was already there, the retail software didn't flinch. What if it had been started with the original drive first?
> 
> One thing we don't know is if there was anything on the original drive. Maybe it wasn't a blank drive. Maybe if it had been allowed to boot, the bigger drive wouldn't have worked the way it did... Or, maybe if they pulled the bigger drive, and attempted again, it wouldn't work again.
> 
> Really, there's a lot of things we still don't know. I expect it to take some time, before we can truly be confident in what we know, or think we do.
> 
> The upgrader could do the community a great service by doing a full DVRBARS backup of the unbooted original drive, and getting it sent to ggieseke, the author of the software. Maybe there is something on it, as opposed to it being the assumed blank slate. Perhaps the S/N or something else on the drive is what maybe should have flagged the unit as retail...


This is all legitimate speculation on your part. My personal suspicion is that it will in fact work with any drive big enough to prep the image... regardless of if someone turns it on first or not.

One thing's for sure, we will have an answer soon enough.

Feeling pretty smug about my Plus purchase now. I don't need 3TB but 2TB might be kind of nice to have since it will only set me back $90.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> I wonder if this is really the reason that Weaknees didn't start out with upgrade drives? That they have not been able to copy any drives yet?


Great minds think alike (every now and then).

We don't know what, if anything is on the drives that come in the Roamios.

If nothing, then there's still the possibility that the drive's S/N is what is supposed to trigger what gets downloaded to it. Perhaps a S/N mismatch triggers something that wasn't meant to happen.

Even if the drive is completely blank, they can still do a sector-by-sector raw copy, resulting in copying a lot of zeroes. So, if there's anything on it, they should still be able to copy it. The hard part is what to do once they have copied the original, to a larger target drive (particularly a 4TB one, which is what everybody and their uncle, wants). Same if they let the original boot, then go through the copy process. How to expand from there? That must be what they are working on. I highly doubt they haven't been selling/shipping drive kits, because they don't have the right size torx driver in stock...


----------



## nooneuknow

tivogurl said:


> That model of drive is out of stock at Newegg. I can't help but wonder if Roamio upgraders are responsible.


I must be psychic. I foresaw this scenario a few pages of posts back...


----------



## amseven11

This is the drive I used: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042AG9V8/ref=ox_ya_os_product

$95.00 with free 2 day shipping (for Prime members).


----------



## jmpage2

What's the difference between EUS WD drives and the AGP drives?


----------



## innocentfreak

jmpage2 said:


> What's the difference between EUS WD drives and the AGP drives?


The AV-GP are the EURS drives.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> I must be psychic. I foresaw this scenario a few pages of posts back...


You shouldn't have complained about someone using "DYI" as opposed "DIY" when you clearly ended a word with "ic" where "o" is more accurate.  (I keed, I keed)


----------



## lpwcomp

When comparing the price of a DIY upgrade of a Plus to a Pro, one should not forget to reduce the true cost of the upgrade by the value of the perfectly usable 1TB drive that you will be removing from the Plus.


----------



## unitron

nooneuknow said:


> ... Even good-old WinMFS needs additional know-how, beyond what is provided with/by it, to upgrade to 2TB, especially on the S3 OLED.


Nowadays that additional know how consists of

1. Make sure you're running version 11.0k or newer of the TiVo OS

2. Using WinMFS, use mfscopy but when it finishes do not accept its offer to expand.

3. Having previously selected the source drive, now select the target drive and click on mfsadd.

Presto--2TB S3 drive.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> When comparing the price of a DIY upgrade of a Plus to a Pro, one should not forget to reduce the true cost of the upgrade by the value of the perfectly usable 1TB drive that you will be removing from the Plus.


And therein lies the rub (I think I said that right).

If you buy from weaknees, they keep the original drive and can profit from selling it to somebody else. Do they then become the warranty service provider for you?

If you keep the drive, you have a conundrum: If TiVo actually sticks to turning a blind-eye if you need a warranty repair/replace, and you've been running an upgrade, as long as you sneak the original drive back in, then you can't sell it, or make it an important part of something else. It gets to take up space somewhere "just in case...".

I always hated leaving a stack of perfectly good original drives, doing nothing, "just in case...".


----------



## innocentfreak

lpwcomp said:


> When comparing the price of a DIY upgrade of a Plus to a Pro, one should not forget to reduce the true cost of the upgrade by the value of the perfectly usable 1TB drive that you will be removing from the Plus.


I am one of those who would keep the drive on hand as a backup so I don't consider it an extra drive.


----------



## nooneuknow

unitron said:


> Nowadays that additional know how consists of
> 
> 1. Make sure you're running version 11.0k or newer of the TiVo OS
> 
> 2. Using WinMFS, use mfscopy but when it finishes do not accept its offer to expand.
> 
> 3. Having previously selected the source drive, now select the target drive and click on mfsadd.
> 
> Presto--2TB S3 drive.


While I don't figure it was your intent, I feel you've just proven my original point in the *complete*, unedited, original post you partially quoted from.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> You shouldn't have complained about someone using "DYI" as opposed "DIY" when you clearly ended a word with "ic" where "o" is more accurate.  (I keed, I keed)


Nah, you're just bummed I beat you to the punch on that particular post!

 JK JK


----------



## unitron

nooneuknow said:


> While I don't figure it was your intent, I feel you've just proven my original point in the *complete*, unedited, original post you partially quoted from.


I assumed you were referring to the original additional know how from before 11.0k that meant either jmfs on the HD or HD XL (provided your source drive did not have an Apple Free partition anywhere raising the total number to 16), or something involving hex editing and partition coalescing.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> And therein lies the rub (I think I said that right).
> 
> If you buy from weaknees, they keep the original drive and can profit from selling it to somebody else. Do they then become the warranty service provider for you?
> 
> If you keep the drive, you have a conundrum: If TiVo actually sticks to turning a blind-eye if you need a warranty repair/replace, and you've been running an upgrade, as long as you sneak the original drive back in, then you can't sell it, or make it an important part of something else. It gets to take up space somewhere "just in case...".
> 
> I always hated leaving a stack of perfectly good original drives, doing nothing, "just in case...".


There *is* all that to consider. If I ever do buy one of these newfangled "Roamio Plus" thingies, I would prefer to hold off on any upgrade for at least 90 days (assuming I don't also get an extended warranty), which is why I'm hoping that there is some way of upgrading the drive while retaining existing recordings/settings.


----------



## jmpage2

lpwcomp said:


> While the disk packs in the 844-21 were removable, they looked more like hat boxes than flying saucers.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "CDC Model 881 Disk Packs are used with the 844-21
> Disk Storage Units. The 881 consists of a stack of eleven,
> 14-inch diameter, magnetic recording disks. Nineteen
> surfaces are used for data recording and one is used for
> permanently-recorded positioning information."
> 
> During "system time" at FSU (this was in the 70's), we would swap out one of the packs and take the rest of the drives off line to avoid screwing up the production data when testing system mods.
> 
> Yeah, well _*I'm*_ about to start drawing Social Security retirement. Early yes (turned 62 yesterday), but still...
> 
> Not quite to the point of checking the obits to see if I'm in there though.


I know you guys are getting a great chortle out of dredging up war stories of 25 year old tech but its really really OT.


----------



## lpwcomp

innocentfreak said:


> I am one of those who would keep the drive on hand as a backup so I don't consider it an extra drive.


If it truly is just a matter of dropping in an unformatted drive, you wouldn't need it as backup. For restoring it to it's original state for warranty purposes possibly yes, but if TiVo wants to enforce the "letter of the law", it won't do any good as they know if you've ever had an upgraded drive installed.


----------



## series5orpremier

The ex-semiconductor supply side thermal engineer in me is concerned about putting that 3TB WD eurs drive in the small form factor base Roamio. That might end up causing some early hard drive fails due to thermal issues. I think that's my deciding factor that if I do an upgrade I'm sticking with the 2TB WD eurs. 

The Seagate 500 GB is rated at 3.4 W at read-write, 3.0 W idle, and 0.7 W sleeping; so I'm assuming that's a significant percentage of what the enclosure is capable of dissipating from the hard drive while keeping the hard drive within it's temp spec. The 2TB WD eurs' power numbers are 4.5 W/4.0 W/0.7 W read-write/idle/sleeping which doesn't sound too bad being about 1 W (33%) more the Seagate when in use. Hopefully they designed in a little thermal cushion. The 3TB WD eur however is 6.0 W/5.5 W/0.75 W which is about 2.5 W (76%-83%) more than the Seagate. OUCH.

The glitch with Weaknees not putting a 4TB drive in there might very well be they realized with the small form factor cooling design they could burn up the drive. (The 4 TB Seagate is 7.5 W/5.0 W/0.75 W).


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> There *is* all that to consider. If I ever do buy one of these newfangled "Roamio Plus" thingies, I would prefer to hold off on any upgrade for at least 90 days (assuming I don't also get an extended warranty), which is why I'm hoping that there is some way of upgrading the drive while retaining existing recordings/settings.


That's all good if you only go with the standard warranty of 90 days.

Then, there are those who get 3-4 year extended warranties (I'm not a member of the school of thought that embraces them as a means to increase the resale value of their TiVos).

On occasion though, TiVo will offer you a refurb, sometimes even a model newer, if you are having certain types of problems, a year out of warranty, for a minimal price (like ~$150, w/lifetime service transfer). I'm sure they expect the original drive when you send your problem unit back. I've even heard of people getting offered deals like this on S3 vintage models, and they get a Premiere. Those people couldn't take the offer if they didn't have the original drive...

There's always a potential downside...


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> I know you guys are getting a great chortle out of dredging up war stories of 25 year old tech but its really really OT.


I'm sure if Dan203, the actual moderator. felt it was getting too far off, for too long, he'd say something. I don't answer to non-moderators.

Sure it's a bit OT, but not "really really OT". We -are- talking about hard drive form factors.


----------



## ppartekim

series5orpremier said:


> The ex-semiconductor supply side thermal engineer in me is concerned about putting that 3TB WD eurs drive in the small form factor base Roamio. That might end up causing some early hard drive fails due to thermal issues. I think that's my deciding factor that if I do an upgrade I'm sticking with the 2TB WD eurs.
> 
> The Seagate 500 GB is rated at 3.4 W at read-write, 3.0 W idle, and 0.7 W sleeping; so I'm assuming that's a significant percentage of what the enclosure is capable of dissipating from the hard drive while keeping the hard drive within it's temp spec. The 2TB WD eurs' power numbers are 4.5 W/4.0 W/0.7 W read-write/idle/sleeping which doesn't sound too bad being about 1 W (33%) more the Seagate when in use. Hopefully they designed in a little thermal cushion. The 3TB WD eur however is 6.0 W/5.5 W/0.75 W which is about 2.5 W (76%-83%) more than the Seagate. OUCH.
> 
> The glitch with Weaknees not putting a 4TB drive in there might very well be they realized with the small form factor cooling design they could burn up the drive.


Good reason to wait for someone else to try a 3-4TB drive before I jump.


----------



## MeInDallas

If its sitting right beside a fan thats exhausting the hot air off the drive on one side, and the other side has cool air coming in thats flowing over the drive to cool it, wouldnt that be enough to cool the drive off?


----------



## nooneuknow

series5orpremier said:


> The glitch with Weaknees not putting a 4TB drive in there might very well be they realized with the small form factor cooling design they could burn up the drive. (The 4 TB Seagate is 7.5 W/5.0 W/0.75 W).


Does anybody know the rated output of the "wall-wart" style power supply, or the internal ones in the other two models? That needs to be a factor as well. As far as heat goes, one could always innovate up a heat sink to shunt away some heat to the case cover.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> That's all good if you only go with the standard warranty of 90 days.


Why is why I wrote "(assuming I don't also get an extended warranty)"



nooneuknow said:


> Then, there are those who get 3-4 year extended warranties (I'm not a member of the school of thought that embraces them as a means to increase the resale value of their TiVos).


I've never gotten an extended warranty on a TiVo.



nooneuknow said:


> On occasion though, TiVo will offer you a refurb, sometimes even a model newer, if you are having certain types of problems, a year out of warranty, for a minimal price (like ~$150, w/lifetime service transfer). I'm sure they expect the original drive when you send your problem unit back. I've even heard of people getting offered deals like this on S3 vintage models, and they get a Premiere. Those people couldn't take the offer if they didn't have the original drive...


They actually replaced an out warranty, non-lifetimed Premiere for me that had gotten fried by a lightning strike. Even sent me a prepaid shipping label.

Did they actually want the S3's back or did they just add the TSN to a "cannot reactivate" list?



nooneuknow said:


> There's always a potential downside...


Most options such as these have pros and cons and different risk/reward ratios.


----------



## steve614

MeInDallas said:


> If its sitting right beside a fan thats exhausting the hot air off the drive on one side, and the other side has cool air coming in thats flowing over the drive to cool it, wouldnt that be enough to cool the drive off?


This might be a problem with the base Roamio. Looks like the fan is situated in between the hard drive and the MB. Which way does it exhaust?
If it exhausts toward the MB, running a hot hard drive could overheat the MB.


----------



## lpwcomp

Heat dissipation problems are far less likely to be a consideration for a Plus upgrade considering that they have the same form factor as the Pro.


----------



## MeInDallas

Its blowing out from the hard drive across the motherboard to the other side. So the heat is coming off the hard drive as you described and blowing on the motherboard.


----------



## MeInDallas

I guess someone that upgrades their base model needs to report back on the inside temps.


----------



## lessd

I would like someone to try two different drives in the plus to see if the flash OS can handle the new drive SN, if this drive auto format works for more than the first drive than one could have two or more drives for the same plus TiVo, one could just make up an external drive box and fill up one drive than load another drive into the external box.


----------



## tivogurl

amseven11 said:


> This is the drive I used: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042AG9V8/ref=ox_ya_os_product
> 
> $95.00 with free 2 day shipping (for Prime members).


Any info on internal temperatures?


----------



## amseven11

Where can I check internal temperature?


----------



## MeInDallas

Go to the system information screen where you looked at the hours, it will be there.


----------



## MeInDallas

You will have to scroll down like 3 times with the channel down button, and you should see MBT: and a number, if its still the same like a Premiere, but it looks the same from what you posted.


----------



## amseven11

Ok cool it won't really do any good until I get cable installed and can record a bunch at once to really get the hard drive working.


----------



## Hi8

monkeydust said:


> Then why does it take so long to boot up?


 must be just like the Mini ..

a big Mini with a Hard Drive.


----------



## monkeydust

Hi8 said:


> must be just like the Mini ..
> 
> a big Mini with a Hard Drive.


Does the mini actually have a hard drive in it? If not, then everybody could have probably seen the likliehood of the HD upgrade scenario talked about in this thread.


----------



## vurbano

tivogurl said:


> That model of drive is out of stock at Newegg. I can't help but wonder if Roamio upgraders are responsible.


Try Amazon. But in all honesty I don't think there is enough of us DIYers for us to affect Tivo policy.


----------



## Hi8

monkeydust said:


> Does the mini actually have a hard drive in it? If not, then everybody could have probably seen the likliehood of the HD upgrade scenario talked about in this thread.


 not that I know of (seems too small to have anything more than a 2.5")... I assume it's an embedded OS. It does take some time to boot up.


----------



## davezatz

Series3Sub said:


> I think Weeknees knew all about this (they must have spies in Alviso), probably from the start, but are keeping mum for now


They are TiVo resellers, no spies needed. I assume TiVo figures they provide a value-add service that's win-win-win for WK, TiVo, and the customers.



innocentfreak said:


> So do you think TiVo could block this for retail customers while still allowing MSOs to utilize the feature?


Right after they finish upgrading the SD Settings...  I don't think the hobbyist contingent is large enough to draw that sort of attention and suspect this could even be good for sales. I'm _much more_ interested in an OTA Roamio now that I know I can do away with that meager 500GB drive for a mere $95.


----------



## bmgoodman

jmpage2 said:


> I have had more trouble with Seagate drives in the past few years than any others. Purely anecdotal I know, but no Seagate drives for me.


My anecdotal evidence matches yours exactly. Many more Seagate failures than Western Digital.


----------



## ncbill

What Sam B. & Dave Zatz said - too few units would be DIY upgraded to make a difference in overall sales.

Retail resellers like Best Buy would also want the ability to offer drive upgrades.


----------



## BiloxiGeek

Drive anecdotes: Same here, I deal with a few hundred PC's and servers on the job, and over the years I've gravitated toward WD's over Seagate, they just seem more reliable.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk - now Free


----------



## aaronwt

I've done the opposite. I used to use all WD drives then a few years ago I switched to using Seagate drives(I did buy one WD 3TB drive this year though). Although I've only used several dozen Seagate drives over the past few years compared to the couple hundred WD drives I've used, so far the Seagate Drives have been just as reliable.

I did have one of the five 3TB Seagate drives I purchased recently show up with an issue, but I've had that happen before to WD drives as well. It doesn't happen very often but it is not unusual. As long as the issue shows up at the very beginning I'm fine with it. It's when there is a problem after the drive is put into service that would be bad.

Although it sounds like this upgrade process won't work with a 4TB drive. So if I do go with the Plus and upgrade to a 3TB drive, I will use the WD AV drive instead of the Seagate AV drive. Since it is a little cheaper and has a longer warranty. But if someone does find out it works with a 4TB then I will use a Seagate drive. Although I don't even think WD has a 4TB AV drive?


----------



## bmgoodman

lessd said:


> I would like someone to try two different drives in the plus to see if the flash OS can handle the new drive SN, if this drive auto format works for more than the first drive than one could have two or more drives for the same plus TiVo, one could just make up an external drive box and fill up one drive than load another drive into the external box.


If the entire Tivo OS is *not* in flash, wouldn't installing a blank disk require you to go through some form of guided setup again? I suppose some people wouldn't mind doing that to have a collection of disks to swap in and out, but I'm thinking there would be few of those people. And most of those people are probably on this forum!

On a related note, if anyone out there is game, how about unplugging the hard drive completely (to simulate total drive failure) and see how Roamio responds.


----------



## CrispyCritter

Put me in the camp that believes that TiVo isn't worried at all about us upgrading disk size on the Roamios. They never have been concerned about that, and I don't see any reason for that to change.

As sbiller said, subscription numbers are much more important. I would guess that if 1 out of 5 disk upgraders wouldn't have bought the TiVo if they couldn't upgrade it, TiVo would regard upgrading as a net win for them!

As I said, I don't think disk size upgrades have ever been a worry for TiVo. They have been paranoid about disk security, though. Understandable, in that they are betting the company on there not being an easy way to get copy-protected shows off the TiVo. If they couldn't fix that, they would lose their cablecard license and be out of business.

I view the major reason for the architecture change of getting the OS off the hard disk as being security. It's much more demonstrably secure (to the cable companies) if you don't have to worry about someone plopping in a hacked OS variant via hard disk replacement. They still have to worry about network security, but it removes a major concern that they've had. The fact that it aids maintenance is a nice side benefit.


----------



## ggieseke

I wonder if the entire OS is in flash or just a beefed-up KS52. The fact that the screenshots showed an update in progress makes me think it may be the latter. Guess I won't know for sure until I get one, image it, and start experimenting.


----------



## steve614

My guess is that there is just enough software in the flash memory to get the DVR to the point of being able to access the network and internet where the DVR can then call the TiVo servers and download the complete OS onto the hard drive.


----------



## jrtroo

bmgoodman said:


> If the entire Tivo OS is *not* in flash, wouldn't installing a blank disk require you to go through some form of guided setup again? I suppose some people wouldn't mind doing that to have a collection of disks to swap in and out, but I'm thinking there would be few of those people. And most of those people are probably on this forum!


If I understand how this is working, the new units have a chip that either has a basic OS on it or instructions for the unit to reach out to momma tivo to download the software. Is that right?

The pain in doing the above is that each drive, I assume, would need to be paired to the cc separately. If someone wanted to have an inventory of drives, the old method of copying a newly paired drive would be easier to manage, IMO.


----------



## ncbill

Either way I'd like to publicly thank Tivo for simplifying the process of drive replacement.

Even if one buys the 3 year extended warranty the drive could easily fail just outside that 3 year period.

If that happens it's nice knowing all one has to do is buy either the Seagate or WD "AV" model drive for an easy DIY repair.

Versus having to pay $150 + shipping to send it back to Tivo in exchange for a refurb.



steve614 said:


> My guess is that there is just enough software in the flash memory to get the DVR to the point of being able to access the network and internet where the DVR can then call the TiVo servers and download the complete OS onto the hard drive.


----------



## Millionaire2K

ncbill said:


> Either way I'd like to publicly thank Tivo for simplifying the process of drive replacement.
> 
> Even if one buys the 3 year extended warranty the drive could easily fail just outside that 3 year period.
> 
> If that happens it's nice knowing all one has to do is buy either the Seagate or WD "AV" model drive for an easy DIY repair.
> 
> Versus having to pay $150 + shipping to send it back to Tivo in exchange for a refurb.


Agree 100%!!


----------



## vurbano

So who is going to be the first to market $300 dollar 3 TB plug and play Roamio upgrade drives? wow that sounds tempting. It will take the masses a while to figure it out.


----------



## TC25D

vurbano said:


> So who is going to be the first to market $300 dollar 3 TB plug and play Roamio upgrade drives? wow that sounds tempting. It will take the masses a while to figure it out.


Anyone with the skill to install a 'Roamio Upgrade Drive' would also know they can buy the drive for $150 and do it themselves.


----------



## innocentfreak

TC25D said:


> Anyone with the skill to install a 'Roamio Upgrade Drive' would also know they can buy the drive for $150 and do it themselves.


Not necessarily, I upgraded a couple drives for my parents by buying the upgrade drives. It was worth the extra cash not to have to haul their TiVos back and forth so I could copy the drive.


----------



## andyw715

Are these HDDs in the Roamios unformatted out of the box?


As far as pluging the eSATA hole in S3, that was done in order to control the eSATA drive choice. Hard to provide support/warranty to the masses with that big of an unknown.


----------



## Aero 1

amseven11 said:


> Upgrade your Roamio with a new drive. No discs needed.
> 
> *What you need:*
> T8 Screw driver
> T10 Screw Driver
> New Hard Drive


so wait, all you do is get a new drive, put it in and the tivo rebuilds it without any third party tools?!?!?! nice!


----------



## NJChris

Don't we still need to confirm that a drive can be put in after the initial setup was already done with the original drive?

It's only 1 person so far that's tried this, but did it before initial setup.


----------



## jmpage2

People are interested in seeing the following scenarios;

1. Upgrade drive filled to capacity without issues.
2. Upgrade drive installed after initial boot-up and installation of factory drive.
3. Format/replace drive multiple times (to insure no "replacement limit" factor).

As far as "needing" this info... I don't know that anyone needs it other than curiosity. It would be surprising if any of this became a roadblock, although it is possible.


----------



## cherry ghost

Any chance amseven11 wants to put the original drive back in and go through the setup to see what happens?


----------



## jcthorne

I just ordered the 2TB EURS WD from amazon for delivery tomorrow for $95. Hope this goes well for a Roamio that has already been through setup....

The only 3TB drives that were available for Sat delivery were used returns. I have not had the best luck with those. I never filled the 2TB in my Premiere so this will be sufficient with my server behind it. 500GB is NOT.


----------



## Am_I_Evil

getting both my Roamio Plus and a WD30EURS on tuesday...hope all goes well...

(hope to get the drive on tuesday, that was the estimated date from ebay...$130 flat for a brand new drive)


----------



## jmpage2

jcthorne said:


> I just ordered the 2TB EURS WD from amazon for delivery tomorrow for $95. Hope this goes well for a Roamio that has already been through setup....
> 
> The only 3TB drives that were available for Sat delivery were used returns. I have not had the best luck with those. I never filled the 2TB in my Premiere so this will be sufficient with my server behind it. 500GB is NOT.


You have the base Roamio? That drive might not work if it's not a single height drive.


----------



## Am_I_Evil

jmpage2 said:


> You have the base Roamio? That drive might not work if it's not a single height drive.


there's plenty of room...they used a half height drive but there's room for a full size...


----------



## Big Boy Laroux

puffdaddy said:


> It was the plus/pro I was thinking of.. Why buy the $600 flagship unit when you can get the $400 one and throw in a 2TB or 3TB drive.
> 
> But as astrohip pointed out, the unwashed masses probably wouldn't know any better.
> 
> It will be interesting to see how tivo reacts.


I wash myself just fine and I got a Pro.

Now - I knew a hard drive upgrade was inevitable, but I had no idea it would go this fast in upgrading drives. But, really, it's not THAT much more expensive to get a pro right now.

Plus ($374 at weaknees) + 3 TB drive ($120-$140 based on amazon prices) = $494

I got my Pro for $559 at weaknees. So $65 more, knowing i could get it right away and (although it probably isn't a huge deal) I haven't tampered with the box.

I upgraded drives in both my Tivo HDs, so i don't really care about opening the box, just saying for $65, it's worth it to me to just get the Pro. I'm not sure what i would actually do with a spare 1 TB drive... my PC already has much bigger.

(Sorry for replying to a post so many pages ago.  )


----------



## TC25D

jmpage2 said:


> You have the base Roamio? That drive might not work if it's not a single height drive.


According to the WD site, the WD20EURS and WD30EURS are the same size.

*WD30EURS*
Height	1.028 Inches
Depth 5.787 Inches
Width 4.00 Inches
Weight	1.61 Pound

*WD20EURS*
Height	1.028 Inches
Depth 5.787 Inches
Width 4.00 Inches
Weight	1.40 Pounds


----------



## gothaggis

welp, this thread convinced me to pick up a roamio base model (was going to hold off since the stream coupon is gone) - also picked up the WD20EURS drive from amazon for same day delivery. roamio should be here tomorrow. thanks for the update!


----------



## jcthorne

jmpage2 said:


> You have the base Roamio? That drive might not work if it's not a single height drive.


The Seagate pipeline drive in the stock base Roamio is a standard half height drive, not a thin slimline drive.

The 2TB EURS is the same size.


----------



## trip1eX

Big Boy Laroux said:


> I wash myself just fine and I got a Pro.
> 
> Now - I knew a hard drive upgrade was inevitable, but I had no idea it would go this fast in upgrading drives. But, really, it's not THAT much more expensive to get a pro right now.
> 
> Plus ($374 at weaknees) + 3 TB drive ($120-$140 based on amazon prices) = $494
> 
> I got my Pro for $559 at weaknees. So $65 more, knowing i could get it right away and (although it probably isn't a huge deal) I haven't tampered with the box.
> 
> I upgraded drives in both my Tivo HDs, so i don't really care about opening the box, just saying for $65, it's worth it to me to just get the Pro. I'm not sure what i would actually do with a spare 1 TB drive... my PC already has much bigger.
> 
> (Sorry for replying to a post so many pages ago.  )


YOu forgot the extra 1 TB drive you'd get with the Plus which you could then Ebay or throw into your desktop pc.


----------



## Big Boy Laroux

trip1eX said:


> YOu forgot the extra 1 TB drive you'd get with the Plus which you could then Ebay or throw into your desktop pc.


No I didn't forget - i mention it. See end of post. but you are right i should include in my cost. So maybe $50 on ebay?

I'm not saying the Pro is a better deal by any stretch. Just saying it's not so astronomical - to me it was worth being able to get right away and just hit the ground running with recording. And believe me, I agonized over it (knowing a drive upgrade was inevitable), and even considered canceling my order... but it already shipped.


----------



## lessd

jmpage2 said:


> People are interested in seeing the following scenarios;
> 
> 1. Upgrade drive filled to capacity without issues.
> 2. Upgrade drive installed after initial boot-up and installation of factory drive.
> 3. Format/replace drive multiple times (to insure no "replacement limit" factor).
> 
> As far as "needing" this info... I don't know that anyone needs it other than curiosity. It would be surprising if any of this became a roadblock, although it is possible.


You want this information so you would know that if your hard drive went south you could do a simple replacement without any problems. (except re-pair the cable card)


----------



## jmpage2

I agree. Awaiting on you or someone else who wants to do this experiment with a brand new box.


----------



## trip1eX

Big Boy Laroux said:


> No I didn't forget - i mention it. See end of post. but you are right i should include in my cost. So maybe $50 on ebay?
> 
> I'm not saying the Pro is a better deal by any stretch. Just saying it's not so astronomical - to me it was worth being able to get right away and just hit the ground running with recording. And believe me, I agonized over it (knowing a drive upgrade was inevitable), and even considered canceling my order... but it already shipped.


Yeah should be listed as cost (discount) for this math problem. $40 profit is more likely.

Nothing wrong with getting a Pro. And in the grand scheme of things, after paying your cable sub every month for 3 years plus the total cost of your Tivo, the extra $100 is a drop in the bucket.


----------



## lessd

jmpage2 said:


> I agree. Awaiting on you or someone else who wants to do this experiment with a brand new box.


I get my *plus* on the 21st, I will try it then, I would also want to know if a replacement drive had old TiVo software on it would the reformat take place, or if the drive had been used with a PC , another thing could a smaller drive be used than the one shipped with the Roamio, so say you ordered a pro and the 3Tb drive went south and you did not need 450 hours of record time, could your replacement be say a 2Tb drive.


----------



## jmpage2

If you do a replacement it's going to be "blank" with whatever stub software is on the flash of the Roamio... so it should not matter if the old drive was larger, it will just be reformatted with the lower capacity, the software will need update, and you will have to re-run guided setup... naturally you will have no recordings.


----------



## innocentfreak

lessd said:


> I get my *plus* on the *21st*, I will try it then, I would also want to know if a replacement drive had old TiVo software on it would the reformat take place, or if the drive had been used with a PC , another thing could a smaller drive be used than the one shipped with the Roamio, so say you ordered a pro and the 3Tb drive went south and you did not need 450 hours of record time, could your replacement be say a 2Tb drive.


So you got it 2 days ago?


----------



## NYHeel

I'm really curious to see if a 4TB drive will work. Hopefully someone will be brave enough to try it.


----------



## lessd

innocentfreak said:


> So you got it 2 days ago?


Just checking that people are reading my posts, I will give you 4 stars and now change the date to the 28th of August, has been shipped from Weaknees $375 and no tax or S&H.


----------



## lessd

NYHeel said:


> I'm really curious to see if a 4TB drive will work. Hopefully someone will be brave enough to try it.


Weeknees did and found a problem, they are working on a solution so I will assume 4Tb will not be so easy an upgrade.


----------



## bradleys

I think what I will do is take the 1TB drive out of the Plus and reformat it for my Premier using the original drive that is still sitting on the shelf. I will then take the upgraded 2TB currently in the Premier / reformat it and put it into the Plus.

I think that will be plenty of space!


----------



## NYHeel

lessd said:


> Weeknees did and found a problem, they are working on a solution so I will assume 4Tb will not be so easy an upgrade.


Yeah, I'm the guy that posted that Weaknees told me there's a bug that they're trying to overcome.

I'm not sure I buy everything they say though. If you look at the stuff they told Dave Zatz they claimed that they were going to be selling upgrade kits. But why would you be selling upgrade kits if all you need is a drive and the right screwdriver bit? So I'm not sure I'm believing what they say.


----------



## lpwcomp

bradleys said:


> I think what I will do is take the 1TB drive out of the Plus and reformat it for my Premier using the original drive that is still sitting on the shelf. I will then take the upgraded 2TB currently in the Premier / reformat it and put it into the Plus.
> 
> I think that will be plenty of space!


I wouldn't do that until someone verifies that this process works on Plus.


----------



## bradleys

I haven't placed my order yet, so I am sure it will be good and tested before I get around to it. But, my confidense level is pretty high at this point.

What I like, is that I can get decent space on the two TiVo's with nothing extra out of pocket - very happy about that.


----------



## lpwcomp

bradleys said:


> I haven't placed my order yet, so I am sure it will be good and tested before I get around to it. But, my confidense level is pretty high at this point.
> 
> What I like, is that I can get decent space on the two TiVo's with nothing extra out of pocket - very happy about that.


I have to ask - why do you think you need the extra space if you're willing to sacrifice all of the recordings currently on the 2TB drive?


----------



## bradleys

lpwcomp said:


> I have to ask - why do you think you need the extra space if you're willing to sacrifice all of the recordings currently on the 2TB drive?


I have a server - I can move any content to it that I might still want. I was always filling up the Premier before I did the upgrade, it really didn't bother me - but the kids and wife would go looking for something and ***** at me when it fell off the list.

"Where is that cartoon I watched 6 months ago...."

So, the upgrade really doesn't cause me any pain, the girls may just have to live with going to the server to find something. (or not finding it at all - if I don't feel it is worth the DASD)

That said - I really do wish we had a better interface (updated UI) for browsing external content like a server.


----------



## BobCamp1

steve614 said:


> My guess is that there is just enough software in the flash memory to get the DVR to the point of being able to access the network and internet where the DVR can then call the TiVo servers and download the complete OS onto the hard drive.


That's an extremely silly way to design something. So many things can go wrong, and flash is so cheap.

I think the OS is in flash memory. The guide data and recordings are on the hard drive. Just like every other DVR on the planet.


----------



## bradleys

BobCamp1 said:


> That's an extremely silly way to design something. So many things can go wrong, and flash is so cheap.
> 
> I think the OS is in flash memory. The guide data and recordings are on the hard drive. Just like every other DVR on the planet.


I bet you are correct - just another strategy for speeding up the performance.


----------



## richbrew

jmpage2 said:


> People are interested in seeing the following scenarios;
> 
> 1. Upgrade drive filled to capacity without issues.
> 2. Upgrade drive installed after initial boot-up and installation of factory drive.
> 3. Format/replace drive multiple times (to insure no "replacement limit" factor).
> 
> As far as "needing" this info... I don't know that anyone needs it other than curiosity. It would be surprising if any of this became a roadblock, although it is possible.


Personally, I am very interested in #2. Specifically, does it have to do a software update after installing a new drive (an indicator of whether or not the full OS is stored on the board) and does it retain critical information like settings, season passes, wishlists, channel selections, etc. It would make it much easier to decide to upgrade the drive after several months of ownership knowing that a drive upgrade woudnt force you to start over as if it were a brand new unit.


----------



## BobCamp1

series5orpremier said:


> The ex-semiconductor supply side thermal engineer in me is concerned about putting that 3TB WD eurs drive in the small form factor base Roamio. That might end up causing some early hard drive fails due to thermal issues. I think that's my deciding factor that if I do an upgrade I'm sticking with the 2TB WD eurs.
> 
> The Seagate 500 GB is rated at 3.4 W at read-write, 3.0 W idle, and 0.7 W sleeping; so I'm assuming that's a significant percentage of what the enclosure is capable of dissipating from the hard drive while keeping the hard drive within it's temp spec. The 2TB WD eurs' power numbers are 4.5 W/4.0 W/0.7 W read-write/idle/sleeping which doesn't sound too bad being about 1 W (33%) more the Seagate when in use. Hopefully they designed in a little thermal cushion. The 3TB WD eur however is 6.0 W/5.5 W/0.75 W which is about 2.5 W (76%-83%) more than the Seagate. OUCH.
> 
> The glitch with Weaknees not putting a 4TB drive in there might very well be they realized with the small form factor cooling design they could burn up the drive. (The 4 TB Seagate is 7.5 W/5.0 W/0.75 W).


I'm not worried about the thermals at all. I'm more worried about what that truly means. It means the power supplies may be working harder than designed. But if Tivo already offers a model that supports 3 TB, I'd be shocked if they didn't use the same power supply in all three models. So you should be fine in upgrading the hard drive.


----------



## BobCamp1

richbrew said:


> Personally, I am very interested in #2. Specifically, does it have to do a software update after installing a new drive (an indicator of whether or not the full OS is stored on the board) and does it retain critical information like settings, season passes, wishlists, channel selections, etc. It would make it much easier to decide to upgrade the drive after several months of ownership knowing that a drive upgrade woudnt force you to start over as if it were a brand new unit.


You forgot "keep recordings", which when combined with using all of the new, larger hard drive, may be the REAL reason to develop a tool. You can expand capacity but lose recordings, you can transfer recordings from a failing hard drive while keeping your existing capacity, but you can't do both at the same time.

The DirecTV DVRs keep everything but the recordings and (most likely) guide data in flash memory. Tivo's DirecTV model, the THR22, already has the OS and all settings stored on the flash. You can upgrade it the same way -- just replace the hard drive with a blank one.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=481815

The Roamios are apparently designed like that, except they've probably ditched the old APM partition scheme so they can support > 2 TiB (which the THR-22s can't).


----------



## richbrew

BobCamp1 said:


> You forgot "keep recordings", which when combined with using all of the new, larger hard drive, may be the REAL reason to develop a tool. You can expand capacity but lose recordings, you can transfer recordings from a failing hard drive, but you can't do both at the same time.
> 
> The DirecTV DVRs keep everything but the recordings and guide data in flash memory. Tivo's DirecTV model, the THR22, already has the OS and all settings stored on the flash. You can upgrade it the same way -- just replace the hard drive with a blank one.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=481815


I didn't forget, it's just a non-issue for me. Its not hard to pull recordings to a PC, then push them back to a new drive, and I would find that preferable to unplugging my RAID drives to plug in the TiVo drives.

However, I can add that it would be nice to know if it would work with a non AV drive.


----------



## richbrew

BobCamp1 said:


> I'm not worried about the thermals at all. I'm more worried about what that truly means. It means the power supplies may be working harder than designed. But if Tivo already offers a model that supports 3 TB, I'd be shocked if they didn't use the same power supply in all three models. So you should be fine in upgrading the hard drive.


They didn't, the Basic uses a brick. The Pro and Plus are likely the same, and judging from the design of the outside, maybe the same as the Premier.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> <snip>They actually replaced an out warranty, non-lifetimed Premiere for me that had gotten fried by a lightning strike. Even sent me a prepaid shipping label.
> 
> Did they actually want the S3's back or did they just add the TSN to a "cannot reactivate" list?<snip>


From what I recall, they actually required the old boxes sent back. I can see your point in asking, but the cases I recall, required return of the old box.


----------



## lessd

BobCamp1 said:


> That's an extremely silly way to design something. So many things can go wrong, and flash is so cheap.
> 
> I think the OS is in flash memory. The guide data and recordings are on the hard drive. Just like every other DVR on the planet.


Some years ago (before 2006) I had a Comcast DVR and the guide data was NOT on the hard drive then, it took many hours for the guide data to get loaded after a power interruption, when I got my first Series 3 TiVo it may have taken 9 min. to boot after any power interruption but all the guide data was on the TiVo system after that boot.


----------



## ppartekim

richbrew said:


> They didn't, the Basic uses a brick. The Pro and Plus are likely the same, and judging from the design of the outside, maybe the same as the Premier.


I would think on the Basic, one could just upgrade the AC brick to model with the same plug and DC output but a higher amperage to support the harder work needed for the bigger drive.


----------



## MeInDallas

lessd said:


> Some years ago (before 2006) I had a Comcast DVR and the guide data was NOT on the hard drive then, it took many hours for the guide data to get loaded after a power interruption, when I got my first Series 3 TiVo it may have taken 9 min. to boot after any power interruption but all the guide data was on the TiVo system after that boot.


Thats the way the TWC boxes are. After a power loss every channels shows not available and the guide data downloads like over a 24 hour period really slow. I always hated that.


----------



## ppartekim

MeInDallas said:


> Its blowing out from the hard drive across the motherboard to the other side. So the heat is coming off the hard drive as you described and blowing on the motherboard.


Couldn't one just turn the fan around thereby making it flow out across the drive instead?


----------



## nooneuknow

jrtroo said:


> <snip>The pain in doing the above is that each drive, I assume, would need to be paired to the cc separately. If someone wanted to have an inventory of drives, the old method of copying a newly paired drive would be easier to manage, IMO.


Unless you live in my Cox market. Somehow, they've made it where only the last drive paired works. I've tried drive after drive, in multiple TiVos, reproducing the result. Every time I pair, and all works, I cloned the drive to an identical drive, then installed, to find pairing had to be repeated.

I get jumped every time I state this... But, it seems the cablecard knows the drive S/N has changed, and nulls out the pairing. I don't know exactly HOW it can know, I after 20+ attempts, I feel the results show it is the case.

I didn't have this problem until the second-to-last time the cards received updated firmware.


----------



## MeInDallas

ppartekim said:


> Couldn't one just turn the fan around thereby making it flow out across the drive instead?


Maybe, but then will you sacrifice the motherboard not cooling as well?


----------



## jmpage2

ppartekim said:


> Couldn't one just turn the fan around thereby making it flow out across the drive instead?


You are assuming that the person who did the device hardware layout did not understand thermal dynamics and that you can improve things by changing the air-flow.

On modern devices that is usually a poor decision to make.


----------



## ppartekim

MeInDallas said:


> Maybe, but then will you sacrifice the motherboard not cooling as well?


doubtful based on those pics. Lots of open space and the CPU does have a heat sink. Just a thought if the drive produced a lot of extra heat.


----------



## Loach

nooneuknow said:


> Unless you live in my Cox market. Somehow, they've made it where only the last drive paired works. I've tried drive after drive, in multiple TiVos, reproducing the result. Every time I pair, and all works, I cloned the drive to an identical drive, then installed, to find pairing had to be repeated.
> 
> I get jumped every time I state this... But, it seems the cablecard knows the drive S/N has changed, and nulls out the pairing. I don't know exactly HOW it can know, I after 20+ attempts, I feel the results show it is the case.
> 
> I didn't have this problem until the second-to-last time the cards received updated firmware.


Interesting. I didn't have to re-pair my Cox Omaha CC after doing my drive upgrade.


----------



## nooneuknow

andyw715 said:


> Are these HDDs in the Roamios unformatted out of the box?
> 
> As far as pluging the eSATA hole in S3, that was done in order to control the eSATA drive choice. Hard to provide support/warranty to the masses with that big of an unknown.


Nobody (at the time you posted this) knows. I've asked the same thing, and asked that upgraders who don't boot the factory drive do a full DVRBARS backup and send it over to the author of the program to look at.

So far, nobody has even uttered a peep about doing so, or those posts. I'm still catching up on today's posts, so maybe I'll see something later.


----------



## trip1eX

lpwcomp said:


> I have to ask - why do you think you need the extra space if you're willing to sacrifice all of the recordings currently on the 2TB drive?


Good point but the reason is probably no different than someone who hoards tv shows they will never have the time to watch again.

To give you some more choice on that rainy day.

The difference is one guy isn't married to the content and knows he won't watch it all so he can delete it.

The other guy is in denial.


----------



## jmpage2

trip1eX said:


> Good point but the reason is probably no different than someone who hoards tv shows they will never have the time to watch again.
> 
> To give you some more choice on that rainy day.
> 
> The difference is one guy isn't married to the content and knows he won't watch it all so he can delete it.
> 
> The other guy is in denial.


lol.

Yes, certainly there are hoarders in TiVo land too... thankfully I am not one of them.

I know people who have downloaded terabytes of "free music" from the internet that they have never listened to and probably never will, but they refuse to get rid of it and they keep collecting more.

If I like something enough to "keep it" then I want it in the best quality possible, which means buying the blu-ray set.


----------



## nooneuknow

cherry ghost said:


> Any chance amseven11 wants to put the original drive back in and go through the setup to see what happens?


He doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything more than posting and reposting what he already did, while waiting for his cable service and cablecard. I even suggested making a paperclip antenna, and setting it to OTA only, to test out it's full-functionality, but no responses on the matter. I think we'll have to wait for somebody who is willing to try what MANY keep asking and/or asking for.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> Unless you live in my Cox market. Somehow, they've made it where only the last drive paired works. I've tried drive after drive, in multiple TiVos, reproducing the result. Every time I pair, and all works, I cloned the drive to an identical drive, then installed, to find pairing had to be repeated.
> 
> I get jumped every time I state this... But, it seems the cablecard knows the drive S/N has changed, and nulls out the pairing. I don't know exactly HOW it can know, I after 20+ attempts, I feel the results show it is the case.
> 
> I didn't have this problem until the second-to-last time the cards received updated firmware.


If you take a cable card that is paired to a working TiVo, power down the TiVo, remove the cable and place it in another TiVo (or TV cable card slot) turn on the power, don't try to pair the card then power off the unit and put the card back into the original TiVo you will find that the data has changed and the card must be re-paired. This is how the Comcast system works for my area.


----------



## jmpage2

nooneuknow said:


> He doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything more than posting and reposting what he already did, while waiting for his cable service and cablecard. I even suggested making a paperclip antenna, and setting it to OTA only, to test out it's full-functionality, but no responses on the matter. I think we'll have to wait for somebody who is willing to try what MANY keep asking and/or asking for.


Maybe you should re-read what you just wrote, because it seems that you are irritated that someone who has provided very valuable information isn't willing to run your experiments for you.

If it's so damn important to you then consider offering a Paypal reward to cover someones time and risk to their unit to start doing these things and posting them here. Otherwise, just try patience.


----------



## HarperVision

jmpage2 said:


> Maybe you should re-read what you just wrote, because it seems that you are irritated that someone who has provided very valuable information isn't willing to run your experiments for you.
> 
> If it's so damn important to you then consider offering a Paypal reward to cover someones time and risk to their unit to start doing these things and posting them here. Otherwise, just try patience.


Amen Brutha!


----------



## nooneuknow

Loach said:


> Interesting. I didn't have to re-pair my Cox Omaha CC after doing my drive upgrade.


I'm in Las Vegas. Cox here doesn't do as most other Cox markets do.

In hindsight, I guess I should have included this in my original post.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> If you take a cable card that is paired to a working TiVo, power down the TiVo, remove the cable and place it in another TiVo (or TV cable card slot) turn on the power, don't try to pair the card then power off the unit and put the card back into the original TiVo you will find that the data has changed and the card must be re-paired. This is how the Comcast system works for my area.


I am aware that you can't move the cards around. I'm talking about the same box, with the same card, and only the hard drive S/N changes.


----------



## Dan203

NYHeel said:


> I'm not sure I buy everything they say though. If you look at the stuff they told Dave Zatz they claimed that they were going to be selling upgrade kits. But why would you be selling upgrade kits if all you need is a drive and the right screwdriver bit? So I'm not sure I'm believing what they say.


It's still a "kit" if it includes the drive and the screw driver. 

And as long as their "kits" aren't too expensive people might still buy them. Those torx screw drivers aren't always easy to find locally. I remember having a bear of a time finding one when I did a drive replacement on a S2 years ago. I think I ended up buying a complete set from Lowes for like $20. So if someone can get the drive and the tools for a reasonable price they might still go for it.


----------



## jmpage2

Dan203 said:


> It's still a "kit" if it includes the drive and the screw driver.
> 
> And as long as their "kits" aren't too expensive people might still buy them. Those torx screw drivers aren't always easy to find locally. I remember having a bear of a time finding one when I did a drive replacement on a S2 years ago. I think I ended up buying a complete set from Lowes for like $20. So if someone can get the drive and the tools for a reasonable price they might still go for it.


$6.68 with free prime shipping.... but yes, you're right, some people will buy a "kit" instead.

One area where Weaknees can justify it is they offer a warranty as well as technical support. Even though to most of us this is so easy it's laughable, most of us haven't talked to my in-laws.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> Maybe you should re-read what you just wrote, because it seems that you are irritated that someone who has provided very valuable information isn't willing to run your experiments for you.
> 
> If it's so damn important to you then consider offering a Paypal reward to cover someones time and risk to their unit to start doing these things and posting them here. Otherwise, just try patience.


I'm not the only one who's asking the same questions, and hoping for some answers. Others have also asked for more from the person who gave us this valuable info.

I'm holding-off on buying until I get those answers, and I'm sure they WILL come, just from somebody else willing to do more. Each person that is willing to take it further to answer these questions will be the new hero/superstar. If this same person had been willing to do it, they'd be godlike for a lot longer than they will be, by only answering one question.

They answer, essentially, one question (more like an unknown). Now we know, but as in many things in life, a single answer often leads to more questions.

I'm taking the high-road, and not posting what I'd really like to finish this post with, regarding your condescending tone/remarks.


----------



## andyw715

It's a kit bought from a "store", much less "scary" than buying a bare drive and hoping it works.
The assumption is that weaknees has used the type of drive they sell and that it is known to work.

Right now it appears that a 2 or 3 TB would work, but sooner or later there will be a list of drives not to use.


----------



## nooneuknow

Dan203 said:


> It's still a "kit" if it includes the drive and the screw driver.
> 
> And as long as their "kits" aren't too expensive people might still buy them. Those torx screw drivers aren't always easy to find locally. I remember having a bear of a time finding one when I did a drive replacement on a S2 years ago. I think I ended up buying a complete set from Lowes for like $20. So if someone can get the drive and the tools for a reasonable price they might still go for it.


Try Harbor Freight Tools. They sell a kit that includes every bit and security bit ever made, with a driver handle, for $19.99, when at full price.

Their tools generally are cheap, and break quickly if you try to use them for hard jobs, but you could upgrade TiVos (and most CE devices) for a lifetime, even with the low-quality materials they use to make them.

They have multiple retail stores in my locale. They used to be mail-order only. Since they DO offer a LIFETIME warranty for all "hand tools", having retail stores makes it less risky buying something of low-quality.


----------



## jmpage2

andyw715 said:


> It's a kit bought from a "store", much less "scary" than buying a bare drive and hoping it works.
> The assumption is that weaknees has used the type of drive they sell and that it is known to work.
> 
> Right now it appears that a 2 or 3 TB would work, but sooner or later there will be a list of drives not to use.


If Weaknees is smart they also pay a bit less for their drives than we do as they probably buy them in much larger lots.


----------



## Dan203

nooneuknow said:


> Try Harbor Freight Tools. They sell a kit that includes every bit and security bit ever made, with a driver handle, for $19.99, when at full price.
> 
> Their tools generally are cheap, and break quickly if you try to use them for hard jobs, but you could upgrade TiVos (and most CE devices) for a lifetime, even with the low-quality materials they use to make them.
> 
> They have multiple retail stores in my locale. They used to be mail-order only. Since they DO offer a LIFETIME warranty for all "hand tools", having retail stores makes it less risky buying something of low-quality.


I actually have one of those now. The handle with like 40 interchangeable bits. But at the time I was desperate and that set of 10 full torx screwdrivers was all I could find. I had a cheap one I had used on an XBox I thought would work but it was the wrong size so I had to find something quick.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> Nobody (at the time you posted this) knows. I've asked the same thing, and asked that upgraders who don't boot the factory drive do a full DVRBARS backup and send it over to the author of the program to look at.
> 
> So far, nobody has even uttered a peep about doing so, or those posts. I'm still catching up on today's posts, so maybe I'll see something later.


One must also consider the following:

TiVo may be shipping blank drives with all the new Roamios so no backup could be made, that would be one cost advantage TiVo has with a self formatting drive system, no preloading of the new hard drives with any software. Just purchase the OEM blank drives and put them in the Roamio.


----------



## nooneuknow

Dan203 said:


> I actually have one of those now. The handle with like 40 interchangeable bits. But at the time I was desperate and that set of 10 full torx screwdrivers was all I could find. I had a cheap one I had used on an XBox I thought would work but it was the wrong size so I had to find something quick.


Mine has 100 pieces, which means 98 bits, an extension, and a driver.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> One must also consider the following:
> 
> TiVo may be shipping blank drives with all the new Roamios TiVos so no backup could be made, that would be one cost advantage TiVo has with a self formatting drive system, no preloading of the new hard drives with any software. Just purchase the OEM blank drives and put them in the Roamio.


As I posted in the other thread, where you said the same thing:

True. But with a raw sector-by-sector backup, you can still copy even a blank drive (which will be a ton of zeroes).

If there is anything on there at all, a raw copy would copy that.

I'm not disagreeing with you. We just don't know what, if anything, is on a stock drive (for sure).


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> As I posted in the other thread, where you said the same thing:
> 
> True. But with a raw sector-by-sector backup, you can still copy even a blank drive (which will be a ton of zeroes).
> 
> If there is anything on there at all, a raw copy would copy that.
> 
> I'm not disagreeing with you. We just don't know what, if anything, is on a stock drive (for sure).


Will the DVRBARS backup even work on a blank (or almost blank) drive? I think it looks for some TiVo/linux type formatting.


----------



## DaveDFW

Does anyone know what brand of hard drives Weaknees is supplying with their upgraded Roamios?


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> Will the DVRBARS backup even work on a blank (or almost blank) drive? I think it looks for some TiVo/linux type formatting.


We won't know for sure, until somebody tries it. The author of DVRBARS has requested anybody willing to do it, to try it.

If that fails, there's always JMFS, and using GNU DD_Rescue from the command line, as opposed to the guided menus. Which, again, somebody would have to try first. But, it will make a copy, even if it is a blank drive.


----------



## andyw715

lessd said:


> One must also consider the following:
> 
> TiVo may be shipping blank drives with all the new Roamios so no backup could be made, that would be one cost advantage TiVo has with a self formatting drive system, no preloading of the new hard drives with any software. Just purchase the OEM blank drives and put them in the Roamio.


That makes sense. That way during the model lifetime "any" off the shelf drive can be purchased and delivered in the Roamio.

By having a little less grip on the hardware side of things, it makes it cheaper for TiVo to manufacture the boxes (i.e. the price of 2 and 3 TB drivers will naturally decrease. At some point in time the smallish drive in the base model will become expensive enough that TiVo can then promote models with new and improved larger capacities)


----------



## lpwcomp

What would be nice are partition maps of:


A stock drive before setup
A stock drive after setup
An upgrade drive after setup

It would also be interesting to know if a WD drive will work properly with intellipark enabled.


----------



## astrohip

nooneuknow said:


> I'm sure if Dan203, the actual moderator. felt it was getting too far off, for too long, he'd say something. I don't answer to non-moderators.





nooneuknow said:


> He doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything more than posting and reposting what he already did, while waiting for his cable service and cablecard. I even suggested making a paperclip antenna, and setting it to OTA only, to test out it's full-functionality, but no responses on the matter. I think we'll have to wait for somebody who is willing to try what MANY keep asking and/or asking for.


Do you ever read your posts before you post them? There's no reason not to use basic courtesy in this forum. Someone comments (correctly), in an innocuous manner, how we've drifted off-topic, and you reply "I don't answer to non-moderators". That's simply rude.

Someone posts the amazing results of a blank drive boot-up, spends a fair amount of time responding, but also makes it clear he's not willing to take a bunch of off-topic (for him) actions, such as setup for OTA when he has stated he is waiting on a cc. And you snidely comment on how "we'll have to wait for somebody who is willing to try what MANY keep asking for". Again, outright rude.

I don't put you on ignore, because I do read and value many of your posts. You have some good feedback on many topics. But may I suggest you take a less confrontational approach to some of your replies. It can't hurt.


----------



## kettledrum

The best I can tell, the OP's last post was about 10.5 hours ago. Heaven forbid he have to sleep or go to work.

I wouldn't throw him under the bus for not responding to posts or questions in this timeframe.


----------



## MeInDallas

From what I could tell he wasnt going to mess with it anymore until cable was installed, so he might not even be looking at this thread anymore until then.


----------



## nooneuknow

astrohip said:


> Do you ever read your posts before you post them? There's no reason not to use basic courtesy in this forum. Someone comments (correctly), in an innocuous manner, how we've drifted off-topic, and you reply "I don't answer to non-moderators". That's simply rude.
> 
> Someone posts the amazing results of a blank drive boot-up, spends a fair amount of time responding, but also makes it clear he's not willing to take a bunch of off-topic (for him) actions, such as setup for OTA when he has stated he is waiting on a cc. And you snidely comment on how "we'll have to wait for somebody who is willing to try what MANY keep asking for". Again, outright rude.
> 
> I don't put you on ignore, because I do read and value many of your posts. You have some good feedback on many topics. But may I suggest you take a less confrontational approach to some of your replies. It can't hurt.


Have you not seen the way I've been treated on this forum? I've even been called-out as inferior, just because I didn't join 12 years ago, and don't have a post count over 10,000. So, excuse me, if I say that my posts are nothing, compared to the truly personal attacks directed at me, that make what you are quoting NOTHING, but maybe some mildly bad ways of wording things.

I'll admit that I DID recently post a few things that were out-of-line, after looking back at them. I decided to tone it down, and even PM'd a few people to apologize, and even reached mutual understandings with them.

There is a reason I have difficulty communicating, but am very tech-minded. However, that's my personal matter, that I have to live with, so that's all the details of which I will provide.

IMNSHO, there's a lot of trolls roaming this place freely, just waiting to pounce on any opportunity to start a fight, and keep the flames well fueled. I don't know why they are allowed to even remain members here....

My sometimes poorly worded, or easily misinterpreted/misunderstood, posts pale in comparison to the havoc of the true trolls, whose posts are unmistakably flame-bait.

The ignore function gives them the freedom to say anything they want and even directly attack me, and I just don't see it, while they can still see my posts and badmouth me all they like. If ignore was more like "block users" on facebook, where neither party could see the other's posts, I'd have many ignored people in my list here.

Speaking of OT, and common courtesy, how about a PM the next time I post something you feel is somehow out of line. I still don't see it (and see no reason to edit it), unlike the other recent posts I admitted were out of line.

I think in the future, I may refrain from saying "I don't answer to non-moderators", unless I feel it is absolutely merited. I did hesitate to post that. Maybe if I hadn't you wouldn't have made your comment...

I'm not the least bit upset that you did. But a PM would've been the best way, IMHO. I have no qualms with you, sir. I'm not bothered by what you posted, and what I posted isn't an attack on you (just in case it comes across, or is perceived that way, on your end).


----------



## PapaArt

nooneuknow said:


> So far, nobody has even uttered a peep about doing so, or those posts. I'm still catching up on today's posts, so maybe I'll see something later.


I have been in contact with the DVRBars author about sending him a full backup of a virgin drive, but it doesn't arrive until Tues. so nothing until at least Wed.

PapaArt


----------



## nooneuknow

PapaArt said:


> I have been in contact with the DVRBars author about sending him a full backup of a virgin drive, but it doesn't arrive until Tues. so nothing until at least Wed.
> 
> PapaArt


Excellent! Thank You! :up:

Do you know how to use GNU DD_Rescue, or any of the other true raw sector-by-sector tools, in the event that DVRBARS can't identify/can't backup the drive?


----------



## JasonD

If you use the WD green power saver drive do you have to enable the park feature in order to have the drive not wear itself out after a couple of months?


----------



## nooneuknow

JasonD said:


> If you use the WD green power saver drive do you have to enable the park feature in order to have the drive not wear itself out after a couple of months?


Not in a TiVo, even the new ones. TiVo disables Intellipark on their drives before installing them (or orders them/receives them that way). It can cause a TiVo to hang on the boot screen after a menu-initiated "warm-boot", if enabled (due to a momentary period that the drive is released from being kept running).

A TiVo drive is always running, no matter what drive you use, so Intellipark is a useless feature in a TiVo, or any other device that makes the drive run continuously.


----------



## ggieseke

lessd said:


> Will the DVRBARS backup even work on a blank (or almost blank) drive? I think it looks for some TiVo/linux type formatting.


Wow. TCF crashed because it was too busy, so I'll shorten this post.

In Full Backup mode DvrBARS could care less what's on the drive. If it was a 10TB source and all zeroes it would end up with an image of a few hundred KB that I could analyze.

This Husky torx screwdriver is what I bought at Home Depot years ago. T4-T15 for about $6.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-8-IN-1-Torx-Screwdriver-Set-74502/100087664

Images welcome (hint, hint).


----------



## jmpage2

JasonD said:


> If you use the WD green power saver drive do you have to enable the park feature in order to have the drive not wear itself out after a couple of months?


WD green drives were really never designed for the constant read/write cycle that a TiVo goes through, which is why they aren't recommended for replacement.

While I think it's unlikely it would "wear out in a few months" the drive definitely could succumb to errors more quickly and a bigger concern would be heat and noise as well as possibly running into performance limits if streaming lots of HD simultaneously.

There could be some drive profile changes that could be made to improve it, but I've only used WD green as data backup drives for the past couple of years so I'm not up to speed on what might be possible.


----------



## nooneuknow

ggieseke said:


> Wow. TCF crashed because it was too busy, so I'll shorten this post.
> 
> In Full Backup mode DvrBARS could care less what's on the drive. If it was a 10TB source and all zeroes it would end up with an image of a few hundred KB that I could analyze.
> 
> This Husky torx screwdriver is what I bought at Home Depot years ago. T4-T15 for about $6.
> 
> Images welcome (hint, hint).


Good to know. I wasn't aware that full backup mode didn't care.

Do you still need to tell it to scan (opposed to skip, which is set by default) the alternate root partition, then? I know the answer, but figured it may benefit others to hear it from you.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> WD green drives were really never designed for the constant read/write cycle that a TiVo goes through, which is why they aren't recommended for replacement.
> 
> While I think it's unlikely it would "wear out in a few months" the drive definitely could succumb to errors more quickly and a bigger concern would be heat and noise as well as possibly running into performance limits if streaming lots of HD simultaneously.
> 
> There could be some drive profile changes that could be made to improve it, but I've only used WD green as data backup drives for the past couple of years so I'm not up to speed on what might be possible.


Uh, then why has TiVo been using AV-GP drives all this time? They are GreenPower drives as well, with an additional AV-rating. That's what the "GP" means in "AV-GP".

Don't take it the wrong way. But, as you say, you're not up to speed on this. Before the AV-GP drives fell drastically in price, everybody was using the standard GreenPower drives, without the AV rating (less those who had the extra money to spend, and wanted the AV-GP).


----------



## PapaArt

nooneuknow said:


> Excellent! Thank You! :up:
> 
> Do you know how to use GNU DD_Rescue, or any of the other true raw sector-by-sector tools, in the event that DVRBARS can't identify/can't backup the drive?


Sorry, no. But if there are instructions I can follow them. I have MFS Live CD if that will work. My background is in programming automation devices for the manufacturing of hard drives and others.

PapaArt


----------



## ggieseke

jmpage2 said:


> WD green drives were really never designed for the constant read/write cycle that a TiVo goes through, which is why they aren't recommended for replacement.
> 
> While I think it's unlikely it would "wear out in a few months" the drive definitely could succumb to errors more quickly and a bigger concern would be heat and noise as well as possibly running into performance limits if streaming lots of HD simultaneously.
> 
> There could be some drive profile changes that could be made to improve it, but I've only used WD green as data backup drives for the past couple of years so I'm not up to speed on what might be possible.


I've never seen any real difference between Green, Blue and Black WDs in a TiVo except for the heat factor. The AV rating is more about noise level than performance IMO, and every modern drive is designed to run 24/7.

I'm sitting 6 feet from 4 TiVos running Blues and the only thing I can hear is the fan on my UPS. YMMV.


----------



## jmpage2

ggieseke said:


> I've never seen any real difference between Green, Blue and Black WDs in a TiVo except for the heat factor. The AV rating is more about noise level than performance IMO, and every modern drive is designed to run 24/7.
> 
> I'm sitting 6 feet from 4 TiVos running Blues and the only thing I can hear is the fan on my UPS. YMMV.


I had installed and ultimately removed both a WD Green and WD Blue from a Series 3 TiVo because the seek noise was pretty noticeable to me. I put in a Samsung Spinpoint which was tolerable but when that TiVo was moved to the master bedroom the noise was enough that I put the factory drive back into that particular unit.

I think it's relative and I think that if someone can tolerate the noise and cooling is not a concern they can probably put in whatever they want. I'm not sure though if drives that have profiles designed more for traditional desktop use in which they do more reading and less writing will have more issues over time as ones running firmware designed for NAS, surveillance or DVR type use.


----------



## ggieseke

PapaArt said:


> Sorry, no. But if there are instructions I can follow them. I have MFS Live CD if that will work. My background is in programming automation devices for the manufacturing of hard drives and others.
> 
> PapaArt


Not necessary. See my previous post re full backups.

P.S. THANKS for being the first person to volunteer! A read-only backup couldn't possibly hurt the drive, but technically it would void the warranty if you open the box.


----------



## nooneuknow

PapaArt said:


> Sorry, no. But if there are instructions I can follow them. I have MFS Live CD if that will work. My background is in programming automation devices for the manufacturing of hard drives and others.
> 
> PapaArt


There's whole threads full of the instructions (but it's tough to navigate and find what you need) here. Wikipedia has a nice page on GNU DD_RESCUE, as well as links to similar utilities, and the sites that host the documentation and instruction. If you need help, we'll cross that bridge, if/when you get there. ggieseke said his DVRBARS program can even copy a blank drive, so I'm guessing it won't be necessary.


----------



## PapaArt

ggieseke said:


> Not necessary. See my previous post re full backups.
> 
> P.S. THANKS for being the first person to volunteer! A read-only backup couldn't possibly hurt the drive, but technically it would void the warranty if you open the box.


Understood! I saw your message afterwards.

Taking the drive out to make the backup and then putting it back in system does not void the warranty. Waiting on a 2Tb EURS drive for an upgrade.

PapaArt

P.S. Glad to help!


----------



## ppartekim

Just ordered a Roamio Basic and a 3TB WD30EURS from Amazon.. This will replace my two 1TB S3s w/Lifetime.. Looking forward to 1 TiVo with all my videos in one place, four tuners and an RF remote so I can control it from all the TVs without dealing with IR distribution.. 

Just have to wait until Wednesday to get it and start the upgrade.... 

PS. Since I used a Amazon Store card, I also got 6mos interest free.... cool.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> I had installed and ultimately removed both a WD Green and WD Blue from a Series 3 TiVo because the seek noise was pretty noticeable to me. I put in a Samsung Spinpoint which was tolerable but when that TiVo was moved to the master bedroom the noise was enough that I put the factory drive back into that particular unit.
> 
> I think it's relative and I think that if someone can tolerate the noise and cooling is not a concern they can probably put in whatever they want. I'm not sure though if drives that have profiles designed more for traditional desktop use in which they do more reading and less writing will have more issues over time as ones running firmware designed for NAS, surveillance or DVR type use.


Have you ever tried setting the acoustic management settings on any of those drives? Some can be set, some can't. I use an old version of Hitachi Feature Tool to do it on any drive that allows it to be set. I actually disable it, and even in my bedroom, other ambient noise still exceeds the noise the drive makes with no acoustic management. Others set it to the max. YMMV, of course.


----------



## donnoh

jmpage2 said:


> I had installed and ultimately removed both a WD Green and WD Blue from a Series 3 TiVo because the seek noise was pretty noticeable to me. I put in a Samsung Spinpoint which was tolerable but when that TiVo was moved to the master bedroom the noise was enough that I put the factory drive back into that particular unit.
> 
> I think it's relative and I think that if someone can tolerate the noise and cooling is not a concern they can probably put in whatever they want. I'm not sure though if drives that have profiles designed more for traditional desktop use in which they do more reading and less writing will have more issues over time as ones running firmware designed for NAS, surveillance or DVR type use.


I used to have excellent hearing. Try working 30 years in a noisy manufacturing plant and hearing hard drive noise would be a big plus.


----------



## ppartekim

donnoh said:


> I used to have excellent hearing. Try working 30 years in a noisy manufacturing plant and hearing hard drive noise would be a big plus.


What? Hard Drive noise? I couldn't hear you over the barking dogs...


----------



## JasonD

If you use the WD green power saver drive do you have to enable the park feature in order to have the drive not wear itself out after a couple of months?


----------



## lpwcomp

PapaArt said:


> Understood! I saw your message afterwards
> 
> Taking the drive out to make the backup and then putting it back in system does not void the warranty.
> 
> PapaArt


From the TiVo.com website (emphasis mine):



> Product replacement because of misuse, accident, lightning damage, unauthorized repair, or other cause not within the control of TiVo Inc. *Please note that removing the cover of the DVR for any reason voids the warranty.*


Before anyone jumps in here, I am not saying that TiVo will enforce this clause even if knew what you had done, just that it exists and that, unless you can remove the drive and put it back in w/o removing the cover, doing so does indeed void the warranty.


----------



## jmpage2

donnoh said:


> I used to have excellent hearing. Try working 30 years in a noisy manufacturing plant and hearing hard drive noise would be a big plus.


I actually have worked in telephone and network switch rooms for most of my career and have quite a lot of hearing loss in the mid-band. My hearing of high frequency noise is still quite acute though, which is why I am easily bothered by things like noisy hard drive seek.

In any event, most users probably would not be bothered, and the biggest risk as someone else pointed out would be thermal issues caused by using a drive that dissipates a lot more heat than the drive the device ships with.


----------



## ppartekim

lpwcomp said:


> From the TiVo.com website (emphasis mine):
> 
> Before anyone jumps in here, I am not saying that TiVo will enforce this clause even if knew what you had done, just that it exists and that, unless you can remove the drive and put it back in w/o removing the cover, doing so does indeed void the warranty.


or at least do so without destroying that label... I was able to open/close my S3s and that void label never moved since the label was never stuck to anything but the outer cover... hehehe


----------



## jmpage2

lpwcomp said:


> From the TiVo.com website (emphasis mine):
> 
> Before anyone jumps in here, I am not saying that TiVo will enforce this clause even if knew what you had done, just that it exists and that, unless you can remove the drive and put it back in w/o removing the cover, doing so does indeed void the warranty.


Well, technically Apple tells you that opening up their computers similarly voids your warranty, but I know many people who have hacked their Macs with different parts and never heard of one of them getting grief from Apple if they made a warranty claim.

If TiVo is really worried about it they will put a "warranty void if broken" type of seal on the retail units. Until then, they have no way of knowing (unless they are logging to the flash drive via log file and will go through the trouble of investigating it) if you replaced the drive, especially if you put the original back in before having it services.


----------



## MeInDallas

ppartekim said:


> Just ordered a Roamio Basic and a 3TB WD30EURS from Amazon.. This will replace my two 1TB S3s w/Lifetime.. Looking forward to 1 TiVo with all my videos in one place, four tuners and an RF remote so I can control it from all the TVs without dealing with IR distribution..
> 
> Just have to wait until Wednesday to get it and start the upgrade....
> 
> PS. Since I used a Amazon Store card, I also got 6mos interest free.... cool.


Please let us know how the 3TB works in the basic, thanks!


----------



## MeInDallas

JasonD said:


> If you use the WD green power saver drive do you have to enable the park feature in order to have the drive not wear itself out after a couple of months?


The AV drives like WD20EURS come with Intellipark already disabled, but the regular Green drives like a WD20EZRX will come with it set for 8 seconds, so in the past you have to disable it or set it higher to get a Tivo to boot past the first screen, we dont know if you still have to do that yet. With a Tivo the heads will never park anyhow, they write 24/7.


----------



## ppartekim

MeInDallas said:


> Please let us know how the 3TB works in the basic, thanks!


Will do... I plan to doing the same as amseven11, unwrap TiVo slap in 3TB and power-on, then setup OTA...


----------



## lpwcomp

JasonD said:


> If you use the WD green power saver drive do you have to enable the park feature in order to have the drive not wear itself out after a couple of months?


Near as I can tell from what I read, keeping the intellipark feature enabled, at least with the default setting, can reduce the service life of the drive as there are a limited number of times it can park. This is if it is going in a PC.

In a TiVo, the only time it comes into play is on a soft boot. It never parks during normal operation. It does get parked when it goes idle during the boot process and it does not get "un-parked" fast enough when queried by the TiVo.

At least that is my understanding of the issue but there is some annecdotal evidence that it has been addressed and is no longer an issue.


----------



## swerver

jmpage2 said:


> If TiVo is really worried about it they will put a "warranty void if broken" type of seal on the retail units. Until then, they have no way of knowing (unless they are logging to the flash drive via log file and will go through the trouble of investigating it) if you replaced the drive, especially if you put the original back in before having it services.


I believe they can tell once you connect your upgraded tivo to the network. At a minimum they can tell how many recording hours your new hdd provides.


----------



## lpwcomp

ppartekim said:


> or at least do so without destroying that label... I was able to open/close my S3s and that void label never moved since the label was never stuck to anything but the outer cover... hehehe





jmpage2 said:


> Well, technically Apple tells you that opening up their computers similarly voids your warranty, but I know many people who have hacked their Macs with different parts and never heard of one of them getting grief from Apple if they made a warranty claim.
> 
> If TiVo is really worried about it they will put a "warranty void if broken" type of seal on the retail units. Until then, they have no way of knowing (unless they are logging to the flash drive via log file and will go through the trouble of investigating it) if you replaced the drive, especially if you put the original back in before having it services.


As noted above, they at least _*used to*_ do that very thing.

Besides, the Roamio has built-in wireless. Didn't you know about the built-in camera? The NSA insisted.


----------



## swerver

What's the deal with 4TB hdd prices anyway? I bought 2 seagate external 4 TB drives for $140 each several months ago. There was an instant rebate involved, but still I didn't think it would take this long for that price to be common. Seems like it's a long way away now. Wish I had bought a spare now! I would love to have a 4TB drive in my tivo. 

Thanks for the research early adopters! Looking forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold.


----------



## MeInDallas

JasonD said:


> If you use the WD green power saver drive do you have to enable the park feature in order to have the drive not wear itself out after a couple of months?


Do you already have a drive you plan to use? If not then my suggestion is to just go ahead and get one of the AV drives and then you can just pop it in and not worry with it. There wont be that much difference in the price and an AV drive is designed for a DVR/Tivo.


----------



## ppartekim

swerver said:


> What's the deal with 4TB hdd prices anyway? I bought 2 seagate external 4 TB drives for $140 each several months ago. There was an instant rebate involved, but still I didn't think it would take this long for that price to be common. Seems like it's a long way away now. Wish I had bought a spare now! I would love to have a 4TB drive in my tivo.
> 
> Thanks for the research early adopters! Looking forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold.


Yeah, I know.. I really wanted a 4TB but the price was $199 no matter where I looked and I either had to pay for Tax, shipping or both...

That is one of the main reasons I just went with the WD 3TB, got it for $138 w/Prime and the 6mos interest free... Since I only had 2TB already this is still 1TB more video storage...

If the 3TB does not work.. no loss, I will just use it in my Drobo's (which currently only have 1.5 & 2TBs). Now, if I could only hook a Drobo up as the external drive.... hehe


----------



## TC25D

ppartekim said:


> Just ordered a Roamio Basic and a 3TB WD30EURS from Amazon.. This will replace my two 1TB S3s w/Lifetime.. Looking forward to 1 TiVo with all my videos in one place, four tuners and an RF remote so I can control it from all the TVs without dealing with IR distribution..
> 
> Just have to wait until Wednesday to get it and start the upgrade....



Monday - WD30EURS arrives
Tuesday - Roamio Basic arrives
Thursday - Cable guy arrives to remove 2 HD DVRs, install Tuning Adapter and Cable Card.


----------



## tivogurl

ppartekim said:


> Will do... I plan to doing the same as amseven11, unwrap TiVo slap in 3TB and power-on, then setup OTA...


Please tell us how the temperature and power supply issues work out.


----------



## ppartekim

TC25D said:


> Monday - WD30EURS arrives
> Tuesday - Roamio Basic arrives
> Thursday - Cable guy arrives to remove 2 HD DVRs, install Tuning Adapter and Cable Card.


 I just missed the deadline for Mon/Tues (unless I wanted to pay and extra $8, nope)... So my delivery is like yours but off one day (drive on Tues, Roamio on Wed).


----------



## ppartekim

tivogurl said:


> Please tell us how the temperature and power supply issues work out.


Remind me on Wed..

But if doesn't work as expected, it won't be the TiVo's tempurature that will be rising...


----------



## monkeydust

So, based on what has been documented here so far, a year down the road and I find I'm running low on space on my Plus, I should be able to buy a new larger drive, remove my old drive, plug both into my PC, drag and drop everything from my old HD to my new HD, plug the new one into my Tivo, go through setup, then be back to where I was with my same recorded shows and more space?


----------



## vurbano

ppartekim said:


> Will do... I plan to doing the same as amseven11, unwrap TiVo slap in 3TB and power-on, then setup OTA...


Ditto but with a plus and no ota


----------



## bradenmcg

nooneuknow said:


> Uh, then why has TiVo been using AV-GP drives all this time? They are GreenPower drives as well, with an additional AV-rating. That's what the "GP" means in "AV-GP".
> 
> Don't take it the wrong way. But, as you say, you're not up to speed on this. Before the AV-GP drives fell drastically in price, everybody was using the standard GreenPower drives, without the AV rating (less those who had the extra money to spend, and wanted the AV-GP).


"GreenPower" is just WD's stupid word for a 5400RPM drive.

If you want to get really technical, the WD Red "NAS-specific" drives are also "GreenPower" because they spin around 5400.

Prior to the areal density on HDDs being as good as it is now, a 5400 RPM drive was generally a lot slower than a 7200RPM disk, so WD and other manufacturers stopped advertising that the drive was 5400RPM due to the stigma. Instead we got "Green" drives, and they would be vague about the RPMS "5900 RPM average, variable speed" BS like that.

For a DVR that is recording fat stripes of linear data at around 8-15 Mbps, 5400RPM drives are plenty.

The only real difference between the "GP" and the "AV-GP" models is the tuning of the firmware, the MTBF listed on the box, and the warranty length.


----------



## Philmatic

monkeydust said:


> So, based on what has been documented here so far, a year down the road and I find I'm running low on space on my Plus, I should be able to buy a new larger drive, *remove my old drive, plug both into my PC, drag and drop everything from my old HD to my new HD,* plug the new one into my Tivo, go through setup, then *be back to where I was with my same recorded shows and* more space?


Everything that is bolded is not true. Just read what I quoted and literally skip the bolded parts to see what is true.

No drag and drop or saving your shows is possible (Yet). We are only talking about removing the existing drive, plugging in a new drive and having it automatically work. You would have to complete guided setup as if you just bought the TiVo and you would lose all your existing recordings.


----------



## lpwcomp

monkeydust said:


> So, based on what has been documented here so far, a year down the road and I find I'm running low on space on my Plus, I should be able to buy a new larger drive, remove my old drive, plug both into my PC, drag and drop everything from my old HD to my new HD, plug the new one into my Tivo, go through setup, then be back to where I was with my same recorded shows and more space?


I haven't seen anything posted here that indicates that is a possibility. It wouldn't work like that for a computer, why would you expect it to work for a TiVo?


----------



## bradenmcg

monkeydust said:


> So, based on what has been documented here so far, a year down the road and I find I'm running low on space on my Plus, I should be able to buy a new larger drive, remove my old drive, plug both into my PC, drag and drop everything from my old HD to my new HD, plug the new one into my Tivo, go through setup, then be back to where I was with my same recorded shows and more space?


No, we don't know if that's possible yet with the new units.

The discussion thus far has been centered around the ability to remove the drive in the unit, and insert a new one, and have it work automatically - this never happened in the past with Tivos.

Since some amount of configuration / setting info is stored on the HDD, you presumably would have to walk through setup with the new drive, as though it was a brand new unit.

The "drag and drop from the old to the new" part hasn't really been looked at yet, to my knowledge. It seems like the new Series5 units have a different format on the drive entirely, so that will be something that people will have to hack away at.


----------



## jmpage2

monkeydust said:


> So, based on what has been documented here so far, a year down the road and I find I'm running low on space on my Plus, I should be able to buy a new larger drive, remove my old drive, plug both into my PC, drag and drop everything from my old HD to my new HD, plug the new one into my Tivo, go through setup, then be back to where I was with my same recorded shows and more space?


No, thats not it at all. You cant just copy on a desktop with drag and drop. What is being described here is putting a blank drive in the Roamio and having it format it and load software to it. You would have to use other tools to copy from one drive to another preserving recordings. Not the topic under discussion.


----------



## monkeydust

Yeah, I was doing some speculation. Actually if the setup info is stored on the hd, you shouldn't have to go through setup again if you copy the drive contents over.


----------



## innocentfreak

Someone with good organizational skills and good knowledge of the forum software needs to write a FAQ on this upgrade method similar to the old upgrade threads.



monkeydust said:


> So, based on what has been documented here so far, a year down the road and I find I'm running low on space on my Plus, I should be able to buy a new larger drive, remove my old drive, plug both into my PC, drag and drop everything from my old HD to my new HD, plug the new one into my Tivo, go through setup, then be back to where I was with my same recorded shows and more space?


Nope.

All we know for certain right now is a brand new TiVo off the shelf never setup will take a new drive and properly configure it for use. A 2TB drive is the only drive that has been tested on a base Roamio.


----------



## lpwcomp

It's possible that it might be as simple as using something like gparted, but until we see the actual layout of the drive(s) and/or someone tries it, we won't know.


----------



## Dan203

monkeydust said:


> Yeah, I was doing some speculation. Actually if the setup info is stored on the hd, you shouldn't have to go through setup again if you copy the drive contents over.


But if you just copied the old drive then there is no way for it to see the extra space and actually use it. Some sort of hacking has to be done for what you're describing to be possible. Could be as simple as flipping some bits to tell the TiVo there's more space available or it could be monumentally more difficult then that. We don't really know yet.


----------



## nooneuknow

JasonD said:


> If you use the WD green power saver drive do you have to enable the park feature in order to have the drive not wear itself out after a couple of months?


Already answered this same questuion, several posts back.


----------



## nooneuknow

swerver said:


> I believe they can tell once you connect your upgraded tivo to the network. At a minimum they can tell how many recording hours your new hdd provides.


True. Also, every time you connect to the TiVo service, your TiVo logs are uploaded. If you call in asking for tech support, they can see the model number of the drive (and possibly the serial number), if they look at the logs and look for that data, or stumble upon it, then may deny even providing you any tech support. It has happened, and been reported around here.

I have no idea how long you'd have to put the original drive back in before flushing out the length of time they hold onto the logs.

Once I learned how to get into the logs, it took me less than 30 seconds to spot my upgraded drive's model number. I didn't see the S/N, but there's a LOT of info in there, and if you try to take it all in, your eyes will glaze over eventually.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> As noted above, they at least _*used to*_ do that very thing.
> 
> Besides, the Roamio has built-in wireless. Didn't you know about the built-in camera? The NSA insisted.


I've seen computers with chassis intrusion detection, and it didn't even require a switch to be against the case cover. It was an onboard sensor (very unusual looking, and stood out right away as unusual) that somehow could detect if the lid was removed, perhaps magnetically...

I doubt TiVo would use such either (or any) method, since It would add to the cost of building them. I think they also know that even "tamper proof" stickers can easily be defeated with the right tools and patience. But, stickers are cheap, and an effective deterrent for the general population. So, I'm surprised they didn't keep using them...


----------



## Dan203

nooneuknow said:


> I have no idea how long you'd have to put the original drive back in before flushing out the length of time they hold onto the logs.


Even if that worked if you're savvy enough to fix the drive then you're likely to only ever use the warranty for something much more major like a dead power supply or mobo. And if that's the case the TiVo likely wont even boot the old drive to reset the logs. Kind of a catch 22.


----------



## nooneuknow

bradenmcg said:


> "GreenPower" is just WD's stupid word for a 5400RPM drive.
> 
> If you want to get really technical, the WD Red "NAS-specific" drives are also "GreenPower" because they spin around 5400.
> 
> Prior to the areal density on HDDs being as good as it is now, a 5400 RPM drive was generally a lot slower than a 7200RPM disk, so WD and other manufacturers stopped advertising that the drive was 5400RPM due to the stigma. Instead we got "Green" drives, and they would be vague about the RPMS "5900 RPM average, variable speed" BS like that.
> 
> For a DVR that is recording fat stripes of linear data at around 8-15 Mbps, 5400RPM drives are plenty.
> 
> The only real difference between the "GP" and the "AV-GP" models is the tuning of the firmware, the MTBF listed on the box, and the warranty length.


Thanks for telling me everything I already knew. Do you feel better?


----------



## nooneuknow

Dan203 said:


> Even if that worked if you're savvy enough to fix the drive then you're likely to only ever use the warranty for something much more major like a dead power supply or mobo. And if that's the case the TiVo likely wont even boot the old drive to reset the logs. Kind of a catch 22.


As stated in my prior post, if you call for SUPPORT, and their system still has entries for an upgrade drive, the can refuse TECHNICAL SUPPORT. They could even choose to not log in a bug report. Sometimes it happens, sometimes they overlook it.

I hadn't even brought up anything WARRANTY related.


----------



## Dan203

nooneuknow said:


> As stated in my prior post, if you call for SUPPORT, and their system still has entries for an upgrade drive, the can refuse TECHNICAL SUPPORT. They could even choose to not log in a bug report. Sometimes it happens, sometimes they overlook it.
> 
> I hadn't even brought up anything WARRANTY related.


I was simply responding to your idea that you might be able to install the old drive, run it for a while to purge the logs, and then call for support. I was saying that if you needed support it would be likely after a major hardware failure and that plan wouldn't work because you'd never be able to boot the old drive. That's the catch 22 I was referring to.

Basically I would say that if you're upgrading the drive don't expect any warranty. And if you are going to try and game the system you should buy your extended warranty from a 3rd party, like BestBuy or Square, and not TiVo since they wouldn't know you'd opened the box. Although in that case TiVo could still refuse the service transfer, even if the box was replaced by a 3rd party warranty, because they'd still know you'd opened the case.


----------



## amseven11

I got my second Roamio and drive today, if you guys want I can boot the tivo with the stock drive before swapping it out if that helps answer anyone's questions.


----------



## Dan203

amseven11 said:


> I got my second Roamio and drive today, if you guys want I can boot the tivo with the stock drive before swapping it out if that helps answer anyone's questions.


You should boot the stock drive, go through the setup and any upgrades, then remove it, insert the new drive and see what it does. It'll likely act as if it was being booted for the first time with the new drive, but that will confirm that you can upgrade later after you've been using the TiVo for a while.


----------



## jmpage2

amseven11 said:


> I got my second Roamio and drive today, if you guys want I can boot the tivo with the stock drive before swapping it out if that helps answer anyone's questions.


That is the burning question everyone seems to have.


----------



## amseven11

Dan203 said:


> You should boot the stock drive, go through the setup and any upgrades, then remove it, insert the new drive and see what it does. It'll likely act as if it was being booted for the first time with the new drive, but that will confirm that you can upgrade later after you've been using the TiVo for a while.


Will do that right now, stand by.


----------



## Leon WIlkinson

Done yet?


----------



## GoHokies!

How about now?



Thanks for doing all this - you're doing great work.


----------



## amseven11

It's going to take around 20-30 mins my guess for the factory one to go through the setup and reboots etc. Then I will power down swap drives and report back. It should be noted unlike booting with the 2 TB drive the factory one does not say "Update almost finished" on first boot.

nevermind it now says "Preparing the update... this may take up to an hour, possibly longer" which is the exact same as booting with the 2 TB drive.


----------



## MeInDallas

Lucky Lucky for gettin 2 of them!


----------



## nooneuknow

Dan203 said:


> I was simply responding to your idea that you might be able to install the old drive, run it for a while to purge the logs, and then call for support. I was saying that if you needed support it would be likely after a major hardware failure and that plan wouldn't work because you'd never be able to boot the old drive. That's the catch 22 I was referring to.
> 
> Basically I would say that if you're upgrading the drive don't expect any warranty. And if you are going to try and game the system you should buy your extended warranty from a 3rd party, like BestBuy or Square, and not TiVo since they wouldn't know you'd opened the box. Although in that case TiVo could still refuse the service transfer, even if the box was replaced by a 3rd party warranty, because they'd still know you'd opened the case.


OK, that makes it clear now. I thought you misunderstood what I was saying.


----------



## nooneuknow

amseven11 said:


> I got my second Roamio and drive today, if you guys want I can boot the tivo with the stock drive before swapping it out if that helps answer anyone's questions.


The DVRBARS author is looking for a before and after image of the stock drive. It might be blank, it might not be. It might get changed in interesting ways, that may help development of a 4TB DIY upgrade, it may not.

There's only one way to know. That's to see if that drive is blank, or has something on it, and analyze before & after changes.

Contact ggieseke if you'd like to do that. I don't think we can learn much by just having you pop the stock drive in. Only if it will allow it, and that's about all. Then, you can't do a before & after comparison.

EDIT: NEVER MIND, TOO LATE. The masses have voted for getting our answers one at a time I guess.


----------



## lpwcomp

amseven11 said:


> It's going to take around 20-30 mins my guess for the factory one to go through the setup and reboots etc. Then I will power down swap drives and report back. It should be noted unlike booting with the 2 TB drive the factory one does not say "Update almost finished" on first boot.
> 
> nevermind it now says "Preparing the update... this may take up to an hour, possibly longer" which is the exact same as booting with the 2 TB drive.


Too late now, but it would have been interesting to know if the drive had anything on it prior to the initial power up.


----------



## richbrew

Dan203 said:


> You should boot the stock drive, go through the setup and any upgrades, then remove it, insert the new drive and see what it does. It'll likely act as if it was being booted for the first time with the new drive, but that will confirm that you can upgrade later after you've been using the TiVo for a while.


If you're up for it, (these are easy) would you mind also creating at least one season pass, add or remove at least one channel, toggle suggestions to the opposite of default, maybe hide one of the video sources, and mess with with just about any setting you have the patience for, to see which, if any are retained?


----------



## amseven11

Almost done setting up stock roamio, its installing the software update then I should be good to go with the drive swap.


----------



## amseven11

nooneuknow said:


> The DVRBARS author is looking for a before and after image of the stock drive. It might be blank, it might not be. It might get changed in interesting ways, that may help development of a 4TB DIY upgrade, it may not.
> 
> There's only one way to know. That's to see if that drive is blank, or has something on it, and analyze before & after changes.
> 
> Contact ggieseke if you'd like to do that. I don't think we can learn much by just having you pop the stock drive in. Only if it will allow it, and that's about all. Then, you can't do a before & after comparison.
> 
> EDIT: NEVER MIND, TOO LATE. The masses have voted for getting our answers one at a time I guess.


I still have the stock drive from the first Roamio (It was never booted) I got, I can hook it up to a PC and see whats on it if you like?


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> Too late now, but it would have been interesting to know if the drive had anything on it prior to the initial power up.


Yep. It's not like nobody had already mentioned that. I feared we'd have to wait, while the impatient get one answer per person willing to open their new TiVo. 

Funny, that I got accused of being impatient, not that long ago, just because I suggested a few things to try with the upgrade drive installed, while the original was still factory-fresh...


----------



## jmpage2

amseven11 said:


> It's going to take around 20-30 mins my guess for the factory one to go through the setup and reboots etc. Then I will power down swap drives and report back. It should be noted unlike booting with the 2 TB drive the factory one does not say "Update almost finished" on first boot.
> 
> nevermind it now says "Preparing the update... this may take up to an hour, possibly longer" which is the exact same as booting with the 2 TB drive.


Sounds like the factory drive has software already on it.


----------



## nooneuknow

amseven11 said:


> I still have the stock drive from the first Roamio (It was never booted) I got, I can hook it up to a PC and see whats on it if you like?


A PC won't see anything. You'd have to get DVRBARS and use it to make a compressed full backup, then send it over to the author.

Whatever you do, don't fire up windows disk manager and try to take a look. That has always been a fatal (to the TiVo drive) mistake, in the past.

If you use DVRBARS to make a FULL backup, which should be small in size, you can send a copy for analysis, and you also have a backup. Then if you try seeing if Windows disk manager recognizes the drive, and it nukes it, you can restore it back to exactly how it was.

I never caught the fact that you had two, sorry for the confusion.


----------



## MeInDallas

Did you get the same model as before, and did it have a Seagate in it as well?


----------



## amseven11

nooneuknow said:


> A PC won't see anything. You'd have to get DVRBARS and use it to make a compressed full backup, then send it over to the author.
> 
> Whatever you do, don't fire up windows disk manager and try to take a look. That has always been a fatal (to the TiVo drive) mistake, in the past.
> 
> If you use DVBARS to make a FULL backup, which should be small in size, you can send a copy for analysis, and you also have a backup. Then if you try seeing if Windows disk manager recognizes the drive, and it nukes it, you can restore it back to exactly how it was.
> 
> I never caught the fact that you had two, sorry for the confusion.


Im a mac user but have a extra desktop PC down stairs if you can send me a link to the program I need to use to back up the original drive Ill do it soon as I'm done updating this second Tivo. Just send me the details and Ill do it tonight.


----------



## amseven11

MeInDallas said:


> Did you get the same model as before, and did it have a Seagate in it as well?


I did get the same entry level Roamio as before, however I havent opened the case yet to change the hard drive. Im going through the setup with the stock drive then upgrading because people had some concerns if it would work this way so I'm being the Guinea pig


----------



## MeInDallas

Oh yea thats right sorry


----------



## amseven11

MeInDallas said:


> Oh yea thats right sorry


No worries, almost done with the stock process, will be opening in a minute and will take a pic of the stock drive.


----------



## amseven11

MeInDallas said:


> Did you get the same model as before, and did it have a Seagate in it as well?


Same seagate inside:


----------



## amseven11

new drive in, booting up..

Almost there just a few minutes more screen..

Now Preparing Update screen (which I now believe is the format process of the hard drive)


----------



## amseven11

now in guided setup again, will update after this process is complete and I can see the system info.


----------



## jfh3

amseven11 said:


> now in guided setup again, will update after this process is complete and I can see the system info.


Thanks for doing this. :up:


----------



## MeInDallas

They love using those 500GB Seagates dont they


----------



## innocentfreak

MeInDallas said:


> They love using those 500GB Seagates dont they


I don't think WD makes the 500gb av drive anymore.


----------



## MeInDallas

They keep changing that model so much, its the WD5000AVDS now, I think its the cache they keep changing. Was 8 then 16 now its 32MB.


----------



## amseven11

Process complete:



I tried to look for internal temperature but its not in the system info, I scrolled all the way to bottom and nothing.

Anyways this shows you can upgrade after setting it up (you do have to setup everything again from scratch after replacing the hard drive).


----------



## jfh3

Very cool. Thanks!


----------



## Dan203

Awesome! Thanks for trying.

If you want to get really funky throw the orignal drive back in there and see if it'll still boot. Or if it has to go through the whole process again. Could end up wasting a lot of time, so try at your own risk.


----------



## wazzupg

I can't wait until some tries a 3 GB or 4 GB hard drive in the Roamio.


----------



## MeInDallas

thank you!


----------



## Am_I_Evil

wazzupg said:


> I can't wait until some tries a 3 GB or 4 GB hard drive in the Roamio.


why? so you could record 1 or 2 shows?


----------



## amseven11

Im pretty positive a 3TB will work fine however I don't have one to try out. 4TB I would only be worried due to weakness reporting a 'bug'. 300 HD hours is plenty for my 2 roamio's each though


----------



## Dan203

Just curious but why did you buy two? Gonna set one to cable and one to OTA? Or do you have some other scenario in mind?


----------



## amseven11

I wanted to have one in my bedroom and one in my brother's bedroom. We both record allot so each having 4 tuners and 2 TB of space will meet both our needs.


----------



## uberloo

In case there aren't any data points for the Plus model yet -
I purchased a Plus earlier this evening, removed the 1 TB drive and replaced it with a spare 2 TB EZRX WD Green I had. The drive had an NTFS partition with no data on it beforehand. It took about 4 minutes to go from first boot to the beginning of Guided Setup. I've gone through a series of downloads, updates, and reboots since then. The info screen on my Roamio Plus shows roughly the same recording capacity as a Premiere with a 2 TB drive. I did not boot the stock drive before attempting the build from blank replacement.


----------



## tivogurl

amseven11 said:


> I tried to look for internal temperature but its not in the system info, I scrolled all the way to bottom and nothing.


So they deleted the temperature sensor from the Basic? I wonder if the Plus/Pro has one.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> A PC won't see anything. You'd have to get DVRBARS and use it to make a compressed full backup, then send it over to the author.


 What the heck do you think DVRBars runs on, a toaster?

I for one would love for him to boot up some flavor of a linux utility disk and get a partition map if there is one. If there isn't one, it isn't likely that there is any point to running DVRBars.

With a reported capacity of 316 hours, it seems at least that they have finally reduced the amount of space allocated for TiVos use to a reasonable amount, thus making "supersize" unnecessary.


----------



## amseven11

I can boot with partition magic and check out the stock hard drive. Give me a few minute to drag the PC up here and set it up. I will take a photo to show whatever is there (if anything).


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> I tried to look for internal temperature but its not in the system info, I scrolled all the way to bottom and nothing.


Thats really strange. I cant remember if they all had it, but the most recent ones I remember. Wonder why they took it off?


----------



## CoxInPHX

amseven11 said:


> I tried to look for internal temperature but its not in the system info, I scrolled all the way to bottom and nothing.
> 
> Anyways this shows you can upgrade after setting it up (you do have to setup everything again from scratch after replacing the hard drive).





MeInDallas said:


> Thats really strange. I cant remember if they all had it, but the most recent ones I remember. Wonder why they took it off?


Temp is listed in System Information as MBT: 45

MBT (Mother Board Temp) is listed right above Remote Address:


----------



## amseven11

With the stock drive hooked up and booting off the live partition magic disc this is the result...


----------



## amseven11

Mbt: 42


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> Mbt: 42


Not bad at all!!  Thanks!!


----------



## MeInDallas

As far as whats on the drive, I think Tivo is just throwing blank drives in the boxes, I could be wrong.


----------



## lpwcomp

amseven11 said:


> With the stock drive hooked up and booting off the live partition magic disc this is the result...


Thanks. So a totally blank disk. I assume this is the one you never set up.

Any chance you do the same for the stock disk you *did* set up? Of course , it would also be nice to see one of the 2TB's and DVRBars of both of them but I don't really want to ask that of you. You've done an awful lot already.


----------



## Kolenka

MeInDallas said:


> As far as whats on the drive, I think Tivo is just throwing blank drives in the boxes, I could be wrong.


Since the second 1TB drive was run through setup, could always plug that in and see if it is still marked as unallocated.


----------



## amseven11

Sure thing guys, I'll hook up the 500GB drive that DID go through the setup. I don't want to take out the 2TB drives because of laziness for lack of a better excuse lol I'm super hyped they are both upgraded and ready when ever Charter decides to come over  

Photo to follow shortly of stock drive that was setup.


----------



## lpwcomp

MeInDallas said:


> As far as whats on the drive, I think Tivo is just throwing blank drives in the boxes, I could be wrong.


Certainly appears that way, at least with the Basic.


----------



## amseven11

ok guys (and girls) after doing the same with with stock drive that did go through setup it read exactly the same. unallocated with the same space as well. I didn't take a photo because it's identical to the previous photo. What that means? I have no clue lol


----------



## cherry ghost

How's it going to work if one doesn't upgrade immediately and has recordings they want to move to the upgrade drive? What if CableCards are already installed before the upgrade? I know these can't be answered yet.


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> ok guys (and girls) after doing the same with with stock drive that did go through setup it read exactly the same. unallocated with the same space as well. I didn't take a photo because it's identical to the previous photo. What that means? I have no clue lol


Are you using just a disc of Partition Magic, or are you using Ultimate Boot CD?


----------



## amseven11

from everything I can tell you can't yet move recording to a drive unless some sort of tool is created? But once you insert a new drive it did make me go through all the setup steps again.


----------



## innocentfreak

Would Partition Magic see the TiVo Partitions?


----------



## amseven11

MeInDallas said:


> Are you using just a disc of Partition Magic, or are you using Ultimate Boot CD?


Just a bootable disc Partition Magic disc, and I write the files to my RAM to boot with nothing hooked up SATA other then the Tivo drive.


----------



## amseven11

innocentfreak said:


> Would Partition Magic see the TiVo Partitions?


It should? It always has seen my directiv hard drives.


----------



## Dan203

Hmmm... Two possibilities...

1) Whatever software you're using isn't reading the drive right

2) All the settings and data are stored on the flash and the only reason it made you repeat setup is because it detected you had inserted a different drive.

If it's #2 I wonder if it's keyed to the SN of the drive? If it is then you may never be able to copy shows from one drive to another.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> What the heck do you think DVRBars runs on, a toaster?
> 
> I for one would love for him to boot up some flavor of a linux utility disk and get a partition map if there is one. If there isn't one, it isn't likely that there is any point to running DVRBars.
> 
> With a reported capacity of 316 hours, it seems at least that they have finally reduced the amount of space allocated for TiVos use to a reasonable amount, thus making "supersize" unnecessary.


Unless TiVo started using a partition and filesystem scheme that a PC with Windows ALONE using DISK MANAGER, can see, you need DVRBARS. Just like you'd use WinMFS, and not the PC's Operating System alone, but boot Windows and use WinMFS, or in this case, boot Windows and use DVRBARS.

The author of DVRBARS is fully interested in a drive backup, EVEN IF THE DRIVE SEEMS TO BE EMPTY, as well as the same drive, after it has been booted and set-up.


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> Just a bootable disc Partition Magic disc, and I write the files to my RAM to boot with nothing hooked up SATA other then the Tivo drive.


Well, surely Tivo didnt change the file system to an unrecognizeable file type  I know Motorola DCX3501M's have an unrecognizeable file system so hmmm, this is odd.


----------



## nooneuknow

amseven11 said:


> I can boot with partition magic and check out the stock hard drive. Give me a few minute to drag the PC up here and set it up. I will take a photo to show whatever is there (if anything).


Partition Magic is not capable of recognizing TiVo partitions/filesystems (unless TiVo changed to one of the widely used, non-proprietary ones).

That being said, if we go with that TiVo tradition, NONE of the retail/downloadable/free partition management tools will recognize it correctly, unless it's Linux-based and the right tool for the job. Even commercial software that runs on Linux usually can't handle a TiVo structure. It's only RAW copy (sector by sector) tools that can copy or backup such things (since it doesn't care what is there, or isn't there, or if it recognizes it as a valid filesystem or partition, it just copies, even if the whole drive is blank).

Just to be clear, when I was talking about WinMFS, that's an old tool, which ran under Windows, for older TiVos, which predate the Premiere, and didn't work with the Premiere's altered structure.

DVRBARS is the new Windows-based software for dealing virtually any TiVo ever made. The author would like to make sure the software doesn't need any updates for the new products. There's only one way to help him with that. He gives us this awesome tool, FOR FREE, and at his expense. I've already spelled out what he's looking for a few times now.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> Thanks. So a totally blank disk. I assume this is the one you never set up.
> 
> Any chance you do the same for the stock disk you *did* set up? Of course , it would also be nice to see one of the 2TB's and DVRBars of both of them but I don't really want to ask that of you. You've done an awful lot already.


Partition Magic will very likely also identify it as blank. PM has never been able to handle/identify proprietary filesystems.


----------



## amseven11

Is there a different software I should try? I have no problem giving it a shot


----------



## MeInDallas

You need to get Ultimate Boot CD, it has a ton of useful programs on it.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/


----------



## ydc

Hmmmm. I know that with Linux volume manager (LVM), you can also add an entire unpartitioned drive to the volume. I wonder if they're using some scheme like that? Not necessarily LVM but many something similar?


----------



## MeInDallas

You can try to go into Copywipe, and hit F6 and it should display the partitions, size of them, and what format they are, I've done that before.


----------



## amseven11

MeInDallas said:


> You can try to go into Copywipe, and hit F6 and it should display the partitions, size of them, and what format they are, I've done that before.


Is that on ultimate boot cd? Nevermind I found it, is there a bootable version?


----------



## nooneuknow

amseven11 said:


> It should? It always has seen my directiv hard drives.


DirecTiVo drives have always been a bird of a different feather.


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> Is that on ultimate boot cd?


Yes it is. You will get to the main screen, and see HDD and hit that, then wiping, and then you will see Copywipe. Once the program boots up you will see BIOS drives, and then like youre going to wipe it, and then hit F6 for the drive to display partitions, then just ESC back out of it all after you take a pic, if you need to.

Yes that is a bootable CD.


----------



## ydc

nooneuknow said:


> Partition Magic will very likely also identify it as blank. PM has never been able to handle/identify proprietary filesystems.


I guess it's been many many years since I've used Partition Magic. I could very well see that it might not recognize the file system but recognizing disk partitions is much more basic than that. Maybe they've switched over to a Guid partition structure like Apple?

Just throwing out possibilities here....


----------



## nooneuknow

Why is everybody pushing for use of tools, that when used by somebody unfamiliar with them, could nuke the whole darn thing?

DVRBARS running within Windows can BACK UP the drive.

Then it is safe to fiddle away with tools that have strong potential for corrupting the disk.

If a backup is made, FIRST, then there is a backup ready to quickly restore the drive to as it was.

This push is just reckless disregard for safety, in the name of impatience!

For those who don't know already, DVRBARS takes very little time to backup a TiVo drive that has never been booted, and compresses down to sizes that can fit on small USB thumbdrives. It's also fast on a booted drive, but the size of the backup increases, as more data on the drive is changed and written to it.


----------



## amseven11

MeInDallas said:


> Yes it is. You will get to the main screen, and see HDD and hit that, then wiping, and then you will see Copywipe. Once the program boots up you will see BIOS drives, and then like youre going to wipe it, and then hit F6 for the drive to display partitions, then just ESC back out of it all after you take a pic, if you need to.
> 
> Yes that is a bootable CD.


Thank you, downloading now.


----------



## nooneuknow

ydc said:


> I guess it's been many many years since I've used Partition Magic. I could very well see that it might not recognize the file system but recognizing disk partitions is much more basic than that. Maybe they've switched over to a Guid partition structure like Apple?
> 
> Just throwing out possibilities here....


I've seen it both ways:

1. Says there is no partition.

2. Says there is a partition, but it isn't recognized as any known type.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> <snip>The author of DVRBARS is fully interested in a drive backup, EVEN IF THE DRIVE SEEMS TO BE EMPTY, as well as the same drive, after it has been booted and set-up.


I agree that it is still worthwhile trying doing a DVRBars on both drives. This is just odd.

If the drive layout is being stored in flash memory, it would definitely make it less likely that it will be possible to upgrade a "used" system and preserve the recordings. I am tempted to say that it makes it extremely *un*likely.

It may be possible to replace a failing drive by copying it to a drive with the exact same geometry but who knows. I am not hopeful


----------



## nooneuknow

innocentfreak said:


> Only the download links work, you other two links are bad.


Odd, they worked before. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll figure it out, then edit the posts.


----------



## morac

lpwcomp said:


> It may be possible to replace a failing drive by copying it to a drive with the exact same geometry but who knows. I am not hopeful


Does copying an expander drive and replacing it work or does it check the drive serial number? If it doesn't work, I doubt copying the internal drive will work either. If it does, then copying the internal drive might work.

If I had to guess on how the Roamio is set up, it's probably based on the Mini design, with the software, settings and meta data stored on a flash drive. The difference being in the Roamio there's a hard drive to store recordings.


----------



## amseven11

amseven11 said:


> Thank you, downloading now.


I tried this but it didnt work, I selected the drive and when I did it came back with a error saying "NO USEABLE HARD DRIVES FOUND" even though it was listed.


----------



## nooneuknow

I deleted the prior posts with the bad links and here's the corrected version:

Here's the thread for DVRBARS:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261

Here's the download link:

http://goo.gl/AbXwr

Here's the author:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/member.php?u=207112

PM him about how to get the image uploaded to him. I asked him to invite me to open a free Dropbox account (which is 2GB), and because it was by referral, by accepting the invite it got us each a bonus 500MB, for a total of 2.5GB. I was able to fit two 2TB full backups in that space, with plenty to spare, because the already small images zip compress down well.

For the drive you will be doing this with, the "after installation" image size will get bigger and bigger if you let it run beyond the required setup. So, once you've tackled the "before", you might want to take this into consideration for the "after" backup image.

Thank you for all that you have contributed, and continue to contribute. It is appreciated.


----------



## amseven11

nooneuknow said:


> I deleted the prior posts with the bad links and here's the corrected version:
> 
> Here's the thread for DVRBARS:
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261
> 
> Here's the download link:
> 
> http://goo.gl/AbXwr
> 
> Here's the author:
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/member.php?u=207112
> 
> PM him about how to get the image uploaded to him. I asked him to invite me to open a free Dropbox account (which is 2GB), and because it was by referral, by accepting the invite it got us each a bonus 500MB, for a total of 2.5GB. I was able to fit two 2TB full backups in that space, with plenty to spare, because the already small images zip compress down well.
> 
> For the drive you will be doing this with, the "after installation" image size will get bigger and bigger if you let it run beyond the required setup. So, once you've tackled the "before", you might want to take this into consideration for the "after" backup image.
> 
> Thank you for all that you have contributed, and continue to contribute. It is appreciated.


ok wil do. And use the hard drive that was never setup correct?


----------



## MeInDallas

amseven11 said:


> I tried this but it didnt work, I selected the drive and when I did it came back with a error saying "NO USEABLE HARD DRIVES FOUND" even though it was listed.


Thats really weird. I went in the other room and looked at one of my Premiere drives that is the original drive I have stored away, and it shows all the partitions, just to make sure I was telling you right, and it showed them all. I havent run into this before, very odd. 

Well thank you for trying.


----------



## innocentfreak

amseven11 said:


> ok wil do. And use the hard drive that was never setup correct?


It would probably help to have both as a comparison.


----------



## nooneuknow

amseven11 said:


> ok wil do. And use the hard drive that was never setup correct?


Yes, that's the "before" drive for a before & after comparison.

Plus, just in case it's not blank, you will have a backup of it.

The author should be able to make a definitive determination, once he gets a copy and has time to pour over the results.


----------



## jmbach

innocentfreak said:


> Would Partition Magic see the TiVo Partitions?


As a general rule no unless TiVo changed their partition structure. Since all the tools used so far cannot see the partition structure, I suspect TiVo may still use an APM like partition layout. Can try using pdisk on the MFS live CD . If it reads it then it is an APM like layout. The only definite way to read it would be using some hex editor tool like HxD or iBored. DvrBars full backup mode will copy the whole structure to a vhd file which then can be examined without worry of damaging a good image.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> Why is everybody pushing for use of tools, that when used by somebody unfamiliar with them, could nuke the whole darn thing?
> 
> DVRBARS running within Windows can BACK UP the drive.
> 
> Then it is safe to fiddle away with tools that have strong potential for corrupting the disk.
> 
> If a backup is made, FIRST, then there is a backup ready to quickly restore the drive to as it was.
> 
> This push is just reckless disregard for safety, in the name of impatience!
> 
> For those who don't know already, DVRBARS takes very little time to backup a TiVo drive that has never been booted, and compresses down to sizes that can fit on small USB thumbdrives. It's also fast on a booted drive, but the size of the backup increases, as more data on the drive is changed and written to it.


I sort of agree with here, but to be perfectly safe he shouldn't even be hooking them up to a PC. Until he or someone else verifies that everything works and he can at least record something (ideally filling up the disk) with no problems, he should put them away just in case.

You do realize that you are exhibiting at least as much impatience as anyone else? It's just that your particular priority is DVRBars.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmbach said:


> As a general rule no unless TiVo changed their partition structure. Since all the tools used so far cannot see the partition structure, I suspect TiVo may still use an APM like partition layout. Can try using pdisk on the MFS live CD . If it reads it then it is an APM like layout. The only definite way to read it would be using some hex editor tool like HxD or iBored. DvrBars full backup mode will copy the whole structure to a vhd file which then can be examined without worry of damaging a good image.


THANK YOU, for posting something that actually helps corroborate what I've been trying to communicate for two days now.  :up:


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> I sort of agree with here, but to be perfectly safe he shouldn't even be hooking them up to a PC. Until he or someone else verifies that everything works and he can at least record something (ideally filling up the disk) with no problems, he should put them away just in case.
> 
> You do realize that you are exhibiting at least as much impatience as anyone else? It's just that your particular priority is DVRBars.


If you go a few pages back, and work forward, you'll find repeated instances of me saying that the owner will benefit, as the first thing to come out of using DVRBARS in Full Backup mode, is a Back Up copy for them.

It's only when it comes to getting it to the author to analyze that it is of any other benefit, to anybody.


----------



## jmbach

MeInDallas said:


> Thats really weird. I went in the other room and looked at one of my Premiere drives that is the original drive I have stored away, and it shows all the partitions, just to make sure I was telling you right, and it showed them all. I havent run into this before, very odd.
> 
> Well thank you for trying.


Is that 2 tuner model premiere or a 4 tuner model. The 4 tuner models have a modified APM with data found in areas that are normally reserved sections of each APM partition entry. Just speculating, but if Tivo carried that change through to the Roamio and because of the change, that program won't read a nonstandard APM entry, then that might explain the error....... or not.


----------



## MeInDallas

jmbach said:


> Is that 2 tuner model premiere or a 4 tuner model. The 4 tuner models have a modified APM with data found in areas that are normally reserved sections of each APM partition entry. Just speculating, but if Tivo carried that change through to the Roamio and because of the change, that program won't read a nonstandard APM entry, then that might explain the error....... or not.


It was a 2 tuner Premiere that I dont have in service anymore. I just unplugged it and havent messed with it, and the original drive I havent put back in it yet, so I thought I would take a look at it.

The 320GB model.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> If you go a few pages back, and work forward, you'll find repeated instances of me saying that the owner will benefit, as the first thing to come out of using DVRBARS in Full Backup mode, is a Back Up copy for them.
> 
> It's only when it comes to getting it to the author to analyze that it is of any other benefit, to anybody.


Ok, I can see that, and I concede that backing them up should have come first if he was going to proceed with the analysis, but you'll have to admit that the safest thing (besides never doing the R&R) is to put them aside until more is known about the upgrade.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> Ok, I can see that, and I concede that backing them up should have come first if he was going to proceed with the analysis, but you'll have to admit that the safest thing (besides never doing the R&R) is to put them aside until more is known about the upgrade.


I'll admit that, only with the addition that the SAFEST thing is not to even mess around with it at all (there's risk from the moment you open the case).

Now that he knows the risks, it's up to him. He's already poked and prodded with other tools, so that cat is kinda out of the bag already...

This is a catch-22, where you can say it's safest to know more first, but if everybody did that, what would we ever know...


----------



## CoxInPHX

I am interested to see if the CableCARD pairing is also stored in the Flash memory, making drive swaps that much easier.


----------



## CoxInPHX

nooneuknow said:


> Unless you live in my Cox market. Somehow, they've made it where only the last drive paired works. I've tried drive after drive, in multiple TiVos, reproducing the result. Every time I pair, and all works, I cloned the drive to an identical drive, then installed, to find pairing had to be repeated.
> 
> I get jumped every time I state this... But, it seems the cablecard knows the drive S/N has changed, and nulls out the pairing. I don't know exactly HOW it can know, I after 20+ attempts, I feel the results show it is the case.
> 
> I didn't have this problem until the second-to-last time the cards received updated firmware.


I have upgraded a few Premieres, using JMFS-Live and they all retained the CableCARD pairing.

Note: I have not done this since Cox AZ upgraded the CC firmware to the latest, PKEY1.5.3_F.p.0601


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> I'll admit that, only with the addition that the SAFEST thing is not to even mess around with it at all (there's risk from the moment you open the case).


That's what I meant by "(besides never doing the R&R)" R&R = Remove & Replace [the drive].



nooneuknow said:


> Now that he knows the risks, it's up to him. He's already poked and prodded with other tools, so that cat is kinda out of the bag already...


True that.



nooneuknow said:


> This is a catch-22, where you can say it's safest to know more first, but if everybody did that, what would we ever know...


What I meant by that was until it is known if the upgrade is going to work with no problems. IOW, keep your best line of retreat open in case it is needed. At this point, we don't know for sure that a drive restored using DVRBars will work. Highly probable -yes. Certain- no. May not even be necessary. Worth the risk - eh, not my call. Not sure what I would do in the same position.


----------



## nooneuknow

Important Note for amseven11:

When you connect ANY TiVo drive to a Windows PC, if ANY prompts come up that ask if you want to initialize the disk, or otherwise do something to/with it, JUST SAY NO.

If you let Windows "initialize" the disk, you'll nuke it. Even allowing Windows Disk Manager to start has been reported to corrupt TiVo drives. Some even say that you shouldn't boot with the drive attached, but instead wait for the PC to boot, and then connect the drive using a hot-plug capable method.

Why does Windows ask? Because it doesn't recognize the partitioning of the disk as any valid format, and ASSUMES it is just some new disk that you want to add to the system. Initializing it writes a Windows signature into the disk, overwriting anything TiVo that already exists in the space that signature adds.

If you are wondering how then DVRBARS can be of any use, it is due to it being made to run in Windows, and properly access the drive.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> That's what I meant by "(besides never doing the R&R)" R&R = Remove & Replace [the drive].
> 
> True that.
> 
> What I meant by that was until it is known if the upgrade is going to work with no problems. IOW, keep your best line of retreat open in case it is needed. At this point, we don't know for sure that a drive restored using DVRBars will work. Highly probable -yes. Certain- no. May not even be necessary. Worth the risk - eh, not my call. Not sure what I would do in the same position.


According to the author of DVRBARS, the Full Backup method is a true raw sector-by-sector backup, which doesn't mess with the drive, and doesn't care what is on it, or not on it. I've been in near constant contact with him since the product's launch (and had been trying to help out before then). He does have a volunteer, but they don't have their new Roamio, yet (or last I knew of).

Again, the only way we can know a DVRBARS backup will restore properly, is by trying it. If nobody ever tries it, nobody will ever know.

So, it's still a catch-22 scenario. Risks -versus- rewards (and/or the excitement of the experiment).


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## ppartekim

nooneuknow said:


> When you connect ANY TiVo drive to a Windows PC, if ANY prompts come up that ask if you want to initialize the disk, or otherwise do something to/with it, *JUST SAY NO.*


As another Mac/Unix/linux fan that is my general answer to anything Windows.


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## TC25D

nooneuknow said:


> Funny, that I got accused of being impatient, not that long ago, just because I suggested a few things to try with the upgrade drive installed, while the original was still factory-fresh...


You were not accused of being impatient. You were accused of being rude and ungrateful, which you were and for which you said you apologized.


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## Leon WIlkinson

If the I will say the encryption stuff was stored on the flash would there be anyway ito copy it from the flash,on the same line of lame man knowledge... If you have a ESATA [no marriage,flash encrypted]drive connected could that be used has a backup for a internal and the flash would use it's key to allow it to be associated to the new drive.


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## amseven11

Hey guys I will work again on making backups of the drives I got side tracked with a problem of my own. If anyone knows about pyTivoX could you take a look at my thread here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9783348#post9783348

Any help would be appreciated. Other wise will do full back up and upload them Saturday night nooneuknow.


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## ballpython06

Can the roamio power supply be replaced with a larger one to eliminate the worry about the power use of a 3tb hdd in a base roamio?


----------



## jfh3

ballpython06 said:


> Can the roamio power supply be replaced with a larger one to eliminate the worry about the power use of a 3tb hdd in a base roamio?


I'm not worried about the power requirements, but more the additional heat generated. I was going to do a 3TB upgrade, but decided to go with 2TB instead because I don't want to risk the heat from the 3TB frying anything.


----------



## Goober96

Speaking of heat generation, I read in these forums somewhere that the airflow is side to side in the Roamio Pro (which I have on order). Can someone who has one tell me if there are vents on the sides? I have my Premiere in a cabinet that leaves no room on the sides of the unit. Since reading this, I have decided to place the Roamio Pro on top of my AV receiver which leads me to my next question: how high up does it sit on its feet and do y'all think placing it on top of the receiver (which generates a good bit of heat and vents through the top) would be okay? Also, if not, can I place the receiver on top of the Roamio? Is the case sturdy enough to handle that? Thanks.


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## CoxInPHX

The Roamio Plus & Pro is the same size and chassis as the Premiere w/ rear fan.

Only the Basic Roamio is smaller with side vents.


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## Goober96

CoxInPHX said:


> The Roamio Plus & Pro is the same size and chassis as the Premiere w/ rear fan.
> 
> Only the Basic Roamio is smaller with side vents.


Okay. Great. Thanks!


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## ggieseke

lpwcomp said:


> At this point, we don't know for sure that a drive restored using DVRBars will work. Highly probable -yes. Certain- no.


Full backups just read every byte on the drive from 0 to whatever. I've used it to backup blank drives (don't ask), Windows drives, Linux drives, etc. Just like WinMFS, don't connect any TiVo drive to a Windows 2000 or earlier box. XP, 7 & 8 are safe as houses as long as you don't open up Disk Manager. It's also handy for creating VHD files for use with VMWare or Windows Virtual PC.

Full restores just reverse the process, resulting in a perfect xerox copy. Right now DvrBARS won't restore unless it recognizes the backup image as a TiVo drive, but I'll fix that to allow you to continue in full restore mode.

And yes, I'm very interested in both before and after images.


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## steve614

Goober96 said:


> Speaking of heat generation, I read in these forums somewhere that the airflow is side to side in the Roamio Pro (which I have on order).





CoxInPHX said:


> The Roamio Plus & Pro is the same size and chassis as the Premiere w/ rear fan.


That being the case, I would not put the Roamio on top of the AVR.


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## ncbill

yes, it would be nice to see temperatures for 3TB & 4TB upgrades (assuming anyone can get 4TB working) for the Roamio Basic.


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## jmpage2

ncbill said:


> yes, it would be nice to see temperatures for 3TB & 4TB upgrades (assuming anyone can get 4TB working) for the Roamio Basic.


Well there is apparently no temp sensor, so the only way to get that info would be to install a thermistor into the case for testing purposes.


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## GoHokies!

Yes there is. It was posted somewhere around here. It appears under "MBT".


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## lessd

ggieseke said:


> Full backups just read every byte on the drive from 0 to whatever. I've used it to backup blank drives (don't ask), Windows drives, Linux drives, etc. Just like WinMFS, don't connect any TiVo drive to a Windows 2000 or earlier box. XP, 7 & 8 are safe as houses as long as you don't open up Disk Manager. It's also handy for creating VHD files for use with VMWare or Windows Virtual PC.
> 
> Full restores just reverse the process, resulting in a perfect xerox copy. Right now DvrBARS won't restore unless it recognizes the backup image as a TiVo drive, but I'll fix that to allow you to continue in full restore mode.
> 
> And yes, I'm very interested in both before and after images.


What size file do you get backing up a blank (new, or all zeros) drive, and if one back up a new TR drive that was blank, would the file size give us the information that the drive is blank ? 
I will get my TR plus on this Wednesday and start doing some tests then, before TiVo activation so if I do brick the unit all I would have to do is work on replacing the TR and not have to move the lifetime activation also.


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## shoeboo

ncbill said:


> yes, it would be nice to see temperatures for 3TB & 4TB upgrades (assuming anyone can get 4TB working) for the Roamio Basic.


Just finished installing a 3tb WD AV-GP in the base roamio and doing guided setup. Been on live tv for about half an hour and MBT is currently 47.


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## series5orpremier

jfh3 said:


> I'm not worried about the power requirements, but more the additional heat generated. I was going to do a 3TB upgrade, but decided to go with 2TB instead because I don't want to risk the heat from the 3TB frying anything.


Ditto. The extra TB would probably be sitting there empty for me 99%-100% of the time anyway.

The motherboard isn't the best place to mount a thermocouple - it won't be all that sensitive to temperature swings on the cpu and hard drive, which are probably the maximum temps in the box. Changes in the MBT are probably more correlated to the air temp in the box. I remember when I first saw that MBT readout on the System Info screen I thought it was just for show to make things look cooler in there than they really are.


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## series5orpremier

shoeboo said:


> Just finished installing a 3tb WD AV-GP in the base roamio and doing guided setup. Been on live tv for about half an hour and MBT is currently 47.


By contrast the MBT on my Premiere XL runs 36-37.


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## lessd

series5orpremier said:


> By contrast the MBT on my Premiere XL runs 36-37.


Somebody would have to look at the MBT of a non modified Roamio, then put in the bigger drive and look at the difference, if any. I don't know if you can compare MBT between say a Series 4 and the Roamio.


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## series5orpremier

lessd said:


> Somebody would have to look at the MBT of a non modified Roamio, then put in the bigger drive and look at the difference, if any. I don't know if you can compare MBT between say a Series 4 and the Roamio.


True enough, but it confirms the intuitive assumption that the base Roamio would run warmer than anything in the larger form factor.


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## ncbill

yeah, I think I'll wait a few months (at least until day 91) and gather more feedback before upgrading my Roamio Basic.


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## jcthorne

jmpage2 said:


> Well there is apparently no temp sensor, so the only way to get that info would be to install a thermistor into the case for testing purposes.


The Roamio basic has a thermal sensor. Shows up in the system information.

MBT = 45

Mother Board Temperature = 45 deg C


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## dlfl

shoeboo said:


> Just finished installing a 3tb WD AV-GP in the base roamio and doing guided setup. Been on live tv for about half an hour and MBT is currently 47.





series5orpremier said:


> By contrast the MBT on my Premiere XL runs 36-37.


More "by contrast": My Tivo HD (model 652) runs 43C to 45C. What's acceptable for a Roamio may be different than for other models anyway.


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## ppartekim

dlfl said:


> More "by contrast": My Tivo HD (model 652) runs 43C to 45C. What's acceptable for a Roamio may be different than for other models anyway.


My two 1TB S3s are running 48C(Normal) and 49C(Normal) according to the system info.


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## eDbolson

Well, my first "mass storage device" was this - a block addressable tape drive! Yes, the operating system actually ran on tape. So much fun to watch it move back and forth to load different modules.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Pdp-11-40.jpg/250px-Pdp-11-40.jpg


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## eDbolson

Well, my first "mass storage device" was this - a block addressable tape drive! Yes, the operating system actually ran on tape. So much fun to watch it move back and forth to load different modules.


----------



## jcthorne

Well yet one more Roamio now has 2TB of storage. 316 Hrs of HD space. Been running about an hour so far since redoing guided setup and mother board temp is running 43 so about the same as with the Seagate 500GB drive so far.

My Roamio had been running for several days now and had about 35 or so shows recorded including a number that had been pushed by pyTivo. Resending those now.


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## Crrink

My unmodified Roamio basic is noticeably warm to the touch on the top case, above the hard drive.
Using a decent IR thermometer I get measurements in the mid 80F range along the top cover, and if I measure at the vents on the side the HDD is on I get a max of around 105F.
My MBT reading is 44C, ambient room temp is about 75F.

My Roamio will sit in an open shelf with lots of room for airflow on the sides, so I'm not too concerned about heat issues, but I don't think I'd want to run one of these in an enclosed cabinet without at least an external exhaust fan.
I'm hoping a 3Tb drive won't add much heat, but think I'm going to wait for some data from folks who've upgraded before I take the plunge.


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## cpgny9

Just to further confirm......got my Roamio Plus this morning at Best Buy (they had a couple in stock to my surprise), came home, opened it up and installed a 2tb drive - one I had laying around.....originally in a premiere elite, that i had accidentally erased (long story, don't ask). Swapping out the hard drive was simple and took only a couple of minutes. When i plugged in the tivo, everything booted up fine and it installed the service update. I called and switched my tivo service from my old unit, called and swapped my optimum cable card (which was surprisingly easy...took all of 3 minutes) and now the roamio is running like a champ. Shows 315hrs HD recording space. 

I did have a little issue with all the channels not showing up on all 6 tuners, but after a reboot and re-running the guided setup...everything works perfectly. The temp is between 38-40 which is about where my XL4 was. I even tested recording 6 different shows at the same time and everything worked without any real noticible diff in temp.

The speed of the roamio is quite impressive...huge diff between it and my old XL4. Tested Netflix & MLB TV and its night and day in comparison to the XL4. MLB TV was almost unusable on the XL4 it was so slow, but now it's almost as fast as appleTV. Same goes with Netflix.


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## ggieseke

lessd said:


> What size file do you get backing up a blank (new, or all zeros) drive, and if one back up a new TR drive that was blank, would the file size give us the information that the drive is blank ?
> I will get my TR plus on this Wednesday and start doing some tests then, before TiVo activation so if I do brick the unit all I would have to do is work on replacing the TR and not have to move the lifetime activation also.


There are a few KB for headers in the VHD format. After that every 2MB block that's all zeroes only takes up 4 bytes. Any 2MB block that's not all zeroes gets copied as is and takes an additional 4 bytes as a pointer to the data and another 512 bytes for a "bitmap". It's anyone's guess as to the new drive format or lack thereof, but a raw 2TB drive that's all zeroes should compress down to about 4MB.

I hope to buy a Pro in the next week or so just for research, and with PapaArt's base model image that I should have by then and a Plus image from you that's a good start.


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## MeInDallas

dlfl said:


> More "by contrast": My Tivo HD (model 652) runs 43C to 45C. What's acceptable for a Roamio may be different than for other models anyway.


I always remembered my Tivo HD's ran a little bit hotter than the Premiere models, and from what I remember the Series 2's ran even hotter, but I cant remember that far back at the exact number.


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## southerndoc

cpgny9 said:


> I called and switched my tivo service from my old unit, called and swapped my optimum cable card (which was surprisingly easy...took all of 3 minutes) and now the roamio is running like a champ. Shows 315hrs HD recording space.


I'm a little confused. Can you transfer service to a new TiVo? Does that keep your rate plan?


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## series5orpremier

I finally set up my base Roamio. Shortly after guided setup finished MBT was 45 and kept creeping up a degree at a time. I've messed around with it quite a bit this afternoon and MBT seems to have stabilized at 48. This is with the 500MB stock (presumably Seagate) hard drive. Room temperature is about 24 C.


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## cpgny9

geekmedic said:


> I'm a little confused. Can you transfer service to a new TiVo? Does that keep your rate plan?


If your plan is month to month and not in commitment, you can. I think it was more of a cancel and activate, though. Rate pan stayed the same for me.


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## lpwcomp

ggieseke said:


> Full backups just read every byte on the drive from 0 to whatever. I've used it to backup blank drives (don't ask), Windows drives, Linux drives, etc. Just like WinMFS, don't connect any TiVo drive to a Windows 2000 or earlier box. XP, 7 & 8 are safe as houses as long as you don't open up Disk Manager. It's also handy for creating VHD files for use with VMWare or Windows Virtual PC.
> 
> Full restores just reverse the process, resulting in a perfect xerox copy. Right now DvrBARS won't restore unless it recognizes the backup image as a TiVo drive, but I'll fix that to allow you to continue in full restore mode.)


I have no real doubt that the physical process will work. My question is - Is there anything recoverable on the backup and restore? IOW, If I restore a Roamio backup to a drive and put it in a TiVo, is anything on the drive needed or useful, even it is put in the same TiVo as the backup source.

At the very least, it appears as though imaging a drive prior to installing it in a Roamio isn't necessary, but that has not yet been _*fully*_ verified via load testing.

That was what went into my reasoning for suggesting that people wait until it is confirmed that the DIY upgraded Roamios perform correctly before any further mucking about with the stock drives.


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## series5orpremier

I had gotten my Western Digital power numbers for the av-gp eurs series off of a retailers website. I just went to the WD website and looked at the data sheet: they say both the 3TB and 2TB have 4.4 W/4.1 W/0.6 W read-write/idle/sleep power, so maybe it makes no difference between those two. The Seagate Pipeline 500mb spec sheet gives it's power as 3.4 W/3.0 W/0.7 W.


----------



## ggieseke

lpwcomp said:


> I have no real doubt that the physical process will work. My question is - Is there anything recoverable on the backup and restore? IOW, If I restore a Roamio backup to a drive and put it in a TiVo, is anything on the drive needed or useful, even it is put in the same TiVo as the backup source.
> 
> At the very least, it appears as though imaging a drive prior to installing it in a Roamio isn't necessary, but that has not yet been _*fully*_ verified via load testing.
> 
> That was what went into my reasoning for suggesting that people wait until it is confirmed that the DIY upgraded Roamios perform correctly before any further mucking about with the stock drives.


You are 100% correct. I can't promise anything beyond the fact that it's completely read only in backup mode. Obviously the warranty is void the minute you open the box, and no one knows what the heck is on the drive (if anything) at this point.

I hope that some people will take the chance anyway, but if you have any doubts DON'T risk it - just plug it in and enjoy the TiVo goodness.


----------



## jodell

amseven11 said:


> I tried to look for internal temperature but its not in the system info, I scrolled all the way to bottom and nothing.


I believe the MBT line in system information is the Mother Board Temperature.

My Roamio with 2 TB drive has been running for 20+ hours in my closet that houses all my equipment. After recording (and transferring) about 50 hours worth or shows, all is well so far. The MBT is 50.

Jeff


----------



## ballpython06

series5orpremier said:


> I had gotten my Western Digital power numbers for the av-gp eurs series off of a retailers website. I just went to the WD website and looked at the data sheet: they say both the 3TB and 2TB have 4.4 W/4.1 W/0.6 W read-write/idle/sleep power, so maybe it makes no difference between those two. The Seagate Pipeline 500mb spec sheet gives it's power as 3.4 W/3.0 W/0.7 W.


Unless I am mistaken, I am seeing 6w/ 5.5w/.75w for WD AV-GP ( WD30EURS) the 3tb.


----------



## amseven11

Hey guys Im going to eat something then will do the hard drive images. Please help me find a way to upload them so I can get them to you guys tonight.


----------



## mike123abc

ballpython06 said:


> Unless I am mistaken, I am seeing 6w/ 5.5w/.75w for WD AV-GP ( WD30EURS) the 3tb.


How are you measuring? Draw on the main plug? If TiVo had an 80% efficient power supply, it would draw 20% more at the plug...


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## jmpage2

mike123abc said:


> How are you measuring? Draw on the main plug? If TiVo had an 80% efficient power supply, it would draw 20% more at the plug...


He is referring to the specs for that model drive not a measured power result.


----------



## Crrink

Crrink said:


> My unmodified Roamio basic is noticeably warm to the touch on the top case, above the hard drive.
> Using a decent IR thermometer I get measurements in the mid 80F range along the top cover, and if I measure at the vents on the side the HDD is on I get a max of around 105F.
> My MBT reading is 44C, ambient room temp is about 75F.
> 
> My Roamio will sit in an open shelf with lots of room for airflow on the sides, so I'm not too concerned about heat issues, but I don't think I'd want to run one of these in an enclosed cabinet without at least an external exhaust fan.
> I'm hoping a 3Tb drive won't add much heat, but think I'm going to wait for some data from folks who've upgraded before I take the plunge.


Self quote...
So much for my big talk. Have a WD 3Tb Red drive on the way.
Got a Red because I found a Newegg coupon that made it ~$20 cheaper than a Green AV-GP drive. Quick research didn't seem to turn up any reason the Green should be better suited than the Red - let me know if I missed something!

Will do the upgrade in a few days when the drive arrives.


----------



## MeInDallas

Cool, let us know how that one works out please, thanks!

I'm wondering if that one will have to have the wdidle3 done on it, guess we will find out


----------



## jfh3

The red drives are a bit noisier than green, but I don't find it that noticeable. Red isn't optimized for video, but I don't think that is as important as being certified as 24/7.


----------



## aaronwt

I ended up working 16 hours today so I was surprised this thread isn't longer like when I got home late Friday night. Anyway it sounds like someone used a 3TB drive in the Plus so I guess I'm all set to do the Plus upgrade. Although I was hoping to get to BestBuy on Sunday but I have to work now so I'm not sure if I will make it there. 

What about the Seasoan Passes? Will the Roamio retain the SPs if you upgrade thed drive? Whether locally or online really doesn't matter to me as long as they are retained somehow. If I make it to BB and they have a Plus I'll pick it up and just throw a 2 TB Seagate in it for now. Then I'll order a 3TB WD AV drive from Amazon next week. It's been at least a couple of years since I messed with a TiVo hard drive. Does the Plus and Pro take the same torx bits as the last few TiVo models? I must have close to a dozen of them around somewhere in my closets.


----------



## jfh3

If it's a new drive, the SPs should be restored from the TiVo.com mother ship after the drive has been built. I haven't tested this yet; waiting for my drive to show up.

Yes, T10 for the Plus/Pro. Also need a T8 for the base model.


----------



## aaronwt

jfh3 said:


> If it's a new drive, the SPs should be restored from the TiVo.com mother ship after the drive has been built. I haven't tested this yet; waiting for my drive to show up.


Sounds good. Thanks..


----------



## Crrink

jfh3 said:


> The red drives are a bit noisier than green, but I don't find it that noticeable. Red isn't optimized for video, but I don't think that is as important as being certified as 24/7.


Hmm...the spec sheets on the WD site showed the same noise levels for both red and green 3tb drives, and I had read some anecdotal stuff claiming the red drives were quieter, so I was hoping that would be the case.

Won't be the end of the world either way, but I'd have paid more for a quieter drive.

FWIW the 2TB Green drive I have in the TiVo HD the Roamio Base is replacing is louder than the stock drive in the Roamio. I have to put my ear within 6" to tell the difference, so again, not a big deal, but something to add to the information pile.

RE: wdidle, I've also read anecdotally that the red drives don't park, so wdidle shouldn't need to be run, but I'll be sure to test warm and cold booting to be sure.

Hopefully be able to report back by mid-week.


----------



## sailordave

I dropped in the WD 30 EURS last night and have been running it for about 12 hours. Got over 450 hours of HD recoding available on the standard unit. I have been recording 3-4 Shows and transferred a few Shows between Tivos. Checked the temperature and it is been between 48-49 the whole time. So far so good!

Dave


----------



## nooneuknow

amseven11 said:


> Hey guys Im going to eat something then will do the hard drive images. Please help me find a way to upload them so I can get them to you guys tonight.


Contact the author of DVRBARS and ask him to send you a Dropbox invite. By accepting the invite, each person gets a bonus of an extra 500MB on top of the FREE 2GB you get with a free account.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/member.php?u=207112

Once you have installed Dropbox, which the invite will include a download link for, just put the file(s) in a shared folder, and then contact the author again, with the link(s) to the file(s) in the shared folder.

He can then modify his software, if necessary. to insure the restore portion works properly. He's also the best suited to analyze the image(s).

Helpful tip: Zip compress the file(s) down by either using the "send to compressed folder" option in windows, or use WinZip, if you don't have that option. It takes the already small (by comparison to the drive size), file(s) and will make them much smaller than they already are, making it faster to upload them, and for anybody else to download them.

I wouldn't recommend posting a PUBLIC link to the file(s). It's always best to just have people PM or email you a request for the link(s). We aren't supposed to post links to TiVo images on here directly. Just keep it on the down-low.

Don't forget, he's looking for a before (never booted) & after (setup completed) image. Just a before image can yield at least the answer to the question of "Is the included drive blank when shipped?".

I'll say it again: Thanks for everything. It is all very much appreciated.


----------



## nooneuknow

One question that we may want to know the answer to before ordering anything other than an AV-rated drive, is "Has TiVo finally started using the ATA streaming extensions command set?".

If you put in anything other than an AV-rated drive (like a WD Red), and they finally started using true AV streaming, it may work, it may not, and it may work, but run into problems as the drive gets fragmented and is trying to write those 4 or 6 streams, while you try to watch a recorded program, etc.

So far, all these tests have been conducted with AV-rated drives...

My best guess as to determining the answer to the question in quotes is waiting to hear from somebody who has installed a non-AV rated drive, and has FULLY tested it under all possible parameters (if it even works at all)...

Footnote: While I specifically mentioned the WD Red, I don't know if it may support the ATA streaming extensions, or not. It might, and just not be marketed as an AV-rated drive. I'll try to find time to run through the spec sheets on those later. I have some first generation SATA-1 WD drives that were sold as "multimedia drives", and they support it, according to what one of the many tools out there spit-out as supported features.


----------



## jodell

jfh3 said:


> If it's a new drive, the SPs should be restored from the TiVo.com mother ship after the drive has been built. I haven't tested this yet; waiting for my drive to show up.


Restoring season passes from tivo.com works just fine. I merged two SP lists onto the Roamio that will replace two Premiers. Beware that for a while after restoring the season passes, some may say "Corrupt - delete me" in the Tivo Season Pass screen. Just let the Tivo update with a full guide and then process the SPs. After about 2 hours, all was well with my season passes.

Jeff


----------



## shoeboo

A quick update, since I updated my base Roamio to 3tb yesterday I have been transferring and recording shows and now have over 80 hours of HD. My disk usage is at 17% which should mean I have surpassed the 500gb original capacity.
My MBT has been 48 every time I checked.


----------



## uberloo

Question for those of you who have installed a replacement drive, and also to those who haven't - what 'Manufacturer Brand' does your Roamio list in System Information? Mine has 'TiVo Customer Support' and I have a replacement drive installed. I'm curious if this is different on an unmodified unit.


----------



## ppartekim

jodell said:


> Restoring season passes from tivo.com works just fine. I merged two SP lists onto the Roamio that will replace two Premiers. Beware that for a while after restoring the season passes, some may say "Corrupt - delete me" in the Tivo Season Pass screen. Just let the Tivo update with a full guide and then process the SPs. After about 2 hours, all was well with my season passes.
> 
> Jeff


Cool, hadn't realized that was possible. I have 2 S3s to transfer over and this will make it a lot easier.. Course over the years, those season pass lists have grown with all those cancelled series and a little pruning might be necessary.


----------



## nooneuknow

uberloo said:


> Question for those of you who have installed a replacement drive, and also to those who haven't - what 'Manufacturer Brand' does your Roamio list in System Information? Mine has 'TiVo Customer Support' and I have a replacement drive installed. I'm curious if this is different on an unmodified unit.


Maybe that means "Since you installed your own drive, now you get to offer yourself support, not TiVo"

Perhaps this could be something that proves the stock drive may at least contain enough to identify itself as what belongs inside a stock retail unit, or the TiVo knows at least what model(s) are stock drives...

Usually "TiVo Customer Support" means a call-center, of course. But in this context, I don't think you should call them and ask about it. That would be like breaking the law, then turning yourself in...


----------



## ggieseke

jodell said:


> Restoring season passes from tivo.com works just fine. I merged two SP lists onto the Roamio that will replace two Premiers. Beware that for a while after restoring the season passes, some may say "Corrupt - delete me" in the Tivo Season Pass screen. Just let the Tivo update with a full guide and then process the SPs. After about 2 hours, all was well with my season passes.


kmttg should do the same thing and more, though I don't know if anyone has tested that part of it on an S5 yet. Merging multiple units is a good question, but it keeps the correct order and also supports wishlists.


----------



## series5orpremier

uberloo said:


> Question for those of you who have installed a replacement drive, and also to those who haven't - what 'Manufacturer Brand' does your Roamio list in System Information? Mine has 'TiVo Customer Support' and I have a replacement drive installed. I'm curious if this is different on an unmodified unit.


My unmodified base Roamio says 'TiVo Customer Support' too, so no, they're not shaming you yet.


----------



## lpwcomp

I just had a flash of a CSR with a headset on, slaving over a hot soldering iron between calls.


----------



## jodell

Just a FYI. My upgraded Roamio has passed the 75 hour mark for recordings with no problems. As others have stated, the real test is will the whole drive fill up without problems. Will take a lot more recordings to fill the other 235 hours on my drive. :')

Jeff


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> I just had a flash of a CSR with a headset on, slaving over a hot soldering iron between calls.


That one went right over the top of my head... ...and kept going...

What was the CSR Rep soldering, the inevitable soon to be refurbished returns, or was it reference to they have the CSRs hand soldering Roamios to keep up with demand? 

I haven't seen that one on "Factory Made", "How Do They Do It?", or "How It's Made", of which Discovery has blessed me with their gift of 300+ episodes of, by flagging all episodes in a way that they will record, even if it's already in the NPL, from yesterday... 

On the bright side, I just missed the last barrage of EAS warnings, because it's a cloudy day in Vegas, so it might rain, which might lead to water, in which case everybody forgets how to drive, and realizes their wiper blades disintegrated in the heat...


----------



## Dan203

We get that here too. If there is even a hint of a thunder storm we get a flash flood warning every 15 minutes.


----------



## nooneuknow

jodell said:


> Just a FYI. My upgraded Roamio has passed the 75 hour mark for recordings with no problems. As others have stated, the real test is will the whole drive fill up without problems. Will take a lot more recordings to fill the other 235 hours on my drive. :')
> 
> Jeff


Give it 91 days, to fragment for a while, and the warranty to expire.  JK

But, that truly is the bar that the absolutes have set.

I have a feeling I'm about to get corrected by lpwcomp.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> That one went right over the top of my head... ...and kept going...


It was based on "Manufacturer Brand" being "TiVo Customer Support", rather than just "TiVo".


----------



## darkstar757

Roamio Plus Upgrade to 3TB no issues. I have just installed a 3TB drive into my brand new TIVO roamio plus. I am using a Hitachi 7200rpm sata 6 drive and it was a very simple swap and so far I am seeing no issues. I will attempt a 4tb drive very soon!


----------



## nooneuknow

series5orpremier said:


> My unmodified base Roamio says 'TiVo Customer Support' too, so no, they're not shaming you yet.


If they do, just tell them "It's a TiVo, I'm a Customer, and it needed to Support 3TB".


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

I hope someone will try out a 4TB and let us know if it works! 

I have a question, what is a difference between a Seagate Pipeline or WD Video drive vs a normal hard drive? Does it actually make a difference?


----------



## Millionaire2K

uberloo said:


> Question for those of you who have installed a replacement drive, and also to those who haven't - what 'Manufacturer Brand' does your Roamio list in System Information? Mine has 'TiVo Customer Support' and I have a replacement drive installed. I'm curious if this is different on an unmodified unit.


I did "NOT" change my drive and my pro unit also says "TiVo Customer Support"


----------



## series5orpremier

I don't think 'Manufacturer Brand' refers to the hard drive but the box itself, and since it's a conglomeration of OEM parts they're saying 'call us if you have a hardware problem'.


----------



## uberloo

Thanks for your responses regarding "Manufacturer Brand" - happy to hear it's consistent across all units. I lol'd at lpwcomp's interpretation 

I transferred several hundred GB of shows from an old Premiere to my Roamio yesterday without issues. I also used the new Netflix client for an impromptu binge viewing of the first season of 'The Fall'. It looked and sounded great. So far so good!


----------



## Rkkeller

As a none techie, are people saying I can just put in a 2-3tb HD with nothing else done and it will run the guided setup and just work????

Also can someone please give me a link to a decent 3tb HD that will work? I don't want to order the wrong thing.

THANKS a lot..


----------



## tivogurl

Rkkeller said:


> Also can someone please give me a link to a decent 3tb HD that will work? I don't want to order the wrong thing.


Yes, it will just work. I'd get a 3TB WD AV-GP. I bought the 2TB version for my Basic.


----------



## aaronwt

tivogurl said:


> Yes, it will just work. I'd get a 3TB WD AV-GP. I bought the 2TB version for my Basic.


Alot of peple must be ordering the Wd 3TB AV drives. Amazon had a bunch last week for around $137 but by Sunday there were only a few left. And everytime I checked it there were fewer until they were finally out. Since the price with shipping is around $8 more now and the drive is also more at Newegg. I had been considering the upgrade route but went with the Roamio Pro instead.


----------



## monkeydust

tivogurl said:


> Yes, it will just work. I'd get a 3TB WD AV-GP. I bought the 2TB version for my Basic.


Any reason not to get the WD30EZRX instead?


----------



## lessd

ggieseke said:


> Wow. TCF crashed because it was too busy, so I'll shorten this post.
> 
> In Full Backup mode DvrBARS could care less what's on the drive. If it was a 10TB source and all zeroes it would end up with an image of a few hundred KB that I could analyze.
> 
> This Husky torx screwdriver is what I bought at Home Depot years ago. T4-T15 for about $6.
> 
> http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-8-IN-1-Torx-Screwdriver-Set-74502/100087664
> 
> Images welcome (hint, hint).


I just backed up a blank 500Mb drive using DvrBARS, (I know it is blank because I did a low level format on the full drive) the file size was about 980Kb, and a restore was not possible with DvrBARS. The full backup took many hours, I will try this with the virgin 1Tb drive in my new Plus coming on the 28th, but I think the drive will be blank.


----------



## Rkkeller

One other question so I can prepare as I want to order this week, what tools are needed to swap the HD's?

I also think I heard the model with the antenna is a little different???


----------



## ppartekim

tivogurl said:


> Yes, it will just work. I'd get a 3TB WD AV-GP. I bought the 2TB version for my Basic.


Yep, the one I ordered and it arrived this morning (a day early)...



aaronwt said:


> Alot of peple must be ordering the Wd 3TB AV drives. Amazon had a bunch last week for around $137 but by Sunday there were only a few left. And everytime I checked it there were fewer until they were finally out. Since the price with shipping is around $8 more now and the drive is also more at Newegg. I had been considering the upgrade route but went with the Roamio Pro instead.


Basically, after amseven11 showed how easy the upgrade was, the floodgates opened and folks started buying (including me). Since the 4TB are still expensive and there is a rumor of a possible hitch in using the 4TB, most are playing safe with the 3TB.

So, it doesn't surprise me at all that Amazon is currently out of WD AV-GP 3TB drives.


----------



## ppartekim

Rkkeller said:


> One other question so I can prepare as I want to order this week, what tools are needed to swap the HD's?
> 
> I also think I heard the model with the antenna is a little different???


Have you looked at Post #1? amseven11 updated it with what he used for his upgrade on a basic.. probably the same tools for the other two.


----------



## lpwcomp

monkeydust said:


> Any reason not to get the WD30EZRX instead?


2-yr warranty vs. 3-yr, no support for ATA streaming command set, which may or may not be necessary.


----------



## monkeydust

lpwcomp said:


> 2-yr warranty vs. 3-yr, no support for ATA streaming command set, which may or may not be necessary.


Thank you.


----------



## chg

aaronwt said:


> Alot of peple must be ordering the Wd 3TB AV drives. Amazon had a bunch last week for around $137 but by Sunday there were only a few left. And everytime I checked it there were fewer until they were finally out. Since the price with shipping is around $8 more now and the drive is also more at Newegg. I had been considering the upgrade route but went with the Roamio Pro instead.


Yeah, it keeps going in and out of stock, directly from Amazon. Anyone interested should just keep checking.


----------



## Rebate_King

ppartekim said:


> probably the same tools for the other two.


I'm not sure sure about that. It looks like the plus and pro have the same chasis as the premiere boxes. I'm guessing you would only need one tool for those models.

Can anyone confirm for sure?


----------



## NYHeel

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> I hope someone will try out a 4TB and let us know if it works!
> 
> I have a question, what is a difference between a Seagate Pipeline or WD Video drive vs a normal hard drive? Does it actually make a difference?


Yeah, really hoping someone will try the 4TB Seagate drive. I'm tempted to do it when I get a Roamio but I don't really have any use for a 4TB drive outside of the Tivo.


----------



## series5orpremier

The increased demand also caused the 2TB to go up $2 in price on Amazon; glad I ordered mine before that.


----------



## astrohip

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> I hope someone will try out a 4TB and let us know if it works!


Weaknees has said there are issues trying to use 4TB. So I think you will find most people here reluctant to try one, unless they happen to have one laying around they are willing to play with. Certainly no one would buy one just for this purpose, until more info is available.


----------



## TC25D

I have to chuckle every time I read yet another post from someone who wants someone else to perform an experiment.


----------



## jmbach

lessd said:


> I just backed up a blank 500Mb drive using DvrBARS, (I know it is blank because I did a low level format on the full drive) the file size was about 980Kb, and a restore was not possible with DvrBARS. The full backup took many hours, I will try this with the virgin 1Tb drive in my new Plus coming on the 28th, but I think the drive will be blank.


I kinda agree with you. That is still useful information once we can verify it. Another important information point is what partitions are actually created / stored right after the drive is ready for prime time.


----------



## lessd

jmbach said:


> I kinda agree with you. That is still useful information once we can verify it. Another important information point is what partitions are actually created / stored right after the drive is ready for prime time.


I get my Plus on the 28th and will be testing as much as I can.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> I just backed up a blank 500Mb drive using DvrBARS, (I know it is blank because I did a low level format on the full drive) the file size was about 980Kb, and a restore was not possible with DvrBARS. The full backup took many hours, I will try this with the virgin 1Tb drive in my new Plus coming on the 28th, but I think the drive will be blank.


That was a very good idea, to try that.

I wonder why it took so long... I used DVRBARS, in Full-Backup Mode, to backup a TiVo HD 2TB drive as well as a Premiere 2-tuner 2TB drive. It only took 4 hours, per drive, via USB3-to-SATA3 StarTech dual drive dock, on a three year old budget laptop, with a USB3 SIIG expresscard adapter (NEC chipset), running Win7 Home Premium 64-bit.

EDIT/ADD: I did change the priority level in Task Manager to "realtime" for DVRBARS, and made sure nothing unnecessary was running, as well as not doing any other tasks. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I never tried leaving the priority at "normal", just to see if it did.

I also bought a similar StarTech dual drive dock, with one bay for PATA, but it wouldn't work, the drive(s) would just make horrible noises once spun-up, and would spin-down, spin-back up, and DVRBARS aborted. Likely was unlucky enough to get a bad dock, and waited over 30 days to try it out...


----------



## aaronwt

TC25D said:


> I have to chuckle every time I read yet another post from someone who wants someone else to perform an experiment.


Not everyone has a 4TB drive lying around. I have a dozen 3TB drives in use but no 4TB drives. If I had the Plus and a 4TB drive I would give it a try.


----------



## NYHeel

TC25D said:


> I have to chuckle every time I read yet another post from someone who wants someone else to perform an experiment.


If there was a store that would let me return the drive if it didnt work I'd probably give it a try.


----------



## ppartekim

NYHeel said:


> If there was a store that would let me return the drive if it didnt work I'd probably give it a try.


Guess you don't live near a Fry's then...


----------



## jmpage2

NYHeel said:


> If there was a store that would let me return the drive if it didnt work I'd probably give it a try.


Amazon.com


----------



## jmpage2

ppartekim said:


> Guess you don't live near a Fry's then...


85% of the country doesnt live "near a Frys" and for those that do its often a 1+ hour drive each way.


----------



## NYHeel

Don't live near a Frys and amazon doesn't have the Seagate pipeline drive at 4TB.


----------



## chg

aaronwt said:


> Alot of peple must be ordering the Wd 3TB AV drives. Amazon had a bunch last week for around $137 but by Sunday there were only a few left. And everytime I checked it there were fewer until they were finally out. Since the price with shipping is around $8 more now and the drive is also more at Newegg. I had been considering the upgrade route but went with the Roamio Pro instead.


Back in stock directly from Amazon. "Only 14 left in stock"


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> That was a very good idea, to try that.
> 
> I wonder why it took so long... I used DVRBARS, in Full-Backup Mode, to backup a TiVo HD 2TB drive as well as a Premiere 2-tuner 2TB drive. It only took 4 hours, per drive, via USB3-to-SATA3 StarTech dual drive dock, on a three year old budget laptop, with a USB3 SIIG expresscard adapter (NEC chipset), running Win7 Home Premium 64-bit.
> 
> EDIT/ADD: I did change the priority level in Task Manager to "realtime" for DVRBARS, and made sure nothing unnecessary was running, as well as not doing any other tasks. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I never tried leaving the priority at "normal", just to see if it did.
> 
> I also bought a similar StarTech dual drive dock, with one bay for PATA, but it wouldn't work, the drive(s) would just make horrible noises once spun-up, and would spin-down, spin-back up, and DVRBARS aborted. Likely was unlucky enough to get a bad dock, and waited over 30 days to try it out...


All I know is that is was over 1 hour as I went to bed leaving the PC running, I am using an old HP PC with a P4 and XP, (in the cellar) not the fastest in the world but I only use this computer for TiVo upgrades and some other stuff, it is not my main computer.


----------



## moyekj

Perhaps I missed it but has it been determined yet what other data besides shows are stored on the hard drive vs the SSD? For example important data such as:
* Cable Card pairing
* Season Passes
* Wishlists (the non auto-record variety)
* Preferences
* Channel Lineup
* Thumbs (though I don't care about that)

Would be nice to know exactly what is and what is not preserved when throwing in a new drive.
I've seen mentioned that you are forced to go through guided setup again which seems to imply perhaps channel lineup is not preserved.


----------



## jmpage2

moyekj said:


> Perhaps I missed it but has it been determined yet what other data besides shows are stored on the hard drive vs the SSD? For example important data such as:
> * Cable Card pairing
> * Season Passes
> * Wishlists (the non auto-record variety)
> * Preferences
> * Channel Lineup
> * Thumbs (though I don't care about that)
> 
> Would be nice to know exactly what is and what is not preserved when throwing in a new drive.
> I've seen mentioned that you are forced to go through guided setup again which seems to imply perhaps channel lineup is not preserved.


No one knows (for sure) but the most likely thing is that there is nothing stored on flash other than a stub image to get th drive partitioned and installed.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

lessd said:


> I get my Plus on the 28th and will be testing as much as I can.


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

Okay, so I took matters into my own hands and gave the 4TB a try. I've got a NAS that's running 8 4TB drives and I pulled one to do the test, the drive is a Seagate ST4000DM000 4TB.

Here's the problem I ran into. The drive needs to be formatted by Tivo, and I get this screen:










The problem is when I press "select" on the remote there is no response. I think if I can get the remote to function then all is well. Any ideas?


----------



## nooneuknow

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> Okay, so I took matters into my own hands and gave the 4TB a try. I've got a NAS that's running 8 4TB drives and I pulled one to do the test, the drive is a Seagate ST4000DM000 4TB.
> 
> Here's the problem I ran into. The drive needs to be formatted by Tivo, and I get this screen:
> 
> <image removed>
> 
> The problem is when I press "select" on the remote there is no response. I think if I can get the remote to function then all is well. Any ideas?


I don't see any mention that you zeroed out the drive with Seagate's utilities. I wouldn't expect anything to go well, if I took a drive out of my PC (or in your case, your NAS device) and just slapped it into any TiVo. At minimum, I'd make sure there was no form of any partitions, and clear the boot sector area of the drive.

WD's utility gives you the option to just wipe the beginning and end of the drive, which I would think would be a fast and easy way to make the TiVo see an empty drive without spending hours wiping the whole drive with zeroes.


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

So I guess there are 2 workarounds. One is to somehow get the remote to work (which I think is difficult), and the other is to format the disk on a PC in a way that the Tivo will accept it without asking it to be reformatted. I'm not very familiar with Tivo so if you guys have any ideas let me know. 

As far as the process goes, it's extremely easy. It's seriously a 3-minute job. Remove a few screws and swap the drives. Given that the 3TB drives are proven to work, there's absolutely no reason to get a Roamio Pro at this point.


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

nooneuknow said:


> I don't see any mention that you zeroed out the drive with Seagate's utilities. I wouldn't expect anything to go well, if I took a drive out of my PC (or in your case, your NAS device) and just slapped it into any TiVo. At minimum, I'd make sure there was no form of any partitions, and clear the boot sector area of the drive.
> 
> WD's utility gives you the option to just wipe the beginning and end of the drive, which I would think would be a fast and easy way to make the TiVo see an empty drive without spending hours wiping the whole drive with zeroes.


It's actually a brand new drive. My Nas is currently running 6 4TB drives, and I had 2 brand new drives that act as hot-spares (so if one of the 6 drives fail, then it will initialize one of the extra drives and rotate it in.) So actually it's just a brand new 4TB drive.


----------



## jfh3

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> Okay, so I took matters into my own hands and gave the 4TB a try. I've got a NAS that's running 8 4TB drives and I pulled one to do the test, the drive is a Seagate ST4000DM000 4TB.
> 
> Here's the problem I ran into. The drive needs to be formatted by Tivo, and I get this screen:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The problem is when I press "select" on the remote there is no response. I think if I can get the remote to function then all is well. Any ideas?


Try an old TiVo (IR) remote set to address 0. Or try putting the Roamio remote in IR mode. My guess is that RF support is not enabled yet in this part of the boot process.

Thanks for experimenting!


----------



## TC25D

aaronwt said:


> Not everyone has a 4TB drive lying around. I have a dozen 3TB drives in use but no 4TB drives. If I had the Plus and a 4TB drive I would give it a try.





NYHeel said:


> If there was a store that would let me return the drive if it didnt work I'd probably give it a try.


That's the point, though, isn't it?

After 600 posts in this thread, if someone had a 4 TB drive laying around, or had a local store that accepted used hard drive returns, they already would have tested it. Even then, theses posts are, without saying it directly, asking;

_"Could someone risk their money, hard drive and use their time to test something Weaknees has said they could not get to work."_

While no one was sure there wasn't some 'secret sauce' involved, we knew 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB hardware worked and were almost certain 4 TB hardware did not. Hopefully, after this experiment, Kobe has not sacrificed his NAS drive.

Thanks, for your experiment Kobe.


----------



## nooneuknow

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> So I guess there are 2 workarounds. One is to somehow get the remote to work (which I think is difficult), and the other is to format the disk on a PC in a way that the Tivo will accept it without asking it to be reformatted. I'm not very familiar with Tivo so if you guys have any ideas let me know.
> 
> As far as the process goes, it's extremely easy. It's seriously a 3-minute job. Remove a few screws and swap the drives. Given that the 3TB drives are proven to work, there's absolutely no reason to get a Roamio Pro at this point.


EDIT INSERT [I see you posted while I was typing all this, but still think it should be helpful to others]

What I meant was to make the drive appear EMPTY, and free of any foreign (non-TiVo Roamio) partitions, and without any data in the boot sector area. You DON'T want to do a PC OS format, as that would require a partition the PC's OS recognizes, to format. That formatted partition would likely give the exact same result.

You can use a PC to do it. But, you want to make the TiVo see an empty drive. Most of the time, the best way is a boot CD that bypasses Windows, and performs what is commonly called a "low-level format" (which is an out-of-date, but still-used terminology) which on modern drives simply means writing all zeros sector-by-sector.

Download whatever tools Seagate has for disk testing/troubleshooting, and if it runs within Windows/Linux/whatever, fine. Just don't use the OS itself to format the drive. Just deleting any pre-existing partitions might do, but that doesn't insure the drive will appear blank to the TiVo. You can delete a partition, then turn-around and recover it, and the data on it. This is because the data is still there, you just can't access it until you put the partition table(s) back as they were.

Short of writing zeros to the whole drive, technically there will always be data on the drive, even if you can't access it.

That's how all the partition and data recovery tools work. They scan over the dive, searching for the data, then try to rebuild the partition and file data.

If I were going to try this, I'd use WinDLG (since I use WD drives), and select "Write Zeros" then select "whole drive" and go to bed, since it will take a LONG TIME. The other option is "Write Zeros" and select "only first million sectors and last million sectors", which takes minutes, but leaves data in the middle. Wouldn't you want your drive to be fully erased, so any post-analysis or troubleshooting of the mystery 4TB issue, wouldn't involve old data in the free space? Just because the TiVo can create partitions and download the software to them, doesn't mean the TiVo zeros out the drive when you put it in. The old data just gets overwritten as the drive fills up.


----------



## nooneuknow

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> It's actually a brand new drive. My Nas is currently running 6 4TB drives, and I had 2 brand new drives that act as hot-spares (so if one of the 6 drives fail, then it will initialize one of the extra drives and rotate it in.) So actually it's just a brand new 4TB drive.


Just a wild guess, but in my experience, hot spares in any array of disks get a signature wrote to them, that they belong to the NAS device, and what the last position of the drive was in the array.

Can you be sure? You could always start a zero-out, let it run a few minutes, abort, and know the beginning of the drive has no signature.

Some NAS or array situations also hijack a portion of the drive called the HPA (Host Protected Area), and a full low-level format is the only way to make sure it is reclaimed as available.


----------



## TC25D

In short, only a brand new 4 TB drive need apply for this experiment. If the drive has been seen by an OS, or any other hardware that might have written any information on it, thanks but no thanks.

*Kobe* - unless you have time to burn, my advice is to put the drive back in your NAS  and thanks for trying.


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

Okay, still no go. I was able to get past that screen by accessing the Tivo through my Slingbox, because that uses IR and allows me to use a virtual remote to press "select". However, after pressing select, the box reboots, goes through a few screens "almost there", and then goes back to the original screen that asks to format.

So I've solved the remote issue. But the drive just doesn't work.


----------



## nooneuknow

TC25D said:


> That's the point, though, isn't it?
> 
> After 600 posts in this thread, if someone had a 4 TB drive laying around, or had a local store that accepted used hard drive returns, they already would have tested it. Even then, theses posts are, without saying it directly, asking;
> 
> _"Could someone risk their money, hard drive and use their time to test something Weaknees has said they could not get to work."_
> 
> While no one was sure there wasn't some 'secret sauce' involved, we knew 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB hardware worked and were almost certain 4 TB hardware did not. Hopefully, after this experiment, Kobe has not sacrificed his NAS drive.
> 
> Thanks, for your experiment Kobe.


Yes, Thank You Kobe, for trying.

As far as buying a drive, that may not be compatible, or work, I'd advise against buying from Newegg. Their current RMA process and policy involves restocking fees, you pay return shipping, and I just had a HORRIBLE experience with them not crediting me for an item that was on the RMA and was in the box.

So, I'm out $50 for what they lost, or disregarded, plus restocking, plus shipping. All because the memory I bought was incompatible or defective, they bundled in a game coupon that they called "FREE", but took $49.99 off my refund, for the value of the coupon which was on the top the packing material, and also noted in my RMA description (which they didn't read). The memory was less than $60. You do the math. They got my money, the coupon, and the memory. Try even finding their phone number, and when you finally get it, try getting a live person.

Lesson learned: The low prices from Newegg can come at a STEEP COST.


----------



## ppartekim

nooneuknow said:


> Lesson learned: The low prices from Newegg can come at a STEEP COST.


Yep, that is why if I am even thinking that a purchase might have to be returned I will buy it from a brick&mortar store vs online. Luckily, I do live in an area filled with Fry's and Central Computer computer stores.. (and some will even match Amazon, assuming they carry the product).. 

In the case of these drives tho only Amazon had the WD AV 3TBs... 

Tho, Central Computer did carry the Seagate 4TB Pipeline for ~$220 (with tax) vs ~$150 3TB from Amazon (prime and tax).


----------



## nooneuknow

TC25D said:


> In short, only a brand new 4 TB drive need apply for this experiment. If the drive has been seen by an OS, or any other hardware that might have written any information on it, thanks but no thanks.
> 
> *Kobe* - unless you have time to burn, my advice is to put the drive back in your NAS  and thanks for trying.


Yes, this is the right-to-the-point, concise, version of what I was saying.

You can make a drive completely empty again. But why, when there is a reported issue with 4TB, add more variables and unknowns, with a drive that has been used in anything else, even a new "hot spare" from any disk array.

Thanks in advance, to any pioneers willing to do what others can't, won't, or don't have the option to actually do.


----------



## nooneuknow

ppartekim said:


> Yep, that is why if I am even thinking that a purchase might have to be returned I will buy it from a brick&mortar store vs online. Luckily, I do live in an area filled with Fry's and Central Computer computer stores.. (and some will even match Amazon, assuming they carry the product)..
> 
> In the case of these drives tho only Amazon had the WD AV 3TBs...
> 
> Tho, Central Computer did carry the Seagate 4TB Pipeline for ~$220 (with tax) vs ~$150 3TB from Amazon (prime and tax).


I have a Fry's 30 minutes away, all freeway to get there. However, ~50% of what I have ever bought there has been DOA (dead on arrival home), defective in some way, or has failed after short time in use. This is actually the first time I had to do a RMA with Newegg, for the same kind of hardware. There's always a catch-22, just waiting for me.


----------



## ppartekim

nooneuknow said:


> I have a Fry's 30 minutes away, all freeway to get there. However, ~50% of what I have ever bought there has been DOA (dead on arrival home), defective in some way, or has failed after short time in use. This is actually the first time I had to do a RMA with Newegg, for the same kind of hardware. There's always a catch-22, just waiting for me.


You do have to be careful buying from Fry's, a lot of people buy and return and sometimes they slap a "open box" label on it and throw back on the shelf (sometimes even forgetting the label). Hence the many possible DOAs.

I have bought most of my drives there over the last 20 years and only had a couple of legit DOAs (once I knew how to look at the packaging).


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

Oh, by the way, the drive inside my Roamio was a WD AV. I think so far the other folks who opened up their Roamios reported having Seagate Pipelines, so Tivo's using a mix of drives in these machines. 

So I put my original 1TB drive back in and the Roamio functions as normal, so anyone who wants to test out drives don't have to be nervous... you will not mess up anything.


----------



## nooneuknow

ppartekim said:


> You do have to be careful buying from Fry's, a lot of people buy and return and sometimes they slap a "open box" label on it and throw back on the shelf (sometimes even forgetting the label). Hence the many possible DOAs.
> 
> I have bought most of my drives there over the last 20 years and only had a couple of legit DOAs (once I knew how to look at the packaging).


I have witnessed them shrink-wrap returned products, and not apply a sticker, while observing that half their PC component inventory has returned-product stickers. So, one could assume very little is truly "new in box".

Yet another Buyer Beware situation. I open and inspect before leaving the parking lot now.


----------



## aaronwt

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> Oh, by the way, the drive inside my Roamio was a WD AV. I think so far the other folks who opened up their Roamios reported having Seagate Pipelines, so Tivo's using a mix of drives in these machines.
> 
> So I put my original 1TB drive back in and the Roamio functions as normal, so anyone who wants to test out drives don't have to be nervous... you will not mess up anything.


I think it is just the base Roamio, with the 500GB drive that has the Seagate. The Plus and the Pro with the 1TB and 3TB drive seems to have the WD AV drives in them. Or did someone post something different for the Plus and Pro.

Although no idea why they use the Seagate 500GB AV drive instead of the WD 500GB AV drive.
The Seagtae drives do say they are good for 16 simultaneous HD streams while the WD drives say they are only good for 12.
I guess it might just come down to whichever drive is cheaper for TiVo at the time.


----------



## moyekj

jmpage2 said:


> No one knows (for sure) but the most likely thing is that there is nothing stored on flash other than a stub image to get th drive partitioned and installed.


 So I guess nobody has yet tried a new drive after setting up and using another for a while?


----------



## TC25D

moyekj said:


> So I guess nobody has yet tried a new drive after setting up and using another for a while?


Yes, they have. It worked fine.


----------



## moyekj

TC25D said:


> Yes, they have. It worked fine.


 See the context of my question above. The question is what is preserved if anything after doing so in terms of Cable Card pairing, Season Passes, Wishlists, settings, etc.


----------



## TC25D

moyekj said:


> See the context of my question above. The question is what is preserved if anything after doing so in terms of Cable Card pairing, Season Passes, Wishlists, settings, etc.


See post #621.


----------



## moyekj

TC25D said:


> See post #621.


 No definitive answer to my question there. I do strongly suspect as jmpage2 posted that most likely with a never-before-used-in-Roamio drive inserted all data is lost and it would be like starting out with a brand new TiVo, but was wondering if anyone actually confirmed that for sure or not.


----------



## morac

moyekj said:


> No definitive answer to my question there. I do strongly suspect as jmpage2 posted that most likely with a never-before-used-in-Roamio drive inserted all data is lost and it would be like starting out with a brand new TiVo, but was wondering if anyone actually confirmed that for sure or not.


The picture that Kobe posted says most settings are lost if the internal drive is formatted. That implies that most, but not all user data is on the external drive.


----------



## TC25D

moyekj said:


> No definitive answer to my question there. I do strongly suspect as jmpage2 posted that most likely with a never-before-used-in-Roamio drive inserted all data is lost and it would be like starting out with a brand new TiVo, but was wondering if anyone actually confirmed that for sure or not.


I imagine all the data you mentioned, i.e., Cable Card pairing, Season Passes, Wishlists, settings, etc., is stored on the hard drive it would all be lost when a new drive is inserted. Only information stored on TiVo servers (is there any?), could be restored.


----------



## series5orpremier

aaronwt said:


> Although no idea why they use the Seagate 500GB AV drive instead of the WD 500GB AV drive.


One version of the spec sheets gives the Seagate max operating temperature as 10 C higher than the WD. Then again, maybe TiVo just got a better bulk price from Seagate.


----------



## richbrew

moyekj said:


> No definitive answer to my question there. I do strongly suspect as jmpage2 posted that most likely with a never-before-used-in-Roamio drive inserted all data is lost and it would be like starting out with a brand new TiVo, but was wondering if anyone actually confirmed that for sure or not.


The real answer is that it hasn't been tested yet by anyone, so there is no definitive answer yet. I would like to know those answers too, but it seems that everyone is content to assume, so I've resigned to the fact that I'll likely have to figure it out myself whenever I get one. (I'm not in any hurry to get one at the moment.)



TC25D said:


> I imagine all the data you mentioned, i.e., Cable Card pairing, Season Passes, Wishlists, settings, etc., is stored on the hard drive it would all be lost when a new drive is inserted. Only information stored on TiVo servers (is there any?), could be restored.


The last time I checked, imagination and supposition are not definitive answers either.


----------



## TC25D

richbrew said:


> The last time I checked, imagination and supposition are not definitive answers either.


Then *you *should perform the test *yourself *instead of looking to others to spend their time and money to *definitively *answer your questions.


----------



## richbrew

TC25D said:


> Then *you *should perform the test *yourself *instead of looking to others to spend their time and money to *definitively *answer your questions.


Thats EXACTLY what I said in the same post you quoted. I also gave an accurate answer (that it hasnt been tested) instead of using my imagination to *guess*. Nothing in my post said that I had any expectation of anyone else doing it for me. That must have been your imagination again.


----------



## TC25D

richbrew said:


> Nothing in my post said that I had any expectation of anyone else doing it for me. That must have been your imagination again.


No, it's not my imagination.



richbrew said:


> ...but it seems that everyone is content to assume, so I've resigned to the fact that I'll likely have to figure it out myself whenever I get one. (I'm not in any hurry to get one at the moment.)'


Poor baby.


----------



## richbrew

TC25D said:


> No, it's not my imagination..


Yup, it says that everyone seems content to assume, implying that I don't expect anyone to test it, and that I'll just have to figure it out myself, which implies that I don't expect anyone to test it. I had previously hoped that someone might test it, but I had no expectations. It was not a complaint, or a request, just an obversation, and an attempt to relay that observation to someone else with the same questions. There's no need to get your panties in a wad just because I didn't think your imagination was a useful answer.



TC25D said:


> Poor baby.


 Name calling? Really?


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

moyekj said:


> Perhaps I missed it but has it been determined yet what other data besides shows are stored on the hard drive vs the SSD? For example important data such as:
> * Cable Card pairing
> * Season Passes
> * Wishlists (the non auto-record variety)
> * Preferences
> * Channel Lineup
> * Thumbs (though I don't care about that)
> 
> Would be nice to know exactly what is and what is not preserved when throwing in a new drive.
> I've seen mentioned that you are forced to go through guided setup again which seems to imply perhaps channel lineup is not preserved.


I'll be testing these out this evening and will let you guys know. I ordered a 3TB WD AV drive from Amazon with local delivery a few hours ago, so I will receive it today. My 1TB Roamio Plus is already set up. So after I put in the 3TB I can let you guys know if cable card needs re-pairing, etc.


----------



## gothaggis

I had to re-pair my cable card after I had set up my basic with the included drive....upgraded to a 2tb drive a few days later. It remembered the name of my unit, but didn't have any season pass data, wishlist data, or saved channel lineup


----------



## NYHeel

richbrew said:


> Thats EXACTLY what I said in the same post you quoted. I also gave an accurate answer (that it hasnt been tested) instead of using my imagination to *guess*. Nothing in my post said that I had any expectation of anyone else doing it for me. That must have been your imagination again.


Actually it has been tested. The original poster indicated that on his second Roamio he let the stock drive boot up first and then he powered down and replaced the drive. The second drive process was identical to the startup process as with the stock drive as well as with his first Roamio that he booted up initially with the upgraded drive. In addition, gothaggis mentioned losing settings as well. So I believe it's fairly clear by now.

At this point there probably is some value in developing a drive upgrade tool similar to jmfs for those that want to upgrade their existing box without losing recordings and settings. But I don't have anywhere near the level of expertise to do that so I will just upgrade my drive before even booting up.


----------



## keytohwy

My Roamio arrives today!

I've got a 2TB drive I'll be putting into it. I've read the thread (in it's entirety...where is the "all pages" button these forums??) and didn't see, or missed, any words on whether the drive needs to be formatted a certain way before putting it in. The drive is currently formatted for Mac OS X.

Thanks for any help or links.


----------



## NYHeel

One other question, has anyone yet used an upgrade drive other than the Seagate pipeline drive or the WD AV-GP drives? Just thinking that maybe the issue on the 4TB drive could be the drive type or model. Maybe the Tivo requires the WD AV-GP or Seagate Pipeline drive and won't allow a different one. Just throwing it out there.


----------



## Unseen Llama

keytohwy said:


> My Roamio arrives today!
> 
> I've got a 2TB drive I'll be putting into it. I've read the thread (in it's entirety...where is the "all pages" button these forums??) and didn't see, or missed, any words on whether the drive needs to be formatted a certain way before putting it in. The drive is currently formatted for Mac OS X.
> 
> Thanks for nay help or links.


Mine arrived this morning as well as the WD 3TB AV drive. I just swapped the drive out and booted up. TiVo automatically formatted the drive and then went thru the updates. So if it's a brand new drive, try that.


----------



## keytohwy

Unseen Llama said:


> Mine arrived this morning as well as the WD 3TB AV drive. I just swapped the drive out and booted up. TiVo automatically formatted the drive and then went thru the updates. So if it's a brand new drive, try that.


It is not brand new. I've been using it for other purposes. I can format it a different way, if necessary, but I'm more curious than anything.

I guess if no one else replies, I'll try it and post here.


----------



## jcthorne

moyekj said:


> So I guess nobody has yet tried a new drive after setting up and using another for a while?


Yes, that is exactly what I did. Nothing is remembered. Not even zip code. The TiVo formats the drive and starts the update and setup sequence again. It appears all that is in flash is enough software to format the drive and a few housekeeping items to enable it to get the software download from the mother ship.


----------



## jmpage2

keytohwy said:


> It is not brand new. I've been using it for other purposes. I can format it a different way, if necessary, but I'm more curious than anything.
> 
> I guess if no one else replies, I'll try it and post here.


Use a software application to wipe the partition table or zero it out. Then it will look like a 'new drive'.


----------



## alansh

4TB-1K is the maximum you can express in 32 bits using 1K blocks. So I'm guessing that's what TiVo is doing and is getting an overflow on 4TB drives.

A possible fix might be preformatting the drive to just under 4TB so that TiVo doesn't try to format it itself, but it still might fail depending on how it queries the drive.


----------



## lpwcomp

NYHeel said:


> At this point there probably is some value in developing a drive upgrade tool similar to jmfs for those that want to upgrade their existing box without losing recordings and settings. But I don't have anywhere near the level of expertise to do that so I will just upgrade my drive before even booting up.


At this point, we do not have enough data or at least the available data have not yet been analyzed to know if such a tool is required or doable. There is definitely not enough information to start designing much less development. If there is, I am certainly unaware of it.


----------



## moyekj

jcthorne said:


> Yes, that is exactly what I did. Nothing is remembered. Not even zip code. The TiVo formats the drive and starts the update and setup sequence again. It appears all that is in flash is enough software to format the drive and a few housekeeping items to enable it to get the software download from the mother ship.


 OK, thanks very much for confirming (and posting).


----------



## consumedsoul

jcthorne said:


> Yes, that is exactly what I did. Nothing is remembered. Not even zip code. The TiVo formats the drive and starts the update and setup sequence again. It appears all that is in flash is enough software to format the drive and a few housekeeping items to enable it to get the software download from the mother ship.


Thanks for confirming! This might've been addressed already, but does it remember your season pass / wishlist settings etc.? (in other words is that pulled down from the mothership as well)


----------



## jcthorne

consumedsoul said:


> Thanks for confirming! This might've been addressed already, but does it remember your season pass / wishlist settings etc.? (in other words is that pulled down from the mothership as well)


It remembers nothing and the SPs are not automaticly repopulated from TiVo.com. You have to transfer them again.....or from a kmttg saved season pass file


----------



## consumedsoul

jcthorne said:


> It remembers nothing and the SPs are not automaticly repopulated from TiVo.com. You have to transfer them again.....or from a kmttg saved season pass file


Ah... so in Tivo.com it'll show up as another device essentially? In that case does it matter what I name the new device (unique)?


----------



## consumedsoul

consumedsoul said:


> Ah... so in Tivo.com it'll show up as another device essentially? In that case does it matter what I name the new device (unique)?


BTW - I'm referencing an existing Tivo Roamio unit that has season passes (that I've been using since last week), I just want to swap out the HD.


----------



## andyw715

hmm I wonder if you could put a full (of shows) drive from one Roamio into another?


----------



## lessd

andyw715 said:


> hmm I wonder if you could put a full (of shows) drive from one Roamio into another?


The TSN would not match so I would assume that the drive would re-formatted somewhat like the C&D all that has been in the TiVo forever.

*Does the Roamio have a menu item C&D all *??


----------



## larrs

I have a spare 2TB WD green drive lying around that I took out of an enclosure that was once connected to one of my computers for backup (2 years or so ago). Any reason it would not work?

I'd love to save all the money of buying a drive.

Think I will sell my Elite and then maybe all my lifetime premieres for minis. Would be nice to have one central hub finally.


----------



## keytohwy

larrs said:


> I have a spare 2TB WD green drive lying around that I took out of an enclosure that was once connected to one of my computers for backup (2 years or so ago). Any reason it would not work?
> 
> I'd love to save all the money of buying a drive.
> 
> Think I will sell my Elite and then maybe all my lifetime premieres for minis. Would be nice to have one central hub finally.


I'll let you know in a couple of hours. I'm in a similar boat.


----------



## ggieseke

keytohwy said:


> My Roamio arrives today!
> 
> I've got a 2TB drive I'll be putting into it. I've read the thread (in it's entirety...where is the "all pages" button these forums??) and didn't see, or missed, any words on whether the drive needs to be formatted a certain way before putting it in. The drive is currently formatted for Mac OS X.
> 
> Thanks for any help or links.


It couldn't hurt to use something like Active KillDisk or one of the other tools mentioned to zero the first & last few thousand sectors since it's already formatted for a Mac, but let us know how it goes is you just slap it in and see what happens.



gothaggis said:


> I had to re-pair my cable card after I had set up my basic with the included drive....upgraded to a 2tb drive a few days later. It remembered the name of my unit, but didn't have any season pass data, wishlist data, or saved channel lineup


That's about what happens on a Premiere with a reimaged "virgin" drive. It remembers the name and the zip code (I think it pulls them from the mothership) but everything else is gone.


----------



## keytohwy

ggieseke said:


> It couldn't hurt to use something like Active KillDisk or one of the other tools mentioned to zero the first & last few thousand sectors since it's already formatted for a Mac, but let us know how it goes is you just slap it in and see what happens.
> 
> That's about what happens on a Premiere with a reimaged "virgin" drive. It remembers the name and the zip code (I think it pulls them from the mothership) but everything else is gone.


I just slapped it in. Going through guided setup now. Coming from an S3 LED. This thing is fast.


----------



## consumedsoul

consumedsoul said:


> BTW - I'm referencing an existing Tivo Roamio unit that has season passes (that I've been using since last week), I just want to swap out the HD.


Just swapped out HD on fully set up Roamio Basic, the only thing it remembered was my device name, had to put in zip code and do the rest of the setup. Had to reconfigure settings, put in season pass / wish list info again etc.

300+ HD hrs though now!


----------



## Dan203

This may have been answered already but this thread is long and I don't have time to read the whole thing...

If you go through the complete setup on two different drives can you swap them back and forth and retain all the settings specific to each drive? Or is the firmware in the TiVo paired specifically to one drive?


----------



## lessd

Dan203 said:


> This may have been answered already but this thread is long and I don't have time to read the whole thing...
> 
> If you go through the complete setup on two different drives can you swap them back and forth and retain all the settings specific to each drive? Or is the firmware in the TiVo paired specifically to one drive?


You could do that but the cable card would un-pair itself.


----------



## lpwcomp

lessd said:


> You could do that but the cable card would un-pair itself.


Yeah, you would have to at least re-pair the first time. What _*might*_ work, assuming the drives were identical is to set one up, including CableCARD pairing then copy the whole thing to the new drive before you install it.

Another interesting experiment would be to set up a stock drive on a Basic or Plus, copy the drive to a larger drive, install the new drive and see what happens.

Note: I am not asking nor even encouraging anyone to try either of these experiments since I am definitely not in the position to test myself and am not likely to be so positioned in the foreseeable future.


----------



## spinjockey

alansh said:


> 4TB-1K is the maximum you can express in 32 bits using 1K blocks. So I'm guessing that's what TiVo is doing and is getting an overflow on 4TB drives.


Don't forget that most HD are measured in Tebibytes (TiB - base10 e.g. 4x10^12) not Terabytes (TB - base2 e.g. 4*1024^4). So the "4TB" HD is less than 2^32 1k blocks.

I suspect we're able to do this as someone figured out that it's much cheaper to buy unformated HDs and have the Tivo format it (rather than pay the HD manufacturer or someone internally to do it).


----------



## Loach

If I took my 2TB EURS out of my Premiere and slapped it in a Roamio, what are the chances the Roamio would configure it properly AND retain the recordings? 

Slim and none, right? And Slim probably just left town.


----------



## Dan203

Zero. The recordings are encrypted to the hardware they are recorded on. There is no way they would work in the new box.


----------



## lessd

Loach said:


> If I took my 2TB EURS out of my Premiere and slapped it in a Roamio, what are the chances the Roamio would configure it properly AND retain the recordings?
> 
> Slim and none, right? And Slim probably just left town.


You could not do that between the exact same models of TiVo, remember the C&D all to change drives.


----------



## lpwcomp

Loach said:


> If I took my 2TB EURS out of my Premiere and slapped it in a Roamio, what are the chances the Roamio would configure it properly AND retain the recordings?
> 
> Slim and none, right? And Slim probably just left town.


Zilch, nada, bupkis. Why would you even ask? It's never been possible to do this even with like model TiVos and in this case, it is unlikely that that the drive formats are even similar.


----------



## Loach

lpwcomp said:


> Zilch, nada, bupkis. Why would you even ask? It's never been possible to do this even with like model TiVos and in this case, it is unlikely that that the drive formats are even similar.


I would ask because I've only been using Tivo for about 8 months so I'm still a relative noob at this stuff. I was 98% sure of the answer but that nagging 2% prompted the question.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> The Seagtae drives do say they are good for 16 simultaneous HD streams while the WD drives say they are only good for 12.
> I guess it might just come down to whichever drive is cheaper for TiVo at the time.


When the drive specs are specifying "streams" supported, they are specifying streams using the ATA streaming command extensions (AV) command set. This spec includes how many streams are supported both writing and reading concurrently.

If TiVo has stuck to tradition, and still reads/writes AV data as any old data, this spec still means NOTHING, when used in TiVo context. If TiVo has finally upped their game and started using the extensions (the part that makes an AV drive operate as an AV drive), then it could make a difference (and possibly even make using non-AV rated drives impossible).

I haven't seen anybody test a non-AV drive, yet, or they didn't say they did. Until that specific test is done, and made clear that is the test they have tried, and given it some hardcore usage, we just don't know yet.

As I'm sure you know, tests need to be replicated, before the results can start to be assumed as proof-positive. We've seen multiple upgrades with no issues, up to 3TB, so far, using AV drives. Unless I'm mistaken, we haven't seen a single non-AV drive upgrade yet, let alone any replication. Until we do, it's unknown if non-AV drives work at all, or will work under maximum load, reliably.

If they did make the switch to true AV streaming, but left the door open to still use a non-AV drive, I'd expect it to be a "fallback" means. It would take some time to let the drive fill, then fragment, to see if performance/reliability gets affected...


----------



## Am_I_Evil

got my TiVo today but no drive yet (damn you eBay and your estimates)...so setting up the box now and will transfer any recordings to my now cablecard less premiere and then perform the upgrade either tomorrow or Thursday hopefully when i get the 3TB drive (i hope i get it then)...


----------



## ggieseke

I'd be shocked if they used anything but standard I/O, but I was shocked at how many improvements the Roamio included. I think it's still anyone's guess at this point.


----------



## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> When the drive specs are specifying "streams" supported, they are specifying streams using the ATA streaming command extensions (AV) command set. This spec includes how many streams are supported both writing and reading concurrently.
> 
> If TiVo has stuck to tradition, and still reads/writes AV data as any old data, this spec still means NOTHING, when used in TiVo context. If TiVo has finally upped their game and started using the extensions (the part that makes an AV drive operate as an AV drive), then it could make a difference (and possibly even make using non-AV rated drives impossible).
> 
> I haven't seen anybody test a non-AV drive, yet, or they didn't say they did. Until that specific test is done, and made clear that is the test they have tried, and given it some hardcore usage, we just don't know yet.
> 
> As I'm sure you know, tests need to be replicated, before the results can start to be assumed as proof-positive. We've seen multiple upgrades with no issues, up to 3TB, so far, using AV drives. Unless I'm mistaken, we haven't seen a single non-AV drive upgrade yet, let alone any replication. Until we do, it's unknown if non-AV drives work at all, or will work under maximum load, reliably.
> 
> While they may have left the door open to use a non-AV drive, I'd expect it to be a "fallback" means. It would take some time to let the drive fill, then fragment, to see if performance/reliability gets affected...


I thought one or two people posted that they put in a non AV 2TB drive?


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> I thought one or two people posted that they put in a non AV 2TB drive?


If you could find the posts and post the links, I'll be happy to concede that I was wrong. I thought I was paying close enough attention that I would spot them, since I've been primarily focusing on this thread and watching closely for such a thing...


----------



## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> If you could find the posts and post the links, I'll be happy to concede that I was wrong. I thought I was paying close enough attention that I would spot them, since I've been primarily focusing on this thread and watching closely for such a thing...


It could have been a different thread. The last week has been crazy reading this forum with posts coming at a very fast pace. I don't even think I've ever seen so many posts in such a short period of time on this forum. It's been hard to keep up.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> It could have been a different thread. The last week has been crazy reading this forum with posts coming at a very fast pace. I don't even think I've ever seen so many posts in such a short period of time on this forum. It's been hard to keep up.


That's VERY true. No argument from me, at all. I have NEVER seen such a fragmented subject matter, as to the extremes the Roamio has created here (the users/speculators/spectators, not the Roamio).


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

Received my 3TB WD AV drive, and everything was pretty straight forward. Put the drive in, and Roamio will automatically get the setup going. I lost my premium channels (HBO HD) from my cablecard (but regular channles were still working), so I had to call Comcast to repair the card. Otherwise everything went as expected. Very easy process.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> Received my 3TB WD AV drive, and everything was pretty straight forward. Put the drive in, and Roamio will automatically get the setup going. I lost my premium channels (HBO HD) from my cablecard (but regular channles were still working), so I had to call Comcast to repair the card. Otherwise everything went as expected. Very easy process.


How many HD hours with the 3TB?

Is it really this easy? Plop in a new drive and turn it on?


----------



## DCIFRTHS

ThreeSoFar said:


> How many HD hours with the 3TB?
> 
> Is it really this easy? Plop in a new drive and turn it on?


From what I have been reading - yes. It is that easy. Almost too good to be true


----------



## ThreeSoFar

DCIFRTHS said:


> From what I have been reading - yes. It is that easy. Almost too good to be true


Me too...I want to hear it from someone who DID it.


----------



## Am_I_Evil

ThreeSoFar said:


> Me too...I want to hear it from someone who DID it.


have you not been reading? multiple people have done it...


----------



## GoHokies!

I did it today.

Opened the box from Tivo.

4 screws to get the cover off.

Unplug the drive.

4 screws to take the drive out.

4 screws to take the side rails off the old drive.

Put the side rails on the new drive, screw the drive into the chassis, plug it in and button up the cover.

Hook it up, go through guided setup, reboot a few times, boom. Working Tivo.


----------



## chg

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> Received my 3TB WD AV drive, and everything was pretty straight forward. Put the drive in, and Roamio will automatically get the setup going. I lost my premium channels (HBO HD) from my cablecard (but regular channles were still working), so I had to call Comcast to repair the card. Otherwise everything went as expected. Very easy process.


Just got done doing the same thing. Very easy to do. Everything seems to be working, so far.

Showing 477 HD hours capacity. No cable. Using it for OTA only.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

Am_I_Evil said:


> have you not been reading? multiple people have done it...


Honestly...no. I skipped to the end.


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

Yeah, it's that easy. Just pop in a new drive, as long as it's 3TB or less. When I tried 4TB last night it did not work. With the 3TB everything's automatic, put it in and you're good to go.


----------



## Kobe_No_Means_No

Okay, so here is everything you need to upgrade your Roamio:

1. 3TB Drive (I recommend the WD AV-GP drive, the 1TB drive inside my Roamio Plus is also this exact drive), the 3TB drive is currently $137.99 on Amazon, shipping included. 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0/

2. T10 Torx screwdriver - I tinker with computers quite a bit, and I've tried all kinds of precision screwdriver kits. Most of them are crap, but not this one. This is the absolute best. Maxtech 16521MX precision bit set. $10.66 on Amazon shipped. 
http://www.amazon.com/Maxtech-16521MX-32-Piece-Precision-Bit/dp/B000MF754W/

Tada! This is all you need to upgrade your Roamio to 3TB. You will end up with an extra 500GB/1TB drive, so maybe you can get something like this as well: 
http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Docking-Station-ASMedia-Chipset/dp/B003UI62AG/


----------



## TC25D

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> 2. T10 Torx screwdriver - I tinker with computers quite a bit, and I've tried all kinds of precision screwdriver kits. Most of them are crap, but not this one. This is the absolute best. Maxtech 16521MX precision bit set. $10.66 on Amazon shipped.
> http://www.amazon.com/Maxtech-16521MX-32-Piece-Precision-Bit/dp/B000MF754W/


On a Roamio Basic, you also need a T8 Torx to remove the 2 screws that hold the cover on.


----------



## consumedsoul

TC25D said:


> On a Roamio Basic, you also need a T8 Torx to remove the 2 screws that hold the cover on.


Actually only one of the 2 screws (T8) - the other and the internal screws are all T10 (just replaced drive today).


----------



## TC25D

consumedsoul said:


> Actually only one of the 2 screws (T8) - the other and the internal screws are all T10 (just replaced drive today).


I replaced the drive in my Roamio last night. Both screws at the top of the back of the unit are, actually, T8.

See picture in post #144.


----------



## consumedsoul

TC25D said:


> I replaced the drive in my Roamio last night. Both screws at the top of the back of the unit are, actually, T8.
> 
> See picture in post #144.


Bizarre... one screw was a T10 for sure (shorter too) - maybe there's some discrepancy in base model shells?

Anyhoo - like you said bottom line need a T8 as well.


----------



## TC25D

consumedsoul said:


> Bizarre... one screw was a T10 for sure (shorter too) - maybe there's some discrepancy in base model shells?
> 
> Anyhoo - like you said bottom line need a T8 as well.


I agree - the 2 screws that hold the top on were different lengths, too, but on mine, the T8 worked on both.


----------



## sterfry

Just another data point.

I have a TiVo Roamio. I replaced the 500GB Seagate Pipeline drive with a Western Digital AV-GP 2TB with no issues so far. Roamio has been successfully setup, recorded shows and transferred shows from a Premiere XL.


----------



## shoeboo

TC25D said:


> I agree - the 2 screws that hold the top on were different lengths, too, but on mine, the T8 worked on both.


My base Roamio had one T10 screw and one T8 on the back, not that it matters.


----------



## TC25D

shoeboo said:


> My base Roamio had one T10 screw and one T8 on the back, not that it matters.


I stand corrected. 

On the Roamio Basic, the screw above the HDMI port is a T10 while the screw above the eSATA port is a T8.

The T8 worked in both because the screws go into plastic and don't need to be all that tight.


----------



## aaronwt

So does the Plus and Pro have two sizes of Torx screws? That has always been the case with previous TiVos.


----------



## jcthorne

TC25D said:


> I replaced the drive in my Roamio last night. Both screws at the top of the back of the unit are, actually, T8.
> 
> See picture in post #144.


Only the top center screw needs to be removed. The other one is to secure the HDMI port to the case. Not needed to remove that screw.


----------



## elwaylite

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> Okay, so here is everything you need to upgrade your Roamio:
> 
> 1. 3TB Drive (I recommend the WD AV-GP drive, the 1TB drive inside my Roamio Plus is also this exact drive), the 3TB drive is currently $137.99 on Amazon, shipping included.
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0/
> 
> 2. T10 Torx screwdriver - I tinker with computers quite a bit, and I've tried all kinds of precision screwdriver kits. Most of them are crap, but not this one. This is the absolute best. Maxtech 16521MX precision bit set. $10.66 on Amazon shipped.
> http://www.amazon.com/Maxtech-16521MX-32-Piece-Precision-Bit/dp/B000MF754W/
> 
> Tada! This is all you need to upgrade your Roamio to 3TB. You will end up with an extra 500GB/1TB drive, so maybe you can get something like this as well:
> http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Docking-Station-ASMedia-Chipset/dp/B003UI62AG/


Thanks for this, since most of the stuff on my Roamio basic can be downloaded again, Im going to order a 2TB WD AV-GP drive now for tomorrow and get it installed. I can send the DVR Expander back and save money!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042AG9V8/ref=ox_ya_os_product

WD AV-GP 2 TB AV Video Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA II, 64 MB Cache - WD20EURS

Ordered that overnight for $102.


----------



## kealoha311

Upgraded a Plus last night with a plain old 3TB WD Green drive since I had one not being used. I saw that people were asking about installing a non-AV drive.


----------



## elwaylite

In the past Ive used spare green's, they work fine in my experience on other DVR's. I figure since Im buying a new one anyways, might as well get the AV-GP.


----------



## tivogurl

I've read somewhere around here that the auto-parking feature on the green drives can cause problems with TiVos.


----------



## elwaylite

AV-GP has intellipark, but drives are never "idle" AFAIK in a TiVo. I thought one of the reasons the AV-GP drives are usually used in DVR's like Directv, etc..., is because a green drive has some certain data error correction, which is something you dont need or want in a drive recording video.


----------



## larrs

elwaylite said:


> AV-GP has intellipark, but drives are never "idle" AFAIK in a TiVo. I thought one of the reasons the AV-GP drives are usually used in DVR's like Directv, etc..., is because a green drive has some certain data error correction, which is something you dont need or want in a drive recording video.


I thought that was only implemented recently on green drives and older drives were OK. Waiting on some of the other members to chime in before I try it.


----------



## elwaylite

larrs said:


> I thought that was only implemented recently on green drives and older drives were OK. Waiting on some of the other members to chime in before I try it.


Not sure on that one.


----------



## bodosom

Are people using the T10 to remove the rails like using a T8 to remove the HDMI T10 screw?

My Roamio has T15 rail screws just like my Premiere (and I think the HR10).

Also I lost one of the rubber feet because the cover was much harder to get off than I expected.

(Loading: 70%...)


----------



## cr33p

Not sure how ppl feel about Recertified drives but this is a killer price for a 3tb drive 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236098


----------



## aaronwt

cr33p said:


> Not sure how ppl feel about Recertified drives but this is a killer price for a 3tb drive
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236098


And only a ninety day warranty.


----------



## cr33p

aaronwt said:


> And only a ninety day warranty.


Unfortunately yes 
Im a bit of a gambler myself


----------



## RockinRay

bodosom said:


> Are people using the T10 to remove the rails like using a T8 to remove the HDMI T10 screw?
> 
> My Roamio has T15 rail screws just like my Premiere (and I think the HR10).
> 
> *Also I lost one of the rubber feet because the cover was much harder to get off than I expected.*
> 
> (Loading: 70%...)


Cover removal was really hard for me too - what is the trick?


----------



## ppartekim

jcthorne said:


> Only the top center screw needs to be removed. The other one is to secure the HDMI port to the case. Not needed to remove that screw.


Yep, only the center screw (long one) needs to be removed as mentioned.



bodosom said:


> Are people using the T10 to remove the rails like using a T8 to remove the HDMI T10 screw?
> 
> My Roamio has T15 rail screws just like my Premiere (and I think the HR10).
> 
> Also I lost one of the rubber feet because the cover was much harder to get off than I expected.
> 
> (Loading: 70%...)


Not sure on this one.. I have a package of tips and I just swapped until I got the right one.. So, it does like I needed 3 tips (#10 for center bit, #8 for drive tray and #15 for drive - I think).

Also, my Basic came already losing two rubber feet (not even in the box). The other two fell off while flipping it around upgrading the hard drive (just left them off). If I need rubber feet, I will go out buy real ones which will also allow for more air flow underneath too.



RockinRay said:


> Cover removal was really hard for me too - what is the trick?


Took me a bit too with amseven11 saying to slide.. Figured out on my basic it was pop off from back to front. The front has a little plastic lip that fits under another metal lip on the bottom. To put on just reverse, put the little lip in first then pop on from front to back (tho, it require a little finesse to keep the lip in on the front and lift top a bit allow it to go back - if that makes sense)


----------



## elwaylite

Some pics. Wasn't hard at all, will be ready to go for the 2TB AV-GP drive tomorrow.

Back of case, just take out screw over esata connector









I started at the back, right in the middle, and worked my fingers in. Keep sliding back and forth across the back slowly working the cover up. Once you get around on the sides of the plastic cover and the back is free, it'll just pop right off. Did not have to use much power at all.


















Plate with drive just has 3 screws and comes right out. If you have ever installed drives in a PC before, it's that easy.









Pipeline 500gig


----------



## RockinRay

Thanks for the tips... I have put a 2 TB green drive in my unit and decided to get a 3 TB drive and be done with it. The 3 TB WD AV drive arrives Thursday so I will put it in right away.

When I put the 2 TB drive in, I thought I would not get the top off without breaking it - that hard... So, I will try again!


----------



## elwaylite

I assume all the settings are not saved with a new drive, and will a new software download be needed?


----------



## RockinRay

elwaylite said:


> I assume all the settings are not saved with a new drive, and will a new software download be needed?


Yes and yes. But it goes fairly quickly....

In my case, I moved the season passes to my Premier via the web so all I had to do was move them back. Worked quite well....


----------



## shfawaz

I'm wondering if using a 1Tb DVR Expander with a 3Tb drive will work? Anyone try this?


----------



## elwaylite

RockinRay said:


> Yes and yes. But it goes fairly quickly....
> 
> In my case, I moved the season passes to my Premier via the web so all I had to do was move them back. Worked quite well....


Awesome, thanks.


----------



## nooneuknow

elwaylite said:


> AV-GP has intellipark, but drives are never "idle" AFAIK in a TiVo. I thought one of the reasons the AV-GP drives are usually used in DVR's like Directv, etc..., is because a green drive has some certain data error correction, which is something you dont need or want in a drive recording video.


This is a MYTH, that keeps getting passed around. TiVo doesn't use the ATA (AV) streaming extensions command set, so ALL data is written as any old data, without the special AV features and without different error handling. AV drives ONLY run in AV mode when the host and software enable it. Without being enabled, the drive uses the VERY SAME error handling techniques as a non-AV drive.

It's also a MYTH that you shouldn't use AV drives in a computer. They behave them same as a non-AV drive, unless it's a media center PC, and the software and hardware support, and enable the AV (ATA) streaming extensions. Then they are actually more desirable for PC use.

As far as Intellipark goes, there is a brief moment on a warm reboot (from the menus), where most of the GP drives can park, and your TiVo can hang at the startup screen.

I have verified that ALL of TiVo's factory AV-GP drives have Intellipark disabled. I've seen reports (and witnessed) that the newest AV-GP drives ship from WD with Intellipark disabled. But, non-AV drives that are GP require you to disable it yourself.

There is a brief, but long enough time on a menu reboot, or if the TiVo reboots itself, where the TiVo is not in control of the drive, and the default Intellipark setting allows the drive to park (or attempt to).

These myths were born from drop-in-and-go drive sellers, who want people to believe they need an AV-rated drive.

You can also just increase the Intellipark timeout to 300 seconds, instead of 8 seconds, rather than disable it entirely. While a TiVo has no use for it, some older AV-GP and GP drives started behaving badly when fully disabled. WD has corrected this issue, quite a while back.

I can't comment on Seagate, as I have never had one come in a TiVo, nor have I used one as an upgrade drive.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> This is a MYTH, that keeps getting passed around. TiVo doesn't use the ATA (AV) streaming extensions command set, so ALL data is written as any old data, without the special AV features and without different error handling. AV drives ONLY run in AV mode when the host and software enable it. Without being enabled, the drive uses the VERY SAME error handling techniques as a non-AV drive.
> 
> It's also a MYTH that you shouldn't use AV drives in a computer. They behave them same as a non-AV drive, unless it's a media center PC, and the software and hardware support, and enable the AV (ATA) streaming extensions. Then they are actually more desirable for PC use.
> 
> As far as Intellipark goes, there is a brief moment on a warm reboot (from the menus), where most of the GP drives can park, and your TiVo can hang at the startup screen.
> 
> I have verified that ALL of TiVo's factory AV-GP drives have Intellipark disabled. I've seen reports (and witnessed) that the newest AV-GP drives ship from WD with Intellipark disabled. But, non-AV drives that are GP require you to disable it yourself.
> 
> There is a brief, but long enough time on a menu reboot, or if the TiVo reboots itself, where the TiVo is not in control of the drive, and the default Intellipark setting allows the drive to park (or attempt to).
> 
> These myths were born from drop-in-and-go drive sellers, who want people to believe they need an AV-rated drive.
> 
> You can also just increase the Intellipark timeout to 300 seconds, instead of 8 seconds, rather than disable it entirely. While a TiVo has no use for it, some older AV-GP and GP drives started behaving badly when fully disabled. WD has corrected this issue, quite a while back.
> 
> I can't comment on Seagate, as I have never had one come in a TiVo, nor have I used one as an upgrade drive.


Just curious as to how you know what TiVo is using in the Roamio Hard drive system, the file system is different than all previous TiVos, as non of our copy tool can even see a Roamio basic TiVo drive even after the software is on the drive. Not saying your incorrect.


----------



## Series3Sub

Kobe_No_Means_No said:


> Yeah, it's that easy. Just pop in a new drive, as long as it's 3TB or less. When I tried 4TB last night it did not work. With the 3TB everything's automatic, put it in and you're good to go.


And Weeknees is still working on getting 4TB to work on Roamios. Just adding in case others didn't start at the beginning of thread. I think Weeknees views cracking the 3TB barrier as necessary for business.


----------



## Alanbrad

True test will be the next restart since the first one did actually have to find the new drive, connections, etc.

Robot Vacuum


----------



## elwaylite

Well, so far I have one person here, and several people in other forums with contradicting stories. Facts would be nice, or at least proof. Im not picking a side, I just note neither side provided anything other than "Im right".

Looking at it in a way that intellipark is not used, and if it does not ignore sector issues while writing video with the device telling it so, why do DVR manufacturers use pipeline drives and AV-GP drives? There has to be something there, I wouldn't think they were exactly the same as say a caviar green and these people are getting hustled by WD and Seagate. Both the Pipeline and AV-GP claim 24x7 reliability, but not sure what they mean.


----------



## jfh3

sterfry said:


> Just another data point.
> 
> I have a TiVo Roamio. I replaced the 500GB Seagate Pipeline drive with a Western Digital AV-GP 2TB with no issues so far.


Ditto. Hardest part was getting the cover off! Other than that, the easiest and fastest Tivo drive upgrade I've ever done.


----------



## aaronwt

elwaylite said:


> Well, so far I have one person here, and several people in other forums with contradicting stories. Facts would be nice, or at least proof. Im not picking a side, I just note neither side provided anything other than "Im right".
> 
> Looking at it in a way that intellipark is not used, and if it does not ignore sector issues while writing video with the device telling it so, why do DVR manufacturers use pipeline drives and AV-GP drives? There has to be something there, I wouldn't think they were exactly the same as say a caviar green and these people are getting hustled by WD and Seagate. Both the Pipeline and AV-GP claim 24x7 reliability, but not sure what they mean.


There has to be some difference somewhere. But it could just be the warranty. Because WD would probably not knowingly warranty a non DVR drive used in a DVR.


----------



## ggieseke

I finally got DvrBARS full images of a Basic before & after setup. Thanks PapaArt!

The drive does indeed appear to be 99% blank as shipped from the factory, but there are some non-zero sectors that I think are the result of some diagnostics either at Seagate or TiVo. For instance, the first sector that has any info at all is almost 8GB into the drive and it's just two repeating text strings - "WRW" and "UEST".

My analysis of the drive after setup is going well, but I DESPERATELY need "after" images for 1TB, 2TB & 3TB drives. From what I'm seeing so far it's bizarre and familiar at the same time but I don't want to post my WAGs until I can remove more of the question marks in my notes.

The Full "after" backup of the 500GB Basic drive was only 1.75GB and it zipped down to 700MB. It's really easy to put it in your public Dropbox folder and send me a PM with a link.


----------



## GoHokies!

How long does it take the backup to run?

I put a 3TB into my Plus, I'd be willing to pull it if the backup doesn't take an obscene amount of time.

I can also give you a "before" on the stock 1 TB drive.


----------



## Crrink

I upgraded my Roamio Basic with a 3Tb WD Red drive last night. Like others have said, getting the cover off was the hardest part.
The Red drive booted up fine - I didn't disable intellipark, or do anything else with the drive. I plan to test warm and cold reboots to see if there are any issues, and will report back when I do.
Once the TiVo was working, I had all 4 tuners record, and then began transferring shows from my old TiVo HD (at my house wireless is SLOW. Once the Roamio is all set up, it'll get connected to ethernet.) I put my ear next to the vent on the side that holds the drive, and all I could hear was a hum - either the drive or the fan. I couldn't hear any seeking/reading/writing noise at all, so the Red drive is more than quiet enough for me  Definitely quieter than the 2 year old 2Tb AV-GP drive in the TiVoHD (though I can only hear that one when my ear is inches away from that TiVo.)

Anyway, so far so good. I'd like to be able to fill the drive up and report back, but with 450 hours of space, I really don't see that happening any time soon, if at all.

If anybody has questions about my drive in particular, I'll keep tabs on this thread and try to respond quickly.
Thanks to all who've posted here already - certainly made my upgrade easier. :up:


----------



## ggieseke

GoHokies! said:


> How long does it take the backup to run?
> 
> I put a 3TB into my Plus, I'd be willing to pull it if the backup doesn't take an obscene amount of time.
> 
> I can also give you a "before" on the stock 1 TB drive.


Since Full backups read the entire disk it really depends on the PC and the connection. USB2 would suck. My PC's chipset maxes out at just under 2Gb/s, so even USB3 or direct SATA connections take about 10 hours per TB.

If your PC supports true 6Gb/s a direct SATA, eSATA or USB3 connection should run the entire 3TB drive in about 8-9 hours. If you have already run Guided Setup or made any recordings the final file size would probably be unwieldy at best.

I'd be interested in the raw 1TB image too, just to see if what I think are test patterns come from TiVo or the drive manufacturer. The 500GB raw image was only 800MB and zipped down to 4MB. You could email it...


----------



## PapaArt

GoHokies! said:


> How long does it take the backup to run?
> 
> I put a 3TB into my Plus, I'd be willing to pull it if the backup doesn't take an obscene amount of time.
> 
> I can also give you a "before" on the stock 1 TB drive.


When I did the full back up on the 500 Mb drive it took 2+ hours using USB connected enclosure.

PapaArt


----------



## lessd

ggieseke said:


> I finally got DvrBARS full images of a Basic before & after setup. Thanks PapaArt!
> 
> The drive does indeed appear to be 99% blank as shipped from the factory, but there are some non-zero sectors that I think are the result of some diagnostics either at Seagate or TiVo. For instance, the first sector that has any info at all is almost 8GB into the drive and it's just two repeating text strings - "WRW" and "UEST".
> 
> My analysis of the drive after setup is going well, but I DESPERATELY need "after" images for 1TB, 2TB & 3TB drives. From what I'm seeing so far it's bizarre and familiar at the same time but I don't want to post my WAGs until I can remove more of the question marks in my notes.
> 
> The Full "after" backup of the 500GB Basic drive was only 1.75GB and it zipped down to 700MB. It's really easy to put it in your public Dropbox folder and send me a PM with a link.


Non of the tools recognize the new format (and I tried them all) as a TiVo signature, the only reason to use any tools on the Roamio would be to expand a drive from say 1Tb to say 3Tb and not have any loss of recordings, settings etc. If your drive goes south you can just put in another drive (up to 3Tb for now) and the Roamio will format and set up the drive as a new TiVo.


----------



## ggieseke

lessd said:


> Non of the tools recognize the new format (and I tried them all) as a TiVo signature, the only reason to use any tools on the Roamio would be to expand a drive from say 1Tb to say 3Tb and not have any loss of recordings, settings etc. If your drive goes south you can just put in another drive (up to 3Tb for now) and the Roamio will format and set up the drive as a new TiVo.


True, but I hope to have a new version of DvrBARS out in a few weeks that adds Roamio support. Backup and expansion are pretty much things of the past with this new line as long as you're willing to start over from scratch, but if I can figure out a way to do it that keeps your existing stuff it might be useful to some people.


----------



## elwaylite

aaronwt said:


> There has to be some difference somewhere. But it could just be the warranty. Because WD would probably not knowingly warranty a non DVR drive used in a DVR.


The only read difference I can see on the WD site between a Caviar Green 2TB and an AV-Gp 2TB is:

AV-GP is rated 10 degrees celsius higher
(green is 32 degrees to 140F and av-gp is 32 to 158)
AV-GP has an xtra year warranty
AV-GP is slightly more quiet
Green is 6GB/s max and AV-GP is 3


----------



## innocentfreak

ggieseke said:


> True, but I hope to have a new version of DvrBARS out in a few weeks that adds Roamio support. Backup and expansion are pretty much things of the past with this new line as long as you're willing to start over from scratch, but if I can figure out a way to do it that keeps your existing stuff it might be useful to some people.


I could definitely see it being useful to copy from one drive to another to expand. Say you bought the Plus and the 3TB drives dropped to $75 and you decided to upgrade. If you could copy over the recordings to the new drive and just plug and play it would be nice.

Of course I don't know if anyone has tested the replacement scenario. Take the initial drive, run through guided setup, record a couple of shows both copy once and copy freely, and then pull the drive. Replace with an upgrade and repeat the process. Then pull that drive and put the original drive back in. Are the shows still there or does it format everytime?

I think we need a Wiki or Google Docs on everything that has been tested and by who, how many, and which TiVo. This thread is so long and quick it is tough to keep track.


----------



## ggieseke

innocentfreak said:


> I could definitely see it being useful to copy from one drive to another to expand. Say you bought the Plus and the 3TB drives dropped to $75 and you decided to upgrade. If you could copy over the recordings to the new drive and just plug and play it would be nice.
> 
> Of course I don't know if anyone has tested the replacement scenario. Take the initial drive, run through guided setup, record a couple of shows both copy once and copy freely, and then pull the drive. Replace with an upgrade and repeat the process. Then pull that drive and put the original drive back in. Are the shows still there or does it format everytime?
> 
> I think we need a Wiki or Google Docs on everything that has been tested and by who, how many, and which TiVo. This thread is so long and quick it is tough to keep track.


The recordings, Guide Data, Settings etc should still be there unless it reformats the drive (which I doubt but can't swear to). CableCARD pairing is still up in the air. It's all still guesswork and I like your Wiki suggestion.


----------



## Jonathan_S

nooneuknow said:


> This is a MYTH, that keeps getting passed around. TiVo doesn't use the ATA (AV) streaming extensions command set, so ALL data is written as any old data, without the special AV features and without different error handling. AV drives ONLY run in AV mode when the host and software enable it. Without being enabled, the drive uses the VERY SAME error handling techniques as a non-AV drive.
> 
> It's also a MYTH that you shouldn't use AV drives in a computer. They behave them same as a non-AV drive, unless it's a media center PC, and the software and hardware support, and enable the AV (ATA) streaming extensions. Then they are actually more desirable for PC use.


I wouldn't say an AV drive in AV mode is an unqualified benefit for a media center PC.

I still wouldn't want to OS running from a drive with error recovery suppressed. But yes, AV mode would be great if you were only using the AV drive for media and had a separate boot drive (small harddrive, SSD, etc).


----------



## nooneuknow

Jonathan_S said:


> I wouldn't say an AV drive in AV mode is an unqualified benefit for a media center PC.
> 
> I still wouldn't want to OS running from a drive with error recovery suppressed. But yes, AV mode would be great if you were only using the AV drive for media and had a separate boot drive (small harddrive, SSD, etc).


It's not an entire "all or none" situation. ONLY the AV data gets written in streaming mode, if supported, and enabled. As I've said in other posts, even if TiVo ever did start using it, the databases would still be written as data, not as an AV stream. So, there would still be both error-handling algorithms in use.

Your post would lead one to believe the entire drive gets one toggle, and changes modes. That's not how it works. Perhaps that's why TiVo hasn't used it, so far. It would require extra work to implement, because it's not just a whole-drive mode toggle.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> Just curious as to how you know what TiVo is using in the Roamio Hard drive system, the file system is different than all previous TiVos, as non of our copy tool can even see a Roamio basic TiVo drive even after the software is on the drive. Not saying your incorrect.


Nobody knows, except TiVo, and maybe Weaknees.

I was just reflex-stopping the MYTH that just because a drive is AV-rated, it AUTOMATICALLY uses different error correction, all on it's own. It's not true!

I never said that the Roamio is incapable of taking advantage of the feature set. I was talking strictly hard drive, and KNOWN TiVo facts.

We are in the land of the unknown here. I felt the need to stop a myth, before it took root, and grew more seedlings.


----------



## elwaylite

I still havent seen any proof either way, yet you keep saying its a MYTH because you said so.

Im not challenging you, but documentation, or a link would be nice. I'd like to read it and learn a little. You saying others are wrong because you said so doesnt present much.

If it is a MYTH, it gets thrown around a lot and it'd be nice to be able to correct the posts with actual data, otherwise I would just have to say "because a guy on tivocommunity.com said so".


----------



## Am_I_Evil

so i should be getting my 3TB drive today. But i may have to hold off and swapping it out as i noticed last night 2 of my tuners had no audio. I rebooted this morning before work but haven't been able to test it out. I went to watch Futurama last night and it recorded with no audio. Very annoying.


----------



## lessd

innocentfreak said:


> I could definitely see it being useful to copy from one drive to another to expand. Say you bought the Plus and the 3TB drives dropped to $75 and you decided to upgrade. If you could copy over the recordings to the new drive and just plug and play it would be nice.
> 
> Of course I don't know if anyone has tested the replacement scenario. Take the initial drive, run through guided setup, record a couple of shows both copy once and copy freely, and then pull the drive. Replace with an upgrade and repeat the process. Then pull that drive and put the original drive back in. Are the shows still there or does it format everytime?
> 
> I think we need a Wiki or Google Docs on everything that has been tested and by who, how many, and which TiVo. This thread is so long and quick it is tough to keep track.


Your idea works great as I did that, *BUT* you have a loss of the cable card pairing and can't get it back even if you put the original disk back in, so when you are finished you still have to call Comcast and re-pair the card, this is for Comcast in Hartford CT YMMV. I have not tried putting a drive from one Roamio into another, but will next week when I get the 2nd Roamio Plus.


----------



## nooneuknow

elwaylite said:


> I still havent seen any proof either way, yet you keep saying its a MYTH because you said so.
> 
> Im not challenging you, but documentation, or a link would be nice. I'd like to read it and learn a little. You saying others are wrong because you said so doesnt present much.
> 
> If it is a MYTH, it gets thrown around a lot and it'd be nice to be able to correct the posts with actual data, otherwise I would just have to say "because a guy on tivocommunity.com said so".


Go do your own damn research, and find facts, that aren't linked to somebody in the business of making people believe they need an AV rated drive, just because the device the drive goes into handles AV.

It took me months to be sure I had my ducks in a row. I didn't make a list of every source that I used, to find UNBIASED data on the matter.

The myths about AV drives lead all the way back to the first HDD FAQ on these very forums. Weaknees was the source of what people thought to be fact, and posted here, without knowing they were passing along propaganda, provided by an UPGRADE DRIVE SELLER.


----------



## innocentfreak

lessd said:


> Your idea works great as I did that, *BUT* you have a loss of the cable card pairing and can't get it back even if you put the original disk back in, so when you are finished you still have to call Comcast and re-pair the card, this is for Comcast in Hartford CT YMMV. I have not tried putting a drive from one Roamio into another, but will next week when I get the 2nd Roamio Plus.


True, but if a drive was giving you signs it was going to fail you could then hopefully copy those recordings to a new drive and expand the space at the same time. Either way you would need to pair the CC again.

FiOS makes it fairly easy since the online chat support on their website can do it from what Ben @EngadgetHD has said.


----------



## elwaylite

nooneuknow said:


> Go do your own damn research, and find facts, that aren't linked to somebody in the business of making people believe they need an AV rated drive, just because the device the drive goes into handles AV.
> 
> It took me months to be sure I had my ducks in a row. I didn't make a list of every source that I used, to find UNBIASED data on the matter.
> 
> The myths about AV drives lead all the way back to the first HDD FAQ on these very forums. Weaknees was the source of what people thought to be fact, and posted here, without knowing they were passing along propaganda, provided by an UPGRADE DRIVE SELLER.


About the reaction I expected. "Cause I said so". Glad to see a forum is about learning...

I don't know enough technically about HDD's to really start, but I guess Google will be at least a better source than you since it wont be an ass about the whole thing. Hopefully next time you pose a question to someone in a field you are not experienced, you get the same answer.


----------



## lessd

ggieseke said:


> True, but I hope to have a new version of DvrBARS out in a few weeks that adds Roamio support. Backup and expansion are pretty much things of the past with this new line as long as you're willing to start over from scratch, but if I can figure out a way to do it that keeps your existing stuff it might be useful to some people.


If you can fix the software to allow the expansion of a drive that would very useful, as then, in the future, if I wanted to upgrade my 2Tb Plus to a 3Tb Plus I would not have to start over.
I think TiVo hard drive design is for TiVos benefit to give the fastest response and save money in production, so now the system can just have a hard drive go in without any preformatting, that will save some money, and the amount of money TiVo will not get because of people putting in their own hard drive and having to lose the TiVo warranty, I think is small. 99% of TiVos that do go bad it's the hard drive, now on the Roamio all TiVo has to do is drop in another hard drive and they have a refurb TiVo to sell.


----------



## nooneuknow

elwaylite said:


> About the reaction I expected. "Cause I said so".


No, I said "GO DO YOUR OWN DAMN RESEARCH!".

If you want to base your decisions on myths, BE MY GUEST!

There's obviously no way I can prove anything to you. You need to prove it to yourself. So, why don't you get to it, and leave me the hell alone.


----------



## elwaylite

nooneuknow said:


> No, I said "GO DO YOUR OWN DAMN RESEARCH!".
> 
> If you want to base your decisions on myths, BE MY GUEST!
> 
> There's obviously no way I can prove anything to you. You need to prove it to yourself. So, why don't you get to it, and leave me the hell alone.


All I asked was for a pointer in the right direction, and you were an ass. Plain and simple. Dont worry though, i do know how to use the ignore button.


----------



## nooneuknow

elwaylite said:


> Glad to see a forum is about learning...
> 
> I don't know enough technically about HDD's to really start, but I guess Google will be at least a better source than you since it wont be an ass about the whole thing. Hopefully next time you pose a question to someone in a field you are not experienced, you get the same answer.


In response to what you attached to your post (quoted above) in an EDIT, before it could show up as one:

Yep, Google's a GREAT way to find myths, that have been repeated over, and over, and over, and over, and over, again, and again, and again...

If it were that easy, it wouldn't have taken me months to be sure about what I say.

This isn't the thread for this. There's at least a dozen better-suited threads.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> In response to what you attached to your post (quoted above) in an EDIT, before it could show up as one:
> 
> Yep, Google's a GREAT way to find myths, that have been repeated over, and over, and over, and over, and over, again, and again, and again...
> 
> If it were that easy, it wouldn't have taken me months to be sure about what I say.
> 
> This isn't the thread for this. There's at least a dozen better-suited threads.


This forum has a number of different options

AV drives vs other hard drives

Using a UPS on all TiVos, and/or all electronics

Turning off a TiVo for 12 hours a day, does the hard drive last longer

and I am sure there are more, each to their own opinion and the rest of us can do as we see fit.


----------



## nooneuknow

My apologies to the rest of you reading this thread.

If you've been following it from the start, or took the time to read through all this, you'd see that I don't claim to know it all.

I just didn't want a careless insertion, of a vaguely recalled myth, to cloud the fact-finding mission we are on.

Truth be told, it would take days for me just to try and re-find all the sources for all the facts on AV drives. There's a giant sea of fiction, and even the drive makers are guilty of pushing for their use, in applications that don't necessarily need them. It's business as usual, folks.

With that over, back to ROAMIO drive upgrades, and what people are finding, as they bravely pioneer ahead...


----------



## Mike Lang

Alright guys...cool it.


----------



## TC25D

nooneuknow said:


> My apologies to the rest of you reading this thread.


I joined this forum about a week ago. This is the second time you've had to apologize. Apologies are good, not making rude, insulting and condescending posts in the first place is better.


----------



## nooneuknow

TC25D said:


> I joined this forum about a week ago. This is the second time you've had to apologize. Apologies are good, not making rude, insulting and condescending posts in the first place is better.


True. Welcome to TCF. I'm sure the longer you are here, the more it will stand out that there's plenty of condescension and insulting going on, from plenty of people, who will never once apologize for it.


----------



## DaveDFW

Does anyone know if CableCard pairing information survives the installation of a new hard drive? Or does the host ID change when the new drive is configured?

In other words, should I wait for my new hard drive before making the CableCard pairing call? The call is sufficiently unpleasant that I don't want to make it more than once.


----------



## tatergator1

DaveDFW said:


> Does anyone know if CableCard pairing information survives the installation of a new hard drive? Or does the host ID change when the new drive is configured?
> 
> In other words, should I wait for my new hard drive before making the CableCard pairing call? The call is sufficiently unpleasant that I don't want to make it more than once.


The consensus is that nothing survives a disk swap. I'd wait to pair your Card to save repeating the process in a couple days.


----------



## ggieseke

lessd said:


> If you can fix the software to allow the expansion of a drive that would very useful, as then, in the future, if I wanted to upgrade my 2Tb Plus to a 3Tb Plus I would not have to start over.
> I think TiVo hard drive design is for TiVos benefit to give the fastest response and save money in production, so now the system can just have a hard drive go in without any preformatting, that will save some money, and the amount of money TiVo will not get because of people putting in their own hard drive and having to lose the TiVo warranty, I think is small. 99% of TiVos that do go bad it's the hard drive, now on the Roamio all TiVo has to do is drop in another hard drive and they have a refurb TiVo to sell.


I think the biggest advantage for TiVo is during the initial manufacturing phase. I don't know what their refurb numbers are, but it makes sense both ways. I hope the person who said "Why don't we drop empty drives in the box and save all the time and money we spend imaging them" gets a big pat on the back and a bigger bonus check.

It's good for them, it's good for us, and a win-win situation all around. 

I'll probably figure out enough of the new format to rewrite DvrBARS just because that's how I'm built, but if ten people per year actually use it on Roamios I'd be surprised. We don't need me anymore.


----------



## innocentfreak

I found a free Wiki we might be able to use. If someone wants to start creating a page dedicated to upgrades on Roamio.

http://tivo.wikia.com/wiki/TiVo_Wiki


----------



## lessd

ggieseke said:


> I'll probably figure out enough of the new format to rewrite DvrBARS just because that's how I'm built, but if ten people per year actually use it on Roamios I'd be surprised. We don't need me anymore.


Don't say that, you have done us a great service for us DIY people, good luck and if I can help just PM me.


----------



## Jonathan_S

nooneuknow said:


> It's not an entire "all or none" situation. ONLY the AV data gets written in streaming mode, if supported, and enabled. As I've said in other posts, even if TiVo ever did start using it, the databases would still be written as data, not as an AV stream. So, there would still be both error-handling algorithms in use.
> 
> Your post would lead one to believe the entire drive gets one toggle, and changes modes. That's not how it works. Perhaps that's why TiVo hasn't used it, so far. It would require extra work to implement, because it's not just a whole-drive mode toggle.


 Oops. I hadn't looked into it (having not build a HTCP) and naively assumed it was a whole drive toggle.

Thanks for correcting me.


----------



## innocentfreak

I started it just to put some stuff up there. Feel free to update it.

http://tivo.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Roamio_Hard_Drive_Upgrades#FAQ


----------



## nooneuknow

Jonathan_S said:


> Oops. I hadn't looked into it (having not build a HTCP) and naively assumed it was a whole drive toggle.
> 
> Thanks for correcting me.


In retrospect, I can see how my post kind of left the door wide-open for one to make that very assumption (if they didn't know what we both now do).

I've also thought about the question "Why would TiVo keep writing AV as regular data, and not use the streaming support in every TiVo drive?".

1. May break interoperability or backward-compatibility, MRV, MRS, TiVo Desktop.

2. Could require re-encoding on-the-fly before it could ever be transferred and/or streamed off the TiVo (and eat up processor cycles).

3. They figure "It isn't broken, so don't fix it" (or are just lazy).

4. We don't even know enough yet to know if it is enabled, or can be enabled, on the Roamio.

It begs the question "Why do they use AV-rated (AV streaming capable) drives?". Contrary to what some believe, AV-rated, and 24x7-rated, are two separate ratings. The former means it supports something, the latter is more of a badge, with the manufacturer's blessing.

That's something that there are many theories about, and has been the subject of much debate (besides this thread). I'm afraid to even touch it again, since it can only lead to speculation/debate/WAGs, and the like.

Although, if you think about the platforms (security/video surveillance) that use the streaming, how many videos are being recorded and played-back at a time... I would think that a casino surveillance system would be using the streaming function to full-potential, plus writing the date/time stamps in a separate data stream, in a non-AV mode (to insure against corruption).

EDIT/ADD: I'll take a poke at this anyway... Long before there were TiVos and mainstream TV DVRs, there was surveillance, where the drive trying to correct an error, rather than keep the video streaming consistently, could be a really big deal. That's EXACTLY what AV-rated drives were ORIGINALLY marketed for use in. It's only been recently, that they ADDED personal DVR use as a target market, even though TiVo was already using them. Maybe TiVo keeps on thinking someday they'll turn it on and make use of it. But, unlike a surveillance system, TiVo only needs to if they reach a certain number of streams, or wants to put multiple streams onto one screen, in realtime, like a surveillance system can do. I'm sure the drive manufacturers must've either given TiVo a great offer, or applied some pressure, but can I prove that? No.


----------



## elwaylite

New 2TB drive is in, going through 1st call in and download now.


----------



## Millionaire2K

elwaylite said:


> New 2TB drive is in, going through 1st call in and download now.


I just did this today also. All went well.

However getting the lid off and on was a pain. It still seems loose. Also all 4 feet fell off during the upgrade.


----------



## elwaylite

Odd, I did not lose any feet but have been seeing people dealing with that.

There ya go


----------



## consumedsoul

Millionaire2K said:


> Also all 4 feet fell off during the upgrade.


I looked at the feet (they've basically fallen off every time I moved the TiVo or upgrading HDs etc.) closely and I swear they're put on upside down (one 'side' of the padding has larger surface area, and I think that's the side that the manufacturers are supposed to have put the adhesive on to connect to TiVo).

I just ended up super gluing them on eventually so don't have to deal w/ lost feet down the road.


----------



## MeInDallas

Has anyone kept the lid off for a bit during the start up to see how much that little fan blows? Does it seem sufficient? Sure does seem awfully small and thin


----------



## Davelnlr_

ggieseke said:


> True, but I hope to have a new version of DvrBARS out in a few weeks that adds Roamio support. Backup and expansion are pretty much things of the past with this new line as long as you're willing to start over from scratch, but if I can figure out a way to do it that keeps your existing stuff it might be useful to some people.


I dont have one, nor plan on getting one....but I would think it would be useful to write a program to back up the cablecard pairing area...so if you do have to upgrade or replace the drive, you could write the cablecard pairing back to the new drive without the hassle of messing with the cable company.


----------



## lessd

Davelnlr_ said:


> I dont have one, nor plan on getting one....but I would think it would be useful to write a program to back up the cablecard pairing area...so if you do have to upgrade or replace the drive, you could write the cablecard pairing back to the new drive without the hassle of messing with the cable company.


Only a bit to bit copy will do the cable card thing and today it only takes a phone call to pair a cable card on most cable systems.


----------



## pbubel

nooneuknow said:


> In retrospect, I can see how my post kind of left the door wide-open for one to make that very assumption (if they didn't know what we both now do).
> 
> I've also thought about the question "Why would TiVo keep writing AV as regular data, and not use the streaming support in every TiVo drive?".
> 
> 1. May break interoperability or backward-compatibility, MRV, MRS, TiVo Desktop.
> 
> 2. Could require re-encoding on-the-fly before it could ever be transferred and/or streamed off the TiVo (and eat up processor cycles).
> 
> 3. They figure "It isn't broken, so don't fix it" (or are just lazy).
> 
> 4. We don't even know enough yet to know if it is enabled, or can be enabled, on the Roamio.
> 
> It begs the question "Why do they use AV-rated (AV streaming capable) drives?". Contrary to what some believe, AV-rated, and 24x7-rated, are two separate ratings. The former means it supports something, the latter is more of a badge, with the manufacturer's blessing.
> 
> That's something that there are many theories about, and has been the subject of much debate (besides this thread). I'm afraid to even touch it again, since it can only lead to speculation/debate/WAGs, and the like.
> 
> Although, if you think about the platforms (security/video surveillance) that use the streaming, how many videos are being recorded and played-back at a time... I would think that a casino surveillance system would be using the streaming function to full-potential, plus writing the date/time stamps in a separate data stream, in a non-AV mode (to insure against corruption).
> 
> EDIT/ADD: I'll take a poke at this anyway... Long before there were TiVos and mainstream TV DVRs, there was surveillance, where the drive trying to correct an error, rather than keep the video streaming consistently, could be a really big deal. That's EXACTLY what AV-rated drives were ORIGINALLY marketed for use in. It's only been recently, that they ADDED personal DVR use as a target market, even though TiVo was already using them. Maybe TiVo keeps on thinking someday they'll turn it on and make use of it. But, unlike a surveillance system, TiVo only needs to if they reach a certain number of streams, or wants to put multiple streams onto one screen, in realtime, like a surveillance system can do. I'm sure the drive manufacturers must've either given TiVo a great offer, or applied some pressure, but can I prove that? No.


Also the video production industry likes their A/V drives (TV Stations, studios, etc).


----------



## sbourgeo

ggieseke said:


> I'll probably figure out enough of the new format to rewrite DvrBARS just because that's how I'm built, but if ten people per year actually use it on Roamios I'd be surprised. We don't need me anymore.


Your great work with DvrBARS is more important than ever with the launch of a new TiVo hardware platform. Having the ability to upgrade and expand to a larger drive with a storage capacity not available today while preserving recordings will always be very useful IMO. I would say the same for guided setup info, cable card pairing data, etc, but that is likely stored on internal flash now. Having a single utility that will work on all generations of TiVo hardware is also a pretty big deal.


----------



## RockinRay

My 3TB AV GP drive arrived and it has been installed and is working quite well. No issues on the install at all. Just too simple!

It now shows 477 HD hours... That is great!


----------



## elwaylite

Awesome!

Hopefully as we start filling them no problems show up. Ive used 2% of my 2TB so far.


----------



## brettatk

Ordered a Roamio Basic and 3TB AV-GP drive from Amazon yesterday. I had gift cards that practically covered the entire cost. I'm hoping both might show up Saturday but it looks like the Roamio will not be here until Tuesday. When it arrives I'll mostly likely add lifetime for $399. I have no plans to move away from OTA. Will probably keep my upgraded Tivo HD connected and load it up with Movies so they'll be ready to watch at any time.


----------



## RockinRay

We are over the air only and the picture is fantastic!

For the cable stuff we miss, we purchase season passes on iTunes and play them through an Apple TV. This works very well and saves us quite a bit of money each year.

Happy to be a cord cutter!

As this new drive gets some use, I will sure post if there are any issues.


----------



## Bwatford141

Does Winmfs work with the Roamio. I have had a Plus for a couple of days and would like to upgrade the drive without having to recreate the season passes and losing my recordings.


----------



## innocentfreak

Not that I know of. DVRbars will be your best hope if they are able to update it.


----------



## StevesWeb

lpwcomp said:


> The first disk drives _*I*_ worked with looked like this:
> 
> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cdc/cyber/brochures/844-21_Feb74.pdf


I used to see those when I was upgrading TeleType machines to 300 bit per second modems.

ON TOPIC:

I have a Roamio Basic on order because ATSC is my only option, and I have just ordered the WD-AV 3TB model from Amazon for $137.change
Amazon ASIN B004W9BKE0. Goodbye stupid Premiere XL with yucky Flash. Hateses it.


----------



## innocentfreak

StevesWeb said:


> I used to see those when I was upgrading TeleType machines to 300 bit per second modems.
> 
> ON TOPIC:
> 
> I have a Roamio Basic on order because ATSC is my only option, and I have just ordered the WD-AV 3TB model from Amazon for $137.change
> Amazon ASIN B004W9BKE0. Goodbye stupid Premiere XL with yucky Flash. Hateses it.


As someone who used to have DirecTiVos updated to 500 Hours, this will be nice to be back to that size.


----------



## wco81

do you guys store whole seasons of shows for years?

I've always had limited capacity.


----------



## innocentfreak

wco81 said:


> do you guys store whole seasons of shows for years?
> 
> I've always had limited capacity.


Yes until I feel like watching a show, and then I watch a couple. If I like it I will tend to do multiple marathons to catch up. I am in the process of doing this with Castle and recently did it with The Good Wife. If not, I delete the entire series.

I also record everything and anything that looks remotely interesting. On top of that I set up a ton of season passes for 1 or 2 episodes of reruns for shows like Top Gear in case I feel like watching it.


----------



## brettatk

I've almost watched everything on my Tivo HD. I plan to have them both hooked up. Will give me a total of like 600 HD hours or so.


----------



## ggieseke

Bwatford141 said:


> Does Winmfs work with the Roamio. I have had a Plus for a couple of days and would like to upgrade the drive without having to recreate the season passes and losing my recordings.


At this point I can confirm that WinMFS, MFSLive & jmfs won't work on a Roamio without a fairly comprehensive rewrite. The file system is still familiar enough that I think I can figure it out, but there are some major changes that invalidate every previous program including DvrBARS.

Without a 3TB image I'm stuck. PapaArt's 500GB image (thanks again) was really informative but it doesn't tell me how they broke the 2TB limit.


----------



## DaveDFW

ggieseke said:


> Without a 3TB image I'm stuck. PapaArt's 500GB image (thanks again) was really informative but it doesn't tell me how they broke the 2TB limit.


I'll be receiving and installing a 3tb drive in a Plus later today. What do you need?


----------



## Bwatford141

ggieseke said:


> At this point I can confirm that WinMFS, MFSLive & jmfs won't work on a Roamio without a fairly comprehensive rewrite. The file system is still familiar enough that I think I can figure it out, but there are some major changes that invalidate every previous program including DvrBARS.


Thanks for the heads up!


----------



## ggieseke

DaveDFW said:


> I'll be receiving and installing a 3tb drive in a Plus later today. What do you need?


After it gets through building the new drive and it's at the first Guided Setup scren, I need a Full backup using DvrBARS. The bad news is that it will probably take about a day to read 3TB depending on your PC and how the drive is connected. Once it's been through GS and has a few recordings (including 4-6 Live TV buffers depending on the model) the backup would probably be too big to transfer over the internet.

That's probably not an option for most people, but the first contributor gets a free copy of version 2 and anything else I write.


----------



## GoHokies!

DvrBARS is Windows only, right?

(I only have a Mac)


----------



## elwaylite

RockinRay said:


> We are over the air only and the picture is fantastic!
> 
> For the cable stuff we miss, we purchase season passes on iTunes and play them through an Apple TV. This works very well and saves us quite a bit of money each year.
> 
> Happy to be a cord cutter!
> 
> As this new drive gets some use, I will sure post if there are any issues.


I agree, the PQ is fantastic. I am able to flip back and forth and the Roamio PQ is better on a given OTA channel than the Dish Hopper with OTA tuner. Im not really understanding it, but its very easy for me to flip back and forth and its noticeable. Amazon VOD files at 1080p/24 are outstanding too.


----------



## innocentfreak

Hopefully I will have my Pro tonight so I may be able to do it. 

I assume dvrBARS runs fine on Win 8?


----------



## lpwcomp

To anyone willing to take the time and the (completely unknown) risk involved, I propose the following experiment:

Set up a stock drive in a Basic or Plus, including some SPs and recordings but nothing you don't mind losing.

Use DD Copy to clone the drive to a 3TB.

Install the larger drive in the TiVo and see what happens.


----------



## ggieseke

innocentfreak said:


> Hopefully I will have my Pro tonight so I may be able to do it.
> 
> I assume dvrBARS runs fine on Win 8?


It should, as long as you're running it under an accout with with admin rights. AFAIK they're putting empty drives in them at the factory, so what I really need is an image of a drive that has been through the first steps of initialization and is already up the the first Guided Setup screen.

I know that's a big ask...


----------



## innocentfreak

ggieseke said:


> It should, as long as you're running it under an accout with with admin rights. AFAIK they're putting empty drives in them at the factory, so what I really need is an image of a drive that has been through the first steps of initialization and is already up the the first Guided Setup screen.
> 
> I know that's a big ask...


I just realized I may not have the tools. I know I have some old weaknees tools laying around from when I did my parents DirecTiVo, but I don't know if I still have my full set for the ones needed for Roamio. Too many roommates have walked off with my tools.


----------



## jmpage2

lpwcomp said:


> To anyone willing to take the time and the (completely unknown) risk involved, I propose the following experiment:
> 
> Set up a stock drive in a Basic or Plus, including some SPs and recordings but nothing you don't mind losing.
> 
> Use DD Copy to clone the drive to a 3TB.
> 
> Install the larger drive in the TiVo and see what happens.


I think if you use DD you will get no capacity increase since its a raw copy including partition structure.


----------



## Bwatford141

innocentfreak said:


> I just realized I may not have the tools. I know I have some old weaknees tools laying around from when I did my parents DirecTiVo, but I don't know if I still have my full set for the ones needed for Roamio. Too many roommates have walked off with my tools.


Sears has a mini torx set for only $8.99.

http://www.sears.com/craftsman-5-pc...p-00941105000P?prdNo=4&blockNo=4&blockType=G4

Also, I wouldn't mind letting you borrow mine if you're anywhere near westchase.


----------



## Am_I_Evil

just tossed a 3TB into my Plus...going through the update process now...


----------



## ggieseke

Bwatford141 said:


> Sears has a mini torx set for only $8.99.
> 
> http://www.sears.com/craftsman-5-pc...p-00941105000P?prdNo=4&blockNo=4&blockType=G4
> 
> Also, I wouldn't mind letting you borrow mine if you're anywhere near westchase.


I posted a link earlier, but just Google Husky, Torx & Home Depot. The set I use every day cost about $6.

If that "westchase" is the one in Houston I'll be there tomorrow afternoon after work with bells on. I'm in Pasadena.


----------



## bodosom

ggieseke said:


> what I really need is an image of a drive that has been through the first steps of initialization and is already up the the first Guided Setup screen.


I don't run Windows but if no one else responds and you can use a compressed disk image (via dd) I can put in a 320G or 500G drive I have lying about. Unfortunately I don't have anything larger.


----------



## Bwatford141

ggieseke said:


> If that "westchase" is the one in Houston I'll be there tomorrow afternoon after work with bells on. I'm in Pasadena.


Lol, no sorry I am in Tampa.


----------



## ggieseke

bodosom said:


> I don't run Windows but if no one else responds and you can use a compressed disk image (via dd) I can put in a 320G or 500G drive I have lying about. Unfortunately I don't have anything larger.


If it's a dd of a new drive just after it's setup, it should compress down to less than 1GB. I'll take anything, and a free 2GB Dropbox account will more than suffice to transfer that much data.

Thanks for even considering it.


----------



## ggieseke

Bwatford141 said:


> Lol, no sorry I am in Tampa.


Dag-nab-it!


----------



## Rkkeller

My Roamio and 3tb HD should be coming tomorrow. As a non techie, I should put in the new HD and then start the Roamio???? It should do everything else.

Thanks,

Rich


----------



## innocentfreak

Bwatford141 said:


> Sears has a mini torx set for only $8.99.
> 
> http://www.sears.com/craftsman-5-pc...p-00941105000P?prdNo=4&blockNo=4&blockType=G4
> 
> Also, I wouldn't mind letting you borrow mine if you're anywhere near westchase.


Thanks, but I am out by USF. Worst case I will hit the Home Depot by Best Buy. I need to look around because I used to have a little set.

I am still waiting to hear from Best Buy to let me know my order is in so hopefully someone will be able to do a Pro earlier.


----------



## Am_I_Evil

this is fantastic


----------



## TC25D

Rkkeller said:


> As a non techie, I should put in the new HD and then start the Roamio????


Correct.



Rkkeller said:


> It should do everything else.


Correct.


----------



## lpwcomp

jmpage2 said:


> I think if you use DD you will get no capacity increase since its a raw copy including partition structure.


That's a (probably correct) assumption, but we simply do not know the answer. All previous TiVos model required that the drive be configured before installation. It would be useful to know what an R5 does in this situation. Even if it does not increase the space, if the settings and recordings are intact, it means that at least you should be able to replace a failing drive in the future and not lose much if anything.


----------



## bodosom

ggieseke said:


> If it's a dd of a new drive just after it's setup ...


You mean at the beginning of Guided Setup or after?

I'm currently about half way though zeroing the drive.

It looks like I'll be implicitly testing a couple things.

Like can I put it back sans setup? yes.
Does it remember everything? seems to.
Can I watch recordings? yes.
Watch some live tv? yes.
Is it still paired to the cable card? no. 

I stopped at pick a country.


----------



## PaulNEPats

FYI... NewEgg has the Western Digital 3TB drive WD30EFRX on sale for $130.99 shipped with coupon code EMCXMTX22


----------



## Devx

ggieseke, do you have what you need?

I just setup my Pro, fully through guided setup but not activated with a sub and no CableCard paired so no recordings yet. I need to figure out how I'm going to transfer recordings and retire my one of my TivoHD's first.


----------



## bodosom

ggieseke said:


> Thanks for even considering it.


I'm not compressing yet but from my zeroed and now formatted 320G drive:


Code:


$ strings /dev/sde
root=/dev/sda4
Apple
Apple_partition_map
Bootstrap 1
Image
Kernel 1
Image
Root 1
Ext2
Bootstrap 2
Image
Kernel 2
Image
Root 2
Ext2
Linux swap
Swap
/var
Ext2
MFS application region
MFS media region
MFS application region 2
MFS media region 2
SQLite
Ext2


----------



## innocentfreak

Devx said:


> ggieseke, do you have what you need?
> 
> I just setup my Pro, fully through guided setup but not activated with a sub and no CableCard paired so no recordings yet. I need to figure out how I'm going to transfer recordings and retire my one of my TivoHD's first.


He was still looking for a copy of the drive after it has gone through setup to see how it is partitioned.


----------



## DaveDFW

tatergator1 said:


> The consensus is that nothing survives a disk swap. I'd wait to pair your Card to save repeating the process in a couple days.


Just as an experiment, I went ahead and paired my Plus with its original drive. After swapping in a 3tb, I observed he Host ID did not change, but the Data ID did. Too bad the pairing information isn't saved in the flash.


----------



## jodell

elwaylite said:


> Awesome!
> 
> Hopefully as we start filling them no problems show up. Ive used 2% of my 2TB so far.


I have over 110 hours of recordings on my 2 TB drive so far and no problems. So far, so good.

Jeff


----------



## alansh

bodosom said:


> I'm not compressing yet but from my zeroed and now formatted 320G drive


Looks like the drive layout is pretty much the same. The first line is the kernel command line, the rest are the name and type of the Apple partition entries.


Code:


root=/dev/sda4
Apple                       Apple_partition_map
Bootstrap 1                 Image
Kernel 1                    Image
Root 1                      Ext2
Bootstrap 2                 Image
Kernel 2                    Image
Root 2                      Ext2
Linux swap                  Swap
/var                        Ext2
MFS application region
MFS media region
MFS application region 2
MFS media region 2
SQLite                      Ext2

Details in the MFS filesystem are the tricky part for expansion, of course.


----------



## ggieseke

bodosom said:


> You mean at the beginning of Guided Setup or after?


At the beginning of GS will get a smaller image (no guide data and nothing in the Live TV buffers).


----------



## ggieseke

If someone with a running 3TB is willing to spare a few minutes I may be able to get further in my research with just a partial Full backup.

Choose Backup > Full Backup and select the drive. It will mistakenly identify it as a Series 1. Proceed on through the menus, start the backup and let it run for about a minute. At that point hit the left arrow key to abort the backup and send me the VHD file.

Just the first few MB of the drive should tell me a lot.


----------



## Rkkeller

HELP, I can't get the top off !!!! I have my new Roamio and removed the 2 screws it said too, but my top will not slide off.

Any ideas?? I can see it is loose, but I am not sure where to press and hold to move it.


----------



## elwaylite

All you have to remove for the screws is ONE above the esata port.

All I did is start at the center back of the lid and work my nails/fingers in there, and then slowly slide them out to the ends on the back side, then around the sides. The very front is one little lip that goes in, the sides and back have the simple plastic clips you have to make pop loose. Reminds me of removing dash pieces in a car or door panels. You think you are going to break it, but you arent, you just have to work in at one spot then slowly work around popping the other clips loose.


----------



## Rkkeller

OK thanks. I was worried it would break. I see its coming.

Thanks.


----------



## bob61

MeInDallas said:


> I bet with the OS on flash this thing must run so good! OK you sold me on it now!


Seems like the biggest problem with Tivo's going bad is the hard drive. By going this route Tivo has made repairs for a bad hard drive a simple fix. Nice!


----------



## bob61

DaveDFW said:


> Does anyone know if CableCard pairing information survives the installation of a new hard drive? Or does the host ID change when the new drive is configured?
> 
> In other words, should I wait for my new hard drive before making the CableCard pairing call? The call is sufficiently unpleasant that I don't want to make it more than once.


In the past I installed a larger hard drive in my Tivo and had no problem with the cable card pairing.


----------



## jlin

Is WD30EFRX WD Red drives suitable or Roamio?


----------



## bradleys

bob61 said:


> In the past I installed a larger hard drive in my Tivo and had no problem with the cable card pairing.


That is because you used tools to copy the content of your origional drive to the larger drive - all the settings came along for the ride.

Now you just slap a new drive in the TiVo and it takes care of the formatting for you - but has now way a preserving either your content or settings.

A member is looking to expand the tools to handle the copy proces for the Roamio line - but even he admits it won't be used very often.

But for those that want to easily maintain an existing library during an upgrade, it will be a huge benifit.


----------



## bunjicat

I have upgraded a base Roamio with a 1tb seagate 7200 rpm drive I had laying around. Works great. For those who have upgraded the base Roamio, is the case (above where the drive is located) warm to the touch? Just want to get a baseline for heat and this drive.

Thanks


----------



## consumedsoul

bunjicat said:


> I have upgraded a base Roamio with a 1tb seagate 7200 rpm drive I had laying around. Works great. For those who have upgraded the base Roamio, is the case (above where the drive is located) warm to the touch? Just want to get a baseline for heat and this drive.
> 
> Thanks


Slightly warm but seems pretty normal for a drive that's right under the casing.


----------



## bunjicat

Thats what I wanted to hear. Do you have stock drive or something else?


----------



## consumedsoul

bunjicat said:


> Thats what I wanted to hear. Do you have stock drive or something else?


WD20EURS


----------



## Crrink

bunjicat said:


> I have upgraded a base Roamio with a 1tb seagate 7200 rpm drive I had laying around. Works great. For those who have upgraded the base Roamio, is the case (above where the drive is located) warm to the touch? Just want to get a baseline for heat and this drive.
> 
> Thanks


Mine was with the stock drive - temps here from earlier in the thread:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9783612#post9783612

"My unmodified Roamio basic is noticeably warm to the touch on the top case, above the hard drive.
Using a decent IR thermometer I get measurements in the mid 80F range along the top cover, and if I measure at the vents on the side the HDD is on I get a max of around 105F.
My MBT reading is 44C, ambient room temp is about 75F."


----------



## Crrink

jlin said:


> Is WD30EFRX WD Red drives suitable or Roamio?


I put one in my Roamio basic, and so far so good.
I've been transferring shows for the last couple of days, so haven't been able to do any warm/cold boot testing to see if wdidle needs to be run or not.
The drive is the quietest drive I've ever heard...or not heard, I suppose. Can't hear any seeking noise the way I can with the 2 year old 2Tb WD AV-GP drive I have in the TiVo HD I'm replacing.

I think it's safest to replace with a Green drive, but the small amount of research I quickly did indicated that a Red drive would be fine in a DVR, and so far, I'm glad I saved the $20 by going with one.

YMMV, of course.

Edit: I just tried a warm and cold reboot - no problems, so I think my Red drive is all good!


----------



## fungflex

Got to say, that was the easiest hard drive upgrade I have ever done on a device like this. I yanked a 3TB WD Green (EZRX) I had in another computer. I didn't even format or wipe out the hard drive. 

Installed it before turning it on for the first time, plugged everything in, and powered it up for the first time and it took a couple minutes and I am now showing 450+ hours of HD recording on my Roamio Plus.

Not sure how normal people even bother dealing with TiVo without TivoCommunity.

These forums helped me find one in stock at the best price, upgrade the hard drive quickly and easily, and identify before the TiVo arrived that my cablecard from FIOS was going to cause issues and should be swapped out for a newer part number.

Now for me to finish running around my house doing guided setups on a Roamio Plus (Pro) and three tivo Minis


----------



## ggieseke

fungflex said:


> Got to say, that was the easiest hard drive upgrade I have ever done on a device like this. I yanked a 3TB WD Green (EZRX) I had in another computer. I didn't even format or wipe out the hard drive.
> 
> Installed it before turning it on for the first time, plugged everything in, and powered it up for the first time and it took a couple minutes and I am now showing 450+ hours of HD recording on my Roamio Plus.
> 
> Not sure how normal people even bother dealing with TiVo without TivoCommunity.
> 
> These forums helped me find one in stock at the best price, upgrade the hard drive quickly and easily, and identify before the TiVo arrived that my cablecard from FIOS was going to cause issues and should be swapped out for a newer part number.
> 
> Now for me to finish running around my house doing guided setups on a Roamio Plus (Pro) and three tivo Minis


They did an awesome job this time even if it was more for their benefit than ours. Both sides win.

Nice to know that you don't necessarily have to wipe the drive first.


----------



## scandia101

elwaylite said:


> Odd, I did not lose any feet but have been seeing people dealing with that.
> 
> There ya go


I just watched the youtube video that was linked to in this thread that shows this same information - 316 HD hours or 2174 SD hours.
When I upgraded my Premiere to 2TB, it showed 317 HD hours, which is in line with the Roamio with 2TB, but my Premiere showed 2779 SD hours which is 600 more than the Roamio. Why would there be such a significant difference?









(disregard the colored underlines)


----------



## innocentfreak

scandia101 said:


> I just watched the youtube video that was linked to in this thread that shows this same information - 316 HD hours or 2174 SD hours.
> When I upgraded my Premiere to 2TB, it showed 317 HD hours, which is in line with the Roamio with 2TB, but my Premiere showed 2779 SD hours which is 600 more than the Roamio. Why would there be such a significant difference?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (disregard the colored underlines)


Probably due to analog support in the Premiere. With analog you could change the quality of the recording which would reduce the size on lower quality settings, but with digital you record exactly as it comes in so the variable is more precise.


----------



## aaronwt

It's all just an estimate anyway.

If I set up a few hundred recordings from the H.264 channels on FiOS I would be able to store alot more hours of HD than it shows in the Sys info screen since H.264 recordings take up less space than MPEG2 recordings.


----------



## P42

A theory on why 4TB drives are not working:
The basic flash boot drive, which is sufficient to get the Tivo booted and talking with the mothership, does a check for drive size "if greater than X, and smaller then Y, then download image, else fail" (where X=500 and Y=3000). 

I don't recall 3TB being a limit for any particular OSes or partitioning scheme (yes I know Tivo is to it own in this arena), or a hardware limit, but rather Tivo don't want someone selling something they are not. I suspect that if Tivo offers a Pro+ with a large HDD, that that will become the new upper limit.

Just a theory, and a large guess, and as valuable/useless as anyone else's


----------



## ggieseke

P42 said:


> A theory on why 4TB drives are not working:
> The basic flash boot drive, which is sufficient to get the Tivo booted and talking with the mothership, does a check for drive size "if greater than X, and smaller then Y, then download image, else fail" (where X=500 and Y=3000).
> 
> I don't recall 3TB being a limit for any particular OSes or partitioning scheme (yes I know Tivo is to it own in this arena), or a hardware limit, but rather Tivo don't want someone selling something they are not. I suspect that if Tivo offers a Pro+ with a large HDD, that that will become the new upper limit.
> 
> Just a theory, and a large guess, and as valuable/useless as anyone else's


I'd guess that someone (somewhere) used "long int" instead of "long unsigned int" in one subroutine, but that's just another WAG. 3TB is indeed a weird number.

The Apple Partition Map that they use puts a max of 2TB on any single drive but they have obviously beaten that limit. I don't know how yet, but I'll find out eventually.

If I had to go WAY out on a limb and play Kreskin, I think the next update will support 4TB drives.


----------



## Series3Sub

I would LOVE it if someone could post a video on YouTube of showing us how to remove and replace the cover on the Roamio. Thanks.


----------



## Series3Sub

I think it really think the 3TB limit is more to do with reliability. The density required even for 3TB is getting pretty tight, and the additional HEAT may be an additional issue and this device is to be located in a home with kids or others occasionally moving jostling it and such, and it doesn't take much to errors on such a highly dense HOME consumer product that is NOT designed for laptops. It may be that TiVo just doesn't want to go that close to the edge or beyond the envelop they fell comfortable with for having a sufficiently reliable device. I don't think the really care of Weeknees sells a 4TB TiVo, overall, because others selling larger drives for TiVo's have always been the case.


----------



## aaronwt

Series3Sub said:


> I think it really think the 3TB limit is more to do with reliability. The density required even for 3TB is getting pretty tight, and the additional HEAT may be an additional issue and this device is to be located in a home with kids or others occasionally moving jostling it and such, and it doesn't take much to errors on such a highly dense HOME consumer product that is NOT designed for laptops. It may be that TiVo just doesn't want to go that close to the edge or beyond the envelop they fell comfortable with for having a sufficiently reliable device. I don't think the really care of Weeknees sells a 4TB TiVo, overall, because others selling larger drives for TiVo's have always been the case.


Whether 3TB or 4TB the drive should be using 1TB platters. If the 3TB drive is not and is using four platters to achieve 3TB, then all the more reason why 4TB is no issue. Seagate has the 4TB, 5900rpm drives which uses four platters. It's really only a matter of time until WD comes out with their own. Heck 5TB and 6TB drives are supposed to start coming out soon. Although not for consumer use.


----------



## BobCamp1

ggieseke said:


> I'd guess that someone (somewhere) used "long int" instead of "long unsigned int" in one subroutine, but that's just another WAG. 3TB is indeed a weird number.
> 
> The Apple Partition Map that they use puts a max of 2TB on any single drive but they have obviously beaten that limit. I don't know how yet, but I'll find out eventually.
> 
> If I had to go WAY out on a limb and play Kreskin, I think the next update will support 4TB drives.


Well, if their official product only comes in a 3 TB flavor, and the hard drive reports 4, it thinks something must be wrong with the hard drive. I mean, no one is supposed to open the box, right?


----------



## BobCamp1

P42 said:


> A theory on why 4TB drives are not working:
> The basic flash boot drive, which is sufficient to get the Tivo booted and talking with the mothership, does a check for drive size "if greater than X, and smaller then Y, then download image, else fail" (where X=500 and Y=3000).
> 
> I don't recall 3TB being a limit for any particular OSes or partitioning scheme (yes I know Tivo is to it own in this arena), or a hardware limit, but rather Tivo don't want someone selling something they are not. I suspect that if Tivo offers a Pro+ with a large HDD, that that will become the new upper limit.
> 
> Just a theory, and a large guess, and as valuable/useless as anyone else's


I don't think it's stub code. I think it's the actual OS. Has anyone tried this without an Internet connection to see what happens?


----------



## lessd

BobCamp1 said:


> I don't think it's stub code. I think it's the actual OS. Has anyone tried this without an Internet connection to see what happens?


It is a fixed stub code as I first used and fully set up the 1Tb drive that came with the Plus, then put in a 2Tb drive, the software had already been upgraded to the newest, it would have been in the flash, but the Plus did the full upgrade again, so I will go out on a limb and say the flash holds only the ability to format a new drive and put software on this new drive to run the remote, and all three internet connections, after the internet connection is made the first thing the Plus does is upgrade the TiVo with software (the newest) then starts the guided setup again, after some re-boots. You can still do a C&D all on the drive, then the setup mode does not try to upgrade again.
I will get a 2nd Plus next Friday and will try putting the 1Tb drive from the first Plus into the 2nd Plus and see what happens, I will guess that the unit will boot with an error like past TiVos did and then I will do a C&D all and see if the setup works without any software upgrades.


----------



## cncb

In general is there any warning from the Tivo that a hard drive might be going bad such that you would have time to transfer recordings somewhere else to put back on later?


----------



## Joe Siegler

RockinRay said:


> We are over the air only and the picture is fantastic!
> 
> For the cable stuff we miss, we purchase season passes on iTunes and play them through an Apple TV. This works very well and saves us quite a bit of money each year.
> 
> Happy to be a cord cutter!
> 
> As this new drive gets some use, I will sure post if there are any issues.


This is me. Antenna only. I wrote about my move to an antenna, and the troubles I had with interference in my walls if someone cares to read about that, the story is here.

Looking forward to this box, because my Premiere is dog slow, as y'all well know. I currently have two Premiere units. Both unmodified, although one of them has lifetime, and the other has a grandfathered annual subscription on it. The latter was one I got from a friend who didn't want it anymore, and I took it off his hands for $40, which also got me 7 months of service, as he just "wanted it gone".

Ultimately what I'd want is to have two Roamios (both basic due to antenna only), but I'm also broke, and I can probably sell the lifetime premiere to cover the cost of the service for a lifetime Roamio, but I'll still have to buy the box, and money is super tight now. I'm assuming selling the Premiere with annual service won't get me much of anything. The one with annual service I considered replacing with a Mini, but that requires hardwired internet, and there's no internet cable to the room where this box would live, so it has to be wireless. 

This thread (which I read all of from start to this post) makes me want to for the first time ever tinker with my box. I've been a TiVo owner since 2000, and my original Series 1 box way back when. Been through almost every major model since then, but I've always been afraid of bricking them, so I've never bothered. This however is a revelation in upgrading.

Someone else in here made a request for a Youtube video showing getting the case off a Roamio. I'd like to see that myself to be honest.


----------



## gamo62

aaronwt said:


> It's all just an estimate anyway.
> 
> If I set up a few hundred recordings from the H.264 channels on FiOS I would be able to store alot more hours of HD than it shows in the Sys info screen since H.264 recordings take up less space than MPEG2 recordings.


A double edged sword. It does take up less space than MPEG2, but the Stream will not play nice with H.264 content. Only MPEG2.


----------



## gamo62

elwaylite said:


> All you have to remove for the screws is ONE above the esata port.
> 
> All I did is start at the center back of the lid and work my nails/fingers in there, and then slowly slide them out to the ends on the back side, then around the sides. The very front is one little lip that goes in, the sides and back have the simple plastic clips you have to make pop loose. Reminds me of removing dash pieces in a car or door panels. You think you are going to break it, but you arent, you just have to work in at one spot then slowly work around popping the other clips loose.


How about a YouTube video of the procedure?


----------



## Rkkeller

My install yesterday went fine after I posted here.

I think the 1st post in this thread should be updated some as that is what confused me. It was a BIG help, but the wording on one thing could be confusing.

I only needed a Torx T10 to remove all the screws and the cover should be "pried upward" and off from back to front not "slid forward" like the picture in the first post says. I used a butter knife and wiggled it under and it pops up and off.

I was trying and trying to "slide" it, then I posted here and someone said to just "pry" it off. It could save others some time.


----------



## Rkkeller

I am very non techie and upgraded the HD so if anyone else is worried, don't be. It is as simple as it sounds.


----------



## ggieseke

Thanks to Devx I was able to get a partial 3TB image (all hail!). Here's what I found, and boy do I feel stupid. 

We've always "known" that the Apple Partition Map uses 32-bit unsigned numbers for the starting offset and the partition length fields. Since those numbers refer to 512 byte sectors, simple logic indicates that you can only describe a 2TB drive.

But what if the last physical partition had a start address just below the 32-bit maximum value and you use 64-bit math?

That's exactly what TiVo did. The last MFS media partition starts around the 1.5TB mark and it's just over 1.22TB long. Those figures are true multiples of 1024, not drive manufacturer "terabytes". When it's all said and done, the Apple Block0 and the APM partitions add up to 3,000,592,982,016 bytes, which is exactly the size of a WD30EURS.

P.S. I see no reason why a 4TB drive wouldn't work.


----------



## innocentfreak

I wonder if the only way to do it though is to copy the original drive and create the partitions yourself. 

I thought someone tested swapping the drives and the only way it didn't format was if the TSN matched. I may be wrong and misremembering though.


----------



## lpwcomp

ggieseke said:


> Thanks to Devx I was able to get a partial 3TB image (all hail!). Here's what I found, and boy do I feel stupid.
> 
> We've always "known" that the Apple Partition Map uses 32-bit unsigned numbers for the starting offset and the partition length fields. Since those numbers refer to 512 byte sectors, simple logic indicates that you can only describe a 2TB drive.
> 
> But what if the last physical partition had a start address just below the 32-bit maximum value and you use 64-bit math?
> 
> That's exactly what TiVo did. The last MFS media partition starts around the 1.5TB mark and it's just over 1.22TB long. Those figures are true multiples of 1024, not drive manufacturer "terabytes". When it's all said and done, the Apple Block0 and the APM partitions add up to 3,000,592,982,016 bytes, which is exactly the size of a WD30EURS.
> 
> P.S. I see no reason why a 4TB drive wouldn't work.


Wouldn't an additional TB push you up against either the partition size limit or the starting byte address limit?


----------



## ggieseke

innocentfreak said:


> I wonder if the only way to do it though is to copy the original drive and create the partitions yourself.


You would have to resize the existing media partitions instead of adding one more like jmfs, but the math says it's possible.


----------



## ggieseke

lpwcomp said:


> Wouldn't an additional TB push you up against either the partition size limit or the starting byte address limit?


Each of the two media partitions would have to be just under 2TB instead of roughly 1.5TB and 1.2TB, but it's possible. If the last media partition started at 0xFFFFFFF8 it would work.


----------



## Kolenka

ggieseke said:


> That's exactly what TiVo did. The last MFS media partition starts around the 1.5TB mark and it's just over 1.22TB long. Those figures are true multiples of 1024, not drive manufacturer "terabytes". When it's all said and done, the Apple Block0 and the APM partitions add up to 3,000,592,982,016 bytes, which is exactly the size of a WD30EURS.
> 
> P.S. I see no reason why a 4TB drive wouldn't work.


I wonder if the bug Weaknees hit involved this hack. The Tivo might not partition the 4TB drive correctly. It would need to be partitioned manually in that case.

Although I wonder why TiVo is still using APM. Seems like a perfect opportunity to move to a more modern partition scheme...


----------



## morac

Kolenka said:


> I wonder if the bug Weaknees hit involved this hack. The Tivo might not partition the 4TB drive correctly. It would need to be partitioned manually in that case.


Even if it was, the Roamio would need to recognize it as already being set up or it would simply try to partition it itself and fail, presumably because starting address and partition sizes are hard coded for drives larger than 2 TB. If that's the case the code in flash would need to be changed to work with a drive larger than 3 TB.

It would be an interesting test to put a 2.5 TB drive in and see if the Roamio a) sets it up correctly and b) uses the same starting address and partition size as it does for a 3 TB drive.



Kolenka said:


> Although I wonder why TiVo is still using APM. Seems like a perfect opportunity to move to a more modern partition scheme...


Likely because it's extra work for little reward. The Roamio Pro can get up to 4 TB with an expander drive (or 5 TB if they ever make 2 TB expanders). That gives a ridiculous amount of recording time. Way more than the average TiVo user needs.


----------



## lessd

morac said:


> Even if it was, the Roamio would need to recognize it as already being set up or it would simply try to partition it itself and fail, presumably because starting address and partition sizes are hard coded for drives larger than 2 TB. If that's the case the code in flash would need to be changed to work with a drive larger than 3 TB.
> 
> It would be an interesting test to put a 2.5 TB drive in and see if the Roamio a) sets it up correctly and b) uses the same starting address and partition size as it does for a 3 TB drive.
> 
> Likely because it's extra work for little reward. The Roamio Pro can get up to 4 TB with an expander drive (or 5 TB if they ever make 2 TB expanders). That gives a ridiculous amount of recording time. Way more than the average TiVo user needs.


I see it being worthwhile to be able to expand from say 1Tb to 2Tb or 3Tb without the loss of settings or programs, but the need to go to 4Tb internally has to be very small and as pointed out you can get to 4Tb with an external drive. BUT a challenge is a challenge.


----------



## ggieseke

lessd said:


> BUT a challenge is a challenge.


Yeah, and it makes me wonder if I could do the same thing on a Premiere.


----------



## innocentfreak

I don't think they ever made a 2.5 TB drive. I couldn't find one on Amazon or Newegg. I wonder if you could test it with a 1.5TB drive.



lessd said:


> I see it being worthwhile to be able to expand from say 1Tb to 2Tb or 3Tb without the loss of settings or programs, but the need to go to 4Tb internally has to be very small and as pointed out you can get to 4Tb with an external drive. BUT a challenge is a challenge.


It would be nice in the future when the 4TB drives drop the the prices of 3TB and 2TB drives.


----------



## morac

innocentfreak said:


> I don't think they ever made a 2.5 TB drive. I couldn't find one on Amazon or Newegg. I wonder if you could test it with a 1.5TB drive.


Don't know if this is compatible, but

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Intellipower-Desktop/dp/B004SBI2MU


----------



## Rkkeller

This thread is getting long, can anyone tell me if you lose your CC paring info if you add a different HD????

Also does "anything" stay behind if you swap out the HD's????


----------



## Rkkeller

What happens if you add a 4TB HD??? Does it just use it like a 3TB or not work at all????


----------



## moyekj

Rkkeller said:


> This thread is getting long, can anyone tell me if you lose your CC paring info if you add a different HD????
> 
> Also does "anything" stay behind if you swap out the HD's????


 Nothing is saved - it's like starting with a brand new TiVo.



Rkkeller said:


> What happens if you add a 4TB HD??? Does it just use it like a 3TB or not work at all????


TiVo won't boot up properly.


----------



## bodosom

Rkkeller said:


> can anyone tell me if you lose your CC paring info if you add a different HD?


You will lose your pairing each time if e.g. you take out your original drive, put in a new drive and then replace the original drive. Other more subtle drive switching might or might have the same results but I wouldn't be surprised if TiVo reset the pairing state whenever the drive id changed.


----------



## bareyb

So I guess if you plan to upgrade the drive the time to do it is when it's still new. I debated getting a Plus and upgrading but I think I'm leaning towards the Pro now. Just for simplicity.


----------



## bodosom

Well, I'd do it before you load hours of content you want to keep. Card pairing is iffy. I had one take 20 minutes and one take an hour. Given how busy TWC is at the moment it's hard to do it in less than 15 minutes. If that's an issue for you then ...

Some people like to wait a while (say 90 days) to make sure the TiVo won't have an early out-of-warranty failure. I've just read that buying at Best Buy can help with that.


----------



## jodell

While trying to get GGieseke a backup of a 2 TB drive pre-guided setup (which I see Devx beat me to the punch, thanks Devx) I decided to test a second theory.

I installed a new 2 TB drive into my Roamio and powered it up without the network cable attached. I wanted to test the theory that the flash only contained enough information to connect to the network to download the data and partition the drive.

The Roamio booted, decided the drive needed to be partitioned (the drive has a serious error and must be repartitioned, all data will be lost (or something to that effect). After a couple reboots, the Roamio was ready to start guided setup.

I am making a backup now for GGieseke just in case it is helpful. 

Jeff


----------



## jodell

And I can confirm that you loose cable card pairing when removing a drive with paring information saved to it and later replacing it. 

Luckily for me, at 10 PM on a holiday weekend no one else was calling Cox tech support. I was on hold for 2 minutes and was re-paired within another 2 minutes.

Jeff


----------



## swerver

Seems if tivo REALLY didn't mind people upgrading drives, they woulda just used your average phillips screw on the hdd.


----------



## zundian

swerver said:


> Seems if tivo REALLY didn't mind people upgrading drives, they woulda just used your average phillips screw on the hdd.


I was able to pick up a couple of Torx-head screwdrivers at a small town (population 508) hardware store without any trouble, I'm pretty sure you can find them everywhere.


----------



## elwaylite

Everyone should have a torx kit laying around! Never know when you will need them.


----------



## BobCamp1

ggieseke said:


> Thanks to Devx I was able to get a partial 3TB image (all hail!). Here's what I found, and boy do I feel stupid.
> 
> We've always "known" that the Apple Partition Map uses 32-bit unsigned numbers for the starting offset and the partition length fields. Since those numbers refer to 512 byte sectors, simple logic indicates that you can only describe a 2TB drive.
> 
> But what if the last physical partition had a start address just below the 32-bit maximum value and you use 64-bit math?
> 
> That's exactly what TiVo did. The last MFS media partition starts around the 1.5TB mark and it's just over 1.22TB long. Those figures are true multiples of 1024, not drive manufacturer "terabytes". When it's all said and done, the Apple Block0 and the APM partitions add up to 3,000,592,982,016 bytes, which is exactly the size of a WD30EURS.
> 
> P.S. I see no reason why a 4TB drive wouldn't work.


It's an invalid (gray area) APM scheme -- I don't think it was designed with that in mind, but it's not illegal (Wikipedia is wrong again -- anyone here want to edit the entry?). Tivo knows that and just carries on. The problem is that a program like gparted or an OS might flag that as an error and not let you work on that drive unless you manually edited the partition table yourself.

So you could just use dd to copy the old drive to the new drive, manually edit the partition table to expand the last partition yourself, and you should have your old programs and the full capacity of the new drive. Unless there is also some database manipulation that has to also happen. Note that would only get you 3.5 TB of the 4 TB drive, but it's painless.

If you wanted to use all 4 TB, you'd have to start moving and resizing partitions so they'd line up just right.


----------



## lessd

BobCamp1 said:


> It's an invalid APM scheme, but the TiVo knows that and just carries on. The problem is that a program like gpartd might flag that as an error and not let you work on that drive unless you manually edited the partition table yourself.
> 
> So you could just use dd to copy the old drive to the new drive, manually edit the partition table to expand the last partition yourself, and you should have your old programs and the full capacity of the new drive. Unless there is also some database manipulation that has to also happen.


Unlike Dell or HP making IBM compatible PCs, TiVo does not have to meet any set standard for how the TiVo does it work inside the box, so what TiVo does is only for TiVos convenience not for DIY people like many on this forum, the new Series 5 models appear to make it very easy to upgrade the hard drive to a max of 3Tb inside and add another 1Tb external, that would give one over 600 hours of HD record time, that should be good for over 99% of TiVo users, but than there is the challenge of hacking the TiVo, been going on for over 12 years so why stop now.


----------



## BobCamp1

lessd said:


> Unlike Dell or HP making IBM compatible PCs, TiVo does not have to meet any set standard for how the TiVo does it work inside the box, so what TiVo does is only for TiVos convenience not for DIY people like many on this forum, the new Series 5 models appear to make it very easy to upgrade the hard drive to a max of 3Tb inside and add another 1Tb external, that would give one over 600 hours of HD record time, that should be good for over 99% of TiVo users, but than there is the challenge of hacking the TiVo, been going on for over 12 years so why stop now.


I know, realized my mistake, and I edited my post just before you posted.  It's difficult thinking about these things while waiting in line for roller coasters.  But you'd still like to copy the old stuff over to a larger hard drive *AND* expand, which is where the tools would still have a purpose.

I updated my post to say that we should be able to use 3.5 TB of a 4 TB drive with no major hacks. Using all 4 TB will be a challenge, and isn't worth it except as a challenge.


----------



## lessd

BobCamp1 said:


> I know, realized my mistake, and I edited my post just before you posted.  It's difficult thinking about these things while waiting in line for roller coasters.  But you'd still like to copy the old stuff over to a larger hard drive *AND* expand, which is where the tools would still have a purpose.
> 
> I updated my post to say that we should be able to use 3.5 TB of a 4 TB drive with no major hacks. Using all 4 TB will be a challenge, and isn't worth it except as a challenge.


:up:


----------



## morac

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure TiVo implemented things this way, for their own cost savings benefit, not to help out do it yourself upgraders.

With no set up difference between the Plus and Pro, there's really only 2 models: the Roamio and the Roamio Plus/Pro. Tivo throws a 1 TB drive in, it's a Plus. TiVo throws a 3 TB drive in, it's a Pro. It also makes repairing and reselling refurbished models a breeze, since all they need to do is plop in a new HD. They can even sell a refurbished Pro as a Plus or vice-versa.

Finally it makes "upgrading", the models easier. If TiVo wants to switch to use a 1 TB drive in the Roamio in a year or two, as the drives get cheaper, they can easily do so.


----------



## ggieseke

BobCamp1 said:


> It's an invalid (gray area) APM scheme -- I don't think it was designed with that in mind, but it's not illegal (Wikipedia is wrong again -- anyone here want to edit the entry?). Tivo knows that and just carries on. The problem is that a program like gparted or an OS might flag that as an error and not let you work on that drive unless you manually edited the partition table yourself.
> 
> So you could just use dd to copy the old drive to the new drive, manually edit the partition table to expand the last partition yourself, and you should have your old programs and the full capacity of the new drive. Unless there is also some database manipulation that has to also happen. Note that would only get you 3.5 TB of the 4 TB drive, but it's painless.
> 
> If you wanted to use all 4 TB, you'd have to start moving and resizing partitions so they'd line up just right.


If you want to keep the partitions on a 4K alignment as TiVo seems to be doing with the Roamio line, the max per drive should be 4,398,046,502,912 bytes. That should utilize all of any current "4TB" drive.

Adding partitions won't work anymore once you're past the 2TB limit, but resizing and moving them should still be possible. The tough part is that it isn't just modifying the APM. You have to rewrite all of the MFS zone headers and create new MFS "bitmaps" to go along with it.

I have started reprogramming, but it's going to take a while. For one thing, the file format I'm using now can't describe a drive > 2TB. Another problem is that even though I _think_ I know enough about MFS to pull it off, writing and testing the code is another matter. I also don't have a Roamio yet or any drives > 2TB to test with.

For now I think we'll just have to settle for 450 hours of HD.


----------



## ggieseke

jodell said:


> While trying to get GGieseke a backup of a 2 TB drive pre-guided setup (which I see Devx beat me to the punch, thanks Devx) I decided to test a second theory


I'm still curious about how they'd auto-partition a 2TB drive. My current program can't properly image anything over 2TB, so the 3TB image from Devx is informative (thanks again) but not complete. A 2TB image would still be extremely valuable.


----------



## jodell

ggieseke said:


> I'm still curious about how they'd auto-partition a 2TB drive. My current program can't properly image anything over 2TB, so the 3TB image from Devx is informative (thanks again) but not complete. A 2TB image would still be extremely valuable.


I will be sending you a box.com folder share later today so you can look at a full backup of a 2 TB drive.

Jeff


----------



## jcthorne

swerver said:


> Seems if tivo REALLY didn't mind people upgrading drives, they woulda just used your average phillips screw on the hdd.


Torx screws were developed for robotic assembly lines. A single tool can grasp the screw, insert and torque it. A Phillips head by design cannot hold the screw to the bit because of the internal angles of the drive pattern.


----------



## jmpage2

jcthorne said:


> Torx screws were developed for robotic assembly lines. A single tool can grasp the screw, insert and torque it. A Phillips head by design cannot hold the screw to the bit because of the internal angles of the drive pattern.


Bingo.


----------



## Joe Siegler

Man, this new upgrade procedure is making me want to go get one and do the upgrade. Have never messed with one my TiVo's ever, going back 13 years to my first one. 

Now I have to find the bloody money to get it.


----------



## Dan203

Screws and stickers don't matter because they can tell from their logs if you've upgraded your drive. If they decide to enforce the rules they can tell right from their computer screen if you've opened the lid. In the past they've mostly turned a blind eye to upgrading, but that could change at and time. So you're taking a risk by upgrading the drive.


----------



## midlomuncher

Joe Siegler said:


> Now I have to find the bloody money to get it.


ebay all of that stuff you don't use anymore. People love to buy other peoples junk.


----------



## PaulNEPats

Dan203 said:


> Screws and stickers don't matter because they can tell from their logs if you've upgraded your drive. If they decide to enforce the rules they can tell right from their computer screen if you've opened the lid. In the past they've mostly turned a blind eye to upgrading, but that could change at and time. So you're taking a risk by upgrading the drive.


Even so I think they'd have to prove that replacing the drive caused whatever issue requiring warranty service.


----------



## lessd

PaulNEPats said:


> Even so I think they'd have to prove that replacing the drive caused whatever issue requiring warranty service.


Prove to who!! Open the case warranty finished, but TiVo has never made a big deal out of this policy, the mother board/PS goes bad, put in the original disk and ask for a RMA, chances are the TiVo CSR will not go into your logs, just don't tell them, as some have done, that *I upgraded the drive and nine months later the TiVo went south, I put the original drive back in and the TiVo still will not work please give me a RMA.
*


----------



## mdscott

While warranty refusal on a modified DVR simply because it has been modified is a potential issue -- I do not believe that a search of all the forums on the site will find a report of it having happened EVER. 

Just be aware of the possibility and do any modifications carefully -- such as by closely following the instructions provided by well respected vendors. 

michael


----------



## HerronScott

mdscott said:


> While warranty refusal on a modified DVR simply because it has been modified is a potential issue -- I do not believe that a search of all the forums on the site will find a report of it having happened EVER.


While not exactly the same as warranty refusal on a modified TiVo, there was at least one report of an out-of-warranty repair being refused due to the TiVo being modified.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6949231#post6949231

Scott


----------



## mdscott

HerronScott said:


> there was at least one report of an out-of-warranty repair being refused due to the TiVo being modified.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6949231#post6949231
> 
> Scott


Not sure whether to say "Touché" or "That is the exception which proves the rule." 

I would agree with Tivoupgrade that there are a number of alternatives to out of warranty repair -- though they do not have the option of assisting with transfer of PLS in the event of catastrophe or as part of an upgrade incentive.

Me, I like opening boxes. But then I killed WiFi on my MacPro installing a SSD.

michael

ps: good find


----------



## HerronScott

mdscott said:


> ps: good find


I remembered when that one was posted but the hard part was finding it again. 

I can't say that I've seen another post though before that or since then.

Scott


----------



## vurbano

nooneuknow said:


> True. Welcome to TCF. I'm sure the longer you are here, the more it will stand out that there's plenty of condescension and insulting going on, from plenty of people, who will never once apologize for it.


Sorry but I haven't notice that.


----------



## Dan203

PaulNEPats said:


> Even so I think they'd have to prove that replacing the drive caused whatever issue requiring warranty service.


That might be true with car warranties, but I don't think it applies to electronics. With electronics a simple static shock to any component in the case could cause failure of the whole system so I think simply proving you opened the case would be enough to deny a warranty repair.

Also just because they have never really cared about upgrades in the past doesn't mean that policy wont change in the future. We're talking about an extended warranty that covers the next 2-3 years. Their policy could easily change in that time. I'm not saying it will, but you're taking a risk if you open the case and expect an extended warranty to be honored.


----------



## jmpage2

Dan203 said:


> That might be true with car warranties, but I don't think it applies to electronics. With electronics a simple static shock to any component in the case could cause failure of the whole system so I think simply proving you opened the case would be enough to deny a warranty repair.
> 
> Also just because they have never really cared about upgrades in the past doesn't mean that policy wont change in the future. We're talking about an extended warranty that covers the next 2-3 years. Their policy could easily change in that time. I'm not saying it will, but you're taking a risk if you open the case and expect an extended warranty to be honored.


Dan, what you aren't taking into account is TiVo's history of being flexible and encouraging tinkering (or more recently turning a blind eye). They have had options to shutdown operations like Weaknees with drive encryption schemes but have never done so. There is some risk of upgrading your drive but myself and most others would say that risk is probably very low.

Obviously for some that very small risk is still too much compared to any monetary savings. Personally I like to tinker and appreciate saving a few bucks.


----------



## ncbill

Given Tivo's short (90 day) full-replacement warranty as I've said before I think there's no point in arguing with a CSR when you can instead just buy an extended warranty and wait until day 91 to upgrade the drive.

All the extended warranties (even the one sold by Tivo) are serviced by 3rd parties who would have no idea you swapped drives, as long as you didn't obviously break anything, put the original drive back, & are not foolish enough to admit you DIY upgraded when arranging for service (the linked poster admitted to the CSR they had previously upgraded the drive in their Tivo HD)



Dan203 said:


> That might be true with car warranties, but I don't think it applies to electronics. With electronics a simple static shock to any component in the case could cause failure of the whole system so I think simply proving you opened the case would be enough to deny a warranty repair.
> 
> Also just because they have never really cared about upgrades in the past doesn't mean that policy wont change in the future. We're talking about an extended warranty that covers the next 2-3 years. Their policy could easily change in that time. I'm not saying it will, but you're taking a risk if you open the case and expect an extended warranty to be honored.


----------



## Series3Sub

jmpage2 said:


> Bingo.


And it's not like you can't get Torx screw easily and cheaply.


----------



## jmpage2

Series3Sub said:


> And it's not like you can't get Torx screw easily and cheaply.


With the advent of the Internet getting torx screws and tools is cheap & easy.


----------



## jodell

jodell said:


> I will be sending you a box.com folder share later today so you can look at a full backup of a 2 TB drive.
> 
> Jeff


The 2 TB drive full backup was uploaded for your review.

Jeff


----------



## bkrodgers

Dan203 said:


> Screws and stickers don't matter because they can tell from their logs if you've upgraded your drive. If they decide to enforce the rules they can tell right from their computer screen if you've opened the lid. In the past they've mostly turned a blind eye to upgrading, but that could change at and time. So you're taking a risk by upgrading the drive.


Everyone keeps saying Tivo doesn't care. But when a friend's Tivo HD (which I had upgraded for her) went totally dead a year or so ago and swapping drives didn't fix it, I called and asked if we had any options to pay for a repair (it was well out of warranty). They immediately told me they could see that the drive had been replaced and that I had no options -- I couldn't pay them to fix it specifically because of the drive.

I didn't argue it too much, because it had died during a storm and nearby lightening strike, and she could lump it onto the insurance claim for other issues. But they definitely knew right away that it had been upgraded, and flat out said that putting the old drive in didn't matter, I'd voided all support options, paid or otherwise.


----------



## Dan203

ncbill said:


> All the extended warranties (even the one sold by Tivo) are serviced by 3rd parties who would have no idea you swapped drives


I'm not sure that's the case. Wile the insurance portion of the warranty sold by TiVo may be backed by a 3rd party TiVo still handles the support. And as bkrodgers, and others, can attest they know immediately that you've upgraded the drive.

That being said... Knowing and caring are two different things. In the past they have pretty much ignored self upgrades and lots of people have gotten away with doing exactly what you suggest. However that does not mean their policy wont change. Just to be clear I'm not saying it will change, I'm just saying it could. I don't want anyone coming in here thinking that doing a self upgrade is 100% safe and TiVo will never know, because they absolutely will know immediately.

This is especially true for all you guys that are putting in the new drive before you even turn the thing on. I personally would recommend booting it up with the original drive, running through setup, making sure all the tuners work, the video outputs, the Ethernet port, etc... and maybe even using it for a few days to make sure it's not going to fail before cracking the case and putting in a new drive. Because if you discover something is wrong after you've put in that new drive there is no guarantee TiVo wont tell you tough luck.


----------



## jmpage2

Dan203 said:


> I'm not sure that's the case. Wile the insurance portion of the warranty sold by TiVo may be backed by a 3rd party TiVo still handles the support. And as bkrodgers, and others, can attest they know immediately that you've upgraded the drive.
> 
> That being said... Knowing and caring are two different things. In the past they have pretty much ignored self upgrades and lots of people have gotten away with doing exactly what you suggest. However that does not mean their policy wont change. Just to be clear I'm not saying it will change, I'm just saying it could. I don't want anyone coming in here thinking that doing a self upgrade is 100% safe and TiVo will never know, because they absolutely will know immediately.
> 
> This is especially true for all you guys that are putting in the new drive before you even turn the thing on. I personally would recommend booting it up with the original drive, running through setup, making sure all the tuners work, the video outputs, the Ethernet port, etc... and maybe even using it for a few days to make sure it's not going to fail before cracking the case and putting in a new drive. Because if you discover something is wrong after you've put in that new drive there is no guarantee TiVo wont tell you tough luck.


If purchased from Amazon or BB and you make that discovery they will happily replace it as part of their normal return policy. I replaced my Plus drive with a 2TB drive before i ever powered it up. If it had been a lemon putting the original drive back in and returning it would not have been a problem.

As to TiVo, yes, they are in a position to be more sticklers about this and maybe they will be soon. We don't know if the ease of upgradeability was a design choice or oversight on their part but i suspect the former in this case.

Honestly i dont know why TiVo should even care. People replace HDs on their computers all the time. On a 1-5 difficulty scale it rates a 1 and most consumers can co it without causing a problem.


----------



## aaronwt

Most people cannot replace the hard Drive in their pc. They have no clue what to do.

Now people on this forum are not average but I can't even count the number of people who can't even defrag a hard drive. They have no idea how to replace a hard drive. And if they tried they would almost certainly screw something up. 

Even some people I've worked with who are suppose to know it as part of their job description could not replace the hard drive.


----------



## Dan203

I suspect the easy upgrade was added for their MSO partners and maybe to reduce manufacturing costs. I don't think retail customers being able to upgrade easily was given much weight one way or the other. 

As for why they would care.... The Plus/Pro units have unshielded power supplies which can seriously hurt you if you touch them, so for liability reasons alone it's in their best interest to discourage self upgrades. Plus there is the monetary interest. They charge $200 extra for a Pro vs a Plus with the only difference being the HDD size.

Again I'm not saying they will do this, I'm saying they could and people should take that into consideration when doing a self upgrade.


----------



## jmpage2

Dan203 said:


> I suspect the easy upgrade was added for their MSO partners and maybe to reduce manufacturing costs. I don't think retail customers being able to upgrade easily was given much weight one way or the other.
> 
> As for why they would care.... The Plus/Pro units have unshielded power supplies which can seriously hurt you if you touch them, so for liability reasons alone it's in their best interest to discourage self upgrades. Plus there is the monetary interest. They charge $200 extra for a Pro vs a Plus with the only difference being the HDD size.
> 
> Again I'm not saying they will do this, I'm saying they could and people should take that into consideration when doing a self upgrade.


I think in addition to selling boxes to MSO sans drives, they are trying to make the units easier to repair in the field and reduce warranty costs. Unless Margaret is feeling generous we will likely never know.


----------



## CoxInPHX

Dan203 said:


> I suspect the easy upgrade was added for their MSO partners and maybe to reduce manufacturing costs. I don't think retail customers being able to upgrade easily was given much weight one way or the other.


I don't see the MSO partners using the Base Roamio at all. Due to no built-in MoCA support, and the fact it is so cheaply made, I don't see it having any real longevity in a market where higher turnover is expected.

RCN stated that their Roamio (or Pace) was going to be dubbed the "T6" so probably the Plus or Pro if a Roamio.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28576994-


----------



## Dan203

CoxInPHX said:


> I don't see the MSO partners using the Base Roamio at all. Due to no built-in MoCA support, and the fact it is so cheaply made, I don't see it having any real longevity in a market where higher turnover is expected.


It doesn't need MoCa if it's marketed as a standalone DVR with no multi-room expansion. (i.e. the low end option) And it's no more cheaply made then the cable modem I rented from my cable company for many years. In fact by making the hard drive easy to replace and the power supply external it's probably very easy to maintain in a high turnover market and cheap enough to replace if the customer never returns it. If they're $199 retail they're probably 1/2 that, or less, wholesale without a drive. For something that rents at $20/mo it wouldn't take long to become completely replaceable.


----------



## Devx

Dan203 said:


> I suspect the easy upgrade was added for their MSO partners and maybe to reduce manufacturing costs. I don't think retail customers being able to upgrade easily was given much weight one way or the other.
> 
> As for why they would care.... The Plus/Pro units have unshielded power supplies which can seriously hurt you if you touch them, so for liability reasons alone it's in their best interest to discourage self upgrades. Plus there is the monetary interest. They charge $200 extra for a Pro vs a Plus with the only difference being the HDD size.
> 
> Again I'm not saying they will do this, I'm saying they could and people should take that into consideration when doing a self upgrade.


That's also why those considering or purchasing warranties direct from Tivo should probably look elsewhere if they plan or even think they may do a self upgrade in the future. For those DIY'ers that want a warranty, an extended warranty from a third party would be preferable. It's possible the CSR that handles the support case won't check the logs for an upgrade but it's definitely a gamble.


----------



## elwaylite

Here is my thing. If they can see that it was added and when, and there is a HDD failure, sure refuse to warranty that. If you add the HDD and the Tivo quits working near that point, sure dont warranty (you damaged something installing the drive, maybe). If I install a new drive, and it runs for 9 months before somethign inside gives out, gimme a break. Id never expect em to warranty the drive of course.


----------



## CrispyCritter

Dan203 said:


> If they're $199 retail they're probably 1/2 that, or less, wholesale without a drive. For something that rents at $20/mo it wouldn't take long to become completely replaceable.


I don't think they're close to $199 retail (unsubsidized). I would be surprised if wholesale without a drive was less than $250 - $300 (remember wholesale still has to include a profit for TiVo.) Cable companies are paying more than that for their DVRs from places like Pace, AFAICT.


----------



## innocentfreak

elwaylite said:


> Here is my thing. If they can see that it was added and when, and there is a HDD failure, sure refuse to warranty that. If you add the HDD and the Tivo quits working near that point, sure dont warranty (you damaged something installing the drive, maybe). If I install a new drive, and it runs for 9 months before somethign inside gives out, gimme a break. Id never expect em to warranty the drive of course.


The problem though is you could short the board while you were replacing the drive. It actually happened to me on an old DirecTiVo where the plug to the front panel came just slightly loose while putting everything back together. When I booted the box, it shorted the main board.


----------



## Rkkeller

Has anyone tried this HD?

I was just talking to a friend and its what he ordered. The figures look similar to other 3gb HD's, but not sure.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Green-Desktop/dp/B004RORMF6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top


----------



## ncbill

The AV-GP drive is about $10 more - why not just stick with that?



Rkkeller said:


> Has anyone tried this HD?
> 
> I was just talking to a friend and its what he ordered. The figures look similar to other 3gb HD's, but not sure.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Green-Desktop/dp/B004RORMF6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top


----------



## NYHeel

innocentfreak said:


> The problem though is you could short the board while you were replacing the drive. It actually happened to me on an old DirecTiVo where the plug to the front panel came just slightly loose while putting everything back together. When I booted the box, it shorted the main board.


Yeah, that's why he said if it broke right after the upgrade that would be understandable. But if it's been running for a few months then I think it's pretty clear that the drive upgrade didn't do anything. And if you use the 3TB AV-GP drive then they can't blame the drive because it's the same one they use in the Pro model. I'm not a lawyer but I wonder if a warranty denial in that case would hold up in court.



Dan203 said:


> This is especially true for all you guys that are putting in the new drive before you even turn the thing on. I personally would recommend booting it up with the original drive, running through setup, making sure all the tuners work, the video outputs, the Ethernet port, etc... and maybe even using it for a few days to make sure it's not going to fail before cracking the case and putting in a new drive. Because if you discover something is wrong after you've put in that new drive there is no guarantee TiVo wont tell you tough luck.


Of course if it fails on initial start-up then Tivo never had any logs at all with which to tell which drive you used. So even if you fried the board because of your drive upgrade Tivo wouldn't know that. You can make an argument for pulling the ethernet cable on initial boot-up with a new drive.


----------



## Rkkeller

ncbill said:


> The AV-GP drive is about $10 more - why not just stick with that?


Mine is already upgraded, I copied a link I found here before and told him that's the one to buy. The specs look the same and I see someone else using it on page 28. I just don't want my friend giving me guff.


----------



## Joe Siegler

midlomuncher said:


> ebay all of that stuff you don't use anymore. People love to buy other peoples junk.


Oh, I'm aware of that concept. The problem is I have a Premiere with lifetime, which selling off would likely cover the lifetime of a new Series 5.

My second unit is a Premiere with grandfathered annual service. Something that isn't worth a lot. So to buy two Series 5's with lifetime would require a large cost outlay that I simply don't have at this time.


----------



## elwaylite

innocentfreak said:


> The problem though is you could short the board while you were replacing the drive. It actually happened to me on an old DirecTiVo where the plug to the front panel came just slightly loose while putting everything back together. When I booted the box, it shorted the main board.


You didnt read my post. I agreed with a HDD failure on the one I installed, or even if something else fails soon after I install and bootup, BUT, if it runs 9 months then craps out. Cut me some slack. I get damaged it during install, but if it runs all those months, dont screw and blame it on a previous HDD install.


----------



## ncbill

After the first 90 days that's irrelevant, because I'm no longer dealing with Tivo but instead the 3rd party "extended warranty" provider.

It is their obligation (not Tivo's) to perform under the terms of the agreement, which means repairing/replacing my unit, or paying me the invoice (hardware + lifetime).

Since all "extended warranties" are nearly 100% pure profit there's little incentive to rock the boat.

As you note, however, it's prudent not to 'crack the case' before day 91 so you can skip any hassles while under the standard Tivo warranty.



Dan203 said:


> I'm not sure that's the case. Wile the insurance portion of the warranty sold by TiVo may be backed by a 3rd party TiVo still handles the support. And as bkrodgers, and others, can attest they know immediately that you've upgraded the drive...
> 
> This is especially true for all you guys that are putting in the new drive before you even turn the thing on. I personally would recommend booting it up with the original drive, running through setup, making sure all the tuners work, the video outputs, the Ethernet port, etc... and maybe even using it for a few days to make sure it's not going to fail before cracking the case and putting in a new drive. Because if you discover something is wrong after you've put in that new drive there is no guarantee TiVo wont tell you tough luck.


----------



## Dan203

ncbill said:


> After the first 90 days that's irrelevant, because I'm no longer dealing with Tivo but instead the 3rd party "extended warranty" provider.
> 
> It is their obligation (not Tivo's) to perform under the terms of the agreement, which means repairing/replacing my unit, or paying me the invoice (hardware + lifetime).


But the TiVo extended warranty is still serviced by TiVo. Do you really think they will have different policies regarding opening the case for the extended warranty vs the standard warranty just because someone else is footing the bill? I doubt it. If they decide that opening the case voids the warranty I'm pretty sure it would apply to all warranties, including the extended warranty. Even if it doesn't have to.

If you're going to open the case you should really consider getting a warranty from someone other then TiVo just to be safe.


----------



## swerver

zundian said:


> I was able to pick up a couple of Torx-head screwdrivers at a small town (population 508) hardware store without any trouble, I'm pretty sure you can find them everywhere.


Right, I have some and have used them for a couple things, including upgrading my premiere hdd. I'm just saying most people don't have them, it's security thru obscurity. I believe that's part of why torx was invented. They are typically only used when the manufacturer really doesn't want you to remove it.



jcthorne said:


> Torx screws were developed for robotic assembly lines. A single tool can grasp the screw, insert and torque it. A Phillips head by design cannot hold the screw to the bit because of the internal angles of the drive pattern.


Are you saying a robot can't use phillips screws? I don't know much about the topic but that seems unlikely. Wouldn't a magnetic driver solve that? Anyway, if that's the case that makes more sense actually, that it's not a security measure but more of an automation best practice.

Anyway, just a thought. Maybe it was just easier/more cost effective to leave that part of the spec as is, than to make a change that wasn't of any real benefit.


----------



## vurbano

Upgraded my plus today as soon as it arrived. It's going through updates. They sold this thing with no book I see. Never used it anyway.


----------



## ncbill

They're not really warranties, but service contracts.

The legal obligation to repair/replace (or reimburse) rests solely on the service contract provider, which is not Tivo itself but Service Net Warranty, LLC ("Service Net")

There's no reason for Tivo to get involved since they've already received their commission off the sale of the extended warranty.



Dan203 said:


> But the TiVo extended warranty is still serviced by TiVo. Do you really think they will have different policies regarding opening the case for the extended warranty vs the standard warranty just because someone else is footing the bill? I doubt it. If they decide that opening the case voids the warranty I'm pretty sure it would apply to all warranties, including the extended warranty. Even if it doesn't have to.
> 
> If you're going to open the case you should really consider getting a warranty from someone other then TiVo just to be safe.


----------



## Dan203

ncbill said:


> They're not really warranties, but service contracts.
> 
> The legal obligation to repair/replace (or reimburse) rests solely on the service contract provider, which is not Tivo itself but Service Net Warranty, LLC ("Service Net")
> 
> There's no reason for Tivo to get involved since they've already received their commission off the sale of the extended warranty.


So if TiVo has knowledge that you've opened the box and violated the warranty you don't think they have any obligation to report that to the warranty company? Even though they are the ones that handle the call and fulfill the replacement?

Seems risky to me. Would personally get a warranty through BestBuy or SqureTrade if I were planning on doing an upgrade. Seems like they're more likely to look the other way if someone else has already exchanged the hardware and all they're doing is transferring service.


----------



## jmpage2

Dan203 said:


> So if TiVo has knowledge that you've opened the box and violated the warranty you don't think they have any obligation to report that to the warranty company? Even though they are the ones that handle the call and fulfill the replacement?
> 
> Seems risky to me. Would personally get a warranty through BestBuy or SqureTrade if I were planning on doing an upgrade. Seems like they're more likely to look the other way if someone else has already exchanged the hardware and all they're doing is transferring service.


Well the most likely thing to fail is the hard drive anyway, so if the hard drive I installed fails I would just buy another (bigger) one or do an RMA on the drive itself.


----------



## PaulNEPats

Dan203 said:


> So if TiVo has knowledge that you've opened the box and violated the warranty you don't think they have any obligation to report that to the warranty company? Even though they are the ones that handle the call and fulfill the replacement?
> 
> Seems risky to me. Would personally get a warranty through BestBuy or SqureTrade if I were planning on doing an upgrade. Seems like they're more likely to look the other way if someone else has already exchanged the hardware and all they're doing is transferring service.


Okay, you convinced me. I canceled the TiVo warranty and went with SquareTrade. I had a 40% coupon so I got 3 years of coverage for $32. So I even saved a few bucks


----------



## ncbill

They'd be foolish to involve themselves in any dispute between the end user and the 3rd party responsible for the service contract - they've already got their cut, why involve themselves in the decision process when it can only cost them?

I doubt their contract with the 3rd party provider allows them any input or leeway as to the 3rd party's decision process - if the 3rd party tells them to 'drop ship a replacement' then that's what they do under the terms of their arrangement.

Again, past the standard warranty, statistically that's going to happen once in a blue moon, so why risk upsetting the gravy train?

I don't think I can emphasize enough how enormously profitable any form of "extended warranty" is for the seller and those taking a commission on the sale.



Dan203 said:


> So if TiVo has knowledge that you've opened the box and violated the warranty you don't think they have any obligation to report that to the warranty company? Even though they are the ones that handle the call and fulfill the replacement?
> 
> Seems risky to me. Would personally get a warranty through BestBuy or SqureTrade if I were planning on doing an upgrade. Seems like they're more likely to look the other way if someone else has already exchanged the hardware and all they're doing is transferring service.


----------



## wco81

What does the end-user license say?

You know the one you probably agree to at some point?

If it says warranty is void if you opened it, they have a leg to stand on, you don't.


----------



## mattack

cncb said:


> In general is there any warning from the Tivo that a hard drive might be going bad such that you would have time to transfer recordings somewhere else to put back on later?


Note, I don't have a Roamio, but I suspect that the answer is the same as with every other Tivo..

NO... Except you are likely to see a lot more reboots and/or glitchy recordings while the drive is starting to go flaky but hasn't completely died.


----------



## JohnnyO

[ It sure would be nice if all the discussion of warranties was in a different thread...]

I upgraded my Roamio Basic with a 2 TB drive over the weekend. All went smoothly. Big thanks to the note originator for taking the time to dive in and share.

As others have noted, I only had to remove one screw. One other thing to be aware of is that one of drive-tray attachment "bars" needs to be attached upside down. You can sort of see this in the photos, but I initially attached them in the same orientation, and found the drive to stick up on one-side. An easy fix.

My season passes have been copied over (thanks Tivo.com) and I'm moving about 20 desired shows from my old TiVoHD over to the new Roamio.

John


----------



## jmpage2

swerver said:


> Right, I have some and have used them for a couple things, including upgrading my premiere hdd. I'm just saying most people don't have them, it's security thru obscurity. I believe that's part of why torx was invented. They are typically only used when the manufacturer really doesn't want you to remove it.
> 
> Are you saying a robot can't use phillips screws? I don't know much about the topic but that seems unlikely. Wouldn't a magnetic driver solve that? Anyway, if that's the case that makes more sense actually, that it's not a security measure but more of an automation best practice.
> 
> Anyway, just a thought. Maybe it was just easier/more cost effective to leave that part of the spec as is, than to make a change that wasn't of any real benefit.


You should read the Wiki on Torx to better understand the technology. Philips was designed for the driver to slip out of the fastener when too much torque was applied which is extremely typical when automation is in use. The Torx design increases coupling when torque is applied and is a better option with robotic or machine assembly systems. In layman's terms what this means is that you have a better coupling, by design, between driver and fasteners than is possible with a slotted screwdriver arrangement.


----------



## brettatk

JohnnyO said:


> My season passes have been copied over (thanks Tivo.com) and I'm moving about 20 desired shows from my old TiVoHD over to the new Roamio.
> 
> John


Thanks for posting this. I wasn't even aware this was possible. Guess I need to visit TiVo.com more often.


----------



## Dan203

I used a program called kmttg to copy my SPs instead of TiVo.com. I've used TiVo.com in the past and it has two problems that kmttg seems to be able to get past...

1) It maintains the SP order correctly, where TiVo.com seems to copy them randomly. 

2) It was able to copy SPs for shows not currently in the guide. TiVo.com copies them but they show up as "corrupt" in the SP Manger until the show comes back into the guide. 

So I would highly recommend using kmttg over TiVo.com for copying SPs over.


----------



## aaronwt

Non of my SPs showed up as corrupt when I transferred 103 SPs online to my Roamio Pro. I had a bunch that were not in the guide and none of them showed anything unusual when I looked at them.

My only issue was that I could not transfer all of them at one time. So I I transferred 20 to 25 at a time.


----------



## cr33p

Upgraded my pro to 3tb last nite, pretty darn easy I would say!


----------



## HarperVision

Thought a pro was already 3TB???


----------



## jmpage2

HarperVision said:


> Thought a pro was already 3TB???


It is, I imagine it's a typo, he probably bought a Plus.


----------



## HarperVision

That's what I figured too. 

I finally was able to get over to Oahu and get my pro at best buy. Can't wait to get back tonight and play!


----------



## tbielowicz

cr33p said:


> Upgraded my pro to 3tb last nite, pretty darn easy I would say!


Are people setting up their new TiVo boxes before upgrading the hard drive.
Service setup, cable card setup etc...

Just curious before I get mine


----------



## consumedsoul

tbielowicz said:


> Are people setting up their new TiVo boxes before upgrading the hard drive.
> 
> Just curious before I get mine


I definitely loaded the stock drive and tried a few recordings before diving into replacing the new drive (just to make sure nothing's wrong w/ the main unit). Also got the SquareTrade warranty instead of TiVo's so I can replace unit within 2 yrs (since I'd be voiding warranty opening up TiVo).


----------



## jmpage2

tbielowicz said:


> Are people setting up their new TiVo boxes before upgrading the hard drive.
> Service setup, cable card setup etc...
> 
> Just curious before I get mine


You can do it either way. CC Pairing and other setup information is not preserved if you set it up with the factory drive and then replace it. Running it first with the factory drive does confirm the box is healthy (ideally you would do this for about 30-90 days before doing the drive replacement).

However..... most of us have seemingly been just cracking them open new and putting the bigger HD in.


----------



## elwaylite

As stated, either way. I set mine up and recorded some OTA with a DVR Expander before I found out easy the upgrade was.


----------



## vurbano

tbielowicz said:


> Are people setting up their new TiVo boxes before upgrading the hard drive.
> Service setup, cable card setup etc...
> 
> Just curious before I get mine


No. Put the new drive in as soon as you get it out of the box.


----------



## JohnnyO

tbielowicz said:


> Are people setting up their new TiVo boxes before upgrading the hard drive.
> Service setup, cable card setup etc...
> 
> Just curious before I get mine


I think some are doing the swap before initial boot, and others are testing the system as shipped from TiVo before swapping the drives.

I decided to go ahead and swap the drive before and testing, because I didn't want to go through the Guided set-up twice, and with the current upgrade option, there is no facility to copy data from one drive to another. I figured if I had issues, I could then drop back to the initial drive and test. I'm three days in on the 2 GB drive replacement drive with no issues so far.

John


----------



## astrohip

cr33p said:


> Upgraded my pro to 3tb last nite, pretty darn easy I would say!
> 
> 
> HarperVision said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thought a pro was already 3TB???
Click to expand...

That's why it was so easy!


----------



## tbielowicz

JohnnyO said:


> I think some are doing the swap before initial boot, and others are testing the system as shipped from TiVo before swapping the drives.
> 
> I decided to go ahead and swap the drive before and testing, because I didn't want to go through the Guided set-up twice, and with the current upgrade option, there is no facility to copy data from one drive to another. I figured if I had issues, I could then drop back to the initial drive and test. I'm three days in on the 2 GB drive replacement drive with no issues so far.
> 
> John


All - thanks for the replies.

One more question Cablecard related. Was it an easy swap from your Premier Tivo or was it a bit more complicated?

Just preparing myself as my Roamio arrived today and my hard drive is coming tomorrow.


----------



## PaulNEPats

Popped in a 3TB WD Red drive today. I've noticed some slight hitching when changing the channels. Not sure if that's just the channel data still loading/caching.


----------



## innocentfreak

http://www.wkblog.com/tivo/2013/09/crossing-the-4-tb-barrier-how-about-7-tb/#.UifMpBIvnTU.twitter

Looks like soon Weaknees may offer a 7TB Roamio.


----------



## jmpage2

Hats off to them for doing this. I'm definitely not the target demographic, especially since it will likely require a RAID-0 type arrangement with the 2nd drive on an eSATA port.


----------



## nooneuknow

While most probably don't care what I think...

I'm not going to gripe about the thread's sudden shift to warranty concerns. I think it's past-due for discussion on "the other side" of upgrading the drive.

It's a legitimate concern, and the thread's title doesn't include "Pictures of the same thing, over an over, and YouTube videos ONLY".

I was growing tired of seeing so many pictures, and clips, of what has already been confirmed. How many of the same do we need?

Yes, replicating the results are important. I think we've seen plenty of AV drive upgrades, and a small sampling of a few who chose to try a non-AV drive.

This is the first TiVo upgrade thread, for a new product, where the masses went straight to AV drives. I suspect the sudden negligible extra cost accounts for that. It used to nearly double the cost to get the AV drives, so things used to go the opposite way (people got the much-cheaper, at the time, non-AV drives).

I've had my fill of up-to-3TB AV drive data. I'm still very interested in how the non-AV drives work, and if they will continue to work as well as the AV drives, given some time. I suspect that they will, but only time will tell.

When I see people arguing with a forum moderator over warranty matters, I take it as a sign that it's a topic that I best keep anything I know, or think I do, to myself... So, that's my 2 cents. Happy upgrading everybody, and good luck (which you may also need if you find yourself with an upgraded Roamio, and it should fail, be discovered defective, and/or you need technical support from TiVo).


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> Hats off to them for doing this. I'm definitely not the target demographic, especially since it will likely require a RAID-0 type arrangement with the 2nd drive on an eSATA port.


That's always been their approach, one internal drive, one on the eSATA port, when it comes to going for the "Biggest TiVo capacity in the world" crown.

I suspected this was what they were working on, from the get-go. Now, all we need is for them to make sure it's going to work once full, and things start getting deleted for space, begin selling them, then somebody can try to reverse-engineer what they did, and maybe we can see some competition, keeping prices in check... They usually are the first, and their prices fall in line with assuming they can be the only source. Then, people like DVR_DUDE pop-up, selling at lower prices, and we won't have to take out a second mortgage to have the same thing...

I wonder how long it will take this time...


----------



## Devx

innocentfreak said:


> http://www.wkblog.com/tivo/2013/09/crossing-the-4-tb-barrier-how-about-7-tb/#.UifMpBIvnTU.twitter
> 
> Looks like soon Weaknees may offer a 7TB Roamio.


I can't get over the number of hours of content that is. Of course, its variable but for HD, its over 45 days and in SD, it's almost a years worth of playable content.


----------



## moyekj

Devx said:


> I can't get over the number of hours of content that is. Of course, its variable but for HD, its over 45 days and in SD, it's almost a years worth of playable content.


 Ridiculous if you ask me. I wouldn't trust a TiVo to preserve all that for as long as I want in the 1st place. But I'm probably in the minority being content with 1TB per 6 tuners (and perhaps lucky that my Cable Co. does not mark everything as copy protected like TWC does so anything I want to keep for the long term is offloaded).


----------



## nooneuknow

moyekj said:


> Ridiculous if you ask me. I wouldn't trust a TiVo to preserve all that for as long as I want in the 1st place. But I'm probably in the minority being content with 1TB per 6 tuners (and perhaps lucky that my Cable Co. does not mark everything as copy protected like TWC does so anything I want to keep for the long term is offloaded).


I'm of the opposite minority, in a way. I like having multiple 2-Tuner TiVos with 2TB each. One goes down, plenty left to take over, or plenty left to have more than one TiVo recording the same content, should one fail (or fail to record).

What I don't like about it is all the extra costs involved with all the cablecards required, and all the extra power each Tuning Adapter, on each unit sucks in, and pumps out as heat (adding to air conditioning load/electric bill costs).

While reducing cable and electric costs is a nice thought, along with more tuners and less conflicts, less TiVos means more chance of a TA going offline, or any number of single problems, causing all 4/6 tuners to become useless, and no recorded content...


----------



## jmbach

innocentfreak said:


> http://www.wkblog.com/tivo/2013/09/crossing-the-4-tb-barrier-how-about-7-tb/#.UifMpBIvnTU.twitter
> 
> Looks like soon Weaknees may offer a 7TB Roamio.


Probably a 3TB internal with a 4TB external. (It's probably obvious but I'd thought I mention it anyway) Getting a 4TB internal will require some finessing of the partition table and MFS media partitions.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4


----------



## Rkkeller

Guys I am getting worried. I have had 3 reboots in the last 6 hours, 2 of them in the last 30 minutes and I was doing nothing but watching the news.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

Rkkeller said:


> Guys I am getting worried. I have had 3 reboots in the last 6 hours, 2 of them in the last 30 minutes and I was doing nothing but watching the news.


WHat is your setup? CableCARD? HD upgrade? Much easier than having people search the thread for the relevant information.


----------



## Series3Sub

Rkkeller said:


> Guys I am getting worried. I have had 3 reboots in the last 6 hours, 2 of them in the last 30 minutes and I was doing nothing but watching the news.


Yes, more info please. I'm going to be an OTA user only, so I really want to know if this is just the CableCard TA fiasco.

Also, it could just be a bad TiVo---HDD, anyway.

So have your upgraded the HDD on your own and experiencing this problem? Let us know, and if so, what HDD you installed.

Thanks.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmbach said:


> Probably a 3TB internal with a 4TB external. (It's probably obvious but I'd thought I mention it anyway) Getting a 4TB internal will require some finessing of the partition table and MFS media partitions.


That was my assessment (educated guess) as well. Since it's 7TB, not 8, I assumed they put a 3TB on the inside and a 4TB on the eSATA port.

At least they seem to be testing things more thoroughly, after the whole original 4TB Premieres they were selling turned out to have a fatal flaw.

It must be absolutely killing them, having to hold-back, before starting sales. At that capacity, the testing phase might take a while...


----------



## Rkkeller

DCIFRTHS said:


> WHat is your setup? CableCARD? HD upgrade? Much easier than having people search the thread for the relevant information.


I am using a CC with Comcast and upgraded the HD to a 3tb, the one linked a few pages back in this thread.

I am doing a test, I started recording on all the tuners and it will record until I go home for lunch. Then I will see what happens or if its only one tuner or what.


----------



## andyw715

jmbach said:


> Probably a 3TB internal with a 4TB external. (It's probably obvious but I'd thought I mention it anyway) Getting a 4TB internal will require some finessing of the partition table and MFS media partitions.
> 
> Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4


I'm not very versed in RAID 0 (which is what I think happens when an eSATA drive is married to TiVO), but at the end of the day isn't the outcome (from the O/S point of view) a drive that looks like a big 7TB disk?

I guess I don't know what the difference would be if it were a 3TB + 4TB set up vs just a 7TB drive in there (except for the issue of the existence of a singl 7TB disk)


----------



## aaronwt

innocentfreak said:


> http://www.wkblog.com/tivo/2013/09/crossing-the-4-tb-barrier-how-about-7-tb/#.UifMpBIvnTU.twitter
> 
> Looks like soon Weaknees may offer a 7TB Roamio.


Sounds good but already with 3TB the my Shows list is becoming a pain. I really wish they would implement profiles then it would be easier to view content. For instance I would have one profile labeled news.

On a daily basis I have four to six tuners recording so the My shows list is becoming very large already even though I've only used around 25% of the storage space.

When I was using two Elites I had my Season Passes split up between them. But now with everything on one box the My Shows list is becoming very cluttered with so many shows being recorded each day. At least the navigation is very quick with the Roamio.


----------



## innocentfreak

andyw715 said:


> I'm not very versed in RAID 0 (which is what I think happens when an eSATA drive is married to TiVO), but at the end of the day isn't the outcome (from the O/S point of view) a drive that looks like a big 7TB disk?
> 
> I guess I don't know what the difference would be if it were a 3TB + 4TB set up vs just a 7TB drive in there (except for the issue of the existence of a singl 7TB disk)





andyw715 said:


> I'm not very versed in RAID 0 (which is what I think happens when an eSATA drive is married to TiVO), but at the end of the day isn't the outcome (from the O/S point of view) a drive that looks like a big 7TB disk?
> 
> I guess I don't know what the difference would be if it were a 3TB + 4TB set up vs just a 7TB drive in there (except for the issue of the existence of a singl 7TB disk)


Yes, but you also have two points of failure. And I believe if one drive fails you lose both drives worth of recordings.



aaronwt said:


> Sounds good but already with 3TB the my Shows list is becoming a pain. I really wish they would implement profiles then it would be easier to view content. For instance I would have one profile labeled news.
> 
> On a daily basis I have four to six tuners recording so the My shows list is becoming very large already even though I've only used around 25% of the storage space.


I agree. I already hit 30% on my Pro and it is going to be tough managing these.

I am already trying to figure out my strategy going forward.


----------



## HeatherA

Does anyone think either of these drives will work? I'm hoping to pick up a drive and a Roamio from Best Buy and none of the drives mentioned in the thread are available in store.

WD Drive I can get at Best Buy

Seagate Drive I can get at Best Buy


----------



## BobCamp1

Rkkeller said:


> Guys I am getting worried. I have had 3 reboots in the last 6 hours, 2 of them in the last 30 minutes and I was doing nothing but watching the news.


You may have a defective hard drive. Around 15% of hard drives are defective by the time they are used for the first time. The shipping process is very bad on a hard drive.

Put in the original drive and see if the problems go away. If so, start the RMA process.


----------



## andyw715

innocentfreak said:


> Yes, but you also have two points of failure. And I believe if one drive fails you lose both drives worth of recordings.


Yeah I was speaking in the point of view of the difficulty of an internal 4TB + drive.

When you plug in the eSATA, it effectively becomes one big drive, and the TiVo can manage it without having to do anything.

So If I have a Roamio Pro + 1TB extender. I have a RAID 0 or JBOD volume that is accessible as a 4TB drive.

The question is, as far as the O/S is concerned. What is the difference between an internal 4TB drive and an internal 3TB + 1TB extender?


----------



## jmpage2

HeatherA said:


> Does anyone think either of these drives will work? I'm hoping to pick up a drive and a Roamio from Best Buy and none of the drives mentioned in the thread are available in store.
> 
> WD Drive I can get at Best Buy
> 
> Seagate Drive I can get at Best Buy


Neither of those drives is optimized for DVR use. They are desktop drives, which means that they might run hotter as well as have power management features that mess with TiVo.

It very well might work, but if the drive runs noticeably warmer than what TiVo uses (Seagate or WD drives optimized for DVR use) then it could potentially cause some kind of issue somewhere down the line.

Or, it could work fine for years. I replaced drives in two of my old TiVo HD units with Samsung Spinpoint desktop hard drives. One worked fine for 3 years, the other one had a bad drive in 18 months.

Caveat Emptor.


----------



## overFEDEXed

aaronwt said:


> Sounds good but already with 3TB the my Shows list is becoming a pain. I really wish they would implement profiles then it would be easier to view content. For instance I would have one profile labeled news.
> 
> On a daily basis I have four to six tuners recording so the My shows list is becoming very large already even though I've only used around 25% of the storage space.
> 
> When I was using two Elites I had my Season Passes split up between them. But now with everything on one box the My Shows list is becoming very cluttered with so many shows being recorded each day. At least the navigation is very quick with the Roamio.


I had that problem with all of my kids shows. I use to use some program that I found here, to automatically pull the shows off the TiVo, put them in a folder, then push them back to the TiVo, now "grouped". It kept things more organized.

I may have to go back to that now.


----------



## Rose4uKY

Our 3 week old Premiere had 2TB and 300 HD Hours and coming from a Series 3 160hr 20 HD we couldn't get over all the shows we had and tons of Suggestions and still at like 13%. Well then we decided to return the Premiere cause the Roamio came out and the plus was the same price so we now have 1TB over 2 and 1/2 the amount of HD hours but I still think will be fine. I can't see having 7TB wow! I do wish I had the Pro but I am still happy with the plus better features and faster than the premiere and much more space than my old series 3.

But for some reason it's not recording suggestions still. But yes we had to pack up the Premiere and I have TWC and so much was copyrighted I was upset cause I lost a lot of good suggestions and rock concert off AXS TV that we like. But I think will be fine with 1TB all my season passes are mostly night time fall shows and 3 soaps and a morning talk show and since Suggestions get deleted 1st and having 6 tuner I don't think me and my boyfriend will have a conflict or any trouble and if I get behind on a few shows and just want them off the DVR cause there HD I can always transfer to my PC where I have a 2.5 TB external so I'm good.



moyekj said:


> Ridiculous if you ask me. I wouldn't trust a TiVo to preserve all that for as long as I want in the 1st place. But I'm probably in the minority being content with 1TB per 6 tuners (and perhaps lucky that my Cable Co. does not mark everything as copy protected like TWC does so anything I want to keep for the long term is offloaded).


----------



## jmpage2

It took over 24 hours before mine started doing suggestions. Adding new SPs and thumbs up/down of shows also helps it figure out what to record.


----------



## ncbill

Kudos to WK for their 7TB Roamio - hope they can verify that config is stable.

A 7TB Tivo would make a heck of a home media server...


----------



## morac

I don't fault WK for selling the 7 TB upgrade kit, but I don't see how they can, in good conscious, sell a Roamio 2 and 3 TB upgrade kit, when basically they are just selling a blank drive over cost.


----------



## andyw715

morac said:


> I don't fault WK for selling the 7 TB upgrade kit, but I don't see how they can, in good conscious, sell a Roamio 2 and 3 TB upgrade kit, when basically they are just selling a blank drive over cost.


Well they do offer 180 warranty on them. Which is more than you'd get if you void the TiVo one by opening up the box (all arguments set aside on Tivo and their supposed stance on this matter).


----------



## Aero 1

ncbill said:


> Kudos to WK for their 7TB Roamio - hope they can verify that config is stable.
> 
> A 7TB Tivo would make a heck of a home media server...


until someone in your house knocks out the esata cable of the external drive, or the external drive dies, then everything is gone.


----------



## ggieseke

andyw715 said:


> Yeah I was speaking in the point of view of the difficulty of an internal 4TB + drive.
> 
> When you plug in the eSATA, it effectively becomes one big drive, and the TiVo can manage it without having to do anything.
> 
> So If I have a Roamio Pro + 1TB extender. I have a RAID 0 or JBOD volume that is accessible as a 4TB drive.
> 
> The question is, as far as the O/S is concerned. What is the difference between an internal 4TB drive and an internal 3TB + 1TB extender?


The Linux operating system treats every partition as a separate logical drive. When the TiVo proprietary MFS file system kicks in it starts treating 4 or more "drives" as one big file system.

A two drive system (3+1 or 3+4) lets you add more partitions on the 2nd physical drive and the Apple Partition Map on that drive starts over again at zero.

It's not a true RAID 0 because the data isn't striped across all drives simultaneously, but since you can't know where it actually lives the effect is similar. A particular recording may be all on one drive, all on the other drive, or scattered across both.


----------



## TC25D

morac said:


> I don't fault WK for selling the 7 TB upgrade kit, but I don't see how they can, in good conscious, sell a Roamio 2 and 3 TB upgrade kit, when basically they are just selling a blank drive over cost.


'...in good conscious...'? Why? They're offering a product for people who are willing to pay someone else to get the drive and install it.


----------



## jmpage2

morac said:


> I don't fault WK for selling the 7 TB upgrade kit, but I don't see how they can, in good conscious, sell a Roamio 2 and 3 TB upgrade kit, when basically they are just selling a blank drive over cost.


Good conscience (is what I think you meant)?

They are offering a service. They are installing the drives, testing things out and offering you tech support and a warranty option if there is a problem.

Sounds to me like they are getting paid for services rendered.


----------



## morac

jmpage2 said:


> Good conscience (is what I think you meant)?
> 
> They are offering a service. They are installing the drives, testing things out and offering you tech support and a warranty option if there is a problem.
> 
> Sounds to me like they are getting paid for services rendered.


Are you sure the upgrade kits aren't self installs? They were back when I had my S2.


----------



## nooneuknow

morac said:


> Are you sure the upgrade kits aren't self installs? They were back when I had my S2.


I think people are confusing that they sell BOTH of the following:

DIY Kits, which include a drive, whatever tools (torx drivers), needed to install the drive, and instructions on how to do it.

AS WELL AS offering to do it for you AT AN ADDITIONAL COST.

Some people haven't a clue how to even do the slightest bit of DIY work on electronics, and/or are scared to death that they'll break the device. I'm the exact opposite of this, but I would be in the minority, if I were to take a poll of my zip code (which is a very well-educated guess).

I was just on Weaknees website, and see that the markup on the DIY Kits are ridiculous. I guess they are counting on the uneducated masses that don't know any better. If people did know the facts, and were DIY types, they would just buy a drive, and a cheap multi-bit driver that comes with torx bits, or just individual drivers of the sizes they need. You don't need a quality torx driver/bit to upgrade a TiVo. I've broken plenty of cheap tools, under normal to moderately heavy use (on CARS), but the only time I've broken a torx bit off is on a rusted car fastener (should have used my Craftsman set, instead of the cheap stuff from Harbor Freight Tools).

FYI, for all, Harbor Freight tools sells a 100pc "Security Bit Set", which has 97 bits, including tamper-resistant torx bits, which will work on regular torx fasteners, for $19.99 full-price, $9.99 sale price, and they often have 20% off coupons in their sale flyers. As long as you only use them on indoor home electronics, they should never fail. If you are lucky enough to have a retail outlet store in your area, they DO have a LIFETIME warranty on all hand tools, and they do include driver bits under it, with FREE REPLACEMENT.


----------



## jmpage2

morac said:


> Are you sure the upgrade kits aren't self installs? They were back when I had my S2.


Even if it is a kit they are doing the development work and warrantee the solution. They deserve to turn a profit if they are doing that.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> Even if it is a kit they are doing the development work and warrantee the solution. They deserve to turn a profit if they are doing that.


While I don't disagree with the general statement, I feel that the costs of shipping a whole TiVo, or even a drive kit, back and forth, eat away at the added value of their warranty. Also, since you can drop in a retail or OEM bulk drive, which has a warranty from the drive manufacturer included in the price of the drive, it's still a lot of markup. If it wasn't determined that the drives from TiVo ship blank, and practically any up-to-3TB drive will work, I wouldn't even be posting this.

I do fully agree that they do deserve to make some money due to the fact that they are always the leaders in doing the initial R&D. I feel the markup is excessive, based solely on that they are shipping you a blank drive. That's all. Maybe they test the drives in some sort of burn-in testing before they ship them, but I don't see any claim of that on their website.

I'd be happy to sell people a blank drive, a couple cheap torx drivers, and an instruction sheet, at those prices. I could offer a warranty, make you pay all the shipping, and if the drive goes bad, I send you another one, and RMA the bad one back to the source. How can I lose?


----------



## TC25D

nooneuknow said:


> I was just on Weaknees website, and see that the markup on the DIY Kits are ridiculous. I guess they are counting on the uneducated masses that don't know any better. If people did know the facts, and were DIY types, they would just buy a drive, and a cheap multi-bit driver that comes with torx bits, or just individual drivers of the sizes they need.


Good grief, what an assumption, that only 'the uneducated masses that don't know any better' could find value in what Weaknees offers. 



nooneuknow said:


> I feel the markup is excessive, based solely on that they are shipping you a blank drive.
> 
> I'd be happy to sell people a blank drive, a couple cheap torx drivers, and an instruction sheet, at those prices. I could offer a warranty, make you pay all the shipping, and if the drive goes bad, I send you another one, and RMA the bad one back to the source. How can I lose?


Since you believe their 'markup is excessive' and 'you can't lose', then why don't you start doing this? Of course, you might have to work on your customer service skills by never telling your customers you consider them 'uneducated masses'.


----------



## HeatherA

jmpage2 said:


> Neither of those drives is optimized for DVR use. They are desktop drives, which means that they might run hotter as well as have power management features that mess with TiVo.
> 
> It very well might work, but if the drive runs noticeably warmer than what TiVo uses (Seagate or WD drives optimized for DVR use) then it could potentially cause some kind of issue somewhere down the line.
> 
> Or, it could work fine for years. I replaced drives in two of my old TiVo HD units with Samsung Spinpoint desktop hard drives. One worked fine for 3 years, the other one had a bad drive in 18 months.
> 
> Caveat Emptor.


Hmmmm.... thanks for the info. I'm trying to decide on instant gratification and taking my chances or placing an order on Amazon for an AV drive. I wish Best Buy carried a larger selection of drives as I'd really like to pick one up after work today.


----------



## nooneuknow

TC25D said:


> Good grief, what an assumption, that only 'the uneducated masses that don't know any better' could find value in what Weaknees offers.


You know what I meant. "Uneducated", when it comes to all the education right here, as well as that many don't even find themselves here, unless they have a problem, and Google, or any other search engine, leads them here, in their search for answers, or a solution.



TC25D said:


> Since you believe their 'markup is excessive' and 'you can't lose', then why don't you start doing this? Of course, you might have to work on your customer service skills by never telling your customers you consider them 'uneducated masses'.


Who's being the smartazz now? You picked a post that I was being straightforward with, without crapping on anybody, which I thought through and reviewed/edited before posting it. Others have used far more harsh ways/words to describe those who don't have the knowledge/skills for DIY, or who don't do their research, and drop extra money on something they assume they need, when they may not have needed to spend the extra money.

I only stay out of the biz, due to the inevitable others who will also soon be offering the same thing, for the same target demographic, and because I do have a conscience, which overrides the desire to buy a drive, a couple cheap tools, and make a huge profit, off people who simply don't know nothing special has been done to the drive.

How about you just find the "Ignore User" function, and add me to it, since you always have some issue you can find with anything I post?


----------



## Rkkeller

HeatherA said:


> Hmmmm.... thanks for the info. I'm trying to decide on instant gratification and taking my chances or placing an order on Amazon for an AV drive. I wish Best Buy carried a larger selection of drives as I'd really like to pick one up after work today.


I have had non AV HD's in my TiVo HD and Premier for years. Someone just posted a Green vs AV comparison thread here yesterday and the actual differences are minimal. I think the biggest being the warranty.


----------



## nooneuknow

HeatherA said:


> Hmmmm.... thanks for the info. I'm trying to decide on instant gratification and taking my chances or placing an order on Amazon for an AV drive. I wish Best Buy carried a larger selection of drives as I'd really like to pick one up after work today.


Just my OPINION, based on what I know, and also based on the reports that I've been closely following on here:

1. Don't get a 7200RPM, or otherwise high-performance, drive. They draw extra power, could strain the power supply, and could also cause excessive temperatures inside the TiVo, due to the extra heat (and TiVos still don't require high-performance drives, nor will they improve the performance).

2. The preferred drives are in this order:

a: Green (low power, low heat, low RPM) AV-rated drives (even though some have used non-AV drives in Roamios at this point). Unless TiVo begins using the AV ATA streaming feature command set, it's a feature that is more strategic marketing, than a necessity.

b: WD Red NAS drives (which are not AV-rated), but meet the criteria as option (a), less the AV-rating, but approved by the manufacturer for 24/7 use (even though ALL modern hard drives are designed to be able to operate 24/7, just not all are marketed as such).

c: An ordinary Green drive, as described in (a), but are not AV-rated, or marketed as a 24/7 drive (key words in all of my advice are "marketed" and "marketing").

The AV and the NAS drives generally have a longer warranty, if that matters to you. If you are worried that using a drive not marketed for AV or DVR use will somehow void the drive warranty, don't be. You get the same warranty, no matter what application you use a drive for.

The cost differences have become so negligible at this point, that the safest thing to do would be to use a WD AV-GP drive, model WD30EURS (for 3TB), since TiVo has been factory installing this exact model series (WD__EURS), in past and present models. When it comes down to a $10 difference to get an AV drive, versus non-AV, most are spending the extra, for peace of mind (and/or a longer warranty). In the past, the price difference was so huge, most went with non-AV (since it was never a requirement). So far, it SEEMS like it isn't a requirement, for the Roamio. But, you never know what the next software update might change... Like, when they get the out of house streaming working, maybe they will call upon streaming functions, present only in AV-rated drives. Or, it's possible that feature of the AV drives will not be seen in action, until the next product, or even never...

Given the recent data provided by the author of DVRBARS, on how little has actually changed about the basics of the filesystem/partition structure, I wouldn't think TiVo could just switch on the AV functions of an AV drive, with a software update. BUT, if they have made the flash memory/BIOS remotely programmable, then I would start to wonder what they could enable. The product hasn't been out long enough for anybody to figure all these things out yet.

Hope this helps (somebody at least).


----------



## HeatherA

nooneuknow said:


> Just my OPINION, based on what I know, and also based on the reports that I've been closely following on here:
> <clip>
> Hope this helps (somebody at least).


That's good information. I'll have to look at the best buy drives I'm considering and see where they fit in. Price isn't an issue for me, it's more local availability.

Thanks!


----------



## nooneuknow

Rkkeller said:


> I have had non AV HD's in my TiVo HD and Premier for years. Someone just posted a Green vs AV comparison thread here yesterday and the actual differences are minimal. I think the biggest being the warranty.


+1 :up: I'm still running non-AV WD Green drives in most of my Premieres and TiVo HDs, as well.

I bought a case of WD20EURS 2TB AV-GP drives when Newegg had a sale a while back, but rethought using them, after seeing many reports of reduced performance, and a mix of other issues with them, here, and on other sites (when used in original model Premieres and HDs).

So, my WD20EADS drives will stay in use, until I see any signs of drive degradation, or imminent failure. Some are very close to outlasting their warranties.


----------



## HeatherA

Am I to understand that if the description of the drive doesn't state red/green etc then it doesn't fall into that type? I'm not sure if I should go with this drive or not based on what I'm reading on WD's website.

I may need to take a trip to best buy and see if they have any drives that fit the bill.


----------



## nooneuknow

HeatherA said:


> That's good information. I'll have to look at the best buy drives I'm considering and see where they fit in. Price isn't an issue for me, it's more local availability.
> 
> Thanks!


Thanks, no problem. One additional thought:

You may notice more WD_____X drives now, than the ones that end in "S".

The difference is that X's are SATA3, as opposed to SATA2 (a faster drive to host communication speed, which a TiVo won't benefit from).

The newer X ones are supposed to be completely backwards compatible, and sometimes are on sale for what the older ones go for. There shouldn't be any issue with using one. (If I'm wrong about this, I invite somebody to let me know, please).


----------



## nooneuknow

HeatherA said:


> Am I to understand that if the description of the drive doesn't state red/green etc then it doesn't fall into that type? I'm not sure if I should go with this drive or not based on what I'm reading on WD's website.
> 
> I may need to take a trip to best buy and see if they have any drives that fit the bill.


I just checked that link. You are correct. That would not be an ideal drive, or recommended. You should avoid "mainstream" desktop drives.

Generally, the Green drives come in Green boxes, and say Green all over the place. The Red NAS drives will also specify what they are. Both should be available at Best Buy, especially the Green ones. I don't think I've ever seen a Green AV (AV-GP) drive at Best Buy, except for the ones that come inside the special DVR expander external drives.


----------



## HeatherA

nooneuknow said:


> I just checked that link. You are correct. That would not be an ideal drive, or recommended. You should avoid "mainstream" desktop drives.
> 
> Generally, the Green drives come in Green boxes, and say Green all over the place. The Red NAS drives will also specify what they are. Both should be available at Best Buy, especially the Green ones. I don't think I've ever seen a Green AV (AV-GP) drive at Best Buy, except for the ones that come inside the special DVR expander external drives.


I can't find anything on their website so I will head over after work and see. Thanks for the additional information. It's very helpful.


----------



## vurbano

I didnt even have to remove the drive brackets and HD from the unit in my plus. Some fingers holding the dirve and the small torx driver was able to turn the screws that attach the drive to the bracket in place.


----------



## HeatherA

HeatherA said:


> I can't find anything on their website so I will head over after work and see. Thanks for the additional information. It's very helpful.


Actually may stop and buy this one today at microcenter


----------



## nooneuknow

HeatherA said:


> Actually may stop and buy this one today at microcenter


Ok, you found the 3TB Green non-AV with SATA3. That should work. The only thing missing is the AV-rating, which as you already know, will likely not be an issue, since others have tried non-AV already.

You will very likely have to use the wdidle3.exe utility to disable auto head parking (Intellipark). Search around the other threads about how to use it, and why you may need to (requires using a PC and a making a boot CD to disable, before installing in the TiVo).

This is another thing I might have mentioned (if I had remembered) in my earlier help, since the AV-GP drives come with it disabled already, making it less work, and more certain instant gratification (drop in TiVo and GO).


----------



## TC25D

nooneuknow said:


> You picked a post that I was being straightforward with, without crapping on anybody...


You 'crapped on' Weaknees by accusing them of not having a conscience based on the price of their upgraded devices and kits.

Other people, who don't have you on their ignore list, will see this and could come to the conclusion they are a disreputable company to do business with, which they are not.

I am grateful there are two options with the Roamio; a DIY option, for those who feel comfortable opening up the case and an 'off the shelf' option from Weakness for those who do not.


----------



## swerver

The amount saved by diy'ing a hdd upgrade vs. weaknees service is about about $30-50. The cost of a new lifetimed tivo is $600-1000. Most people spending that kind of money won't mind that quite negligible difference considering the large overall price, in fact they'll appreciate it. This is because most people don't want to go anywhere near the inside of a tivo. Weaknees is for them. If you wanna diy (for the record I upgraded my premiere myself and plan to do my roamio plus eventually) then go ahead. Who cares what other people want to do?


----------



## HeatherA

nooneuknow said:


> Ok, you found the 3TB Green non-AV with SATA3. That should work. The only thing missing is the AV-rating, which as you already know, will likely not be an issue, since others have tried non-AV already.
> 
> You will very likely have to use the wdidle3.exe utility to disable auto head parking (Intellipark). Search around the other threads about how to use it, and why you may need to (requires using a PC and a making a boot CD to disable, before installing in the TiVo).
> 
> This is another thing I might have mentioned (if I had remembered) in my earlier help, since the AV-GP drives come with it disabled already, making it less work, and more certain instant gratification (drop in TiVo and GO).


Will I for sure have to do this? I've never read about this before your post. Sounds like it could be a hassle.


----------



## CoxInPHX

HeatherA said:


> Actually may stop and buy this one today at microcenter


These are the Only Drives I would use, just order one from Amazon and be done with it.

WD AV-GP 3TB AV Video Hard Drive - WD30EURS

WD AV-GP 2TB AV Video Hard Drive - WD20EURS


----------



## HeatherA

CoxInPHX said:


> These are the Only Drives I would use, just order one from Amazon and be done with it.
> 
> WD AV-GP 3TB AV Video Hard Drive - WD30EURS
> 
> WD AV-GP 2TB AV Video Hard Drive - WD20EURS


The problem is I want it today


----------



## BobCamp1

CoxInPHX said:


> These are the Only Drives I would use, just order one from Amazon and be done with it.
> 
> WD AV-GP 3TB AV Video Hard Drive - WD30EURS
> 
> WD AV-GP 2TB AV Video Hard Drive - WD20EURS


Any drive will work fine, I think right now the extra year warranty with the AV-GP drives that are the same price as the "green" drives make them a better deal.


----------



## CoxInPHX

HeatherA said:


> The problem is I want it today


Patience pays off in the end 
Or pay for next day shipping, if you are a Prime Member same/next day shipping is only $3


----------



## lpwcomp

swerver said:


> The amount saved by diy'ing a hdd upgrade vs. weaknees service is about about $30-50. The cost of a new lifetimed tivo is $600-1000. Most people spending that kind of money won't mind that quite negligible difference considering the large overall price, in fact they'll appreciate it. This is because most people don't want to go anywhere near the inside of a tivo. Weaknees is for them. If you wanna diy (for the record I upgraded my premiere myself and plan to do my roamio plus eventually) then go ahead. Who cares what other people want to do?


Please keep the weaKnees discussion relevant to _*this thread*_ and sub-forum. Since all you need is a blank drive for a Roamio upgrade, the markup is actually >$100, even if you buy an AV drive. There is an additional charge to have them do it for you plus you have pay for shipping your TiVo to them. Exactly what "tools and procedures" did weaKnees have to develop for this? Maybe when you pay them the additional $79 for them to do the upgrade and maintain your settings and recordings, but otherwise nothing.

Whether or not you buy a blank drive elsewhere or get an "upgrade kit" from weaKnees, you _*still*_ technically void the warranty on the TiVo when you crack the case to replace the existing drive.


----------



## quikah

swerver said:


> The amount saved by diy'ing a hdd upgrade vs. weaknees service is about about $30-50. The cost of a new lifetimed tivo is $600-1000. Most people spending that kind of money won't mind that quite negligible difference considering the large overall price, in fact they'll appreciate it. This is because most people don't want to go anywhere near the inside of a tivo. Weaknees is for them. If you wanna diy (for the record I upgraded my premiere myself and plan to do my roamio plus eventually) then go ahead. Who cares what other people want to do?


Weaknees is charging a ~$100 premium (compared to buying the drive from amazon) on the upgrade kit plus $49 for the installation service. If it is worth it to you go for it. $150 sort of makes sense with installation, but the DIY kit is just a rip off IMO.

The upgrade kit for any other TiVo makes sense as they are not plug and play.


----------



## HeatherA

CoxInPHX said:


> Patience pays off in the end
> Or pay for next day shipping, if you are a Prime Member same/next day shipping is only $3


In the old days we just used any hard drive we had around for TiVo upgrades. Why is this so different?

I think my hubby bought the green drive on his lunch hour. Guess ill have to see how it goes.

Btw $9 for overnight/Saturday shipping. It's gone up quite a bit.


----------



## lpwcomp

HeatherA said:


> Will I for sure have to do this? I've never read about this before your post. Sounds like it could be a hassle.


I could be wrong, but I don't think we know for sure whether or not you need to disable Intellipark for a drive being installed in a Roamio. More than likely yes, but I don't believe it has actually been verified.

As to the hassle - yes, it is a bit, especially considering you can't use a USB dock for this and there is conflicting information as to whether or not it will work via eSata.

One other thing - do we know _*for sure*_ that none of the Roamios use the streaming commands if it detects a drive that supports them?


----------



## swerver

quikah said:


> Weaknees is charging a ~$100 premium (compared to buying the drive from amazon) on the upgrade kit plus $49 for the installation service. If it is worth it to you go for it. $150 sort of makes sense with installation, but the DIY kit is just a rip off IMO.
> 
> The upgrade kit for any other TiVo makes sense as they are not plug and play.


OK I wasn't looking at the upgrade kit, I was comparing the new roamio plus + new hdd price to the new roamio plus already upgraded by weaknees price. Which would be 400 + 120 vs 570 = $50 difference, or less if you pay more for the drive. I see now that the upgrade on the basic model is a bit more. I already stated I do my own upgrades, I just don't follow why people are bothered that others are not like them, don't want to open their tivo, and are happy to pay a few extra bucks (less than sales tax on a tivo + lifetime) to get it upgraded for them.


----------



## lpwcomp

swerver said:


> OK I wasn't looking at the upgrade kit, I was comparing the new roamio plus + new hdd price to the new roamio plus already upgraded by weaknees price.


I think the weaKnees prices for a _*"Complete DVR"*_ upgraded Roamio Plus is actually a decent deal. For not too much more in cost, you get a 180-day warranty rather than technically voiding the 90-day TiVo warranty of you go the DIY route.

I suppose the price that weaKnees charges for a Roamio upgrade _*kit*_ could be considered to be a "tax" on stupidity.


----------



## jmpage2

lpwcomp said:


> I think the weaKnees prices for a _*"Complete DVR"*_ upgraded Roamio Plus is actually a decent deal. For not too much more in cost, you get a 180-day warranty rather than technically voiding the 90-day TiVo warranty of you go the DIY route.
> 
> I suppose the price that weaKnees charges for a Roamio upgrade _*kit*_ could be considered to be a "tax" on stupidity.


Stupidity is a rather strong word. Ignorance is more appropriate, in that it is well established that TiVos don't have an easy hard drive upgrade procedure, that this has only changed in the last couple of weeks, and that 99% of TiVo owners probably never visit this forum.


----------



## lpwcomp

jmpage2 said:


> Stupidity is a rather strong word. Ignorance is more appropriate, in that it is well established that TiVos don't have an easy hard drive upgrade procedure, that this has only changed in the last couple of weeks, and that 99% of TiVo owners probably never visit this forum.


I don't think stupidity is too strong a word to use in this case. Anyone willing to go the DIY route (it's still DIY using a "kit" from weaKnees) who doesn't perform their due diligence is stupid. There is a difference between ignorance and _*willful*_ ignorance.


----------



## Crrink

HeatherA said:


> In the old days we just used any hard drive we had around for TiVo upgrades. Why is this so different?
> 
> I think my hubby bought the green drive on his lunch hour. Guess ill have to see how it goes.
> 
> Btw $9 for overnight/Saturday shipping. It's gone up quite a bit.


Once you install the drive and have the TiVo up and running, try doing a warm reboot (restarting the system from the menus) and a cold reboot (pull the plug, count to 10, plug it back in.)

On the TiVoHD and Premiere lines, the non-AV drives would have difficulty restarting from one of these states (cold boot, I believe, but too lazy to search to verify.) This was due to the parking feature in the drive.

If you recover from both boots normally, you should be fine, if not you'll have to pull the drive and look for instructions to run wdidle3 on the drive. It's not terribly complicated, but will take a bit of digging, downloading, etc. to be able to do it.

Once it's done, you should be all set.

I installed a WD Red drive in my Roamio Basic and did not have to run wdidle3 - hopefully it's no longer an issue with TiVo's, but I don't think anybody has done testing to confirm yet.

Hope everything goes smoothly for you guys.

Edited to add: if you've done upgrades on previous versions of TiVo, running wdidle3 will be no trouble at all, once you have the software in hand, and a computer to use it on.
I'm also fairly certain I was able to run the utility with a drive attached to a USB - SATA dock, so even if you're on a laptop, I believe you will be able to do it.


----------



## lessd

lpwcomp said:


> I don't think stupidity is too strong a word to use in this case. Anyone willing to go the DIY route (it's still DIY using a "kit" from weaKnees) who doesn't perform their due diligence is stupid. There is a difference between ignorance and _*willful*_ ignorance.


My first two drive upgrade (for a series 2) was from WK and I learned a lot, than when more info was available I did my own upgrades, when you purchase an upgrade kit from WK you get to keep you original drive, that has some value.


----------



## lpwcomp

Crrink said:


> I'm also fairly certain I was able to run the utility with a drive attached to a USB - SATA dock, so even if you're on a laptop, I believe you will be able to do it.


Since it involves a mod to the drives firmware, I'm not sure that this is possible.

The WD site says that "(wdidle3) will scan the ATA bus". Drives connected via USB will not be on the ATA bus.


----------



## A J Ricaud

lpwcomp said:


> I could be wrong, but I don't think we know for sure whether or not you need to disable Intellipark for a drive being installed in a Roamio. More than likely yes, but I don't believe it has actually been verified.


I recently had to reboot my Roamio basic w/ a 3TB WD AV-GP drive by pulling the plug. It booted fine--no problems.


----------



## brettatk

A J Ricaud said:


> I recently had to reboot my Roamio basic w/ a 3TB WD AV-GP drive by pulling the plug. It booted fine--no problems.


Right, but she isn't getting the AV-GP drive. I think he's referring to the drive she has purchased which isn't the same one.


----------



## lpwcomp

A J Ricaud said:


> I recently had to reboot my Roamio basic w/ a 3TB WD AV-GP drive by pulling the plug. It booted fine--no problems.





brettatk said:


> Right, but she isn't getting the AV-GP drive. I think he's referring to the drive she has purchased which isn't the same one.


Precisely. The "regular" WD Green drive.


----------



## late for dinner

maybe a previously answered question 

could I use the drive I used to upgrade my Premier in a Roamio? I could put back the original drive into the Premier and go from there. 

If I could would I have to do anything to the drive before I swapped it into the Roamio?


----------



## Dan203

Someone stuck a drive from a NAS, which had data on it, in their Roamio and it worked fine. However because your drive is from an actual TiVo there might be some sort of conflict. I don't think anyone has tried that yet. If you give it a shot let us know how it goes. It's unlikely to cause any issues with the hardware so worst case scenario is it wont work and you'll have to pop it into a computer and wipe it clean before trying again.

Edit: Keep in mind that you are definitely going to lose all your recordings. It wont just boot up. Best case scenario is it'll wipe the drive for you and start you over at Guided Setup


----------



## jmpage2

late for dinner said:


> maybe a previously answered question
> 
> could I use the drive I used to upgrade my Premier in a Roamio? I could put back the original drive into the Premier and go from there.
> 
> If I could would I have to do anything to the drive before I swapped it into the Roamio?


I would wipe the drive first. Download SeaTools (or a similar utility), hook the drive up to a PC, boot from the tools disk, zero the drive, and then put it in the Roamio.


----------



## late for dinner

Dan203 said:


> Someone stuck a drive from a NAS, which had data on it, in their Roamio and it worked fine. However because your drive is from an actual TiVo there might be some sort of conflict. I don't think anyone has tried that yet. If you give it a shot let us know how it goes. It's unlikely to cause any issues with the hardware so worst case scenario is it wont work and you'll have to pop it into a computer and wipe it clean before trying again.


that makes sense, the premier that it's in I hardly ever use (and nothing on it I need to save) and will sell/give away when I upgrade. It was just for the times when I needed more than the two turners on my main soon to be spare Premier.


----------



## Direwolf14

Dan203 said:


> Someone stuck a drive from a NAS, which had data on it, in their Roamio and it worked fine. However because your drive is from an actual TiVo there might be some sort of conflict. I don't think anyone has tried that yet. If you give it a shot let us know how it goes. It's unlikely to cause any issues with the hardware so worst case scenario is it wont work and you'll have to pop it into a computer and wipe it clean before trying again.
> 
> Edit: Keep in mind that you are definitely going to lose all your recordings. It wont just boot up. Best case scenario is it'll wipe the drive for you and start you over at Guided Setup


I actually took a WD20EURS out of a Premiere and dropped it into a Roamio Plus without wiping the disk first. Worked fine, no issues.

The Premiere reported the capacity as 317 HD hours, while the Roamio says 315 HD hours. I also switched cable providers, so that may account for the difference.


----------



## late for dinner

Direwolf14 said:


> I actually took a WD20EURS out of a Premiere and dropped it into a Roamio Plus without wiping the disk first. Worked fine, no issues.
> 
> The Premiere reported the capacity as 317 HD hours, while the Roamio says 315 HD hours. I also switched cable providers, so that may account for the difference.


perfect!


----------



## lpwcomp

Direwolf14 said:


> IThe Premiere reported the capacity as 317 HD hours, while the Roamio says 315 HD hours. I also switched cable providers, so that may account for the difference.


More likely a difference in space reserved for TiVo use by a Roamio vs. a supersized Premiere.


----------



## ggieseke

Direwolf14 said:


> I actually took a WD20EURS out of a Premiere and dropped it into a Roamio Plus without wiping the disk first. Worked fine, no issues.
> 
> The Premiere reported the capacity as 317 HD hours, while the Roamio says 315 HD hours. I also switched cable providers, so that may account for the difference.


I compared the partition tables between a Premiere XL4 (2TB) and a Roamio with a WD20EURS this morning. They were identical in most regards, but a Roamio uses a bigger swap and a bigger /var partition. Even though the OS partitions are just 4K placeholders to flash memory on a Roamio, it was enough to shrink the final media partition by about 768MB. That may account for the difference.

It's nice to know that even a TiVo drive can be dropped into a Roamio without prior formatting. Good work!


----------



## Dan203

It's all a guess anyway. The number of hours is based on an estimated bitrate. They don't actually know the bitrates of what you'll be recording so it could shift +/- 100 hours if they're off by just 5Mbps.


----------



## ggieseke

Dan203 said:


> It's all a guess anyway. The number of hours is based on an estimated bitrate. They don't actually know the bitrates of what you'll be recording so it could shift +/- 100 hours if they're off by just 5Mbps.


Amen! My OTA recordings vary from about 3.5GB/hour to over 5GB/hour depending on the network. It's weird, but I get a better picture quality watching Hart of Dixie on CW even though the bitrate is lower than the majors.


----------



## Dan203

Is CW 720p? 720p has twice the frame rate but a little less then half the resolution, plus progressive frames are easier to encode then interlaced, so they can get away with lower bitrates while still retaining a nice looking picture.


----------



## ggieseke

Dan203 said:


> Is CW 720p? 720p has twice the frame rate but a little less then half the resolution, plus progressive frames are easier to encode then interlaced, so they can get away with lower bitrates while still retaining a nice looking picture.


I'll have to answer that one later when something I record comes back around. I should have looked at the files with MediaInfo or VRD, but I just watched & deleted them.

It may just be a Houston thing and encoding tech varies, but somehow their signal just looks better even with a smaller file size / hour than everyone but ABC.


----------



## keenanSR

Dan203 said:


> Is CW 720p? 720p has twice the frame rate but a little less then half the resolution, plus progressive frames are easier to encode then interlaced, so they can get away with lower bitrates while still retaining a nice looking picture.


If it's KIAH it's 1080i although local cable companies could be doing what ever with the signal.


----------



## Dan203

Just checked my local CW OTA feed and it's 1080i, but I don't know if that's national or not.


----------



## Joe Siegler

Dan203 said:


> Just checked my local CW OTA feed and it's 1080i, but I don't know if that's national or not.


If I remember to do that later when I'm off the computer, I'll let you know. I'm in D/FW.


----------



## lpwcomp

Just checked and it is 1080i here as well.


----------



## HeatherA

Crrink said:


> Once you install the drive and have the TiVo up and running, try doing a warm reboot (restarting the system from the menus) and a cold reboot (pull the plug, count to 10, plug it back in.)
> 
> On the TiVoHD and Premiere lines, the non-AV drives would have difficulty restarting from one of these states (cold boot, I believe, but too lazy to search to verify.) This was due to the parking feature in the drive.
> 
> If you recover from both boots normally, you should be fine, if not you'll have to pull the drive and look for instructions to run wdidle3 on the drive. It's not terribly complicated, but will take a bit of digging, downloading, etc. to be able to do it.
> 
> Once it's done, you should be all set.


Rebooted both ways and no problem whatsoever. Guess I'm good with the green hard drive. Thanks for the tips.


----------



## PaulNEPats

Returning my 3TB WD Red drive to newegg. I've had constant audio and pixelation issues since having it installed for recordings. I didn't have this issue with the stock drive.


----------



## Davelnlr_

Dan203 said:


> Is CW 720p?


The C band satellite feed is 1080i. Local stations can change it to suit their needs. Ours maintains the 1080i, and adds a 480 subchannel.


----------



## ThAbtO

Here is a thought.

Can the roamio (internal drive upgraded or not), use an external eSATA drive with a blank drive installed (and have the roamio initialize it)? As opposed to the official Tivo Expander (with either the original Tivo initialized or blank drive.)

I think only the expander with original (not blank) will work.


----------



## lpwcomp

ThAbtO said:


> Here is a thought.
> 
> Can the roamio (internal drive upgraded or not), use an external eSATA drive with a blank drive installed (and have the roamio initialize it)? As opposed to the official Tivo Expander (with either the original Tivo initialized or blank drive.)
> 
> I think only the expander with original (not blank) will work.


I've never seen any information to indicate that there is anything on an expander drive prior to it being attached to a DVR. After all, it is a "WD _*DVR Expander*_" , not a "_*TiVo Expander*_". The TiVo s/w is simply setup to only allow the use of specific models.


----------



## ThAbtO

lpwcomp said:


> I've never seen any information to indicate that there is anything on an expander drive prior to it being attached to a DVR. After all, it is a "WD _*DVR Expander*_" , not a "_*TiVo Expander*_". The TiVo s/w is simply setup to only allow the use of specific models.


I was thinking that if the roamio starts off with a blank drive, shouldn't you be able to use blank drive in an external eSATA enclosure?


----------



## Joe Siegler

To me if I can add to about 400 Hrs via an internal drive, I think that's enough, I wouldn't bother with an eSata external if i have that large of a drive inside the box.

If I really needed that much space, I could always offload some of it to my computer elsewhere in the house where I have something like 8TB of space for that kind of stuff, and there is no real limit to how much I can put there. There is on the TiVo itself.


----------



## lpwcomp

ThAbtO said:


> I was thinking that if the roamio starts off with a blank drive, shouldn't you be able to use blank drive in an external eSATA enclosure?


My point is that the drive in a never used DVR expander _*is*_ a blank drive.


----------



## lpwcomp

Joe Siegler said:


> To me if I can add to about 400 Hrs via an internal drive, I think that's enough, I wouldn't bother with an eSata external if i have that large of a drive inside the box.
> 
> If I really needed that much space, I could always offload some of it to my computer elsewhere in the house where I have something like 8TB of space for that kind of stuff, and there is no real limit to how much I can put there. There is on the TiVo itself.


But think of the poor people who *can't* offload much because they have TWC.

Edit: Although I wouldn't add an external either.


----------



## Joe Siegler

lpwcomp said:


> But think of the poor people who *can't* offload much because they have TWC.


Time Warner Cable? I actually have them. But I don't use cable TV. BECAUSE I'M POOR. What's your point in mentioning poor people? I was talking about issues unrelated to that.

I'm antenna only, and I save most everything I record after I watch it (save for sports and news). Builds up over time.


----------



## ThAbtO

lpwcomp said:


> My point is that the drive in a never used DVR expander _*is*_ a blank drive.


I never looked at my old Tivo endorsed WD Expander drive.


----------



## lpwcomp

Joe Siegler said:


> Time Warner Cable? I actually have them. But I don't use cable TV. BECAUSE I'M POOR. What's your point in mentioning poor people? I was talking about issues unrelated to that.
> 
> I'm antenna only, and I save most everything I record after I watch it (save for sports and news). Builds up over time.


I was using poor as in "pitiable", not "indigent". TWC is known for marking all but local channels as "Copy Once" which means that most of their stuff cannot be offloaded.


----------



## Thom

ggieseke said:


> I compared the partition tables between a Premiere XL4 (2TB) and a Roamio with a WD20EURS this morning. They were identical in most regards, but a Roamio uses a bigger swap and a bigger /var partition. Even though the OS partitions are just 4K placeholders to flash memory on a Roamio, it was enough to shrink the final media partition by about 768MB. That may account for the difference.
> 
> It's nice to know that even a TiVo drive can be dropped into a Roamio without prior formatting. Good work!


What software are you using to examine the Roamio partition entries? I've used pdisk in the past, but I believe it doesn't work with the Roamio's 64-bit partition tables?


----------



## ggieseke

Thom said:


> What software are you using to examine the Roamio partition entries? I've used pdisk in the past, but I believe it doesn't work with the Roamio's 64-bit partition tables?


Just my eyes and a hex editor (HxD) to open the drive. It's still basically APM, but different enough that none of the existing tools that I know about will work.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

HeatherA said:


> In the old days we just used any hard drive we had around for TiVo upgrades. Why is this so different?
> 
> I think my hubby bought the green drive on his lunch hour. Guess ill have to see how it goes.
> 
> Btw $9 for overnight/Saturday shipping. It's gone up quite a bit.


It's probably $9 because it's Saturday delivery. Overnight on business is till $3 per item on business days.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

Crrink said:


> ...On the TiVoHD and Premiere lines, the non-AV drives would have difficulty restarting from one of these states (cold boot, I believe, but too lazy to search to verify.) This was due to the parking feature in the drive...





HeatherA said:


> Rebooted both ways and no problem whatsoever. Guess I'm good with the green hard drive. Thanks for the tips.


Almost positive that it was a warm reboot (form with in the menus) that caused the reboot issue.


----------



## late for dinner

I decided not to wait until I can get an order from Amazon and just pick one up locally this morning. I have my original premier drive ready to put back into its original slot and use the 2TB drive I had in the premier. As a plus there is not a single show on there that I need to keep.


----------



## Crrink

PaulNEPats said:


> Returning my 3TB WD Red drive to newegg. I've had constant audio and pixelation issues since having it installed for recordings. I didn't have this issue with the stock drive.


Disappointing to hear. 
I haven't used our Roamio Basic much yet, but so far have seen no issues with the Red drive I used.
I believe Newegg will charge a restocking fee - if so, it might be worthwhile to try to determine if there are any issues with the drive itself, and if so, do a warranty claim with Western Digital.

It was a little bit of a leap of faith to choose a Red drive over a Green one (saving $25 was the motivation for this.) So far this is the quietest hard drive I've ever owned, so I'm hoping it will work out well long term for me.

Anyway, good luck, and if you do determine the drive is faulty, I'd love to hear about it - would give me a little peace of mind


----------



## Crrink

lpwcomp said:


> Since it involves a mod to the drives firmware, I'm not sure that this is possible.
> 
> The WD site says that "(wdidle3) will scan the ATA bus". Drives connected via USB will not be on the ATA bus.


Yeah, I may well be remembering incorrectly - it was a long time ago, and I've done so many drive upgrades over the years that some of them tend to blur together.
But I figured, for those who already have a dock, might as well take the 2 minutes to see if it works before you start digging into the guts of your PC.
YMMV, of course.


----------



## Crrink

DCIFRTHS said:


> Almost positive that it was a warm reboot (form with in the menus) that caused the reboot issue.


You are probably correct...apologies to all if I gave the wrong information.


----------



## lessd

DCIFRTHS said:


> Almost positive that it was a warm reboot (form with in the menus) that caused the reboot issue.


I know for sure you are correct, warm reboot was the problem in the Series 3, don't know about any other TiVo models as I disable Widdle3 on all WD drives.


----------



## aaronwt

Crrink said:


> Disappointing to hear.
> I haven't used our Roamio Basic much yet, but so far have seen no issues with the Red drive I used.
> I believe Newegg will charge a restocking fee - if so, it might be worthwhile to try to determine if there are any issues with the drive itself, and if so, do a warranty claim with Western Digital.
> 
> It was a little bit of a leap of faith to choose a Red drive over a Green one (saving $25 was the motivation for this.) So far this is the quietest hard drive I've ever owned, so I'm hoping it will work out well long term for me.
> 
> Anyway, good luck, and if you do determine the drive is faulty, I'd love to hear about it - would give me a little peace of mind


Newegg will replace the drive if it is defective, and also pay for return shipping. I think if it is within 28 or 30 days of purchase.

I recently exchanged a new Seagate 3TB drive that failed the Seagate DIagnostics. The Newegg policies state that they will cover return shipping for a defective item within the return period. But you need to contact them to get the free return shipping. It defaults to making yo pay for return shipping.


----------



## late for dinner

late for dinner said:


> I decided not to wait until I can get an order from Amazon and just pick one up locally this morning. I have my original premier drive ready to put back into its original slot and use the 2TB drive I had in the premier. As a plus there is not a single show on there that I need to keep.


so far so good, everything seems to be working perfectly.


----------



## LSpera

For what it's worth I purchased a Roamio Plus today. I transplanted my 2TB drive from my Premier to the Roamio without any formatting and it worked 100%. It didn't bring over any of my shows but I did not need to format the drive or anything and it's showing as having 315+ hours of free space.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

LSpera said:


> For what it's worth I purchased a Roamio Plus today. I transplanted my 2TB drive from my Premier to the Roamio without any formatting and it worked 100%. It didn't bring over any of my shows but I did not need to format the drive or anything and it's showing as having 315+ hours of free space.


Question for the group here: What do we think is happening in this case? Is the drive being entirely reformatted and loaded with the new Roamio OS? Or is the Roamio somehow able to use the Premiere OS load? I believe it must be the former.


----------



## jmpage2

ThreeSoFar said:


> Question for the group here: What do we think is happening in this case? Is the drive being entirely reformatted and loaded with the new Roamio OS? Or is the Roamio somehow able to use the Premiere OS load? I believe it must be the former.


I expect it runs a script that blows out the partition table, does a quick format and that's it v


----------



## ggieseke

jmpage2 said:


> I expect it runs a script that blows out the partition table, does a quick format and that's it v


Unless it takes about 8 hours even with a SATA or USB3 connection I'm sure you're right.


----------



## Joe Siegler

From yesterday. CW here in Dallas is 1080i. And like someone else pointed, there's a 480i subchannel. Two of them, actually. 

33.1 is CW
33.2 is Antenna TV
33.3 is "This TV".

I'm very much looking forward to this new HD arrangement in Roamio. In 13 years, I've never opened any of my TiVos I've had (going back to the earliest models). This changes things for me.


----------



## lessd

ThreeSoFar said:


> Question for the group here: What do we think is happening in this case? Is the drive being entirely reformatted and loaded with the new Roamio OS? Or is the Roamio somehow able to use the Premiere OS load? I believe it must be the former.


I think the firmware built into the Roamio first looks for a matching TSN on the drive, not finding one it will re-format the drive, I am going to test out this theory with a 2nd Roamio I now have for a friend by putting the original formatted 1Tb drive that was in my first Roamio Plus into the 2nd Roamio and see what happens. If it works this way it saves the C&D all you had to do when you switched drives within the same model.


----------



## cmeinck

Any recommendations on hard drive for a 3TB upgrade? Looking at these WD drives:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RORMF6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Looks like Weakness no longer has a coupon code on Plus. Might have to go with Best Buy and the triple rewards points.


----------



## TC25D

The first one - It has also been mentioned multiple times in this thread.


----------



## Am_I_Evil

i bought the AV 3TB drive new on eBay for $130 (but it now) w/free expedited shipping and no tax...just throwing out another option for people...


----------



## Surrealone

I'm doing the upgrade now I have a plus and I'm upgrading the drive to 3tb drive.
Will my season pass and CC pairing all be save on the Roamio flash or will I need to repair the CC and redo my SP?


----------



## ggieseke

Surrealone said:


> I'm doing the upgrade now I have a plus and I'm upgrading the drive to 3tb drive.
> Will my season pass and CC pairing all be save on the Roamio flash or will I need to repair the CC and redo my SP?


Nothing is saved on the flash. You will have to start off from ground zero again.


----------



## Surrealone

ggieseke said:


> Nothing is saved on the flash. You will have to start off from ground zero again.


really thats odd seems like pairing is saved my CC card came right up my SP did not.


----------



## keenanSR

ggieseke said:


> Nothing is saved on the flash. You will have to start off from ground zero again.





Surrealone said:


> really thats odd seems like pairing is saved my CC card came right up my SP did not.


Can you switch them over using the SP manager page at the TiVo website? As long as you haven't decommissioned your previous TiVo it might work.


----------



## HarperVision

Surrealone said:


> really thats odd seems like pairing is saved my CC card came right up my SP did not.


FAIK, the Host ID of the TiVo is on the main board of the TiVo, not the hard drive, and pairs to the cablecard ID. So swapping HDs "shouldn't" matter, but I know it's been mentioned here a few times that it doesn't seem to be the case.

FWIW, I took the paired cc out of my TiVo and put in my HDHR Prime to test something out and when I put it back into the TiVo afterwards it acted like I would have to go through cc setup again. It was very late last night so I went to bed. When I got up this AM it was all re-paired and good to go again though. Maybe when swapping HDs you can just try to wait a bit and let the headend re-pair with the card and see what happens? Has anyone left it sit for awhile after doing that?


----------



## Surrealone

keenanSR said:


> Can you switch them over using the SP manager page at the TiVo website? As long as you haven't decommissioned your previous TiVo it might work.


Ok this is what happend I unplugged my S3 and the SP was still on the tivo site plugged in my Roamio and bam was able to transfer my SP to the Roamio. So for mext trick I pulled the HDD out of my Roamio and installed the new drive (super easy) Setup was easy just had to do the guided setup after it was all done I went onto the Tivo site but my SP was blank.

Plan B
put drive back in Tivo sync with tivo site pull drive and replace 3TB drive that is setup already and see if I can just sync it back.

I think the guided setup is what zapped my SP.
I will have the magic answer in 30 min.


----------



## morac

HarperVision said:


> FAIK, the Host ID of the TiVo is on the main board of the TiVo, not the hard drive, and pairs to the cablecard ID. So swapping HDs "shouldn't" matter, but I know it's been mentioned here a few times that it doesn't seem to be the case.


For Motorola cards, there's three pairing numbers: host, card and data. All three are needed for pairing. The host is hard coded on the TiVo main board like you said. Likewise the card number is hard coded on the card. The data number is dynamically generated though and stored on the drive. I never understood the need for 3 numbers since you'd think the host and card numbers would be good enough, but that's what CableLabs/Motorola came up with.

Scientific Atlanta/Cisco cards only display the host and card numbers. I'm not sure if they lose pairing if the drive is swapped. I would think they wouldn't, since as you said those two numbers are static.


----------



## lessd

morac said:


> For Motorola cards, there's three pairing numbers: host, card and data. All three are needed for pairing. The host is hard coded on the TiVo main board like you said. Likewise the card number is hard coded on the card. The data number is dynamically generated though and stored on the drive. I never understood the need for 3 numbers since you'd think the host and card numbers would be good enough, but that's what CableLabs/Motorola came up with.


The data number is dynamically generated and stored on the drive as you said but also stored on the cable card itself, it is not a fixed number on the cable card, that why if you remove the cable card from say TiVo 1 and install it in TiVo 2 then put it back into TiVo 1 the card will need to be re-paired as the data will have changed, at least this is what happens in Comcast land in CT. Because the data is different than the head end has, it will never self pair until you call Comcast.


----------



## MisterWho

cmeinck said:


> Any recommendations on hard drive for a 3TB upgrade? Looking at these WD drives:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RORMF6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
> 
> Looks like Weakness no longer has a coupon code on Plus. Might have to go with Best Buy and the triple rewards points.


For what it's worth, I bought the second one (WD30EZRX) because it was what Staples had in stock and I had rewards to spend there.

I installed before ever plugging in the brand new Plus and it worked as expected. Have rebooted a few times and have had no problems (I did not run the wdidle3 thing).


----------



## morac

lessd said:


> The data number is dynamically generated and stored on the drive as you said but also stored on the cable card itself, it is not a fixed number on the cable card, that why if you remove the cable card from say TiVo 1 and install it in TiVo 2 then put it back into TiVo 1 the card will need to be re-paired as the data will have changed, at least this is what happens in Comcast land in CT. Because the data is different than the head end has, it will never self pair until you call Comcast.


Not exactly. The host and card store each other's authentication keys as well as the generated shared private key. That's why inserting a card into a different device causes the card to become unpaired, because there's a mismatch of the host authentication key.

See chapters 3 and 8.3 in:

http://www.cablelabs.com/opencable/downloads/specs/OC-SP-CCCP-IF-C01-050331.pdf

Actually I'm not sure what the generated Data ID is used for exactly since it's not in the CableLabs spec and only Motorola Cards have it. It's more or less unnecessary because 1024 bit encryption is used to exchange the keys between the host and card. It looks like Motorola was simply paranoid and added another check.


----------



## jmbach

morac said:


> Not exactly. The host and card store each other's authentication keys as well as the generated shared private key. That's why inserting a card into a different device causes the card to become unpaired, because there's a mismatch of the host authentication key.
> 
> See chapters 3 and 8.3 in:
> 
> http://www.cablelabs.com/opencable/downloads/specs/OC-SP-CCCP-IF-C01-050331.pdf
> 
> Actually I'm not sure what the generated Data ID is used for exactly since it's not in the CableLabs spec and only Motorola Cards have it. It's more or less unnecessary because 1024 bit encryption is used to exchange the keys between the host and card. It looks like Motorola was simply paranoid and added another check.


I have Charter and the Data ID gets regenerated when I eject the card (Motorola M-Card) either with TiVo on and reinsert it or shut down the TiVo, eject the card, boot the TiVo and reinsert the card.

These trials were done with Charter Tech support during a troubleshooting call. Hardest part was to convince them that they needed to re pair the card. Which of course had to go to a higher level support.


----------



## cr33p

jmbach said:


> I have Charter and the Data ID gets regenerated when I eject the card (Motorola M-Card) either with TiVo on and reinsert it or shut down the TiVo, eject the card, boot the TiVo and reinsert the card.
> 
> These trials were done with Charter Tech support during a troubleshooting call. Hardest part was to convince them that they needed to re pair the card. Which of course had to go to a higher level support.


I have Comcast and my machine does the same as well, I had a paired card, inserted a different card, re inserted original paired card, and a new Data ID was generated.


----------



## HeatherA

A few pages back I posted a WD green drive from Microcenter that we were going to pick up. We put it in our new Roamio Basic and all is well. It's running wonderfully. 

Knock on wood


----------



## late for dinner

I quick thanks for the information provided here that helped me reuse a drive to upgrade my Roamio!


----------



## lessd

cr33p said:


> I have Comcast and my machine does the same as well, I had a paired card, inserted a different card, re inserted original paired card, and a new Data ID was generated.


You can remove a paired cable card and put it back in the same TiVo with or without power and it will remain paired, if you put the Cable card into any other cable card slot like another TiVo the pairing with the original TiVo will be lost, if you put another cable card into the original TiVo than put the original cable card back into the original TiVo the pairing will be lost.
The above is a Comcast system in CT using Moto cable cards: YMMV

You can retain the pairing only by making a bit by bit copy of your original drive, the SN of the drive does not matter.


----------



## HarperVision

lessd said:


> The data number is dynamically generated and stored on the drive as you said but also stored on the cable card itself, it is not a fixed number on the cable card, that why if you remove the cable card from say TiVo 1 and install it in TiVo 2 then put it back into TiVo 1 the card will need to be re-paired as the data will have changed, at least this is what happens in Comcast land in CT. Because the data is different than the head end has, it will never self pair until you call Comcast.


 It did for me with Oceanic Time Warner.


----------



## cr33p

lessd said:


> You can remove a paired cable card and put it back in the same TiVo with or without power and it will remain paired, if you put the Cable card into any other cable card slot like another TiVo the pairing with the original TiVo will be lost, if you put another cable card into the original TiVo than put the original cable card back into the original TiVo the pairing will be lost.
> The above is a Comcast system in CT using Moto cable cards: YMMV
> 
> You can retain the pairing only by making a bit by bit copy of your original drive, the SN of the drive does not matter.


Funny thing though, no matter how many times I tried, I could not get any channels to tune moving my Cable Card from my XL4 into the Roamio, the card was already unpaired since it was originally in my Premiere, installed into the Xl4 and operating for 10 months that way. I had hoped to just swap them as well, but it did not work. Went through two cards before getting everything set up. Now that my Roamio is paired I realized how many channels where not coming through. LOL


----------



## lessd

HarperVision said:


> It did for me with Oceanic Time Warner.


Each cable system is different, I only know Comcast in CT, I was not commenting on Time Warner or any other cable system.


----------



## bob61

Did my install last night. Pulled cable card, Comcast,from my original TiVo and installed in new Roamio. Powered up, did setup and receiving channels with having to call Comcast. I don't have premium channels but have all other channels and all come through fine. 

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 4


----------



## vurbano

cmeinck said:


> Any recommendations on hard drive for a 3TB upgrade? Looking at these WD drives:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RORMF6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
> 
> Looks like Weakness no longer has a coupon code on Plus. Might have to go with Best Buy and the triple rewards points.


I use the first one in all my tivos. I use the second type in a 10TB software flexraid storage pool for storing ripped BD's and etc on my HTPC


----------



## Rkkeller

MisterWho said:


> For what it's worth, I bought the second one (WD30EZRX) because it was what Staples had in stock and I had rewards to spend there.
> 
> I installed before ever plugging in the brand new Plus and it worked as expected. Have rebooted a few times and have had no problems (I did not run the wdidle3 thing).


That is the one I installed for a friend and he has had no problems. I didn't do anything either, just put it in.


----------



## bdspilot

Saw this on Weaknees today. Ipm guessing they are using a 4TB external. I wonder if I could replace the 500Mb drive n my current expander with a 4TB version. 

Currently, weve got a 7 TB unit up and running. Not sure how soon well have kits for it, but were pounding away at it to make sure its stable.


----------



## TC25D

bdspilot said:


> I wonder if I could replace the 500Mb drive n my current expander with a 4TB version.


Somewhere earlier in this thread someone did and it did not work.


----------



## bdspilot

TC25D said:


> Somewhere earlier in this thread someone did and it did not work.


Thanks for the heads up. Still interesting to see what Weaknees comes up with.


----------



## jmpage2

bdspilot said:


> Thanks for the heads up. Still interesting to see what Weaknees comes up with.


I would imagine that most people who want 7TB are wanting to archive tons and tons of shows on their TiVo for potential re-viewing years later.

Seems like a poor approach to me. Add an external esata drive to the TiVo and if EITHER drive has a problem you will lose all of those recordings. Better to offload them to a NAS or something similar of archiving is your thing.


----------



## aaronwt

jmpage2 said:


> I would imagine that most people who want 7TB are wanting to archive tons and tons of shows on their TiVo for potential re-viewing years later.
> 
> Seems like a poor approach to me. Add an external esata drive to the TiVo and if EITHER drive has a problem you will lose all of those recordings. Better to offload them to a NAS or something similar of archiving is your thing.


Yes a very poor approach at least until TiVo implements better management. I hit 50% on my Roamio Pro last night. The My Shows list is becoming extremely long and becoming a pain to manage. I couldn't imagine storing 7TB of content on the actual TiVo. That would be a pain to wade through. It's much easier to archive it on my TiVo Desktop. At least I have that option with all my channels except HBO and Cinemax.

When I had both of my Elites I had more content on each Elite than I i have on my Roamio Pro. But I had the Season Passes split between both boxes so I also had less folders on each one to wade through.

I'm just not accustomed to having to page down several times to watch something I recorded only a few days ago. At least it is fast browsing the My Shows List with the Roamio.


----------



## bradleys

jmpage2 said:


> I would imagine that most people who want 7TB are wanting to archive tons and tons of shows on their TiVo for potential re-viewing years later.
> 
> Seems like a poor approach to me. Add an external esata drive to the TiVo and if EITHER drive has a problem you will lose all of those recordings. Better to offload them to a NAS or something similar of archiving is your thing.


I agree, the only hard drive issue I have ever had on my Tivo's was the ESATA external drive on my S3. It worked for about and month and then went wonky. I had to disconnect the external drive and of course I ended up loosing all my data, but the base TiVo came right back up.

I then pulled the 1TB drive out of the ESATA case and placed it into my Media server and it has been banging away for years.

I will never do that again. Too many points of failure, and if you do have a problem - you will loose everything on both drives.


----------



## HarperVision

lessd said:


> Each cable system is different, I only know Comcast in CT, I was not commenting on Time Warner or any other cable system.


I wasn't trying to be a contrarian. I only offered that up as information for others who may be on TWC.


----------



## bradenmcg

Crrink said:


> I installed a WD Red drive in my Roamio Basic and did not have to run wdidle3 - hopefully it's no longer an issue with TiVo's, but I don't think anybody has done testing to confirm yet.


I know this is fairly old now, but with a WD Red you shouldn't have to use wdidle. The Reds already are setup to not power down, just like the AV drives.

The Red and AV drives should be fairly similar in firmware - Reds are NAS optimized, where they will almost immediately return an error on a sector and mark it bad rather than trying to recover it and possibly falling out of the array they are in. I would imagine that the AV drives would have similar behavior - most people would rather have a small macroblock / bit error in a recording than have the drive hang up for 1-2 minutes trying to retry a read or write.

To the poster who had a 3TB Red and ran into problems, I'd be willing to bet you just had a bad drive... would've been worth trying WD Diags on it before sending it back.


----------



## swerver

Swapped in a 3tb drive to my plus last night. I had already set it up using the 1 tb drive it came with, and I noticed that while I had to rerun guided setup and all that, my selections in "My Video Providers" persisted... interesting. And I didn't need to relogin to amazon or rhapsody. I also posted last week when I got the plus that I had a couple reboots within an hour or 2 of setting it up. Went the whole week since then without any. Then after putting the new drive in, I got a couple more. But it's been ok since that initial period, again.


----------



## Rkkeller

Does anyone know if you can just swap out already setup HD's and if they would still work fine?

Say I had a 2TB HD installed and working fine, then I installed a 3TB HD and it was working fine.

Can I just swap them out now and then with no problems or would it try to format and erase them????


----------



## tbielowicz

I believe that it wouldn't erase anything unless you manually did that in the settings. You should be ok, but I haven't tried it.


----------



## jmpage2

Rkkeller said:


> Does anyone know if you can just swap out already setup HD's and if they would still work fine?
> 
> Say I had a 2TB HD installed and working fine, then I installed a 3TB HD and it was working fine.
> 
> Can I just swap them out now and then with no problems or would it try to format and erase them????


It seems to do a check and if the software is already installed it does not re-format the drive, at least from what people have posted about over this enormous thread.

I can see things which could cause problems with this, but in theory it would work.... as to why someone would wish to do such a thing is another matter entirely.... also keep in mind that the more esoteric things people do and the inevitable support calls to TiVo that will follow are the #1 reason that this capability gets scrapped in a future software update.


----------



## atmuscarella

jmpage2 said:


> It seems to do a check and if the software is already installed it does not re-format the drive, at least from what people have posted about over this enormous thread.
> 
> I can see things which could cause problems with this, but in theory it would work.... as to why someone would wish to do such a thing is another matter entirely.... also keep in mind that the more esoteric things people do and the inevitable support calls to TiVo that will follow are the #1 reason that this capability gets scrapped in a future software update.


I tend to agree, if people are messing with their TiVos they should come here for support and not call TiVo.

Given the speed and ease of off loading shows to my computer and pulling them back I don't think I am even going to bother upgrading the 500GB drive it is just to easy to use out of the TiVo storage now. I had actually thought about not upgrade the Premiere but it was still slow enough that I didn't like dealing with transfers the Roamio is so fast I can start a transfer from my computer, start watching it and still skip through all the commercials and never catch up with the transfer.

Being OTA all my shows are transferable so I have no issue doing transfers, but I do understand that cable people could have transfer restrictions so I would think an upgrade would still be worth it for cable people.


----------



## lessd

Rkkeller said:


> Does anyone know if you can just swap out already setup HD's and if they would still work fine?
> 
> Say I had a 2TB HD installed and working fine, then I installed a 3TB HD and it was working fine.
> 
> Can I just swap them out now and then with no problems or would it try to format and erase them????


Will work great EXCEPT you will have a loss of your cable card pairing for both drives, at least in Comcast CT.


----------



## cmeinck

Have a Roamio Plus + 3TB drive coming tomorrow. Is the recommendation to power up the Roamio first before upgrading the hard drive? Is it safe to power up, pull the plug to avoid setup and proceed with upgrade?

Thanks!


----------



## lessd

cmeinck said:


> Have a Roamio Plus + 3TB drive coming tomorrow. Is the recommendation to power up the Roamio first before upgrading the hard drive? Is it safe to power up, pull the plug to avoid setup and proceed with upgrade?
> 
> Thanks!


It does not matter how you do it as long as you have no power to the TiVo when your open the unit up, but you will a lot of advice now.


----------



## Surrealone

I would say upgrade the drive before you plug in and turn on. unless you want to go though the setup twice 

That's my advice for what its worth


----------



## jmpage2

Surrealone said:


> I would say upgrade the drive before you plug in and turn on. unless you want to go though the setup twice
> 
> That's my advice for what its worth


That's what I did. If something goes wrong you can always put the stock drive back in to see if there's something wrong with the unit or not.


----------



## Joe Siegler

Sorry for the blurry pic, but.. Roamio basic upgraded to 2TB. It really is "that easy".


----------



## vurbano

jmpage2 said:


> That's what I did. If something goes wrong you can always put the stock drive back in to see if there's something wrong with the unit or not.


yup. my stock drive has never been booted and frankly there is not going to be an occasion where it ever sees the inside of a tivo or anything else in my house. Its too small for a tivo roamio 6 tuner situation. its too slow as a system PC drive and too small really for a Raid storage situation.


----------



## BobCamp1

bradenmcg said:


> I know this is fairly old now, but with a WD Red you shouldn't have to use wdidle. The Reds already are setup to not power down, just like the AV drives.
> 
> The Red and AV drives should be fairly similar in firmware - Reds are NAS optimized, where they will almost immediately return an error on a sector and mark it bad rather than trying to recover it and possibly falling out of the array they are in. I would imagine that the AV drives would have similar behavior - most people would rather have a small macroblock / bit error in a recording than have the drive hang up for 1-2 minutes trying to retry a read or write.
> 
> To the poster who had a 3TB Red and ran into problems, I'd be willing to bet you just had a bad drive... would've been worth trying WD Diags on it before sending it back.


Please find my previous thread discussing the differences between a Green drive and an AV drive. Error detection and correction is constantly occurring, but the hard drive never reports the error to the OS unless it's not correctable. You also have to use the special ATA streaming commands to invoke the behavior you're talking about. We don't know if Tivo has done this or not. But WD is actively advertising those commands in the Red drives.

You're right in that the Red's firmware is similar to the AV drive's firmware. As with the Green. The Red drive is spinning faster, drawing more power, is probably louder, and is hotter. But there are few differences between the lines.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810

Also note that those SMART tests are dumb, and only detect around half of failing hard drives. There was a concerned effort to fix this, but based on my recent experience with a failing hard drive they still have a long way to go.


----------



## Surrealone

BobCamp1 said:


> Please find my previous thread discussing the differences between a Green drive and an AV drive. Error detection and correction is constantly occurring, but the hard drive never reports the error to the OS unless it's not correctable. You also have to use the special ATA streaming commands to invoke the behavior you're talking about. We don't know if Tivo has done this or not. But WD is actively advertising those commands in the Red drives.
> 
> You're right in that the Red's firmware is similar to the AV drive's firmware. As with the Green. The Red drive is spinning faster, drawing more power, is probably louder, and is hotter. But there are few differences between the lines.
> 
> http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810
> 
> Also note that those SMART tests are dumb, and only detect around half of failing hard drives. There was a concerned effort to fix this, but based on my recent experience with a failing hard drive they still have a long way to go.


I have a feeling hotter is not better when it comes to Roamio. I put a Seagate 3TB 7200 RPM drive in in my roamio and after about 15min it was vary warm.
I pulled it out not worth testing to PSU and the heat syncs
to see how much heat it can stand.

Also you say the red drive spins faster but all I can find is that is has IntelliPower listed for RPM speed. Maybe I missed it. But what speed does it spin at?

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810


----------



## Crrink

BobCamp1 said:


> Please find my previous thread discussing the differences between a Green drive and an AV drive. Error detection and correction is constantly occurring, but the hard drive never reports the error to the OS unless it's not correctable. You also have to use the special ATA streaming commands to invoke the behavior you're talking about. We don't know if Tivo has done this or not. But WD is actively advertising those commands in the Red drives.
> 
> You're right in that the Red's firmware is similar to the AV drive's firmware. As with the Green. The Red drive is spinning faster, drawing more power, is probably louder, and is hotter. But there are few differences between the lines.
> 
> http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810
> 
> Also note that those SMART tests are dumb, and only detect around half of failing hard drives. There was a concerned effort to fix this, but based on my recent experience with a failing hard drive they still have a long way to go.


FWIW, the last AV drive I bought was probably 2 years ago. The 3TB Red drive I put in my Roamio Basic is quieter than the 3TB AV drive in the TiVoHD it replaced. I can't hear the Red drive seeking even with my ear against the vent on that side of the Roamio. I can hear the TiVoHD seek from a couple of feet away. It's quiet, and has never bothered me, but the Red drive is as silent a hard drive as I've ever heard...or not heard 

I did check TiVo's report of MB temps before/after the upgrade, and they haven't changed - 42-44C. The Roamio Basic case is small, and you can easily feel the heat of the HDD through the plastic top, but so far this one doesn't appear to run hotter than the stock Seagate drive it replaced.

I wondered if my cheapness would come back to bite me, but so far so good (got the Red drive for about $25 less than an AV drive with a Newegg coupon.)
If the price is the same, I'd go with an AV drive, but so far I'm happy with the cost savings.


----------



## BobCamp1

Surrealone said:


> I have a feeling hotter is not better when it comes to Roamio. I put a Seagate 3TB 7200 RPM drive in in my roamio and after about 15min it was vary warm.
> I pulled it out not worth testing to PSU and the heat syncs
> to see how much heat it can stand.
> 
> Also you say the red drive spins faster but all I can find is that is has IntelliPower listed for RPM speed. Maybe I missed it. But what speed does it spin at?
> 
> http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810


Hard drives thrive in the heat, up to around 60 C or so. Then their reliability falls off sharply. So "felt very warm" doesn't mean much.

If they list "IntelliPower", for the Red then I'm mistaken. It's a low RPM drive that has the same speed, power, and heat as a Green drive. This made me look at the spec. sheets for the Red vs. Green, and I don't see any difference except the 3 yr. warranty on the Red vs. the 2 on the Green. I'm shocked that they'd recommend the Red for RAID use, as RAID users typically go for extra performance vs. the data redundancy and they wouldn't usually settle for a low RPM drive. But it's all marketing drivel anyway.

"IntelliPower" doesn't mean variable speed -- it means fixed speed (5400 rpm) but the actual throughput is sometimes higher than a "typical" 5400 RPM drive. Since all drives support NCQ, of course when you use that you'll get bursts of higher throughput.


----------



## Surrealone

BobCamp1 said:


> Hard drives thrive in the heat, up to around 60 C or so. Then their reliability falls off sharply. So "felt very warm" doesn't mean much.
> 
> If they list "IntelliPower", for the Red then I'm mistaken. It's a low RPM drive that has the same speed, power, and heat as a Green drive. This made me look at the spec. sheets for the Red vs. Green, and I don't see any difference except the 3 yr. warranty on the Red vs. the 2 on the Green. I'm shocked that they'd recommend the Red for RAID use, as RAID users typically go for extra performance vs. the data redundancy and they wouldn't usually settle for a low RPM drive. But it's all marketing drivel anyway.
> 
> "IntelliPower" doesn't mean variable speed -- it means fixed speed (5400 rpm) but the actual throughput is sometimes higher than a "typical" 5400 RPM drive. Since all drives support NCQ, of course when you use that you'll get bursts of higher throughput.


Ok thanks I had a feeling it was slower and yes most drives do spin better with some heat but it's the Roamio PSU that worries me. I have had to replace a few PSU's in my S3's and that's not a bad thing both my S3's are over 9years old I got my money's worth and then some 

PS
yes it is all marketing Green/Black/red you pick the color and they charge you more


----------



## Surrealone

Does Tivo support NCQ? I know the drive can do it if it has the right firmware.


----------



## jmpage2

Surrealone said:


> Ok thanks I had a feeling it was slower and yes most drives do spin better with some heat but it's the Roamio PSU that worries me. I have had to replace a few PSU's in my S3's and that's not a bad thing both my S3's are over 9years old I got my money's worth and then some
> 
> PS
> yes it is all marketing Green/Black/red you pick the color and they charge you more


That is not entirely true as they all have different firmware and that firmware or drive profiles that are optimized for a particular environment.


----------



## Surrealone

jmpage2 said:


> That is not entirely true as they all have different firmware and that firmware or drive profiles that are optimized for a particular environment.


It was more of a general concept that I was speaking too. But in theory most of the drives in one model type or another are the same. Be it Green/Black/red Most Green drives leave the factory with the same firmware at that time and then new firmware comes out. And yes a (drive profile) will have the best firmware at that time for the drive performance or environment. I hope I make sense  

But a bigger question is it better to TAX a drive performance with NCQ if the OS or the system it's going in does not support it. Why buy a drive with NCQ and the drive working that much harder


----------



## BobCamp1

Surrealone said:


> Does Tivo support NCQ? I know the drive can do it if it has the right firmware.


The source code says it does. But if the Tivo encounters too many errors (or specific types of errors) it disables it. It can also slow down the transfer speed or switch from DMA to PIO mode if needed.

From libata-eh.c

The followings are speed down rules. #1 and #2 deal with
*	DUBIOUS errors.
*
*	1. If more than one DUBIOUS_ATA_BUS or DUBIOUS_TOUT_HSM errors
* occurred during last 5 mins, SPEED_DOWN and FALLBACK_TO_PIO.
*
*	2. If more than one DUBIOUS_TOUT_HSM or DUBIOUS_UNK_DEV errors
* occurred during last 5 mins, NCQ_OFF.
*
*	3. If more than 8 ATA_BUS, TOUT_HSM or UNK_DEV errors
* ocurred during last 5 mins, FALLBACK_TO_PIO
*
*	4. If more than 3 TOUT_HSM or UNK_DEV errors occurred
* during last 10 mins, NCQ_OFF.
*
*	5. If more than 3 ATA_BUS or TOUT_HSM errors, or more than 6
* UNK_DEV errors occurred during last 10 mins, SPEED_DOWN.
*

I don't see any error handling for the media streaming features, but I'll take a second look later.


----------



## Surrealone

BobCamp1 said:


> The source code says it does. But if the Tivo encounters too many errors (or specific types of errors) it disables it. It can also slow down the transfer speed or switch from DMA to PIO mode if needed.
> 
> From libata-eh.c
> 
> The followings are speed down rules. #1 and #2 deal with
> *	DUBIOUS errors.
> *
> *	1. If more than one DUBIOUS_ATA_BUS or DUBIOUS_TOUT_HSM errors
> * occurred during last 5 mins, SPEED_DOWN and FALLBACK_TO_PIO.
> *
> *	2. If more than one DUBIOUS_TOUT_HSM or DUBIOUS_UNK_DEV errors
> * occurred during last 5 mins, NCQ_OFF.
> *
> *	3. If more than 8 ATA_BUS, TOUT_HSM or UNK_DEV errors
> * ocurred during last 5 mins, FALLBACK_TO_PIO
> *
> *	4. If more than 3 TOUT_HSM or UNK_DEV errors occurred
> * during last 10 mins, NCQ_OFF.
> *
> *	5. If more than 3 ATA_BUS or TOUT_HSM errors, or more than 6
> * UNK_DEV errors occurred during last 10 mins, SPEED_DOWN.
> *
> 
> I don't see any error handling for the media streaming features, but I'll take a second look later.


Good to know. Thank You


----------



## shortcut3d

I installed a 3TB Seagate NAS drive in the Roamio Plus on Monday. It's been fine so far. Much cooler and quieter than the 7200RPM drive. I've been using 8 4TB Seagate NAS drive in my Synology DS1813+ for WMC iSCSI recording. I'm enjoying the just works simplicity of TiVo though.

Edit: I installed the 3TB Seagate NAS drive right out of the box without powering on.


----------



## BobCamp1

Surrealone said:


> Good to know. Thank You


I should say the kernel fully supports NCQ. The kernel does not support the Broadcom chip directly, and I don't know if there's a separate SATA controller or if Tivo is using the one native to the Broadcom chip. Without knowing that, I can't tell if NCQ is in use. It SHOULD be in use based on what I've seen.

I don't see the streaming commands. They were not supported in the kernel. Maybe the MFS code in usr has them, and I suppose you could implement them that way, but that's provided in compressed binary and I can't tell.


----------



## philz

Any idea on the 4TB internal upgrade? Weakness has them up for sale since the 13th. I have a 4TB drive but when it says something is wrong with the drive and to hit select to format it, it'll restart and I'll get that option again...

Doh.

Any ideas how he got it to work?


----------



## jmpage2

philz said:


> Any idea on the 4TB internal upgrade? Weakness has them up for sale since the 13th. I have a 4TB drive but when it says something is wrong with the drive and to hit select to format it, it'll restart and I'll get that option again...
> 
> Doh.
> 
> Any ideas how he got it to work?


Why don't you email and ask him? Obviously by figuring this out first they are trying to earn a profit and who can blame them?

I imagine that at some point someone else will figure it out and MFSTools, etc, will have the capability to "prep" a 4TB drive but I am skeptical that you will ever be able to simply pop it into the current Roamio generation and have it automatically format.


----------



## Devx

jmpage2 said:


> Why don't you email and ask him? Obviously by figuring this out first they are trying to earn a profit and who can blame them?
> 
> I imagine that at some point someone else will figure it out and MFSTools, etc, will have the capability to "prep" a 4TB drive but I am skeptical that you will ever be able to simply pop it into the current Roamio generation and have it automatically format.


I agree. I think the first step for all of the tool authors is understanding the current APM 3TB partition on the Pro and using that to understand how the APM 4TB partition table should be formatted. Right now, Weaknees has a strong incentive to provide higher capacity storage options.

Based on his findings, I believe ggieseke was good on the understanding but needed time to rewrite the DvrBARS tool to support it.


----------



## ggieseke

I don't know why, but TiVo always seems to set up MFS media region 2 as 55% of the drive and physically it's right after the APM. That's followed by the rest of the partitions and then MFS media region gets whatever is left over at the end of the drive.

That's probably why it won't auto format a 4TB drive. 55% of 4 trillion plus the other partitions would push the last partition past the 2TB starting point. If you shrink MFS media partition 2 down a bit so that MFS media partition starts at 0xFFFFFFF8 or earlier you can still utilize all of a 4TB drive.

I suspect that's what Weaknees did, but exactly how is a good question. Unless TiVo changes the algorithm they use to split up a drive, auto-format will probably never work.

It's POSSIBLE that just writing block 0 and the APM is enough to let a Roamio take over from there and create all of the appropriate MFS headers and zones. If anyone has the necessary hardware to try out that theory let me know and I can probably cook up something to write those first 64 sectors.


----------



## philz

I do have all the hardware, let me know what you want me to do! Can easily swap out drives with my desktop  and or whatever OS instructions your comfortable with (it primarily runs OSX but can do Windows + Ubuntu).

Let me know!


----------



## BobCamp1

ggieseke said:


> I don't know why, but TiVo always seems to set up MFS media region 2 as 55% of the drive and physically it's right after the APM. That's followed by the rest of the partitions and then MFS media region gets whatever is left over at the end of the drive.
> 
> That's probably why it won't auto format a 4TB drive. 55% of 4 trillion plus the other partitions would push the last partition past the 2TB starting point. If you shrink MFS media partition 2 down a bit so that MFS media partition starts at 0xFFFFFFF8 or earlier you can still utilize all of a 4TB drive.
> 
> I suspect that's what Weaknees did, but exactly how is a good question. Unless TiVo changes the algorithm they use to split up a drive, auto-format will probably never work.
> 
> It's POSSIBLE that just writing block 0 and the APM is enough to let a Roamio take over from there and create all of the appropriate MFS headers and zones. If anyone has the necessary hardware to try out that theory let me know and I can probably cook up something to write those first 64 sectors.


I did find a new pdisk64 tool that Tivo wrote. The dpme.h file describes the changes they made to the APM, and they modified it to use type u64 to hold the drive size. They put the partition size as a 64 bit number at the very end of the block, put a zero in the traditional 32-bit partition size location, and use a special signature to identify that APM block. I attached the .h file.

The odd part is that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. The foundation is there to use a drive of any size, but the other tools in Tivo don't appear to take advantage of it. Maybe they wrote pdisk64 thinking they had to do it that way but instead discovered the workaround they're currently using.


----------



## lickwid

philz said:


> I do have all the hardware, let me know what you want me to do! Can easily swap out drives with my desktop  and or whatever OS instructions your comfortable with (it primarily runs OSX but can do Windows + Ubuntu).
> 
> Let me know!


Just picked up my Roamio Plus. Will stick with the 150 hours for now and keep an eye out for progress on cracking the 3TB threshold. I have a spare 4TB drive I could throw in, or else I still have a 2TB drive from my Premiere I can throw in as well.

I can test also if needed for a 4TB drive.


----------



## bradenmcg

BobCamp1 said:


> Hard drives thrive in the heat, up to around 60 C or so. Then their reliability falls off sharply. So "felt very warm" doesn't mean much.
> 
> If they list "IntelliPower", for the Red then I'm mistaken. It's a low RPM drive that has the same speed, power, and heat as a Green drive. This made me look at the spec. sheets for the Red vs. Green, and I don't see any difference except the 3 yr. warranty on the Red vs. the 2 on the Green. I'm shocked that they'd recommend the Red for RAID use, as RAID users typically go for extra performance vs. the data redundancy and they wouldn't usually settle for a low RPM drive. But it's all marketing drivel anyway.


The reason for the Red drives is NAS environments. Once you have two or three or four spindles in play along with R5, the increased access time and rotational latency from a 5400rpm disk isn't quite as noticeable. Plus, a lot of NAS access is large file storage - direct streaming to/from the media - which 5400 RPM drives do almost as well as a 7200rpm disk. These days the biggest "gain" in speed on a 7.2k drive comes from the lower access time. For stuff like storing ripped DVDs or music, it's not as big of a deal.

Yeah, for an enterprise setup you use 7.2k drives, but for a home setup with only 2-5 "users" and most of them NOT simultaneous, the power savings and heat/noise bonuses from the slower drives are a worthwhile trade-off, along with price.

The big difference between Red & Green beyond the warranty is that the Red do TLER. Rather than sitting and retrying a read/write for a long time (which can cause a drive to fall out of the array), they mark the sector bad, which will trigger it to be rebuilt by the RAID system, and everything continues on mostly normal. I believe that the AV drives may be the same (quickly erroring and moving on rather than hanging up retrying a read/write which can cause UI experience to suffer) but there's no true way to know without working at WD and/or digging through their spec sheets.  The AV drives specifically advertise the "AV streaming" command set, but I thought that was part of the later SATA spec anyway...

I'm trying to decide if I want to specifically buy an AV drive for the Tivo that's in my Amazon cart, or if I want to yank one of the WD Reds that is in my Windows Media Center system instead... The Red is "free" for me (already purchased), while a new AV = higher outlay.



> "IntelliPower" doesn't mean variable speed -- it means fixed speed (5400 rpm) but the actual throughput is sometimes higher than a "typical" 5400 RPM drive. Since all drives support NCQ, of course when you use that you'll get bursts of higher throughput.


NCQ doesn't generally benefit in a linear access pattern like streaming video. Possibly with multiple streams simultaneously it could help, but NCQ normally has the best impact on a "multi-client, mostly random" kind of load. Check out StorageReview and AnandTech, I believe both have done testing of NCQ to see its effects.


----------



## BobCamp1

bradenmcg said:


> The reason for the Red drives is NAS environments. Once you have two or three or four spindles in play along with R5, the increased access time and rotational latency from a 5400rpm disk isn't quite as noticeable. Plus, a lot of NAS access is large file storage - direct streaming to/from the media - which 5400 RPM drives do almost as well as a 7200rpm disk. These days the biggest "gain" in speed on a 7.2k drive comes from the lower access time. For stuff like storing ripped DVDs or music, it's not as big of a deal.
> 
> Yeah, for an enterprise setup you use 7.2k drives, but for a home setup with only 2-5 "users" and most of them NOT simultaneous, the power savings and heat/noise bonuses from the slower drives are a worthwhile trade-off, along with price.
> 
> The big difference between Red & Green beyond the warranty is that the Red do TLER. Rather than sitting and retrying a read/write for a long time (which can cause a drive to fall out of the array), they mark the sector bad, which will trigger it to be rebuilt by the RAID system, and everything continues on mostly normal. I believe that the AV drives may be the same (quickly erroring and moving on rather than hanging up retrying a read/write which can cause UI experience to suffer) but there's no true way to know without working at WD and/or digging through their spec sheets.  The AV drives specifically advertise the "AV streaming" command set, but I thought that was part of the later SATA spec anyway...
> 
> I'm trying to decide if I want to specifically buy an AV drive for the Tivo that's in my Amazon cart, or if I want to yank one of the WD Reds that is in my Windows Media Center system instead... The Red is "free" for me (already purchased), while a new AV = higher outlay.
> 
> NCQ doesn't generally benefit in a linear access pattern like streaming video. Possibly with multiple streams simultaneously it could help, but NCQ normally has the best impact on a "multi-client, mostly random" kind of load. Check out StorageReview and AnandTech, I believe both have done testing of NCQ to see its effects.


Yeah, you leave a part of a the industry for three years, and it seems like you've been gone for 20 years! When I was in the hard drive industry the demand for NAS was non-existent.

As I recall, NCQ does nicely give a performance bump in multiple streaming applications, probably more so than the streaming commands themselves. It also gives a decent bump in performance in regular home/office use as well. "Stream" is one for each tuner plus one for each output device. A six tuner Roamio connected to a few Minis will have plenty of streams!

The Red and Green drives are almost identical except for the enabling/disabling of minor firmware features the Tivo most likely isn't using. The AV drive appears to be from the previous generation but is plenty good enough. It's all about price. If you have one lying around just use that one.


----------



## bradenmcg

BobCamp1 said:


> Yeah, you leave a part of a the industry for three years, and it seems like you've been gone for 20 years! When I was in the hard drive industry the demand for NAS was non-existent.


And now it's big enough that the two major players (WD & Seagate) both have specific drives for it. 



> As I recall, NCQ does nicely give a performance bump in multiple streaming applications, probably more so than the streaming commands themselves. It also gives a decent bump in performance in regular home/office use as well. "Stream" is one for each tuner plus one for each output device. A six tuner Roamio connected to a few Minis will have plenty of streams!


StorageReview begs to differ on the value of NCQ in normal "desktop use" benchmarks... but once you start getting into "server use" it can help. Given that the Tivo has multiple streams going on, I can see how this could "smell" like "server use." 



> The Red and Green drives are almost identical except for the enabling/disabling of minor firmware features the Tivo most likely isn't using. The AV drive appears to be from the previous generation but is plenty good enough. It's all about price. If you have one lying around just use that one.


Supposedly the Red is more vibration-tolerant than a Green, on top of having firmware tweaks. They give it that extra year of warranty too.

I just pulled the trigger on a new Tivo setup, I threw an AV-GP drive in just so I don't have to dismantle/cripple the current array on the WMC system to setup the Tivo. Once I've finished watching shows on the WMC setup and the Tivo is "in production," I'll yank one of the Reds from the WMC box and throw it in my NAS, and either leave the other one as standalone or turn it into a cold-spare for the NAS.  (I have a 4-bay Synology with only 3 drives currently, it can easily expand from 3 to 4-drive R5 so why not.)


----------



## mrsean

Weaknees is selling 4TB Roamios now. Could the hard drive be taken out, cloned and the software analyzed for changes compared to a 3TB Roamio drive in order to discover how they are breaking the barrier?


----------



## lessd

mrsean said:


> Weaknees is selling 4TB Roamios now. Could the hard drive be taken out, cloned and the software analyzed for changes compared to a 3TB Roamio drive in order to discover how they are breaking the barrier?


Yes, by somebody that knew what they were doing, and was willing to invest the money and time to do this. 600+ HD hours to me seems like an over kill for most people.


----------



## philz

lessd said:


> Yes, by somebody that knew what they were doing, and was willing to invest the money and time to do this. 600+ HD hours to me seems like an over kill for most people.


Surebut if you happen to only have a 4TB drive sitting around (ironically from a WMC/Ceton setup). Wouldn't you want it to work when the alternative is the 500 gb that came with the Roamio


----------



## philz

BobCamp1 said:


> I did find a new pdisk64 tool that Tivo wrote. The dpme.h file describes the changes they made to the APM, and they modified it to use type u64 to hold the drive size. They put the partition size as a 64 bit number at the very end of the block, put a zero in the traditional 32-bit partition size location, and use a special signature to identify that APM block. I attached the .h file.
> 
> The odd part is that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. The foundation is there to use a drive of any size, but the other tools in Tivo don't appear to take advantage of it. Maybe they wrote pdisk64 thinking they had to do it that way but instead discovered the workaround they're currently using.


How would I use that script? Not a normal mac shell script seemingly.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

jodell said:


> I believe the MBT line in system information is the Mother Board Temperature.
> 
> My Roamio with 2 TB drive has been running for 20+ hours in my closet that houses all my equipment. After recording (and transferring) about 50 hours worth or shows, all is well so far. The MBT is 50.
> 
> Jeff


Is there a MBT "mother board temperature" thread someplace? I haven't seen a Roamio in this thread lower than 40C yet, but mine (upgraded to a 3TB WD AV drive) is only 39C.

My Tivos have always stood on edge. They don't fit sideways on that side of my cabinet. Also, instead of putting them on the bottom of the cabinet. I have them on a shelf about 1" from the bottom of the cabinet, allowing a good inflow of cool air from the front of the cabinet.

I can submit a pic if anyone wants.


----------



## jmpage2

Ambient room temperature and other factors would likely have more to do with the temperature of your TiVo motherboard than how you have it oriented.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

jmpage2 said:


> Ambient room temperature and other factors would likely have more to do with the temperature of your TiVo motherboard than how you have it oriented.


You state that as if you have some authority in the matter and with no evidence whatsoever.

But I still think you're wrong. And my ambient temp is about what others have stated--74F.


----------



## aaronwt

74F where the TiVo is situated? I know my temperature can vary 2 to 3 degrees, this time of year, between the ceiling and the floor. So while my wall clock might show a temperature of 75F, the temp where my TiVo is located could be 72F. Or even a bigger difference in the Winter.


----------



## jmpage2

ThreeSoFar said:


> You state that as if you have some authority in the matter and with no evidence whatsoever.
> 
> But I still think you're wrong. And my ambient temp is about what others have stated--74F.


Good for you. My "authority" on the matter comes from courses on thermodynamics. By all means though start a thread about your tivo temperature and orientation, for whatever that's worth to your ego.


----------



## morac

jmpage2 said:


> Good for you. My "authority" on the matter comes from courses on thermodynamics. By all means though start a thread about your tivo temperature and orientation, for whatever that's worth to your ego.


All things be equal, orientation can make a difference if the temperature sensor is on the left or right side as the area near the "top" side will be warmer than the "bottom" side. Also depending on which side the TiVo is placed on the fan will either be at the top (good) or the bottom (bad).

Personally I worry more about the heat that comes off my audio receiver when running "full steam", as it causes temperature increases in all nearby devices.


----------



## ggieseke

BobCamp1 said:


> I did find a new pdisk64 tool that Tivo wrote. The dpme.h file describes the changes they made to the APM, and they modified it to use type u64 to hold the drive size. They put the partition size as a 64 bit number at the very end of the block, put a zero in the traditional 32-bit partition size location, and use a special signature to identify that APM block. I attached the .h file.
> 
> The odd part is that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. The foundation is there to use a drive of any size, but the other tools in Tivo don't appear to take advantage of it. Maybe they wrote pdisk64 thinking they had to do it that way but instead discovered the workaround they're currently using.


That include file is fascinating. So far I've analyzed 500GB & 2TB Roamio full images and a partial 3TB image from a Pro, and they bear little to no resemblance to the Block0 or dpme structures described.

I think your theory that they wrote it and then decided to use the current workaround is correct, but it may also have just been a proposed spec. Eryk Vershen is a media engineer at Apple, not TiVo according to Linkedin.


----------



## jmpage2

morac said:


> All things be equal, orientation can make a difference if the temperature sensor is on the left or right side as the area near the "top" side will be warmer than the "bottom" side. Also depending on which side the TiVo is placed on the fan will either be at the top (good) or the bottom (bad).
> 
> Personally I worry more about the heat that comes off my audio receiver when running "full steam", as it causes temperature increases in all nearby devices.


Absolutely true. However the ambient room temperature, where the device is located (enclosure), air flow in that area, etc, are all going to be bigger contributors to how a thermistor on the motherboard reads temperature-wise then how you position it... at least typically.

I understand that TiVo forum folk are a somewhat introverted and detail oriented crowd but wanting to compare MB temperatures on a device that sits in a shelf all the time is a bit hilarious (to me).

The fact that my simple observation that other things would likely be bigger contributors to a thermistor reading resulted in someone lashing out at my attempt to be an "authority" on the subject demonstrates rather acutely just how bored some of the people on here are.


----------



## emerz

ThreeSoFar said:


> I haven't seen a Roamio in this thread lower than 40C yet, but mine (upgraded to a 3TB WD AV drive) is only 39C.


The "introverted" side of me forces me to respond to this post 

My Roamio+ is upgraded to a 3TB WD AV drive and reads exactly 39C almost continuously.


----------



## BobCamp1

ggieseke said:


> That include file is fascinating. So far I've analyzed 500GB & 2TB Roamio full images and a partial 3TB image from a Pro, and they bear little to no resemblance to the Block0 or dpme structures described.
> 
> I think your theory that they wrote it and then decided to use the current workaround is correct, but it may also have just been a proposed spec. Eryk Vershen is a media engineer at Apple, not TiVo according to Linkedin.


Tivo put their copyright notice in it, alongside Apple's. That means they touched it. Eryk is the original pdisk author. Tivo didn't put who modified pdisk to create pdisk64. They also didn't remove any of Apple's original comments.


----------



## jmbach

Haven't looked at it in detail, but would it explain the difference between the APM in the 4 tuner premieres and the earlier models.


----------



## ggieseke

BobCamp1 said:


> Tivo put their copyright notice in it, alongside Apple's. That means they touched it. Eryk is the original pdisk author. Tivo didn't put who modified pdisk to create pdisk64. They also didn't remove any of Apple's original comments.


Agreed. I just don't know what relevance it has to Roamios at this point since they're not using those structures yet from what I've seen so far.

The APM (or dpme) structure that I've seen on Roamios is greatly simplified from earlier versions and doesn't fit that definition at all. The Block0 structure in that .h file bears no resemblace to what TiVo has used since day one and still seems to be using. In particular, there's no reference to the current alternating boot partition that has been a part of their strategy forever.

Some parts of it make a lot of sense and are clearly a 64-bit extension of the original file system, and other parts seem like pure fantasy based on the original Apple specification without much actual knowlege of what TiVo has been doing since '99.

I don't know what to think and I won't call it a red herring, but it isn't what they're using so far unlesss an analysis of the Weaknees 4TB model proves me wrong or they switch to it in the future. On stock models up to 3TB I can guarantee that they're not using it now.

Who knows what the future will bring?


----------



## jmbach

Maybe this structure is located on the NAND or SSD that the Roamio boots off of and stores the OS.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

ThreeSoFar said:


> ...My Tivos have always stood on edge. They don't fit sideways on that side of my cabinet. Also, instead of putting them on the bottom of the cabinet. I have them on a shelf about 1" from the bottom of the cabinet, allowing a good inflow of cool air from the front of the cabinet.
> 
> I can submit a pic if anyone wants.


I always like to se other people's setups, so please post


----------



## ThreeSoFar

DCIFRTHS said:


> I always like to se other people's setups, so please post


Here it is years ago (Jul 2011).










Today it's a lone S5 next to an XBox.

And you can't tell with this angle, but under that black shelf is almost an inch of open space to allow cold air from the front. Out the back, it's closed except for a vent up higher.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

ThreeSoFar said:


> Here it is years ago (Jul 2011).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Today it's a lone S5 next to an XBox.
> 
> And you can't tell with this angle, but under that black shelf is almost an inch of open space to allow cold air from the front. Out the back, it's closed except for a vent up higher.


Do you notice any vibration suing them vertically? Did you add any rubber feet?


----------



## elwaylite

DCIFRTHS said:


> I always like to se other people's setups, so please post


Here is how mine looks, had to pull everything out last night getting ready for my first amp.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

elwaylite said:


> Here is how mine looks, had to pull everything out last night getting ready for my first amp.


How much clearance will you have above the new amp? My B&K puts out a HUGE amount of heat. I'm looking to go back to a straight receiver. I know they get hot too, but nothing like my amp.


----------



## elwaylite

4" off top. Its an Emotiva that runs pretty cool, they said 2-3 " so it should be more than good. Also talked to owners that stack without problems. Kinda excited to get my first amp, but as you can see I wont be fitting anything else.

That stand was originally designed as one shelf in each section, but I had to drill new holes to fit the player, surge protector and Hopper in one spot. Luckily the Roamio is so little!


----------



## HarperVision

elwaylite said:


> ...That stand was originally designed as one shelf in each section, but I had to drill new holes to fit the player, surge protector and Hopper in one spot. Luckily the Roamio is so little!


Be careful, those kangaroos have been known to stomp a Roamio to DVR dust, as posted in another thread!


----------



## elwaylite

LOL. They both have their strong points.


----------



## ggieseke

What does this have to do with the subject of this thread?


----------



## HarperVision

ggieseke said:


> What does this have to do with the subject of this thread?


It has to do with people lightening up and smiling once in awhile. Sounds like you could use some of that! :-/

Oh, and it has to do with not allowing Hopper and his evil sidekick, Joey, stomp all over your freshly installed bigger AV hard drive!


----------



## Joe Siegler

ThreeSoFar said:


> Here it is years ago (Jul 2011).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Today it's a lone S5 next to an XBox.
> 
> And you can't tell with this angle, but under that black shelf is almost an inch of open space to allow cold air from the front. Out the back, it's closed except for a vent up higher.


If you're getting an Xbox One, they're advising against that. Specifically "Put the Xbox One on it's side at your own risk".

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/put-the-xbox-one-on-its-end-at-your-own-risk/


----------



## ThreeSoFar

DCIFRTHS said:


> Do you notice any vibration suing them vertically? Did you add any rubber feet?


No vibration, no. I did cut up some mousepads to put underneath each.


----------



## leiff

anyone know if my WD20EADS will work?


----------



## jmpage2

leiff said:


> anyone know if my WD20EADS will work?


It should work. Other users have reported success with similar Green non AV WD drives.


----------



## cr33p

Im rocking a WD30EZRX in my Plus 89.99 shipped from Newegg


----------



## Tico

cr33p said:


> Im rocking a WD30EZRX in my Plus 89.99 shipped from Newegg


Coupon code or something?

I see it at 129


----------



## bmgoodman

cr33p said:


> Im rocking a WD30EZRX in my Plus 89.99 shipped from Newegg


How was it packaged?


----------



## HarperVision

bmgoodman said:


> How was it packaged?


You mean like OEM or retail?


----------



## NJguy

cr33p said:


> Im rocking a WD30EZRX in my Plus 89.99 shipped from Newegg


Don't see it for that price anywhere.


----------



## cr33p

It was a WD recert, I have had great experiences with them in the past, and it was in a WD clam shell type package like a retail box would have.


----------



## jmpage2

cr33p said:


> It was a WD recert, I have had great experiences with them in the past, and it was in a WD clam shell type package like a retail box would have.


No thanks on that one. I don't want a refurb hard drive any more than a used jock strap.


----------



## bmgoodman

HarperVision said:


> You mean like OEM or retail?


My beef with NewEgg the last time I ordered a hard drive was that they shipped a bare drive in *just* the plastic "clam shell" in a huge box with some peanuts in it. The drive had lots of room to bounce around inside the bigger box. They need to use much smaller outer boxes, IMO. Or use the air-filled pouches around the inner box. In any event, I won't order drives from NewEgg until they change their shipping methods.

Thanks.


----------



## shortcut3d

bmgoodman said:


> My beef with NewEgg the last time I ordered a hard drive was that they shipped a bare drive in *just* the plastic "clam shell" in a huge box with some peanuts in it. The drive had lots of room to bounce around inside the bigger box. They need to use much smaller outer boxes, IMO. Or use the air-filled pouches around the inner box. In any event, I won't order drives from NewEgg until they change their shipping methods.
> 
> Thanks.


I've had mixed results with Newegg. A single OEM Seagate NAS drive was shipped in a generic 3.5" HDD cardboard container (plastic end holders sized to fit snugly). I ordered a very large set of NAS drives and they came in half the Styrofoam block from the manufacture bulk container. The exposed half was wrapped in large bubble wrap. Then a Qnap NAS was shipped without an exterior box. The drives were fine, but the NAS was DOA. In comparison, Amazon had each drive in their own generic 3.5" HDD shipping container within a huge box.


----------



## ggieseke

I got a single OEM drive from Newegg recently, and it was packed in a custom inflatable holder that was obviously designed for hard drives. A big improvement on bubble wrap and styrofoam peanouts IMO.


----------



## unitron

leiff said:


> anyone know if my WD20EADS will work?


It's a good drive, I had one in an S3 HD for a while before replacing it with a WD20EURS and putting the EADS in a PC to copy .tivo files to.

You'll need to run wdidle3 on the EADS to disable Intellipark or set the timer to 300 seconds to avoid the warm boot problem.


----------



## markp99

Swapped-in a new 3TB drive last night into my Plus, Process could not have been simpler!

WD AV-GP 3TB AV Video Hard Drive (WD30EURS).

$140 on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0


----------



## sbiller

markp99 said:


> Swapped-in a new 3TB drive last night into my Plus, Process could not have been simpler!
> 
> WD AV-GP 3TB AV Video Hard Drive (WD30EURS).
> 
> $140 on Amazon!
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0


Swapped in the same WD30EURS into my base Roamio on Wednesday. I purchased the Amazon Warehouse deal return for $125 and it works great.


----------



## magnox

WD30EZRX - $82 on amazon right now.


----------



## kbmb

markp99 said:


> Swapped-in a new 3TB drive last night into my Plus, Process could not have been simpler!
> 
> WD AV-GP 3TB AV Video Hard Drive (WD30EURS).
> 
> $140 on Amazon!
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0


Good to know it was easy. Guessing you just installed the drive and everything came back without having to re-do Guided Setup?

How does Tivo view people putting in their own drives when it comes to warranty issues? Do you keep the old one around incase you need to have warranty work done to the unit itself?

-Kevin


----------



## jmpage2

No, you will have to re-do guided setup after replacing the drive and you will lose all of the recordings.

TiVo EULA does say that opening the unit voids the warranty. If you volunteer that you've monkeyed with the system then they might refuse warranty work.... or if you send a unit back with a non factory drive they also might refuse warranty work. From a warranty perspective the safest thing to do would be to keep the original drive, and not boast to them on the phone (as apparently someone here did) that you've replaced/upgraded the device when asking for warranty work to be done.


----------



## kbmb

jmpage2 said:


> No, you will have to re-do guided setup after replacing the drive and you will lose all of the recordings.
> 
> TiVo EULA does say that opening the unit voids the warranty. If you volunteer that you've monkeyed with the system then they might refuse warranty work.... or if you send a unit back with a non factory drive they also might refuse warranty work. From a warranty perspective the safest thing to do would be to keep the original drive, and not boast to them on the phone (as apparently someone here did) that you've replaced/upgraded the device when asking for warranty work to be done.


Ah ok.....so I'm guessing all settings and season passes etc are lost as well. Does anyone know.....can you re-download season passes from Tivo.com after or does that get wiped once the new drive is in and the Tivo connects to the service?

As for the warranty...thanks. Kind of like the Apple warranty.....which is why I keep old RAM around just in case they refuse work with 3rd party RAM.

-Kevin


----------



## jmpage2

I realize that this is a long thread, but everything you are asking has already been covered, so you might do a search.

When you replace the drive you lose everything, including SPs, etc. You can re-transfer your SPs using tivo.com as far as I know. I just replaced my drive the day I got the box so I didn't have to mess around with losing everything later on.


----------



## kbmb

jmpage2 said:


> I realize that this is a long thread, but everything you are asking has already been covered, so you might do a search.
> 
> When you replace the drive you lose everything, including SPs, etc. You can re-transfer your SPs using tivo.com as far as I know. I just replaced my drive the day I got the box so I didn't have to mess around with losing everything later on.


Sorry to make you waste your time.

I thought I read conflicting information, but after going through the thread again I see it's just like upgrading in the past......you lose everything including CC pairing. Only the upgrade process doesn't require a special drive with the Tivo software already on it.

So I'm guessing there is no way to transfer season passes to a new drive since Tivo.com only allows copying from 1 Tivo to another.....since there is only 1 on the account, I'm guessing after the first time the upgraded Tivo connects....it'll wipe all the season passes. Looking like kmttg if probably the best solution to copy SP for an upgraded drive.

-Kevin


----------



## Gary-B

After you add the new Tivo to your account, you can just transfer season passes from the on-line Season Pass Manager to the new box.


----------



## markp99

kbmb said:


> Looking like kmttg if probably the best solution to copy SP for an upgraded drive.


Yep, just like upgrading in the past, except as you note, no special format/setup on the new drive. Nice!

I had a 2nd TiVo to move off my SPs. I then moved them back again with new drive inserted @ TiVo.com.

As you note, kmttg is a perfect option to take your SPs offline for the upgrade.


----------



## jmpage2

kbmb said:


> Sorry to make you waste your time.
> 
> I thought I read conflicting information, but after going through the thread again I see it's just like upgrading in the past......you lose everything including CC pairing. Only the upgrade process doesn't require a special drive with the Tivo software already on it.
> 
> So I'm guessing there is no way to transfer season passes to a new drive since Tivo.com only allows copying from 1 Tivo to another.....since there is only 1 on the account, I'm guessing after the first time the upgraded Tivo connects....it'll wipe all the season passes. Looking like kmttg if probably the best solution to copy SP for an upgraded drive.
> 
> -Kevin


In respect to wanting to "upgrade" a drive you've already been using to a new drive and you want to preserve everything then yes, the new upgrade process is not much improved over the old one where special tools needed to be use to transfer settings, recordings, etc, over to a new drive.

The advantage (and it's a big one) is if you simply want to add capacity by way of a larger drive, don't mind losing things and re-running the setup.... for that all you have to do now is physically install a disk. That's a huge win for many of us... and also makes replacement in the event of a drive failure issue a snap.

Could TiVo make it so that the SPs, cable-card pairing, and many other things were written to flash for a drive swap out? Probably... but look at it this way, the primary reason they probably made the drive easy to swap out was for MSOs.... and those MSOs might actually look at that as a dis-advantage. If a customer brings in a TiVo or a TiVo has a problem they can just put a bare drive in and "bam" new TiVo.


----------



## kbmb

Gary-B said:


> After you add the new Tivo to your account, you can just transfer season passes from the on-line Season Pass Manager to the new box.


Not a new Tivo.....a drive replacement on the same Tivo.



markp99 said:


> Yep, just like upgrading in the past, except as you note, no special format/setup on the new drive. Nice!
> 
> I had a 2nd TiVo to move off my SPs. I then moved them back again to the Roamio with new drive inserted.
> 
> As you note, kmttg is a perfect option to take your SPs offline for the upgrade.


Thanks for all the info. Guessing Tivo won't ever allow you to backup your season passes since "upgrading" is not entirely allowed.

-Kevin


----------



## jmpage2

Short of creating an officially sanctioned "cloning" tool (or uploading potentially TBs worth of shows to the internet) I don't see how TiVo could make that happen.


----------



## kbmb

jmpage2 said:


> In respect to wanting to "upgrade" a drive you've already been using to a new drive and you want to preserve everything then yes, the new upgrade process is not much improved over the old one where special tools needed to be use to transfer settings, recordings, etc, over to a new drive.
> 
> The advantage (and it's a big one) is if you simply want to add capacity by way of a larger drive, don't mind losing things and re-running the setup.... for that all you have to do now is physically install a disk. That's a huge win for many of us... and also makes replacement in the event of a drive failure issue a snap.
> 
> Could TiVo make it so that the SPs, cable-card pairing, and many other things were written to flash for a drive swap out? Probably... but look at it this way, the primary reason they probably made the drive easy to swap out was for MSOs.... and those MSOs might actually look at that as a dis-advantage. If a customer brings in a TiVo or a TiVo has a problem they can just put a bare drive in and "bam" new TiVo.


No doubt it's a huge win. No longer would I have to order a special drive from eBay just to upgrade.

Would love for Tivo to make drives easily swappable.

-Kevin


----------



## kbmb

jmpage2 said:


> Short of creating an officially sanctioned "cloning" tool (or uploading potentially TBs worth of shows to the internet) I don't see how TiVo could make that happen.


No, not backing up shows themselves....just the passes.

-Kevin


----------



## tivogurl

kbmb said:


> As for the warranty...thanks. Kind of like the Apple warranty.....which is why I keep old RAM around just in case they refuse work with 3rd party RAM.


Memory is considered a user-serviceable item under Apple's warranty. It doesn't void your warranty.


----------



## kbmb

tivogurl said:


> Memory is considered a user-serviceable item under Apple's warranty. It doesn't void your warranty.


Correct....but Apple reps will almost immediately blame any 3rd party components in the system....RAM being one of them. I've experienced it first hand and it was just easier to put the stock memory back in than argue with them.

-Kevin


----------



## Tivogre

Has anyone made any progress into (or is anyone even still working on) how Weaknees cracked the 4tb puzzle?

I'm wanting to upgrade from 5 premieres to 2 Roamios and 3 Minis. I'd really love to do 4tb in each of them. 

I was hoping the Community would come through (like they always do), but no news for a while...

If I broke down and bought one 4tb unit from Weaknees, would I be able to clone the drive to to a second blank drive? Any ideas what tools might work for that?


----------



## lpwcomp

To me, the significance of the 4TB upgrade _*kits*_ that weaKnees is offering is that it means that you can install a pre-configured drive in an S5, making it very likely tools can be developed that enable you to upgrade one that has been in use for a while and keep all of your settings and recordings.


----------



## morac

For what it's worth Weaknees now has 8 TB update kits (two drives).


----------



## jmpage2

Indeed. For those who want to store 1200+ hours of HD but aren't worried about the chance of either drive failing, taking the whole lot with it.


----------



## ggieseke

I finally have the hardware I need and I'm working on it, but no luck so far. I was really hoping that since the OS is in memory now, just getting the box upgraded to the latest software before installing a 4TB drive would solve the problem but it doesn't.

It's writing Block0, the new APM (more on that later), and successfully creating the /var & SQLite partitions, but it doesn't create any of the MFS structures and just keeps looping into an error message / KS57 circle.

I just bought a lifetime Pro and a WD40EFRX, so I can't afford another $350 right now just to see how Weaknees did it. It's obvious from looking at what I've seen so far that TiVo intended it to work (at least in the future), but there's still a bug somewhere.


----------



## lessd

ggieseke said:


> I finally have the hardware I need and I'm working on it, but no luck so far. I was really hoping that since the OS is in memory now, just getting the box upgraded to the latest software before installing a 4TB drive would solve the problem but it doesn't.
> 
> It's writing Block0, the new APM (more on that later), and successfully creating the /var & SQLite partitions, but it doesn't create any of the MFS structures and just keeps looping into an error message / KS57 circle.
> 
> I just bought a lifetime Pro and a WD40EFRX, so I can't afford another $350 right now just to see how Weaknees did it. It's obvious from looking at what I've seen so far that TiVo intended it to work (at least in the future), but there's still a bug somewhere.


If you update the software with the original Roamio drive than replace the drive I think that the new software is downloaded again onto the new drive, I think the internal flash is just enough memory to get the drive formatted and download the current software onto the drive.


----------



## Tivogre

If you had access to a working 4tb image (DVR Bars?), are you confident that you could replicate the result?


----------



## aaronwt

What drive is Weaknees using for their 4TB solution?


----------



## Tivogre

All their site says is "A Western Digital AV Line Drive".


----------



## aaronwt

i thought WD didn't have a 4TB A/V drive yet? I know they recently came out with a 4TB Red drive.


----------



## lessd

aaronwt said:


> i thought WD didn't have a 4TB A/V drive yet? I know they recently came out with a 4TB Red drive.


WD does have an OEM line of drives that WK may have access to.


----------



## ggieseke

Tivogre said:


> If you had access to a working 4tb image (DVR Bars?), are you confident that you could replicate the result?


DvrBARS is limited to 2TB drives by the Microsoft VHD file format, but just coping the first 32KB using a hex editor like HxD or iBored would be a big start in the right direction.


----------



## ggieseke

lessd said:


> If you update the software with the original Roamio drive than replace the drive I think that the new software is downloaded again onto the new drive, I think the internal flash is just enough memory to get the drive formatted and download the current software onto the drive.


The entire Linux OS is contained on the motherboard, probably in the 4GB NAND chip next to the hard drive power supply jack on a Plus or Pro. I used a 1TB drive, let it build the hard drive and update to 20.3.6. Then I wiped the drive and started over, and that time it skipped the upgrade step altogether.

The /var and SQLite partitions are the only real Linux partitions on the hard drive. The Bootstrap, Kernel & Root partitions are all just empty 4KB placeholders.


----------



## lessd

ggieseke said:


> The entire Linux OS is contained on the motherboard, probably in the 4GB NAND chip next to the hard drive power supply jack on a Plus or Pro. I used a 1TB drive, let it build the hard drive and update to 20.3.6. Then I wiped the drive and started over, and that time it skipped the upgrade step altogether.
> 
> The /var and SQLite partitions are the only real Linux partitions on the hard drive. The Bootstrap, Kernel & Root partitions are all just empty 4KB placeholders.


Good to know, but I wonder if the WK 4K drive would work with all future TiVo updates.


----------



## MrNiceGuy83

Does anyone know if the Roamio is capable of achieving SATA 6GB/s speeds? 
I want to upgrade the HD and need to know if I should get an HD with an SATA II or SATA III interface.
I would be willing to pay the extra money for the SATA 6GB/s speed drives (Ex. WD AV-GP EURX [6GB/s] over EURS [3GB/s]) but I can't seem to find any information that states if the Roamio is capable of attaining those speeds. If it's locked at SATA 3GB/s because of the hardware configuration, then I don't see a point in paying extra for the SATA 6GB/s speed drives since it will never be able to reach those interface speeds anyway.
I'm hoping someone knows the answer to this.
Maybe it's an obvious answer...
However, I just want to make sure I get this right before I spend the money on a new HD and this forum seems the best suited to answer this question.


----------



## aaronwt

MrNiceGuy83 said:


> Does anyone know if the Roamio is capable of achieving SATA 6GB/s speeds?
> I want to upgrade the HD and need to know if I should get an HD with an SATA II or SATA III interface.
> I would be willing to pay the extra money for the SATA 6GB/s speed drives (Ex. WD AV-GP EURX [6GB/s] over EURS [3GB/s]) but I can't seem to find any information that states if the Roamio is capable of attaining those speeds. If it's locked at SATA 3GB/s because of the hardware configuration, then I don't see a point in paying extra for the SATA 6GB/s speed drives since it will never be able to reach those interface speeds anyway.
> I'm hoping someone knows the answer to this.
> Maybe it's an obvious answer...
> However, I just want to make sure I get this right before I spend the money on a new HD and this forum seems the best suited to answer this question.


No platter hard drive is fast enough to take advantage of those speeds.
SSDs are another story though. I know my Solid State Drives get over 500MB/s(4Gb/s) transfer rates(sustained sequential write and read) and can take advantage of Sata 3 speeds, but no platter drive comes anywhere close to those speeds. So basically Sata 2 speeds are what the fastest platter drive can really take advantage of.

Plus we are talking about a TiVo. It is reading/writing very, very slow A/V streams.


----------



## BobCamp1

ggieseke said:


> The entire Linux OS is contained on the motherboard, probably in the 4GB NAND chip next to the hard drive power supply jack on a Plus or Pro. I used a 1TB drive, let it build the hard drive and update to 20.3.6. Then I wiped the drive and started over, and that time it skipped the upgrade step altogether.
> 
> The /var and SQLite partitions are the only real Linux partitions on the hard drive. The Bootstrap, Kernel & Root partitions are all just empty 4KB placeholders.


That's just like the THR22-100 then. I don't know why some people refuse to believe it. As you said, there's a 4 GB NAND chip right there.

It's too bad those partitions are there yet empty. One thing I don't know is if the 16 partition limit is still there or not. That's purely a Tivo limit. If it's not there, the drives would be a heck of a lot easier to expand.

Probably what could be done is to merge the first MFS partition pair into one partition. Using the freed up partition number, create/expand a new partition to just short of the 2 TB mark, then create/expand another new partition to take up almost all of the remaining room.

The main problem is that jfms doesn't have an option to limit the expansion. At least I can't find one.


----------



## ggieseke

lessd said:


> Good to know, but I wonder if the WK 4K drive would work with all future TiVo updates.


There are probably a few that already survived the update to 20.3.6 but it's a good question.



BobCamp1 said:


> That's just like the THR22-100 then. I don't know why some people refuse to believe it. As you said, there's a 4 GB NAND chip right there.
> 
> It's too bad those partitions are there yet empty. One thing I don't know is if the 16 partition limit is still there or not. That's purely a Tivo limit. If it's not there, the drives would be a heck of a lot easier to expand.
> 
> Probably what could be done is to merge the first MFS partition pair into one partition. Using the freed up partition number, create/expand a new partition to just short of the 2 TB mark, then create/expand another new partition to take up almost all of the remaining room.
> 
> The main problem is that jfms doesn't have an option to limit the expansion. At least I can't find one.


Several more good questions. 

There are enough differences in Block0, the APM, and the MFS headers to throw off all of the older tools. I had DvrBARS at least reading its way through all the new stuff until I tackled a 4TB drive, then the APM format changed again. Back to work on it tomorrow...


----------



## ThreeSoFar

markp99 said:


> Swapped-in a new 3TB drive last night into my Plus, Process could not have been simpler!
> 
> WD AV-GP 3TB AV Video Hard Drive (WD30EURS).
> 
> $140 on Amazon!
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W9BKE0


If you'd done it before even booting up the stock drive, as I did....it would have been a tad simpler (by not allowing any content to pile up first).

I paid about the same for the same drive a month ago--about $40 less with the gift card balance I had.


----------



## dynamiteid

First post to this forum. Thanks for all the great info. I upgraded my base Roamio last night. Everything went great and it is up and running without issue. One thing to note is that my top cover didn't seem to want to slide forward. It had 3 plastic tabs on both sides that I had to gently pry open and then rotate the cover off. Is this different from the other Roamio's? or did I miss something?


----------



## bradleys

dynamiteid said:


> First post to this forum. Thanks for all the great info. I upgraded my base Roamio last night. Everything went great and it is up and running without issue. One thing to note is that my top cover didn't seem to want to slide forward. It had 3 plastic tabs on both sides that I had to gently pry open and then rotate the cover off. Is this different from the other Roamio's? or did I miss something?


Yes, the case for the base Roamio is a plastic shell design and a number of people have reported it is a little harder to open then expected.

The Plus and Pro models are similar to the older designs with the metal cover. Just a couple of screws and it slides open.


----------



## sfhub

BobCamp1 said:


> It's too bad those partitions are there yet empty. One thing I don't know is if the 16 partition limit is still there or not. That's purely a Tivo limit. If it's not there, the drives would be a heck of a lot easier to expand.


While there is a 16 partition limit, there is actually no requirement that TiVo MFS Zones map 1-to-1 to partitions, so in effect, the 16 partition limit doesn't have to negatively affect your ease of expansion.

Basically Partition 15 (or 16) can contain multiple TiVo MFS Zones and it works fine. This is how I have my S3 OLED expanded twice even though it already had 15 partitions when I expanded it the 2nd time.

The original 1-to-1 mapping of TiVo MFS zones to partitions is something introduced by the people who were writing the upgrade tools because of an assumption about how TiVo MFS zones worked that either is no longer true or was not true back then but people didn't realize that yet.


----------



## BobCamp1

sfhub said:


> While there is a 16 partition limit, there is actually no requirement that TiVo MFS Zones map 1-to-1 to partitions, so in effect, the 16 partition limit doesn't have to negatively affect your ease of expansion.
> 
> Basically Partition 15 (or 16) can contain multiple TiVo MFS Zones and it works fine. This is how I have my S3 OLED expanded twice even though it already had 15 partitions when I expanded it the 2nd time.
> 
> The original 1-to-1 mapping of TiVo MFS zones to partitions is something introduced by the people who were writing the upgrade tools because of an assumption about how TiVo MFS zones worked that either is no longer true or was not true back then but people didn't realize that yet.


Yep. I know all that. Which is why I recommended combining the last two or three existing MFS partitions into one.  It's just that none of the tools messed with the existing partitions -- they just made new ones.

But the APM trick I think we need to use for the Roamio will require an MFS partition to stop just before the 2 TB mark, then add another 2 TB MFS partition right after it. We barely have enough partitions without having to combine any partitions. ( It's sad because many of these partitions in the Roamio are placeholders -- the entire OS is on the flash.)

Here's the list of partitions on the Premiere as they are stored on the hard disk. I suspect the Roamio is the same:

1 Apple_partition_map	Apple	
13 MFS	MFS media region 2	
2 Image	Bootstrap 1 (empty)
3 Image	Kernel 1	(empty)
4 Ext2	Root 1	(empty)
5 Image	Bootstrap 2 (empty)
6 Image	Kernel 2	(empty)
7 Ext2	Root 2	(empty)
8 Swap	Linux swap	
9 Ext2	/var	
14 Ext2	SQLite	
10 MFS	MFS application region	
12 MFS MFS application region 2	
11 MFS	MFS media region

So to get a 4 TB partition to work, you add partition 15 as MFS region 3 up to the 2 TB spot on the HD, then make partition 16 a 2 TB MFS region 4 partition that starts right at the end of partition 15. That would make a total of 16 partitions total, with 6 MFS partitions which easily falls under the 12 MFS partition limit that existed on old Tivos.

Then, add a 4 TB eSATA HD with two partitions 2 TB each (numbers 17 and 18) to get 8 TB total.

The problem is, Tivo apparently made enough other changes so that none of the old tools work. I could modify JFMS to do the double expansion I described above, but I have a feeling that it wouldn't work.


----------



## jmbach

BobCamp1 said:


> Yep. I know all that. Which is why I recommended combining the last two or three existing MFS partitions into one.  It's just that none of the tools messed with the existing partitions -- they just made new ones.
> 
> But the APM trick I think we need to use for the Roamio will require an MFS partition to stop just before the 2 TB mark, then add another 2 TB MFS partition right after it. We barely have enough partitions without having to combine any partitions. ( It's sad because many of these partitions in the Roamio are placeholders -- the entire OS is on the flash.)
> 
> Here's the list of partitions on the Premiere as they are stored on the hard disk. I suspect the Roamio is the same:
> 
> 1 Apple_partition_map	Apple
> 13 MFS	MFS media region 2
> 2 Image	Bootstrap 1 (empty)
> 3 Image	Kernel 1	(empty)
> 4 Ext2	Root 1	(empty)
> 5 Image	Bootstrap 2 (empty)
> 6 Image	Kernel 2	(empty)
> 7 Ext2	Root 2	(empty)
> 8 Swap	Linux swap
> 9 Ext2	/var
> 14 Ext2	SQLite
> 10 MFS	MFS application region
> 12 MFS	MFS application region 2
> 11 MFS	MFS media region
> 
> So to get a 4 TB partition to work, you add partition 15 as MFS region 3 up to the 2 TB spot on the HD, then make partition 16 a 2 TB MFS region 4 partition that starts right at the end of partition 15. That would make a total of 16 partitions total, with 6 MFS partitions which easily falls under the 12 MFS partition limit that existed on old Tivos.
> 
> Then, add a 4 TB eSATA HD with two partitions 2 TB each (numbers 17 and 18) to get 8 TB total.
> 
> The problem is, Tivo apparently made enough other changes so that none of the old tools work. I could modify JFMS to do the double expansion I described above, but I have a feeling that it wouldn't work.


I think it would work. Haven't got to look at the APM of the Roamios greater than 1TB, but the 2TB XL4 has 3907029168 (hex E8 E0 88 B0) sectors. The last sector that can be addressed with a 32bit APM is 4294967295 (hex FF FF FF FF) and the length of the partition can be the same as well. So as long as you start with a 2TB image and if you could modify JMFS to add a partition at the end with max length of 2TB, it would likely work. In fact, if you keep the modification so that it works with S4s and S5s, it might be able to expand S4s beyond 2TB as well.


----------



## lessd

jmbach said:


> I think it would work. Haven't got to look at the APM of the Roamios greater than 1TB, but the 2TB XL4 has 3907029168 (hex E8 E0 88 B0) sectors. The last sector that can be addressed with a 32bit APM is 4294967295 (hex FF FF FF FF) and the length of the partition can be the same as well. So as long as you start with a 2TB image and if you could modify JMFS to add a partition at the end with max length of 2TB, it would likely work. In fact, if you keep the modification so that it works with S4s and S5s, it might be able to expand S4s beyond 2TB as well.


The S4s will not even boot with any drive bigger than 2Tb, I tried that out by just using a non expanded copy of a S4 original drive onto a 2.5Tb drive, unit would not even boot when put into a S4 TiVo.


----------



## jmbach

lessd said:


> The S4s will not even boot with any drive bigger than 2Tb, I tried that out by just using a non expanded copy of a S4 original drive onto a 2.5Tb drive, unit would not even boot when put into a S4 TiVo.


Well actually ggieseke was able to get an XL to boot a 3TB drive (with a 2TB image) with a minor adjustment to the APM and block0. He was not sure which made it work.


----------



## krisbuxton

I can confirm that you can turn a Roamio Pro into the plus model by just swapping out the hard drive. For $135.00 and about 3 minutes of your time.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...N=B004W9BKE0&linkCode=as2&tag=facebook0bfe-20


----------



## jmpage2

I think you mean plus into pro.... and, yes, many many people have already confirmed that this is a straightforward thing to do.


----------



## imacericg

krisbuxton said:


> I can confirm that you can turn a Roamio Pro into the plus model by just swapping out the hard drive. For $135.00 and about 3 minutes of your time.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...N=B004W9BKE0&linkCode=as2&tag=facebook0bfe-20


Newbie question, will Roamio Basic take this drive as well? Is this the max TB?


----------



## jmpage2

imacericg said:


> Newbie question, will Roamio Basic take this drive as well? Is this the max TB?


Yes and yes.


----------



## atmuscarella

imacericg said:


> Newbie question, will Roamio Basic take this drive as well? Is this the max TB?





jmpage2 said:


> Yes and yes.


Just some further clarification. 3TB is the max size we can upgrade too without buying specially prepared drives from Weakness.com. Weakness has single 4TB and dual 4TB (8TB total) drive upgrade solutions.


----------



## clark_kent

I haven't read all 41 pages so I'm not sure if anyone has already tried a notebook drive or not.

I put a 2TB Toshiba 2.5 inch notebook drive into a Roamio Plus. It booted up fine and got through setup without any issues. The drive itself is a MQ01ABB200 out of a Toshiba Carvino Portable USB Drive. This might be an alternative for anyone concerned about the power and heat of a 3.5 inch drive in the standard Roamio. I can't confirm if the notebook drive will work or not in a standard Roamio since I don't have one. For anyone interested, the 2TB drive spec's it can be found here:

http://storage.toshiba.eu/cms/en/hdd/product_overview/product_detail.jsp?productid=547

Also, incase anyone does want to use a portable drive, a bare 2.5 inch drive will (likely) cost more than a if you buy the same capacity in a "USB portable" drive form and take the drive out of the USB box. Just be aware that not all "USB portable" drives will have a bare disc inside that has a standard power/SATA connector on the bare drive itself.

Food for thought question: how about putting two 2.5 inch 2TB drives inside the Roamio box? Could we get to that magical 4TB capacity that everyone is pining to get without special software "setup tools" that may only run on a Windows machine? Splitting the internal drive power to two drives would be simple enough but can the SATA connector be split to two drives and if it can, would the Roamio recognize the two separate drives on the bus?


----------



## BobCamp1

clark_kent said:


> I haven't read all 41 pages so I'm not sure if anyone has already tried a notebook drive or not.
> 
> I put a 2TB Toshiba 2.5 inch notebook drive into a Roamio Plus. It booted up fine and got through setup without any issues. The drive itself is a MQ01ABB200 out of a Toshiba Carvino Portable USB Drive. This might be an alternative for anyone concerned about the power and heat of a 3.5 inch drive in the standard Roamio. I can't confirm if the notebook drive will work or not in a standard Roamio since I don't have one. For anyone interested, the 2TB drive spec's it can be found here:
> 
> http://storage.toshiba.eu/cms/en/hdd/product_overview/product_detail.jsp?productid=547
> 
> Also, incase anyone does want to use a portable drive, a bare 2.5 inch drive will (likely) cost more than a if you buy the same capacity in a "USB portable" drive form and take the drive out of the USB box. Just be aware that not all "USB portable" drives will have a bare disc inside that has a standard power/SATA connector on the bare drive itself.
> 
> Food for thought question: how about putting two 2.5 inch 2TB drives inside the Roamio box? Could we get to that magical 4TB capacity that everyone is pining to get without special software "setup tools" that may only run on a Windows machine? Splitting the internal drive power to two drives would be simple enough but can the SATA connector be split to two drives and if it can, would the Roamio recognize the two separate drives on the bus?


You should be able to use 2.5" hard drives. Note they generally run slower, but Tivos don't need any speed. They are also not as durable, which is probably more of a concern.

There does appear to be a spare SATA connector in there, and a couple more unpopulated connectors too. I have no clue how the Roamio would react to it, though.


----------



## tigerspy

Looking to drop in a 3TB WD AV-GP into my Roamio basic, but have a question- and honestly haven't ready every post on this 41 page thread, so maybe someone could help me if it's already been posted. 

Can I back up my recordings on my existing drive and restore after dropping in the new drive?


----------



## jmbach

There are no tools currently available that will allow you to do this. You can backup and restore your season passes but that is it.


----------



## tigerspy

jmbach said:


> There are no tools currently available that will allow you to do this. You can backup and restore your season passes but that is it.


Can I use Tivo Desktop (or is that software long gone) to transfer to my PC, then back to the Tivo later?


----------



## Devx

tigerspy said:


> Can I use Tivo Desktop (or is that software long gone) to transfer to my PC, then back to the Tivo later?


Yes, that should work...if you still have a copy. I believe Tivo retired the regular free version back in June and only offer Tivo Desktop Plus now but I haven't checked since they sent the notice.


----------



## jmbach

tigerspy said:


> Can I use Tivo Desktop (or is that software long gone) to transfer to my PC, then back to the Tivo later?


Yes you can. However only those programs that don't have the copy protection bit set. I was thinking about being able to save everything when I replied previously. I am corrected.


----------



## tigerspy

jmbach said:


> Yes you can. However only those programs that don't have the copy protection bit set. I was thinking about being able to save everything when I replied previously. I am corrected.


Oh yeah, I forgot about the copy protection stuff. Just got back into using Tivo, was a user back in like 2003-2004. I'm guessing anything from a digital channel has copy protection?


----------



## gigaguy

Tim Warner here copy-protects about 95% of programs I record.


----------



## ThAbtO

tigerspy said:


> Oh yeah, I forgot about the copy protection stuff. Just got back into using Tivo, was a user back in like 2003-2004. I'm guessing anything from a digital channel has copy protection?


Copy Protection depends on the cable company and the cable cards. Antenna never copy protects.


----------



## WRX09MD

tigerspy said:


> Looking to drop in a 3TB WD AV-GP into my Roamio basic, but have a question- and honestly haven't ready every post on this 41 page thread, so maybe someone could help me if it's already been posted.
> 
> Can I back up my recordings on my existing drive and restore after dropping in the new drive?


Try this, worked for me when I transferred everything. 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmttg/


----------



## dianebrat

gigaguy said:


> Tim Warner here copy-protects about 95% of programs I record.


FiOS doesn't protect 95% of things, gawd I love FiOS...
(sorry, not really trying to rub it in, just balancing it out for tigerspy)


----------



## HarperVision

gigaguy said:


> Tim Warner here copy-protects about 95% of programs I record.


Yeah I know that dude, what a jerk for doing that! Someone should tell his mom. I used to work with his brother Tony and he's no better.


----------



## lpwcomp

WRX09MD said:


> Try this, worked for me when I transferred everything.
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmttg/


kmttg alone doesn't get him what he needs since it doesn't _*by itself*_ provide a mechanism for getting the recordings back to the TiVo.


----------



## unitron

jmbach said:


> Well actually ggieseke was able to get an XL to boot a 3TB drive (with a 2TB image) with a minor adjustment to the APM and block0. He was not sure which made it work.


Does block 0 come before the partition map partition?


----------



## jmbach

unitron said:


> Does block 0 come before the partition map partition?


Yes


----------



## ggieseke

Getting it to boot at all was cool, but making it USE that extra space is what I'm working on now. More in a few weeks.


----------



## unitron

jmbach said:


> Yes


Is that where they hide the bootpage?


----------



## jmbach

unitron said:


> Is that where they hide the bootpage?


Not sure what you are asking. Block0 basically has a TiVo identifier, info on which partition to boot off of, and some other identifying information.


----------



## unitron

jmbach said:


> Not sure what you are asking. Block0 basically has a TiVo identifier, info on which partition to boot off of, and some other identifying information.


I think that's what they call the bootpage, cause that's supposed to be where they keep the which partitions to boot from info that gets re-written if there's a software upgrade sent down the line.


----------



## ggieseke

unitron said:


> I think that's what they call the bootpage, cause that's supposed to be where they keep the which partitions to boot from info that gets re-written if there's a software upgrade sent down the line.


That's it, and it's always the first 512 bytes on the drive. The first two bytes are an identifier (0x1492), the next two bytes identify the primary and alternate Root partitions, and that's followed by a 128 character boot parameter field. The primary and alternate partitions are usually 3 & 6 or vice versa.

Earlier models have some additional fields with the name, IP address and MAC address. Premieres and Roamios don't bother with that, but they have a 16 byte field that seems to be unique to each drive.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

Newegg has a special on this 3TB red WD drive (WD30EFRX) again. A TCF user above said "quietest ever" and has it in his Roamio.

Newegg Item #: N82E16822236344

Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive


coupon Code: EMCYTZT4579


----------



## aaronwt

I don't know what "quietest ever" means, but I can hear a Red drive like any other hard drive out there. They still make noise.


----------



## Crrink

aaronwt said:


> I don't know what "quietest ever" means, but I can hear a Red drive like any other hard drive out there. They still make noise.


It may be a reference to one of my posts - I put a Red drive in my Roamio Basic, and I can only hear the hum of the drive with my ear a few inches from the case, and I can't hear this drive seek. Compared to the ~2 year old Green AV drive that is in the TiVo HD this Basic replaced, the Red drive is much quieter - for me it's essentially undetectable in the room. I could hear the TiVo HD seeking if it was very quiet otherwise.

...by "seeking" I mean the ticking noises you can hear when a drive is reading/writing data.


----------



## cosmicvoid

FYI, in light of Amazon's decision to jack up the price of a WD30EURS from $135 to $145, you can get them for $125 from Provantage.


----------



## aaronwt

Amazon prices are always in a state of flux. They can change multiple times during the course of a day sometimes. And it's certainly not unusual for the price to change daily


----------



## shortcut3d

Crrink said:


> It may be a reference to one of my posts - I put a Red drive in my Roamio Basic, and I can only hear the hum of the drive with my ear a few inches from the case, and I can't hear this drive seek. Compared to the ~2 year old Green AV drive that is in the TiVo HD this Basic replaced, the Red drive is much quieter - for me it's essentially undetectable in the room. I could hear the TiVo HD seeking if it was very quiet otherwise.
> 
> ...by "seeking" I mean the ticking noises you can hear when a drive is reading/writing data.


Anandtech compared NAS drives about a week ago. The lowest noise db rating went to the Seagate NAS drive. I have the 3TB Seagate NAS drive in my Roamio Plus and can barely hear it. It's definitely not silent, but also not disruptive. YMMV


----------



## Joe Siegler

Has anyone put an upgraded drive in here and THEN plugged in one of the extenders? If one already has a 3TB drive in the TiVo and then plugs in a 1TB external, will it cause a problem?

I remember reading about problems with 4TB earlier on in this thread, was just curious.


----------



## jmpage2

The only problem with what you are describing is that you are introducing a single point of failure in your system. If the extender fails or gets disconnected you will lose everything on both drives.

Extenders are a poor value proposition from the perspective of reliability of your TiVo recordings.

From a technical perspective there should not be a problem with adding an extender to a 3TB TiVo.


----------



## imacericg

Does upgrading hard drives void the Tivo warranty?

So if I plan to upgrade and want an extended warranty, I should check out SquareTrade?


----------



## ThAbtO

imacericg said:


> Does upgrading hard drives void the Tivo warranty?
> 
> So if I plan to upgrade and want an extended warranty, I should check out SquareTrade?


Yes, if they find out, but its only 90 days.


----------



## BigJimOutlaw

Has anyone stuck a THD or Premiere upgraded HDD straight into the Roamio and saw what happens?

I certainly don't expect it to "work" or retain any data, but I'm curious if the Roamio freaks out in any way (hangs/looping reboots) or just treats it like a blank drive?


----------



## lessd

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Has anyone stuck a THD or Premiere upgraded HDD straight into the Roamio and saw what happens?
> 
> I certainly don't expect it to "work" or retain any data, but I'm curious if the Roamio freaks out in any way (hangs/looping reboots) or just treats it like a blank drive?


Treats it like a blank drive, no problem


----------



## emerz

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Has anyone stuck a THD or Premiere upgraded HDD straight into the Roamio and saw what happens?
> 
> I certainly don't expect it to "work" or retain any data, but I'm curious if the Roamio freaks out in any way (hangs/looping reboots) or just treats it like a blank drive?


I moved a 3TB drive that had been upgraded in a Roamio basic to a Roamio Plus. I thought it would treat it as a blank drive but it booted up but with many error codes showing on the screen.

Eventually, I wound up wiping the drive with "HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool".

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

Select the option to "quick wipe" the MBR and partitions (takes about 5 seconds). After reinstalling the drive in the Plus, the upgrade went as expected and been running fine since.


----------



## Devx

emerz said:


> I moved a 3TB drive that had been upgraded in a Roamio basic to a Roamio Plus. I thought it would treat it as a blank drive but it booted up but with many error codes showing on the screen.
> 
> Eventually, I wound up wiping the drive with "HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool".
> 
> http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/
> 
> Select the option to "quick wipe" the MBR and partitions (takes about 5 seconds). After reinstalling the drive in the Plus, the upgrade went as expected and been running fine since.


I also moved an upgraded drive from a Basic to a Plus and there were errors after it started up but I attributed those to "security" errors. Tivos are designed to prevent a drive working in another box, even if the model is the exact same, to prevent piracy and uphold copyrights. A clear and delete everything on the Plus fixed it.

What I found interesting in my case, is that, while the drive was upgraded, there was no subscription, recordings (no coax hooked up at all), or CC's on it for either box. It wasn't linked to any account but it still complained and requested a reboot on the Plus. Ultimately it wasn't fully accepting of the new drive until I did the C&DE though. No outside software needed for mine.


----------



## DocNo

davezatz said:


> Right after they finish upgrading the SD Settings...


Ha! Too true.

Personally I don't get the fuss over the SD settings - how often are you really hanging out in the settings menus? And on older boxes, aside from being faster (which the Romeo seems to have FINALLY addressed) you don't have the asinine video window in the guide - so I personally hope they always leave the option for the SD menus.

Now get off my lawn...


----------



## DocNo

nooneuknow said:


> I'm in Las Vegas. Cox here doesn't do as most other Cox markets do.


That's because they were too cheap to upgrade from when they bought out prime cable. Gawd how I hated prime cable. Only surpassed in horribleness by the crappy cable company that was in Boulder City before prime bought them out


----------



## DocNo

bradenmcg said:


> If you want to get really technical, the WD Red "NAS-specific" drives are also "GreenPower" because they spin around 5400.


Actually, the Red drives have one very important feature - bearings at both ends of the drive spindle - usually reserved for SAS drives. The couple of Red drives I have seem to be the same temperature as the Seagate's and Hitachi's I also have. Even if they cost a few dollars more, the added durability of the dual bearings means Red is all I buy now.


----------



## DocNo

nooneuknow said:


> I have witnessed them shrink-wrap returned products, and not apply a sticker, *while observing that half their PC component inventory has returned-product stickers. *


Gee, after reading this thread I wonder why that might be?


----------



## DocNo

Dan203 said:


> That might be true with car warranties, but I don't think it applies to electronics. With electronics a simple static shock to any component in the case could cause failure of the whole system so I think simply proving you opened the case would be enough to deny a warranty repair.


Perhaps, but it's far from the slam dunk you are implying. BTW it's the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and while it started with cars, it applies to any products sold to consumers.

Fighting Tivo would probably cost more than a new Tivo - just depends on if you want to prove a point. If their only defense was "you opened the case" then I'm pretty sure that would be a slam dunk in your favor. IANAL and usual disclaimers apply, but really legal stuff has far more common sense than people act. Which is why you tend to see responsible companies like Tivo not jerk people around unless they have a really good reason.

Then again, I still can't believe earlier in this thread people were discussing strategies to buy local to potentially abuse returns then complaining when others had done the same! And they wonder why Tivo write's their policies the way they do? Unbelievable...


----------



## DocNo

BobCamp1 said:


> The shipping process is very bad on a hard drive.


Especially if the shipping is done improperly which has been the majority of time I have ordered bare, non-retail drives from just about any reseller - including Newegg and Amazon 

If you want to see how drives *should* be packed, go to Seagate or WD's web sites and start the warranty claim process - they will have links to instructions specifying how to ship the drives back to 'em. Did your retailer do the same when they shipped the drive to you? If not, I would just save you the trouble now and ship the drive back to 'em - it WILL fail sooner or later. Not long after I stopped buying bare/OEM drives but full retail (which come with proper packaging from the manufacturer end-to-end) did I stop having perpetual problems with failing drives - fancy that . Between Tivo's and five computers I have at least 20 drives spinning right now. Ugh...

I now only buy retail drives, and locally. Luckily for me, Microcenter here on the east coast seems to be as good as or beat Fry's on a routine basis now - I think Fry's is coasting on their reputation, much like Newegg started to do a few years back. Shop around!


----------



## DocNo

TC25D said:


> Other people, who don't have you on their ignore list, will see this and could come to the conclusion they are a disreputable company to do business with, which they are not.


I dunno - they were condescending and rude in an email to me - and I'm far from the only one. Ironically I ran across their entry in Yelp! tonight while looking for something else and was amused by the even number of five star reviews raving about them, and then the totally opposite one star reviews with the one star reviews mirroring my experience with the forum golden boys. I didn't even know that Yelp! had reviews for non-food places. Who knew that being jerks to at least some of your customers might surface on that new-fangled Internet thing


----------



## DocNo

kbmb said:


> Correct....but Apple reps will almost immediately blame any 3rd party components in the system....RAM being one of them. I've experienced it first hand and it was just easier to put the stock memory back in than argue with them.


Funny - my MacBook Pro with upgraded RAM and the DVD Drive swapped out for an SSD (!!) didn't even raise an eyebrow from them. They even replaced my case because it was buffed and scratched while it was in for repair, and I didn't ask them to - I was appreciative that they basically made my five year old computer look brand new.

Perhaps you just got a Genius having a bad day... or perhaps they didn't like the cut of your jib? Personally I have nothing but stellar service from Apple and very liberal replacement or repairing of any device I have brought into them - with or without AppleCare. Which always makes me suspicious when people claim problems for something as benign as *memory*, which Apple clearly defines as user serviceable.


----------



## aaronwt

DocNo said:


> Ha! Too true.
> 
> Personally I don't get the fuss over the SD settings - how often are you really hanging out in the settings menus? And on older boxes, aside from being faster (which the Romeo seems to have FINALLY addressed) you don't have the asinine video window in the guide - so I personally hope they always leave the option for the SD menus.
> 
> Now get off my lawn...


I would like it to be upgraded so that no matter what screen I go to, I will have the preview window in the upper right. Right now when you go to those SD screens the windows disappears. I would expect the window to always be there no matter what screen I'm on. It would certainly make a consistent user experience.


----------



## TheWizz

I just upgraded my Roamio from the included 500GB drive to a 3TB drive with no issues as instructed in this forum. I've seen some comments about recommending not adding an external drive to introduce single points of failure. While that would increase the single points of failure, there still exists a single point of failure (obviously) that can't be eliminated currently w/ TiVo DVRs. One of the things about DTV that I liked was that when you added an external HD, it would use that drive exclusively and not both the external and internal drives. What's nice about that is one could actually eliminate the single point of failure for the HD by using an external (HW) RAID1 eSATA dual drive enclosure. I've done that for years with DTV DVRs w/ (2) 2TB drives in the external HW based RAID array and DTV just saw this as a single 2TB drive and when (not if) I lost a drive, it kept humming along until I replaced it and then "automagically" re-established the RAID1 mirror. Which is nice so you don't lose hundreds of recordings. If TiVO would automatically or manually use just the external drive when attached, then I would switch out to external drives again with a HW RAID1 enclosure.


----------



## L David Matheny

TheWizz said:


> I just upgraded my Roamio from the included 500GB drive to a 3TB drive with no issues as instructed in this forum. I've seen some comments about recommending not adding an external drive to introduce single points of failure. While that would increase the single points of failure, there still exists a single point of failure (obviously) that can't be eliminated currently w/ TiVo DVRs. One of the things about DTV that I liked was that when you added an external HD, it would use that drive exclusively and not both the external and internal drives. What's nice about that is one could actually eliminate the single point of failure for the HD by using an external (HW) RAID1 eSATA dual drive enclosure. I've done that for years with DTV DVRs w/ (2) 2TB drives in the external HW based RAID array and DTV just saw this as a single 2TB drive and when (not if) I lost a drive, it kept humming along until I replaced it and then "automagically" re-established the RAID1 mirror. Which is nice so you don't lose hundreds of recordings. If TiVO would automatically or manually use just the external drive when attached, then I would switch out to external drives again with a HW RAID1 enclosure.


I've thought about that. Could you disconnect the internal eSATA connector and connect the cable going to the external eSATA port to that motherboard connector? That should make the external connector the one and only drive. It could then be attached to a Synology RAID enclosure (or Seagate or whatever) which should work as you describe. Is anybody up for an adventure?


----------



## djjuice

I purchased a WD30EURS off ebay but ended up with a WD30EURX, the plus uses the X as well the only odd thing i noticed was the drive didnt say GP-AV just GP but so far it's been ok. Dont know if anyone has used the same drive


----------



## jmpage2

L David Matheny said:


> I've thought about that. Could you disconnect the internal eSATA connector and connect the cable going to the external eSATA port to that motherboard connector? That should make the external connector the one and only drive. It could then be attached to a Synology RAID enclosure (or Seagate or whatever) which should work as you describe. Is anybody up for an adventure?


Well for starters a Synology is not an enclosure it's a network attached storage. Also the TiVo needs to partition and format the drive and I doubt it will do that with a RAID cage.


----------



## L David Matheny

jmpage2 said:


> Well for starters a Synology is not an enclosure it's a network attached storage. Also the TiVo needs to partition and format the drive and I doubt it will do that with a RAID cage.


I don't have much experience with RAID, but don't some Synology boxes (and others) also have eSATA connectors? And once configured, shouldn't a hardware RAID box look just like a single drive to whatever is connected to it? If not, what is the point of hardware RAID?


----------



## jmpage2

L David Matheny said:


> I don't have much experience with RAID, but don't some Synology boxes (and others) also have eSATA connectors? And once configured, shouldn't a hardware RAID box look just like a single drive to whatever is connected to it? If not, what is the point of hardware RAID?


The eSata port on a NAS is so you can connect external drives to the NAS, not use them as direct connected storage on a PC. You are thinking of something like an eSata Drobo (the non network flavor).... And, this is getting really off topic.


----------



## Tanquen

jmpage2 said:


> The eSata port on a NAS is so you can connect external drives to the NAS, not use them as direct connected storage on a PC. You are thinking of something like an eSata Drobo (the non network flavor).... And, this is getting really off topic.


Besides, then your Drobo dies and while the drives may be ok you cant get it serviced or replaced and then what? If you really like a show that much, buy it on DVD or use TiVo desktop to move the shows off the TiVo. Do they still have that?


----------



## CrispyCritter

TheWizz said:


> I just upgraded my Roamio from the included 500GB drive to a 3TB drive with no issues as instructed in this forum. I've seen some comments about recommending not adding an external drive to introduce single points of failure. While that would increase the single points of failure, there still exists a single point of failure (obviously) that can't be eliminated currently w/ TiVo DVRs. One of the things about DTV that I liked was that when you added an external HD, it would use that drive exclusively and not both the external and internal drives. What's nice about that is one could actually eliminate the single point of failure for the HD by using an external (HW) RAID1 eSATA dual drive enclosure. I've done that for years with DTV DVRs w/ (2) 2TB drives in the external HW based RAID array and DTV just saw this as a single 2TB drive and when (not if) I lost a drive, it kept humming along until I replaced it and then "automagically" re-established the RAID1 mirror. Which is nice so you don't lose hundreds of recordings. If TiVO would automatically or manually use just the external drive when attached, then I would switch out to external drives again with a HW RAID1 enclosure.


That's forbidden by cablecard regulations from CableLabs, which don't need to be followed by DirecTV but do need to be followed by TiVo. CableLabs was paranoid about recordings escaping the approved cablecard device.


----------



## dslunceford

Question...would the Roamio recognize a drive lager than 1TB if dropped into a MyDVR Expander enclosure?


----------



## scoombs

L David Matheny said:


> I've thought about that. Could you disconnect the internal eSATA connector and connect the cable going to the external eSATA port to that motherboard connector? That should make the external connector the one and only drive. It could then be attached to a Synology RAID enclosure (or Seagate or whatever) which should work as you describe. Is anybody up for an adventure?


I ran my Tivo HD for years like that. I had an eSATA RAID enclosure attached to the internal drive connector of the Tivo, and just ran a "single disk" Tivo that happened to be running on RAID.

I simply did it for protection against a drive failure and losing my recordings, though that is not how it started. I was originally testing when Spike was working with "large" volumes and breaking the 1TB barrier.

The enclosure had five 1TB drives in it as RAID 5, though I was ultimately not able to use anywhere near that. To get it to work, I ended up having to carve a volume of 1.26TB out of the RAID. Anything larger than that would not work.

That was as large as it got until solutions like JMFS came along, and ultimately the series 3 "k" software version that allowed up to 2TB.


----------



## cosmicvoid

dslunceford said:


> Question...would the Roamio recognize a drive lager than 1TB if dropped into a MyDVR Expander enclosure?


I asked Tivo support about external drives, and this is the answer I received:

The following model numbers are the only expanders compatible with the TiVo boxes:

WDC WD5000AVJS-63TRA0
WDC WD5000AVVS-63ZWB0
WDC WD5000AVVS-63H0B1
WDC WD10EVVS-63E1B1
WDC WD10EVVS-63M5B0
WDC WD10EVVS-73M5B0
WDC WD10EVDS-73U8B1
WDC WD10EURX-73FH1Y0

So, except for the Weaknees add-on drive, the answer is NO, 1TB limit.


----------



## dslunceford

cosmicvoid said:


> I asked Tivo support about external drives, and this is the answer I received:
> 
> The following model numbers are the only expanders compatible with the TiVo boxes:
> 
> WDC WD5000AVJS-63TRA0
> WDC WD5000AVVS-63ZWB0
> WDC WD5000AVVS-63H0B1
> WDC WD10EVVS-63E1B1
> WDC WD10EVVS-63M5B0
> WDC WD10EVVS-73M5B0
> WDC WD10EVDS-73U8B1
> WDC WD10EURX-73FH1Y0
> 
> So, except for the Weaknees add-on drive, the answer is NO, 1TB limit.


Well, yeah. TiVo support isn't going to steer you toward anything but their pre-approved devices. I'm asking if more than 1TB can be added to external in some way other than the official expanders...


----------



## atmuscarella

dslunceford said:


> Well, yeah. TiVo support isn't going to steer you toward anything but their pre-approved devices. I'm asking if more than 1TB can be added to external in some way other than the official expanders...


The answer to your question is yes. The bad news is that there isn't any DIY instructions you have to buy paired drives from weakness.com


----------



## dslunceford

Dan203 said:


> It's all a guess anyway. The number of hours is based on an estimated bitrate. They don't actually know the bitrates of what you'll be recording so it could shift +/- 100 hours if they're off by just 5Mbps.


Would this account for difference of what the Roamio reports vs what the iOS app reports? Roamio/Mini show 26% space used, the app shows 35% full. I was thinking maybe the app shows space taken by suggestions?


----------



## NYHeel

dslunceford said:


> Would this account for difference of what the Roamio reports vs what the iOS app reports? Roamio/Mini show 26% space used, the app shows 35% full. I was thinking maybe the app shows space taken by suggestions?


Nope it's not suggestions as I don't have suggestions and still have the app showing 100% when the Tivo shows 86%. The weird thing is that it appears to be consistently about 33% off as when I had 60% the app showed 80% and your case is also about one third off. I don't think it's recently deleted either. Just some kind of Roamio bug with the app. It's still not working either even with today's app update.


----------



## gfgray

djjuice said:


> I purchased a WD30EURS off ebay but ended up with a WD30EURX, the plus uses the X as well the only odd thing i noticed was the drive didnt say GP-AV just GP but so far it's been ok. Dont know if anyone has used the same drive


Its the 6Gb/s interface version of the WD30EURS. Same AV-GP series. I noticed Newegg charges the same amount for the WD30EURS and WD30EURX. May as well get the X.


----------



## jaydro

DocNo said:


> I dunno - they were condescending and rude in an email to me - and I'm far from the only one. Ironically I ran across their entry in Yelp! tonight while looking for something else and was amused by the even number of five star reviews raving about them, and then the totally opposite one star reviews with the one star reviews mirroring my experience with the forum golden boys. I didn't even know that Yelp! had reviews for non-food places. Who knew that being jerks to at least some of your customers might surface on that new-fangled Internet thing


Hear, hear! My experience was they were great until they made a mistake, at which point they turned rude to the point that I felt they were frothing at the mouth in e-mails to me. A real surprise and disappointment.


----------



## jmpage2

jaydro said:


> Hear, hear! My experience was they were great until they made a mistake, at which point they turned rude to the point that I felt they were frothing at the mouth in e-mails to me. A real surprise and disappointment.


I was trying to follow what you were even referring to... and after searching discovered you were responding to a week old post (about Weaknees) which in itself was in response to a post from back in early September.

#trytokeepitcurrentguys


----------



## jaydro

jmpage2 said:


> I was trying to follow what you were even referring to... and after searching discovered you were responding to a week old post (about Weaknees) which in itself was in response to a post from back in early September.
> 
> #trytokeepitcurrentguys


Sorry--I did a full quote (which I normally think is excessive) and then didn't realize that still wasn't enough context.

I normally try to keep my wrath against Weakness in check.

Sorry to bother the thread police.


----------



## HarperVision

jaydro said:


> Sorry to bother the thread police.


Wasn't that a Cheap Trick song?


----------



## RusRus

amseven11 said:


> Upgrade your Roamio with a new drive. No discs needed.
> 
> *What you need:*
> T8 Screw driver
> T10 Screw Driver
> New Hard Drive


I just bought a Roamio Basic. Am I to understand that if I want to upgrade the 500GB HDD all I have to do is take the 1TB HDD out of my old HD DVR and install it in my Roamio?

In order to save all the recordings do I need to us winmfs and clone the 500 to the 1TB? Or are they stored elsewhere?

To save everything on my computer SDD to a backup HDD I use Ease ToDo. Do I need to transfer from the 500GB to the 1TB?


----------



## steve614

If you want to save the recordings (I'm assuming they are on the old HD DVR?), they have to be transferred to a computer first, as the Roamio will automatically reformat the hard drive to use the new setup.

And if you want those saved recordings back on the Roamio, they will have to be converted to a conventional .mpeg file before transferring.


----------



## lpwcomp

steve614 said:


> If you want to save the recordings, they have to be transferred to a computer first, as the Roamio will automatically reformat the hard drive to use the new setup.


True, although hopefully that situation will rectified at some point.



steve614 said:


> And if you want those saved recordings back on the Roamio, they will have to be converted to a conventional .mpeg file before transferring.


Not true.


----------



## steve614

I was confused. I was thinking recordings are tied to a specific Tivo, but they are tied to the MAK. Duh.


----------



## keenanSR

nooneuknow said:


> Technically, a 3.5" full-height drive is twice the height of what we now commonly call "full-height", which makes the thinner ones technically "quarter-height".
> 
> I do know that as of 2 years ago, WD's 2.5" 1TB (WITH Advanced Format) drives were full-height, and wouldn't even fit in a laptop (or any I'm aware of). They just recently got those down to half-height. Not sure if they've pulled that of with 2TB, yet...


Regarding the drive size, has anyone noted any issues(heat?) with replacing the 1/4 height with a 1/2 height as shown in the image here? I don't recall seeing it mentioned in this thread but wondered if it's been noted elsewhere.

Thanks all.


----------



## RusRus

steve614 said:


> If you want to save the recordings (I'm assuming they are on the old HD DVR?), they have to be transferred to a computer first, as the Roamio will automatically reformat the hard drive to use the new setup.
> 
> And if you want those saved recordings back on the Roamio, they will have to be converted to a conventional .mpeg file before transferring.


I have all the shows on my pc via Tivo DeskTop. I have a 1TB HDD I can take from my old HD DVR to use in my Roamio. Do I just swap HDDs and run setup again?

Is the Roamio HDD just for recordings now?


----------



## Devx

RusRus said:


> I have all the shows on my pc via Tivo DeskTop. I have a 1TB HDD I can take from my old HD DVR to use in my Roamio. Do I just swap HDDs and run setup again?
> 
> Is the Roamio HDD just for recordings now?


When you install the 1TB HDD in the Roamio it will format/erase the HDD and run guided setup again on startup as though it was brand new.


----------



## RusRus

Devx said:


> When you install the 1TB HDD in the Roamio it will format/erase the HDD and run guided setup again on startup as though it was brand new.


What will happen to the shows I've got recorded in "My Shows"?


----------



## cosmicvoid

RusRus said:


> What will happen to the shows I've got recorded in "My Shows"?





> Roamio it will format/erase the HDD


Poof! Gone.


----------



## unitron

RusRus said:


> What will happen to the shows I've got recorded in "My Shows"?


If you mean what will happen to any shows on the hard drive you stick in the Roamio, they, and everything else on that harddrive, will be overwritten.

If you mean the shows on the PC in the My TiVo Recordings folder which was created when TiVo Desktop was installed, they'll be just fine, sitting there waiting for you to copy them to a TiVo on your network.


----------



## uw69

Is Weaknees still the only option above 3TB for an internal HD?


----------



## jmpage2

uw69 said:


> Is Weaknees still the only option above 3TB for an internal HD?


Yes.


----------



## IowaGuy

What tools do you need to replace a drive on a Roamio basic?

Just a T8 and T10?

Thanks,
Noobie Matt


----------



## dynamiteid

For the Basic, you will also need a small flat blade screwdriver. The case on the basic is different. After you remove the screws on the back, you have to gently release a couple of snaps on both sides of the case and rotate the cover up and forward. Just be gentle and do it slowly so you don't break the snaps.

Other than that, the proceedure is the same.


----------



## keenanSR

dynamiteid said:


> For the Basic, you will also need a small flat blade screwdriver. The case on the basic is different. After you remove the screws on the back, you have to gently release a couple of snaps on both sides of the case and rotate the cover up and forward. Just be gentle and do it slowly so you don't break the snaps.
> 
> Other than that, the proceedure is the same.


When I did my Basic it seemed to help removing the top if you gently squeezed the top by bowing the sides in slightly and it releases the the slotted mounts from the stays on the base.


----------



## ThAbtO

dynamiteid said:


> For the Basic, you will also need a small flat blade screwdriver. The case on the basic is different. After you remove the screws on the back, you have to gently release a couple of snaps on both sides of the case and rotate the cover up and forward. Just be gentle and do it slowly so you don't break the snaps.
> 
> Other than that, the proceedure is the same.


A prying tool such as ones made for iPhones or iPads should work and not leave a mark.


----------



## swerver

I've used the green coffee stirrers from starbucks to pry apart hard drive enclosures without any damage. Grab a few of them, they are free. Get one under a tab and leave it, then stick another one under another tab, continue until it pops open.


----------



## kduffey

pulled Roamio out of box, opened and removed 1Gb
Pulled WD out of box, hooked to Roamio

Plugged in - everyhting new, never started before
"Welcome - starting up"
never changed in 12 hours (I thought maybe it was formatting the 3Tb drive so I went to bed)

Put the 1Tb back in and it started up fine.

Lowlevel formatted the 3Tb to see if it needed to be cleared
No difference :down:

Any ideas?


----------



## HarperVision

kduffey said:


> pulled Roamio out of box, opened and removed 1Gb
> Pulled WD out of box, hooked to Roamio
> 
> Plugged in - everyhting new, never started before
> "Welcome - starting up"
> never changed in 12 hours (I thought maybe it was formatting the 3Tb drive so I went to bed)
> 
> Put the 1Tb back in and it started up fine.
> 
> Lowlevel formatted the 3Tb to see if it needed to be cleared
> No difference :down:
> 
> Any ideas?


Ummmmmm,.......exchange that plus for a pro?


----------



## lessd

kduffey said:


> pulled Roamio out of box, opened and removed 1Gb
> Pulled WD out of box, hooked to Roamio
> 
> Plugged in - everyhting new, never started before
> "Welcome - starting up"
> never changed in 12 hours (I thought maybe it was formatting the 3Tb drive so I went to bed)
> 
> Put the 1Tb back in and it started up fine.
> 
> Lowlevel formatted the 3Tb to see if it needed to be cleared
> No difference :down:
> 
> Any ideas?


My Roamio Plus took a 2Tb drive without any problems, never tried a 3Tb but others have said that it works.


----------



## uw69

kduffey said:


> pulled Roamio out of box, opened and removed 1Gb
> Pulled WD out of box, hooked to Roamio
> 
> Plugged in - everyhting new, never started before
> "Welcome - starting up"
> never changed in 12 hours (I thought maybe it was formatting the 3Tb drive so I went to bed)
> 
> Put the 1Tb back in and it started up fine.
> 
> Lowlevel formatted the 3Tb to see if it needed to be cleared
> No difference :down:
> 
> Any ideas?


Which drive did you use? 3TB WD-AV drive works fine. Maybe a bad drive.


----------



## kduffey

uw69 said:


> Which drive did you use? 3TB WD-AV drive works fine. Maybe a bad drive.


WD AV-GP Its the model mentioned a number of times WD30EURS 3Tb

The drive appears on my mac as a unformatted, no volumes etc 3Tb drive. Bios Diags run through it fine


----------



## Devx

kduffey said:


> WD AV-GP Its the model mentioned a number of times WD30EURS 3Tb
> 
> The drive appears on my mac as a unformatted, no volumes etc 3Tb drive. Bios Diags run through it fine


Replace the drive with a different one if possible. It takes only a few moments (minutes, not hours) to prepare the new (3TB) drive and display guided setup.


----------



## emerz

kduffey said:


> WD AV-GP Its the model mentioned a number of times WD30EURS 3Tb
> 
> The drive appears on my mac as a unformatted, no volumes etc 3Tb drive. Bios Diags run through it fine


After upgrading my WD AV-GP 3TB in a Roamio Basic, Windows, True Image, Disk Director and Ubuntu 13 all showed it as a blank drive with no partitions. I knew this was incorrect as I had recorded at least 40 shows on it.

I used the LL Format Tool at HD Guru to clear the drive back to "factory new".


----------



## ThreeSoFar

emerz said:


> Your drive must be bad.


I agree. I installed one of these in September as soon as I got my Roamio Pro (before ever booting it up). It's been working great.


----------



## unitron

emerz said:


> After upgrading my WD AV-GP 3TB in a Roamio Basic, Windows, True Image, Disk Director and Ubuntu 13 all showed it as a blank drive with no partitions. I knew this was incorrect as I had recorded at least 40 shows on it.
> 
> I used the LL Format Tool at HD Guru to clear the drive back to "factory new".


Well those programs/OSes were probably looking for a DOS-type MBR, not an Apple-type bootpage and partition map, so they just assumed that what they saw in sector 0 was random bytes.


----------



## emerz

unitron said:


> Well those programs/OSes were probably looking for a DOS-type MBR, not an Apple-type bootpage and partition map, so they just assumed that what they saw in sector 0 was random bytes.


unitron, thanks for the clarification. I always thought that Tivo used a Linux partition map and Ubuntu or Disk Director should have been able to see it. I guess I was still thinking about my popcorn.


----------



## sleepdragon

After play with Roamio Plus for about a week, I have decide to keep it and want to upgrade the harddrive with a WD AV-GP 3TB.
If I don't mind losing the recordings I currently have (not a lot anyway) and don't mind doing the setup again, is the upgrade as simply as drop in a new drive?
Will I need to re-pair the cable card with cable company?
Also, when I did my Premier upgrade to 2TB, there was an option to expand the drive, guess it is not currently available with the Roamio right?


----------



## ThAbtO

sleepdragon said:


> After play with Roamio Plus for about a week, I have decide to keep it and want to upgrade the harddrive with a WD AV-GP 3TB.
> If I don't mind losing the recordings I currently have (not a lot anyway) and don't mind doing the setup again, is the upgrade as simply as drop in a new drive?
> Will I need to re-pair the cable card with cable company?


Yes.



sleepdragon said:


> Also, when I did my Premier upgrade to 2TB, there was an option to expand the drive, guess it is not currently available with the Roamio right?


No, You would not even need to connect the drives to a PC. It will use the full size of the drive (unlike earlier models.)


----------



## lentiman

I'm going to repost the Roamio Pro deal below as it makes buying a separate 3TB drive unnecessary. See below:

Hey! I just ordered a Roamio Pro from ABT. They price matched the TiVo deal at $100 off. So $499 with no tax and no shipping. I tried at two different best buy locations last night and got shot down both times. No problem at ABT. FYI, if you are thinking of getting a Roamio Plus and swapping for a 3TB hard drive then this deal has the equivalent cost with no hassle and gives you an intact warranty.


----------



## kduffey

Ok, something was weird with the Other AV-GP I used. I ordered a new 3Tb, plopped in it into my Roamio Plus- 5 mins from open box to guided setup screen. Must have been the 1st drive.

I then put the first one into my synology NAS for my PC and bang, 3Tb with no issues. Weirdest thing. I use hdguru to LL it and everything - but no go on the roamio. I did full diags on it and its 100%. 
Anyways, it works, Roamio 3Tb is in my rack and I also I have 3Tb more storage in my NAS - shrug, all good.


----------



## Wpfma

I will be getting rid of my fios dvr and replacing it with the roamio plus. I have a 
WD AV-GP 2 TB AV that I have been using as an extension drive with my fios dvr. I have read through the posts and i am not sure if i can just drop in my 2 TB or does it need to be formatted first.

If any one has any knowledge about this i would appreciate it. Just want to be prepared so as to be up and running quickly so my wife doesn't kill me because there is no cable access.


----------



## Surrealone

Wpfma said:


> I will be getting rid of my fios dvr and replacing it with the roamio plus. I have a
> WD AV-GP 2 TB AV that I have been using as an extension drive with my fios dvr. I have read through the posts and i am not sure if i can just drop in my 2 TB or does it need to be formatted first.
> 
> If any one has any knowledge about this i would appreciate it. Just want to be prepared so as to be up and running quickly so my wife doesn't kill me because there is no cable access.


Just drop it in before you even turn on your new Tivo Roamio. It will format and setup the drive for you


----------



## Wpfma

Surrealone said:


> Just drop it in before you even turn on your new Tivo Roamio. It will format and setup the drive for you


Thanks for the fast reply. Thats great. A lot easier than when i upgraded my replay tvs years ago with disc images etc.


----------



## Surrealone

No problem. Yes if you put the drive in before you even start the setup it will save you the time and trouble of doing the setup twice. But keep the factory drive in a safe place just in case


----------



## ltxi

emerz said:


> After upgrading my WD AV-GP 3TB in a Roamio Basic, Windows, True Image, Disk Director and Ubuntu 13 all showed it as a blank drive with no partitions. I knew this was incorrect as I had recorded at least 40 shows on it.
> 
> *I used the LL Format Tool at HD Guru to clear the drive back to "factory new"*.


Thanks for the tip! Had to replace one of my two 3TB upgraded Roamio Plus units after a few days of operation for a non drive related infant mortality problem. Tried just reusing the drive in the new unit....unexpectedly worked fine except the TSN came up zeroed out. Ran the LL format tool and all is happy now.


----------



## ThAbtO

ltxi said:


> ....unexpectedly worked fine except the TSN came up zeroed out. Ran the LL format tool and all is happy now.


You could have just done Clear & Delete Everything and that would marry the drive to the Tivo and clean up the TSN issue.


----------



## ltxi

Maybe I'll try that first next time. But on the Roamios if I can't preserve anything I kinda like the idea of starting over with a functionally bare drive.


----------



## chrispitude

ltxi said:


> Maybe I'll try that first next time. But on the Roamios if I can't preserve anything I kinda like the idea of starting over with a functionally bare drive.


So there isn't a way to upgrade and keep the recordings on the Roamio? I started reading through this thread to find out. By page 11, I decided to punt and ask.


----------



## HarperVision

chrispitude said:


> So there isn't a way to upgrade and keep the recordings on the Roamio? I started reading through this thread to find out. By page 11, I decided to punt and ask.


Well, your punt went outta bounds, so keep reading! 

While I haven't had to swap drives because I bought a Pro initially, I have read all the posts here and I don't recall seeing anywhere that they've said you can preserve recordings other than copying them over to your PC, authorizing and setting up your new TiVo, and then copying them back.


----------



## ThAbtO

chrispitude said:


> So there isn't a way to upgrade and keep the recordings on the Roamio? I started reading through this thread to find out.


The only way would be to copy/transfer the recordings to a PC/MAC/another Tivo and copy back after the upgrade. The involved Tivos must be subscribed to Tivo service to work.


----------



## aryndub

I have a 2TB "regular green" (non-AV), WD20EARS, that I currently use in my Windows Media Center box as the main hard drive for storing recordings. I'm moving away from the system and just ordered a Roamio Plus and a few minis for my bedrooms. 

I was hoping to re-purpose the drive the 2TB drive for the Roamio Plus. I've read so many conflicting things about whether or not the non-AV green drive will work well. Some have mentioned disabling Intellipark, changing the park idle time to 300seconds and various other items... should the drive work just fine without any additional modifications or should I try and disable the idle time?

Thanks.


----------



## mchief

I put a WD20EARS in my plus a couple of weeks ago and all is well.


----------



## emerz

ThAbtO said:


> You could have just done Clear & Delete Everything and that would marry the drive to the Tivo and clean up the TSN issue.


Last time I did a C&D on a HD it took about 6 hours to complete. LL Format took about 5 seconds.


----------



## nooneuknow

emerz said:


> Last time I did a C&D on a HD it took about 6 hours to complete. LL Format took about 5 seconds.


You stumbled into a Roamio thread, where the hardware is zip-zapity-fast.

There's really no way to even compare a TiVo HD, except: "really slow".


----------



## Surrealone

Looking for a little feedback if anybody has tried this drive yet?
Make
WD
Model
WDBH2D0030HNC-NRSN
It's not a AV drive but is that ok?


----------



## aryndub

mchief said:


> I put a WD20EARS in my plus a couple of weeks ago and all is well.


Did you do anything special to the drive (disable Intellipark, etc.) or just stick it in and let Tivo do it's thing?


----------



## mchief

Nothing done to the drive i.e, intellipark. Took it back to raw (looks like a new drive) using Windows Computer Management and put it in the Tivo - Tivo formatted and away we went.


----------



## PLargent

I am about to go from FIOS with a CISCO DVR (Hate it) with ~2TB of disk to a my first TiVo, a new ROAMIO on FIOS. I want to max out the disk space so I get something that will last me the next few years. After reading this thread and looking at the weaKnees web site I think that the "Seagate Video 3.5 HDD 4TB ST4000VM000" is the largest option available. The 4tb drive can be found for less than $200 on Amazon and other places. WeaKnees seems to think this drive will work both internally and externally so I could order a second external drive when the first internal one fills up.

The process sounds simple enough. 
1. Buy a Roamio Plus (plus a TiVo warranty, lifetime TiVo subscription, & FIOS cable card) 
2. Throw out the small drive in the Plus and replace with the new 4TB large drive.
3. Cross fingers, power up the Roamio Plus, and activate via the welcome screens.
4. Pay the large visa bill

I am planning to buy it when the black Friday adds are out so I can shop for the best deal. Other than being a little iffy on the TIVO warranty with a non-standard drive in the Roamio, am I missing something? Has anyone put this drive in a Roamio with any success?

FYI: Here is where I got this info:
http://www.weaknees.com/details2/rd4t0ropl.php 
http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/consumer-electronics/video-3-5-hdd/#features 
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Video...F8&qid=1384361435&sr=8-3&keywords=ST4000VM000


----------



## Tanquen

atmuscarella said:


> Just some further clarification. 3TB is the max size we can upgrade too without buying specially prepared drives from Weakness.com. Weakness has single 4TB and dual 4TB (8TB total) drive upgrade solutions.


Good grief, $225-ish for the special formatting? Ouch! It's odd that the TiVo is ok with a TB 2.7TB drive but not a 3.6TB drive. I thought most of the controller and formatting issues were at the 2TB barrier. I wonder what would happen if you got bit for bit copy of their 3.6TB drive and applied it to another drive. I'm sure that is what they are doing anyway.

So get something like a WD 2.7TB Red NAS Hard Drive with a 3 year warranty and 24/7 support for $135 delivered or pay $350 (free shipping, gee thanks) for a 3.6TB drive? Hmm&#8230;

Also, the old boot CD that copied the original TiVo drive to a new bigger one no longer works?


----------



## aaronwt

PLargent said:


> I am about to go from FIOS with a CISCO DVR (Hate it) with ~2TB of disk to a my first TiVo, a new ROAMIO on FIOS. I want to max out the disk space so I get something that will last me the next few years. After reading this thread and looking at the weaKnees web site I think that the "Seagate Video 3.5 HDD 4TB ST4000VM000" is the largest option available. The 4tb drive can be found for less than $200 on Amazon and other places. WeaKnees seems to think this drive will work both internally and externally so I could order a second external drive when the first internal one fills up.
> 
> The process sounds simple enough.
> 1. Buy a Roamio Plus (plus a TiVo warranty, lifetime TiVo subscription, & FIOS cable card)
> 2. Throw out the small drive in the Plus and replace with the new 4TB large drive.
> 3. Cross fingers, power up the Roamio Plus, and activate via the welcome screens.
> 4. Pay the large visa bill
> 
> I am planning to buy it when the black Friday adds are out so I can shop for the best deal. Other than being a little iffy on the TIVO warranty with a non-standard drive in the Roamio, am I missing something? Has anyone put this drive in a Roamio with any success?
> 
> FYI: Here is where I got this info:
> http://www.weaknees.com/details2/rd4t0ropl.php
> http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/consumer-electronics/video-3-5-hdd/#features
> http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Video...F8&qid=1384361435&sr=8-3&keywords=ST4000VM000


You have to purchase the 4TB drive from Weakness if you want to be able to use it in the Roamio. Otherwise a 3TB drive is the largest drive an end user can put in a Roamio to work.

Weakness has their own process to get larger than a 3TB drive working in a Roamio. Unless the tools are now available for end users, but i did not think that was the case yet.


----------



## PLargent

Wow, Glad I asked the question. Obviously, 4TB drives are not a do it yourself kind of project. That leaves me with the following options:

1) Start with a TiVo Plus. Then Pay $349 for weaKnees to provide a single internal 4TB drive or $699 for weaKnees to provide dual (internal & external) 4TB drives.

2) Start with a Tivo Plus. Then replace internal drive with a $138 3TB (WD 3TB AV-GP WD30EURS) internal drive (or just go Pro w/ 3TB internal) and then add an external $138 3TB drive (WD 3TB AV-GP WD30EURS). This would get me to 6TB of space for a lot less cost than the first 8TB option. Note: using Amazon.com price here.

Note: I already have an external WD 3TB AV-GP WD30EURS attached to my FIOS/CISCO DVR that could be reused here. The CISCO DVR only recognized and used 1TB of the 3TB in the external drive.

I have seen comments that the TiVo Roameo will ONLY work with the TiVo "approved" 1TB external drive (TiVo Expandable storage option) or with the specially prepared WeaKnees external drives (2TB, 3TB & 4TB).

Is this true about limited choices for adding external storage? Or can I use a normal drive like the 3TB WD AV-GP WD30EURS when it is properly housed in an external enclosure and uses the proper eSATA cable?

URL: 
http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-roamio-series5.php 
http://www.amazon.com/AV-GP-3TB-Vid...655&sr=8-3&keywords=3tb+western+digital+av-gp


----------



## tim1724

PLargent said:


> I have seen comments that the TiVo Roameo will ONLY work with the TiVo "approved" 1TB external drive (TiVo Expandable storage option) or with the specially prepared WeaKnees external drives (2TB, 3TB & 4TB).
> 
> Is this true about limited choices for adding external storage? Or can I use a normal drive like the 3TB WD AV-GP WD30EURS when it is properly housed in an external enclosure and uses the proper eSATA cable?


Yes, it is true you have limited options for external drives.

The only TiVo which allowed you to attach any drive you wanted to the eSATA port was the original Series 3 (with OLED display). Starting with the TiVo HD and continuing on with the Premier and Roamio you have to use approved drives.

I would not add an external drive until you actually need it. It just introduces an extra point of failure. (Due to some silly CableLabs rules, TiVo must split all recordings across both internal and external drives. This means that if EITHER drive fails, you lose all recordings on both.)


----------



## mattack

nooneuknow said:


> You stumbled into a Roamio thread, where the hardware is zip-zapity-fast.


That leads me to another question.

How fast is the Roamio (or a specific one if it matters based on model) from power up to actually recording? (No need to repeat -- everything should be on a UPS, blah blah blah.. But there ARE bugs that cause reboots even with UPSes, and admittedly, I am more likely to DELETE an incomplete recording than watch it, but if it was fast enough to happen during a commercial break, that could be a lucky fluke.. I think the Premiere 4 *almost* makes that time.. It's starting recording quite a bit before it actually starts reacting to user remote input -- it puts up the spinny wait thing for a while, but it's already recording.)

(Also, a totally unrealistic idea would be swapping drives for more storage.. I know that unsyncs cable cards.)


----------



## aaronwt

mattack said:


> That leads me to another question.
> 
> How fast is the Roamio (or a specific one if it matters based on model) from power up to actually recording? (No need to repeat -- everything should be on a UPS, blah blah blah.. But there ARE bugs that cause reboots even with UPSes, and admittedly, I am more likely to DELETE an incomplete recording than watch it, but if it was fast enough to happen during a commercial break, that could be a lucky fluke.. I think the Premiere 4 *almost* makes that time.. It's starting recording quite a bit before it actually starts reacting to user remote input -- it puts up the spinny wait thing for a while, but it's already recording.)
> 
> (Also, a totally unrealistic idea would be swapping drives for more storage.. I know that unsyncs cable cards.)


It's not that fast. It still takes several minutes for it to come back up to start recording again. Around 5 minutes. But it could be a little quicker or slower then that. I'm only basing this on the one unexpected reboot I had, so I just looked at when the recordings ended and started back up. But it was only whole minutes I looked at, not seconds.


----------



## djjuice

I've purchased a roamio plus for christmas for my parents. I also have my older XL4 and i'm going to take the 2TB HD from there and drop it in my parents roamio. now I know the upgrade is simple. My question is when I format the the HD from the XL4 is there any special formatting? should I just do the good old NTFS or leave it unallocated?

I previously purchased a roamio for myself and bought a 3TB drive and just dropped it in, so i don't know how the drives comes formatted in the box.


----------



## A J Ricaud

djjuice said:


> My question is when I format the the HD from the XL4 is there any special formatting? should I just do the good old NTFS or leave it unallocated?
> 
> I previously purchased a roamio for myself and bought a 3TB drive and just dropped it in, so i don't know how the drives comes formatted in the box.


There is no pre-formatting on the Roamios. Just drop in the drive and Roamio will do the rest.


----------



## djjuice

A J Ricaud said:


> There is no pre-formatting on the Roamios. Just drop in the drive and Roamio will do the rest.


Thanks. I took the Drive out of the XL4 and just formatted it on a windows machine so its in NTFS format. I'm hoping that'll be ok and the tivo will just wipe it and start over


----------



## jmbach

I would recommend using the manufacturer diagnostic program and test the drive and then have it zero it out.


----------



## lpwcomp

Probably require a file system change to use one of these.


----------



## alyssa

jmbach said:


> I would recommend using the manufacturer diagnostic program and test the drive and then have it zero it out.


:up::up:

if the hdd starts throwing errors & if you're parents are anything like mine, you'll *never* hear the end of it.


----------



## A J Ricaud

Newegg has Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - OEM:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...13-Index-_-InternalHardDrives-_-22136874-L04D

for $109.99 after applying promo code EMCWWWR28


----------



## ltxi

Don't do that....get the AV drive


----------



## aryndub

PLargent said:


> I am about to go from FIOS with a CISCO DVR (Hate it) with ~2TB of disk to a my first TiVo, a new ROAMIO on FIOS. I want to max out the disk space so I get something that will last me the next few years. After reading this thread and looking at the weaKnees web site I think that the "Seagate Video 3.5 HDD 4TB ST4000VM000" is the largest option available. The 4tb drive can be found for less than $200 on Amazon and other places. WeaKnees seems to think this drive will work both internally and externally so I could order a second external drive when the first internal one fills up.
> 
> The process sounds simple enough.
> 1. Buy a Roamio Plus (plus a TiVo warranty, lifetime TiVo subscription, & FIOS cable card)
> 2. Throw out the small drive in the Plus and replace with the new 4TB large drive.
> 3. Cross fingers, power up the Roamio Plus, and activate via the welcome screens.
> 4. Pay the large visa bill
> 
> I am planning to buy it when the black Friday adds are out so I can shop for the best deal. Other than being a little iffy on the TIVO warranty with a non-standard drive in the Roamio, am I missing something? Has anyone put this drive in a Roamio with any success?
> 
> FYI: Here is where I got this info:
> http://www.weaknees.com/details2/rd4t0ropl.php
> http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/consumer-electronics/video-3-5-hdd/#features
> http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Video...F8&qid=1384361435&sr=8-3&keywords=ST4000VM000


I'm reading that adding a new bigger internal drive will void the warranty. How exactly will Tivo know that it's been tampered with? Is there a VOID sticker or whatnot that you have to tamper with to open the unit? Assuming there's not, if I keep the original drive intact and I have a problem with the Roamio, couldn't I just stick the original drive back in before I ship off my defective unit to Tivo?

Has anyone had a warranty claim on a defective Tivo that contained a previously upgraded hard drive?


----------



## Marconi

MrNiceGuy83 said:


> Does anyone know if the Roamio is capable of achieving SATA 6GB/s speeds?
> I want to upgrade the HD and need to know if I should get an HD with an SATA II or SATA III interface.
> I would be willing to pay the extra money for the SATA 6GB/s speed drives (Ex. WD AV-GP EURX [6GB/s] over EURS [3GB/s]) but I can't seem to find any information that states if the Roamio is capable of attaining those speeds. ...


Some of the Roamios come with WD drives. right? Which 3 TB WD drives does TiVo use in the Pro? That might give you a clue.


----------



## nooneuknow

ltxi said:


> Don't do that....get the AV drive


On what basis? It's not like you said WHY, just "don't", without a single reason for saying so.

Unless the price difference is negligible, or it's for a longer warranty, it's not a necessity. It's been determined, many times, over and over, that TiVo doesn't use the ATA Streaming Command Extensions, on ANY existing TiVo model.

That's what makes an AV drive an "AV rated" drive. You will NOT gain any extra performance (in a TiVo, or any other device not using the extensions), nor does the "24/7 rating", which is simply a badge, mean anything other than clever marketing tactics, so the drive manufacturers can make more money.

ALL modern drives are capable and tested to operate 24/7. They simply don't place that badge on anything but their higher profit-margin models.

An AV-rated drive behaves NO DIFFERENTLY than an otherwise identical drive, unless the host and the host software support, and enable, those extensions.

It's also not like you'd be denied a warranty claim, for using a non-AV drive, should it fail, within warranty.

These are cold, hard, facts. Dig around the whitepapers (spec sheets), beyond the marketing pages, make some use of Google and Wikipedia, avoiding anything from the likes of Weaknees and others that make misleading claims about the matter, and you will find I am speaking the truth.

It's also worth noting, that WD Red NAS drives also support the AV extensions, which never used to be in their marketing, but is now. All they had to do was set the firmware of the drive to not disable that function (if it was ever disabled in the first place).

The drive makers have caught on to the CPU marketing scheme, of making equal processors, then disabling some features, to sell at lower prices. If you don't need and/or can't make use of the disabled feature(s), why pay more to have them?

That's my opinion, based on facts, and I'm sticking to it. Period.

[EDIT/ADD] I've read every post in this thread, as I've been following it since it began. There are plenty of success stories with non-AV drives, just like it has been with every TiVo model HDD upgrade thread before it. The ONLY major difference has been the major drop in price for AV-rated drives, which brings it to a point where the cost difference is sometimes negligible, and/or it is just worth it to get a longer drive warranty. So, unlike past model TiVo threads, more have gone for AV drives, right from the start.

Some were initially concerned about the "Intellipark issue", that required a setting to be changed on a non-AV drive in prior generations of TiVos, which has since been confirmed to be absent in the Roamio, and no changes necessary (unless you want to change the acoustic management setting).

Which leads me to a VALID reason why some may NOT want to use some of the non-AV drives: They may be louder than an AV drive, and not all models allow you to adjust the acoustic management setting.

If you would have said this, or any other valid reason, in your post, I'd have left it alone, and this post wouldn't be here.
[END EDIT/ADD]


----------



## nooneuknow

aryndub said:


> I'm reading that adding a new bigger internal drive will void the warranty. How exactly will Tivo know that it's been tampered with? Is there a VOID sticker or whatnot that you have to tamper with to open the unit? Assuming there's not, if I keep the original drive intact and I have a problem with the Roamio, couldn't I just stick the original drive back in before I ship off my defective unit to Tivo?
> 
> Has anyone had a warranty claim on a defective Tivo that contained a previously upgraded hard drive?


Any TiVo has internal logs that include the model and serial number of the drive in use, and are uploaded to, and stored by, TiVo's servers. How long they are stored, or if they have a system to detect drive changes, I don't know.

Here's what has been reported (some more than others, not in a particular order):

1. Somebody bragged to TiVo that they upgraded, and were denied warranty.

2. Somebody called in for support, the CSR pulled up the logs, and noticed the drive discrepancy, denying the warranty service the customer needed.

3. I, myself, upgraded, using the same model they did in their more expensive units, and was denied SUPPORT, when they noticed the drive had been changed, due to "unauthorized modifications".

4. Others have not had an issue with SUPPORT service, which is likely due to whether or not the CSR that took the call was being vigilant about looking for drive upgrades (or what kind of day they were having).

Many have claimed the best thing to do is hang onto your original drive (don't re-purpose it), and if you need warranty service, put it back in, and you'll be fine. I can't recall anybody actually *recently* claiming this was a success story, only implying it. I could be wrong, or have forgotten such a post.

Many have also claimed that TiVo has been turning a blind-eye to the above method, but said (quite accurately) there is no guarantee that TiVo will continue to do so.

It's a gamble. Some would rather pay extra, and have peace of mind. Others don't care, or are willing to take their chances.

No, there is no sticker, nor any tamper evidence sensors. But, if TiVo has any evidence you have even opened the case, they can deny warranty service. Some have said this is against certain governmental law(s). But, I've yet to read about anybody making a case to prove it.


----------



## nooneuknow

MrNiceGuy83 said:


> Does anyone know if the Roamio is capable of achieving SATA 6GB/s speeds?
> I want to upgrade the HD and need to know if I should get an HD with an SATA II or SATA III interface.
> <snip>


The DRIVES that TiVo uses are currently SATA2. If SATA3 becomes available to TiVo for the same price, or the price of the SATA2 drives goes higher, they'll likely move to SATA3. But, read on for the important parts:

It's likely that the actual speed the TiVo is set to communicate with the drive is closer to SATA1. If the HOST device sets the speed to lower than the DRIVE supports as its maximum, that's as fast as it will communicate. The drive won't override the host.

SATA3 is fully backwards compatible, so it will work. But, unless the price is right, there's no point in going SATA3.

As a matter of fact, the SATA3 spec is faster than most high-performance platter-based drives can even get close to. TiVo uses low-performance, low-RPM, "green" drives, that many consider it a joke that the drive manufacturers even equipped them with SATA3. It's that "marketing" thing, again. People with the money to burn, who don't know better, will buy the higher SATA3 spec drive.


----------



## 1283

nooneuknow said:


> The DRIVES that TiVo uses are currently SATA2.


Actually, already SATA3 in more recent units.


----------



## nooneuknow

c3 said:


> Actually, already SATA3 in more recent units.


Good to know for future reference. I noticed they are mixing it up using both Seagate and WD. Is it limited to one or the other? I like to be sure I provide facts, and not just what is reported by others, and appreciate that you didn't flog me for not knowing they have started using them. Really, I do.

When the TiVo HD originally came out they used SATA1, then went to SATA2 (I bought two of the first batch made and two of the last ever made).

The Premieres came with SATA2 from the start, and I can attest that the TiVo HD & Premiere both emulate IDE ATA133, regardless of the drive (if you know when to watch the logs, and where to look, it is logged what modes the TiVo sets, as well as the block sizes).

As for the Roamio, I have it from a reliable source, that it appears TiVo still hasn't found it necessary to change this, but nothing concrete on if they've moved beyond IDE ATA133 emulation, as the mode the TiVo sets. I'm not in-the-know enough to know how hard, or easy, it would be for them to change it. I figure if it's hard, and they don't need to, they won't do it. I'd love to hear from somebody who can shed any light on this (if TiVo has changed the mode/emulation).

I'm pretty sure it's purely a matter of what they can get (due to availability/supply/pre-allocation) and at what price, at the time. I used to work for a system builder, so I know how the game works, with drives that are in high demand (even if all that demand is one giant company).

I wouldn't be surprised if they install SATA2 drives in on Tuesdays, and SATA3 on Wednesdays, etc.

Anyway, the takeaway from all this, that matters, is that nobody should expect any performance gain, in a Roamio, by using SATA3, nor should they expect any loss of performance by using SATA2. No worries about using either.


----------



## ncbill

Tivo's warranty is only worth using for the first 90 days; after that any extended warranty is cheaper than what Tivo will charge you for a replacement unit.

So if one plans to upgrade DIY, they should buy an "extended warranty" (even the one Tivo sells is serviced by a third party) and if anything goes wrong reinstall the original drive and contact the 3rd party "extended warranty" provider for replacement.

Tivo's not involved in any part of that process, since you're not asking to use their warranty.



nooneuknow said:


> Any TiVo has internal logs that include the model and serial number of the drive in use, and are uploaded to, and stored by, TiVo's servers. How long they are stored, or if they have a system to detect drive changes, I don't know.
> 
> Here's what has been reported (some more than others, not in a particular order):
> 
> 1. Somebody bragged to TiVo that they upgraded, and were denied warranty.
> 
> 2. Somebody called in for support, the CSR pulled up the logs, and noticed the drive discrepancy, denying the warranty service the customer needed.
> 
> 3. I, myself, upgraded, using the same model they did in their more expensive units, and was denied SUPPORT, when they noticed the drive had been changed, due to "unauthorized modifications".
> 
> 4. Others have not had an issue with SUPPORT service, which is likely due to whether or not the CSR that took the call was being vigilant about looking for drive upgrades (or what kind of day they were having).
> 
> Many have claimed the best thing to do is hang onto your original drive (don't re-purpose it), and if you need warranty service, put it back in, and you'll be fine. I can't recall anybody actually *recently* claiming this was a success story, only implying it. I could be wrong, or have forgotten such a post.
> 
> Many have also claimed that TiVo has been turning a blind-eye to the above method, but said (quite accurately) there is no guarantee that TiVo will continue to do so.
> 
> It's a gamble. Some would rather pay extra, and have peace of mind. Others don't care, or are willing to take their chances.
> 
> No, there is no sticker, nor any tamper evidence sensors. But, if TiVo has any evidence you have even opened the case, they can deny warranty service. Some have said this is against certain governmental law(s). But, I've yet to read about anybody making a case to prove it.


----------



## aaronwt

SATAII or SATAIII really doesn't matter. No platter drive that would be used in a TiVo can even read or write that fast.


----------



## aryndub

ncbill said:


> Tivo's warranty is only worth using for the first 90 days; after that any extended warranty is cheaper than what Tivo will charge you for a replacement unit.
> 
> So if one plans to upgrade DIY, they should buy an "extended warranty" (even the one Tivo sells is serviced by a third party) and if anything goes wrong reinstall the original drive and contact the 3rd party "extended warranty" provider for replacement.
> 
> Tivo's not involved in any part of that process, since you're not asking to use their warranty.


So I should keep the original drive in until 90 days (in case something goes horribly wrong) and then I can swap it out for the expanded one? I see the Tivo extended warranty is $40 for 3 years which sounds fair. I plan on doing the lifetime subscription, and so I guess this is my best bet as opposed to using a third party like SquareTrade?


----------



## nooneuknow

ncbill said:


> Tivo's warranty is only worth using for the first 90 days; after that any extended warranty is cheaper than what Tivo will charge you for a replacement unit.
> 
> So if one plans to upgrade DIY, they should buy an "extended warranty" (even the one Tivo sells is serviced by a third party) and if anything goes wrong reinstall the original drive and contact the 3rd party "extended warranty" provider for replacement.
> 
> Tivo's not involved in any part of that process, since you're not asking to use their warranty.


This isn't an argument that I am presenting, just some details I feel shouldn't be left out:

As I attempted to make clear in my post, regardless of 3rd-party warranties (and perhaps making a mistake by neglecting to mention them), *you still have to get support services from TiVo, if you need it.* I don't know of any 3rd-party warranties that take over the support role that TiVo plays. Any I am aware of, *only* handle warranty claims. A 3rd-party warranty provider generally only asks why you consider the product defective, in order to justify authorizing the return for replacement. *That is not the same as providing support*.

While there are plenty of cases, with other products (not TiVo), where the 3rd-party also takes on the responsibilities of providing support, I have yet to come across any mention of this for TiVo. I think this is by TiVo's design.

TiVo can, and *sometimes* will, refuse to provide support to you, open support tickets, or even take bug reports, if they notice you have changed drives. If the problem you are having is due to a TiVo design flaw, or software bug, a replacement under 3rd-party warranty will not resolve such an issue, just provide you another TiVo, with the same flaws/bugs. This is why having TiVo continue to provide you with support services is so important. TiVo doesn't stop supporting you, just because their own 90-day, or their own extended warranty, ends.

No arguments over that the extended warranty from TiVo, is very likely handled by a 3rd-party, only uncertainty on how much the involved companies share with each other, if any. After all, When you call TiVo support, you are dealing with a 3rd-party company. Do we know for sure TiVo's own 3rd-party support company has no ties to TiVo's choice for their 3rd-party extended warranty company? It could just two differently named service providers, who could both be part of the same parent company and, theoretically, share information. I can't prove it, nor disprove it, at the moment.

Also, I've seen many other challenges to the way of thinking you describe, spread throughout various threads. I'm not going to challenge it, in any other ways, myself, as it always winds up turning into bickering back and forth, until everybody just drops the matter, so the threads the debating was going on in could return to their normal intended purpose.

This post is intentionally simplified, for the sake of brevity. I just felt it was worth bringing up the otherwise left-out, matter of insuring continued support, from TiVo, when discussing warranties and drive upgrades.


----------



## ltxi

aryndub said:


> I'm reading that adding a new bigger internal drive will void the warranty. How exactly will Tivo know that it's been tampered with? Is there a VOID sticker or whatnot that you have to tamper with to open the unit? Assuming there's not, if I keep the original drive intact and I have a problem with the Roamio, couldn't I just stick the original drive back in before I ship off my defective unit to Tivo?
> 
> Has anyone had a warranty claim on a defective Tivo that contained a previously upgraded hard drive?


Yes. One of the two Roamio Plus units I bought and upgraded to 3TB failed within a week due to non drive issues. I dropped the original drive back in and returned for replacement. No issue.


----------



## nooneuknow

ltxi said:


> Yes. One of the two Roamio Plus units I bought and upgraded to 3TB failed within a week due to non drive issues. I dropped the original drive back in and returned for replacement. No issue.


When making such statements, I feel there should be an obligation to warn the inquiring party, more so the countless others that will read it, that *TiVo can change this at any time*, if they wish.

I consider this more of a blanket post for all, and hope you don't feel I'm trying to pick a fight, just because I quoted your post.


----------



## ltxi

Dude, I don't know what your sudden problem with me is but I'd like to get past it.


----------



## nooneuknow

ltxi said:


> Dude, I don't know what your sudden problem with me is but I'd like to get past it.


Didn't you read the last line of my last post?

I don't have a problem with you, so there's nothing to get past.

I'd have posted the same things, regardless of who the posts I referenced came from, if they had the same, or similar content.

If you still feel we have a "problem", please take it to PM. Thanks.


----------



## MikePA1

nooneuknow said:


> When making such statements, I feel there should be an obligation to warn the inquiring party, more so the countless others that will read it, that *TiVo can change this at any time*, if they wish.


I feel people are smart enough to know when they upgrade the HD they are voiding the warranty.


----------



## nooneuknow

MikePA1 said:


> I feel people are smart enough to know when they upgrade the HD they are voiding the warranty.


That is merely an assumption, on your part. There's an ages-old saying about assuming things.

You just joined this month, and have 3 posts, at the time of this post. How could you possibly know the makeup/breakdown of the members here, and what their levels of knowledge and expertise are? (That's a rhetorical question). I just assumed something, about you, and would guess you don't like that I did... Just making a point.


----------



## MikePA1

nooneuknow said:


> That is merely an assumption, on your part. There's an ages-old saying about assuming things.
> 
> You just joined this month, and have 3 posts, at the time of this post. How could you possibly know the makeup/breakdown of the members here, and what their levels of knowledge and expertise are? (That's a rhetorical question). I just assumed something, about you, and would guess you don't like that I did... Just making a point.


Simple, I have a better opinion of people's intelligence than you apparently do. Most people would know if they take a piece of electronic equipment apart, they void the warranty.


----------



## nooneuknow

MikePA1 said:


> Simple, I have a better opinion of people's intelligence than you apparently do. Most people would know if they take a piece of electronic equipment apart, they void the warranty.


Whatever... 

I'm not commenting any further, which is *not* an acknowledgement that I agree with anything, and/or that I couldn't find anything to disagree with.

You made your statement, I made mine. Anything further would just be "bickering", which is against the forum rules, as well as going Off-Topic, which is also frowned upon.


----------



## drm31415

Someone may want to post info about 4TB drives not working yet on page 1 or page 5(where atleast 1 site links) so some dummy doesn't assume that since WKs offers 4TB that it will work. Because that dummy could buy a 4TB Seagate Video drive because of that and then feel really dumb.


----------



## drm31415

How are WKs adding 4GB external drives, I thought only the 1TB WD DVR extender worked?


----------



## MikePA1

nooneuknow said:


> Whatever...
> 
> I'm not commenting any further, which is *not* an acknowledgement that I agree with anything, and/or that I couldn't find anything to disagree with.
> 
> You made your statement, I made mine. Anything further would just be "bickering", which is against the forum rules, as well as going Off-Topic, which is also frowned upon.


I agree with everything in your last post.


----------



## MikePA1

drm31415 said:


> How are WKs adding 4GB external drives, I thought only the 1TB WD DVR extender worked?


Only WKs knows.


----------



## BobCamp1

drm31415 said:


> How are WKs adding 4GB external drives, I thought only the 1TB WD DVR extender worked?


The Tivo can't prepare a blank 4 TB hard drive by itself. You have to connect the hard drive to a PC and use a special tool to prepare the drive for the Tivo. Once the drive has been prepared ahead of time, the Roamio can use it without major problems.

Weakness has developed such a tool, but no one else has developed a free version of this tool yet.


----------



## lpwcomp

The fact that weaKnees can do it means that it can be done. Of course, they may have access to some secret sauce recipe from TiVo that may be difficult to decode.


----------



## headless chicken

Is WD the only brand compatible with Tivo (Roamio)?

What is the largest possible drive I can insert myself (I see weaknees does 8GB) and would you recommend the WD Black/Red/Green?


----------



## jmpage2

headless chicken said:


> Is WD the only brand compatible with Tivo (Roamio)?
> 
> What is the largest possible drive I can insert myself (I see weaknees does 8GB) and would you recommend the WD Black/Red/Green?


aV drives are recommended for reasons you can find by searching this thread or doing a google search. Other AV drives work and some TiVo Roamio boxes are shipping with Seagate AV drives.


----------



## Tivogre

So... If one were to buy a 4tb Weaknees drive, and a blank 4tb drive, what are the odds that a dd "clone" could result in two working 4tb drives?

It SHOULD work... Right?


----------



## nooneuknow

headless chicken said:


> Is WD the only brand compatible with Tivo (Roamio)?
> 
> What is the largest possible drive I can insert myself (I see weaknees does 8GB) and would you recommend the WD Black/Red/Green?





jmpage2 said:


> aV drives are recommended for reasons you can find by searching this thread or doing a google search. Other AV drives work and some TiVo Roamio boxes are shipping with Seagate AV drives.


I'm not even going to argue all the reasons why an AV-drive isn't a necessity, but merely recommended more, since TiVo uses them (although not using the actual AV-functions that make them AV-rated), they usually have a longer warranty than non-premium drives, and the price difference is not as large as it used to be.

What concerns me about your reply, was the poster's question of "WD Black/Red/Green?", largely not being addressed.

If speaking of WD:

"Black" drives will run too hot, and have performance a TiVo can not, and will not, use (so, not recommended, at all). No mainstream, high-performance, drives are recommended. To be complete, the "Blue" line from WD, is also likely to run too-hot, and exceed the performance required (which isn't hard to do). Anything not "green" and/or low-RPM, could also stress the power supply, especially during spin-up.

"Red NAS" drives are acceptable, and AV-Rated. Plenty of success stories with these models, which combine reliability, performance, green, long warranty, and AV-Rating, all together. (by "performance", I don't mean high-performance, just very good, and more than TiVo even needs).

"Green" is the most used, and comes in both Green (non-AV), which will work (plenty of success stories to back this up), and AV-GP (Green, with AV-rating), the latter being what TiVo uses, and most here would recommend, unless they are Seagate fans.

Then the size was also part of the poster's question (the max): Unless you buy it pre-prepared, 3TB.


----------



## lpwcomp

Tivogre said:


> So... If one were to buy a 4tb Weaknees drive, and a blank 4tb drive, what are the odds that a dd "clone" could result in two working 4tb drives?
> 
> It SHOULD work... Right?


Not necessarily. I'm thinking there is a possibility that the drive s/n is buried somewhere in the data on a configured drive and that it must match the actual s/n. Has anyone cloned a setup stock drive and tried the copy in the source machine?


----------



## nooneuknow

Tivogre said:


> So... If one were to buy a 4tb Weaknees drive, and a blank 4tb drive, what are the odds that a dd "clone" could result in two working 4tb drives?
> 
> It SHOULD work... Right?


Yes, it "should work".

But, before the swarm of agree bees descends upon you, I'll make the point that what you describe would be considered, by many, to be "theft".

Although, say I buy one, make a successful copy, use the copy, then never use the original I paid for, is that theft?

Have any of the many TiVo upgrade drive vendors, throughout history, put break-seals on the box, binding you to any agreement, or ever made you agree to terms of what you will do, or not do, with the drive, once you have completed the transaction?

So, technically, one could try what you describe, report the results, and not commit theft, just so long as they only use what they paid to have.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> Not necessarily. I'm thinking there is a possibility that the drive s/n is buried somewhere in the data on a configured drive and that it must match the actual s/n. Has anyone cloned a setup stock drive and tried the copy in the source machine?


I almost mentioned that exact possibility/scenario in my own response, but then took it out, thinking YOU'D disagree that would be possible. Too funny! 

We were also typing at the same time, and you posted 1st.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> I almost mentioned that exact possibility/scenario in my own response, but then took it out, thinking YOU'D disagree that would be possible. Too funny!
> 
> We were also typing at the same time, and you posted 1st.


Yeah well, TiVo seems to be moving more and more into the Apple/"See figure 1" operating model.

Dontcha think it a bit ironic that you assumed something, considering the first post on this page of the thread?


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> Yeah well, TiVo seems to be moving more and more into the Apple/"See figure 1" operating model.
> 
> Dontcha think it a bit ironic that you assumed something, considering the first post on this page of the thread?


I guess you saw this article:
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-11/tivo-opera-tv/

You _assumed_ I have the number of posts per page set to the same as you do!


----------



## headless chicken

Thanks for the comprehensive answer, *nooneuknow*.

TigerDirect had a flash sale on the WD Red a week ago or so but by the time I tried to pull the trigger they were all sold out.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> I guess you saw this article:
> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-11/tivo-opera-tv/


As a matter of fact, no I had not seen that article



nooneuknow said:


> You _assumed_ I have the number of posts per page set to the same as you do!


My bad.


----------



## BobCamp1

lpwcomp said:


> Not necessarily. I'm thinking there is a possibility that the drive s/n is buried somewhere in the data on a configured drive and that it must match the actual s/n. Has anyone cloned a setup stock drive and tried the copy in the source machine?


Weakness can ship you a preconfigured drive for a Roamio without needing any information about your Tivo.

In the past, when swapping a hard drive from one Tivo to another (identical model), you just had to do a "clear and delete everything" to get it to work.


----------



## lpwcomp

BobCamp1 said:


> Weakness can ship you a preconfigured drive for a Roamio without needing any information about your Tivo.
> 
> In the past, when swapping a hard drive from one Tivo to another (identical model), you just had to do a "clear and delete everything" to get it to work.


So? It's the s/n of the _*NEW DRIVE*_ that I am talking about. They don't need to know _*anything*_ about your Roamio to get that.


----------



## ggieseke

lpwcomp said:


> Has anyone cloned a setup stock drive and tried the copy in the source machine?


I have. It worked fine, but some recent threads seem to indicate that it may break your CableCARD pairing. My Pro doesn't have a card yet (or even cable) so I couldn't test that part.


----------



## lpwcomp

ggieseke said:


> I have. It worked fine, but some recent threads seem to indicate that it may break your CableCARD pairing. My Pro doesn't have a card yet (or even cable) so I couldn't test that part.


If pairing is the only thing that is lost and settings, SPs, and, most importantly, recordings are maintained, I think most people can live with that. I know I could.


----------



## jmpage2

lpwcomp said:


> So? It's the s/n of the _*NEW DRIVE*_ that I am talking about. They don't need to know _*anything*_ about your Roamio to get that.


I don't see how it needs the serial number of the drive to work unless it is writing it to the disk at time of installation (which seems like a very odd thing to do). Remember you can put a blank drive into the Roamio and it will format it and work fine.

The "TiVo is going the Apple route" comments are silly.... TiVo has just made it so you can pop in a replacement drive on your own and upgrade or replace the most likely part to fail, without jumping through hoops.. that's about as user friendly as upgrades get.


----------



## Tivogre

Before going down the "is it stealing" route - does anyone know if Weaknees themselves has permission from TiVo to modify and redistribute their Tivo OS... or is the operation / demand just small enough that TiVo turns a blind eye?

If it's the later, it would be a tough argument for anyone to make that cloning the drive for ones personal use would be "stealing". 

Now, buying one and setting up your own resale of cloned drives is starting to get into a gray area.


----------



## jmpage2

Tivogre said:


> Before going down the "is it stealing" route - does anyone know if Weaknees themselves has permission from TiVo to modify and redistribute their Tivo OS... or is the operation / demand just small enough that TiVo turns a blind eye?
> 
> If it's the later, it would be a tough argument for anyone to make that cloning the drive for ones personal use would be "stealing".
> 
> Now, buying one and setting up your own resale of cloned drives is starting to get into a gray area.


TiVo has been tolerant of Weaknees for years so I wouldn't expend too many cycles worrying about it.


----------



## jmbach

The OS does not reside on the drive for the Roamios. There are small placeholder partitions where the OS normally resides on the drive. Only thing Weaknees can do is manipulate or add MFS partitions on the drive and make the appropriate mods the the main MFS application partition.


----------



## lpwcomp

jmpage2 said:


> I don't see how it needs the serial number of the drive to work unless it is writing it to the disk at time of installation (which seems like a very odd thing to do). Remember you can put a blank drive into the Roamio and it will format it and work fine.
> 
> The "TiVo is going the Apple route" comments are silly.... TiVo has just made it so you can pop in a replacement drive on your own and upgrade or replace the most likely part to fail, without jumping through hoops.. that's about as user friendly as upgrades get.


You're going right past the point. There is a difference between putting a blank drive in and having the TiVo format it and putting a configured 4TB drive in. Remember yourself, the TiVo _*cannot*_ handle an un-formatted 4TB drive. There is also a difference between that and being able to copy your existing drive to a larger drive and expanding. Can't yet do that on a Roamio and there is no guarantee that you will ever be able to do so.

Comparisons to Apple are perfectly valid. The ability to drop in a blank drive ( as long as you are willing to either void your warranty or lose everything) aside, each generation of TiVo has locked down things further than the previous one. And fairly recently they have taken to releasing buggy, insufficiently tested s/w.

I never said that they _*were*_ writing the drive s/n to the drive during setup. I was just saying that it was a possibility so the poster to whom I was responding wouldn't buy a 4TB weaKnees drive with the assumption that it could be cloned and used to create multiple upgrade drives.

OTOH, if it is possible to do so, I don't consider it stealing. There is no intellectual(s/w) or physical(the drive) property that you are misappropriating.


----------



## Marconi

BobCamp1 said:


> The Tivo can't prepare a blank 4 TB hard drive by itself. You have to connect the hard drive to a PC and use a special tool to prepare the drive for the Tivo. Once the drive has been prepared ahead of time, the Roamio can use it without major problems.
> 
> Weakness has developed such a tool, but no one else has developed a free version of this tool yet.


Well, there's always dd. No reason we can't clone a Weaknees drive over and over again. No special formatting s/w required. Slow? Yeah, the alternative is how much?


----------



## Marconi

Does the software tool exist to take a configured Roamio drive, a 1TB, and copy it to a 3TB drive, expanding or whatnot to get the full 3TB?

I'm wondering if the only way to get 3 TB into a Roamio is to essentially start from scratch. Drop in the new drive then re-do all SPs, Wishlists and so on. 

Likewise, preserving recordings going from 1TB to 3TB. Can it be done?


----------



## Keen

Nope.


----------



## nooneuknow

Regarding my "Some many consider cloning a Weaknees, or other upgrade vendor's, pre-prepared drive, as stealing" type of post:

I once posted I had successfully used GNU dd_rescue, from the JMFS CD's command line, to clone DVR_DUDE's 2TB upgrades for the Premiere and HD, without issue.

I was then confronted with accusations of theft, and doomsday-type predictions if DVR_DUDE ever found out.

I then posted that I never used the pre-prepared drives I purchased, but instead used the clones, and put the originals on a shelf, for in the event that the clones failed, or became corrupted.

Nobody had anything to say about it after that point. So, I was merely trying to protect the person asking about a dd-type copy of a Weaknees drive (if it "should work") from the same accusations.

It has been brought up (speculated), a few times, in a few threads, that the "legit" vendors may actually pay a license fee, to TiVo, for the privilege to do what they do, without TiVo interfering/suing. Nobody has proven that one way, or the other (that I'm aware of). The only claim I have ever heard, that wasn't challenged, was that the author of "Instant Cake" software (which used a guided menu to run free, open-source software, to create TiVo images from the ground-up, for a fee).

I really don't know if any of that is even possible (or legit), since TiVo runs on a "TiVoized" version of a free Linux distro. "TiVoization" is actually a term you can find on Wikipedia. TiVo took a public/open-license system, and made some of it proprietary, which many view as violating the GNU/open-source/free software initiative, as well as the terms that you agree to by using, and re-distributing, such software. TiVo is, in fact, profiting from the work of those who made the original open-source/free software. But, how are organizations that give away their software for free, going to afford to make TiVo "cease and desist" doing what they do?

I'm barely Linux-experienced enough to do more than things like making a JMFS bootable CD and using the command line for drives it doesn't recognize as a valid TiVo drive (or just going to command line to change the parameters for the GNU dd_rescue it uses, to speed up the transfer speed, when I know I am working with error-free drives). I've tried to read-up on it as best, and as often, as I can. So, please forgive me, or grant me some latitude, if I have mangled the language that applies to Linux-type software in the making of this post. Corrections are welcome, as long as they aren't a variation of calling me an "idiot".


----------



## Marconi

nooneuknow said:


> Regarding my "Some many consider cloning a Weaknees, or other upgrade vendor's, pre-prepared drive, as stealing" type of post:
> 
> I once posted I had successfully used GNU dd_rescue, from the JMFS CD's command line, to clone DVR_DUDE's 2TB upgrades for the Premiere and HD, without issue.
> 
> I was then confronted with accusations of theft, and doomsday-type predictions if DVR_DUDE ever found out.


There is nothing proprietary about the Weaknees drive. Is it patented? Copyrighted? The "proprietary-ness" is in the tool they use to create it.

Cloning in no way violates WKs rights or ownership. We may each, in our own way, cobble together a tool to create our own 4TB Roamio-ready drives without violating WKs rights or ownership. Perhaps someone will, and give it away. Would that violate WKs' rights? Nope.

Neither does dd. It's just another tool.

So, unless WKs makes you agree not to clone, reverse engineer or otherwise duplicate their 4TB drives, have at it.

It would be fun to examine the partition map and compare that to a drive prepped by Roamio.


----------



## chrispitude

Possibly of interest:

Western Digital WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB SATA3 3.5" Internal HDD $90 After $30MIR w/ FS @ tigerdirect.com (fatwallet.com)


----------



## nooneuknow

Marconi said:


> There is nothing proprietary about the Weaknees drive. Is it patented? Copyrighted? The "proprietary-ness" is in the tool they use to create it.
> 
> Cloning in no way violates WKs rights or ownership. We may each, in our own way, cobble together a tool to create our own 4TB Roamio-ready drives without violating WKs rights or ownership. Perhaps someone will, and give it away. Would that violate WKs' rights? Nope.
> 
> Neither does dd. It's just another tool.
> 
> So, unless WKs makes you agree not to clone, reverse engineer or otherwise duplicate their 4TB drives, have at it.
> 
> It would be fun to examine the partition map and compare that to a drive prepped by Roamio.


No disagreement here. Although, it kind of (initially) felt like you were disagreeing with me, I can see it as more of a disagreement with those yelling "theft!", when publicly discussing cloning of "prepped" or "pre-prepared" upgrade drives...

By examining such drives (or backup images, in virtual HDD emulation), you can find out things like DVR_DUDE's 2TB upgrades for pre-Roamio models aren't fully 4K aligned, and a 2TB structure you can clone from a FACTORY Premiere XL4/Elite actually is (and is easily made to download the software for a non-2TB, and/or lesser-tuner model Premiere). I had to pay for the upgrade, just to find out I didn't need to pay for it (and that the advertising for the former was misleading, to say the least)...


----------



## ggieseke

chrispitude said:


> Possibly of interest:
> 
> Western Digital WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB SATA3 3.5" Internal HDD $90 After $30MIR w/ FS @ tigerdirect.com (fatwallet.com)


The price is awesome, but how many hoops do you have to jump through to get the rebate? The last time I played that game it ended up as a $30 rebate that I could collect after signing up for two different web services that I didn't want, and I would get a "gift" card to a certain big-box store about 3 months later.

I'm not questioning the drive, just the deal. I have the 4TB version of that drive and it's a sweetie...


----------



## jmpage2

Yeah screw those mail in rebates. There will be plenty of deals before Xmas.


----------



## chrispitude

ggieseke said:


> The price is awesome, but how many hoops do you have to jump through to get the rebate? The last time I played that game it ended up as a $30 rebate that I could collect after signing up for two different web services that I didn't want, and I would get a "gift" card to a certain big-box store about 3 months later.
> 
> I'm not questioning the drive, just the deal. I have the 4TB version of that drive and it's a sweetie...


You apply for the rebate online, and they give you the form to print out and mail in with the UPC. It's pretty painless.


----------



## tsheley

What is the best 2TB drive to use to upgrade with? Thanks!


----------



## jmpage2

tsheley said:


> What is the best 2TB drive to use to upgrade with? Thanks!


This one;

http://www.amazon.com/WD-AV-GP-Vide...36097&sr=8-1&keywords=western+digital+av++2tb


----------



## tsheley

jmpage2 said:


> This one;
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/WD-AV-GP-Vide...36097&sr=8-1&keywords=western+digital+av++2tb


Thanks!


----------



## A J Ricaud

jmpage2 said:


> This one;
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/WD-AV-GP-Vide...36097&sr=8-1&keywords=western+digital+av++2tb


Newegg has it for $84.99 with promo code: EMCWWVV28 and free shipping:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...213-Index-_-InternalHardDrives-_-22136783-L0G


----------



## davidahn

I've always been prone to 1) wanting the biggest and the baddest, and 2) never paying full price. So obviously I wanted the 4+4TB setup WK sells, but without paying $1100 for $700 of hardware ($350 for Plus current TiVo deal, $175 x 2 for drives). At this point I see no one reporting success with it, I'm leaning toward getting a Pro and being done with it.

With all the streaming options (Hulu+, Netflix, HBO Go, etc.) plus bittorrent (though recompressed), I see less need for massive storage. Also, I'm considering a 4K PJ, and 4K material would also be outside the TiVo. I really do wonder if I need to be storing 8 TB of my favorite seasons on my own HDs. I don't know if this is sour grapes since I can't have a cheap 8TB solution?


----------



## andyw715

how many hours is 8TB?


----------



## lpwcomp

andyw715 said:


> how many hours is 8TB?


weaKnees says 1280


----------



## almighty

I've got a new Roamio arriving tomorrow to replace a dead Premiere. But I am going to want to upgrade the Plus' 1TB to 2 or 3. I've tried to read as much of this long thread as I can, but running out of time to order a drive if I need to prior to booting the Roamio up first time.

I can deal with having to re-pair CC, re-setup the Tivo from scratch down the road, if that is the only hiccup. Is there anything else that would compel me to get the new drive today to arrive tomorrow with the Tivo?

thanks!


----------



## atmuscarella

If anyone is really interested Weakness has sent out an email with black Friday codes in it (they are good now).

Roamio Plus duel 4TB drives $900 use code RPLUS8
Roamio Plus single 4TB drive $600 use code RPLUS4
Roamio Plus 3TB drive $490 use code RPLUS3
Roamio Plus $350 use code RPLUS
Base Roamio dual 4TB drives $800 use code ROAMIO8
Base Roamio single 4TB drive $500 use code ROAMIO4
Base Roamio single 2TB drive $300 use code ROAMIO


----------



## mattack

tsheley said:


> What is the best 2TB drive to use to upgrade with? Thanks!


If the Roamio does 3 TB internally 'plug and play' just fine, why wouldn't you use the 3 TB?


----------



## nooneuknow

mattack said:


> If the Roamio does 3 TB internally 'plug and play' just fine, why wouldn't you use the 3 TB?


Could be like me, already having multiple cases of different model 2TB drives, but unlike me, not knowing if there's any reason to use one over the other two models.

Somehow I doubt that is the case. But, it is a possible scenario. Not everybody asking drive questions necessarily is drive-less, and/or able to afford 3TB, at the moment.

I stocked up on 2TB drives, of several varieties, as each of them hit hard-to-pass-up prices, having no idea that I'd not find myself wishing I hadn't.

I long for the days when it was super-easy to take a situation like mine, and just make raid-arrays, with excess drives, before the drive makers started sabotaging the firmware of non-raid-rated drives... Then I wouldn't get angry every time I see a sale on 3TB drives, but remember I sank my money into 2TB ones. This is why my new Roamios will have to live with 2TB each.

I didn't know the Roamio's specs when back when buying the drives, nor after the Roamio launch did I know I'd find any reasons to get any Roamios, nor did I know the demand/selling prices of Premieres would take such an epic hit.

Now, after the last Premiere update, I mostly figure if I'm going to get bombarded by ads, regardless of if I upgrade, or not, I might as well get my ads on a faster platform, that actually has any semblance of TiVo providing support and bug-fixes for. The extras and potential future extras are just a bonus.


----------



## tomm1079

i have a unused 3 TB red. 

Any reason to not use that in a plus?


----------



## jmbach

Nope


----------



## Tanquen

amseven11 said:


> Upgrade your Roamio with a new drive. No discs needed.
> 
> *What you need:*
> T8 Screw driver
> T10 Screw Driver
> New Hard Drive


Can someone update the OP, took me a few minutes to get to the top? (No, that is not what she said.)

It's:
One T-9 screw center at the back. 
ThreeT-10 screws on the top of the drive bracket.
Four T-15 screws on the brackets that mount to the side of the drive.

No screws in the SATA/Power connection.

Opening to the top is, lift center back just a bit and pinch the left or right sides in to release the (six total) three tabs on each side. The top is pretty flexible and has a lip that covers the back and sides so you can lift the center back and then push one side lip and then the other. No sliding forward, kinda roll forward as you release the tabs back to front. The very front kind of hangs on until you get the last set of tabs off.

Thanks for the info. Now running a WD RED 2.7TB drive.  I setup the drive it came with first and the new one worked fine. I had a 3.6TB WD RED on hand but it just loops the setup.


----------



## unitron

Crrink said:


> FWIW, the last AV drive I bought was probably 2 years ago. The 3TB Red drive I put in my Roamio Basic is quieter than the 3TB AV drive in the TiVoHD it replaced...


You were successful in getting an S3 HD to even boot from a 3TB drive?

Are you sure it wasn't only a 2TB?


----------



## tsheley

mattack said:


> If the Roamio does 3 TB internally 'plug and play' just fine, why wouldn't you use the 3 TB?


Just looking to save money where I can.


----------



## yukit

So what is the best 3TB (green or red) drive deal right now? I could use one or two drives.


----------



## yukit

I picked up a few drives from Newegg with this code: MBLBF5 to give 5% discount.

You must use Newegg mobile app to qualify.

Not sure how strict they are with the timed promo.

Good luck & happy shopping.


----------



## thewebgal

Another satisfied customer!

Ordered a Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower HDD drive from NewEgg on Weds morning. 
Printed the Amazon $149 price a bit later & dropped by BestBuy Weds after work - 
did the price match and got a base Roamio with the $50 gift card ... What a great deal!

Had a great Thanksgiving yesterday ...

Hard drive arrived this morning, easy enough to swap it in place of the 500 GB drive. 
Swapped the connectors in my HT rack - took about 20 minutes for Guided Setup - 
slipped in the FIOS CableCard midway then maybe another 20 minutes for a Service Update. 
Used Tivo.com to copy my (30) Season Passes from the old TivoHD to the Roamio. 
Did have to sort them to put them back into order - but not having to recreate them from scratch is great!
Checked out StreamBaby and its working great (Streams stuff from my MacPro upstairs down to the Roamio).
Got kmttg installed yesterday evening but I'll have to play with that a bit to copy our old shows over - 
we do have some shows on the TivoHD that are more than a year old back when we had COX CATV!

I do have some more configuring to do with the new remote, 
but so far, you folks here saved me a ton of money and a ton of trouble, 
and made upgrading to the latest, greatest TIVO quite a wonderful experience ...

THANKS AGAIN!


----------



## headless chicken

thewebgal said:


> Another satisfied customer!
> 
> Ordered a Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower HDD drive from NewEgg on Weds morning.
> Printed the Amazon $149 price a bit later & dropped by BestBuy Weds after work -
> did the price match and got a base Roamio with the $50 gift card ... What a great deal!


I thought the Roamio base model was not capable of accepting a 3TB drive...


----------



## HarperVision

headless chicken said:


> I thought the Roamio base model was not capable of accepting a 3TB drive...


Yes, it can. That's the max all the roamios can take without having Weaknees finagle with the larger drives to get them to work.


----------



## headless chicken

HarperVision said:


> Yes, it can. That's the max all the roamios can take without having Weaknees finagle with the larger drives to get them to work.


Okay. I bought the Plus thinking I needed the midlevel model to upgrade to a 3TB drive. I suppose it accommodates the 3.5 drives just fine then.

What real advantage does the plus have over the base model? A better resale value? I know there are 6 tuners instead of 4, but I'm not even sure my cable companies M-cards can handle 6 tuners simultaneously.


----------



## MikePA1

headless chicken said:


> What real advantage does the plus have over the base model? A better resale value? I know there are 6 tuners instead of 4, but I'm not even sure my cable companies M-cards can handle 6 tuners simultaneously.


I know I don't have all that many posts, but I did find this this great comparison of the models here before I bought my Roamio Basic.


----------



## headless chicken

MikePA1 said:


> I know I don't have all that many posts, but I did find this this great comparison of the models here before I bought my Roamio Basic.


Yeah, I'm well aware of that page. As well as this one:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/20/tivo-roamio-plus-review/

I was looking for personalized user input.


----------



## djjuice

The 4TB drive WD40EURX is starting to show up. Newegg has one for $189, a bit expensive but at least they're out there now.


----------



## chrispitude

headless chicken said:


> Okay. I bought the Plus thinking I needed the midlevel model to upgrade to a 3TB drive. I suppose it accommodates the 3.5 drives just fine then.
> 
> What real advantage does the plus have over the base model? A better resale value? I know there are 6 tuners instead of 4, but I'm not even sure my cable companies M-cards can handle 6 tuners simultaneously.


I wasn't sure about RCN's M-cards either, but (whether they knew it or not) it works like a charm!


----------



## MikePA1

headless chicken said:


> I was looking for personalized user input.


You mean like posts earlier in this thread that indicated up to 3 TB hard drives work in all models?

Since all models run the same software, what kind of 'personalized user input' were you looking for? Since probably no one has sold their Roamio yet, no one knows what the resale value will be.


----------



## djjuice

those who are asking a difference between models, have you visited the tivo.com site?
https://tivo.com/shop/roamio has a comparison of all 3, it's really down to built in MoCA adapter, mobility streaming without needing a tivo stream, and tuners. 
I'm not counting the initial HD space as well thats why you're in this thread


----------



## lpwcomp

djjuice said:


> those who are asking a difference between models, have you visited the tivo.com site?
> https://tivo.com/shop/roamio has a comparison of all 3, it's really down to built in MoCA adapter, mobility streaming without needing a tivo stream, and tuners.
> I'm not counting the initial HD space as well thats why you're in this thread


There's one other difference not in that table. The Plus & Pro both have Gigabit Ethernet. The basic model is only 100 Megabit.

Also anyone have any idea what this line means?:



Code:


Works with 	Built in 	Built in 	N/A

My guess is that it is supposed to be "Works with *Stream*" and that there should be a green dot under the "Roamio", pushing the "Built in" entries so they are under the "Pro" and "Plus" and the "N/A" so it is under the "Cable DVR*" column.


----------



## ltxi

headless chicken said:


> Okay. I bought the Plus thinking I needed the midlevel model to upgrade to a 3TB drive. I suppose it accommodates the 3.5 drives just fine then.
> 
> What real advantage does the plus have over the base model? A better resale value? I know there are 6 tuners instead of 4, but I'm not even sure my cable companies M-cards can handle 6 tuners simultaneously.


Better/proven platform form factor, six tuners, built in MoCa and streaming, 1 TB drive, RF remote, plus whatever. Any will handle a 3TB drive. The Basic is a cut rate, entry level model stuffed into a new, small box. Unless seriously strapped for cash or needing OTA, I wouldn't touch it for a four to five year product cycle investment.


----------



## Brudha

ltxi said:


> Better/proven platform form factor, six tuners, built in MoCa and streaming, 1 TB drive, RF remote, plus whatever. Any will handle a 3TB drive. The Basic is a cut rate, entry level model stuffed into a new, small box. Unless seriously strapped for cash or needing OTA, I wouldn't touch it for a four to five year product cycle investment.


On the flip side, I would not invest in the models that did NOT offer any ability to get FREE HD programming with the highest-quality picture from an OTA antenna. With the Base Roamio, you're not absolutely locked into a monthly fee cable connection. You can have the best picture quality available, without cable's compression.

If the Plus offered OTA, it would probably be a no-brainer decision; but, the exclusion of this most important feature making it a universal box for ALL users, not just cable subscribers, puts the Base Roamio in a position better for the long-term and wider audience appeal.


----------



## nooneuknow

And how much of the MOST RECENT thread activity has anything to do with "Hard Drive Upgrade Info"?

There's less-focused threads for things not related to Roamio HDD Upgrade info, and there's always Private Messages, if you want to pick somebody's brain about every OTHER little thing.


----------



## MikePA1

nooneuknow said:


> And how much of the MOST RECENT thread activity has anything to do with "Hard Drive Upgrade Info"?


None. Thank Post 1412 for taking the thread off track.


----------



## Leon WIlkinson

lpwcomp said:


> There's one other difference not in that table. The Plus & Pro both have Gigabit Ethernet. The basic model is only 100 Megabit.
> 
> Also anyone have any idea what this line means?:
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> Works with 	Built in 	Built in 	N/A
> 
> My guess is that it is supposed to be "Works with *Stream*" and that there should be a green dot under the "Roamio", pushing the "Built in" entries so they are under the "Pro" and "Plus" and the "N/A" so it is under the "Cable DVR*" column.


 I believe the data is off set one field, missing TiVo Stream.


----------



## thewebgal

ltxi said:


> Better/proven platform form factor, six tuners, built in MoCa and streaming, 1 TB drive, RF remote, plus whatever. Any will handle a 3TB drive. The Basic is a cut rate, entry level model stuffed into a new, small box. Unless seriously strapped for cash or needing OTA, I wouldn't touch it for a four to five year product cycle investment.


Perhaps - but by design, we have just one TV system in the house - 
its very high end, but just one, so there is no need to stream to others sets around the house or on the internet - 
a $150 box plus the cost to upgrade the drive works it all works out just fine. Wifi transfers at 30Mbs is great too.

Plus we have a TON of broadcast stations in the Wash/Baltimore area - 
if we ever drop FIOS we still have MUCH potential viewing with the base Roamio.


----------



## headless chicken

ltxi said:


> The Basic is a cut rate, entry level model stuffed into a new, small box. Unless seriously strapped for cash or needing OTA, I wouldn't touch it for a four to five year product cycle investment.


Yeah, form factor is certainly a concern of mine. Not sure what installing a 3.5" hard drive in such a confined might do down the line.

I suspect the compact design of the base model may have an adverse impact on the fan/ventilation system which in turn might cause internal and electronic components failure.


----------



## MikePA1

headless chicken said:


> Yeah, form factor is certainly a concern of mine. Not sure what installing a 3.5" hard drive in such a confined might do down the line.
> 
> I suspect the compact design of the base model may have an adverse impact on the fan/ventilation system which in turn might cause internal and electronic components failure.


Already discussed in this thread - Not an issue.


----------



## HarperVision

I'm not a hard drive expert by any means. I had an old Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB laying around and I threw it into a base Roamio. It certainly appears to be working fine as suggested in is thread, but do any of you experts foresee any possible future issues?


----------



## MikePA1

Other than a hardware failure, what other future issues could there be? 

Why are people so paranoid about the hard drive?


----------



## HarperVision

I'm more talking issues with the "Barracuda" line with maybe heat, noise, etc as compared to the WD green and red A/V drives most seem to be using. I think I read here not to use the black drives, so just curious if there's any of those type of things with barracudas.


----------



## kylem4711

A J Ricaud said:


> Newegg has it for $84.99 with promo code: EMCWWVV28 and free shipping:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...213-Index-_-InternalHardDrives-_-22136783-L0G


any other good deals out there? it's not 84.99 anymore


----------



## Davelnlr_

HarperVision said:


> I'm more talking issues with the "Barracuda" line with maybe heat, noise, etc as compared to the WD green and red A/V drives most seem to be using. I think I read here not to use the black drives, so just curious if there's any of those type of things with barracudas.


Ive have used nothing but Barracuda's in all my Tivo's since the Series 1, and have NEVER had a drive failure or issue with them. I used the 7200 rpm, except for the last 2TB unit, and I believe it is a 5900 rpm "green" version.


----------



## HarperVision

Davelnlr_ said:


> Ive have used nothing but Barracuda's in all my Tivo's since the Series 1, and have NEVER had a drive failure or issue with them. I used the 7200 rpm, except for the last 2TB unit, and I believe it is a 5900 rpm "green" version.


Thanks. I forgot to mention mine is the 7200 rpm as well. Does that make a difference?


----------



## aaronwt

HarperVision said:


> Thanks. I forgot to mention mine is the 7200 rpm as well. Does that make a difference?


Other than more heat it shouldn't. The lower rpm drives are more than capable of dealing with at least a dozen concurrent HD read/write streams.

The WD drives are rated for 12 concurrent streams while the Seagate drives are rated for 16 concurrent HD streams. The seagate A/V drives are 5900 rpm. The WD A/V drives must be a little slower.


----------



## unitron

kylem4711 said:


> any other good deals out there? it's not 84.99 anymore


Check Amazon and see if they were price matching newegg on it and haven't gotten around to going back up yet.


----------



## unitron

HarperVision said:


> I'm more talking issues with the "Barracuda" line with maybe heat, noise, etc as compared to the WD green and red A/V drives most seem to be using. I think I read here not to use the black drives, so just curious if there's any of those type of things with barracudas.


A Black, and probably any 7200RPM drive, is "overkill", in that a 5400 is plenty fast enough for a TiVo, and the greater spindle speed means more heat, and since it probably takes a little more current to go a little faster, that's a little more heat coming off of the power supply as well.

But I've been successfully using some 1TB Blacks (with appropriate IDE/SATA adapters) in a couple of S2 DTs for about 3 years now.

However, there was enough room in them to add an extra fan, and the older IDE hard drive power connection made it easy to get power to the extra fan.

The Blacks are good, but they run "toasty".

The WD20EURS works quite nicely in S3s, and, from what I hear, in S4s, so I'd be tempted to try a WD30EURS if I had a TiVo that'd take a 3TB drive.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> Other than more heat it shouldn't. The lower rpm drives are more than capable of dealing with at least a dozen concurrent HD read/write streams.
> 
> The WD drives are rated for 12 concurrent streams while the Seagate drives are rated for 16 concurrent HD streams. The seagate A/V drives are 5900 rpm. The WD A/V drives must be a little slower.


Those stream ratings are for when the ATA Streaming Command Set extensions are active. They mean nothing, when the host either doesn't support them, and/or doesn't enable them.

The drive makers have you drinking their marketing Kool-Aid, if you think those numbers correlate to a TiVo, which just writes everything as standard data. I wish I had copies to make a time-lapse slide show presentation of how many new applications the drive makers have targeted, since the first AV drives hit the market...

I agree with the fact that a 5400/5900 RPM drive with even a SATA-2 interface, is still far more than a six-tuner consumer TV DVR even needs, mostly due to increased platter storage density, and improved technology to read and write to those high storage density platters.

Why add more heat, and more current draw, than you need to? It also make no sense to put a 7200RPM drive in. Drives that spec-out "streams" in a context that doesn't even apply to TiVo, are just marketing tactics, that some are easily drawn to, but not necessary.

I'm all for getting an AV-rated Green, or an AV-rated Red NAS drive, if it's because the price is right, and a longer warranty period. Otherwise, it's pointless (other than bragging rights over having a drive that can't even use its own potential, crammed into your TiVo).


----------



## MikePA1

HarperVision said:


> Does that make a difference?


No, it does not make a difference. Read other posts for irrelevant techno babble.


----------



## HarperVision

Thanks for all the replies and "techno babble" guys! While I do love me some "techno babble", the ONLY reason I used the 1.5TB Barracuda 7200 rpm drive was because I had it here for FREE and all the other solutions would cost me money, so that is why I asked the question. All I wanted to know was whether my FREE increased TiVo storage capability would end up NOT being so free in the near future if it caused expensive issues and fixes down the road. If it isn't deemed that it will, I will save the cash and just use it.


----------



## thewebgal

I am not a TIVO engineer, I've just owned a couple over the last 6 years ...

That said - I'd want to use a NEW drive to increase capacity - otherwise, if you use a used drive, you have a greater potential of the drive failing sooner and lunching all your content.

I don't think anyone can absolutely say using a Barracuda drive will overheat the TIVO causing other failures ... or wear down a power supply sooner ...

There is a school here that says any change from the stock configuration has the potential to be a problem ... as always, if you change out your drive, YOU are the one taking such a risk, if there is one ...



HarperVision said:


> Thanks for all the replies and "techno babble" guys! While I do love me some "techno babble", the ONLY reason I used the 1.5TB Barracuda 7200 rpm drive was because I had it here for FREE and all the other solutions would cost me money, so that is why I asked the question. All I wanted to know was whether my FREE increased TiVo storage capability would end up NOT being so free in the near future if it caused expensive issues and fixes down the road. If it isn't deemed that it will, I will save the cash and just use it.


----------



## nooneuknow

thewebgal said:


> I am not a TIVO engineer, I've just owned a couple over the last 6 years ...
> 
> That said - I'd want to use a NEW drive to increase capacity - otherwise, if you use a used drive, you have a greater potential of the drive failing sooner and lunching all your content.
> 
> I don't think anyone can absolutely say using a Barracuda drive will overheat the TIVO causing other failures ... or wear down a power supply sooner ...
> 
> There is a school here that says any change from the stock configuration has the potential to be a problem ... as always, if you change out your drive, YOU are the one taking such a risk, if there is one ...


Well said!

However, the thing that many often overlook, is *LONGEVITY*.

There's more to this than "It works fine right now, running my 7200RPM black (or other high-performance) drive".

The cooling fans in TiVos are known for failing (although some call making excessive noise "failing"), or lessening the amount of airflow (reducing the cooling efficiency) they are supposed to provide. Although, the Roamio hasn't been out long enough to know how well the fan performs (when components are changed to ones that operate hotter), and/or how long it will last (having to run faster, to compensate, tends to shorten the life of a fan). In either case, it's more than the drive that will run hotter. More than likely, the over-spec drive will be the component that fails first, with the power supply second for probability of potential damage, or shortened life. As for the rest of the TiVo, it will likely just become unstable, and/or shut itself down, to protect itself (if airflow is reduced, stops, or the internal temperature is increased).

Since a base Roamio has an external power supply, it's an exception to what I said above regarding the power supply being cooled by the internal TiVo fan. But, it may still have a potential to fail sooner, IF the drive in use is drawing more current than the margin the power supply is designed to deal with, as that will still increase the operating temperature inside the fully enclosed wall-wart power supply, and/or increase the amount of stress to its components.

Remember, Green and Green AV drives are often used in tightly enclosed, non ventilated external drive enclosures. Try running a high performance drive in a sealed enclosure like that, and see how long the drive lasts.

Even the Green/Green AV drives, when used in a sealed external enclosure, tend to fail much more quickly, which is why most who have been around these forums and taken in a lot of posts, will have seen that people have a lot of negative experiences using DVR expander drives, and will choose to try and stick to one internal drive, and not risk losing everything due to the external failing.

I have nothing to gain, or lose, by staying silent and letting things play out, or by periodically taking the time to comment on these matters. I just like people to be informed.

If anybody thinks what I say is "tech-babble", try reading through all the different drive data sheets/white papers (not just the marketing materials), and you will then realize I have simplified as best I can, without loosing the true meaning of it all.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> Well said! However, the thing that many often overlook, is LONGEVITY. There's more to this than "It works fine right now, running my 7200RPM black (or other high-performance) drive". The cooling fans in TiVos are known for failing (although some call making excessive noise "failing"), or lessening the amount of airflow (reducing the cooling efficiency) they are supposed to provide. Although, the Roamio hasn't been out long enough to know how well the fan performs (when components are changed to ones that operate hotter), and/or how long it will last (having to run faster, to compensate, tends to shorten the life of a fan). In either case, it's more than the drive that will run hotter. More than likely, the over-spec drive will be the component that fails first, with the power supply second for probability of potential damage, or shortened life. As for the rest of the TiVo, it will likely just become unstable, and/or shut itself down, to protect itself (if airflow is reduced, stops, or the internal temperature is increased). Since a base Roamio has an external power supply, it's an exception to what I said above regarding the power supply being cooled by the internal TiVo fan. But, it may still have a potential to fail sooner, IF the drive in use is drawing more current than the margin the power supply is designed to deal with, as that will still increase the operating temperature inside the fully enclosed wall-wart power supply, and/or increase the amount of stress to its components. Remember, Green and Green AV drives are often used in tightly enclosed, non ventilated external drive enclosures. Try running a high performance drive in a sealed enclosure like that, and see how long the drive lasts. Even the Green/Green AV drives, when used in a sealed external enclosure, tend to fail much more quickly, which is why most who have been around these forums and taken in a lot of posts, will have seen that people have a lot of negative experiences using DVR expander drives, and will choose to try and stick to one internal drive, and not risk losing everything due to the external failing. I have nothing to gain, or lose, by staying silent and letting things play out, or by periodically taking the time to comment on these matters. I just like people to be informed. If anybody thinks what I say is "tech-babble", try reading through all the different drive data sheets/white papers (not just the marketing materials), and you will then realize I have simplified as best I can, without loosing the true meaning of it all.


Well said by you too, sir! You're post is exactly what I was looking for. As a matter of fact this barracuda I'm using came out of an enclosed, tight, low airflow external enclosure known as the Seagate Free Agent Xtreme. So maybe it's designed for that environment? Can someone with the stock drive or green drive at 5400 rpm tell me what their internal temps are in the DVR diagnostic menu? Also, I think you may be misinterpreting the "techno babble" comments based on the posts I've seen you make since then.

Peace out brah!


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> Well said by you too, sir! You're post is exactly what I was looking for. As a matter of fact this barracuda I'm using came out of an enclosed, tight, low airflow external enclosure known as the Seagate Free Agent Xtreme. So maybe it's designed for that environment? Can someone with the stock drive or green drive at 5400 rpm tell me what their internal temps are in the DVR diagnostic menu? Also, I think you may be misinterpreting the "techno babble" comments based on the posts I've seen you make since then.
> 
> Peace out brah!


By any chance, was in in an aluminum enclosure, as opposed to plastic? It makes a world of difference. Unventilated plastic enclosures are what I was speaking of. The aluminum ones actually tend to be as tight a fit as possible, and heat-sink away heat from the drive (when of the tight-fit variety). The plastic ones seal it in.

I pulled some 7200 RPM Seagate drives out of Iomega-branded aluminum enclosures, hoping to find WD Green drives inside (I didn't know they were aluminum enclosures, until the delivery came).

After some research on those drives, I learned they are part of what used to be the "Barracuda" 7200.1 line, but are also considered "Green", as in the way Seagate says it for such drives "Green when they need to be".

"Barracuda" has either been discontinued as a name name, or has been re-assigned, AFAIK. I don't buy Seagate, unless by accident. So, I only looked up those drives, got the details, and they sit around as 2TB image holders for when I need to image a HD or Premiere. Even though they likely meet the thermal and current envelopes for TiVo, I feel (as in my own opinion) that there's no point in using a 7200RPM drive in such a low-demand environment. After some benchmarking, trying to emulate the way TiVo reads/writes, I found that WD Green drives outperformed them. Sometimes a lower RPM just works better.

If I ever get around to finally building a couple of tower computers, and had to choose between WD Green and those same Seagate drives, the Seagates would be hands-down my first choice (if those were my only two choices).

I think I've provided about all the intel I have to offer, other than you'd have better results reading temps with a thermal probe, or an infrared temp sensing gun, than just taking a reading off the TiVo screen, which is just the TiVo mainboard temp, taken very close to, or even possibly from within the TiVo's CPU. Many threads exist asking where the sensor is. If we've had to guess over several generations of TiVos, I'm guessing it's still a mystery in this one. Also, with the base-model Roamio being a tighter-fitting enclosure, made out of PLASTIC, I do sincerely hope TiVo put the very best fan money can buy in those. Premieres actually used dimples in the bottom of the chassis and thermal-pads to make the case one giant heat-sink for the tuner chips (from the bottom). The only thing cooling the base-model Roamio, is the airflow provided by that one little fan... Take it out of service, and I wonder how long until it cooks to death, or shuts itself down...


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> By any chance, was in in an aluminum enclosure, as opposed to plastic? It makes a world of difference. Unventilated plastic enclosures are what I was speaking of. The aluminum ones actually tend to be as tight a fit as possible, and heat-sink away heat from the drive (when of the tight-fit variety). The plastic ones seal it in.
> 
> I pulled some 7200 RPM Seagate drives out of Iomega-branded aluminum enclosures, hoping to find WD Green drives inside (I didn't know they were aluminum enclosures, until the delivery came).
> 
> After some research on those drives, I learned they are part of what used to be the "Barracuda" 7200.1 line, but are also considered "Green", as in the way Seagate says it for such drives "Green when they need to be".
> 
> "Barracuda" has either been discontinued as a name name, or has been re-assigned, AFAIK. I don't buy Seagate, unless by accident. So, I only looked up those drives, got the details, and they sit around as 2TB image holders for when I need to image a HD or Premiere. Even though they likely meet the thermal and current envelopes for TiVo, I feel (as in my own opinion) that there's no point in using a 7200RPM drive in such a low-demand environment. After some benchmarking, trying to emulate the way TiVo reads/writes, I found that WD Green drives outperformed them. Sometimes a lower RPM just works better.
> 
> If I ever get around to finally building a couple of tower computers, and had to choose between WD Green and those same Seagate drives, the Seagates would be hands-down my first choice (if those were my only two choices).
> 
> I think I've provided about all the intel I have to offer, other than you'd have better results reading temps with a thermal probe, or an infrared temp sensing gun, than just taking a reading off the TiVo screen, which is just the TiVo mainboard temp, taken very close to, or even possibly from within the TiVo's CPU. Many threads exist asking where the sensor is. If we've had to guess over several generations of TiVos, I'm guessing it's still a mystery in this one. Also, with the base-model Roamio being a tighter-fitting enclosure, made out of PLASTIC, I do sincerely hope TiVo put the very best fan money can buy in those. Premieres actually used dimples in the bottom of the chassis and thermal-pads to make the case one giant heat-sink for the tuner chips (from the bottom). The only thing cooling the base-model Roamio, is the airflow provided by that one little fan... Take it out of service, and I wonder how long until it cooks to death, or shuts itself down...


Thanks again. The drive itself was in an aluminum shell which was then enclosed in a plastic case. There's a YouTube video explaining the disassembly instructions which illustrate this.

Bottom line, if you had one of these lying around, would YOU use it and save some cash (if times were tight, as they are with me currently) or would you bite the bullet and get a WD green or red because you're more worried it will cause something to fail later on and end up costing you more money?


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> Thanks again. The drive itself was in an aluminum shell which was then enclosed in a plastic case. There's a YouTube video explaining the disassembly instructions which illustrate this.
> 
> Bottom line, if you had one of these lying around, would YOU use it and save some cash (if times were tight, as they are with me currently) or would you bite the bullet and get a WD green or red because you're more worried it will cause something to fail later on and end up costing you more money?


It depends on which Roamio model. If the Roamio is a base model, with a smaller plastic case, I'd either temporarily run it (and always be checking up on it), or wait until I could afford the Green WD (install and not be checking up on it).

If the model is a Plus, or Pro, with more space inside, and a metal case, I'd run it, and likely not worry too much about it. I'd probably just put my hand on top of the case, feel around, and do so every month while dusting the case off, or passing by it, if you don't feel like swapping when you have more funds.

In my shoes, I'd like to test the theory that it will detect a drive-swap if you change to a drive of the same exact capacity, by doing a sector-by-sector DD/dd_rescue type drive clone. I'd want to know if I could run one drive for now, and then clone it to another when I can get another. I forget if anybody has actually tested this scenario (drive clone to equal sized drive of different brand, or even just with a different drive serial number, to see if the TiVo notices in a way that you can't just go on using it, without losing anything).

I just realized I could test that. However, I don't want to give TiVo a heaping helping of logs showing me playing drive swap, with any more drives than I need to (at least until the 90-day warranty is up). I managed to get three Roamios, for about ~$115.00 each after tax. Now I have to sell the things in my signature to be able to afford LT TiVo service for them. So they sit and wait, and I sit and wait.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> It depends on which Roamio model. If the Roamio is a base model, with a smaller plastic case, I'd either temporarily run it (and always be checking up on it), or wait until I could afford the Green WD (install and not be checking up on it).
> 
> If the model is a Plus, or Pro, with more space inside, and a metal case, I'd run it, and likely not worry too much about it. I'd probably just put my hand on top of the case, feel around, and do so every month while dusting the case off, or passing by it, if you don't feel like swapping when you have more funds.....





HarperVision said:


> I'm not a hard drive expert by any means. I had an old Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB laying around and I threw it into a base Roamio. It certainly appears to be working fine as suggested in is thread, but do any of you experts foresee any possible future issues?


As I said in my original post on this, it's in a base Roamio. And why would I or anyone want to put a 1.5TB drive into a Pro that already comes stock with a drive that's twice that size?


----------



## keenanSR

nooneuknow said:


> It depends on which Roamio model. If the Roamio is a base model, with a smaller plastic case, I'd either temporarily run it (and always be checking up on it), or wait until I could afford the Green WD (install and not be checking up on it).


Unscientific to be sure, but when I installed a WD 2TB AV drive(WD20EURS) in my Roamio Basic I left the top off the unit for a few days as I was curious about heat. I set the unit to record using all 4 tuners and let it run for nearly an hour. I tested various points in the unit for temperature using an infrared thermometer very similar to this one. While I could not check temperatures inside the HDD itself, at no time did I get a reading on the HDD case above 95F(35C). I moved all around the casing itself and they all varied between low 80's(26C) to mid 90's(32C). I then checked around the main board and one of the the hottest points was the main processing unit, although all I could check was the temperature of the heat sink itself - the temp ran into the 115's(46C) to low 120's(49C). The other "hot spot" was a caged/shielded section right by the cable signal input jack, I believe it might have been the tuner, the temps there also ran in the high teens(47C) to low 120's(49C). As the shield is made of reflective material I'm not sure how accurate the readings were.

My take away was that the HDD is not the hottest component in the Roamio, at least externally anyway, and if something were to fail from heat alone it would be something on the MB. Obviously the HDD being a mechanical device and that fact combined with heat could cause the HDD to fail.

I also checked the temps with the cover back on and they read only about 5-8% higher.

I guess my feeling is that I'm not going to worry about the HDD failing due to heat from cramped space or ventilation, it will probably be something else.

For what it's worth anyway, I figured I would add my experience to the conversation.

<updated the post to include Celsius temps along with the Fahrenheit readings.>


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> As I said in my original post on this, it's in a base Roamio. And why would I or anyone want to put a 1.5TB drive into a Pro that already comes stock with a drive that's twice that size?


I'm tired, and didn't feel like looking for where your inquiry began (forgot to go to sleep, yeah I do that sometimes...).

I figured you'd ask that exact question. It took 1 minute less than your reply for me to think you'd ask that.

I was just generalizing like as if all drive/Roamio scenarios involved a 3TB drive, with one being a mythical 7200RPM version and others being WD Green/Red drives we know exist in 3TB.

I am either too technical or too simplistic. I never strike the right balance.

Do what you feel like and give it whatever due diligence you believe a new product, in a new form factor, encased in a new (different) material, with so many things different, and one tiny fan to keep it all cool. Yep, go with that.

The alternative is to let everybody else test it out and figure out what not to do, and what tends to go wrong, then buy it and know everything in advance, only to find they're soon coming out with the new TiVo Juliet, with 12 tuners and 6TB.

Green pill, red pill... One gets you inserted back into the matrix, the other a life of running and fighting the machines. It's your choice.


----------



## nooneuknow

keenanSR said:


> For what it's worth anyway, I figured I would add my experience to the conversation.


Thank You. However, as much as I like degrees measures in Fahrenheit, when it comes to spec/data sheets, they always specify in Centigrade/Celsius. Could you change the scale and check things again? Mine lets me switch between them, thankfully. Otherwise, I'll find a conversion method/calculator and translate the numbers after getting some sleep...


----------



## keenanSR

nooneuknow said:


> Thank You. However, as much as I like degrees measures in Fahrenheit, when it comes to spec/data sheets, they always specify in Centigrade/Celsius. Could you change the scale and check things again? Mine lets me switch between them, thankfully. Otherwise, I'll find a conversion method/calculator and translate the numbers after getting some sleep...


I updated the post to the show both the C and F readings. The next time I pull the cover I'll change the thermometer to readout out in Celsius, I originally got the device for automotive use and have only recently been using it to check temps in equipment rack setups and wanted to see what temps were running versus the ambient temp in the room, hence the Fahrenheit readings.

BTW, a quick and easy converter.


----------



## nooneuknow

keenanSR said:


> I updated the post to the show both the C and F readings. The next time I pull the cover I'll change the thermometer to readout out in Celsius, I originally got the device for automotive use and have only recently been using it to check temps in equipment rack setups and wanted to see what temps were running versus the ambient temp in the room, hence the Fahrenheit readings.


Me too! I use degrees F for automotive, like making sure the catalytic converter still has working catalyst in it, to find lean/rich cylinders, and degrees C for electronics, then back to degrees F for finding energy wasting leaks around the house, etc.

OK, Laptop off the bed after I post this, and TTY all again when I wake up.


----------



## BobCamp1

keenanSR said:


> Unscientific to be sure, but when I installed a WD 2TB AV drive(WD20EURS) in my Roamio Basic I left the top off the unit for a few days as I was curious about heat. I set the unit to record using all 4 tuners and let it run for nearly an hour. I tested various points in the unit for temperature using an infrared thermometer very similar to this one. While I could not check temperatures inside the HDD itself, at no time did I get a reading on the HDD case above 95F(35C). I moved all around the casing itself and they all varied between low 80's(26C) to mid 90's(32C). I then checked around the main board and one of the the hottest points was the main processing unit, although all I could check was the temperature of the heat sink itself - the temp ran into the 115's(46C) to low 120's(49C). The other "hot spot" was a caged/shielded section right by the cable signal input jack, I believe it might have been the tuner, the temps there also ran in the high teens(47C) to low 120's(49C). As the shield is made of reflective material I'm not sure how accurate the readings were.
> 
> My take away was that the HDD is not the hottest component in the Roamio, at least externally anyway, and if something were to fail from heat alone it would be something on the MB. Obviously the HDD being a mechanical device and that fact combined with heat could cause the HDD to fail.
> 
> I also checked the temps with the cover back on and they read only about 5-8% higher.
> 
> I guess my feeling is that I'm not going to worry about the HDD failing due to heat from cramped space or ventilation, it will probably be something else.
> 
> For what it's worth anyway, I figured I would add my experience to the conversation.
> 
> <updated the post to include Celsius temps along with the Fahrenheit readings.>


All those temps are very cool. Most electronics are rated for 70 C with the exception of hard drives. The main chip might be rated to at least 80 C.

I wish the hard drive were a little hotter -- 42 C is the ideal temperature for its longevity. But 35 C is pretty good, too.


----------



## thewebgal

Just went down and looked up system numbers - I have been copying shows from my old TIVOHD to the (base) Roamio - its been working at that continuously since I put it in the system Friday morning.
Its in a Salamander Cabinet on top of an OPPO Bluray player ...

Anyway, Data page shows MBT 45 - (Mother Board Temp?) if that's temp, it doesn't look bad ...
45C = 113F - seems pretty reasonable!

(Mother Board Temp?)



thewebgal said:


> Did the Amazon $149 price-match at BestBuy Weds (11/27) for a base Roamio with the $50 gift card ... What a great deal!
> Installed a Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower HDD drive from NewEgg in that brand new Roamio Fri morning.
> 
> Works like a champ - THANKS AGAIN!


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> I'm tired, and didn't feel like looking for where your inquiry began (forgot to go to sleep, yeah I do that sometimes...). I figured you'd ask that exact question. It took 1 minute less than your reply for me to think you'd ask that. I was just generalizing like as if all drive/Roamio scenarios involved a 3TB drive, with one being a mythical 7200RPM version and others being WD Green/Red drives we know exist in 3TB. I am either too technical or too simplistic. I never strike the right balance. Do what you feel like and give it whatever due diligence you believe a new product, in a new form factor, encased in a new (different) material, with so many things different, and one tiny fan to keep it all cool. Yep, go with that. The alternative is to let everybody else test it out and figure out what not to do, and what tends to go wrong, then buy it and know everything in advance, only to find they're soon coming out with the new TiVo Juliet, with 12 tuners and 6TB. Green pill, red pill... One gets you inserted back into the matrix, the other a life of running and fighting the machines. It's your choice.


Thanks again, I'll do that. Sleep tight!


----------



## 21364guy

Thanks for the info, folks! I am just setting up my brand-new Roamio Plus after installing a 2TB upgrade (WD20EURS). It's doing a series of updates but things seem to be working fine. It's great to see how easy this is, having upgrading multiple Series 1 and a Series 3 in the past. This is truly a piece of cake


----------



## MikePA1

21364guy said:


> It's great to see how easy this is, having upgrading multiple Series 1 and a Series 3 in the past. This is truly a piece of cake


It's so easy that people are now obsessing over the technical specifications of which 1, 2 or 3 TB drive they could or did use.


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> All those temps are very cool. Most electronics are rated for 70 C with the exception of hard drives. The main chip might be rated to at least 80 C.
> 
> I wish the hard drive were a little hotter -- 42 C is the ideal temperature for its longevity. But 35 C is pretty good, too.


Are you sure that the drive's specs actually say 42C is a "target", rather than the upper threshold?

What you say just doesn't jive with the multiple HDD monitoring apps I've tried, and my laptop, which eats a drive about every 3-8 months.

It's currently running at its lowest (after idling for hours with only the OS load, plus startup apps load) low-load temp of 43C.

Example: Acronis Drive Monitor (free utility) defaults to warn about lower life-expectancy above 42C, and alert at 52C that the drive and data are at risk for permanent damage, and catastrophic failure.

I've had to keep pushing those settings until I stayed at 50C warning, and 60C alert. The design of my laptop gives no air cooling to the drive, and surrounds it tightly with plastic, on all sides. It's a WD Scorpio Blue drive, which is supposed to be considered green, since it's a 5400RPM drive, and it's also AV-rated (which I didn't think was available on Blue-line drives).

It's always been my understanding, that the "sweet spot" is above potential for condensation, but below ~40C.

I'm just looking for a verification that your drive specs actually state the drive isn't optimal below 42C. What mfg & model drive? I do realize that comparing 2.5" laptop drives to 3.5" desktop drives, isn't apples to apples. However, the Acronis tool DOES change its warning/alert temps, to go with different drives. I don't know if Acronis sets that with a database, or the utility pulls them from the drive itself.


----------



## nooneuknow

keenanSR said:


> I updated the post to the show both the C and F readings. The next time I pull the cover I'll change the thermometer to readout out in Celsius, I originally got the device for automotive use and have only recently been using it to check temps in equipment rack setups and wanted to see what temps were running versus the ambient temp in the room, hence the Fahrenheit readings.
> 
> BTW, a quick and easy converter.


As you said in the earlier post you made, you were measuring off reflective materials, so you were unsure of the accuracy.

You were right to make and state that observation. It tends to be impossible to get a good (accurate) reading from reflective surfaces.

I usually put some black electrical tape on a spot on the reflective items, then remember the laser sight is fixed, so not always accurate at all distances (especially very close ones), then make sure I'm getting a reading from the tape surface, by verifying deviation one direction, then another, changes the reading, as the sensor moves off line of sight of the black tape.

Ultra high-temp spray paint works for reflective surfaces that tape would burn off of for your automotive measurements. I'm always finding new ways to realize how easily the temp sensing guns pay for themselves, or just make life so much easier.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> Are you sure that the drive's specs actually say 42C is a "target", rather than the upper threshold?
> 
> What you say just doesn't jive with the multiple HDD monitoring apps I've tried, and my laptop, which eats a drive about every 3-8 months.
> 
> It's currently running at its lowest (after idling for hours with only the OS load, plus startup apps load) low-load temp of 43C.
> 
> Example: Acronis Drive Monitor (free utility) defaults to warn about lower life-expectancy above 42C, and alert at 52C that the drive and data are at risk for permanent damage, and catastrophic failure.
> 
> I've had to keep pushing those settings until I stayed at 50C warning, and 60C alert. The design of my laptop gives no air cooling to the drive, and surrounds it tightly with plastic, on all sides. It's a WD Scorpio Blue drive, which is supposed to be considered green, since it's a 5400RPM drive, and it's also AV-rated (which I didn't think was available on Blue-line drives).
> 
> It's always been my understanding, that the "sweet spot" is above potential for condensation, but below ~40C.
> 
> I'm just looking for a verification that your drive specs actually state the drive isn't optimal below 42C. What mfg & model drive? I do realize that comparing 2.5" laptop drives to 3.5" desktop drives, isn't apples to apples. However, the Acronis tool DOES change its warning/alert temps, to go with different drives. I don't know if Acronis sets that with a database, or the utility pulls them from the drive itself.


A hard drive will never list an optimal temperature, just the minimum and maximum temperatures. I was referring to Google's study (see figure 4):

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/archive/disk_failures.pdf

(Note that figure 5 seems to contradict figure 4 -- it's possible that temperature has so little effect that other factors are contributing to the results shown in figure 5)

...along with my personal knowledge. It basically comes down to heating up the lubricant in the motors -- the hotter they are, the more viscous the lubricant, which reduces the stress on the motors and increases their reliability. But a hard drive has to adjust its operation based on its current temperature, and there is only so much adjustment that can be done. So their entire range is limited to 55 C. They usually put the low end at 5 C to avoid any moisture issues, so 5 + 55 = 60 C.

A 2.5 " hard drive generally has far less reliability than a 3.5" hard drive. It's pushing the limits on how small a hard drive can be and still work as expected, so any defect will have a greater impact. But more importantly it is usually subjected to all kinds of external forces because it is in a notebook PC, and hard drives absolutely hate to be moved.


----------



## keenanSR

BobCamp1 said:


> All those temps are very cool. Most electronics are rated for 70 C with the exception of hard drives. The main chip might be rated to at least 80 C.
> 
> I wish the hard drive were a little hotter -- 42 C is the ideal temperature for its longevity. But 35 C is pretty good, too.


Remember that all these temp readings were on the external surfaces of the components, I have no idea what the internal temp may be in the HDD as I don't believe there's any readout for that in the TiVo software. I suppose I could check a few drives(external surface temp) in my computers and then get the internal temp from some desktop software and compare the two, although I'm not sure when I'd be able to do it, maybe this weekend.


----------



## nooneuknow

keenanSR said:


> Remember that all these temp readings were on the external surfaces of the components, I have no idea what the internal temp may be in the HDD as I don't believe there's any readout for that in the TiVo software. I suppose I could check a few drives(external surface temp) in my computers and then get the internal temp from some desktop software and compare the two, although I'm not sure when I'd be able to do it, maybe this weekend.


Many drives specify internal temp, external temp, and ambient temp (aka airflow temp). You'd think SMART register values would be rather specific, and not have a lot of variance, but that's not always the case.

Internal temp can actually be inside the platter area (inside drive body), but can also just be a sensor on the circuit board facing the drive body.

Ambient temp (or airflow temp) is meant to be an indication of the air around the outside of the whole drive assembly, so it would usually be on the circuit board, facing away from the drive body, and near the edge of the board, where the data/power connections are, and away from any heat generating chips.

External temp can sometimes be same as ambient, or just another sensor on the circuit board, facing away from the drive body, but positioned near the center of the board.

I still see modern drives with only one temp indicator, and when there's only one, it's most likely on the circuit board, facing the drive body.

I've seen drives list "Transient Thermal Incidents", or similarly named registers, where it essentially means a small particle of something momentarily got stuck between a head and platter, spiking the temp momentarily, but by no small amount.

Generally speaking, when measuring the temp of a drive with an infrared heat sensing gun, you will get the highest possible value, off whichever part of the circuit board has the hottest-running chip located on it (if that side of the drive is facing up, so you can take a measurement).

Really, the best tools for these jobs are thermocouple adapters for multimeters where you tape the sensing element to what you want to measure, carefully rout the wires out a hole or gap in the case, and assemble everything, to get "real world" results. Ideally you'd tape several to any spots you would have any concern about, and run a time-lapse measurement.

This can be a safe way to intentionally disable the cooling fan, and see what components and chassis areas exceed acceptable temps first, as well as how quickly they do, then see if any built-in protection shuts it down, or watch it self destruct, while gathering the data.

The point and shoot guns are nice, handy, and fun, but you can't use them with the TiVo assembled, except to measure the temps at the air intakes, and the temp of the exhaust air. Beside that, you can only do open-air measurements, or hurry to take measurements once the lid has been removed and the components are all cooling down already.

BTW: This is a post for everybody/anybody that might find value in it, now, or those that come through in the future.


----------



## BobCamp1

keenanSR said:


> Remember that all these temp readings were on the external surfaces of the components, I have no idea what the internal temp may be in the HDD as I don't believe there's any readout for that in the TiVo software. I suppose I could check a few drives(external surface temp) in my computers and then get the internal temp from some desktop software and compare the two, although I'm not sure when I'd be able to do it, maybe this weekend.


Also remember that the specified temperatures are just for the ambient air around them. The parts themselves are typically allowed to be hotter.

It still looks like it's plenty cool enough in there, so as long as the power supply can handle a 7200 rpm drive then temperature shouldn't be a concern. So if you happen to have one lying around, you should be able to use it.

If you're buying a new one just for the Roamio, I'd recommend a 5400/5900 rpm drive just to be extra cautious. But manufacturers are hiding which drives are low rpm. We know green and A/V drives are low rpm, but you can also compare the power consumption between different models to figure that out.


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> Also remember that the specified temperatures are just for the ambient air around them. The parts themselves are typically allowed to be hotter.
> 
> It still looks like it's plenty cool enough in there, so as long as the power supply can handle a 7200 rpm drive then temperature shouldn't be a concern. So if you happen to have one lying around, you should be able to use it.
> 
> If you're buying a new one just for the Roamio, I'd recommend a 5400/5900 rpm drive just to be extra cautious. But manufacturers are hiding which drives are low rpm. We know green and A/V drives are low rpm, but you can also compare the power consumption between different models to figure that out.


Where that can get sticky, is when/where the ambient temp/airflow temp varies. The TiVo Roamio base is such a case in the worst way. Everything else that produces heat gets the room temp air first, and by the time it gets to the drive, it's heated from cooling the rest. Changes in room temp, plus the workload of the TiVo, and even the placement/elevation of the TiVo in the room, or in a cabinet, can make one person's measurements nearly useless to another, unless a lot of calculating is done on precision measurements, with precision explanation of the measurements.

Also, whether or not the drive specs ambient, or actual drive temperatures, varies by manufacturer, and sometimes differs between different lines/models by the same manufacturer.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> Where that can get sticky, is when/where the ambient temp/airflow temp varies. The TiVo Roamio base is such a case in the worst way. Everything else that produces heat gets the room temp air first, and by the time it gets to the drive, it's heated from cooling the rest. Changes in room temp, plus the workload of the TiVo, and even the placement/elevation of the TiVo in the room, or in a cabinet, can make one person's measurements nearly useless to another, unless a lot of calculating is done on precision measurements, with precision explanation of the measurements.
> 
> Also, whether or not the drive specs ambient, or actual drive temperatures, varies by manufacturer, and sometimes differs between different lines/models by the same manufacturer.


There are all those variations, yet surprisingly they don't have any significant impact. These variations are small, and the rise in the temperatures of the components is surprisingly linear in commercial and consumer electronics. I get paid to test them in a temperature chamber, so I do, but I can always take the room temperature values and predict what the temperatures of all the internal components will be at the maximum operating temperature, and it is always accurate within 2 C.

The specified ambient (external) operating temperature for previous Tivos was 15 C to 35 C. I'm assuming the Roamio is the same (I can't find it online). There's 25 C of margin for the hard drive, and there's no way the inside of that box gets 25 C hotter than the outside. There's simply too much ventilation. Other users have said their Roamio Basic's reported temperatures in the upper 30s and mid 40s, and have also reported that the PCB side (where the temp. sensor is most likely located) is hotter than the hard drive side.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9814257

Basically, (no pun intended), I'm not worried. Use any hard drive you have on hand, or buy the cheapest one with the best warranty (which will most likely be a "green" drive anyway).


----------



## chrispitude

Popped the 3TB WD Red in, and it powered right up - awesome! Oh... wait... I never did back up the season passes in kmttg, did I?

Out comes the screwdriver again...


----------



## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> Those stream ratings are for when the ATA Streaming Command Set extensions are active. They mean nothing, when the host either doesn't support them, and/or doesn't enable them.
> 
> The drive makers have you drinking their marketing Kool-Aid, if you think those numbers correlate to a TiVo, which just writes everything as standard data. I wish I had copies to make a time-lapse slide show presentation of how many new applications the drive makers have targeted, since the first AV drives hit the market...
> 
> I agree with the fact that a 5400/5900 RPM drive with even a SATA-2 interface, is still far more than a six-tuner consumer TV DVR even needs, mostly due to increased platter storage density, and improved technology to read and write to those high storage density platters.
> 
> Why add more heat, and more current draw, than you need to? It also make no sense to put a 7200RPM drive in. Drives that spec-out "streams" in a context that doesn't even apply to TiVo, are just marketing tactics, that some are easily drawn to, but not necessary.
> 
> I'm all for getting an AV-rated Green, or an AV-rated Red NAS drive, if it's because the price is right, and a longer warranty period. Otherwise, it's pointless (other than bragging rights over having a drive that can't even use its own potential, crammed into your TiVo).


I know from first hand experience with my Romaio Pro, that is can handle eleven concurrent HD read/write streams. But that is the max I can test. Six recordings, one recordng being played, and streams being sent to four TiVos. And from what I've read the Romaio Pro is using the WD AV-GP drive. So without the active ATA Streaming Command Set extensions it's still handling eleven concurrent HD streams out of the 12 the spec sheet says it can handle.


----------



## lpwcomp

aaronwt said:


> I know from first hand experience with my Romaio Pro, that is can handle eleven concurrent HD read/write streams. But that is the max I can test. Six recordings, one recordng being played, and streams being sent to four TiVos. And from what I've read the Romaio Pro is using the WD AV-GP drive. So without the active ATA Streaming Command Set extensions it's still handling eleven concurrent HD streams out of the 12 the spec sheet says it can handle.


You should be able to start at least one more stream - a transfer from/to computer.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> I know from first hand experience with my Romaio Pro, that is can handle eleven concurrent HD read/write streams. But that is the max I can test. Six recordings, one recordng being played, and streams being sent to four TiVos. And from what I've read the Romaio Pro is using the WD AV-GP drive. So without the active ATA Streaming Command Set extensions it's still handling eleven concurrent HD streams out of the 12 the spec sheet says it can handle.


I get what you are saying, and where you are coming from.

I never said that many streams weren't possible. I just meant the advertised stream specs are important for people/entities that use the ATA Streaming Command Set extensions, which the Roamio, and all TiVos that came before it do not use.

TiVo streams without using those extensions, and apparently it still works fine for TiVo, based on your observations (and my own research). If TiVo used the extensions, non-AV drives would not work at all. We know that they do.

You might ask "How do I know for sure, that even with an AV drive installed the Roamio doesn't use them, just because a non-AV drive works?". In a team effort, with a couple other very qualified people, we came to the conclusion that it's not a matter of a non-AV drive working by being in some sort of "compatible" or "fallback" mode, TiVo just hasn't had a need to use the extensions, so they aren't going to rewrite their code for something they don't need.

It might very well be possible that due to the way TiVo writes the data, even though it's written as any old data, their method could yield an equal, or greater number of streams, than what the drive specs say is supported using the extensions.

I never meant to come across as argumentative when I replied to your original post talking about stream specs. I just like to share what I know, especially when I've put a lot of time and effort into gaining such knowledge.

My posts on the subject were intended as an augmentation to your posts, not a disagreement.


----------



## lessd

chrispitude said:


> Popped the 3TB WD Red in, and it powered right up - awesome! ..


Did the same thing with the same drive, but I first ran the setup on the original drive to make sure all was well with the Roamio+ and the setup updated the software, normal, when I then put in the new 3Tb red drive the TiVo I did not have to update the software again so I guess the software is updated in the ROM on the MB, did not know that.


----------



## headless chicken

I have a precision screw driver set with small philips and flat heads. Can those be used or just the T8 and T10 to open up the plus?


----------



## lessd

headless chicken said:


> I have a precision screw driver set with small philips and flat heads. Can those be used or just the T8 and T10 to open up the plus?


For the small cost of a T10 and T15 don't try anything but the T tools.


----------



## ThAbtO

lessd said:


> For the small cost of a T10 and T15 don't try anything but the T tools.


To be more specific, its TORX drivers


----------



## ggieseke

lessd said:


> Did the same thing with the same drive, but I first ran the setup on the original drive to make sure all was well with the Roamio+ and the setup updated the software, normal, when I then put in the new 3Tb red drive the TiVo I did not have to update the software again so I guess the software is updated in the ROM on the MB, did not know that.


The Kernel, Boot and Root partitions on a Roamio are just empty 4K placeholders. All of the Linux OS is in a 4GB flash chip on the motherboard.

The /var, Swap and SQLite partitions are actually on the drive. That makes sense to me since they're written to frequently while the OS is mostly read-only except for updates.


----------



## headless chicken

lessd said:


> For the small cost of a T10 and T15 don't try anything but the T tools.


It was $17 plus tax for a Torx set, but they were needed as precision screwdrivers were a nonstarter.

My Roamio Plus had a 1TB green drive inside. I thought the plus came with a 2TB drive and the pro with a 3TB drive??


----------



## gonzotek

headless chicken said:


> My Roamio Plus had a 1TB green drive inside. I thought the plus came with a 2TB drive and the pro with a 3TB drive??


Nope, it's 1TB for the Plus and 3TB for the Pro-- TiVo markets them as storing "up to" 150 hours and 450 hours. The basic Roamio has a 500GB drive, marketed as up to 75 hours.


----------



## HarperVision

headless chicken said:


> It was $17 plus tax for a Torx set, but they were needed as precision screwdrivers were a nonstarter.
> 
> My Roamio Plus had a 1TB green drive inside. I thought the plus came with a 2TB drive and the pro with a 3TB drive??


Nope, basic is 500GB, plus is 1TB and pro is 3TB.


----------



## HarperVision

Hahaha I love it I just jinxed with Gonzo, a lifelong dream since I watched muppets as a lil' tike!


----------



## gonzotek

HarperVision said:


> Hahaha I love it I just jinxed with Gonzo, a lifelong dream since I watched muppets as a lil' tike!


Ha  There's a ScooterBoy active on TCF too.


----------



## headless chicken

HarperVision said:


> Nope, basic is 500GB, plus is 1TB and pro is 3TB.


Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

I think I screwed up. I removed the metal side railings with the T10 after unplugging the cable from the original drive, and now I can't get the new drive to sit properly back in place because the drive is at an angle. I'm scared of scratching something on the motherboard. Any words of wisdom on how to proceed?

I should have realized I would run into difficulty. I'm so grossly incompetent when it comes to tinkering with hardware.


----------



## HarperVision

headless chicken said:


> Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
> 
> I think I screwed up. I removed the metal side railings with the T10 after unplugging the cable from the original drive, and now I can't get the new drive to sit properly back in place because the drive is at an angle. I'm scared of scratching something on the motherboard. Any words of wisdom on how to proceed?
> 
> I should have realized I would run into difficulty. I'm so grossly incompetent when it comes to tinkering with hardware.


One side of the drive uses the upper holes and the other uses the lower holes. If you used the same (upper or lower) on both sides it will cause what you describe, the "Leaning Terabyte of Pisa-crap"


----------



## jmbissell

Tanquen said:


> Can someone update the OP, took me a few minutes to get to the top? (No, that is not what she said.)
> 
> Its:
> One T-9 screw center at the back.
> ThreeT-10 screws on the top of the drive bracket.
> Four T-15 screws on the brackets that mount to the side of the drive.
> 
> No screws in the SATA/Power connection.
> 
> Opening to the top is, lift center back just a bit and pinch the left or right sides in to release the (six total) three tabs on each side. The top is pretty flexible and has a lip that covers the back and sides so you can lift the center back and then push one side lip and then the other. No sliding forward, kinda roll forward as you release the tabs back to front. The very front kind of hangs on until you get the last set of tabs off.
> 
> Thanks for the info. Now running a WD RED 2.7TB drive.  I setup the drive it came with first and the new one worked fine. I had a 3.6TB WD RED on hand but it just loops the setup.


Thanks for this post updating the OP's info. It saved me a lot of time, esp. your description of removing the cover. I had the 500GB Seagate out of my Roamio Basic and the new WD AV-GP 1TB installed in 15 minutes.
This whole upgrade was fairly painless; I didn't even have to call Charter to re-pair the cableCARD or hit the TA.

I only wish my existing Season Passes had been downloaded so I didn't have to re-enter them all again. Maybe that was possible and I just didn't do enough research.

The largest amount of time was spent transferring the recorded shows to and then restoring from my PC using TiVo Desktop. But it was done overnight both ways.


----------



## headless chicken

HarperVision said:


> One side of the drive uses the upper holes and the other uses the lower holes. If you used the same (upper or lower) on both sides it will cause what you describe, the "Leaning Terabyte of Pisa-crap"


Thanks again, HV. You're a lifesaver. I had the inside railing flipped. It only took me 4x longer than most people, but I managed to upgrade my drive. We'll see if everything is in working order soon.


----------



## ltxi

headless chicken said:


> I have a precision screw driver set with small philips and flat heads. Can those be used or just the T8 and T10 to open up the plus?


No. Don't even try it. All you need is T10 bit/driver.


----------



## ThAbtO

headless chicken said:


> It was $17 plus tax for a Torx set, but they were needed as precision screwdrivers were a nonstarter.


I paid about $6 for a set of small drivers from Home Depot which had all sorts of driver bits including T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, T10, etc.


----------



## HarperVision

headless chicken said:


> Thanks again, HV. You're a lifesaver. I had the inside railing flipped. It only took me 4x longer than most people, but I managed to upgrade my drive. We'll see if everything is in working order soon.


 The only reason I knew about it was cuz I did it myself when I didn't pay attention while I was taking it apart, doh!


----------



## 1283

ltxi said:


> All you need is T10 bit/driver.


T10 is used for the case. T15 is used for the drive.


----------



## ggieseke

jmbissell said:


> I only wish my existing Season Passes had been downloaded so I didn't have to re-enter them all again. Maybe that was possible and I just didn't do enough research.


You could pop the cover and reconnect the original drive long enough to back up the SPs to your computer with kmttg. When you use kmttg to restore them to the new drive it even keeps the correct order.


----------



## MJR0309

Hello all, Ordered a Roamio Plus. Going to install a 3tb drive. Can i swap the 1TB drive that it comes with into my TIVOHD. Thanks Mike


----------



## chrispitude

ggieseke said:


> You could pop the cover and reconnect the original drive long enough to back up the SPs to your computer with kmttg. When you use kmttg to restore them to the new drive it even keeps the correct order.


That's exactly what I ended up doing. I just put a magazine over the installed drive so I had a nonconductive surface to place the original drive. There was just enough slack in the SATA cabling to make it work...

Public service announcement for future upgraders - don't forget to back up your season passes with kmttg before swapping drives!


----------



## steve614

MJR0309 said:


> Hello all, Ordered a Roamio Plus. Going to install a 3tb drive. Can i swap the 1TB drive that it comes with into my TIVOHD. Thanks Mike


Yes, but with the Tivo HD, you'll need to put a Tivo HD image on the hard drive before you install it.

Instructions for upgrading a TivoHD with JMFS:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=462179

If you do upgrade the Tivo HD, save the original hard drive just in case you need a backup.


----------



## MJR0309

steve614 said:


> Yes, but with the Tivo HD, you'll need to put a Tivo HD image on the hard drive before you install it.
> 
> Instructions for upgrading a TivoHD with JMFS:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=462179
> 
> If you do upgrade the Tivo HD, save the original hard drive just in case you need a backup.


Steve, Thanks for the reply. Appreciate that. Mike


----------



## rjuskiewicz

I must be missing something. I got an e-mail from TiVo today. $349 for the Plus and $499 for the Pro. That's a delta of $150. That's not much more than buying the 3TB drive. So why would I upgrade instead of just buying the Pro?


----------



## ThAbtO

rjuskiewicz said:


> I must be missing something. I got an e-mail from TiVo today. $349 for the Plus and $499 for the Pro. That's a delta of $150. That's not much more than buying the 3TB drive. So why would I upgrade instead of just buying the Pro?


For this?

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...UTF8&colid=JIOTVP40A4MC&coliid=I1FVSFF4OBOVJW

$120 or less.


----------



## bareyb

rjuskiewicz said:


> I must be missing something. I got an e-mail from TiVo today. $349 for the Plus and $499 for the Pro. That's a delta of $150. That's not much more than buying the 3TB drive. So why would I upgrade instead of just buying the Pro?





ThAbtO said:


> For this?
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...UTF8&colid=JIOTVP40A4MC&coliid=I1FVSFF4OBOVJW
> 
> $120 or less.


I'd just buy the Pro. For the 30 bucks I'd save, I'd rather not void my warranty, and not have to deal with installing it.


----------



## HarperVision

bareyb said:


> I'd just buy the Pro. For the 30 bucks I'd save, I'd rather not void my warranty, and not have to deal with prepping the new drive and installing it.


You don't have to prep drives for roamios. Just drop them in and boot 'em up! I agree with you though for only $30 more get the pro and be done with it.


----------



## bareyb

HarperVision said:


> You don't have to prep drives for roamios. Just drop them in and boot 'em up! I agree with you though for only $30 more get the pro and be done with it.


Ah. True (updated my post, thanks) It's still kind of a PITA compared to just buying the Pro for 30 bucks more.


----------



## ltxi

c3 said:


> T10 is used for the case. T15 is used for the drive.


Nope....T10 for the drive mounting as well these days


----------



## ltxi

bareyb said:


> Ah. True (updated my post, thanks) It's still kind of a PITA compared to just buying the Pro for 30 bucks more.


There's just something about spending the extra $$ to escape five minutes work that hurts my head. Plus I now have a couple extra blank 1TB WD Green AV drives.


----------



## nooneuknow

ltxi said:


> Nope....T10 for the drive mounting as well these days


Actually, I verified this morning that while the case screw is T10, and so are the three that hold the drive brackets to the case, the screws holding the brackets to the drive are T15, but can be easily done with a T10 that has no wear-down. I noticed they felt a bit looser, so I grabbed a T15 and it was snug (as in any more snug and that T15 bit would've needed some persuading to fit).

This was the base Roamio, but I figure all that will be different with the Plus/Pro is four screws to mount the drive brackets to the case, as opposed to three (educated guess).

YMMV, and I'd use the right tool for the job, if you have it. Some will say if you don't have the right tool, then go get it (which is my usual position).


----------



## headless chicken

bareyb said:


> I'd just buy the Pro. For the 30 bucks I'd save, I'd rather not void my warranty, and not have to deal with installing it.


Since when is the Pro only $30 more than the Plus?? It was a $200 difference last time I checked.


----------



## Zu Nim

headless chicken said:


> Since when is the Pro only $30 more than the Plus?? It was a $200 difference last time I checked.


$340 Plus + $120 3TB HD vs. $490 Pro. $30 difference, no tinkering.


----------



## nooneuknow

Zu Nim said:


> $340 Plus + $120 3TB HD vs. $490 Pro. $30 difference, no tinkering.


I just wrote up a post, relevant to this in another thread, here:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9926765#post9926765


----------



## karlegas

I think that some peole talking about the $30 difference without take in consideration the 1TB hard drive that are over paying. So why Tivo has big gap between 1TB and 3TB boxes some similar with the iPhones and iPads 16gb, 32gb and 64gb capacity.

Other thing is about the hard drive warranty that is the most fail apart, so the return will be faster with the hard drive manufacturer, overall I will spend my money in extra years warranty with Tivo.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD


----------



## djjuice

If you look on ebay you can get the 3TB for under $120. I got mine for $67 since nobody bid on it.


----------



## 1283

ltxi said:


> Nope....T10 for the drive mounting as well these days


As nooneuknow already explained, T10 for bracket to case, and T15 for bracket to drive. It has always been like that since Series1.


----------



## nooneuknow

c3 said:


> As nooneuknow already explained, T10 for bracket to case, and T15 for bracket to drive. It has always been like that since Series1.


That's what I thought (it's been this way all the way back to the S1), but not ever owning anything older than a HD, I didn't want to make that statement.

Thanks for the clarification, that all TiVo tinkering folk should have T10 and T15 drivers or bits for a multi-driver.


----------



## unitron

c3 said:


> As nooneuknow already explained, T10 for bracket to case, and T15 for bracket to drive. It has always been like that since Series1.


I don't think I've ever had to use a T-15 on an S3, and I'm pretty sure I've never had to use one on an S2 either.

You need a T-8 for that one power supply screw on the S3s, though.


----------



## lessd

unitron said:


> I don't think I've ever had to use a T-15 on an S3, and I'm pretty sure I've never had to use one on an S2 either.
> 
> You need a T-8 for that one power supply screw on the S3s, though.


The hard drive and fan screws are T-15 but a T-10 may catch enough to work on these T-15 screws but it not the best way to do that, like using a too small # 1 Phillips driver on a #2 Phillips screw.


----------



## unitron

headless chicken said:


> I have a precision screw driver set with small philips and flat heads. Can those be used or just the T8 and T10 to open up the plus?


The T-10 I use is about 6" long, including the handle, which is about 3/4" across.

Anything smaller probably wouldn't give me the leverage I want, even if I wasn't compensating for the tip being entirely unsuitable.


----------



## unitron

MJR0309 said:


> Steve, Thanks for the reply. Appreciate that. Mike


You can use WinMFS on a PC running Windows XP or newer and upgrade a Series 3 (648, 652, or 658) to as big as 2TB, and make a truncated backup as well, which jmfs won't do.


----------



## unitron

lessd said:


> The hard drive and fan screws are T-15 but a T-10 may catch enough to work on these T-15 screws but it not the best way to do that, like using a too small # 1 Phillips driver on a #2 Phillips screw.


Forgot about the fans.

For those I use my entire other Torx driver, a T-20.

But the 10 works on the drive mounting screws just fine, at least on my S2s and S3s.

Right now I'm trying to remember where I misplaced my S1s.


----------



## telecomjd

I am a newcomer to this community so if my question has already been answered, please excuse the repetition. I activated my Roamio Plus last weekend and have ordered a 3 TB replacement drive. The advice seems to be to wait at least 90 days before cracking the box. I'm concerned about transferring accumulated programs and SPs to the new drive. How best to do that? I have looked online at kmttg and while the introduction explains what it does, there are no step-by-step instructions. Can the transfers be best accomplished with kmttg and, if so, can someone point me in the direction of how to use it?


----------



## ltxi

nooneuknow said:


> Actually, I verified this morning that while the case screw is T10, and so are the three that hold the drive brackets to the case, the screws holding the brackets to the drive are T15, but can be easily done with a T10 that has no wear-down. I noticed they felt a bit looser, so I grabbed a T15 and it was snug (as in any more snug and that T15 bit would've needed some persuading to fit).
> 
> This was the base Roamio, but I figure all that will be different with the Plus/Pro is four screws to mount the drive brackets to the case, as opposed to three (educated guess).
> 
> YMMV, and I'd use the right tool for the job, if you have it. Some will say if you don't have the right tool, then go get it (which is my usual position).


Well, if mine were T15 they sure hid it well. Didn't try a T15 bit when the T10 I had in hand appeared to fit perfectly. Three different Plus boxes.


----------



## ltxi

telecomjd said:


> I am a newcomer to this community so if my question has already been answered, please excuse the repetition. I activated my Roamio Plus last weekend and have ordered a 3 TB replacement drive. The advice seems to be to wait at least 90 days before cracking the box. I'm concerned about transferring accumulated programs and SPs to the new drive. How best to do that? I have looked online at kmttg and while the introduction explains what it does, there are no step-by-step instructions. Can the transfers be best accomplished with kmttg and, if so, can someone point me in the direction of how to use it?


Don't know why you'd wait 90 days other than out of some misguided sense of warranty concern. Best practice, imo, is to swap out the drive before first firing the box up. Keeps the original otb blank. Absent that, just put it in now..


----------



## lpwcomp

ltxi said:


> Don't know why you'd wait 90 days other than out of some misguided sense of warranty concern. Best practice, imo, is to swap out the drive before first firing the box up. Keeps the original otb blank. Absent that, just put it in now..


The warranty concern is far from "misguided". TiVo _*knows*_ if you replace the drive and could legally refuse to honor the warranty if they so desire.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> The warranty concern is far from "misguided". TiVo _*knows*_ if you replace the drive and could legally refuse to honor the warranty if they so desire.


Amen. They also are not obliged to provide technical support for a device the customer, or an unauthorized party, has modified. While reports of this happening are scarce, there have been a few "not so bright" people who told the CS Rep they replaced the drive, and a few who got a CS Rep that looked at the logs, noticed it, and denied technical support.

It's a real pet-peeve of mine when I see posts that say "Don't worry about it. If you have any problems, just slap the original drive back in and you will have no issues." - This may often be a true, based on that person's experience, statement. Yet, there is no guarantee it will hold true for every person, every time. TiVo can crack down, any time they please. They will still have copies of the logs on their servers, that they can review, in order to look for tampering. If they got really proactive, they could have a program look for, and flag, units that ever had anything except the original drive installed. This would make it impossible to sneak the tampering past them.

TiVo's policies/TOS agreements include the language that gives them the right to refuse service and support due to tampering, of any nature. It just has been something we have been lucky they have not been strictly enforcing, YET.

All that said, I've chosen the base Roamio due to it having the ability to support OTA, should I need to go without cable, or cablecards become impossible to get anymore. At the same time, 500GB is NOT enough space, so I've installed 2TB drives that I already had bought before the Roamio was even released. The reward outweighs the risks for me, easily. But, that is my own informed decision to make, not one anybody should tell me is risk-free.


----------



## telecomjd

lpwcomp said:


> The warranty concern is far from "misguided". TiVo _*knows*_ if you replace the drive and could legally refuse to honor the warranty if they so desire.


Thanks for the advice. I'm inclined to agree that there's no down side to waiting the 90 days provided content on the original drive can be easily transferred to the new one. Any ideas on that? Is kmttg the best way to go and, if so, how is that done?


----------



## nooneuknow

ltxi said:


> Well, if mine were T15 they sure hid it well. Didn't try a T15 bit when the T10 I had in hand appeared to fit perfectly. Three different Plus boxes.


Great... So it worked for you (or fooled you). If you have the right tool for the job, you should use it. TiVo has been using the same fasteners for mounting drives to the brackets for generations. Sometimes they are manufactured on the loose-end of acceptable, sometimes on the tight-end of acceptable. I have some here, obviously from another batch, that a T10 will slip inside of with two fingers and no effort, I have some that a T10 would "work" on, if little torque is needed to loosen, and care is taken while tightening. It doesn't change that they are T15 and the T15 bit, or driver, is the correct tool for the job.

Why encourage somebody who may have a cheap, or worn-down, T10 bit/driver to use it? What is the point in that?

When you work in any field that requires the repairing/replacing of things, you get a natural feeling for when you are using a bit that is a size too small.

As for the general population, many/most people don't even realize there are multiple sizes of Phillips fastener heads, just as are there multiple sizes of flat ones. The list of all the fasteners that can be removed or installed with the wrong tool is virtually endless, which is why I'm not listing them all. A 13mm nut is so close to a 1/2" one, most mechanics won't dig for one socket if they have the other already in hand, or on their bench. At the same time, they don't use a Phillips head on a posi-drive fastener, or the other way around, nor does one who takes pride in their work use an adjustable wrench on every nut and bolt, just because it fits.

A while back, you asked me what my "sudden problem with you" was. I replied that I "didn't have one", and I was simply presenting facts that had been left out of a topic. Can you honestly tell me a T15 bit/driver does not fit the fastener? If not, the facts are that even your fasteners are T15 and a T15 tool is the correct one, making the T10 tool an incorrect tool. Let's not confuse those who don't know better, please.


----------



## nooneuknow

telecomjd said:


> Thanks for the advice. I'm inclined to agree that there's no down side to waiting the 90 days provided content on the original drive can be easily transferred to the new one. Any ideas on that? Is kmttg the best way to go and, if so, how is that done?


Since you can't just clone the data from drive to drive when you do swap drives, you'll have to copy any recordings with TiVo Desktop or kmttg (or whatever utility does the job the way you prefer). The problem area is content your cable provider may flag as "protected". Protected content can not be moved from the drive it is on, at this time, with any known utility. Somebody is working on a tool for this, to clone the drive contents, then expand the capacity (since the Roamio won't do it for you), but they say it will take months to get it to the point of testing by the public.

Season Passes can be backed up and then restored with kmttg. TiVo has an online Season Pass Manager (I call it SP "Mangler", since it copies them in a random order). The TiVo tool can only work between two distinct TiVos. You can't use it for a drive swap in the same unit, unless you use it to shuffle them to another unit first, then use it to shuffle them back again.

As I tested for myself, NOTHING is preserved, if you set things up, then upgrade the drive. The only thing you don't have to repeat is the TiVo software update, since the OS is stored in flash memory now.


----------



## lpwcomp

telecomjd said:


> Thanks for the advice. I'm inclined to agree that there's no down side to waiting the 90 days provided content on the original drive can be easily transferred to the new one. Any ideas on that?


Some things of which you you need to be aware. Any content that is marked "Copy Protected" cannot be transferred. Some cable companies mark most, if not all content this way. TWC is particularly egregious. Most all of them do it for premium channels such as HBO and Showtime.

You'll also need something to get the recordings back to the TiVo. kmttg does not have that capability. I'd recommend you at least try pyTiVo if you have any PC skills at all. If not, you may want to go with TiVo Desktop.



telecomjd said:


> Is kmttg the best way to go and, if so, how is that done?


I'd recommend installing and "playing" with it. The built-in help is very good and there is an entire thread here devoted to support.

The main pyTvo thread is here.

One other factor you might take into consideration: If most or all your recordings are _*not*_ copy protected and you have or can add sufficient drive space to your PC, then upgrading the drive in the TiVo is less urgent as you can "offload" the recordings to the PC. And who knows? The new "upgrade" tool might be ready by the time your warranty is up.


----------



## telecomjd

lpwcomp said:


> Some things of which you you need to be aware. Any content that is marked "Copy Protected" cannot be transferred. Some cable companies mark most, if not all content this way. TWC is particularly egregious. Most all of them do it for premium channels such as HBO and Showtime.
> 
> You'll also need something to get the recordings back to the TiVo. kmttg does not have that capability. I'd recommend you at least try pyTiVo if you have any PC skills at all. If not, you may want to go with TiVo Desktop.
> 
> I'd recommend installing and "playing" with it. The built-in help is very good and there is an entire thread here devoted to support.
> 
> The main pyTvo thread is here.
> 
> One other factor you might take into consideration: If most or all your recordings are _*not*_ copy protected and you have or can add sufficient drive space to your PC, then upgrading the drive in the TiVo is less urgent as you can "offload" the recordings to the PC. And who knows? The new "upgrade" tool might be ready by the time your warranty is up.


Thanks to all for the very informative advice. It appears I have several alternatives and will have to experiment to see which is most suitable. Glad to have found this thread. Lots of good information from very knowledgeable people!


----------



## dslunceford

nooneuknow said:


> Amen. They also are not obliged to provide technical support for a device the customer, or an unauthorized party, has modified. While reports of this happening are scarce, there have been a few "not so bright" people who told the CS Rep they replaced the drive, and a few who got a CS Rep that looked at the logs, noticed it, and denied technical support.
> 
> It's a real pet-peeve of mine when I see posts that say "Don't worry about it. If you have any problems, just slap the original drive back in and you will have no issues." - This may often be a true, based on that person's experience, statement. Yet, there is no guarantee it will hold true for every person, every time. TiVo can crack down, any time they please. They will still have copies of the logs on their servers, that they can review, in order to look for tampering. If they got really proactive, they could have a program look for, and flag, units that ever had anything except the original drive installed. This would make it impossible to sneak the tampering past them.
> 
> TiVo's policies/TOS agreements include the language that gives them the right to refuse service and support due to tampering, of any nature. It just has been something we have been lucky they have not been strictly enforcing, YET.
> 
> All that said, I've chosen the base Roamio due to it having the ability to support OTA, should I need to go without cable, or cablecards become impossible to get anymore. At the same time, 500GB is NOT enough space, so I've installed 2TB drives that I already had bought before the Roamio was even released. The reward outweighs the risks for me, easily. But, that is my own informed decision to make, not one anybody should tell me is risk-free.


YMMV, but as someone who has had an expanded TiVo through multiple generations over the past 13 years, and who has seen the company be really respectful to a hacker community over those years, the reward was worth the risk to me as well.

There's no way in heck I would try to remove/replace three months of recordings via PyTiVo/Kmttg. Too much hassle/time. I saved $30, have a 1TB to use elsewhere if I want, and I cross my fingers there's not an issue.

If in any way you are squeamish about upgrading a Plus immediately, vs after the warranty period, I would recommend just spending the extra $30 and get the Pro.


----------



## ggieseke

dslunceford said:


> YMMV, but as someone who has had an expanded TiVo through multiple generations over the past 13 years, and who has seen the company be really respectful to a hacker community over those years, the reward was worth the risk to me as well.
> 
> There's no way in heck I would try to remove/replace three months of recordings via PyTiVo/Kmttg. Too much hassle/time. I saved $30, have a 1TB to use elsewhere if I want, and I cross my fingers there's not an issue.
> 
> If in any way you are squeamish about upgrading a Plus immediately, vs after the warranty period, I would recommend just spending the extra $30 and get the Pro.


If you shop the website the difference between a Plus and a Pro is $200, not $30. If you know how to get a Pro for $429.99 plus service please share.

Personally, I rip the cover off of all of my TiVos and replace the drive before I even put batteries in the remote, but I do it eyes wide open. Pointing out possible pitfalls to that method is a good thing.

As you said, YMMV.


----------



## lpwcomp

ggieseke said:


> If you shop the website the difference between a Plus and a Pro is $200, not $30. If you know how to get a Pro for $429.99 plus service please share.
> 
> Personally, I rip the cover off of all of my TiVos and replace the drive before I even put batteries in the remote, but I do it eyes wide open. Pointing out possible pitfalls to that method is a good thing.
> 
> As you said, YMMV.


I think he was referring to the difference in price of purchasing a Plus _*and*_ a 3TB drive vs. buying a Pro.

FWIW, you can get a Plus with a 3TB already installed for $569 from weaKnees. I find it interesting that they initially weren't going to carry the Pro since the only difference is stock drive size. Now they are carrying the Pro for $30 more than the Plus with the same drive configuration.


----------



## Starfury9

You can always get a Plus, and then wait until the 3tb's go down in price (ex:watch slickdeals for a really good deal)
I got a plus and so far have been fine on the 1TB (The Comcast X1 box I had only had 500gb, so this is 2x the space, and much less buggy)

If I start to run out of space, I'll look for a good deal on 3tb drives.


----------



## ggieseke

lpwcomp said:


> I think he was referring to the difference in price of purchasing a Plus _*and*_ a 3TB drive vs. buying a Pro.


Duh.


----------



## dslunceford

ggieseke said:


> Duh.


----------



## chrispitude

Rebate haters, please move along. For all others looking for a deal on a 3TB WD Red:

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/1323768/


----------



## headless chicken

chrispitude said:


> Rebate haters, please move along. For all others looking for a deal on a 3TB WD Red:
> 
> http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/1323768/


Don't make the mistake of buying a product with a rebate from TigerDirect because they are crooked, as I found out. The drives are shipped bare without the original retail packaging which is expressly required for the rebate, as the terms and conditions state.

I bought my 3TB WD Red from there on Nov. 21, 2013 and was one of many who were scammed by them. A little bit of research afterwards showed they have horrible ratings: http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Tiger_Direct

Their customer service department is awful because they advise you to submit the rebate anyway, but I called the company who handles the rebate and they stated the rebate will be 100% denied without the UPC from the box.

Bottom line, if you buy from TigerDirect don't expect to ever see the rebate.


----------



## Divilish

I just bought a basic Roamio and I will eventually upgrade it past the 500gb HD.

I have an old Series 3 with either a 1tb or a 2tb drive, is there any reason I could not use this drive?

I would probably wipe it clean before I installed it just to be safe, the Series 3 doesn't have a high enough price on Ebay to even worry about keeping it intact......


----------



## A J Ricaud

Divilish said:


> I have an old Series 3 with either a 1tb or a 2tb drive, is there any reason I could not use this drive?
> 
> I would probably wipe it clean before I installed it just to be safe, the Series 3 doesn't have a high enough price on Ebay to even worry about keeping it intact......


The drive in your S3 will work fine but consider its age.
S3's w/lifetime are going for over $200 on Ebay.


----------



## knownzero

Do you think a WD20EARX would work for a drive upgrade? It's the only 'green/av' drive I can find in stock around here.


----------



## A J Ricaud

knownzero said:


> Do you think a WD20EARX would work for a drive upgrade? It's the only 'green/av' drive I can find in stock around here.


That will work fine.


----------



## knownzero

A J Ricaud said:


> That will work fine.


Cool, thanks!!!


----------



## knownzero

So far everything seems fine with the new drive. Actually the hardest part was getting the cover off.


----------



## nooneuknow

knownzero said:


> So far everything seems fine with the new drive. Actually the hardest part was getting the cover off.


I did three Roamio *base models*. Basically, it's remove the T8 screw, pull UP from middle of back (get some fingers underneath to make the sides pull in by flexing) and gently the rotate the top upwards to release the front.

The tricky part (which I didn't notice until the 2nd one), is getting the cover fully seated again, you do it all in reverse order *(making sure that little tab in the front is in place FIRST, under the metal)*, then look to see if the screw hole is lined up on it's own. If it isn't, you can press down and put the screw in, *but the snaps on the sides won't be fully seated.*

I went back to the first unit, and had to take the screw out, then squeeze each side with a little side-to-side motion, and front-to-back, hearing one extra pop on each side. Then the screw hole was lined-up without having to press down.

To the naked eye, I couldn't see any visual signs the lids were, or weren't, fully seated, other than that single screw hole. I just had a suspicion, and double checked.


----------



## hansnuts

Hi. I'm looking to upgrade my base Roamio. It has been recommended on numerous post here to go with the WD 2TB WD20EURS. Can I buy the WD AV-GP 3TB WD30EURS? It's just $20 more on Amazon. Thanks for your help.


----------



## PedjaR

hansnuts said:


> Hi. I'm looking to upgrade my base Roamio. It has been recommended on numerous post here to go with the WD 2TB WD20EURS. Can I buy the WD AV-GP 3TB WD30EURS? It's just $20 more on Amazon. Thanks for your help.


That's what I got, and so far it works great.


----------



## hansnuts

PedjaR, many thanks for the reply.


----------



## ggieseke

hansnuts said:


> Hi. I'm looking to upgrade my base Roamio. It has been recommended on numerous post here to go with the WD 2TB WD20EURS. Can I buy the WD AV-GP 3TB WD30EURS? It's just $20 more on Amazon. Thanks for your help.


That's what shipped in my Pro from the factory.


----------



## tdeegan

I'm interested in upgrading from an XL4 to a Roamio Plus.

Anyone know if I can just swap/transplant the drive from the XL4 to the Roamio Plus?

I know I'll void the warranty and lose all my old recordings. From what I've read online, the Roamio setups a blank hard drive for use after you make the physical cable connections and powers back up.

I'm assuming that it'll do the same with an XL4 hard drive. Just double-checking my guesses...


----------



## lessd

tdeegan said:


> I'm interested in upgrading from an XL4 to a Roamio Plus.
> 
> Anyone know if I can just swap/transplant the drive from the XL4 to the Roamio Plus?
> 
> I know I'll void the warranty and lose all my old recordings. From what I've read online, the Roamio setups a blank hard drive after you make the physical cable connections and powers back up.
> 
> I'm assuming that it'll do the same with an XL4 hard drive. Just doubl-checking my guesses...


The word is blank hard drive, if you change drives you should zero out the drive with your computer, but why would you want to use an old hard drive in a new Roamio ? you just spent good money on this new unit, and for under $100 you can get a new 2 TB drive.


----------



## tdeegan

lessd said:


> The word is blank hard drive, if you change drives you should zero out the drive with your computer, but why would you want to use an old hard drive in a new Roamio ? you just spent good money on this new unit, and for under $100 you can get a new 2 TB drive.


Money is the only real issue. I'd prefer to reuse the XL4 hard drive (it's only 9 months old) rather than spend money on a new hard drive. I could install the XL4 drive in my computer (like I did with all my other retired Tivo's HDs) if I wanted to buy a fresh HD. 2TB for 300+ hours should be plenty for me.

I don't believe that there's any major technical issues. Maybe a quick format under Windows. But the Roamio HD prep and setup should format the HD anyhow.


----------



## lessd

tdeegan said:


> Money is the only real issue. I'd prefer to reuse the XL4 hard drive (it's only 9 months old) rather than spend money on a new hard drive. I could install the XL4 drive in my computer (like I did with all my other retired Tivo's HDs) if I wanted to buy a fresh HD. 2TB for 300+ hours should be plenty for me.
> 
> I don't believe that there's any major technical issues. Maybe a quick format under Windows. But the Roamio HD prep and setup should format the HD anyhow.


It could only have a problem if it saw old TiVo software, a blank drive will be the least likely to give you any problems in your Roamio, but it does not do any damage (to the hard drive) to try.


----------



## sleepdragon

I would suggest you delete old partitions from the drive and not format it
Tivo uses different file system than the normal FAT/FAT32/NTFS you find on windows
Safer to delete all partitions and let TiVo do all the work


----------



## tdeegan

Follow-up. I ended up buying the Roamio Pro. Apparently Tivo and Best Buy had a promotion for a $50 gift card. So, price-wise it was more or less comparable to buying the Roamio Plus and buying a 3TB drive. Also, my computer storage space is running low, so the XL4's 2 TB will come in handy. Use it til dies.


----------



## MJR0309

Hello All,

Two thoughts, can i swap the active CableCard in my TivoHD into my 
Romio Plus. Also I have Comcast in Philly, can i pickup the CableCard and do the install myself. Has anyone done this. 

Mike


----------



## KevinG

MJR0309 said:


> Hello All,
> 
> Two thoughts, can i swap the active CableCard in my TivoHD into my
> Romio Plus. Also I have Comcast in Philly, can i pickup the CableCard and do the install myself. Has anyone done this.
> 
> Mike


You can swap cards, but you'll need to call the comcast cablecard hotline to have the re-pair the card with your roamio. And, yes, you can pickup cable cards at the nearest comcast store (though they may be out of stock, and there is no way to know without going there...) The days of requiring a truck roll to get a cable card are, thankfully, gone.


----------



## MJR0309

Thanks for the reply, really appreciate that. Called the 489th and Parkside office.....what a joke. Couldnt't even get an answer. Will try to get another card tomorrow, because i'm using the TIVO_HD in another room. Just getting a little antsy having the Plus just sit here. Already installed the WD-30ERUS. Will inform of the outcome. Thanks to all for their insight. invaluable. just wish i could type right now...lolol. Great Forum. Mike Thanks to ALL.....


----------



## lessd

MJR0309 said:


> Thanks for the reply, really appreciate that. Called the 489th and Parkside office.....what a joke. Couldnt't even get an answer. Will try to get another card tomorrow, because i'm using the TIVO_HD in another room. Just getting a little antsy having the Plus just sit here. Already installed the WD-30ERUS. Will inform of the outcome. Thanks to all for their insight. invaluable. just wish i could type right now...lolol. Great Forum. Mike Thanks to ALL.....


To pair you cable cards with Comcast just call 877-405-2298.


----------



## MJR0309

lessd said:


> To pair you cable cards with Comcast just call 877-405-2298.


 All done....473 Hours of HD recording. Unbelievable. !!!. Very painless process. Thanks Mike.


----------



## ltxi

nooneuknow said:


> Great... So it worked for you (or fooled you). If you have the right tool for the job, you should use it. TiVo has been using the same fasteners for mounting drives to the brackets for generations. Sometimes they are manufactured on the loose-end of acceptable, sometimes on the tight-end of acceptable. I have some here, obviously from another batch, that a T10 will slip inside of with two fingers and no effort, I have some that a T10 would "work" on, if little torque is needed to loosen, and care is taken while tightening. It doesn't change that they are T15 and the T15 bit, or driver, is the correct tool for the job.
> 
> Why encourage somebody who may have a cheap, or worn-down, T10 bit/driver to use it? What is the point in that?
> 
> When you work in any field that requires the repairing/replacing of things, you get a natural feeling for when you are using a bit that is a size too small.
> 
> As for the general population, many/most people don't even realize there are multiple sizes of Phillips fastener heads, just as are there multiple sizes of flat ones. The list of all the fasteners that can be removed or installed with the wrong tool is virtually endless, which is why I'm not listing them all. A 13mm nut is so close to a 1/2" one, most mechanics won't dig for one socket if they have the other already in hand, or on their bench. At the same time, they don't use a Phillips head on a posi-drive fastener, or the other way around, nor does one who takes pride in their work use an adjustable wrench on every nut and bolt, just because it fits.
> 
> A while back, you asked me what my "sudden problem with you" was. I replied that I "didn't have one", and I was simply presenting facts that had been left out of a topic. Can you honestly tell me a T15 bit/driver does not fit the fastener? If not, the facts are that even your fasteners are T15 and a T15 tool is the correct one, making the T10 tool an incorrect tool. Let's not confuse those who don't know better, please.


Have you ever read "The Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling?


----------



## nooneuknow

ltxi said:


> Have you ever read "The Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling?


Nope, and I don't plan to. If you really want to give me the cliff notes, you can always PM me.

Honestly, I'd rather come to mutual understanding with other members here, than fight and cause thread-drift, or bicker with people.

So far, the only attempt I've tried at doing so, which failed, was with a new member, who just can't leave anything I post alone (always has to try and incite a fight). That member clearly has no intentions of being peaceful, and would rather take snipes at anything I post. I know you likely feel like I am doing the same to you, based on how you react. It's not the same. But, I can understand why you'd feel that way. I don't want that. I'd rather make friends, not enemies, of anybody that can be reasoned with, and do try to keep making that effort.

Want to discuss something OT, please PM me. This goes for anybody. My PM box is always open.


----------



## HarperVision

ltxi said:


> Have you ever read "The Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling?


No, but I hear "The Yellow River" by I.P. Dailey is really good as well as "Brown Spots on the Wall" by Hu Flung Dung.


----------



## Loach

HarperVision said:


> No, but I hear "The Yellow River" by I.P. Dailey is really good as well as "Brown Spots on the Wall" by Hu Flung Dung.


Don't forget "Under the Bleachers" by Seymour Butts.


----------



## headless chicken

OK, I guess it's time to officially unsubscribe from this thread.


----------



## ltxi

nooneuknow said:


> Nope, and I don't plan to. If you really want to give me the cliff notes, you can always PM me.
> 
> Honestly, I'd rather come to mutual understanding with other members here, than fight and cause thread-drift, or bicker with people.
> 
> So far, the only attempt I've tried at doing so, which failed, was with a new member, who just can't leave anything I post alone (always has to try and incite a fight). That member clearly has no intentions of being peaceful, and would rather take snipes at anything I post. I know you likely feel like I am doing the same to you, based on how you react. It's not the same. But, I can understand why you'd feel that way. I don't want that. I'd rather make friends, not enemies, of anybody that can be reasoned with, and do try to keep making that effort.
> 
> Want to discuss something OT, please PM me. This goes for anybody. My PM box is always open.


Ok...we're good.


----------



## MJR0309

MJR0309 said:


> All done....473 Hours of HD recording. Unbelievable. !!!. Very painless process. Thanks Mike.


Oh yeah one other thing, Called Tivo and got Lifetime on the Plus for $399 and Lifetime on my TIVOHD for $99. It's been a great couple days here. Mike


----------



## HarperVision

headless chicken said:


> OK, I guess it's time to officially unsubscribe from this thread.


Not before you read "The Headless Chicken" by Ima Butcher.


----------



## MikePA1

HarperVision said:


> No, but I hear "The Yellow River" by I.P. Dailey is really good as well as "Brown Spots on the Wall" by Hu Flung Dung.


Was it I. P. Dailey who wrote "Rusty Bedsprings" or was that I. P. Knightly?


----------



## 1283

People with high capacity TiVos read books?


----------



## Marin

Just got a basic and am going to upgade the Hd. I got a good deal on a 3tb green but the model# is WDBAAY0030HNL. Will this be ok or should I get the WD30EURS from ebay? The difference is around $40.


----------



## lpwcomp

Marin said:


> Just got a basic and am going to upgade the Hd. I got a good deal on a 3tb green but the model# is WDBAAY0030HNL. Will this be ok or should I get the WD30EURS from ebay? The difference is around $40.


I cannot find that model # anywhere, even on the WD site. The closest is the WDBAAY0030HNC.

Are you saying you got this drive for $75? Is it new, used or refurbished?


----------



## Marin

I could not find it either. It looks like an older model that was being closed out at BB. Yes I got it for 85 but not sure if it is worth it or to spend the extra and get the av model from ebay or amazon. And yes it is new in box as far as I can tell not opened. Checked again and the model# is correct.


----------



## lpwcomp

Marin said:


> I could not find it either. It looks like an older model that was being closed out at BB. Yes I got it for 85 but not sure if it is worth it or to spend the extra and get the av model from ebay or amazon. And yes it is new in box as far as I can tell not opened. Checked again and the model# is correct.


It will _*probably*_ work but you _*may*_ have to run wdidle3 on it, which requires connecting it to your computer via SATA. A USB connection won't work.

Unless you're planning return it, you could always try it in the Roamio and see.


----------



## HarperVision

I used an old Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB HD and had no issues whatsoever. Worth a try I'd say.


----------



## ThAbtO

Marin said:


> Just got a basic and am going to upgade the Hd. I got a good deal on a 3tb green but the model# is WDBAAY0030HNL. Will this be ok or should I get the WD30EURS from ebay? The difference is around $40.


Western Digital WD‎ Elements 3TB USB 2.0 Hard Drive.

This will not work.


----------



## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> Western Digital WD‎ Elements 3TB USB 2.0 Hard Drive.
> 
> This will not work.


It will if you take the internal drive out and use that.

I often go this route, as I can often get the external for ~$40 less than the bare drive that is inside, both retail and mail-order, like Newegg.

I've done it with TiVo HD, TiVo Premiere, and TiVo Roamio base.

The internal drive will be a 3TB WD30EZRX, unless WD isn't being consistent with what they put inside (in my experience, they have been consistent). That is a Green drive, without the unnecessary AV features (no TiVo, to date, uses that feature set). The EZRX line, however, does not support AAM (acoustic management), so forget trying to change the settings. The fans in my base Roamios sound like mini jet engines, at all times, no matter what drive is in them (I've tried many), so you need not worry about being able to hear the drive seeking. The fan noise is less insanity-invoking with the low-profile stock Seagate 500GB drives. But that's not what this thread is about. It's about upgrades.

Other than a year shorter warranty, for being an external drive, I see no downside. If you take your time, and use the right tools, you can open and re-close the enclosure, with zero signs of tampering, should the drive fail within warranty.

An added bonus is being able to use the enclosure with other low operating temperature WD (Green/Red) drives you may have laying around. This particular enclosure doesn't encrypt the drive contents, and seems to work with any modern WD drive. I often just use the SATA to USB bridge board, and not the plastic case.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> It will if you take the internal drive out and use that. I've done it with TiVo HD, TiVo Premiere, and TiVo Roamio base. The internal drive will be a 3TB WD30EZRX, unless WD isn't being consistent with what they put inside (in my experience, they have been consistent). I often go this route, as I can often get the external for ~$40 less than the bare drive that is inside, both retail and mail-order, like Newegg. Other than a year shorter warranty, for being an external drive, I see no downside. If you take your time, and use the right tools, you can open and re-close the enclosure, with zero signs of tampering, should the drive fail within warranty. An added bonus is being able to use the enclosure with other low operating temperature WD (Green/Red) drives you may have laying around. This particular enclosure doesn't encrypt the drive contents, and seems to work with any modern WD drive. I often just use the SATA to USB bridge board, and not the plastic case.


That is exactly what I did with my barracuda.


----------



## lpwcomp

ThAbtO said:


> Western Digital WD‎ Elements 3TB USB 2.0 Hard Drive.
> 
> This will not work.


How exactly did you determine this? When I google "WDBAAY0030HNL", a WD external drive does come up but the model is "WDBAAU0030HBK".


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> How exactly did you determine this? When I google "WDBAAY0030HNL", a WD external drive does come up but the model is "WDBAAU0030HBK".


Part Number vs. Model Number? Both are on my WD Elements external drive cases, and could easily be transposed, if not being observant and cautious.


----------



## Marin

This is a green drive in the box not an external drive. Found more info on it at amazon.... http://www.amazon.com/Green-Desktop...&qid=1387581440&sr=1-1&keywords=wdbaay0030hnc.

Looks ok but I'm not that up on 3.5 hard drives.


----------



## ThAbtO

lpwcomp said:


> How exactly did you determine this? When I google "WDBAAY0030HNL", a WD external drive does come up but the model is "WDBAAU0030HBK".


I simply googled it.

http://www.ighome.com/search.aspx?q...840060944682:1937503931&cof=FORID:10&ie=UTF-8


----------



## nooneuknow

Marin said:


> This is a green drive in the box not an external drive. Found more info on it at amazon.... http://www.amazon.com/Green-Desktop...&qid=1387581440&sr=1-1&keywords=wdbaay0030hnc.
> 
> Looks ok but I'm not that up on 3.5 hard drives.


That will work. It's not the best price, and you don't need SATA3 (nor will having it make any difference, for better or for worse), but if "Will it work?" is the only question. That drive will work just as well as any other Green drive.

I've already stated the "AV" line isn't necessary, just preferred by most (one year longer warranty being the biggest reason).

I've decided that I'm going with WD Red NAS, so long as I find them at near-equal or lesser price, for all my future DVR and NAS needs. WD Red NAS drives have many elements: Green (despite being called Red), low-heat, quiet, low-vibration, 3-year warranty, and the best performance you'll get from a "green" low-RPM drive. They also support the ATA streaming command feature set (AV-rated), but I could care less about that. They also are designed to work in RAID arrays, which Green and Green-AV drives don't work well, if at all, in, if you decide to use them for one. I almost forgot to mention 3-year warranty.


----------



## ltxi

c3 said:


> People with high capacity TiVos read books?


It's a curse of age. At least I no longer do paper.....the basement was getting really full.


----------



## ThAbtO

ltxi said:


> It's a curse of age. At least I no longer do paper.....the basement was getting really full.


People with e-readers have never seen a real paper-based book.


----------



## lpwcomp

ThAbtO said:


> I simply googled it.
> 
> http://www.ighome.com/search.aspx?q...840060944682:1937503931&cof=FORID:10&ie=UTF-8


As did I, and as I said, what comes up is actually for the Wdbaau0030hbk. I suspect it is possible that the WDBAAY0030HNL is the model number of the actual drive that is in the case.


----------



## lpwcomp

ThAbtO said:


> People with e-readers have never seen a real paper-based book.


I prefer the physical book but I wish that it included a digital copy so I could read it on my phone when I'm out and about, especially in low light conditions.


----------



## ltxi

ThAbtO said:


> People with e-readers have never seen a real paper-based book.


The thing that finally pried the paper books out of my cold, old hands was Stephen King's "Under The Dome". High mileage, carry on luggage business traveler and a week out of town's reading fitting into my briefcase.....when I finally accepted them, Kindle readers came as a relief.

Much like TiVo in 2000 replacing my VCR.

And indoor plumbing replacing the outhouse back when I was a kid....


----------



## DocNo

emerz said:


> Eventually, I wound up wiping the drive with "HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool".


If someone else already point this out in this long thread then feel free to ignore this. For anyone else reading this thread, on Windows you can use Diskpart.exe to clean a drive - no special utility needed.

Personally, because I'm paranoid (and have wiped out drives I didn't mean to in the past!) I use the Windows graphical disk management utility to verify the disk number. Once you use the clean command on a disk it's done - wiped out! So a little paranoia can be a healthy thing 

Once I have confirmed the disk number for the disk I want to clean, I launch an elevated command prompt, type *diskpart*, type *select disk x* where x is the disk I want to clean. I type *list disk* to ensure that the disk I really want is selected (has an asterix next it) and that the size and everything matches what I want (measure twice, cut once) and then finally type *clean*.

That's it - there is NO warning so be doubly sure you select the right disk! Once cleaned the drive should work in your Tivo with no problem. Type *exit* to exit diskpart and then type *exit* again to close the command line shell if you are done with it. Power down and move the drive into your Tivo and enjoy!


----------



## DocNo

lentiman said:


> I'm going to repost the Roamio Pro deal below as it makes buying a separate 3TB drive unnecessary.


That was a great deal, and I seriously considered getting the Pro - but at the end of the day I stuck with the basic because I may still ditch cable and just go over the air. I was elated to see OTA come back at least in the Roamio basic!


----------



## DocNo

nooneuknow said:


> TiVo can, and *sometimes* will, refuse to provide support to you, open support tickets, or even take bug reports, if they notice you have changed drives.


The ONLY time I have EVERY seen someone complained about Tivo refusing them service, the person involved was (by their own admission) acting as a jerk to Tivo support and tried to get support for their modified Tivo. Well duh!

I've been a Tivo owner for over a decade and every Tivo I have owned was modified. On a number of occasions where I have had to get support as long as I returned the original drive to the Tivo before sending it in or getting detailed with tech support I **NEVER** have had them even bring it up, although they OBVIOUSLY can see that the Tivo's have been modified by the logs that get sent back to Tivo.

Here's the deal - Tivo is at least smart enough to understand that their enthusiast community is small enough to not be worth hassling over drive upgrades, especially when this enthusiast community is probably the best unpaid advertising and support network they have! For them to quibble with someone over a drive upgrade that person has to be acting in a very stupid manner. Yup, there is no guarantee that they won't suddenly get stupid - but given their stance of being VERY hands off for over a decade, I'll take the risk. So far the only issues I have ever had with my Tivo's are with hard drives which are, especially now, ridiculously easy to swap. One of my parents modified Tivo's had a bad power supply, but I just slapped the original hard drive in it, shipped it back and Tivo replaced it and transferred their lifetime to the replacement with no questions asked.

The biggest problem I see with getting support from modified Tivo's comes from a lack of common sense and decency on the part of those having problems in getting support


----------



## DocNo

nooneuknow said:


> Season Passes can be backed up and then restored with kmttg. TiVo has an online Season Pass Manager (I call it SP "Mangler", since it copies them in a random order).


I was concerned about this as I moved around a bunch of season passes today, forgetting about the random order crap 

I was about to go in and reorder everything when I realized my Tivo now has *four* tuners. I browsed the to do list - not one conflict with over 70 season passes that got randomized - woot! I think reordering season passes is now a thing of the past for me (especially since I very, very rarely watch any network television).


----------



## abeln2672

Anyone seen this before?

Popped a 2TB Seagate Barracuda (ST2000DM001) into my Roamio Basic. When I plugged everything in, all I got were alternating blinking lights on the front (green and amber together, then the red) -- no picture on the TV. Opened everything back up again and reseated the drive, thinking the SATA connection might've been loose. Plugged it back in and got exactly the same behavior. Proceeded to put the original drive back in, and all is well -- normal start and operation.

Obviously a problem with the Seagate drive, correct? I know it's not "optimized" for a Tivo, but I got it super cheap and figured it'd be worth a shot. Assuming it's not DOA, I shouldn't have to do anything special with the drive before plugging it in, correct? It should just work? 

Normally I'd test the drive with a dock to my computer, but unfortunately we just moved and most of my stuff is in storage  Anyone have ideas before I (sadly) RMA this baby? My Roamio is already 70% full, so I'm jonesing to get more storage!


----------



## alyssa

newegg has the WD AV-GP WD30EURX for $119 using a coupon which expires on the 6th. the drive is on back order but coincidentally it is due to be shipped on the 6th.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236602


----------



## jmbach

abeln2672 said:


> Anyone seen this before?
> 
> Popped a 2TB Seagate Barracuda (ST2000DM001) into my Roamio Basic. When I plugged everything in, all I got were alternating blinking lights on the front (green and amber together, then the red) -- no picture on the TV. Opened everything back up again and reseated the drive, thinking the SATA connection might've been loose. Plugged it back in and got exactly the same behavior. Proceeded to put the original drive back in, and all is well -- normal start and operation.
> 
> Obviously a problem with the Seagate drive, correct? I know it's not "optimized" for a Tivo, but I got it super cheap and figured it'd be worth a shot. Assuming it's not DOA, I shouldn't have to do anything special with the drive before plugging it in, correct? It should just work?
> 
> Normally I'd test the drive with a dock to my computer, but unfortunately we just moved and most of my stuff is in storage  Anyone have ideas before I (sadly) RMA this baby? My Roamio is already 70% full, so I'm jonesing to get more storage!


No you shouldn't but I ran across some of these cheap drives from a particular on line auction site. They were called new (and they were) but as I found out troubleshooting days later, they were made for a particular company with a slightly modified firmware that prevented it from working in the TiVo. This was verified by a long talk with Seagate. I bought a retail version of the drive and had no problems.


----------



## DocNo

abeln2672 said:


> When I plugged everything in, all I got were alternating blinking lights on the front (green and amber together, then the red) -- no picture on the TV.


Other than jmbach's advice, the only thing I can recommend is putting the drive in your computer and trying to use the clean command from diskpart.exe (if you use windows). I detail how a few posts back from this one. Others also reference some other disk cleaning/zeroing utilities. Or if on a Mac/Linux you can use dd to fill the drive with zeros - letting it run for a few minutes to overwrite the beginning would probably be more than sufficient.


----------



## DocNo

And why I came back to this thread - no one has figured out how to expand to 4TB yet, eh? Oh well - I have some extra 3TB drives (or at least drives that can be freed from my NAS easily) and that's more than enough - it would be nice to start off with 4 without it costing a premium.


----------



## aaronwt

DocNo said:


> The ONLY time I have EVERY seen someone complained about Tivo refusing them service, the person involved was (by their own admission) acting as a jerk to Tivo support and tried to get support for their modified Tivo. Well duh!
> 
> ................


It happened to me back in 2007 when the TiVo HD launched.
It was a brand new TiVoHD and I was not being a jerk. But they refused to go through any troubleshooting because they could see that the hard drive had been upgraded. So I put the original drive back in, and took it back to circuit city where I exchanged it. Then with the new TiVo they said they would trouble shoot the issue.

Of course the issue had nothing to do with the hardware, it was a software issue so exchanging the box did not fix anything. The TiVo sent out mono audio from analog channels. The TiVo engineers thought it was fine since there was audio coming out of both channels. But it was actually the same info coming out of both speakers instead of different audio like it should be with a stereo signal. Anyway I got FiOS shortly after that which solved the problem since FiOS was all digital, unlike Comcast at the time. They did fix it at some point because when I signed up one of my TiVos to Comcast over a year later to get some channels that FiOS didn't have, the audio problem didn't exist any more.


----------



## abeln2672

jmbach said:


> No you shouldn't but I ran across some of these cheap drives from a particular on line auction site. They were called new (and they were) but as I found out troubleshooting days later, they were made for a particular company with a slightly modified firmware that prevented it from working in the TiVo. This was verified by a long talk with Seagate. I bought a retail version of the drive and had no problems.


I really appreciate the reply! I bought this from TD as a "bare" drive...no no retail box. The firmware and model numbers check out, but your theory is an interesting one, so I might investigate further. Thanks again!



DocNo said:


> Other than jmbach's advice, the only thing I can recommend is putting the drive in your computer and trying to use the clean command from diskpart.exe (if you use windows). I detail how a few posts back from this one. Others also reference some other disk cleaning/zeroing utilities. Or if on a Mac/Linux you can use dd to fill the drive with zeros - letting it run for a few minutes to overwrite the beginning would probably be more than sufficient.


Thanks for your reply as well! I remembered that I had an old 1 TB external HDD laying around, so I opened the enclosure, took out the drive, and plugged in the new Seagate. Upon doing so, I downloaded the "SeaTools" suite to test it, and it did past the initial quick test (I also found out my laptop has a Seagate drive, which I did not know). After that short test, I completed the diskpart.exe procedure (thanks so much for your post above), but still no joy after plugging the drive back into the Tivo. I'm on a Windows laptop, so I'll probably Google some procedures for zeroing the drive. Seems like the drive is probably OK in that it's recognized by Windows, but for whatever reason it doesn't want to play nicely with the Tivo. If all else fails, I guess I'll buy a new enclosure, NTFS the drive, and have a very cheap 2 TB external. No biggie. Wasted Saturday, though! Thanks again!


----------



## alyssa

having done a bunch of upgrades, i've always liked having the original drive with my cable card pairing stored on my shelf.

does a cable card pairing survive when i upgrade the hdd or will i need to repair it?


----------



## jmbach

If you use the drive that currently is paired as a base for the expansion you will be okay. 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk


----------



## nooneuknow

alyssa said:


> having done a bunch of upgrades, i've always liked having the original drive with my cable card pairing stored on my shelf.
> 
> does a cable card pairing survive when i upgrade the hdd or will i need to repair it?


In my experience, having swapped in and out many drives (Stock 500GB->2TB->3TB->Stock 500GB->3TB) in three base ROAMIOS:

NO, nothing survives a drive change in a ROAMIO (base model).

This even includes the Season Passes and ToDo List, which could (sometimes) survive, along with cablecard pairing in PREMIERES.

The only things you can be assured will be retained are:

1. The most current software (stored in flash memory, not on the drive).

2. Your lifetime, or monthly contract, service status.

Everything else is YMMV (just because one person claims something was retained, does not mean all will have the same experience/results).

The last thing anybody should expect to keep, for a ROAMIO, is the cablecard pairing data. If your MSO doesn't require actual pairing to a specific device, that's a whole different situation. Otherwise, even if things appear to have been retained, there is a good chance that the cablecard (and TA, if applicable) will not be in a fully-authorized state, resulting in varying degrees of channels not being available. The most noticeable ones would be premium, and/or channel pack, type channels.

YMMV. One size does not always fit all.


----------



## DocNo

alyssa said:


> does a cable card pairing survive when i upgrade the hdd or will i need to repair it?


Depends on how big of jerks your cable company are and if you have premium channels. Comcast with no premiums = phone tree hell to get the card re-paired. FIOS with no premiums - moved the cable card from my S3 to the Roamio and it worked with no need to call Verizon.

Go figure...

And for my season passes, I just transferred them on tivo.com to another Tivo temporarily - then back to my Roamio after I swapped in the 3TB drive (which worked flawlessly, BTW). And yes, the Tivo.com season pass manager scrambled their order - but with four tuners, thankfully conflicts are a thing of the past. Even if I dedicate one to the Tivo mini for live TV, I still have yet to have a situation where more than three tuners are recording with my current 70+ season passes - woot!


----------



## lpwcomp

jmbach said:


> If you use the drive that currently is paired as a base for the expansion you will be okay.
> 
> Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk


That's currently not possible with a Roamio. At least not with any publicly available tools.


----------



## alyssa

thanks guys-

this is gonna make it a little more complicated. 

I think i should be able to call the cc center for TW for a repairing if i get the pairing done prior to the upgrade. Hopefully i won't have to call for a truck roll the first time.


----------



## ggieseke

abeln2672 said:


> Anyone seen this before?
> 
> Popped a 2TB Seagate Barracuda (ST2000DM001) into my Roamio Basic. When I plugged everything in, all I got were alternating blinking lights on the front (green and amber together, then the red) -- no picture on the TV. Opened everything back up again and reseated the drive, thinking the SATA connection might've been loose. Plugged it back in and got exactly the same behavior. Proceeded to put the original drive back in, and all is well -- normal start and operation.


FWIW, I tried a ST2000DM001 in my Roamio and it worked fine.

Others have posted that they took a drive straight from their PC that was already formatted with NTFS and it worked. Same for drives from earlier model TiVos. I don't THINK that you need to zero it, but it can't hurt. The WD or Seagate diagnostics can both handle the job, and the free version of Active KillDisk is another alternative. In your case I'd probably use SeaTools so that if it errors out you can use the log to start the RMA process.


----------



## abeln2672

ggieseke said:


> FWIW, I tried a ST2000DM001 in my Roamio and it worked fine.
> 
> Others have posted that they took a drive straight from their PC that was already formatted with NTFS and it worked. Same for drives from earlier model TiVos. I don't THINK that you need to zero it, but it can't hurt. The WD or Seagate diagnostics can both handle the job, and the free version of Active KillDisk is another alternative. In your case I'd probably use SeaTools so that if it errors out you can use the log to start the RMA process.


Thanks for the data point -- much appreciated! I'm currently 70% through zeroing the drive with KillDisk, so I'll be able to try again this afternoon. If that doesn't work, I'll format the drive with NTFS and try again. If that doesn't work...well, like I said above, I guess I'll have another 2 TB external HDD after I buy an enclosure.


----------



## el aye

abeln2672 said:


> Thanks for the data point -- much appreciated! I'm currently 70% through zeroing the drive with KillDisk, so I'll be able to try again this afternoon. If that doesn't work, I'll format the drive with NTFS and try again. If that doesn't work...well, like I said above, I guess I'll have another 2 TB external HDD after I buy an enclosure.


Please report back! I stress tested a ST2000DM001 (did we all get in on the $45 deal at TD?), deleted the partition and am currently getting the no picture/alternating flashing lights on the Roamio I put it in. If I stick my ear to the case, it almost sounds like you can hear the hard drive trying to initiate its spin, but the roamio isn't providing enough power. I know these are 7200rpm drives, but I wouldn't have expected the power difference to be a cause for a problem.

(light flashing pattern is: blue+red on right, then green on left)

edit: it worries me that the base roamio drive requires +5v 0.316 A and +12v 0.155 A whilst the ST2000DM001 requires 0.75 A... I'm thinking the base roamio power supply is skimpy.

I've tried:
1) Formatting drive as NTFS
2) Cleaning drive with diskpart.exe (outlined in this post)

I'm at this point believing something is going wrong with the drive not getting enough power to spin up.


----------



## spaldingclan

whats TD?


----------



## unitron

spaldingclan said:


> whats TD?


I'm guessing TigerDirect, but even though they send me emails all the time, I don't remember seeing a 2TB for that price, even if it involved a rebate, advertised anytime recently.


----------



## el aye

Tiger Direct. There was a $25 off $100 "clearance" rebate and $30 rebate on the Seagate 2tb drive. The $100.00 price only lasted for like a day and it wasn't really advertised.


----------



## abeln2672

el aye said:


> Tiger Direct. There was a $25 off $100 "clearance" rebate and $30 rebate on the Seagate 2tb drive. The $100.00 price only lasted for like a day and it wasn't really advertised.


Yup, this. Saw it on SlickDeals and jumped on it right away, thinking it would be perfect for my Tivo. Ummm...



el aye said:


> Please report back! I stress tested a ST2000DM001 (did we all get in on the $45 deal at TD?)...
> 
> I'm at this point believing something is going wrong with the drive not getting enough power to spin up.


Sorry for the delay in replying. I live in Indy and was one of the lucky 60,000 to lose power. Ours was out almost 3 days, so we've been hotel-bound and JUST got back home today. Whew.

Anyway, I haven't stuck the drive back in after zero'ing it, but I'll do so later tonight. I'm in total agreement with you that it seems to be a power issue. That was actually my first thought when I put it in and listened (much like you), but I figured that was foolish...why would a big ol' Tivo unit not put out enough power for a HD? That said, since you're experiencing the same issues and seeing the same results, I'm afraid that's probably the cause. In which case, I'm not near enough expert to figure it out. Let me know if you made any progress, though!


----------



## DocNo

el aye said:


> I know these are 7200rpm drives, but I wouldn't have expected the power difference to be a cause for a problem.


7200 RPM is going to definitely draw too much juice, especially for the tiny wall wart my Raomio Basic came with. Nevermind the heat concerns I would have with a 7200 RPM drive. Way, way overkill.

The 5400 RMP WD Red's would be what I would be putting in if I didn't already have an extra 3TB Hitachi that I poached from my NAS. The last couple of times I have ordered Red drives I got them for the same price as other drives. And Red's have one critical feature that will ensure they will be the only drives I ever buy from now on - bearings on both ends of the shaft that the platters spin on. Previously only SAS or Fibre Channel drives had that design feature, SATA drives only had bearings on one end - the end of the shaft with the motor, the other end is just "out there". Hence the huge difference in mean time between failure (MTBF) for SAS/FC drives and SATA drives. For a slight premium, at most, or the same price if you just catch 'em on sale getting any drive other than a red is idiotic IMNSHO at this point....


----------



## HarperVision

I had a 7200 Barracuda in my Roamio that seemed to run perfectly fine, but you make valid points.


----------



## StevesWeb

DocNo said:


> The 5400 RMP WD Red's would be what I would be putting in if I didn't already have an extra 3TB Hitachi that I poached from my NAS.


Those WD Red drives are great, I used them for backup drives in the last two webservers I built.


----------



## A J Ricaud

Newegg has:

Available from 3:00PM - 5:59PM PT 01/09/2014

Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive
$119.99

Use URL:http://us-mg5.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=6veof4jev80qf#mail


----------



## lessd

A J Ricaud said:


> Newegg has:
> 
> Available from 3:00PM - 5:59PM PT 01/09/2014
> 
> Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive
> $119.99
> 
> Use URL:http://us-mg5.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=6veof4jev80qf#mail


I purchased that exact drive from Newegg at that price (free shipping) in November 2013.


----------



## alyssa

With regards to the amount of time between powering up a new Plus and upgrading, 
How much time did others allow to make sure the tivo was functioning well?


----------



## ThAbtO

alyssa said:


> With regards to the amount of time between powering up a new Plus and upgrading,
> How much time did others allow to make sure the tivo was functioning well?


Let's see....

Tivo S3 HD652... 5-6 min until the startup video
Roamio.... 3 min.


----------



## alyssa

haha

ok...then i should drop the new drive in before i pair the card. it's been up & running for half a day & seems to be working as it should.

a couple of years ago i didn't power up my xl, paired an external with it & *then* found out one of the tuner lights wasn't working.


----------



## Keen

Personally, before swapping a hard drive, I would:
1) Power it on and wait until it fully boots through the Welcome video.
2) Get through Guided Setup (this includes a connection to Tivo's server, IIRC).
3) Pair the CableCard.
4) Record 4/6 things at once to use every tuner.

This ensures the device is fully working in all the ways that are important to me.


----------



## alyssa

hummmm

good idea to record something with each tuner

weighted against a second phone call to tw cc tech support...<lol>

too good a suggestion to over look thx Keen


----------



## vurbano

2 TivoHd units, 3 premiere units and now a Roamio plus and Ive upgraded them all. Ive never ever used anything but WD AV-GP type drives. They are very quiet, low power, low heat, fast enough (no reason for 7200 RPM) and capable of multiple simultaneous streams with ease. I have had ZERO failures and the TivoHD's are still going.


----------



## danmasi

Thinking about getting rid of my current S3 in favor of a 3TB Roamio. With specials now, price diff between a Plus and Pro is $150, which is getting close to the cost of a 3TB WD AV-GP; so it's almost a wash as to whether I buy a Plus and upgrade immediately, or just buy a Pro.

Question is, do we know what kind of disks TiVo is using? Is there an advantage to upgrading the HD yourself in that perhaps you have a better quality (more reliable?) disk that way?


----------



## alyssa

WD 10eurx
Green
Reading it of the drive I just took out of my plus


----------



## danmasi

Thanks... that's the AV-GP drive. So, just as easy to buy a Pro at this price point. -d


----------



## alyssa

just a data point and a question

i just upgraded my plus to a pro. went smooth, simplest tivo upgrade ever

i did guided set up with the stock hdd
I paired the cc & ta with with the stock hdd 
tested the tuners
swapped out the drives with a 3tb unit
powered it up & repeated guided set up

i did not have to repair the cc. i'm even getting the switched vid channels


question, with kmttg, is it possible transfer all my recordings that are transferable from my old tivo to the new one? i've been beating my head against the wall trying to figure it out. I got my SP moved over.

assuming i have space, the shows aren't copyrighted etc


----------



## ThAbtO

alyssa said:


> question, with kmttg, is it possible transfer all my recordings that are transferable from my old tivo to the new one? i've been beating my head against the wall trying to figure it out. I got my SP moved over.
> 
> assuming i have space, the shows aren't copyrighted etc


Yes, once sub, MAK is confirmed on the box.

KMTTG does not send back to Tivo, It use PyTivo for that job.


----------



## alyssa

please, can you point me in the right direction?
Not for the MAK- it seems to be in place on my new tivo


----------



## ThAbtO

alyssa said:


> can you point me in the right direction?


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=387725

http://sourceforge.net/directory/os:windows/freshness:recently-updated/?q=pytivo


----------



## alyssa

thank you!

i'm not sure i want to off load & upload


----------



## siratfus

alyssa said:


> having done a bunch of upgrades, i've always liked having the original drive with my cable card pairing stored on my shelf.
> 
> does a cable card pairing survive when i upgrade the hdd or will i need to repair it?


It has always survived for me with tivoHDs. And now I juust upgraded using WD30EURS for my Roamio plus, and it was painless.

Only issue was the HBO channels didn't come back, and I had to go do a little chat session and all is well. Even when I ordered HBO several months ago, the channels never came on until I chatted with someone. They say it's a known issue with the Roamio Plus. They just need you to read them the cablecard id, host id and data id and you'll be synced.


----------



## el aye

DocNo said:


> 7200 RPM is going to definitely draw too much juice, especially for the tiny wall wart my Raomio Basic came with. Nevermind the heat concerns I would have with a 7200 RPM drive. Way, way overkill.
> 
> The 5400 RMP WD Red's would be what I would be putting in if I didn't already have an extra 3TB Hitachi that I poached from my NAS. The last couple of times I have ordered Red drives I got them for the same price as other drives. And Red's have one critical feature that will ensure they will be the only drives I ever buy from now on - bearings on both ends of the shaft that the platters spin on. Previously only SAS or Fibre Channel drives had that design feature, SATA drives only had bearings on one end - the end of the shaft with the motor, the other end is just "out there". Hence the huge difference in mean time between failure (MTBF) for SAS/FC drives and SATA drives. For a slight premium, at most, or the same price if you just catch 'em on sale getting any drive other than a red is idiotic IMNSHO at this point....


It's really just the startup power draw... real world power consumption between 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives is no more than a few watts. Kind of sad, this makes me want to go buy the Roamio Pro for $400 on Amazon right now. I guess I could try and swap out a WD green drive from my home server.


----------



## 1283

alyssa said:


> just a data point and a question
> 
> i just upgraded my plus to a pro. went smooth, simplest tivo upgrade ever
> 
> i did guided set up with the stock hdd
> I paired the cc & ta with with the stock hdd
> tested the tuners
> swapped out the drives with a 3tb unit
> powered it up & repeated guided set up
> 
> i did not have to repair the cc. i'm even getting the switched vid channels


With the new drive, it's no longer paired. Even though only the premium channels (like HBO) require pairing, it's highly recommended to re-pair it to avoid random issues.


----------



## 1283

siratfus said:


> It has always survived for me with tivoHDs. And now I juust upgraded using WD30EURS for my Roamio plus, and it was painless.
> 
> Only issue was the HBO channels didn't come back, and I had to go do a little chat session and all is well. Even when I ordered HBO several months ago, the channels never came on until I chatted with someone. They say it's a known issue with the Roamio Plus. They just need you to read them the cablecard id, host id and data id and you'll be synced.


No, pairing did NOT survive the upgrade unless you copied the paired drive to the new drive. That's why HBO "didn't come back".


----------



## siratfus

c3 said:


> No, pairing did NOT survive the upgrade unless you copied the paired drive to the new drive. That's why HBO "didn't come back".


Okay, then maybe I don't know the definition of pairing. All my channels were back, that doesn't qualify? To me, that's a success because like I said, HBO didn't turn on either when I ordered it through the web account. I had to do a little chat. So I figure even if it was a success, expect the HBOs to not show up, and it didn't. I did a chat and got them back. So if I did not have HBO to begin with, then I wouldn't be the wiser whether or not my cable card is paired because all my channels were back.


----------



## 1283

Pairing is an additional authentication step required to receive premium channels like HBO. An activated but not paired CableCARD can receive non-premium channels. For Motorola card, the "Val" flag on the Conditional Access screen is "V" for paired and "?" for non-paired.


----------



## alyssa

ty c3

i'll check that & re-pair


----------



## lpwcomp

alyssa said:


> thank you!
> 
> i'm not sure i want to off load & upload


Once everything is set up and the two TiVos "see" each other and have full access, you should be able to xfer everything directly. It may require multiple connections to the TiVo service and multiple reboots of both TiVos.

You can queue up multiple transfers but you will have to do the transfer requests one at a time. No selecting a bunch and saying "transfer all of these". Not even an option to transfer an entire group.

Both TiVos must have current subscriptions.


----------



## alyssa

I was hoping to do a "select all' type of transfer... ;>

i would do the pytivo (? going off memory) but i'm overloaded with stuff i need to learn to do on my forum Plus i dont' know if i have enough space on my HDDs 'cuz, yeah, i'm moving out of my 600 hr unit to a 400 hr unit. i may be able to do it easier but i've got to flowchart it before i can say


----------



## siratfus

c3 said:


> Pairing is an additional authentication step required to receive premium channels like HBO. An activated but not paired CableCARD can receive non-premium channels. For Motorola card, the "Val" flag on the Conditional Access screen is "V" for paired and "?" for non-paired.


Ahh! Good to know. I came from a TivoHDs. Never had premium channels, so I always thought everything was as it should be.


----------



## lpwcomp

alyssa said:


> I was hoping to do a "select all' type of transfer... ;>
> 
> i would do the pytivo (? going off memory) but i'm overloaded with stuff i need to learn to do on my forum Plus i dont' know if i have enough space on my HDDs 'cuz, yeah, i'm moving out of my 600 hr unit to a 400 hr unit. i may be able to do it easier but i've got to flowchart it before i can say


Actually, I wouldn't go the go the kmttg xfer-push route anyway. Lose too much of the metadata and they do not group the same.

If you have space on your computer, you could use kmttg to xfer and decrypt and keep them there until you want to watch them.


----------



## alyssa

c3 said:


> Pairing is an additional authentication step required to receive premium channels like HBO. An activated but not paired CableCARD can receive non-premium channels. For Motorola card, the "Val" flag on the Conditional Access screen is "V" for paired and "?" for non-paired.


for cisco cards look at the,
ca screen
emms processed; 0 <--means the cc is not paired 
they want to see more then 40


----------



## unitron

alyssa said:


> I was hoping to do a "select all' type of transfer... ;>
> 
> i would do the pytivo (? going off memory) but i'm overloaded with stuff i need to learn to do on my forum Plus i dont' know if i have enough space on my HDDs 'cuz, yeah, i'm moving out of my 600 hr unit to a 400 hr unit. i may be able to do it easier but i've got to flowchart it before i can say


TiVo Desktop will let you select a bunch of shows at once to copy from TiVo to PC, but you'll have to select them one at a time on the next TiVo to copy them from the PC to it, although as soon as you get the first one started, you can select the next one and it'll "transfer" as soon as the first one finishes, and you can keep selecting them and they'll go into the "list" and get copied in the order in which they were selected.

Always assuming your cable company didn't set the CCI bit to no copy on any of them.


----------



## alyssa

the $50 gift card deal seems to be back at bb at least on the plus

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/roamio-...3&skuId=1503982&st=tivo roamio plus&cp=1&lp=1


----------



## Phasers

alyssa said:


> the $50 gift card deal seems to be back at bb at least on the plus
> 
> http://www.bestbuy.com/site/roamio-...3&skuId=1503982&st=tivo roamio plus&cp=1&lp=1


It is back for all Roamio.

Best deal, IMO, is PM the basic to Amazon ($149.99), and get $50 gift card on top of that. Kind of like getting it for $99 if you were going to use the $50 anyways.


----------



## lpwcomp

Phasers said:


> It is back for all Roamio.
> 
> Best deal, IMO, is PM the basic to Amazon ($149.99), and get $50 gift card on top of that. Kind of like getting it for $99 if you were going to use the $50 anyways.


Crud. Just bought a basic last Wednesday. Got the price match but of course no $50 gift card.

Oh well, even if I had known it was coming, exigent circumstances required the purchase when I did it.


----------



## das335

lpwcomp said:


> Crud. Just bought a basic last Wednesday. Got the price match but of course no $50 gift card.
> 
> Oh well, even if I had known it was coming, exigent circumstances required the purchase when I did it.


You might want to go back to BB and see if they will give you the $50 gift card. I bought a Roamio basic last Thursday and I was able to get the gift card today without any issues. The rep just did a full refund of the 1st purchase and then rang up a new ticket with the Amazon price match and included the $50 GC. It took about 5 minutes. I did not have to take the Tivo back, just showed her the receipt and the BB ad.

Good luck


----------



## alyssa

yikes

i just realized i posted the bb gift card info in the wrong thread- i had meant to post in the deals thread.


----------



## A J Ricaud

Newegg has the Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB for $129.99 & free shipping. Use PROMO CODE:
EMCPWWF23


----------



## webcrawlr

Phasers said:


> It is back for all Roamio.
> 
> Best deal, IMO, is PM the basic to Amazon ($149.99), and get $50 gift card on top of that. Kind of like getting it for $99 if you were going to use the $50 anyways.


This is a huge YMMV thing. The official price match policy, which you can read on thier website, specifically says gift cards aren't given on price matched items.


----------



## Keen

webcrawlr said:


> This is a huge YMMV thing. The official price match policy, which you can read on thier website, specifically says gift cards aren't given on price matched items.


That's referring to pricematching gift card offers (e.g. Target offers product X at $Y price with $Z gift card, Best Buy won't give you a gift card with $Z on it).


----------



## webcrawlr

Keen said:


> That's referring to pricematching gift card offers (e.g. Target offers product X at $Y price with $Z gift card, Best Buy won't give you a gift card with $Z on it).


Like I said YMMV I was told price matching of items that include gift cards as a promo is against policy.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Payment...ee/pcmcat297300050000.c?id=pcmcat297300050000



> *The Guarantee is limited to one price match per identical item, per guest and does not apply to:* Contract mobile phones sold by any online retailer, the online prices of retailers not listed, the online prices of products shipped from or sold by third party vendors (Marketplace vendors) on designated major online retailers websites, post purchase price match requests to competitor's prices, Best Buy for Business™, *offers that include financing, gift card offers,* bundling of items, free items, pricing errors, mail-in offers, coupon offers, competitors' service prices, items that are advertised as limited-quantity, out of stock, open-box, clearance, refurbished/used items, our and our competitor's Deal of the Day, daily deals, special hour sale event items and credit card offers, BestBuy.com Clearance & More and Marketplace items, and items for sale Thanksgiving Day through 11:59 p.m. on the Monday after Thanksgiving.


If you request a price match on an item that includes a promo gift card you're supposed to be offered the card _or_ the price match, not both.'

Not sure why this is in the HD upgrade thread?


----------



## sangs

I'm putting a 3TB WD drive into my Roamio Basic today. Seems easy enough based on the photo and instructions in the first post of this thread, but I've read in a few other places that removing the top isn't as straightforward as simply removing two screws and sliding forward. Something about plastic retaining clips make it more difficult than that. 

Anybody here have any experience with that? And if so, what's the best way to remove it without damaging these clips? Any special tool to do that? Thanks.


----------



## spaldingclan

sangs said:


> I'm putting a 3TB WD drive into my Roamio Basic today. Seems easy enough based on the photo and instructions in the first post of this thread, but I've read in a few other places that removing the top isn't as straightforward as simply removing two screws and sliding forward. Something about plastic retaining clips make it more difficult than that.
> 
> Anybody here have any experience with that? And if so, what's the best way to remove it without damaging these clips? Any special tool to do that? Thanks.


that's the hardest part of this job. took me forever to slide the top forward to get it off as I didn't want to snap off the little plastic clips.


----------



## sangs

spaldingclan said:


> that's the hardest part of this job. took me forever to slide the top forward to get it off as I didn't want to snap off the little plastic clips.


Any suggestions?


----------



## keenanSR

sangs said:


> Any suggestions?


As I recall, squeezing the top a little from each side and a slide forward did the trick for me. I don't recall it needing to go forward very much at all, basically a squeeze and lift worked for me with just a nudge forward to clear the front.


----------



## alyssa

It wasn't that difficult. I just had to futz with it and get the angle to apply pressure correct.


----------



## sangs

Thanks for the tips. That was about as painless a procedure as possible. Just have to finish manually validating my Cablecard with FiOS so I get HBO and Cinemax back.


----------



## TheChosenOne-

Yo guys, my original HDD is about to run out of space soon and I will need a new one soon. Just curious if we take out old HDD, put in new HDD then maybe a few months later I want to watch old shows again on my old HDD, I can just put it back into my Tivo and everything will be the same and everything right? TV shows would work and I'll be able to watch them again? I read something about them getting deleted if I do something wrong. Also if I want to transfer them to my computer or another HDD, how would I be able to do that?


----------



## ThAbtO

TheChosenOne- said:


> Yo guys, my original HDD is about to run out of space soon and I will need a new one soon. Just curious if we take out old HDD, put in new HDD then maybe a few months later I want to watch old shows again on my old HDD, I can just put it back into my Tivo and everything will be the same and everything right? TV shows would work and I'll be able to watch them again? I read something about them getting deleted if I do something wrong. Also if I want to transfer them to my computer or another HDD, how would I be able to do that?


It would be a bigger hassle to swap out HDDs (damage to drive is more possible, voids warranty) then to copy them over to another Tivo or PC. When it gets full, the Tivo will delete them starting with the oldest show.

To copy them over, you could use Tivo Desktop (not free anymore), or use PyTivo (which also has more features), KMTTG (only downloads, not send back, uses PyTivo for that job.)


----------



## TheChosenOne-

ThAbtO said:


> It would be a bigger hassle to swap out HDDs (damage to drive is more possible, voids warranty) then to copy them over to another Tivo or PC. When it gets full, the Tivo will delete them starting with the oldest show.
> 
> To copy them over, you could use Tivo Desktop (not free anymore), or use PyTivo (which also has more features), KMTTG (only downloads, not send back, uses PyTivo for that job.)


But if I wanted to, I could keep on switching back and forth from my original HDD and future HDDs and nothing will get deleted right? It can still play the shows on my original HDD if I keep on switching back and forth? I won't do that often because all I have is 98% of basketball games on them but maybe one day I might be bored and would like to re watch some games.

What kind of video format are the shows? Would I be able to play the shows on VLC on my computer?


----------



## lpwcomp

TheChosenOne- said:


> What kind of video format are the shows? Would I be able to play the shows on VLC on my computer?


On the TiVo drive? Nothing that is usable by anything but the TiVo on which they were recorded.

As to whether or not you can switch drives back and forth - I'm not sure anyone knows if it is possible with a Roamio. Unless they are copy protected, transferring to a computer is a much better option.

Just FYI, although I don't recommend any version of TiVo Desktop, the free version is still available.


----------



## DocNo

el aye said:


> It's really just the startup power draw... real world power consumption between 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives is no more than a few watts.


With the wall wart that came with my Roamio "a few watts" could be as much as 10% of the things capacity! It's not an insignificant amount. Between the extra heat generated by the 7200 RPM drives (the fan in my Roamio is TINY) and the extra power draw your just asking for problems.

But hey, more power to you. If you blow the wall wart it's easy to fix and if the hard drive fries from heat it's easy enough to drop another one in (you just loose your recordings).

I just don't know why someone would tempt fate, especially when buying a new hard drive.


----------



## ltxi

TheChosenOne- said:


> Yo guys, my original HDD is about to run out of space soon and I will need a new one soon. Just curious if we take out old HDD, put in new HDD then maybe a few months later I want to watch old shows again on my old HDD, I can just put it back into my Tivo and everything will be the same and everything right? TV shows would work and I'll be able to watch them again? I read something about them getting deleted if I do something wrong. Also if I want to transfer them to my computer or another HDD, how would I be able to do that?


Pretty much asked and answered in the other thread.....the one you started.


----------



## tome_9499

Hi All,

I have a bunch of credit at Staples, and I was wondering if the following drive will be compatible in a Roamio:

http://www.staples.com/WD-4TB-3-1-2-inch-Desktop-Internal-Hard-Drive-Green/product_IM1TA9583

If not, can you tell me what other drives I can get at staples that will work?

Thanks,

TomE


----------



## ThAbtO

Nothing 4 TB and up will work. This drive just is a Green drive and not AV. The most Roamio currently can use is 3 TB, and best if its a Green AV drive, such as WD30EURx, WD20EURx.


----------



## Cap'n Preshoot

Only my 2¢ worth here... A 3 TB drive, or, for that matter even a 2 TB drive, amounts to putting an awful lot of eggs in one basket. When (not if) that cheap Chinese drive gets tired spinning, or a head crashes as it will some day, you're potentially going to lose a boatload of recordings. If you treasure your recordings (why else have such a huge drive?) I think I'd look at investing in smaller, say 1 TB *external storage* drives and swap 'em out (and catalog 'em) as they fill up. Those consumer grade 2 and 3TB WD green drives are (just IMO) a ticking bomb for long term storage that's continuously online. At the very least, put a UPS on it (and don't plug anything else into it).


----------



## lessd

Cap'n Preshoot said:


> Only my 2¢ worth here... A 3 TB drive, or, for that matter even a 2 TB drive, amounts to putting an awful lot of eggs in one basket. When (not if) that cheap Chinese drive gets tired spinning, or a head crashes as it will some day, you're potentially going to lose a boatload of recordings. If you treasure your recordings (why else have such a huge drive?) I think I'd look at investing in smaller, say 1 TB *external storage* drives and swap 'em out (and catalog 'em) as they fill up. Those consumer grade 2 and 3TB WD green drives are (just IMO) a ticking bomb for long term storage that's continuously online. At the very least, put a UPS on it (and don't plug anything else into it).


If having a library of programs is important to you, than move the programs off the TiVo to some other external storage that can be backup, today this is not a hard job with the software now available.


----------



## lpwcomp

Cap'n Preshoot said:


> Only my 2¢ worth here... A 3 TB drive, or, for that matter even a 2 TB drive, amounts to putting an awful lot of eggs in one basket. When (not if) that cheap Chinese drive gets tired spinning, or a head crashes as it will some day, you're potentially going to lose a boatload of recordings. If you treasure your recordings (why else have such a huge drive?) I think I'd look at investing in smaller, say 1 TB *external storage* drives and swap 'em out (and catalog 'em) as they fill up. Those consumer grade 2 and 3TB WD green drives are (just IMO) a ticking bomb for long term storage that's continuously online. At the very least, put a UPS on it (and don't plug anything else into it).


I have a 1TB drive in my THD and it is almost full, not with stuff that I wish to keep long term but just things I (or the other person who uses it) haven't gotten around to watching. Yes, it's fairly easy to move it to the computer but transfers are abysmally slow. This is on wired Ethernet.

Anything I want to keep long term, I transfer to computer, edit, trascode to h264 MKV and eventually move to DVD although I am thinking about switching to Blu-ray.


----------



## unitron

Cap'n Preshoot said:


> Only my 2¢ worth here... A 3 TB drive, or, for that matter even a 2 TB drive, amounts to putting an awful lot of eggs in one basket. When (not if) that cheap Chinese drive gets tired spinning, or a head crashes as it will some day, you're potentially going to lose a boatload of recordings. If you treasure your recordings (why else have such a huge drive?) I think I'd look at investing in smaller, say 1 TB *external storage* drives and swap 'em out (and catalog 'em) as they fill up. Those consumer grade 2 and 3TB WD green drives are (just IMO) a ticking bomb for long term storage that's continuously online. At the very least, put a UPS on it (and don't plug anything else into it).


I can see you're unacquainted with Time-Warner's habit of setting the anti-copy bit on every channel they can, and sometimes even the ones that they aren't supposed to.


----------



## lpwcomp

unitron said:


> I can see you're unacquainted with Time-Warner's habit of setting the anti-copy bit on every channel they can, and sometimes even the ones that they aren't supposed to.


There is that.


----------



## HoOn

Hello everyone everyone! I'm getting my Roamio Plus in two days and wanted to ask what the general consensus is here about whether to upgrade now or later when the drive is closer to full? 

Thanks


----------



## lpwcomp

HoOn said:


> Hello everyone everyone! I'm getting my Roamio Plus in two days and wanted to ask what the general consensus is here about whether to upgrade now or later when the drive is closer to full?
> 
> Thanks


Since there is currently no known way to copy & expand a Roamio drive...


----------



## Surrealone

HoOn said:


> Hello everyone everyone! I'm getting my Roamio Plus in two days and wanted to ask what the general consensus is here about whether to upgrade now or later when the drive is closer to full?
> 
> Thanks


Unless you want to walk through the setup twice I would say take it out of the box DO NOT PLUG IT IN open the case remove the drive install new drive and save yourself the time of doing it later.  It really is that simple. plug it in turn it on and ready to go TiVo!!!!!!


----------



## lpwcomp

Surrealone said:


> Unless you want to walk through the setup twice I would say take it out of the box DO NOT PLUG IT IN open the case remove the drive install new drive and save yourself the time of doing it later.  It really is that simple. plug it in turn it on and ready to go TiVo!!!!!!


'course you void the warranty when you do that.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

> Unless you want to walk through the setup twice I would say take it out of the box DO NOT PLUG IT IN open the case remove the drive install new drive and save yourself the time of doing it later.  It really is that simple. plug it in turn it on and ready to go TiVo!!!!!!


Do this. The fact that it does a full install on a blank drive all on its own is the best new feature they added.

If you need warranty service, pop in the original drive and the warranty is perfectly intact (unless you tell them you did that).

Ignore this guy.



lpwcomp said:


> 'course you void the warranty when you do that.


----------



## kucharsk

ThreeSoFar said:


> Do this. The fact that it does a full install on a blank drive all on its own is the best new feature they added.
> 
> If you need warranty service, pop in the original drive and the warranty is perfectly intact (unless you tell them you did that).
> 
> Ignore this guy.


I thought when the unit contacts TiVo they know the model and size of the drive, and since they don't sell say a 3 TB Roamio


----------



## lpwcomp

ThreeSoFar said:


> Do this. The fact that it does a full install on a blank drive all on its own is the best new feature they added.
> 
> If you need warranty service, pop in the original drive and the warranty is perfectly intact (unless you tell them you did that).
> 
> Ignore this guy.


While in the past, TiVo has _*usually*_ honored the warranty in those circumstances, there is no guaranty that they will continue to do so. The fact that you think that TiVo won't know that you swapped out the drives at some point proves that _*you*_ are the one who should be ignored.

I'm not saying don't do it, just that the OP should be aware there is at least some risk to doing so.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

kucharsk said:


> I thought when the unit contacts TiVo they know the model and size of the drive, and since they don't sell say a 3 TB Roamio


I haven't seen any evidence they would use those logs to void the warranty. Then again, never had any need for any warranty service on the 20 or more TiVos I've had and upgraded for others.

On all but a few of those I upgraded before ever plugging them in. And that's SO easy to do now with the Roamio.

Paranoia is not needed here.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

lpwcomp said:


> While in the past, TiVo has _*usually*_ honored the warranty in those circumstances, there is no guaranty that they will continue to do so. The fact that you think that TiVo won't know that you swapped out the drives at some point proves that _*you*_ are the one who should be ignored.
> 
> I'm not saying don't do it, just that the OP should be aware there is at least some risk to doing so.


I acknowledged that. I said it wasn't enough risk to avoid doing the right thing here.

Nowwhere's that ignore button on here again?


----------



## lpwcomp

ThreeSoFar said:


> I acknowledged that. I said it wasn't enough risk to avoid doing the right thing here.
> 
> Nowwhere's that ignore button on here again?


----------



## HarperVision

kucharsk said:


> I thought when the unit contacts TiVo they know the model and size of the drive, and since they don't sell say a 3 TB Roamio


Ummmmmm.......the Roamio Pro is 3TB


----------



## kucharsk

I can't get my Roamio Basic open!!

I removed the Torx screw, then I can get the back of the cover above the jacks to pop up about 1/8" and then&#8230;*nothing.

I can bend, prod, or whatever but the cover isn't moving forward, side to side or in general going anywhere.

All I can do is pop up the back edge or seat it back down, that's it.

Help!


----------



## lpwcomp

kucharsk said:


> I can't get my Roamio Basic open!!
> 
> I removed the Torx screw, then I can get the back of the cover above the jacks to pop up about 1/8" and then*nothing.
> 
> I can bend, prod, or whatever but the cover isn't moving forward, side to side or in general going anywhere.
> 
> All I can do is pop up the back edge or seat it back down, that's it.
> 
> Help!


Does this post help?


----------



## kucharsk

Finally got it open; I just had to use more force than I expected.

Thankfully the clips aren't exceptionally fragile.


----------



## ltxi

kucharsk said:


> I thought when the unit contacts TiVo they know the model and size of the drive, a*nd since they don't sell* say *a 3 TB Roamio*


....really?

Roamios were built to allow for easy drive swaps....whether for TiVo's maintenance benefit or the user's.....don't matter. As historically always, changing drives will not void the warranty.


----------



## steve614

ltxi said:


> ....really?
> 
> Roamios were built to allow for easy drive swaps....whether for TiVo's maintenance benefit or the user's.....don't matter. As historically always, changing drives will not void the warranty.


Where do you get that? Technically, just opening the box voids the warranty.
I think what you meant to say was "TiVo does not aggressively look for upgraded hard drives".

TiVo has denied warranty claims because of upgraded hard drives before. Granted, it was most likely because the user admitted they upgraded the hard drive when they contacted TiVo, but still...


----------



## nooneuknow

steve614 said:


> Where do you get that? Technically, just opening the box voids the warranty.
> I think what you meant to say was "TiVo does not aggressively look for upgraded hard drives".
> 
> TiVo has denied warranty claims because of upgraded hard drives before. Granted, it was most likely because the user admitted they upgraded the hard drive when they contacted TiVo, but still...


+1 :up:

Some people will always persist in making claims they have no way to back up.

I was denied *TECHNICAL SUPPORT* on more than one occaision, on more than one TiVo, of different models, due to a CSR Rep looking through my logs and noticing the drive had been changed.

It's not a stretch to figure they could also do the same for warranty claims (I've never had to make any directly through TiVo, as I was in the return to retail store window, in all defective TiVo instances).

TiVo has every right to do so. I still do drive upgrades anyway.

TiVo already has all the legalese in-place (has been in-place for years now) in the TOS/User Agreement/Policies, to deny both tech support, and warranty claims, if the device has been tampered with, modified, or serviced by an unauthorized party. All they'd need to do is actually enforce what every one of us agrees to when we activate our TiVos.

For the record, I'm not one of the unnamed (if they exist) people, who always get mentioned as "blabbing/bragging/telling TiVo that I did anything to mine". It seems like somebody just assumed that must have been the case, and it keeps getting added by those who say "Go ahead, upgrade, no worries, just do what you want, nothing bad can come of it if you keep the original drive around", when somebody corrects them.

What's annoying is the same person (and a few other repeat offenders) keeps saying the "no worries" line, despite being corrected by dozens of others, over and over, every chance they get to give dangerous assurances, that they can't back-up will work for everybody, all the time, in all cases/scenarios.

I'm usually the first one stating all this, as my own personal experience, and that YMMV.

People have a right to know all this. IMHO, posts claiming "no worries", without appropriate disclaimers, should be removed by the mods.

The worst of offenders don't even put "YMMV", in their posts. I'd "ignore list" them, if I didn't feel the need to shield newcomers and novices from taking such posts as a green light to void their warranty. Just because somebody gets support now, or got warranty service, yesterday, doesn't mean their warranty wasn't technically and legally void, just that TiVo did not catch it and/or enforce the terms (which TiVo can begin doing any time they want).


----------



## aaronwt

And I had warranty support denied on a launch TiVo HD in 2007. So I put the original drive back in and exchanged it for another one at Circuit City.

I have no plans to upgrade the drives in either of my Roamios yet.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> And I had warranty support denied on a launch TiVo HD in 2007. So I put the original drive back in and exchanged it for another one at Circuit City.
> 
> I have no plans to upgrade the drives in either of my Roamios yet.


If I had been able to get some of the current prices on the Pro, that I see a lot of talk about just recently, back when I bought my base-models, I'd have bought Pros (if I didn't require OTA as a fallback, should I be forced to cord-cut).

I did get one bad base-model (out of three), which had bad soldering (or some other internal defect), causing random flakiness on the near 1GHz channels. Luckily, I caught that it was the TiVo (by loosening the coax-in nipple nut and wiggle testing). It was driving me mad. I caught it with just three days to get another one, transfer lifetime service (one time only limit), and return the defective one to retail.

The rush was to get the new one in-place before the "satisfaction guarantee" ran out on the immediate lifetime service purchase. I couldn't afford to get the money credited, purchase a new plan, then wait for the credit to apply to the card (the alternate way of dealing with such an issue).

I hear (have read on here) that TiVo works with people that buy direct with such issues (if they don't catch any tampering), but I much prefer swapping out at local stores, until TiVos make the list of non-returnable items (or more restricted) return policies... That's always possible as well.


----------



## ort

Gah, 57 pages! Ain't nobody got time for that.

Can someone just give me just a quick answer to these simple questions, and when the time comes I'll dig up more specific answers... thanks...

From what I gather, replacing the hard drive on a Roamio Plus is as easy as opening it up, replacing it and booting. Is this true?

Can you use a 4GB drive?

A year or two from now, can I pull my old 1TB Hard Drive out of the Roamio, clone it to a 4GB drive and swap them? Will I be able to keep all of my old shows if I make a perfect clone, or is it more complicated than that?


----------



## tatergator1

ort said:


> Gah, 57 pages! Ain't nobody got time for that.
> 
> Can someone just give me just a quick answer to these simple questions, and when the time comes I'll dig up more specific answers... thanks...
> 
> From what I gather, replacing the hard drive on a Roamio Plus is as easy as opening it up, replacing it and booting. Is this true?


Yes.



> Can you use a 4GB drive?


No, only a drive from Weaknees will do 4TB. There are a couple of users working on a DIY 4TB process. One has successfully created a 4TB drive for a Premiere.



> A year or two from now, can I pull my old 1TB Hard Drive out of the Roamio, clone it to a 4GB drive and swap them? Will I be able to keep all of my old shows if I make a perfect clone, or is it more complicated than that?


Maybe. Perhaps in 6 months tools will be available to deal with drive cloning. Time will tell on that one.


----------



## KevinG

ort said:


> From what I gather, replacing the hard drive on a Roamio Plus is as easy as opening it up, replacing it and booting. Is this true?
> 
> Can you use a 4GB drive?
> 
> A year or two from now, can I pull my old 1TB Hard Drive out of the Roamio, clone it to a 4GB drive and swap them? Will I be able to keep all of my old shows if I make a perfect clone, or is it more complicated than that?


1) Yes, drop in replacement is all that is needed.
2) No, you can't use a 4*GB* drive (that's rather small), or even a 4TB drive. 3TB is the biggest drop-in replacement that will work.
3) Maybe in a year that will be possible, (but not to a 4*GB* drive  ) but right now it isn't possible. There are no tools that work on the drives. If nothing changes before you choose to do this, you will have to move all of the stuff that you want to keep off to a PC, drive swap, and then move the stuff back (assuming it isn't copy protected).


----------



## lpwcomp

KevinG said:


> 3) Maybe in a year that will be possible, (but not to a 4*GB* drive  ) but right now it isn't possible.


I'm not certain that it will ever be possible since even weaKnees isn't offering their "Deluxe Upgrade Service"* on a Roamio.

* Deluxe Upgrade Service
We copy your settings and programming to the new drive(s) - you lose nothing! Your capacity will simply increase!
You will receive an email with shipping instructions after your upgrade order is finalized. $79


----------



## ort

Thanks so much guys.

I have another only semi related question. It was mentioned that you can take all of the files off of a TiVo and then reload them. I used to do this years ago, but stopped because I didn't really have a need for it, beyond the "wow, that's cool" factor.

I googled around a bit and quickly got confused. A lot of info seems out of date. Can someone point to the best way to do this currently on a Mac running Mavericks?


----------



## ThAbtO

ort said:


> Thanks so much guys.
> 
> I have another only semi related question. It was mentioned that you can take all of the files off of a TiVo and then reload them. I used to do this years ago, but stopped because I didn't really have a need for it, beyond the "wow, that's cool" factor.
> 
> I googled around a bit and quickly got confused. A lot of info seems out of date. Can someone point to the best way to do this currently on a Mac running Mavericks?


PyTivo.


----------



## eboydog

So what is the best 2tb drive model to use?


----------



## KevinG

ThAbtO said:


> PyTivo.


No. kmttg.

PyTivo lets you pull videos from a server, or push them to the tivo.

He wants the reverse.... kmttg which pulls from the tivo.


----------



## ThAbtO

KevinG said:


> No. kmttg.
> 
> PyTivo lets you pull videos from a server, or push them to the tivo.
> 
> He wants the reverse.... kmttg which pulls from the tivo.


PyTivo does both directions. Pull from a PC to Tivo (from the playlist). Pull from the Tivo to PC. Push from PC to Tivo.

KMTTG is one direction only. Downloads video from Tivo. There is a Push but it uses PyTivo for that function.


----------



## KevinG

Indeed, you are correct. I just never used pyTivo for that, since I have to manually select each show. kmttg allows you to automate it.

Since the OP wants to back up everything, it still seems that kmttg would be the better choice. No?


----------



## JS2003

Just upgraded my Roamio to 3TB and I was amazed at how easy it was! Just take out the 500GB drive and pop in the new one. I wasn't trying to save any programming, so there was absolutely no drive preparation involved. I didn't even have to re-pair my Comcast cable card or reactivate it or anything. Just ran Guided Setup and it was ready to go in no time! 

I've ugraded Tivos going back to a small fleet of Series II machines, so I wasn't prepared for how simple this was.

The hardest part was getting open the case. All the instructions I've seen mentioned "sliding" open the case after removing the screw in the back. There was no sliding whatsoever going on, and it wasn't until I found a Youtube video (under "open Roamio") that I saw the lid had to be pried out. I could have tried sliding the lid forward all night and I don't think it would have budged. But with just a little prying on the sides, the lid popped of easily. If you're having trouble opening the case, trust me, just look for the video. 

I am so impressed with the evolution of Tivo hardware. This machine is by far the easiest Tivo I hsve upgraded.


----------



## russg

I've searched around and don't see anything that directly answers my question.
I have Verizon FiOS and am considering upgrading to a 3TB drive. Do you have to call anyone or re-pair the cablecard after the upgrade? Should you remove the cablecard while the system formats and prepares and then install it when it asks for it?


----------



## bareyb

JS2003 said:


> Just upgraded my Roamio to 3TB and I was amazed at how easy it was! Just take out the 500GB drive and pop in the new one. I wasn't trying to save any programming, so there was absolutely no drive preparation involved. *I didn't even have to re-pair my Comcast cable card or reactivate it or anything. *Just ran Guided Setup and it was ready to go in no time!
> 
> I've ugraded Tivos going back to a small fleet of Series II machines, so I wasn't prepared for how simple this was.
> 
> The hardest part was getting open the case. All the instructions I've seen mentioned "sliding" open the case after removing the screw in the back. There was no sliding whatsoever going on, and it wasn't until I found a Youtube video (under "open Roamio") that I saw the lid had to be pried out. I could have tried sliding the lid forward all night and I don't think it would have budged. But with just a little prying on the sides, the lid popped of easily. If you're having trouble opening the case, trust me, just look for the video.
> 
> I am so impressed with the evolution of Tivo hardware. This machine is by far the easiest Tivo I hsve upgraded.


I don't think that's true. Better check your pay channels if you have any I don't think the pairing info carries over. I wish it did, but i don't think so


----------



## Rob_W

russg said:


> I've searched around and don't see anything that directly answers my question.
> I have Verizon FiOS and am considering upgrading to a 3TB drive. Do you have to call anyone or re-pair the cablecard after the upgrade? Should you remove the cablecard while the system formats and prepares and then install it when it asks for it?


I did this recently. I had to call Verizon and re-pair after I upgraded the drive. I did not remove the cable card during the process.


----------



## atmuscarella

russg said:


> I've searched around and don't see anything that directly answers my question.
> I have Verizon FiOS and am considering upgrading to a 3TB drive. Do you have to call anyone or re-pair the cablecard after the upgrade? Should you remove the cablecard while the system formats and prepares and then install it when it asks for it?


My memory seems to be telling me that someone said you only need to pair on FiOS if you have premium channels. But I might have dreamed it who knows


----------



## lessd

atmuscarella said:


> My memory seems to be telling me that someone said you only need to pair on FiOS if you have premium channels. But I might have dreamed it who knows


This is true for Comcast at least for the first 45 days. The system used in CT Comcast using Moto cable cards have a 45 to 60 day time out, if the card does not receive any commination from the mother ship the card will shut down, a non-paired card will not receive any commination so it will shut down, a pared card left unplugged for say 60 days will also be shut down, you have to call and have a signal sent to the card to turn it back on again (not a re-pair signal), or you can leave it plug in for a few days and than it will turn on itself. YMNV


----------



## HenryFarpolo

atmuscarella said:


> My memory seems to be telling me that someone said you only need to pair on FiOS if you have premium channels. But I might have dreamed it who knows


When I upgraded I did not have to re-pair. Everything worked fine even the premiums, with the exception of HBO/Cinemax which is the same issue many of us had with the initial Roamio install. A call to Verizon resolved the issue.


----------



## russg

Thanks for all the replies, I really appreciate.


----------



## spaldingclan

I didn't have to re-pair! but I'm on antennae only


----------



## iamevan

Quick question,

What exact model hard drives do the Roamio Plus and Pro use?


----------



## A J Ricaud

Newegg has the WD AV-GP WD30EURX 3TB IntelliPower drive for $119.99 with PROMO CODE: EMCPGPF27 until 3/10/14


----------



## alyssa

what do you guys think?

i upgraded my plus a couple of months ago to a EURX. The plus has rebooted twice this past week while we were watching a recorded show from the now playing list.

i didn't run any tests on the hdd before i upgraded. I'm thinking the hdd is going bad.
i don't watch the MLB channel.


----------



## CoxInPHX

alyssa said:


> what do you guys think?
> 
> i upgraded my plus a couple of months ago to a EURX. The plus has rebooted twice this past week while we were watching a recorded show from the now playing list.
> 
> i didn't run any tests on the hdd before i upgraded but that's what i'm thinking as i don't watch the MLB channel.


There are several reporting Roamio and Premiere random reboots over the past 10 days - 2 weeks. All of mine are rebooting.

See the following: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10031426#post10031426

If you want to test the HDD run a Kickstart 54
http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-kickstart-hd-tests.php


----------



## nooneuknow

CoxInPHX said:


> There are several reporting Roamio and Premiere random reboots over the past 10 days - 2 weeks. All of mine are rebooting.
> 
> See the following: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10031426#post10031426
> 
> If you want to test the HDD run a Kickstart 54
> http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-kickstart-hd-tests.php


I just added another post over there.

However, I've been looking for somebody to (inevitably) start a new thread, in the Roamio area, so I'm not posting duplicate data points and info in Premiere areas.

The different TiVo platform crowds get angry and sharpen their pitchforks when those who are speaking of other plaflorms post in their threads (98% of the time).

Should this be the "right" place, or have you spotted an appropriate thread?

I've been rather silent, and inactive, on here, for quite some time now. This is because of my lack of problems with my Roamios (and taking all other TiVo platforms out of service, to sell). Now, once again, I'm getting angry, and us drive upgrading folks may not be able to get any help from TiVo... We may have to figure it out on our own.

A good question is: Is anybody running a stock drive having the issue we speak of? If not... Well, I just don't want to go there right now...

I can't find anything actually wrong with the drives. I'm just now finding out that KS54 SMART tests built into Roamios do not seem to be able to do anything but read SMART data, and perform 5 minute, or other quick, tests (when a drive upgrade has been performed), while the hours-long tests go on for days, with no end in sight. My Premieres and HDs were still able to perform these tests on 2TB upgrade drives. Perhaps there's a >2TB bug that nobody has found, until now, as this may be the first time multiple people may be using the built-in KS diags, on an upgraded drive?

I'm still gathering data points, and am looking forward to a unified thread on this matter, or at least a Roamio thread that can be a base-of-operations for those with Roamios. I prefer a unified front comparing notes, cross-platform.


----------



## steve614

nooneuknow said:


> I've been looking for somebody to (inevitably) start a new thread, in the Roamio area, so I'm not posting duplicate data points and info in Premiere areas.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'm still gathering data points, and am looking forward to a unified thread on this matter, or at least a Roamio thread that can be a base-of-operations for those with Roamios. I prefer a unified front comparing notes, cross-platform.


There is no one stopping you from creating such a thread. Why count on someone else? It may never get created.


----------



## nooneuknow

steve614 said:


> There is no one stopping you from creating such a thread. Why count on someone else? It may never get created.


It's pretty straightforward (IMO), in the small portion you quoted. Also, I'm trying to not start a new thread, unless absolutely necessary. Also, I'm still gathering data points.

I was looking for both opinions on whether a new thread had enough merit, as well as opinions on if the matter should be kept in parallel threads for each platform, or unified as one-thread-for-all.

Please forgive me for trying to keep the peace, act responsibly, and for actually looking for some feedback, before I just go and start another thread... 

I'm often hoping for a new (and/or better) thread on some issues/matters. That doesn't mean anybody/everybody else is.


----------



## L David Matheny

nooneuknow said:


> I'm still gathering data points, and am looking forward to a unified thread on this matter, or at least a Roamio thread that can be a base-of-operations for those with Roamios. I prefer a unified front comparing notes, cross-platform.


It sounds like the discussion you suggest would make a good thread in the TiVo Upgrade Center forum, especially if you think stock units might not suffer from the problem.


----------



## alyssa

CoxInPHX said:


> There are several reporting Roamio and Premiere random reboots over the past 10 days - 2 weeks. All of mine are rebooting.
> 
> See the following: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10031426#post10031426
> 
> If you want to test the HDD run a Kickstart 54
> http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-kickstart-hd-tests.php


running the hdd test now- but it's looking like a good drive. i'm just running the SMART test

it is super nice to know it might be a software issue and not require another $100 buck outlay! nooneuknow's posts are very informative


----------



## alyssa

sorry abt the double post

anyone know how long a smart test takes on a 3gb drive?
i may be hung at 10% of the extended test. I'm at 19mins

never mind-- 
i missed the 'test time (est)' <eyeroll>


----------



## ggieseke

FWIW here's my two cents:

I don't *think* it has anything to do with upgraded drives.

I doubt that many other TiVo owners have folded, spindled or mutilated their drives as much as I have and every one I own is rock solid except for the video glitch caused by overlapping recordings on the same channel. I have never had a spontaneous reboot or even a C133 error.

Lets make it a comprehensive thread that includes every variable including upgraded drives, TAs, CableCARD firmware, network configuration, cable provider (if any), location, and anything else we can think of. A pattern may emerge.


----------



## CoxInPHX

ggieseke said:


> FWIW here's my two cents:
> 
> I don't *think* it has anything to do with upgraded drives.


I would agree, my Roamio Pro and XL4 are the worst rebooting offenders and both have stock HDDs.


----------



## nooneuknow

It seems that the KS54 SMART tests on my base Roamios are incapable of detecting that my WD Red NAS 3TB WD30EFRX drives have completed the SMART extended and offline data gathering tests. The result is the test screen for each just running on for days, until I abort the testing. Maybe the tests complete, and the TiVo doesn't get the memo... It's hard to tell...

The drives test fine on a computer test platform, with no issues at all.

I did a KS57 and KS58, which pruned down the number of recordings in two folders to 167 each (was over 300 each). At the same time, my drive usage bar on the TiVo which was stuck at 50% while rebooting daily, jumped to 52%, without any added recordings.

Now I'll have to let it run and see if the daily reboots continue.

I also noticed KS52 is no longer valid - which makes sense, given the new nature of where the base operating system resides (on flash memory).

I'm curious if any of the prior discontinued KS number codes work again, like the one that was supposed to force a download of the current software, or if there are any new ones.

I'm not curious enough to just start trying all two number combinations and hoping I don't brick a Roamio.

Anybody feeling adventurous?

That's all I have for now. It *seems* that the issues are not with the drives. But, I'd sure like to know if anybody can replicate my issues with the KS54 SMART tests, or say they get different results.

I used the long way to the tests, by selecting the drive, and individually selecting each test, not the short way that runs all tests sequentially, on any drive(s) it can detect, FWIW.

I don't think it would make a difference, but maybe I'll try the short way and see what happens the next chance I get, after taking a few days to see if I catch any reboots occurring again.

I'm also seeing some sort of timing issue with the KS54 SMART tests, where all my prior TiVos would update the "elapsed time" exactly when the "next check in 5 minutes", polling timer hit zero, but my Roamio is updating the elapsed time almost randomly (in mid-countdown), and the elapsed time is off (like something can't keep the time or the syncing of time/drive polling).

I'm not seeing a huge amount of people pouring into anywhere to report reboots, like I was expecting, after the initial batch that made it feel like a wave of reports was due to come crashing in...


----------



## steve614

nooneuknow said:


> It's pretty straightforward (IMO), in the small portion you quoted. Also, I'm trying to not start a new thread, unless absolutely necessary. Also, I'm still gathering data points.
> 
> I was looking for both opinions on whether a new thread had enough merit, as well as opinions on if the matter should be kept in parallel threads for each platform, or unified as one-thread-for-all.
> 
> Please forgive me for trying to keep the peace, act responsibly, and for actually looking for some feedback, before I just go and start another thread...
> 
> I'm often hoping for a new (and/or better) thread on some issues/matters. That doesn't mean anybody/everybody else is.


Understood. I wasn't trying to be snarky, it's just that I noticed you mentioned starting a thread a couple times before, and my mindset is of the type that says if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.


----------



## L David Matheny

nooneuknow said:


> It seems that the KS54 SMART tests on my base Roamios are incapable of detecting that my WD Red NAS 3TB WD30EFRX drives have completed the SMART extended and offline data gathering tests. The result is the test screen for each just running on for days, until I abort the testing. Maybe the tests complete, and the TiVo doesn't get the memo... It's hard to tell...
> 
> The drives test fine on a computer test platform, with no issues at all.
> 
> I did a KS57 and KS58, which pruned down the number of recordings in two folders to 167 each (was over 300 each). At the same time, my drive usage bar on the TiVo which was stuck at 50% while rebooting daily, jumped to 52%, without any added recordings.
> 
> Now I'll have to let it run and see if the daily reboots continue.


If invoking the SMART tests from within TiVo's software fails to report completion but invoking them from a computer succeeds, that would surely indicate a bug in TiVo's software. I doubt that WD Red NAS drives are any different from any other drives with respect to SMART test protocol. I also doubt that your problems are in your drive hardware.

If the KS57 and KS58 tests are pruning down the number of recordings (and the errors they're presumably fixing can't be blamed on hardware), that would seem to indicate a serious bug in TiVo's disk storage management software (MFS?), which is scary because that's at the heart of DVR functionality. I guess it's also possible that there could be bugs in those KS routines themselves, which would actually be less worrisome.

I believe the video glitching seen with single-tuner overlap (and possibly some other problems) can be blamed on poor prioritization within TiVo's software, such that low-level tasks are performed within high-level code, causing some hardware (like tuner or demodulator chips) to not be serviced in a timely manner. I'm now wondering if such problems can also cause errors not just in video data but also in structural parts of recordings (pointers, etc) that affect the basic integrity of the file system.


----------



## DeltaOne

L David Matheny said:


> I doubt that WD Red NAS drives are any different from any other drives with respect to SMART test protocol.


Each manufacturer can implement the SMART protocol in their own way. From Wikipedia:

_"Although an industry standard exists among most major hard drive manufacturers, there are some remaining issues and much proprietary "secret knowledge" held by individual manufacturers as to their specific approach. As a result, S.M.A.R.T. is not always implemented correctly on many computer platforms, due to the absence of industry-wide software and hardware standards for S.M.A.R.T. data interchange."_

A drive that fails a SMART test should be replaced immediately, but passing a SMART test doesn't mean the drive is healthy.


----------



## alyssa

nooneuknow said:


> I can't find anything actually wrong with the drives. I'm just now finding out that KS54 SMART tests built into Roamios do not seem to be able to do anything but read SMART data, and perform 5 minute, or other quick, tests (when a drive upgrade has been performed), while the hours-long tests go on for days, with no end in sight. My Premieres and HDs were still able to perform these tests on 2TB upgrade drives. Perhaps there's a >2TB bug that nobody has found, until now, as this may be the first time multiple people may be using the built-in KS diags, on an upgraded drive?
> 
> I'm still gathering data points, and am looking forward to a unified thread on this matter, or at least a Roamio thread that can be a base-of-operations for those with Roamios. I prefer a unified front comparing notes, cross-platform.


running k54 on my roamio because i had two unexpected reboots while i was watching a recorded show.

the extended test took 8 hrs to complete, an hr longer than the estimate
the off-line scan is estimating 12hrs... 
i have a 3tb drive and had no problem with my usage bar, it was behaving as expected. Nor did i have any files with more them 300 show in it.

i do not think i will let the off line scan complete..unless someone can say why i should.


----------



## nooneuknow

alyssa said:


> running k54 on my roamio because i had two unexpected reboots while i was watching a recorded show.
> 
> the extended test took 8 hrs to complete, an hr longer than the estimate
> the off-line scan is estimating 12hrs...
> i have a 3tb drive and had no problem with my usage bar, it was behaving as expected. Nor did i have any files with more them 300 show in it.
> 
> i do not think i will let the off line scan complete..unless someone can say why i should.


The best reason I can come up with is that if you didn't test your drive and look at the SMART values before installing the drive, and/or never ran the tests in the Roamio, you have no assurance that the whole drive is good, and there isn't a bunch of drive defects just waiting for you to use that much of the drive to get to them, before problems creep (or swoop) in.

Otherwise, I can't come up with much, other than for comparisons, baselines, or "data points" to help others.

There has been a small spike in people asking about "what hard drive to buy?" and people jumping to conclusions that their hard drive has gone bad. To make make matters worse, an overly helpful forum member (pot meets kettle) is telling people, who are asking about hard drives, that their power supply may be bad (on Premieres and older units), giving out advice on power supply inspection/repair, and complicated (for some) hard drive "rescue" operations. It may all be unnecessary/overkill, if it's just rebooting caused by a software or guide-data bug.

You can always run a long test like that when it suits your usage (or lack of usage). You can also always just go in and take a peek at the SMART values, every now an then, when it's convenient for you.

At minimum, for your own purposes, I suggest taking a snap shot of the SMART value screen with a camera, and/or just write the numbers and values down, and make sure to put a date on it, label what it is, and put a copy in a safe place, should you wish to compare values later. You often can see a trend in the numbers/values, which will tell you to be cautious, before the SMART values trigger a FAIL result (which not all values will trigger equally, if at all).

Why even run those long, and time-consuming tests? Unless you pre-tested the drive, they will never be run (as the TiVo is never offline/not busy). You might catch a bad drive, or an untrustworthy drive, before it dies.

At the same time, a drive can pass all tests, then less than a day later, suffer a sudden-death-failure, with no warning, and previously perfect SMART values. That has happened to me, a few times.

As others have said:

1. If a drive fails SMART, replace immediately.

2. If a drive passes SMART, it can still fail at any time.

3. SMART implementations are not always standardized between manufacturers/OEMs.

4. It's really not this simple, but this is my best attempt at being "short and simple", and not bringing up every possible exception.

I'd love it if somebody can/could find the time to run the long/offline tests on the same model, as well as differing models, hard drive(s), and report back. But, it's not something worth the effort, if you are just doing it for somebody else, and you are going without TiVo to do so.

Which model drive did you wind up with? I think I was helping you with drive selection (in this very thread), before being on an involuntary period of being away from the forum.

I'm guessing WD30EZRX.


----------



## nooneuknow

See my post here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10038994#post10038994 for a potential fix for this.

Eliminate the note about KS52 for Roamio models (KS52 is no longer valid for any Roamio model).

I've fixed a few issues with this, and I'm counting the days until I can say "X days (or hopefully XX days) and no reboots!".

I used to have to do this process with my Premieres about every 6-8 months, and nearly forgot about it (since moving to the Roamio platform).

It seems to have fixed two things (I'll disclose the other issue at a later time), but I'm not convinced it will hold (yet).

Most people don't have 172 Season Passes, and hoard hundreds of SD repeat recordings, so I'm not a "usual TiVo case". But, I have noticed each generation of TiVo seems to give me a longer period before the way I use them catches up and requires some "maintenance/manual intervention".

The post referenced above, placed in the Premiere thread, came to be "routine maintenance" for me, when I had Premieres, and I couldn't even keep any HDs running for long unless I kept doing as I describe.

The same warnings and disclaimers apply, even though I haven't bricked a Roamio (yet) trying it on them.


----------



## nooneuknow

http://community.wd.com/t5/News-Ann...SMART-Load-Unload-Utility-1-21-14/td-p/665833

The above link may shed some light of why WD Red NAS drives may be losing communication with the host (TiVo Roamio) during the long tests which only poll the drive every 5 minutes.

Apparently WDIDLE3.EXE either doesn't work properly (reports timer disabled or set to a value), or this NEW tool wouldn't be necessary, or exist at all.

I waited quite a while before buying my Roamios and deciding on WD Red NAS drives, basing my decisions on many factors, as well as reports of them working well together, here.

However, I don't think anybody ran KS54 SMART diags on them, and I just slapped them in (after real-time PC testing), believing what I read on here that no changes were necessary with the idle timer on any WD Drives with Roamios. My bad, I guess...

*The other headline is WD has yet another color: PURPLE...*

http://community.wd.com/t5/News-Ann...-Surveillance-Storage-2-25-14/m-p/687113#M427

New Product - WD Purple Surveillance Storage (2/25/14)

While I can't imagine them being affordable for TV DVR use, I bet somebody will think this is a must have product (aaronwt, are you listening?). If TiVos actually used the ATA Streaming Command Set Extensions, and had 32 HD streams going, actually using the extensions, then maybe I'd agree.

However, as I'm always reminding people, TiVo doesn't use those extensions, and likely never will (especially if they never design another DVR, or even if they do). So, the number of "streams" supported, as listed by the drive makers, is all moot in the TiVo universe. Those are not the "streams" you are looking for (it's irrelevant). It's all just regular data streams, with regular error-correction.

If you want the best possible drive for a security/surveillance DVR (the former target market for AV and AV-GP drives), and your rig does actually support these drives (there's a compatibility list), then please dive in and let us all know how they work.

I did glean that they "are not for use in NAS environments". Since a TiVo is technically more of a NAS device than it is an AV surveillance device, that's two or three strikes (first one is price - if you can find a price).

FWIW: If TiVo ever did/does turn on AV streaming, the current generation WD Red NAS drives (2.0) support it. PWL (preemptive Wear Leveling) isn't listed as a feature on the Reds, but I think TiVo drives thrash around enough that it likely doesn't matter...

Anybody have access to the old datasheets from WD on how many TB/year their drives were rated for (TB written per year)?

I ran across some old reviews that pegged the Red NAS as being (unofficially) rated for 120 to 150 TB/year, which seems inadequate for a TiVo by my math. Perhaps the AV and AV-GP drives had that same spec, and that's why only their Re and Se enterprise class drives list specs on that...

I'd like to know if WD ever specified how many TB/year writes their AV and AV-GP drives were rated for. Don't you? Apparently 24/7 rated doesn't mean 24/7 writing rated, or they changed their mind on that. Hmmmm....


----------



## innocentfreak

CoxInPHX said:


> I would agree, my Roamio Pro and XL4 are the worst rebooting offenders and both have stock HDDs.


I agree. My Pro is rebooting once a day during primetime with a stock drive. My Premiere XLs aren't.

All of them are running on stock drives.


----------



## KevinG

innocentfreak said:


> I agree. My Pro is rebooting once a day during primetime with a stock drive.


And you are willing to accept this as normal?! I was upset when my Pro rebooted ONCE.


----------



## nooneuknow

Recent random reboot problem (multiple platforms) - TiVoMargret responds!



NotVeryWitty said:


> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10039469#post10039469


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10039469#post10039469



TiVoMargret said:


> We found an interaction between the box and the service that was causing some random reboots. We made a change to the service last night that should resolve the problem. Please make a connection to the TiVo Service.
> 
> If you experience more than one reboot after making the connection to the TiVo Service, please email me your TSN with the subject "Random Reboots". ([email protected])
> 
> I am very sorry for the trouble!
> --Margret


Great to hear!

However, if this "service interaction issue" causing the reboots caused any corruption of the databases/structures as a result of the primary cause, my advice in this post http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10038994#post10038994 may clean up any lingering issues.

If us TiVo users didn't have TiVoMargret, this issue would likely be repeatedly denied by the TiVo CS Reps, as even existing, go on for months, and we'd all be stuck doing the CSR scripted support dance, which usually includes finding any way to blame the problem on anything except TiVo (the product and/or the company).


----------



## innocentfreak

KevinG said:


> And you are willing to accept this as normal?! I was upset when my Pro rebooted ONCE.


No. I emailed Margret last night when I saw it wasn't just me experiencing it. Other users had already so a fix was already in the works as posted above and in the other thread.


----------



## KevinG

Nice! Hadn't known that Margret was involved...glad this was tracked down.


----------



## deac33

nooneuknow said:


> The best reason I can come up with is that if you didn't test your drive and look at the SMART values before installing the drive, and/or never ran the tests in the Roamio ....


Hi,
Would you tell me or point me to how to do the disk drive tests that you've suggested in the forums?

Nooneuknow has given some very helpful advice in forums and I hope he or someone can point me right.

I want to upgrade my 1TB WD10EURS AV-GP to 4 TB so I bought the WD40EURS AV on Amazon. I notice it says "AV" and not "AV-GP", don't know if that matters.

When installed the Tivo tries to boot up, flashes the screen about "Need to format the hard drive" but then goes immediately to a second screen, then reboots and recycles.

I can post this to a different or new thread if that's more appropriate; please tell me where to go. 

Thanks for the consideration,
-deac


----------



## HarperVision

The max you can put in a Roamio is 3TB, with the exception of a special proprietary process by Weaknees.


----------



## nooneuknow

deac33 said:


> Hi,
> Would you tell me or point me to how to do the disk drive tests that you've suggested in the forums?
> 
> Nooneuknow has given some very helpful advice in forums and I hope he or someone can point me right.
> 
> I want to upgrade my 1TB WD10EURS AV-GP to 4 TB so I bought the WD40EURS AV on Amazon. I notice it says "AV" and not "AV-GP", don't know if that matters.
> 
> When installed the Tivo tries to boot up, flashes the screen about "Need to format the hard drive" but then goes immediately to a second screen, then reboots and recycles.
> 
> I can post this to a different or new thread if that's more appropriate; please tell me where to go.
> 
> Thanks for the consideration,
> -deac


Thanks for the kind words. I seem to be hated by long-timers, and (lately) loved by first-time posters, long time lurkers, and new members... 

Sorry to have to point out the obvious (to long-timers) answer:

The Roamios can only format (partition) up to 3TB.

The model number of your drive reflects an "AV-GP" drive, which is designed for A/V applications that operate 24/7. I'm sure the drive says "Green" or "Green Power" somewhere on the label (the "GP" designation).

Currently, the only easy way to get 4TB on a Roamio is to buy a specially pre-prepared drive from a web-store called Weaknees, or buy a Roamio from them with that drive in it.

There are harder ways, that even I am waiting to be simplified, and pass the test of time in use. I think there are about three threads on the subject. Maybe one of those who has mastered it, can walk you through it.

Sorry for the bad news. If possible, you may want to return the drive to where you purchased it from, as "incompatible". You really can't go wrong with Green AV drives for TiVo use, and will get a year longer warranty. I'll point-out, as I always do, that TiVo doesn't use the AV-specific features of the drive. But, these days, the year longer warranty is (usually) worth the drice difference between Green and Green AV (AV-GP).

So, the usual recommendation is to get a WD30EURX, or a WD30EURS (older model that works just as well for TiVo use).


----------



## HarperVision

Is there an echo in here?


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> Is there an echo in here?


I was typing and multi-tasking, so your quick post beat my longer reply.


----------



## deac33

nooneuknow said:


> The Roamios can only format (partition) up to 3TB.


Thanks to both of you, and thanks for the extra explanation.

If I do get the 3TB device should I do the disk tests mentioned elsewhere, and if so where can I find a description of how to do them? I'm pretty computer competent but Tivo newby.

thanks very much, you are a champ,
-deac


----------



## nooneuknow

deac33 said:


> Thanks to both of you, and thanks for the extra explanation.
> 
> If I do get the 3TB device should I do the disk tests mentioned elsewhere, and if so where can I find a description of how to do them? I'm pretty computer competent but Tivo newby.
> 
> thanks very much, you are a champ,
> -deac


If you have a computer with a spare SATA port and SATA power connector, some use the software from the drive manufacturer's website, like "WinDlg" (Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows) for WD.

The In-TiVo tests can't do as much testing, and are better described in some of the other threads.

You want to write zeroes (whole drive), then run extended (read whole drive) tests, to be sure the drive has no current defects.

You can also just put it in and pull it to run the read-tests, later, if you have problems. The in-TiVo testing is limited, and takes forever.

Your best bet, if pre-testing, is to use the support section for the drive maker you use, on their website. If you still have questions, you can ask here.


----------



## neo_ny

nooneuknow said:


> If you have a computer with a spare SATA port and SATA power connector, some use the software from the drive manufacturer's website, like "WinDlg" (Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows) for WD.
> 
> The In-TiVo tests can't do as much testing, and are better described in some of the other threads.
> 
> You want to write zeroes (whole drive), then run extended (read whole drive) tests, to be sure the drive has no current defects.
> 
> You can also just put it in and pull it to run the read-tests, later, if you have problems. The in-TiVo testing is limited, and takes forever.
> 
> Your best bet, if pre-testing, is to use the support section for the drive maker you use, on their website. If you still have questions, you can ask here.


I am not allowed to send PM's yet .. can you PM me and let me know how much you are selling the 2TB hard drives for? Thanks!


----------



## truman861

So im trying to understand, is the TiVo software stored on the hard drive? For example, if my current software version works fine but I know theres a new update coming, can I create a new hard drive on a backup drive and if something happened to the software version that I don't end up liking, could I swap back over to the other hard drive and have the previous version even though I would loose my saved shows ?


----------



## ggieseke

truman861 said:


> So im trying to understand, is the TiVo software stored on the hard drive? For example, if my current software version works fine but I know theres a new update coming, can I create a new hard drive on a backup drive and if something happened to the software version that I don't end up liking, could I swap back over to the other hard drive and have the previous version even though I would loose my saved shows ?


On Roamios the software is stored in flash memory, not on the hard drive.


----------



## sksjedi

Hello, is there a Roamio HD upgrade FAQ for Dummies someplace?
I have a 4 tuner Roamio that I want to set up for OTA, and want to expand the hard drive capacity. 
The instructions on page 1 seem pretty clear, what confuses me is what kind of HD to purchase? I have tried to read as many of the 58 pages as possible, but keep getting confused.

I'm looking for a 2TB drive, and keep seeing deals pop up, but don't know which drive to get WD RED/BLUE/BLACK/GREEN? etc..
Seagates?

Thanks


----------



## A J Ricaud

sksjedi said:


> I'm looking for a 2TB drive, and keep seeing deals pop up, but don't know which drive to get WD RED/BLUE/BLACK/GREEN? etc..
> Seagates?
> Thanks


Most people seem to prefer the Western Digital 2/3 TB Green AV/GP drives. The plain "green" drives are OK, too, just not specifically designed for DVRs. Some also like the Western Digital "red" drives, which have a longer warranty and are designed for 24/7 server (NAS) applications. I haven't seem many using Seagate drives.


----------



## DeltaOne

sksjedi said:


> The instructions on page 1 seem pretty clear, what confuses me is what kind of HD to purchase?


Don't over-think the issue. The cheapest drive will work fine.


----------



## ggieseke

Forget black altogether, and possibly blue. The blacks run WAY too hot. I have blues in two of my Series 2s and they're fine, but the RPMs are more than you need and the temps are borderline.

Seagate drives have been getting mixed reviews, but I'm not sure why. I have 5 ST2000DM001 and 6 ST4000DM000 drives and they have all been rock solid. The RPMs, overall performance, acoustics, and even the number of sectors are the same as the equivalent green/red WD drives.

TiVos (even a Roamio Pro) run at 1.5Gbps, so just look for a 5400-5900 RPM drive that runs cool and quiet. I have bought WD reds from vendor X one day, greens from vendor Y the next, and Seagates the day after that. Look for warranty, price and shipping costs.


----------



## CoxInPHX

sksjedi said:


> I'm looking for a 2TB drive, and keep seeing deals pop up, but don't know which drive to get WD RED/BLUE/BLACK/GREEN? etc..
> Seagates?
> 
> Thanks





A J Ricaud said:


> Most people seem to prefer the Western Digital 2/3 TB Green AV/GP drives. The plain "green" drives are OK, too, just not specifically designed for DVRs. Some also like the Western Digital "red" drives, which have a longer warranty and are designed for 24/7 server (NAS) applications. I haven't seem many using Seagate drives.





DeltaOne said:


> Don't over-think the issue. The cheapest drive will work fine.


I'd stick with what TiVo installs OEM:

Western Digital 2 TB WD AV-GP - WD20EURX

Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP - WD30EURS
or
Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP - WD30EURX


----------



## HarperVision

CoxInPHX said:


> I'd stick with what TiVo installs OEM: Western Digital 2 TB WD AV-GP - WD20EURX Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP - WD30EURS or Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP - WD30EURX


I pulled a Seagate 500GB out of my basic a month or so ago, so apparently they use those as well.


----------



## keenanSR

HarperVision said:


> I pulled a Seagate 500GB out of my basic a month or so ago, so apparently they use those as well.


Mine was a Seagate equipped Basic as well. It was a half-height(quarter height?) drive, the WD I replaced it with was the standard size drive we're all familiar with.


----------



## DeltaOne

keenanSR said:


> Mine was a Seagate equipped Basic as well. It was a half-height(quarter height?) drive, the WD I replaced it with was the standard size drive we're all familiar with.


Your Basic had a 2.5-inch laptop drive?


----------



## CoxInPHX

DeltaOne said:


> Your Basic had a 2.5-inch laptop drive?


It isn't a 2.5-inch laptop drive, it is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148539

I have only seen reports of TiVo using a Seagate drive on a 500GB model base Roamio, and I believe the 500GB Premiere.

It seems TiVo uses either a WD AV-GP or a Seagate on the 500GB models only.


----------



## slowbiscuit

CoxInPHX said:


> I'd stick with what TiVo installs OEM:
> 
> Western Digital 2 TB WD AV-GP - WD20EURX
> 
> Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP - WD30EURS
> or
> Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP - WD30EURX


And also the 2TB WD20EURS, which was installed stock on the Premiere XL4/Elite. The only difference between the EURS and the EURX is the SATA spec (3 gb/s vs. 6 gb/s), which is irrelevant for these Tivos so go for whichever one is cheaper.

And as mentioned the Seagate Pipeline series of AV drives (now called Seagate Video), either the 2TB ST2000VM003 or the 3TB ST3000VM002, but I'd stick with the WDs if you go above 2TB since they draw 4.5W vs. 7.5W on the 3TB Seagates.


----------



## CoxInPHX

slowbiscuit said:


> And also the 2TB WD20EURS, which was installed stock on the Premiere XL4/Elite. The only difference between the EURS and the EURX is the SATA spec (3 gb/s vs. 6 gb/s), which is irrelevant for these Tivos so go for whichever one is cheaper.


The WD 2TB WD20EURS is discontinued and you need to be careful who you purchase one from, most I have seen online now, and I even purchased one, that was a Recertified HDD, even though the seller said it was new.


----------



## keenanSR

CoxInPHX said:


> It isn't a 2.5-inch laptop drive, it is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148539
> 
> I have only seen reports of TiVo using a Seagate drive on a 500GB model base Roamio, and I believe the 500GB Premiere.
> 
> It seems TiVo uses either a WD AV-GP or a Seagate on the 500GB models only.


That's it.


----------



## A J Ricaud

until 5/15 with PROMO CODE: EMCPEWA28


----------



## nooneuknow

A J Ricaud said:


> until 5/15 with PROMO CODE: EMCPEWA28


For $5-$10 more, you can buy the actual EURX, when it goes on their rotating sale price, and get 1 year longer warranty (3yrs, instead of 2yrs).

The EURS/EURX drives are AV-GP, the EZRX are just GP.

The only part that most care about, aside from the price, is getting a longer warranty, while some stick with the product lines TiVo uses.

Non-Roamio users will need to disable/change the Intellipark ide-timer, using a PC, and direct connection to a SATA port, using the WDIDLE3.EXE utility, if using the Non-AV drives.

It's always appreciated when people give NewEgg sales heads-ups. :up:

I just wanted people to know the essential differences.


----------



## A J Ricaud

nooneuknow said:


> I just wanted people to know the essential differences.


Good point.


----------



## 1283

nooneuknow said:


> Non-Roamio users will need to disable/change the Intellipark ide-timer, using a PC, and direct connection to a SATA port, using the WDIDLE3.EXE utility, if using the Non-AV drives.


Roamio sends a command to disable it?


----------



## steve614

c3 said:


> Roamio sends a command to disable it?


No. This is something a user has to do to prepare a hard drive with intellipark features enabled -- *before* it goes in the Tivo.


----------



## KevinG

steve614 said:


> No. This is something a user has to do to prepare a hard drive with intellipark features enabled -- *before* it goes in the Tivo.


He's asking why this *doesn't* need to be done on a Roamio.


----------



## lessd

KevinG said:


> He's asking why this *doesn't* need to be done on a Roamio.


Does it have to be done on the Roamio as the boot time is much faster?, I have just disable it out of habit not because I have any evidence that it should be done.


----------



## lpwcomp

I would think it probable that the Roamio doesn't need to access the disk until the driver is loaded and that the initial commands sent to the disk implicitly un-park the heads.


----------



## ggieseke

I'm pretty sure it reads Block0 and the partition table from the disk before booting the rest of the OS from flash memory.


----------



## nooneuknow

There have been numerous people who have upgraded using non-AV drives, on Roamios, reporting back that they left the Intellipark (Idle-Timer) setting at the factory default, and experienced no Intellipark warm-boot/reboot hangs.

I've verified it myself with my base-Roamios.

Even back in the products/models before the Roamio, there was some sort of hard drive firmware check at boot time, and it was supposed to change the setting, if detected to be set whatever way the criteria was, and to leave it alone, otherwise.

I don't know if the Intellipark (Idle-Timer) setting is this setting, or if it some other firmware value. One can only be sure of part of what the TiVo logs report (unless you work in the right dept at TiVo).

It could be that the earlier (pre-Roamio) models were attempting to verify/modify this setting on the fly. There were periods of time when WD was setting the timer to differing values, or shipping it disabled, even on the actual AV-GP series drives.

At this time, it's like this: OEM AV-GP drives have it factory-disabled, while all other drives supporting the feature (that I'm aware of) have it enabled, and set to a very short length (like 8 seconds).

The WD Red NAS drives, which are also AV "rated" and marketed as 24/7 drives, have their own specialized version of it, and have a different tool/utility that can be used to change it. The standard tool will report and act like it is doing the job, but I'm not certain it does. There may be a secondary APM (Advanced Power Management) subset, that also can sense idle time and do the same thing as Intellipark.

It could just be that the Roamio never leaves the drive "idle" long enough to let the timer time-out, due to a speedier boot, or a change made in the booting processes.

Anybody claiming that the WDIDLE3.EXE Intellipark (Idle-Timer) utility must be used on all TiVos (including Roamios), has either made an assumption, or has experienced something counter to the many reports on TCF, about the Roamios.

I'm in the camp of: I'd rather just disable (or set the time-out to the max of 300 seconds), than ever have to worry that not changing the setting will come back and haunt me down the road.

Some people don't have the luxury of having a PC they can crack open and connect the drive to a SATA port, as required, to change the setting. Some are scared to do it, and/or have no idea what they are doing.

These people can choose to buy an AV-GP (or other brand equivalent) drive, to not have to deal with the matter.

It should be noted that WD can change what their default setting is, or their practice of which drives ship with it disabled. It's a parallel situation to how, so far, the Roamio doesn't seem to be affected by the setting. TiVo could accidentally bring the problem back, with a future software update, and drives with the setting left as-is, may start hanging on software/warm reboots.


----------



## yukit

So I just put in a brand new EZRX drive in a Roamio basic out of the box.
No WDIDLE3. Worked perfectly soft & hard reboot.

I am going through the painful copying programs from an old Tivo HD. I wish there is a much better way than copying to a PC or transfer one by one through the Tivo interface. 

This gets old. I complain about this each time I get a new Tivo.


----------



## nooneuknow

yukit said:


> So I just put in a brand new EZRX drive in a Roamio basic out of the box.
> No WDIDLE3. Worked perfectly soft & hard reboot.
> 
> I am going through the painful copying programs from an old Tivo HD. I wish there is a much better way than copying to a PC or transfer one by one through the Tivo interface.
> 
> This gets old. I complain about this each time I get a new Tivo.


The EZRX is not an AV drive, proving that Intellipark doesn't need to be disabled on the Roamio (using the wdidle3.exe tool), regardless of that this would have been a requirement on any model pre-Roamio.

From another thread, here's a direct link, and a copy of my post, which I hope helps you out:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10110611#post10110611

Two steps to speed up transfers on TiVos pre-dating the Roamio:

1. Tuner Parking: Tune all the tuners to completely *non-existent* channels (*don't* use ones that exist, but you just don't have access to, like premiums).

*Edit/Add:* You can also just disconnect your Coax-in, to the TiVos, and get the same (if not better) effect. IIRC, the results are improved more this way, even more so if the CableCard is also removed.

2. Put the older TiVo(s) into standby mode while the content is being transferred off.

KMTTG has an option built-in to automatically park the tuners during transfers initiated by KMTTG. It can also park them manually by using the "test" button on each TiVo you want parked. It's limited to parking two tuner, though, either way that you set/use it in KMTTG.

The way this works is by stopping Live TV buffering (the tuner parking), and by shutting down all A/V outputs (standby), giving the shared resources of the central processor more to allocate to the networking processes and the transfer-related re-encoding processes.

On a TiVoHD, the difference is night and day. On a Premiere, it still helps, but sometimes may only add an extra 10Mbit/sec to the speed, as opposed to sometimes doubling the transfer speed of a TiVoHD.

Summary: Nothing to lose, and great potential on what can be gained, by doing these two things.

Note: If you don't need the old TiVo(s) to continue recording anything (during the transfers), and still have Season Passes, ARWL Wishlists, or any manual recordings scheduled, you should eliminate them from the ToDo list, to keep the tuners parked.

KMTTG also can back up your Season Passes, and allows you to restore them to any TiVo, in the order they are in. TiVo's online manager for this will often randomly re-organize the SP ordering, and will often drop SPs that don't have any episodes currently in the current guide data. So, I recommend KMTTG, and avoiding the TiVo website-based method (which also tends to corrupt your SPs).


----------



## CoxInPHX

WD AV-GP WD30EURX 3TB - $114.99

Newegg Shell Shocker Deal - Starts At 3:00PM (PDT)
http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-14-487-027-_-05212014_1


----------



## Sportsnut

CoxInPHX said:


> WD AV-GP WD30EURX 3TB - $114.99
> 
> Newegg Shell Shocker Deal - Starts At 3:00PM (PDT)
> http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-14-487-027-_-05212014_1


Thanks for the info, I've been looking to upgrade but prefer to buy from Amazon and have them pricematch this if possible. The link shows the current deal and I can see this is coming at 3 but how did you find the price for this deal?

Do you know how long the shell shocker deals last? If this starts at 6PM Eastern time I'll be coaching my son's baseball game then so I may miss the deal.


----------



## A J Ricaud

Sportsnut said:


> Thanks for the info, I've been looking to upgrade but prefer to buy from Amazon and have them pricematch this if possible. The link shows the current deal and I can see this is coming at 3 but how did you find the price for this deal?
> 
> Do you know how long the shell shocker deals last? If this starts at 6PM Eastern time I'll be coaching my son's baseball game then so I may miss the deal.


It expires at 5:59 PM PT. If I remember right, you are asked to opt in to their "Shell Shocker Deal Previews" and daily sales after you buy something from them. I imagine you can go on their website and sign up, too.


----------



## Sportsnut

A J Ricaud said:


> It expires at 5:59 PM PT. If I remember right, you are asked to opt in to their "Shell Shocker Deal Previews" and daily sales after you buy something from them. I imagine you can go on their website and sign up, too.


Thanks, that should be enough time to order. I get their daily e-blast deal emails and have bought from them in the past but don't remember seeing that option, though I haven't bought anything from them in a while.


----------



## nooneuknow

CoxInPHX said:


> WD AV-GP WD30EURX 3TB - $114.99
> 
> Newegg Shell Shocker Deal - Starts At 3:00PM (PDT)
> http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-14-487-027-_-05212014_1


You beat me to sharing the deal. I ordered the max of three. Hopefully some others got to snap some of these up. I just barely got my order placed in time.

I'm going back to AV-GP, partly because of this deal, and partly due to a recent issue that is described over here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517733

It's likely not related to me using WD Red NAS drives. But, I would rather just go back to AV-GP (I hope cloning with DD Rescue will let me change drives without losing everything, since I'm not changing the capacity). TiVo's SMART tests don't play well with my Red NAS, and I have a use for the Red NAS drives, once I can (hopefully) get them re-acquired giving me a total of 5x3TB for a NAS & RAID project.

From the thread, regarding my issues with one base-Roamio, out of three:



ggieseke said:


> A while back a bunch of lifetime customers got the same message about TiVo Plus service. That message only relates to series 2 units with a DVD that came with free "Basic" service (3 days guide, no TTG).
> 
> TiVo was cleaning up their database on those old units and effed up. In most cases a reboot fixed it but the To Do List took a day or two to rebuild properly. Your TDL should fix itself now that the account status is correct. If not, I would perform a Clear Program Info and To Do List to force it to rebuild the guide data from scratch.


I had to try KS57&58, Clear the Program Info & to Do list, repeat KS57&58 (also did a KS54 SMART value check and short test), disconnect the cable coax to the TiVo, disconnect the USB cable to the TA, disconnect the network cable, permanently delete everything in the deleted items folder, delete all my ARWLs, delete any programs related to the ARWLs, then do another clearing (all things possible short of a full C&DE, and nuking all my recordings), hook up the network cable during the second clearing, hook up the coax, power on the TA, wait 5 minutes, connect the USB cable to the TA, then go to sleep, to find all is well the following morning. To keep things accurate, that morning was just a couple hours ago, after staying awake very long trying so many things.

This is the short version of describing it, as was my first post to the OP.

All seems well again, so far.

Just like you seem to be thinking, I was also thinking corrupted guide data and/or databases, etc. It all started off with reboots around the times it would be downloading and installing things during scheduled TiVo service connections.

I just ordered three WD30EURX drives from NewEgg, allowing me to put AV-GP drives in my Roamios, and giving me back the WD Red NAS drives I have been using, to use for computer applications (win-win, since the 3Tb AV-GPs were a NewEgg shellshocker today).

I found it interesting that NewEgg is now designating the AV-GP drives as older models, and the "newer version" link brings you to the WD Purple equivalent.

Any thoughts on the WD Purple, or if NewEgg is right about them being the new models to phase-out the AV-GP EURX drives, like how the EURS was considered the old version, and the EURX the new version?

I know that EURS drives work more than fast enough for all current, and past, TiVo models, making the EURX just a (well we pretty much know what it is).

I don't think the Purple will be bringing anything truly new to the table, unless TiVo starts using the true ATA-streaming features command set. I doubt they ever will, making the Purple just more expensive, and not making the TiVo experience any better.

I did take note that the Purple can have the TLER and other parameters tweaked. Any thoughts on that?

I don't want to hijack this thread, so I'll probably start a WD Purple thread. Feel free to PM me if you also don't wish to threadjack.


----------



## nooneuknow

$119.99 Total cost (See * note at bottom for important info, on my experience, when using these in a TiVo).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...014-Index-_-InternalHardDrives-_-22236344-L0C

Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Extra savings w/ promo code EMCPEHW23, ends 5/26
3 out of 5 eggs (492) | Write a Review
In stock. Limit 5 per customer.

Expanded NAS solutions
Next generation experience-for home or small office network attached storage systems
Premium dedicated 24/7 support line
3 year limited warranty

* These are what I'm currently using. The only issue I can attribute to using these drives, for TiVo use, is that the only base Roamio built-in KS54 SMART tests that will work/complete (for me, on three base Roamios) are reading the values, quick test (2 minute), and conveyance test (5 minutes). The longer tests will go on running for days, without ever indicating completion. If attached to a PC, all the tests will work and verify completion.


----------



## Sportsnut

A J Ricaud said:


> It expires at 5:59 PM PT. If I remember right, you are asked to opt in to their "Shell Shocker Deal Previews" and daily sales after you buy something from them. I imagine you can go on their website and sign up, too.


I almost forgot about the deal but was still able to order well after 10 ET. I think the deal was good for the rest of the day since there was no expiration time when I ordered, it just said Today. The price is back up to 135 but I'm sure it will be on sale again for anybody that missed out. That's the lowest price I've seen yet for the 3TB. I tried to get Amazon to pricematch but had no luck there, but it's cheaper there now.


----------



## Sportsnut

CoxInPHX said:


> WD AV-GP WD30EURX 3TB - $114.99
> 
> Newegg Shell Shocker Deal - Starts At 3:00PM (PDT)
> http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-14-487-027-_-05212014_1


Thanks for posting. I Installed it this week and it's working great. It was as easy as others have said, just took a little bit of work to get the cover off after taking out the screw.


----------



## mrsean

Has no one gotten their hands on a Weaknees 4TB drive and reverse engineered whatever they did to it to make it work in the Roamio yet?


----------



## telemark

I built a 4TB image from scratch, not based on WK.

Now in testing phase, the latest news is: 
the alignment might get shifted,
whether it can be supersized is under debate,
I'm reducing the size of the installer, assuming it checks out

There's a couple threads in the Upgrade Center:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=516898
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860

And we're going need some additional testers soon.


----------



## lessd

mrsean said:


> Has no one gotten their hands on a Weaknees 4TB drive and reverse engineered whatever they did to it to make it work in the Roamio yet?


Somebody was trying to sell his reverse engineered WK 4Tb drive information for $20, people on this Forum though that to be immoral to sell somebody's else's work.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> Somebody was trying to sell his reverse engineered WK 4Tb drive information for $20, people on this Forum though that to be immoral to sell somebody's else's work.


IIRC, that person just DD-style cloned to an image file and compressed it. That's not "reverse engineering", IMHO.

They seemed to think that if they only sold enough copies to get their money back, it was A-OK. Then, they threatened to just go on ebay/craigslist, when the forum members with morals disapproved.

It was so nice how quickly and cleanly that thread died.

Here's to hoping it doesn't become reborn within this thread...


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> IIRC, that person just DD-style cloned to an image file and compressed it. That's not "reverse engineering", IMHO.
> 
> They seemed to think that if they only sold enough copies to get their money back, it was A-OK. Then, they threatened to just go on ebay/craigslist, when the forum members with morals disapproved.
> 
> It was so nice how quickly and cleanly that thread died.
> 
> Here's to hoping it doesn't become reborn within this thread...


Is their a moral difference between "reverse engineering" and a "DVD copy (ISO file)" both that can be used by anybody to make up a Roamio 4Tb drive from the work that WK did ??


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> Is their a moral difference between "reverse engineering" and a "DVD copy (ISO file)" both that can be used by anybody to make up a Roamio 4Tb drive from the work that WK did ??


As far as I am concerned, and how I see things: No.

I wasn't trying to defend the person, or draw lines. I believe they considered what they were doing to be "reverse engineering", while I didn't see it that way.

It's a gray-area, when it comes to these things. The 3rd-party drives are sold without the buyer agreeing to any TOS/EULA, nor is there any notice enclosed saying "reverse engineering, cloning, or resale is prohibited". I also don't see anything stating that a prepped drive must be purchased for each and every TiVo the buyer owns. I'm not saying this makes it right, or moral, to do such things. It's just some observations I'm sharing.

I have suspicions that TiVo legal may have made the no TOS/EULA part of an agreement (if one exists), for those who ask permission to sell upgrades. Technically, and realistically, WK makes their images by reverse-engineering what TiVo made to begin with.

TiVo's software is built on open-source software/code, which they have made proprietary. There's a term for it: Tivoization. There's a wikipedia page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization

If somebody asked me how to clone a prepped drive, for another TiVo they owned (or just to retain a virgin image), I'd likely advise them how to do it, and recommend against doing it for anything more than their own personal use. Some may find this immoral, and see it as cheating WK, and/or stealing/theft. In this day/age, where almost everything has warnings about what you are not allowed to do with it, I find it interesting, the absence of that with 3rd-party images/drives.

I really don't want this subject matter to get another run. It always goes the same way. There's polar-opposite opinions, bickering, pitchforks & torches, and it always ends without a consensus, and the opposites go back to their corners.

I probably just raised another batch of questions people can ask, and try to paint me in a certain light with. I think I've said enough. I don't want to dig my own grave, or spend a week defending my moral stances.

Realistically, technically, and legally, I think it's possible that TiVo holds more rights to what is on any prepped drive, than the 3rd-parties selling them.


----------



## telemark

> Is their a moral difference between "reverse engineering" and a "DVD copy (ISO file)" both that can be used by anybody to make up a Roamio 4Tb drive from the work that WK did ??

There is a significant legal difference.

Reverse engineering is a legally defined and approved method to develop a compatible work, without copying the original product. Doing it properly sidesteps copyright protection and trade secret protection.

Copying the work is a violation of the rights of the copyright owner. Respecting this right is imperative, otherwise there's no reason to expend the effort in the reverse engineering. This translates to Reverse Engineering honors copyright, but Copying violates it.

Those really interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design

To fully analyze the morality of this, you would have to include governmental policy against monopolistic restrictions against competitors creating compatible products in a capitalistic economy.

(ala, AT&T telephones, IBM PC-compatibles, printer cartridges, universal garage door openers, 3rd party video games, and an absurd amount of auto-parts)

> Realistically, technically, and legally, I think it's possible that TiVo holds more rights to what is on any prepped drive, than the 3rd-parties selling them.

That can be true, depending on what's on the image and how it was made. There's different type of images and different methods even if they end up bit identical.

> I have suspicions that TiVo legal may have made the no TOS/EULA part of an agreement (if one exists), for those who ask permission to sell upgrades.

I leaned the opposite way. If WK had a redistribution license from Tivo itself, it would have come with notice requirements. The fact that WK does not spell out it's legal standing or process, implies it's just as gray as any other vendor.


----------



## lessd

telemark said:


> > Is their a moral difference between "reverse engineering" and a "DVD copy (ISO file)" both that can be used by anybody to make up a Roamio 4Tb drive from the work that WK did ??
> 
> There is a significant legal difference.
> 
> Reverse engineering is a legally defined and approved method to develop a compatible work, without copying the original product. Doing it properly sidesteps copyright protection and trade secret protection.
> 
> Copying the work is a violation of the rights of the copyright owner. Respecting this right is important, otherwise there's no reason to spend effort in the reverse engineering.


If reverse engineering is used, as you said above,* to develop a compatible work, without copying the original product* I am in full agreement with you, but if reverse engineering is used to produce a computer program that makes up a TiVo drive, no different than the original, the issue is not so clear, at least to me. I don't think there can be any copyright issue with putting a blank 3Tb or smaller drive into a Roamio and having the Roamio format that drive, as that would be a TiVo made drive copy.


----------



## rgr

WD30PURX?

Went to Newegg looking for the WD30EURX and the WD30PURX showed up as "click here to find newer model"

Anybody know anything about these Purple drives? Compatibility, power consumption, etc?


----------



## lpwcomp

rgr said:


> WD30PURX?
> 
> Went to Newegg looking for the WD30EURX and the WD30PURX showed up as "click here to find newer model"
> 
> Anybody know anything about these Purple drives? Compatibility, power consumption, etc?


It's more expensive.


----------



## nooneuknow

rgr said:


> WD30PURX?
> 
> Went to Newegg looking for the WD30EURX and the WD30PURX showed up as "click here to find newer model"
> 
> Anybody know anything about these Purple drives? Compatibility, power consumption, etc?


I saw that as well, and reported it in at least two threads. Nobody made a comment.

They are the WD Purple line. It's basically a cross-breeding of WD AV-GP with WD Red NAS, with more settings that can be tweaked, like TLER.

All the links you need to know all that I know can be found by spending some time skimming through the NewEgg pages for it.

When I first spotted the EURX as "old model" and PURX as "newer model', I spent a few days researching. The Purple seems to be a bad idea for TiVo, going by WD's own data sheets and marketing. PURX drives are meant for AV-processing raid arrays. Using a single drive was not recommended, leading me to wonder if the AV-GP is really going to go EOL.

Both the AV-GP and the Red NAS are video capable dives, while the AV-GP is more tuned for single-drive AV, and the Red NAS is more tuned for NAS, using one drive, or an array of drives.

Given the way the Red NAS couldn't be firmware updated to the NASware 2.0, if they were too old, I'd steer clear of purple, just in case they find it needs a 2.0 firmware, that might only be available on v2.0.

Customer satisfaction with the Red NAS v1 drives was not very good, but went to awesome with v2.


----------



## sksjedi

What about this for the Basic OTA Roamio?

Seagate NAS HDD ST3000VN000 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive It's $104 from newegg right now, and is designed for NAS.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16822178392&cm_sp=

I am having trouble finding a deal on WD Reds, from my understanding, the base Roamio can't handle more than 3 TB.


----------



## lessd

sksjedi said:


> I am having trouble finding a deal on WD Reds, from my understanding, the base Roamio can't handle more than 3 TB.


For DIY people that true now, but WK does have a 4Tb solution, and others are working on a DIY solution for Roamio 4Tb drives, for sometime in the future. See http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=516898


----------



## DB_0673

When I upgraded my tivoHD 5 years ago, I did not have to do anything about re-pairing the cable card. I just followed the procedure and installed the new larger hd and it worked
Now with the Romio, if it has been running for a month with the stock HD and I upgrade to a larger 2TB HD, will I have a cable card issue or when it reboots and whatever else happens, will it work. I read 25 pages on this forum so far, and not sure of this question.

Thanks in advance
Dan


----------



## jmbach

When you updated the TiVo HD, you probably copied the drive to a new larger drive and expanded it. This preserved the cableCARD pairing. We currently do not have that option for the Roamio so you will lose the pairing information. This is true for the Motorola M-Cards. Not sure about Scientific Atlantic cards.


----------



## austinsho

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone here in this monster thread for the info about upgrading. I'm just about to leave DirecTV and my last TiVo was a Series 2, the HR20-250. Now, it looks like I'm going to Time Warner we all know what THEIR boxes are like. So getting back into TiVo and upgrading the drive is Job 1.

I've read through most of the thread today, but must have missed the issue with pairing. Are we saying that after upgrading, to get the premium channels we need to call the cable company and ask them to repair the card with our boxes? Sorry, but I missed this somewhere.

It's been literally years since I've posted here. It's good to be back.


----------



## lessd

jmbach said:


> When you updated the TiVo HD, you probably copied the drive to a new larger drive and expanded it. This preserved the cableCARD pairing. We currently do not have that option for the Roamio so you will lose the pairing information. This is true for the Motorola M-Cards. Not sure about Scientific Atlantic cards.


I'm on Comcast (Moto cable card) system and set up my first Roamio Plus with the original drive and paired the cable card to make sure all worked, after about a week of working as a test I upgraded the Roamio to 3Tb and expected to have to re-pair the cable card, but the V val was not a ? and all the HBO etc ch came in, so the pairing info may be in the flash part of the Roamio Plus OS, this was just my experience.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmbach said:


> When you updated the TiVo HD, you probably copied the drive to a new larger drive and expanded it. This preserved the cableCARD pairing. We currently do not have that option for the Roamio so you will lose the pairing information. This is true for the Motorola M-Cards. Not sure about Scientific Atlantic cards.


I can confirm the same for SA/Cisco cablecards.

I've confirmed it at least six times, since trying different drives in my base Roamios.

Some relevant data on pre-Roamio models of TiVo:
Even with a sector-by-sector clone of a TiVo HD drive, or a Premiere drive, I had to re-pair, after placing the clone in (even if it was the same model and size drive) *after the cablecards had been flashed to a newer firmware, than the days when I didn't have to re-pair* (about two cc firmware updates back).

I've been chastised, in the past, for suggesting that one of the cablecard firmware revisions started verifying the drive was the same. Some have said it's impossible for the card to know, or there's no way for it to get that data.

Even if a direct mechanism doesn't exist for the cablecard to tell the drive's serial number has changed, I'm convinced something is allowing it to know (perhaps some mechanism within the TiVo itself, which may have been something TiVo was required to have in place).

Edit/Add: It's entirely possible that some cable markets still don't employ whatever technique (I suspect) is being used to detect the drive's serial number has changed, and killing the pairing authorization. I'm in a market that makes little use of the CCI-bit protection, but may be making up for that by insuring the pairing data only works with the drive and card in-place during pairing.

I've also noticed that the few CCI-bit protected recordings I wind up with, become unable to play back if the card is removed, or another is put in its place (paired or not paired). The TiVo error will say that no signal was available, even though I'd previously watched the content before.

I've read posts of people inquiring about filling up one drive, then placing in another, and wanting to know if the first drive will still operate and play the content. I suspect the reasons why anybody would want to do this (besides keeping a "porn drive"), would be the same reasons that (some) cable operators (or markets) don't want pairing data to survive a drive swap.

I've asked a few of the people I look up to, as experts, if they could just isolate exactly where the pairing data is, and back up just that data, and make a way to restore just that data. So far, nobody seems to have seen the value of it, just doesn't understand why I'd want that, or just doesn't want to take the time and make the effort to try.

Maybe that will change soon. Even if it doesn't prove useful, it might at least prove some systems are actively nuking cloned pairing authentications.


----------



## jmbach

lessd said:


> I'm on Comcast (Moto cable card) system and set up my first Roamio Plus with the original drive and paired the cable card to make sure all worked, after about a week of working as a test I upgraded the Roamio to 3Tb and expected to have to re-pair the cable card, but the V val was not a ? and all the HBO etc ch came in, so the pairing info may be in the flash part of the Roamio Plus OS, this was just my experience.


Curious. I am on Charter. Now granted, I did not pop out my drive and let the Roamio reformat a new one as I was working on a 4TB upgrade, but when I went back from my 4TB to my original drive I had to re-pair the cableCARD to the unit because my Data ID changed (the other values remained the same) and my validation value was a ?. I was able to get all of my non premium channels and some of my premium channels with the card in the state. After I called Charter and had the cableCARD paired back up, my validation value was a v and I got all my premium channels. Not sure if our difference is due to different cable companies and the methods they employ validating the cableCARDs or because I did not allow the unit to format the new drive.


----------



## lessd

jmbach said:


> Curious. I am on Charter. Now granted, I did not pop out my drive and let the Roamio reformat a new one as I was working on a 4TB upgrade, but when I went back from my 4TB to my original drive I had to re-pair the cableCARD to the unit because my Data ID changed (the other values remained the same) and my validation value was a ?. I was able to get all of my non premium channels and some of my premium channels with the card in the state. After I called Charter and had the cableCARD paired back up, my validation value was a v and I got all my premium channels. Not sure if our difference is due to different cable companies and the methods they employ validating the cableCARDs or because I did not allow the unit to format the new drive.


Did you remove the cable card from the TiVo at any time in your work?, and the 4Tb drive may have mess up the cable card pairing, as I just went from the original TiVo drive directly to a blank 3Tb drive and did not have to re-pair the cable card, with the Comcast special Cable card number pairing is no big deal anyways.


----------



## DB_0673

jmbach said:


> When you updated the TiVo HD, you probably copied the drive to a new larger drive and expanded it. This preserved the cableCARD pairing. We currently do not have that option for the Roamio so you will lose the pairing information. This is true for the Motorola M-Cards. Not sure about Scientific Atlantic cards.


thanks for the thought, but no I just replaced/added a larger internal HD. It started out fresh and nothing but the OS (that Tivo loaded ) was on it. I don't think I had to re-pair it then, just worked.

by the way, Tivo still shows that I have the original small size HD when I log into my account or speak to them, so they did not get the info about the HD change from the machine
Dan


----------



## DB_0673

I am planning to follow the good advice here and upgrade to the 
WD AV-GP WD20EURX 2TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. But while I was on Newegg looking at the drive they suggested a newer version made for 24/7.

WD Purple WD20PURX 2TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236661
Any thoughts on this as one?
Dan


----------



## slowbiscuit

Get the EURX, that's what Tivo installs. But it really doesn't matter.


----------



## DB_0673

slowbiscuit said:


> Get the EURX, that's what Tivo installs. But it really doesn't matter.


 ok, thanks
Dan


----------



## nooneuknow

DB_0673 said:


> I am planning to follow the good advice here and upgrade to the
> WD AV-GP WD20EURX 2TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. But while I was on Newegg looking at the drive they suggested a newer version made for 24/7.
> 
> WD Purple WD20PURX 2TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236661
> Any thoughts on this as one?
> Dan


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10127194#post10127194


----------



## DB_0673

DB_0673 said:


> I am planning to follow the good advice here and upgrade to the
> WD AV-GP WD20EURX 2TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. But while I was on Newegg looking at the drive they suggested a newer version made for 24/7.
> 
> WD Purple WD20PURX 2TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236661
> Any thoughts on this as one?
> Dan





nooneuknow said:


> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10127194#post10127194


thanks for the link. I admit that I don't fully understand all the technical stuff and was glad to see you say "bad for Tivo users"

That's what I needed

Dan


----------



## nooneuknow

DB_0673 said:


> thanks for the link. I admit that I don't fully understand all the technical stuff and was glad to see you say "bad for Tivo users"
> 
> That's what I needed
> 
> Dan


I can't truly say "Bad for TiVo users". I can say "untested and unproven for *TiVo* use", WD's specs not making it sound like it has anything extra to add to TiVos (due to the recording/playback methods TiVo uses for AV content), WD's marketing/specs making it sound like not an ideal single-drive solution, and the "new product factor".

If I had any inkling there was anything better about it, for TiVo uses, or use in a TiVo, I'd consider trying them, and consider asking others to give it a try.

I'd rather keep an eye on the reviews. WD has been getting a lot of black eyes in reviews lately, especially on DOAs, and non DOAs which fail soon after testing and installing...

If these drives seem to be faring better than this trend with the other models (WD Red NAS & WD AV-GP included), I might try one, verify it works properly in a TiVo, then consider passing that data along, so others can make the best informed decisions.

"New isn't always better". Sometime the best-case scenario/result is nothing gained, but nothing lost. Sometimes the worst-case is recommending a new product, then finding out it came with its very own new issues.


----------



## DB_0673

nooneuknow said:


> I can't truly say "Bad for TiVo users". I can say "untested and unproven for *TiVo* use", WD's specs not making it sound like it has anything extra to add to TiVos (due to the recording/playback methods TiVo uses for AV content), WD's marketing/specs making it sound like not an ideal single-drive solution, and the "new product factor".
> 
> If I had any inkling there was anything better about it, for TiVo uses, or use in a TiVo, I'd consider trying them, and consider asking others to give it a try.
> 
> I'd rather keep an eye on the reviews. WD has been getting a lot of black eyes in reviews lately, especially on DOAs, and non DOAs which fail soon after testing and installing...
> 
> If these drives seem to be faring better than this trend with the other models (WD Red NAS & WD AV-GP included), I might try one, verify it works properly in a TiVo, then consider passing that data along, so others can make the best informed decisions.
> 
> "New isn't always better". Sometime the best-case scenario/result is nothing gained, but nothing lost. Sometimes the worst-case is recommending a new product, then finding out it came with its very own new issues.


Again thanks,, I would never hold anyone to suggestions they make. I appreciate the info that knowledgeable users provide on the forums. The choice will still be mine and I am responsible for the outcomes. The forums give me a much better chance of "getting it right" than choosing in the blind.
Dan


----------



## CloudAtlas

DB_0673 said:


> Again thanks,, I would never hold anyone to suggestions they make. I appreciate the info that knowledgeable users provide on the forums. The choice will still be mine and I am responsible for the outcomes. The forums give me a much better chance of "getting it right" than choosing in the blind.
> Dan


@Dan Skip the 2TB and go for the 3TB drive which the Roamio Pro ships with. This gets you another 150 hours of record time for an extra $25. Over 5 years that's an extra $5/yr. Will also help resell value.

Roamio Pro: Up to 450 HD / 3000 SD hours recording capacity (3TB)

Amazon has the Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX for ~$125.


----------



## DB_0673

CloudAtlas said:


> @Dan Skip the 2TB and go for the 3TB drive which the Roamio Pro ships with. This gets you another 150 hours of record time for an extra $25. Over 5 years that's an extra $5/yr. Will also help resell value.
> 
> Roamio Pro: Up to 450 HD / 3000 SD hours recording capacity (3TB)
> 
> Amazon has the Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX for ~$125.


thanks, good idea
dan


----------



## Impaqt

Set up my new Roamio Plus yesterday, Unfortunately, my 3TB hard drive shipped to my work address instead of home so I could put the new HD in before I activated it. 

Today I installed the Hard drive and ran back through all the setup.

Lost all my premium stations. I called Comcast and they tried re-pairing the card. didnt work. She just kept saying "Its Red" whatever that means...

her solution is to try swapping the cable card. so I guess I'll head over to a Comcast place on Monday and swap it out and see if that works. 

BTW, Installed the Western Digital "RED" Nas drive. Located in the South Chicago Suburbs.


----------



## FitzAusTex

Hoping for some quick help. Planning on buying the WD30EURX from Amazon today. Description says no cables included. Will I need to order cables (and what kind)? My base Roamio currently has the stock 500gb Seagate drive. Thanks!


----------



## cherry ghost

FitzAusTex said:


> Hoping for some quick help. Planning on buying the WD30EURX from Amazon today. Description says no cables included. Will I need to order cables (and what kind)? My base Roamio currently has the stock 500gb Seagate drive. Thanks!


No


----------



## FitzAusTex

cherry ghost said:


> No


Thanks!


----------



## duckman2000

DB_0673 said:


> I am planning to follow the good advice here and upgrade to the
> WD AV-GP WD20EURX 2TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. But while I was on Newegg looking at the drive they suggested a newer version made for 24/7.
> 
> WD Purple WD20PURX 2TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236661
> Any thoughts on this as one?
> Dan


WD seems to be saying the Purple drive are optimized for Surveillance systems and are NOT the right choice for DVRs.

Regarding WD Purple drives for Tivo or DVR applications, this was asked in the WD Forum and a WD Staff member said this:

" The WD Purple drives are for surveillance systems.
You can see more information on the link below:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/surveillance/

The line suitable for DVR's is the following:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=170 "


----------



## nooneuknow

duckman2000 said:


> WD seems to be saying the Purple drive are optimized for Surveillance systems and are NOT the right choice for DVRs.
> 
> Regarding WD Purple drives for Tivo or DVR applications, this was asked in the WD Forum and a WD Staff member said this:
> 
> " The WD Purple drives are for surveillance systems.
> You can see more information on the link below:
> http://www.wdc.com/en/products/surveillance/
> 
> The line suitable for DVR's is the following:
> http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=170 "


As noted in one or more of my past posts, I came to the same initial impression.

I feel it is worth noting that the AV-GP line, as originally marketed, did not include PVR/DVR use, only surveillance (It was added, not that long ago).

One thing the AV-GP was never marketed for was NAS and/or array use, which the "Purple" is heavily marketed for.

The numbers that truly matter are how many TB/year the drives are supposed to handle. I did the math on "unofficial" 120-150TB/yr RED NAS, and came up with "in excess of the rating", for four tuners at a modest 5TB/hr per tuner for high def. Even the published drives are rated lower than what a 4 tuner unit recording HD comes out to (~200 TB/yr). Do the math on six tuners.

From AnandTech:

"We had covered the launch of the WD Se hard drives for data centers and high end NAS units in May. One of the advertised aspects was the 180 TB/yr workload capacity. Western Digital is unable to commit to a workload capacity for the WD Red lineup because of the varying environmental conditions under which consumer NAS units operate. That said, WD expects (unofficially) the Red drives to be able to handle workloads between 120 and 150 TB/year."

Whole article": http://www.anandtech.com/show/7257/...ed-nas-drive-lineup-with-4-tb-and-25-versions

I'm seriously wondering how underrated a stock 500GB 4-tuner roamio AV hard drive is (IMHO, must be). The smaller the drive, the more each sector is overwritten per year, logically lowering the TB/yr rating, TTBOMK.

I'm also seriously wondering how well plain Green, non-AV, non 24/7 marketed drives will hold up.

It also would seem like (to me) one of the best ways to determine the true life (in P/E operations) of SSDs (Solid State Drives), is to put them into TiVos and see how long each one lasts, then do some math.

From now on, I'll be trying to keep idle tuners on SD music channels. A 4hr recording of one comes out to less than 600MB (yes, MB) total size.

If TiVo provided a way to stop live buffering, preferably with a way to specify how many tuners to allow to live buffer, I'd jump on it...


----------



## FitzAusTex

I know this is going to be a silly question, but when we swap out a Roamio hard drive that has already gone through guided setup and that already has season passes, a populated to-do list, etc, with a brand new hard drive, our Roamios lose all settings and season passes? Thanks!


----------



## A J Ricaud

FitzAusTex said:


> I know this is going to be a silly question, but when we swap out a Roamio hard drive that has already gone through guided setup and that already has season passes, a populated to-do list, etc, with a brand new hard drive, our Roamios lose all settings and season passes? Thanks!


Yes. That info is stored on the original drive. But, I think you can get your season passes from the Tivo website. I'm not sure about the settings.


----------



## FitzAusTex

A J Ricaud said:


> Yes. That info is stored on the original drive. But, I think you can get your season passes from the Tivo website. I'm not sure about the settings.


thanks!

Now I'm wondering if we took the hard drive out of a Roamio that has recordings, settings, season passes, etc, if we put it in a different Roamio, would that new Roamio overwrite this hard drive, or would all of the tivo data be maintained?


----------



## ncbill

Anyone still interested in dropping a SSD in there?

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU


----------



## ThAbtO

FitzAusTex said:


> thanks!
> 
> Now I'm wondering if we took the hard drive out of a Roamio that has recordings, settings, season passes, etc, if we put it in a different Roamio, would that new Roamio overwrite this hard drive, or would all of the tivo data be maintained?


The data and recordings are set for a specific Tivo so it would return an error and cannot record. Tivo Service number would return all ZEROs. Clear and Delete Everything must be used to fix it.


----------



## lessd

duckman2000 said:


> WD seems to be saying the Purple drive are optimized for Surveillance systems and are NOT the right choice for DVRs.
> 
> Regarding WD Purple drives for Tivo or DVR applications, this was asked in the WD Forum and a WD Staff member said this:
> 
> " The WD Purple drives are for surveillance systems.
> You can see more information on the link below:
> http://www.wdc.com/en/products/surveillance/
> 
> The line suitable for DVR's is the following:
> http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=170 "


In my experience one can use any drive except the ones over 7200RPM, the best is any 5400RPM drive, (or green drive) and any color will work for a TiVo, its all about marking and hard drive warranty, most people will get, on the low end, 4 to 5 years on a drive and some people have reported getting up to 7 years or more. I have an old Series 2 from 2005 that I stopped using in 2011, it still works and has over 6 years on a upgraded PATA drive made in 2005, newer drives are better.


----------



## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> The numbers that truly matter are how many TB/year the drives are supposed to handle. I did the math on "unofficial" 120-150TB/yr RED NAS, and came up with "in excess of the rating", for four tuners at a modest 5TB/hr per tuner for high def. Even the published drives are rated lower than what a 4 tuner unit recording HD comes out to (~200 TB/yr). Do the math on six tuners.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> From now on, I'll be trying to keep idle tuners on SD music channels. A 4hr recording of one comes out to less than 600MB (yes, MB) total size.
> 
> If TiVo provided a way to stop live buffering, preferably with a way to specify how many tuners to allow to live buffer, I'd jump on it...


As usual, massive OCD overthink going on here. As lessd said, any 5400rpm drive will work and they are all equally as random as to when one will fail in the life of a Tivo.

Seriously, ignore all the kvetching about drive types here folks. Get any green drive you want and plop it in.


----------



## aaronwt

ncbill said:


> Anyone still interested in dropping a SSD in there?
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU


While the EVO is supposed to be rated for very long life, with the 1TB version writing 50 GB a day is supposed to give it a 32 year life. My Roamio Pro probably writes around 700GB a day based on 5GBs an hour for each of six tuners. Since it is constantly writing data for every tuner. An SSD will not last long enough under the conditions of a DVR. I know I certainly would not want to rely on it. Especially since there are not any benefits(other than noise or heat) in a DVR using an SSD instead of a platter drive. A TiVo has been designed with a platter drive in mind.


----------



## lessd

:up:


slowbiscuit said:


> As usual, massive OCD overthink going on here. As lessd said, any 5400rpm drive will work and they are all equally as random as to when one will fail in the life of a Tivo.
> 
> Seriously, ignore all the kvetching about drive types here folks. Get any green drive you want and plop it in.


:up:


----------



## Adam1115

I'm a little surprised that the Romaio only has a 500 gig drive, but I can just run down the Microcenter and pick up a 2 TB and drop it in and it will work? Should I complete the guided setup first?


----------



## lpwcomp

Adam1115 said:


> I'm a little surprised that the Romaio only has a 500 gig drive, but I can just run down the Microcenter and pick up a 2 TB and drop it in and it will work? Should I complete the guided setup first?


No.


----------



## Adam1115

lpwcomp said:


> No.


 No it won't work?? Why not? I've been reading the thread, I thought you dint née to image it.


----------



## HarperVision

Adam1115 said:


> No it won't work?? Why not? I've been reading the thread, I thought you dint née to image it.


He's answering the "should I run guided setup" part, not the "can I just drop it in" part.


----------



## lpwcomp

Adam1115 said:


> No it won't work?? Why not? I've been reading the thread, I thought you dint née to image it.


Sorry, I was answering the second question. You shouldn't complete guided setup first.


----------



## Adam1115

Ok cool. Bought a 2 TB Seagate (after reading all of the WD drama...)


----------



## Adam1115

Well so much for that idea... The Romaio wouldn't power up with the new drive. (Would turn on and as soon as the hard drive tried to spin up it'd reboot.)

Guess I'm doing esata.


----------



## L David Matheny

Adam1115 said:


> Well so much for that idea... The Romaio wouldn't power up with the new drive. (Would turn on and as soon as the hard drive tried to spin up it'd reboot.)
> 
> Guess I'm doing esata.


Is it possible that your Seagate drive required too much start-up current? One reason for using AV drives is lower power draw, which also throws off less heat.


----------



## CoxInPHX

Adam1115 said:


> Well so much for that idea... The Romaio wouldn't power up with the new drive. (Would turn on and as soon as the hard drive tried to spin up it'd reboot.)
> 
> Guess I'm doing esata.


Did you test the new HDD with any Diagnostic Utilities prior to putting it into the Roamio?


----------



## Adam1115

L David Matheny said:


> Is it possible that your Seagate drive required too much start-up current? One reason for using AV drives is lower power draw, which also throws off less heat.


I'm certain that is it, but Microcenter didn't have any av drives. It's no big deal I'll just use esata.


----------



## lessd

Adam1115 said:


> Well so much for that idea... The Romaio wouldn't power up with the new drive. (Would turn on and as soon as the hard drive tried to spin up it'd reboot.)
> 
> Guess I'm doing esata.


Are you sure the drive was blank, not per formatted for windows or anything.


----------



## telemark

Adam1115 said:


> (Would turn on and as soon as the hard drive tried to spin up it'd reboot.)
> 
> Guess I'm doing esata.


My predictions:
Roamios will erase any drive that is put in, except Roamio formatted drives
Overdemand (drive not spinning up) conditions have so far resulted in hangs, instead of reboots.
The eSata port can not be used as a primary drive. You'd have to connect a drive to the internal Sata port first.


----------



## Adam1115

lessd said:


> Are you sure the drive was blank, not per formatted for windows or anything.


Yes but it doesn't even spin up. It starts to and the box reboots immediately.


----------



## yukit

lessd said:


> Are you sure the drive was blank, not per formatted for windows or anything.


I did this with my Roamio Plus. 3TB green drive directly out of a Windows box (NTFS partitions) into the Plus. It just worked.

Another 3TB drive was on its way to my house, but I wanted to get the new Tivo going ASAP.


----------



## ncbill

pay a little more and order a 3TB WD AV-GP drive online.



Adam1115 said:


> Yes but it doesn't even spin up. It starts to and the box reboots immediately.


----------



## nooneuknow

ncbill said:


> pay a little more and order a 3TB WD AV-GP drive online.


I agree. The minor difference in price buys you a 3 year warranty, instead of 2 year for non-AV, when it comes to WD. If you want to buy Seagate, I still recommend the AV drive, which likely also has a longer warranty, and a better power profile.

My tune was a little different before the price differences became so marginal.


----------



## Adam1115

Minor difference is driving accross town, returning it, ordering it online, waiting 2-3 days, repairing the cablecards.

Not worth it, I'm fine with esata.


----------



## FitzAusTex

telemark said:


> My predictions:
> Roamios will erase any drive that is put in, except Roamio formatted drives
> Overdemand (drive not spinning up) conditions result in hangs instead of reboots
> The eSata port can not be used as a primary drive. You'd have to connect a drive to the internal Sata port first.


If I intend to use a previously Roamio-formatted 3TB WD30EURX drive I had used in a now defective Roamio, do I need to do anything special to use it in another Roamio?

I performed "Clear and Delete Everything", but is that enough, or will the new Roamio still see previous Roamio info on the WD30EURX and it not work properly? I've transfered service to the new Roamio, but 19 hours later, and countless forced connections to the Tivo service, and activation is still not complete.

Wondering if the fact that the WD30EURX had been in another Roamio is causing the activation issue?

EDIT: well I put in the 500gb that came with the Roamio, ran guided setup, and the Roamio is fine, but when I put back in the WD30EURX, I'm back to "please activate service".

Any input regarding this would be fantastic.


----------



## poppagene

Adam1115 said:


> Minor difference is driving accross town, returning it, ordering it online, waiting 2-3 days, repairing the cablecards.
> 
> Not worth it, I'm fine with esata.


$79 2TB

$99 3TB

WD Desktop Mainstream Intellipower SATA 6.0Gb drives are usually green power EzRX drives (although they're not marked as such on the box). They're probably as cheap as the seagate and I know they will power up in a roamio. Not as good as a AV-GP but going e-sata is a losing proposition. Microcenter has a pretty good policy on returns.


----------



## telemark

> EDIT: well I put in the 500gb that came with the Roamio, ran guided setup, and the Roamio is fine, but when I put back in the WD30EURX, I'm back to "please activate service".
> 
> Any input regarding this would be fantastic.


I don't know if this is the problem but if you want to try something else...

If you erase (zero out) the first 64 blocks of a Roamio drive, this is enough to make the Roamio to consider it blank, and it will reformat the drive the next time it boots.

On Premiere, C&DE is enough to move drives between different boxes.


----------



## Adam1115

poppagene said:


> $79 2TB
> 
> $99 3TB
> 
> WD Desktop Mainstream Intellipower SATA 6.0Gb drives are usually green power ERZX drives (although they're not marked as such on the box). They're probably as cheap as the seagate and I know they will power up in a roamio. Not as good as a AV-GP but going e-sata is a losing proposition. Microcenter has a pretty good policy on returns.


Those aren't AV drives but I'd rather stick my seagate in an esata chassis than put another western digital in any device.


----------



## FitzAusTex

telemark said:


> I don't know if this is the problem but if you want to try something else...
> 
> If you erase (zero out) the first 64 blocks of a Roamio drive, this is enough to make the Roamio to consider it blank, and it will reformat the drive the next time it boots.


 This is what I was planning, but I'm going to have to obtain an enclosure, and hope that what my mac allows me to format it as (mac os, fat, or exfat) will cause the Roamio to format the drive. Anyone have an opinion which mac reformat option I should try, and if it will even work with these mac options?


----------



## jmbach

I believe OSX disk utility has an erase disk option also if you open up a terminal window you can us dd commands.


----------



## jmbach

Adam1115 said:


> Well so much for that idea... The Romaio wouldn't power up with the new drive. (Would turn on and as soon as the hard drive tried to spin up it'd reboot.)
> 
> Guess I'm doing esata.


The problem is that you will probably have to purchase an approved WD drive extender to add the eSata drive at this time. In which case you are limited to 1TB. Ever since the TiVo HD, TiVo has restricted what eSata drives can be connected to the TiVo. In the near future we should be able to add any eSata drive like WK does if development continues.

I would recommend to exchange the drive for one that works. You just need to look for a drive that uses less power. Check the specs on Seagate for your current drive and see what drives are available to you locally that use less power. Since we know WD AV-GP drives work, find something with that power rating.


----------



## nooneuknow

Adam1115 said:


> Minor difference is driving accross town, returning it, ordering it online, waiting 2-3 days, repairing the cablecards.
> 
> Not worth it, I'm fine with esata.


If you think just dropping your Seagate drive into an external enclosure with eSATA support is going to work, you are in for a rude awakening. Unless you buy a TiVo approved, up to 1TB DVR expander drive, made by WD, it will not work. You can buy non-approved expander drives through weaknees, which are somehow made to work using their secrets. But, they only come paired with an internal drive. You can't just "will it to work". Last I checked, there was also no option to only use eSATA, without a drive installed inside, not even through weakness. In some cases, which I think this is one, Weaknees may require that they have your TiVo on-site, in order for their non-approved expanders to get married to your board, and the external drive.

People have kept trying to help you, and you just keep saying "Nah, I'm just going to do it this way, using this drive" (paraphrasing, of course).

If you don't stop dismissing what people are trying to tell you, and dismissing their recommendations, you will likely find yourself on your own.

Maybe your posts just could have been written in a manner that isn't so dismissive. Maybe you have one thing in your mind, but the way you post it comes across wrong. In good faith, just like all of this post, I implore you to either stop being so dismissive (and just do whatever you want, if you absolutely must try, and fail, first), or post something that might clear things up with others who see your posts in the same light I do.

The only scenario I see eSATA working as the only drive, is to swap the board connectors of the SATA/eSATA ports around, inside the TiVo. This is possible on some models, but I'm not sure about all of them. It's still a substantial risk to take, if you value what you record. I'll admit that I've toyed with the idea, in the past, mostly curious to know if it would work, and work well. The TiVo, seeing that eSATA drive as on the internal port, will not have the safeguards in place that exist for eSATA drives, on the true designated eSATA port.

If it works well, by some chance, I could see the possibility of using an external raid array, with it's own designated hardware raid system, so long as it reports back something the TiVo will accept for the drive model (the array must be seen as a single drive, TTBOMK). I don't think this will really achieve much. But it's an interesting concept (as a curiosity, alone).


----------



## Adam1115

jmbach said:


> The problem is that you will probably have to purchase an approved WD drive extender to add the eSata drive at this time. In which case you are limited to 1TB. Ever since the TiVo HD, TiVo has restricted what eSata drives can be connected to the TiVo. In the near future we should be able to add any eSata drive like WK does if development continues.


Thank you, I wasn't aware of that.



nooneuknow said:


> If you don't stop dismissing what people are trying to tell you, and dismissing their recommendations, you will likely find yourself on your own.


I'm not dismissing anything, I appreciate the info about esata. The old Series 3 had a code that allowed me to install a generic esata drive. I didn't know that changed.

I am dismissing replacing the internal drive because it's already set up and paired, I don't want to replace the drive now. I would have if I could've picked it up and done it the day I installed it but it's too late for that. I'll buy an approved esata drive. Not worth any more hassle.



nooneuknow said:


> The only scenario I see eSATA working as the only drive...


What? No, I mean, I'm leaving the factory 500 GB drive in which is up and running and I'll expand it later with esata. In other words, I just decided replacing the internal drive wasn't worth the brain damage and trying multiple drives, etc. No big deal, thanks for the info!


----------



## tim1724

Adam1115 said:


> I'm not dismissing anything, I appreciate the info about esata. The old Series 3 had a code that allowed me to install a generic esata drive. I didn't know that changed.


The original Series 3 (OLED model) is the only TiVo model which allows you to attach any arbitrary eSATA drive. Beginning with the TiVo HD (the revised version of the Series 3 without the OLED display) it was locked down to only allow approved devices. (A small set of Western Digital drive enclosures.)


----------



## CharlesH

tim1724 said:


> The original Series 3 (OLED model) is the only TiVo model which allows you to attach any arbitrary eSATA drive. Beginning with the TiVo HD (the revised version of the Series 3 without the OLED display) it was locked down to only allow approved devices. (A small set of Western Digital drive enclosures.)


What happened with the original Series 3 is that an internal development setting allowing arbitrary eSata drives somehow ended up in the production model, and sophisticated early adopters took advantage of this. Rather than alienate these early adopters, TiVo publicly (through representatives authorized to speak for the company in this forum) said that they specifically would not close the hole for the original Series 3, but all subsequent models would be locked down. The enclosure itself has some settings that the TiVo can query. I have not done the search, but I recall that there was quite a bit of discussion about this on TivoCommunity forums when the Series3 came out.


----------



## nooneuknow

Adam1115 said:


> Thank you, I wasn't aware of that.
> 
> I'm not dismissing anything, I appreciate the info about esata. The old Series 3 had a code that allowed me to install a generic esata drive. I didn't know that changed.
> 
> I am dismissing replacing the internal drive because it's already set up and paired, I don't want to replace the drive now. I would have if I could've picked it up and done it the day I installed it but it's too late for that. I'll buy an approved esata drive. Not worth any more hassle.
> 
> What? No, I mean, I'm leaving the factory 500 GB drive in which is up and running and I'll expand it later with esata. In other words, I just decided replacing the internal drive wasn't worth the brain damage and trying multiple drives, etc. No big deal, thanks for the info!


Ok, looks like I just misunderstood what you were trying to convey (as well as some others). I thought you were going to go with a single large un-approved eSATA drive (using the Seagate in your own enclosure). Anyway, I'm glad it all seems sorted out, and nobody got hurt in the process. 

So, are you really going to leave the stock drive in and buy an approved expander (which nobody who has ever used one would ever recommend), or are you just going to get a 5400RPM "Green" (Preferably WD AV-GP, or Seagate equivalent) drive that won't give your power supply fits?

I can say that I've used 3TB WD Red NAS (AV rated, green power profile, 5400RPM, 3yr warranty) drives in my three base Roamios, and am certain the wall-wart power supplies would overheat if without lots of air-space around them (the Red drives have the same power requirements as the Green do, so it's not due to the color-coding).

Others have reported using Seagate 7200RPM drives in base models without any trouble, which makes me wonder if your power supply is "up to snuff".

Perhaps if you could supply the specifics of your drive's spin-up power requirements, we could help figure out "what's what". A good start would be just the specs printed on the top of the drive say for amps. The spin-up would require the datasheet for the particular drive model.

I'm just trying to save you added hassle/time/frustration, if I can.


----------



## unitron

CharlesH said:


> What happened with the original Series 3 is that an internal development setting allowing arbitrary eSata drives somehow ended up in the production model, and sophisticated early adopters took advantage of this. Rather than alienate these early adopters, TiVo publicly (through representatives authorized to speak for the company in this forum) said that they specifically would not close the hole for the original Series 3, but all subsequent models would be locked down. The enclosure itself has some settings that the TiVo can query. I have not done the search, but I recall that there was quite a bit of discussion about this on TivoCommunity forums when the Series3 came out.


I'm pretty sure it's not the enclosure, it's just that the TiVo has a very short list of WD drive model numbers (i.e., model numbers for raw drives) and if the drive inside the enclosure is not one of those few model numbers, the TiVo won't have anything to do with it.


----------



## jmbach

unitron said:


> I'm pretty sure it's not the enclosure, it's just that the TiVo has a very short list of WD drive model numbers (i.e., model numbers for raw drives) and if the drive inside the enclosure is not one of those few model numbers, the TiVo won't have anything to do with it.


I can confirm that information.


----------



## nooneuknow

unitron said:


> I'm pretty sure it's not the enclosure, it's just that the TiVo has a very short list of WD drive model numbers (i.e., model numbers for raw drives) and if the drive inside the enclosure is not one of those few model numbers, the TiVo won't have anything to do with it.


Which is why it IS possible to take the drive out of the lousy enclosure it comes in and move it into a better one with heatsinking and/or fans, if you actually want to give it a chance of lasting the length of the warranty that just was voided. So very many reasons to not like the "approved" expanders...

WD does burn identifiable data into the firmware that correlates the internal drive was sold as an external drive (internal in a casing). AFAIK, this includes the serial number, plus what the drive identifies itself as to the host (some of which is sight-unseen without special software to get to it).

I have some EZRX drives that came in that world's cheapest and suffocating plastic enclosures (WD Essentials, non-encrypting USB 2.0), and the serial numbers were in a different format than that of internals of the same drive, both on the drive, and the case (same inside and out). Thus, when registering with WD using the serial number right off the drive inside, it came up as the external drive. No sneaking it by them, unless you can put it back in the enclosure leaving no signs of tampering (can be done).

Last I recall, approved expander enclosures require breakage to open, unless I missed to how-to post on that.

EDIT/ADD: I've never had an approved expander to try and defeat the case without breaking it, which is why I don't know.


----------



## Adam1115

tim1724 said:


> The original Series 3 (OLED model) is the only TiVo model which allows you to attach any arbitrary eSATA drive. Beginning with the TiVo HD (the revised version of the Series 3 without the OLED display) it was locked down to only allow approved devices. (A small set of Western Digital drive enclosures.)


Right, the last TiVo I owned was a Series 3 OLED. I haven't kept up since.



nooneuknow said:


> I thought you were going to go with a single large un-approved eSATA drive (using the Seagate in your own enclosure).


At first I was going to replace the internal drive with an internal Seagate. When that didn't work, I was going to put it in the external enclosure and us it in parallel to the internal drive, but I wasn't aware that they took the code away to do that after the Series 3.

So now, I'm going to just use a dvr expander. No big deal. 



nooneuknow said:


> So, are you really going to leave the stock drive in and buy an approved expander


Yes.



nooneuknow said:


> (which nobody who has ever used one would ever recommend)


Really? Why? I used an unsupported external drive on my Series 3 for years and my dad used the dvr expander for years on his series 3. Is there something different about the new TiVo DVRs that make it more unreliable?


----------



## nooneuknow

Adam1115 said:


> Really? Why? I used an unsupported external drive on my Series 3 for years and my dad used the dvr expander for years on his series 3. Is there something different about the new TiVo DVRs that make it more unreliable?


It's the authorized DVR expander from WD, as a product, that sucks. They fail frequently, based on what I've been reading over the last decade. I've seen nothing to indicate that they have suddenly become reliable and trustworthy products. Every now and then, somebody says they got years out of theirs without any problems.

Everybody is quick to jump on the "points of failure" added by using one, while the fact that they tend to fail so frequently, and almost never last long enough to "get your money's worth" seems to take a back seat.

If you have no issues with losing all recordings made since you installed it, just because of a bad/bumped connection, or failure of the expander, no problem. If you want reliability and longevity, that's two features that don't come with approved external expander drives. They can spontaneously happen, though.

Also, be prepared for TiVo support to insist you disconnect it while troubleshooting any issue you call about. Sometimes they have you do it in a manner where you lose your recordings. I'd avoid things that support can make you remove, when you can. If keeping your warranty and being guaranteed support are priorities, you actually need to use the expander. Unfortunately, doing so can cause more headaches than an unauthorized internal drive upgrade.

I've given up on TiVo support, which is why I run self-upgrade internal only.


----------



## Adam1115

nooneuknow said:


> If you have no issues with losing all recordings made since you installed it, just because of a *bad/bumped connection*, or failure of the expander, no problem. If you want reliability and longevity, that's two features that don't come with approved external expander drives.


I'm confused by the bad/bumped connection comment. With the series 3, if it lost connectivity to the drive it would require three thumbs down to un-join it (losing recordings.) Has that changed as well?

I agree that WD drive suck, but what does the 'expander' do differently than any other enclosure causing so many failures?


----------



## nooneuknow

Adam1115 said:


> I'm confused by the bad/bumped connection comment. With the series 3, if it lost connectivity to the drive it would require three thumbs down to un-join it (losing recordings.) Has that changed as well?
> 
> I agree that WD drive suck, but what does the 'expander' do differently than any other enclosure causing so many failures?


I feel I should defer further input to somebody who actually has used one with a Roamio.

I like to be accurate, and going off memory about what other people who had them posted isn't a recipe for accuracy.

I think most TCF members have been so turned-off by them by experience, or by the posted experiences of others, that it's not the easiest to find somebody currently using one on a Roamio.

Keep in mind that The Roamio has only been available for about a year now. So, the best you can expect hear is "I've been running one for a year...". Nobody can tell you to expect more longevity, that the time the product has been on the market.

Like has been happening frequently with internal hard drive advice, some folks are giving advice to Roamio owners, whom themselves own Premiere, HD, and older TiVo products, and have no experience with the Roamio, or they are basing longevity off an old 2 tuner unit and a drive that may no longer be on the market. Higher tuner counts, and more things in HD mean more workload for the hard drive(s). I wouldn't be shocked if those using mainstream drives start seeing failures around the 2 year point on internals (which is also the length of drive warranty on non-24/7 & non-AV WD drives).

I try to hold myself to the same standards I expect of others, so I'm just being honest, and telling you I can't really do more than guess the answer to some of your questions, and/or guess what has changed, when it comes to things I don't have, or have never used.


----------



## CharlesH

unitron said:


> I'm pretty sure it's not the enclosure, it's just that the TiVo has a very short list of WD drive model numbers (i.e., model numbers for raw drives) and if the drive inside the enclosure is not one of those few model numbers, the TiVo won't have anything to do with it.


Thank you for clarifying this point. The original discussion about problems with the enclosure that I was thinking about were quite a few years ago.


----------



## A J Ricaud

until 11:59 PM PT 7/4/14 with PROMO CODE EMCPCPG23


----------



## unitron

CharlesH said:


> Thank you for clarifying this point. The original discussion about problems with the enclosure that I was thinking about were quite a few years ago.


The original discussion about enclosure problems may have been about what people were using on the original Series 3, after someone discovered an undocumented KickStart or something that enabled the eSATA port before TiVo was ready to launch that feature officially.

The original S3 didn't yet have the short list of approved WD drive models, so most any drive in an eSATA case would work.

Rather than make a lot of people mad, TiVo elected not to invoke the list on the 648s, which would have turned the eSATA drives already in use into boat anchors, but had it in place when they rolled out the other 2 S3 models, the 652 and the 658, and it's in force for S4s and S5s as well.

The TiVo-approved WD models with the TiVo logo on the box, etc, apparently also had some problems once they were finally put on the market.

A lot of the problems, both with the WD enclosures and with other brands, seems to have been eSATA data cables that weren't reliable.


----------



## A J Ricaud

fulfilled by Tiger Direct:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WD-Red-4-TB...prg=20131003150253&rk=1&rkt=8&sd=251581524826


----------



## dpurcell

O.K. First-time poster here. I've gone through my "initiation" (read the 62 pages). My Roamio basic, Mini, and replacement drive will all arrive tomorrow, and I think I'm ready to replace the HDD and hook it up. I've copied the photos and instructions on how to pry the top off the Roamio. 

Never used TiVo before, but I'll be getting rid of DirecTV and their ever-increasing charges as soon as the TiVo is hooked up. 

I've been puzzling over MoCA or Ethernet connection, but I think running new Ethernet cables through the crawl space to connect the TiVo units and the router is the way to go, because it will save buying two MoCA adapters (required for the TiVo basic) and I would still have to connect a new piece of coax from the router to the existing coax that runs from my HD antenna in the attic to the TVs in the bedroom and den. I'll look for another thread on connections.

Thanks for all the good information.


----------



## jmpage2

dpurcell said:


> O.K. First-time poster here. I've gone through my "initiation" (read the 62 pages). My Roamio basic, Mini, and replacement drive will all arrive tomorrow, and I think I'm ready to replace the HDD and hook it up. I've copied the photos and instructions on how to pry the top off the Roamio.
> 
> Never used TiVo before, but I'll be getting rid of DirecTV and their ever-increasing charges as soon as the TiVo is hooked up.
> 
> I've been puzzling over MoCA or Ethernet connection, but I think running new Ethernet cables through the crawl space to connect the TiVo units and the router is the way to go, because it will save buying two MoCA adapters (required for the TiVo basic) and I would still have to connect a new piece of coax from the router to the existing coax that runs from my HD antenna in the attic to the TVs in the bedroom and den. I'll look for another thread on connections.
> 
> Thanks for all the good information.


Welcome.

I'm sure many people here can answer any questions that come up. It is stupid easy to replace the hard drive on a Roamio so I don't anticipate you will have too many problems.

Ethernet is absolutely preferable to MoCA if you would have to buy additional hardware to do MoCA. The only reason maybe to do this would be if down the road you purchased some TiVo Minis.


----------



## eric102

Just upgraded my Roamio basic to a 3TB Red WD30EFRX ($116 shipped from Amazon), went smooth as silk and very quickly, less than an hour total.

It had been in service with the stock Seagate 500GB for months and I had finally watched or transferred all the recordings to my Pro so was a good time to do it before the fall recording season.

The WD30EFRX seems to be running quieter but is a larger form factor so hopefully will run just as cool as the Seagate.


----------



## nooneuknow

The Red NAS drives are what I use in my 3 Roamio basics. They are, in my experience, and in the experience of others, the coolest running drives you will find. They require no cooling on their own, and can be enclosed without ventilation, in drive enclosures (often still running cooler than the WD Green and AV-GP drives are designed for being enclosed). However, the cooler you keep any of them (within reason), the longer the life expectancy.

It's been my determination that the extra height does not restrict the airflow. The basic model fan is just too wimpy to move enough air for it to matter. Even if the fan failed, the drive would not suffer overheating, unless it was due to the other internal's heat, heating the drive. I define "overheating" as exceeding the threshold for data integrity assurance and drive lifespan assurance. If I stated a number, or range, others would likely disagree with what my research has led me to consider the various thresholds.

If you did not run the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows (WinDLG) program on the drive, performing all the tests, before installation, you may run into issues down the road. I'm 3 for 3 on drives that acted-up without running those tests first. What would happen, as far as I can tell, is the TiVo would write data, then have trouble reading the sectors it was on. A read test with WinDLG would mark the sectors as pending reallocation, *but the write zeroes test would reclaim them without using spare sectors to replace them*. I would then re-install the drive after one more read test, and not have problems in the future. I'm still working on how to explain what some very extensive testing and diagnostics has led to to believe is an explanation for this.

I've seen other reports of WD Green, AV-GP, and Red NAS drives acting up like this when installed fresh out of the bag, but working fine when pulled to do the tests, then re-installed. So, I advise that everybody just do the tests first. They can be done with a USB dock/adapter, and USB 3.0 is more than fast enough to match SATA speeds with 5400RPM low-power profile drives (eliminating the need to open your computer).

Two indicators (the easiest to spot) of the drive having such problems are:

1. The TiVo intro video is jerky and stutters.
2. The System Information screen takes more than 3 seconds for all the data to populate with values.

Another item on my project list is proving the new WD Purple drive is not desirable for TiVo use (for long-term reliability & longevity), more so with higher tuner counts of the TiVo, and how often the constant buffering is on high-bitrate HD channels.

Total Workload = (# of tuners or cameras) x (bit rate per stream) x 2 (for simultaneous record and playback) + (non-AV data).

The maximum rated workload of the WD purple is 60TB/yr, and requires 20% idle time (this is per drive, thus the reason why these are designed for RAID, where the workload is distributed, and scalable to meet the demand, while staying within the ratings).

The Red Nas has an unofficial workload rating of 120-150 TB/yr (per drive).

The AV-GP drives do not have a disclosed workload rating, and are not RAID-friendly.

Enterprise-class drives from WD range from 180 TB/yr to 550 TB/yr (per drive) workload rating.

4 Tuners of HD video = ~200 TB/yr.

The workload rating combined with idle time rating, kept in range, makes it more likely that you will get at least 3 years of life from the drive. Exceeding the workload and denying the idle time is allegedly going to shorten the life of the drive. Keep in mind that a lot of problems can happen with a drive that has been overworked, causing a myriad of issues, before the drive becomes apparent as the source of the problems.

While some of the drives from WD are identical internally, the firmware is tailored to operate under specific parameters. Non-AV rated drives currently on-market are expected to spend 3/4 of each year in some form of idle-mode, not 24/7/365 always buffering DVR data, and being denied time to essentially recalibrate to know the optimum seek rates/timings.

Coming soon (provided I can maintain my motivation): My own thread on all this, citing my sources, providing links, and benchmark results showing just how fast a TiVo-useage degrades a drive's transfer rates, and ultimately the length of time before a drive degrades enough to cause problems in DVR (TiVo) operation...

[media]http://images.anandtech.com/doci/7771/wd_purple_se_re.png[/media]

[media]http://images.anandtech.com/doci/7257/wd-red.png[/media]


----------



## 1283

nooneuknow said:


> A read test with WinDLG would mark the sectors as pending reallocation, *but the write zeroes test would reclaim them without using spare sectors to replace them*.


That doesn't make sense to me. How would it fix bad sectors without replacing them?


----------



## DancyMunchkin

nooneuknow said:


> If you did not run the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows (WinDLG) program on the drive, performing all the tests, before installation, you may run into issues down the road. I'm 3 for 3 on drives that acted-up without running those tests first.


I installed a WD20EURS last August in my Roamio Basic. No issues so far and I did not run the WinDLG utility.


----------



## nooneuknow

c3 said:


> That doesn't make sense to me. How would it fix bad sectors without replacing them?


If they are improperly marked as bad, simply because they can not be read, but running the tests determine they can be written to and then read, they are reclaimed, rather than re-allocated by spares. This is basic hard drive SMART 101 stuff. Drives don't condemn and replace sectors without attempting a recovery, they will simply flag the sectors after a read timeout happens.

If any sector reallocation events occur, raw SMART data for reallocation events and reallocated sectors will no longer be a string of zeroes (and when converted from hex to dec values, will provide exact numbers), and if enough of any SMART events happen, the actual SMART attributes will begin declining from their initial values of 100 or 200 (whatever the mfg decides to use to begin with).

I used to think that if all my values were 200/100, that the drive had had no negative events recorded. Not so. It takes a number of events/errors for each value to drop that value, by even 1, to 199/99.

WD's utility hides the raw data, as does most other mfg tools/utilities. They know that by the time you get the drive, it may have developed bad sectors, just from doing nothing at all. HDD Scan gives the raw hex that can be calculated to give a number. Acronis drive monitor does the calculating for you. Both are FREE programs. Spinrite is even more informative, but isn't free, and operates at such low-level modes, a basic pass can take days to complete.

In the end, the pending sector count returned to zero, reallocation events remained zero, and the reallocated sector count stayed at zero (all raw values), and the corresponding SMART attributes stayed at original 200/100 values. The ONLY value that changed in a negative way was the RAW Read Error Rate, which the raw value hit a high enough count to drop to 199. Once the drive had recovered the pending sectors, the next read pass moved that value back to 200, but still kept the attribute for the worst the value had ever been at 199.

Each SMART value has Current/Worst/Raw/Threshold values. The raw values start at 0 and climb. At mfg determined counts of raw values, the actual SMART attribute falls.

For some reason, the data was so corrupted, it could not be read. Once the sectors with that bad data were written full of zeroes, and read again, they proved themselves trustworthy, based on whatever algorithm the mfg uses for that drive.

Short answer: No reallocation events, no reallocated sector count, and the pending sectors being cleared of their pending status equals recovered versus reallocated sectors.

New SMART attributes are being added all the time. Some drives have insane amounts of attributes, others keep it bare-minimum. If you decide to go check and see if I'm wrong, please make sure you get your data from more than ones source, as well as considering the sources.


----------



## nooneuknow

DancyMunchkin said:


> I installed a WD20EURS last August in my Roamio Basic. No issues so far and I did not run the WinDLG utility.


---
EDIT/INSERT: I made this post while living in the Mojave Desert, with broken air conditioning. I blame dehydration and sweat in my eyes for failing to reign in my instinct to shoot first and ask questions later. Welcome to TCF, and sorry about the hasty and intolerant response.
---
Did I ever say that not running it will cause problems, or always cause an issue? No.

Did I ever say that running it will guarantee there will never be any problems? No.

I just pointed-out the same advice, which is frequently-given by many members: Pre-testing a drive before installation is a good practice.

I then added how it might help prevent problems, and might help avoid this scenario I've now seen for myself, as well as seen reports of by others. I didn't understand what exactly what the reports could possibly be, for sure. Now I have a much better idea of why some have had to pull drives and run tests, when they didn't test before installing their drives.

I also had a whole batch of WD20____ drives that I slapped in and ran without having this happen. Perhaps the state of reviews over at NewEgg about how many DOA and "infant mortality" WD drives people have been getting lately, is enough to convince some to test first, unless what they are recording is of no importance to them.

TCF - The only place I know where people interact in the following manner:

Member A: "If you cross the street without looking, you might get ran-over".
Member B: "I crossed the street without looking, and did not get ran-over".
Member C: "I suggest never crossing the street, let the chicken do it".
Member D: "There are no streets or cars, now run along and play on the asphalt surface with the fast moving objects".
Member E: "My street is made out of concrete aggregate, so does this still apply?".
Member F: "I always cross the street without looking, and have never had a problem with being ran-over".
Member G: "I didn't look, got ran-over, and now I'm in a full body cast".
Member H: "You are all a bunch of idiots! The correct term is 'run-over' ".


----------



## slowbiscuit

Dude you're way beyond help, even though you sometimes provide useful information. Stop taking **** so seriously.


----------



## eboydog

slowbiscuit said:


> Dude you're way beyond help, even though you sometimes provide useful information. Stop taking **** so seriously.


But NoOneUKnow is right, he pretty much summed up the average conversation here.



> Member A: "If you cross the street without looking, you might get ran-over".
> Member B: "I crossed the street without looking, and did not get ran-over".
> Member C: "I suggest never crossing the street, let the chicken do it".
> Member D: "There are no streets or cars, now run along and play on the asphalt surface with the fast moving objects".
> Member E: "My street is made out of concrete aggregate, so does this still apply?".
> Member F: "I always cross the street without looking, and have never had a problem with being ran-over".
> Member G: "I didn't look, got ran-over, and now I'm in a full body cast".
> Member H: "You are all a bunch of idiots! The correct term is 'run-over' ".


----------



## aaronwt

I see Newegg has the WD red 4TB drives on sale today. It might be a good time to pick one up if I plan to try the 4TB upgrade procedure.

In the past I never checked any drives before going into service. With hundreds of them they were always fine. But now it seems like there are more issues with the drives. Plus there must be a reason that many of the warranties are shorter now. But now I always run the diagnostics before Putting them into service. I've had more issues with a couple of new drives over the last year than all the drives I used the ten years prior.


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> Dude you're way beyond help, even though you sometimes provide useful information. Stop taking **** so seriously.


It's an almost thankless job. But, somebody has to do it.

If you want silliness and ridiculousness, there's a 20.4.2 update thread in the Premiere area where people are arguing over whether the speed difference of the UI overhaul is allowed to be called "snappy" or "snappier". If that's more your speed, you can jump is on defining what "is" is.

I just don't like NewEgg's system classifying the PURX as a "newer model available" when on the EURX product pages, and that misinformation making it's way on here (it has come up). I questioned it's suitability as a single drive TiVo solution before NewEgg started that. WD doesn't even market it that way.

The WD Purple PURX line is made for scalable-capacity motion activated Security DVR use, and is not intended to be always recording. It's designed to have 20% idle time. Achieving idle time on a TiVo buffering even 2 tuners is not possible, the way TiVo does their AV without using the AV Streaming Feature. Without that, the MTTF/MTBF ratings go out the window, according to WD's product selection service. It's specifically the idle3 state (platters spinning, heads parked), which until recently (the Roamio) was something that would cause warm-boot hang ups, and had to be disabled with the wdidle3.exe tool. Given the idle3 timer's history with TiVo, and the Purple PURX line's longevity depending or that, plus motion activated cameras giving the drives less workload in TB/yr, who would want it, with a single drive workload of 60TB/yr? My answer would be an uninformed person, attracted by the low price, or somebody who just wants to check it out on a testbed.

The WD Red NAS (EFRX) is positioned to be the best replacement for the WD AV-GP (EURX) drives, should they be phased-out, unless WD creates yet another product line.

Some people like to make informed decisions, and come here looking for information. If anybody feels my posts are too long and too serious, I invite them to go try to find the same info in the several thousands of pages worth of technical data out there, and filter out marketing from specifications and standards. Happy hunting, and kiss your eyesight goodbye.

Right now I'm running three 3TB WD Red NAS drives through a series of tests setup to emulate the way TiVo writes AV data, at Ultra-ATA data rates, like TiVo. I'm also (in addition) testing with the parameters they were designed for by WD. Tom's Hardware did something similar, but only on the first gen Nasware models. I'm running the same tests on the much-improved Nasware 2.0 revision.

AnandTech has been the best hardware site for finding the info people would actually want, plentiful links for citing what they paraphrase, and comparing marketing and specifications to real-world usage scenarios. My posts have a lot of data from AnandTech. What I add, that they don't have, is how any of it may relate to use in a TiVo.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> I see Newegg has the WD red 4TB drives on sale today. It might be a good time to pick one up if I plan to try the 4TB upgrade procedure.
> 
> In the past I never checked any drives before going into service. With hundreds of them they were always fine. But now it seems like there are more issues with the drives. Plus there must be a reason that many of the warranties are shorter now. But now I always run the diagnostics before Putting them into service. I've had more issues with a couple of new drives over the last year than all the drives I used the ten years prior.


:up: Yes, absolutely, WD's reviews are in the sewer lately. Some of the drives with over 3 years worth of positive ratings, still look good on the surface, until you look at recent reviews.

If you should happen to get a fail result where WinDLG says "too many bad sectors", drop me a PM. Sometimes there's absolutely nothing wrong with the drive, and I'd like to see if my workaround to getting all pass results, with no sector reallocation for this specific false failure result might be something I should pass on to WD.

You could actually help with my testing by running HDD Scan surface tests with the block size set to 8192 logical sectors (default is 256). If you do, skip the butterfly-read one. It's just not the kind of test a Red NAS drive is cut-out for. The full results can be saved to a .mht file for each test.

Good luck!


----------



## DancyMunchkin

nooneuknow said:


> ---
> EDIT/INSERT: I made this post while living in the Mojave Desert, with broken air conditioning. I blame dehydration and sweat in my eyes for failing to reign in my instinct to shoot first and ask questions later. Welcome to TCF, and sorry about the hasty and intolerant response.
> ---


Apology accepted.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> The WD Purple PURX line is made for scalable-capacity motion activated Security DVR use, and is not intended to be always recording. It's designed to have 20% idle time.


All hard drives are designed for 24/7/365 use with no idle time. WD has taken to creating different colored hard drives with no real differences between them just so they can create different pricing levels within their own brand.

It's about capacity, price, and warranty. And with a Tivo maybe noise. It used to be about reliability, but there's only two hard drive manufacturers now, so their isn't much of a choice there.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Exactly - all this crap is just splitting hairs, but anal retentiveness runs strong in some.


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> All hard drives are designed for 24/7/365 use with no idle time.


Just because that's what you are used to, and you like it, doesn't mean it will stay that way.

Perhaps a contest is in order to find the most non op-ed sources of where drive technology is at, and where it is headed (and what will be left behind)...

Articles from GRC dated 2001 don't count.


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> Exactly - all this crap is just splitting hairs, but anal retentiveness runs strong in some.


If using a drive as it is designed to be used means it outlasting the warranty, and less potential of losing everything on it, that will appeal to some.

Others will be just fine with a 3yr warranty and getting an RMA for replacement before the warranty is up, and losing everything on the drive.

Last I checked, TiVo doesn't have RAID support. So, one (internal) drive will just have to do. If the naysayers of the "All drives....." camp were up to speed on things, there wouldn't be much to disagree on except which mfg people choose to trust their data with.

EDIT/ADD: The other forces at play are government mandates that everything become (more) energy-efficient, or else... I wouldn't expect that to go away, just because some like using their Pentium 4 towers with everything always-on, always at maximum speed, as a space heater to keep them warm in their caves.


----------



## trip1eX

nooneuknow said:


> ---
> 
> TCF - The only place I know where people interact in the following manner:
> 
> Member A: "If you cross the street without looking, you might get ran-over".
> Member B: "I crossed the street without looking, and did not get ran-over".
> Member C: "I suggest never crossing the street, let the chicken do it".
> Member D: "There are no streets or cars, now run along and play on the asphalt surface with the fast moving objects".
> Member E: "My street is made out of concrete aggregate, so does this still apply?".
> Member F: "I always cross the street without looking, and have never had a problem with being ran-over".
> Member G: "I didn't look, got ran-over, and now I'm in a full body cast".
> Member H: "You are all a bunch of idiots! The correct term is 'run-over' ".


lol. That's the gist of my experience everywhere.


----------



## ThAbtO

On Amazon, the WD30EURX is $151 while the WD30EFRX is only $122.


----------



## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> On Amazon, the WD30EURX is $151 while the WD30EFRX is only $122.


Even though it's supposed to be over, the WD40EFRX is still showing $159.99, 1-3PM PT Shell Shocker Deal @ NewEgg, and even when placed in my cart. Limit 3.

I just don't think the extra 1TB is going to do much for my needs. I'll pass. Maybe others can still get it at that price, no promo code required: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236599

I'll take a drive I can repurpose for use other than TiVo, over the limited uses for AV & AV-GP drives, any time (that I have excess money to spend).

The EFRX seems to be routinely in the sweet-spot now for best 5400RPM drive for the money.


----------



## aaronwt

I was thinking about picking one up but I think I will hold off for now. I could definitely use the extra 1TB in my Roamio Pro. But I also have a Seagate 4TB drive in my TiVo Desktop machine so I will just continue using that for overflow for now.


----------



## nooneuknow

I'm still able to access and cart these as of right now, just in case this will finally expire at midnight PT. I'll check again after midnight and post if this price is still sticking. Anybody else ever see a "should have expired Shell Shocker sale item" stick on the expired price before and still say Shell Shocker on the product page, minus the "limited time offer" line?



nooneuknow said:


> Even though it's supposed to be over, the WD40EFRX is still showing $159.99, 1-3PM PT Shell Shocker Deal @ NewEgg, and even when placed in my cart. Limit 3.
> 
> I just don't think the extra 1TB is going to do much for my needs. I'll pass. Maybe others can still get it at that price, no promo code required: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236599
> 
> I'll take a drive I can repurpose for use other than TiVo, over the limited uses for AV & AV-GP drives, any time (that I have excess money to spend).
> 
> The EFRX seems to be routinely in the sweet-spot now for best 5400RPM drive for the money.


----------



## unitron

Here's a thought:

If you find a good deal on a drive that your TiVo can use, but that also could be used in a PC or NAS or something, get it, and then when a good price comes along on an A/V drive of the same size, get it and "dd" the old one to the new one and repurpose the old one.


----------



## nooneuknow

unitron said:


> Here's a thought:
> 
> If you find a good deal on a drive that your TiVo can use, but that also could be used in a PC or NAS or something, get it, and then when a good price comes along on an A/V drive of the same size, get it and "dd" the old one to the new one and repurpose the old one.


I'm not seeing where the logic is in that, when the price of identically-sized WD Red NAS and WD AV-GP drives are often the same price when they are on sale. NewEgg's Shell Shocker prices have sometimes been the same as when they run their usual multi-day sales with email subscriber codes. They aren't always worth spending money you don't have, just to snap them up within a 2 hour window.

Also, when it comes to 4TB drives, "dd" copies take a VERY long time. I wouldn't want a new, or uninformed, member to think that this would be fast and easy, and would insure the cablecard pairing stays fully intact.

When I buy drives for TiVo use, I don't gamble on the drives I get being non-DOA, or lasting as long as they should. I buy more than I need. NewEgg reviews on WD drives are so bad (recently and currently), this is almost boilerplate advice now. If I buy 5 drives, need three, and luck-out on them being good, I end up with two drives I can use for other things. If I bought Red NAS, that leaves me with extra drives with less limitations on what I can use them for. I can put them into a NAS device, and offload content to them, as well. If I'm always buying Red NAS, I'm not left with drives I'd only use in TiVos, either as extra from buying more than needed, or from a decision to increase TiVo capacity.

The bad reviews on hard drives, due to DOA and "infant mortality" situations, are not limited to WD, although they seem to be worse for WD, AFAICT. If the reviews had turned for the better, I'd probably have caved, and got some 4TB drives, since the price took until midnight to reset to $15 higher.


----------



## HarperVision

Just saw this if it'll work and anyone wants to use the new home brewed 4TB option in their Roamio:

http://www.woot.com/offers/hitachi-...il&utm_term=0_c5ca76da11-5b5f6c74cd-298083713


----------



## bareyb

HarperVision said:


> Just saw this if it'll work and anyone wants to use the new home brewed 4TB option in their Roamio:
> 
> http://www.woot.com/offers/hitachi-...il&utm_term=0_c5ca76da11-5b5f6c74cd-298083713


I have the 1 TB version in my Series 3 going on 8 years now. I think I paid $400.00 for it.... They do make a slight "clunking" sound but we use one in our bedroom and it's never been a problem.


----------



## A J Ricaud

until 11:59pm PT on 7/22/2014 with PROMO CODE: EMCYTZG686


----------



## eboydog

HarperVision said:


> Just saw this if it'll work and anyone wants to use the new home brewed 4TB option in their Roamio:
> 
> http://www.woot.com/offers/hitachi-...il&utm_term=0_c5ca76da11-5b5f6c74cd-298083713


Sold out, I almost wooted it but got distracted by some Vizio TV's they had and got an extra 32" smart tv instead!


----------



## aaronwt

bareyb said:


> I have the 1 TB version in my Series 3 going on 8 years now. I think I paid $400.00 for it.... They do make a slight "clunking" sound but we use one in our bedroom and it's never been a problem.


I got several of them in early 2007 to put in my S3 boxes. But I got the external drives for around $300 and removed the hard drive from the case. They were the first 1TB drive and it had 5 platters. They actually run rather hot. But my GF still has two of those S3 boxes and so far the drives have been working great. They have been running, 24/7, for over seven years with zero issues.

Unfortunatel,y I don't have that much faith in the hard drives that are available today.


----------



## lessd

aaronwt said:


> . They have been running, 24/7, for over seven years with zero issues.
> 
> Unfortunatel,y I don't have that much faith in the hard drives that are available today.


That why no matter how much one may try to find the "best" drive for the TiVo, you could never tell, anybody would be happy with 8 years on a 24/7 hard drive, but what new ones, if any, will do that, some may but you will not know until 2022.


----------



## kingmob

Apologies for asking a question that's probably been answered recently, but I did search and didn't find anything later than January (it would be great if the initial post in the thread could be updated). Is it possible yet to just drop in a 4TB hard drive, or is WeaKness still the only option? Thanks!


----------



## lessd

kingmob said:


> Apologies for asking a question that's probably been answered recently, but I did search and didn't find anything later than January (it would be great if the initial post in the thread could be updated). Is it possible yet to just drop in a 4TB hard drive, or is WeaKness still the only option? Thanks!


Not quit a drop in but see http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860


----------



## kingmob

^ Thanks for the quick response!


----------



## aaronwt

I see WD came out with 5TB and 6TB Red drives this week. They use 1.2 TB platters and only use a little more power than their 4TB drives.


----------



## lpwcomp

aaronwt said:


> I see WD came out with 5TB and 6TB Red drives this week. They use 1.2 TB platters and only use a little more power than their 4TB drives.


Also available in Green.

Interesting that unlike the 6TB drive from WD subsidiary HGST, there's no indication that any of these new offerings are helium filled.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> I see WD came out with 5TB and 6TB Red drives this week. They use 1.2 TB platters and only use a little more power than their 4TB drives.


Ugh...

If I read one more datasheet, or ATA/ATAPI publication, my head WILL explode...

I'm guessing PMR, to get the density. Hopefully, this direction of things will result in the 3 & 4TB ones dropping in price, and eventually the newer technologies used in the lower capacity drives. I don't think I want to be buying any WD drives anytime soon... Reviews are still reporting way too many DOA and "infant mortality" experiences.

I'm finding that the read/write speeds of the 3TB WD Red NAS drives I got before the bad batches (thankfully non-DOA), decline in performance with TiVo use. I'm compiling benchmark results from drives with differing amounts of use in TiVos, to forward to WD, and ask if I can expect a 20MB/s throughput drop for every six months of use, as a "normal" situation, or if I have drives that are bad in some other way (other than DOA/IM)...

EDIT/ADD: If the capacity increase is from SMR (Shingled), as opposed to PMR (Perpendicular), I want nothing to do with such drives. Shingled recording brings the woes of wear leveling (like with SSD) to platter drives, where parallel tracks are being overwritten...


----------



## clouduser1

After reading a bunch of these posts and threads i have come to the conclusion that the best method to upgrade the storage on my roamio plus is swapping out the internal storage for a 3tb drive. Iv read that any hd will work but does any body know which works best? WD has a a color system to differentiate between hd types; green, blue, black, red, red pro, etc. Does anybody know which is best?

thanks a bunch!


----------



## ThAbtO

clouduser1 said:


> After reading a bunch of these posts and threads i have come to the conclusion that the best method to upgrade the storage on my roamio plus is swapping out the internal storage for a 3tb drive. Iv read that any hd will work but does any body know which works best? WD has a a color system to differentiate between hd types; green, blue, black, red, red pro, etc. Does anybody know which is best?
> 
> thanks a bunch!


Mostly we would say Green, but there is a specific kind that will work in DVRs, Green and AV, they were designed to run 24/7. For WD drives, 10EURS/X, 20EURS/X, 30EURS/X. For anything larger then 3TB, it may not work or there is a workaround.


----------



## lessd

clouduser1 said:


> After reading a bunch of these posts and threads i have come to the conclusion that the best method to upgrade the storage on my roamio plus is swapping out the internal storage for a 3tb drive. Iv read that any hd will work but does any body know which works best? WD has a a color system to differentiate between hd types; green, blue, black, red, red pro, etc. Does anybody know which is best?
> 
> thanks a bunch!


I don't think there is a hands down best, TiVo does not make use of the special commands in the WD AV drives, I have used different green drives or red drives and never had a problem, or saw any difference. People do have options as to the best drive, but nobody has any real proof of the best drive, low power is your best bet so stay away from fast PC drives with fast RPM and fast data retrieval times.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> I don't think there is a hands down best, TiVo does not make use of the special commands in the WD AV drives, I have used different green drives or red drives and never had a problem, or saw any difference. People do have options as to the best drive, but nobody has any real proof of the best drive, low power is your best bet so stay away from fast PC drives with fast RPM and fast data retrieval times.


Just some added points:

While TiVo does not use the ATA/AV streaming feature, WD Red NAS also has the that feature included. The new NASware 3.0 versions support it, but it is disabled by default, and must be turned on to be available (which isn't necessary for TiVo use anyway).

The *other new* Red NAS *Pro* line of drives are 7200RPM, and not recommended for TiVo use, due to this (going by the low-power, low RPM, and low heat profiles the majority here recommend).

The WD AV-GP, Red NAS, and Purple Surveillance drives meet all the profiles the majority recommend, and have a 3 year warranty, instead of 2 year for lesser drives. The price difference is often worth paying to get the extra year of warranty.

*It's my opinion,* that the WD Purple's rated workload of 60TB/yr, is inadequate for longevity in TiVo use. On the other hand, the AV-GP drives don't have a published rated workload, so there's no way to know if it is any different in rated yearly workload.

See my prior recent posts for the long versions on ratings, some helpful comparison charts, and links to back up what I say in those posts.

If you don't care about longevity (lifespan), warranty, or anything else beyond price, capacity, and staying within acceptable power load, then grab any 5400-5900 RPM or "intellipower" (high energy efficiency/green) drive, up to 3TB, and slap it in. 4TB is possible with free tools/images, requiring a PC to "prepare" the drive (Since a Roamio can currently only prepare up to 3TB drives, on it's own).

*Be aware that there are a lot of WD Red NAS drives in reseller inventory that are NASware 2.0, and the new ones are NASware 3.0. The 2.0 can't be updated to 3.0, due to the whole drive being updated, not just a firmware difference.*


----------



## clouduser1

nooneuknow said:


> Just some added points:
> 
> While TiVo does not use the ATA/AV streaming feature, WD Red NAS also has the that feature included. The new NASware 3.0 versions support it, but it is disabled by default, and must be turned on to be available (which isn't necessary for TiVo use anyway).
> 
> The *other new* Red NAS *Pro* line of drives are 7200RPM, and not recommended for TiVo use, due to this (going by the low-power, low RPM, and low heat profiles the majority here recommend).
> 
> The WD AV-GP, Red NAS, and Purple Surveillance drives meet all the profiles the majority recommend, and have a 3 year warranty, instead of 2 year for lesser drives. The price difference is often worth paying to get the extra year of warranty.
> 
> *It's my opinion,* that the WD Purple's rated workload of 60TB/yr, is inadequate for longevity in TiVo use. On the other hand, the AV-GP drives don't have a published rated workload, so there's no way to know if it is any different in rated yearly workload.
> 
> See my prior recent posts for the long versions on ratings, some helpful comparison charts, and links to back up what I say in those posts.
> 
> If you don't care about longevity (lifespan), warranty, or anything else beyond price, capacity, and staying within acceptable power load, then grab any 5400-5900 RPM or "intellipower" (high energy efficiency/green) drive, up to 3TB, and slap it in. 4TB is possible with free tools/images, requiring a PC to "prepare" the drive (Since a Roamio can currently only prepare up to 3TB drives, on it's own).
> 
> *Be aware that there are a lot of WD Red NAS drives in reseller inventory that are NASware 2.0, and the new ones are NASware 3.0. The 2.0 can't be updated to 3.0, due to the whole drive being updated, not just a firmware difference.*


Thank you all so much for the recommendations! I see that amazon has a green WD for 100 bucks and purple for 129 (http://www.amazon.com/Intellipower-...68&sr=1-1&keywords=western+digital+purple+3tb) i think ill get the purple for longevity purposes.


----------



## dianebrat

clouduser1 said:


> Thank you all so much for the recommendations! I see that amazon has a green WD for 100 bucks and purple for 129 (http://www.amazon.com/Intellipower-...68&sr=1-1&keywords=western+digital+purple+3tb) i think ill get the purple for longevity purposes.


So you're going to buy the unit that costs more than a recommended drive? that makes no sense..


----------



## clouduser1

dianebrat said:


> So you're going to buy the unit that costs more than a recommended drive? that makes no sense..


i thought that the purple meet all the requirements for tivo use


----------



## dianebrat

clouduser1 said:


> i thought that the purple meet all the requirements for tivo use


The post you quoted had a section on why the poster thought the Purple line was potentially not as good a choice, but there's certainly no reason to NOT choose the Green which has a great track record in Tivo's and is $30 less in your post.


----------



## clouduser1

dianebrat said:


> The post you quoted had a section on why the poster thought the Purple line was potentially not as good a choice, but there's certainly no reason to NOT choose the Green which has a great track record in Tivo's and is $30 less in your post.


reason why i went for the purple over the green is because of the concerns over longevity; purple seems to be designed for constant rewriting of data 24/7 (surveillance camera use). I thought that they both would work well. But if the green is the best then i wouldn't mind saving some cash.


----------



## squint

I think there's green and green AV-GP and the latter is intended for 24/7 DVR use.


----------



## clouduser1

squint said:


> I think there's green and green AV-GP and the latter is intended for 24/7 DVR use.


like this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...=UTF8&qid=1406493780&sr=1-3&keywords=WD30EURS


----------



## squint

Yep.


----------



## nooneuknow

Multi-reply:

The WD AV-GP is what most go with. It's what TiVo uses, in the models they use WD drives in. They started using Seagate AV low-power drives in Roamio basics, which are just another brand AV 24/7 "green" drive.

The WD Purple has no track record yet. It's a new product. I know of one person who has used one in a TiVo, but only to develop a free 4TB upgrade path.

The first incarnation of the WD Red NAS, was terrible, and highly incompatible with a great many things. They fixed that with the second generation, and just released a third generation of it.

If you want the combination of: best price, best warranty, 24/7 "rating", and best track record for use in TiVos, just get the WD AV-GP (AV-GreenPower).

Let somebody else run a WD Purple for long enough to see how it holds up. Better yet, wait until many people have used it and reported good results, after a substantial length of time.

*EDIT/ADD: Here's the drive (WD30EURX 3TB AV-GP)*, from the place I always buy from (NewEgg), where it goes on sale for as low as $119.99, about once a month. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236602
Ignore any links to "newer version available", and if you want different sizes, select the size from the right side of the screen.


----------



## clouduser1

nooneuknow said:


> Multi-reply:
> 
> The WD AV-GP is what most go with. It's what TiVo uses, in the models they use WD drives in. They started using Seagate AV low-power drives in Roamio basics, which are just another brand AV 24/7 "green" drive.
> 
> The WD Purple has no track record yet. It's a new product. I know of one person who has used one in a TiVo, but only to develop a free 4TB upgrade path.
> 
> The first incarnation of the WD Red NAS, was terrible, and highly incompatible with a great many things. They fixed that with the second generation, and just released a third generation of it.
> 
> If you want the combination of: best price, best warranty, 24/7 "rating", and best track record for use in TiVos, just get the WD AV-GP (AV-GreenPower).
> 
> Let somebody else run a WD Purple for long enough to see how it holds up. Better yet, wait until many people have used it and reported good results, after a substantial length of time.
> 
> *EDIT/ADD: Here's the drive (WD30EURX 3TB AV-GP)*, from the place I always buy from (NewEgg), where it goes on sale for as low as $119.99, about once a month. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236602
> Ignore any links to "newer version available", and if you want different sizes, select the size from the right side of the screen.


thanks a bunch for your reply, ill checkout newegg periodically. The world cup killed my storage


----------



## nooneuknow

clouduser1 said:


> thanks a bunch for your reply, ill checkout newegg periodically. The world cup killed my storage


Make sure to subscribe to their email promos. Without them, you often can't get the super-low prices, because some promo codes only work if subscribed for emails, and the best deals often are codes that are unique to the subscriber's email address. If you don't feel like setting up filtering to keep the clutter out of your inbox, use something other than your main email address.

If you like NewEgg, check into the yearly subscription for Premier Benefits. It's like Amazon Prime, but much cheaper, plus getting you faster shipping than the standard free shipping, no restocking fees, and no-cost return shipping. My membership paid for itself with my first order (seriously). I also get member only codes, and deals, plus an exclusive no-wait toll-free number to customer service, which will sometimes result in being able to get things done, outside policy, as a courtesy. Too many great things to list!


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> ............ EDIT/ADD: Here's the drive (WD30EURX 3TB AV-GP), from the place I always buy from (NewEgg), where it goes on sale for as low as $119.99, about once a month. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236602 Ignore any links to "newer version available", and if you want different sizes, select the size from the right side of the screen.


I bought my WD30EURX 3TB at Best Buy for about $117, so you may want to check there as well.


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> I bought my WD30EURX 3TB at Best Buy for about $117, so you may want to check there as well.


That's impressive, considering the lowest Newegg price to date has been $114.99, as a shell-shocker deal.

Buying locally, and paying sales tax (or calculating it before committing), should be a factor. Sales tax here is ~7.75%, which would be $9.07 in tax, making that price $126.07. Might as well buy from a reseller that doesn't add tax, and has free shipping, unless "you just gotta have that drive right now".

The other thing that stands-out is I have yet to see any 3TB EURX or EURS drives at my local stores. But, they have the non-AV 2yr warranty 3TB EZRX for that price, when they bother to stock the shelves. The online inventory never matches with what's in the stores here, either...

I'm kind of spoiled in snagging the deals, and getting the drive delivered the next business day, with Premier membership shipping. OTOH, before they started that program, the standard free shipping still got here that fast , most of the time.


----------



## bmgoodman

nooneuknow said:


> That's impressive, considering the lowest Newegg price to date has been $114.99, as a shell-shocker deal.
> 
> Buying locally, and paying sales tax (or calculating it before committing), should be a factor. Sales tax here is ~7.75%, which would be $9.07 in tax, making that price $126.07. Might as well buy from a reseller that doesn't add tax, and has free shipping, unless "you just gotta have that drive right now".
> 
> The other thing that stands-out is I have yet to see any 3TB EURX or EURS drives at my local stores. But, they have the non-AV 2yr warranty 3TB EZRX for that price, when they bother to stock the shelves. The online inventory never matches with what's in the stores here, either...
> 
> I'm kind of spoiled in snagging the deals, and getting the drive delivered the next business day, with Premier membership shipping. OTOH, before they started that program, the standard free shipping still got here that fast , most of the time.


I don't trust NewEgg with hard drives as I've had several shipped in just a plastic "clam-shell" case, rattling around in a huge box half-filled with peanuts. Sure, they worked, but it's hard to tell if they're going to manifest latent problems. Granted, it's been a few months since I asked their customer service, but the last time I asked they would NOT guarantee that they'll be shipped in "appropriate" packaging. (I do use NewEgg often for other equipment.)

Finally, I'll pay a few dollars more for a local store because DOA drives can be easily and quickly returned. (I've heard that the latest WD Reds have a high "infant mortality" rate with many either DOA or dead in a week.) Not that I'm recommending Red drives for Tivo use.


----------



## nooneuknow

bmgoodman said:


> I don't trust NewEgg with hard drives as I've had several shipped in just a plastic "clam-shell" case, rattling around in a huge box half-filled with peanuts. Sure, they worked, but it's hard to tell if they're going to manifest latent problems. Granted, it's been a few months since I asked their customer service, but the last time I asked they would NOT guarantee that they'll be shipped in "appropriate" packaging. (I do use NewEgg often for other equipment.)
> 
> Finally, I'll pay a few dollars more for a local store because DOA drives can be easily and quickly returned. (I've heard that the latest WD Reds have a high "infant mortality" rate with many either DOA or dead in a week.) Not that I'm recommending Red drives for Tivo use.


Newegg stopped shipping like that, quite a while back. Their current packaging is better than WD's, IMO, and I have not seen a packing peanut in any box from Newegg, in something like what seems a year.

Both desktop and laptop drives are shipped in a special air-mattress packaging, designed for drives, there is no moving around. Each is snugly enclosed in a small box, multiple drives are shipped in multiple boxes, inside a larger box, and any room inside the box is filled with air-filled pillow-pak packaging. They went from being the worst reseller, when it came to shipping drives, to the best I am aware of. Their customer service was good before I became a Premiere member. Now, I don't have to hold, and have not had anything but the best interactions with them.

If everybody insists on posting about some past bad experience(s), I can't stop it, and it's pointless for me to say more than I already have.


----------



## clouduser1

this guy on eBay is selling them for about 100 bucks;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Western...Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item1c4352cea8

He has no reviews tho...idk if i should gamble haha


----------



## lessd

clouduser1 said:


> this guy on eBay is selling them for about 100 bucks;
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Western...Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item1c4352cea8
> 
> He has no reviews tho...idk if i should gamble haha


I just got (for a friend) a WD 3Tb drive from Amazon and the green label did not look like the one this E-Bay seller is using. $107 prime shipping

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RORMF6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


----------



## ThAbtO

lessd said:


> I just got (for a friend) a WD 3Tb drive from Amazon and the green label did not look like the one this E-Bay seller is using. $107 prime shipping
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RORMF6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


This is a WD30EZRX, even though its a green drive, its not an AV drive. The Ebay one is a WD30EURX, which is an AV drive.


----------



## lessd

ThAbtO said:


> This is a WD30EZRX, even though its a green drive, its not an AV drive. The Ebay one is a WD30EURX, which is an AV drive.


For TiVo use it makes no difference, but each to their own opinion.


----------



## dianebrat

ThAbtO said:


> This is a WD30EZRX, even though its a green drive, its not an AV drive. The Ebay one is a WD30EURX, which is an AV drive.





lessd said:


> For TiVo use it makes no difference, but each to their own opinion.


Exactly, the AV drive has some command extensions Tivo doesn't use, a ton of folks here use the straight Green and have no issues other than the old WDIDLE reset a few years ago.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> That's impressive, considering the lowest Newegg price to date has been $114.99, as a shell-shocker deal. Buying locally, and paying sales tax (or calculating it before committing), should be a factor. Sales tax here is ~7.75%, which would be $9.07 in tax, making that price $126.07. Might as well buy from a reseller that doesn't add tax, and has free shipping, unless "you just gotta have that drive right now". The other thing that stands-out is I have yet to see any 3TB EURX or EURS drives at my local stores. But, they have the non-AV 2yr warranty 3TB EZRX for that price, when they bother to stock the shelves. The online inventory never matches with what's in the stores here, either... I'm kind of spoiled in snagging the deals, and getting the drive delivered the next business day, with Premier membership shipping. OTOH, before they started that program, the standard free shipping still got here that fast , most of the time.


Actually now that everyone's talking about it, I think that the one I got from BB was an EZRX. That may explain the price.


----------



## nooneuknow

*By using an AV drive, you get PWL* (preemptive wear leveling). This involves the drive firmware sweeping the heads across the entire surface of the platters, beyond just the surface area the data tracks are on, at timed intervals.

This helps to eliminate issues when an event causes the drive to move the heads to an area that has not been accessed during use, or not accessed for a long time. It's especially helpful when one pulls power from the TiVo, after the drive has been running for a long time, and it will attempt to park the heads onto the loading ramp. *Without PWL, the chances of a drive that has been operating perfectly, never operating again after certain events, is increased.*

What some get confused about, when it comes to PWL, is that it's not about wear leveling the platters, heads, or sectors. It wear levels the pivot point of the head actuator, and keeps the lubricant evenly distributed, as well as the wear.

If one never unplugs the TiVo, keeps it on battery backup (UPS), which keeps the heads limited to the data tracks, limiting the movement of the head actuator, the odds of the drive not spinning up again, after being losing power (for any reason), is greatly increased.

To keep bickering to a minimum, I'll stick to this as the greatest benefit of AV drives, over other drives. *PWL is operational, regardless of whether or not the streaming feature of an AV drive is being used.*


----------



## rnopelo

I previously had a 2TB drive in a Tivo Series 3 HDTV DVR. The Series 3 is retired and I removed the 2TB drive from it. I now have a base Roamio. Can I put the 2TB drive in the Roamio as is, or would I need to do some kind of reformatting before installing it in the Roamio? If so, what steps would I need to take to prep the drive for the Roamio?

Thanks.


----------



## lessd

rnopelo said:


> I previously had a 2TB drive in a Tivo Series 3 HDTV DVR. The Series 3 is retired and I removed the 2TB drive from it. I now have a base Roamio. Can I put the 2TB drive in the Roamio as is, or would I need to do some kind of reformatting before installing it in the Roamio? If so, what steps would I need to take to prep the drive for the Roamio?
> 
> Thanks.


Use the WD diag (or any other program) to do a quick erase of the drive, then just put the drive into the Roamio and set the system up.


----------



## telemark

rnopelo said:


> what steps would I need to take to prep the drive for the Roamio?


The only things that require special attention are drives that came out of a Roamio which need to blanked or drives that are greater than 3TB which need to be preformatted / imaged.

While you have the drive accessible, take the time to test it (manufacturers util or at minimum SMART) and set any parameters. (what model is it?)


----------



## rnopelo

telemark said:


> (what model is it?)


Telemark, the drive is a 2TB WD20EURS. I had it my Series3 for about 10 months of service time.


----------



## lessd

rnopelo said:


> Telemark, the drive is a 2TB WD20EURS. I had it my Series3 for about 10 months of service time.


Use the WD diag program (free) to do a quick erase and the drive will now work in your Roamio.


----------



## ThAbtO

https://e.tigerdirect.com/pub/cc?_r...cKuWPl8sZOcPbytlWkeoJhqObJI7mELZ7dAYoegZ0jmz4.


----------



## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> https://e.tigerdirect.com/pub/cc?_r...cKuWPl8sZOcPbytlWkeoJhqObJI7mELZ7dAYoegZ0jmz4.


Just to make sure nobody who wants an AV drive with PWL, 24x7 AV usage profile, and a three year warranty, orders this by accident: This is an EZRX drive, having none of these things.

For "I want the cheapest drive that will work, don't care about longevity, and am fine with a 2 year warranty" people, this is your 3TB EZRX drive.

If used in anything except a Roamio, a direct internal connection to a PC SATA port will be required to disable the idle-3 timer, using the wdidle3.exe tool.

All testing, before installation (which is highly recommended) can be done with a USB 3.0 drive dock/adapter, or by other interfaces.


----------



## aaronwt

I see Newegg has the 3TB WD red drives (WD30EFRX) on sale for the next couple of days for $115. I got an email saying it is a mstery deal for the next 48 hours. But it also looks like the price is only $125 before the $10 promo code is used.


----------



## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> For "I want the cheapest drive that will work, don't care about longevity, and am fine with a 2 year warranty" people For the "I know it really doesn't matter what drive I get, it's always just a roll of the dice" people, this is your 3TB drive.


FTFY.


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> FTFY.


For the record, that was an edited (by slowbiscuit) quote. I don't quote people and bold-type, or otherwise edit, a segment, without saying "I've placed this part in bold". Unless done this way, it is a false quote, easily taken out of context. Even just selectively quoting a part of a longer post can completely change the context.

What I actually said was:


> For "I want the cheapest drive that will work, don't care about longevity, and am fine with a 2 year warranty" people, this is your 3TB EZRX drive.


The post:


nooneuknow said:


> Just to make sure nobody who wants an AV drive with PWL, 24x7 AV usage profile, and a three year warranty, orders this by accident: This is an EZRX drive, having none of these things.
> 
> For "I want the cheapest drive that will work, don't care about longevity, and am fine with a 2 year warranty" people, this is your 3TB EZRX drive.
> 
> If used in anything except a Roamio, a direct internal connection to a PC SATA port will be required to disable the idle-3 timer, using the wdidle3.exe tool.
> 
> All testing, before installation (which is highly recommended) can be done with a USB 3.0 drive dock/adapter, or by other interfaces.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> I see Newegg has the 3TB WD red drives (WD30EFRX) on sale for the next couple of days for $115. I got an email saying it is a mstery deal for the next 48 hours. But it also looks like the price is only $125 before the $10 promo code is used.


I've been meaning to ask a question here...

Should I turn off the 7 second TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) function these drives have, when using them in a TiVo?

The AV-GP drives don't have this function. I can't find anything that helps me weigh any VALID pros and cons, when used in a TiVo (or in a context that would definitively/definitely apply). Since I know that TiVo code is written for drives without this function, I wonder if it has a downside, if left enabled, or if there are potential issues I'm leaving myself open to, by leaving it as-is.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> I see Newegg has the 3TB WD red drives (WD30EFRX) on sale for the next couple of days for $115. I got an email saying it is a mstery deal for the next 48 hours. But it also looks like the price is only $125 before the $10 promo code is used.


Unless actually in need of a drive, right now, I'd pass on what seem like a great deal.

WD has refreshed their product line. The new Red NAS with NASware 3.0 is driving down prices on the NASware 2.0 inventory.

If I wasn't aware aware of this, I'd snatch up the maximum allowed. Even then, I'd be concerned about the reviews on nearly all of WDs drives, before the refresh. I'll wait it out, since I don't need any more drives (even though I want more).

This refresh cycle has changed much more than the label. The newer drives are built on better foundations, use newer technology, and one can even spot how the drive cases are different, just by looking at the screw placement.

It's not the usual refresh, where the drive remains the same, but the firmware has been changed (although firmware is part of this cycle). Older models can't be updated to the newer firmware. So, buyer beware...

Thanks for the heads-up, though. I'm sure some are in need of a drive, and this is getting a Red NAS for the lowest known price (from Newegg) of an AV-GP drive. Red NAS has more applications it will work well for, than AV-GP.


----------



## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> For the record, that was an edited (by slowbiscuit) quote. I don't quote people and bold-type, or otherwise edit, a segment, without saying "I've placed this part in bold". Unless done this way, it is a false quote, easily taken out of context. Even just selectively quoting a part of a longer post can completely change the context.


WTH do you think FTFY means in a forum? Do some more research.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=FTFY&defid=7096722


----------



## telemark

nooneuknow said:


> Should I turn off the 7 second TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) function these drives have, when using them in a TiVo?


I forsee this being a contentious topic. The proper answer is DVR's ideally should use the Streaming command set. The command set would allow the software to selectively request error recovery vs error out depending on what kind of data is being retrieved.

It was reported Tivo's don't utilize that. Your question becomes, when a DVR doesn't have proper error control, is it better to tweak the whole drive's error recovery down, utilizing the firmware feature meant for RAID (REDUNDANT) data sets.

It's going to be hard to back this up, but I lean toward leaving it on, but ideally calculating the correct value. The reason selectivity is important before is because reading off videos can have harmless errors, vs having the drive stall could cause actual video data loss (from lost write buffers). However, many types of databases and software are also on this same drive. Read failures there are going to be problematic.

When using the RED's TLER as the only error control, the proper way is to have 2 drives segregating the data. A video only drive with a low TLER and a metadata/executable drive with high error retry.

When there's never a read error, the setting should not matter. The difference is what happens when (perhaps inevitably) they start to appear. Now I suggest, it's more likely the first errors will be in insignificant video areas than in critical data areas (3TB vs 3GB), so if there's any advantage from triggering the behavior*, we should use the policy for the video sections for the whole drive (rather than the critical data policy for the whole drive).

*= it's possible that there's no advantage seen even if intended for example if someone's software crashes on any bit errors including within video, the goal would then be to minimize any read errors no matter if it'll cascade into data loss because that data would be lost no matter what, and more data will be lost as the result of a reboot.

Idk if you remember, but I suggested before TLER might be related to your drives that have remapped good sectors. You might want to turn it off and run them in the Tivo's just to see if that behavior goes away.


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> WTH do you think FTFY means in a forum? Do some more research.
> 
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=FTFY&defid=7096722


This is the first time I've ever seen it used, in any forum, in any context, at all.

Do you expect everybody who reads anything you post to know what FTFY means, including new members? That's absurd. Your link to it's use also does not, IMO, make the way you used it in correct form. You made it appear as if I said all of it. There are other ways to do what you claim you intended to, without "putting words in my mouth", as it would appear to many. Bad form, IMNSHO. :down:

Many that visit this thread wouldn't know what it means, and wouldn't go look it up. They'd just assume it was a quote of *MY OWN WORDS*, which it was not. That aside, I strongly disagree with your snarky "correction". If that's how you see it, keep me out of it, and don't make false quotes with my name attached. Nice snarky response, as well... Somebody pee in your cereal this morning? Sorry to hear that. But, don't take it out on me.


----------



## elborak

nooneuknow said:


> Do you expect everybody who reads anything you post to know what FTFY means, including new members? That's absurd.


While it is indeed unrealistic to expect _everybody_ to understand it, it is a very common forum idiom. I've seen it literally hundreds of times on dozens of forums.

And since this has become rather off topic, I now zip my mouth on the matter.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> I forsee this being a contentious topic.
> <snip>
> Idk if you remember, but I suggested before TLER might be related to your drives that have remapped good sectors. You might want to turn it off and run them in the Tivo's just to see if that behavior goes away.


That's why I hadn't brought it up yet. I doubt there will ever be a consensus, when it comes to that setting, in TiVo use. I was hoping you would be the first to chime in. I agree with your take on all of it.

As far as those sectors, they were never remapped, only marked as pending. The TiVo simply couldn't read them, but failed to do anything about it. The WD WinDLG Extended (read) test aborted with "too many bad sectors". I used HDDScan to do a read pass, and the drive marked them as "pending". Then I used WinDLG's Write Zeroes, which successfully wrote to them. Upon the next run of the extended test, the sectors were reclaimed, rather than remapped/reallocated.

I had finally installed smartmontools for Windows, the GSmartControl GUI, and spent a while learning how to use both the GUI and command line functions. The drive error logs (which I needed smartctl to view), combined with my notes, verifies the events as I just laid them out.

It would appear that it might be better to just disabler ERC/TLER, since the problem sectors were in the non-AV system areas, and the TiVo might have done something about them, if TLER was off, allowing whatever threshold the TiVo filesystem and programming has (if any) to trigger, and let the TiVo do what TiVo does with the drives usually used in them, that don't have the function.

I suspect the WD Purple drive you have (or had) also has TLER, since it's also a drive designed to work with RAID.

I've been running repeated tests using different programs for this whole time, using a new drive, one that had been in a TiVo for a few months, and the drive with the problem sectors. I've been running alternating tests, in parallel, between the three.

Even though the drive that had the issue refuses to trip-up again, the normally hidden logs show it did before. When I graph the three drives running in parallel, the other two have consistent ebb/flow, while the "issue" drive cycles high/low rapidly, with an average that brings it pretty close to the others. But, looking at the three in parallel, the "issue" drive stands out with the rapid-cycling. It passes all the internal SMART tests as well, which I just realized that WinDLG doesn't actually use (it uses the program, rather than the drive's internal tests).

The "issue" drive has considerably longer completion times for any and all tests, yet it won't fail any of them, since the sectors were reclaimed.

I researched the errors in the SMART logs, which only smartctl gave me access to, and the meanings of what was logged. It turns out that all the sector issues may have been as simple as that the ECC data didn't match the data read, and it all could just be that the data was written corrupted, and there was never any issue with the sectors themselves, at all.

I have suspicions that the "issue" drive might have a manufacturing defect, or was damaged in shipping. I think that WD is intentionally allowing a "wide berth" when it comes to just how far off something is, or how extreme value cycling has to be, before the drive will show any normally-visible smart attribute change. With the one drive, the only typically viewable SMART attribute that has changed is Raw Read Error Rate. It had dropped to 199, then returned to 200 after the sectors were reclaimed. It still lists 199 as the "worst" logged value. The hidden SMART logs show that nearly 9000 errors were logged for about a dozen LBAs. "UNC" errors led up to "IDNF" errors. Unfortunately, the logs only retain so many error instances, so ~9000 error instances is just what the logs could tell me, not the whole picture going all the way back.

As far as WD is concerned, this drive is NOT defective. I plan to attempt to return it as "being too slow to keep up with the other drives of the same model".

WD has cracked down on returns, and the support portal that must be used is no longer friendly. So, I don't know if they will let me RMA the drive, as it is now. If I had just printed-out the original failure result from WinDLG, and used it for an RMA, I'd have been fine. Now, it's not black and white anymore. I can't get the drive to fail the test again, and anything I do to "make it fail", is likely to be detectable as something forced to happen...

The only bright-side of the weeks I've spent on all this, is I now know a lot more than I did before, about drives and SMART. I can choose to put it to good use helping out here, if the snarky people don't make me decide it's not worth it.


----------



## telemark

Just remember SMART does not catch all drive problems.

This is not something people will want to hear, but I was about to bring up the suggestion of insufficient power in another thread. We have a handful of unexplained symptoms that might be explained by that. But it's not a simple scapegoat. If there's indeed not enough power, it'll be measurable and noticeable.

Your symptoms, if not TLER related, it also sounds like weak writes.
http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_case_weak_sectors.php

Do you remember what kind of Tivo / power supply it was "written" with?


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> Just remember SMART does not catch all drive problems.
> 
> This is not something people will want to hear, but I was about to bring up the suggestion of insufficient power in another thread. We have a handful of unexplained symptoms that might be explained by that. But it's not a simple scapegoat. If there's indeed not enough power, it'll be measurable and noticeable.
> 
> Your symptoms, if not TLER related, it also sounds like weak writes.
> http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_case_weak_sectors.php
> 
> Do you remember what kind of Tivo / power supply it was "written" with?


Yes, I'm aware of that. I tend to post that fact quite often. It's also why I've been doing tests on three drives, in parallel, using differing software, alternating the tests, and often running the SMART tests in-between the tests that don't use SMART, while also checking the drives' internal logs. I did notice that automatic offline surface testing was factory-disabled on the Reds. I also found that querying the them during a test will abort the test, which might explain the never-ending test runs with TiVo KS54. Polling the status interrupts the test. Since it's really a "suspend", as opposed to an "abort", the polling will keep suspending the test, without reporting failure to complete.

The linked article you provided reads like it was written, exactly for what I encountered.

Great minds think alike. I do worry about the wall-wart power supplies that my three Roamio base-models use. They require air-space around them, and are just short of what I'd call "hot to the touch". I've seen reports of some using 7200RPM drives with them, without issues, as well of reports of 7200RPM drives failing to even spin-up with them. Every time I have brought up my concerns, I would get heaps of replies that say my concerns are invalid.

I may have to rig up a fixture to insert inline, and run a history with my handy Fluke combo meter/scope. Unfortunately, the software for doing a running history was written for DOS. I can feel the power supplies get hotter, when the TiVos are very busy, and thrashing the disks during processing of guide data, and whatnot. I really need to find my IR temperature gun, and get some real temp values, rather than using my fingers...


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> This is not something people will want to hear, but I was about to bring up the suggestion of insufficient power in another thread. We have a handful of unexplained symptoms that might be explained by that. But it's not a simple scapegoat. If there's indeed not enough power, it'll be measurable and noticeable.


Can you please provide links to these threads? I try to subscribe to all the threads you are active in. But, many of them don't have a lot of activity, and get pushed off the new posts threads quickly, at the rate people are joining and starting a new thread for their each and every problem...

Your input, help, and other participation is greatly appreciated. I always wish there was more I could do to participate in your endeavors.


----------



## nooneuknow

@telemark

I'll state that all my TiVos are on verified operational battery backup UPS.

I'll also float the fact that WD Red NAS drives are marketed as having the capability to complete queued operations in the event of a power failure. I was a bit put-off by the new incarnation with NASware 3.0 fixing some issue with that function. I wonder if that feature has a defect in previous drives, that makes the drive more vulnerable to weak writes if the power fluctuates, or gets weak, as opposed to a power loss, or as opposed to drives without that feature...

Queue-up everything you feel I should test, and I'll get to it. I'm getting tired of repeating all the other parallel tests I've been doing.

While I know it's likely related to the panel itself, the TiVo that had this problem, has almost twice as bright lights on the front panel, than the most stable one, and still brighter than the third one in another room, which seems fairly stable.


----------



## ThAbtO

nooneuknow said:


> Can you please provide links to these threads? I try to subscribe to all the threads you are active in. But, many of them don't have a lot of activity, and get pushed off the new posts threads quickly, at the rate people are joining and starting a new thread for their each and every problem...
> 
> Your input, help, and other participation is greatly appreciated. I always wish there was more I could do to participate in your endeavors.


Click on the name and there would be a "Find more post by....."


----------



## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> Click on the name and there would be a "Find more post by....."


Thanks...

I had thought about it, after posting, and realized I could do that. I've done it before, when trying to keep up with the most beneficial members' activities...

I think too much analytics of my drive tests, and all the extra learning involved with using smartmontools and interpreting the volume of data it unleashes may have fried the "simple answers" section of my brain...

I currently have 242 browser tabs open, and none of them go unused for long...


----------



## ThAbtO

nooneuknow said:


> I currently have 242 browser tabs open, and none of them go unused for long...


For me, 2 browser windows with 2 tabs each is about the max I could handle.


----------



## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> For me, 2 browser windows with 2 tabs each is about the max I could handle.


Is that a sanity limit, or hardware/OS/browser limit? 

Chrome on Win7x64 is responsible for my insanity. When I was using IE, more than 10 tabs total would take all my memory and crash the whole thing, sooner than later. Chrome stays up for days, and remembers what was open when I get a lock-up, requiring hard-cycle. 20 windows with ~20 tabs each is my limit, if I want to keep my remote desktops open to my drive testing machines...

Not bad for a $150 second-hand laptop, with a $30 used-memory upgrade. I've worn most of the letters off the keyboard...

The much-newer and powerful laptops I have are sitting in a pile, due to them being locked to Windows 8/8.1, and the BIOS/TPM preventing putting Windows 7 on them... I hate that BS. I sent one back because it was so locked-down, not even the battery could be removed (and forget getting to the hard drive, memory, etc).

Since I'm neck-deep in drive testing insanity, I'm open to any tests anybody would like me to run. Much of the excesses I go to are so I can post what I've seen and done, myself, rather than parrot what others report and say.


----------



## ThAbtO

nooneuknow said:


> Is that a sanity limit, or hardware/OS/browser limit?
> 
> Since I'm neck-deep in drive testing insanity, I'm open to any tests anybody would like me to run. Much of the excesses I go to are so I can post what I've seen and done, myself, rather than parrot what others report and say.


Grey matter limit  Firefox browser, hardly never use IE. I have heard recently over news to never use IE (security issues) and I haven't used it in decades.


----------



## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> This is the first time I've ever seen it used, in any forum, in any context, at all.
> 
> Do you expect everybody who reads anything you post to know what FTFY means, including new members? That's absurd. Your link to it's use also does not, IMO, make the way you used it in correct form. You made it appear as if I said all of it. There are other ways to do what you claim you intended to, without "putting words in my mouth", as it would appear to many. Bad form, IMNSHO.


The way I used it (strike-through with my own response instead) is exactly how everyone uses it on every forum I've been on, and it's obvious to regulars that FTFY means that I changed your quote to sub my own. I don't really care what noobs think, they'll figure it out if they have a clue.

You've now learned something new on the intarwebs, have a nice day.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> *By using an AV drive, you get PWL* (preemptive wear leveling). This involves the drive firmware sweeping the heads across the entire surface of the platters, beyond just the surface area the data tracks are on, at timed intervals.
> 
> This helps to eliminate issues when an event causes the drive to move the heads to an area that has not been accessed during use, or not accessed for a long time. It's especially helpful when one pulls power from the TiVo, after the drive has been running for a long time, and it will attempt to park the heads onto the loading ramp. *Without PWL, the chances of a drive that has been operating perfectly, never operating again after certain events, is increased.*
> 
> What some get confused about, when it comes to PWL, is that it's not about wear leveling the platters, heads, or sectors. It wear levels the pivot point of the head actuator, and keeps the lubricant evenly distributed, as well as the wear.
> 
> If one never unplugs the TiVo, keeps it on battery backup (UPS), which keeps the heads limited to the data tracks, limiting the movement of the head actuator, the odds of the drive not spinning up again, after being losing power (for any reason), is greatly increased.
> 
> To keep bickering to a minimum, I'll stick to this as the greatest benefit of AV drives, over other drives. *PWL is operational, regardless of whether or not the streaming feature of an AV drive is being used.*


Most WD hard drives use "PWL" (not just AV drives), but it can only be activated when the hard drive is idle. A DVR is never idle, so the PWL is never activated. I know what you're thinking. "Then why would they put that feature in an AV drive?" They didn't, they left it in there just for marketing hype so they can use the same buzzwords as flash drives.

For those who don't know about PWL, all it does is to try to keep the lubricant in the pivot head a little more evenly distributed. The pivot head is a bearing. Bearings work best when they rotate 360 degrees. A pivot head only rotates ~60 degrees for its entire life. There's concern/marketing hype that some lubricant (goop) may accumulate on the edges of travel. When you park the head, the head moves near one of these edges. The head might get stuck in the goop and you have a dead hard drive. Except that in the four years I worked there, there wasn't a single failure due to this so-called problem. That's because no goop actually accumulates, as the inside of a hard drive is dust free. Worse, when the PWL feature activates it sounds just like a failing hard drive. It's loud and grinding. People on the Internet complain about it. You wouldn't want it in a DVR that's supposed to be quiet.

I used to work for one of these companies. If you read the data sheets you will slowly go insane, because it is filled with half-truths, features which don't do anything, and other useless information. Get out now while you still have your sanity!


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> I've been meaning to ask a question here...
> 
> Should I turn off the 7 second TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) function these drives have, when using them in a TiVo?


TLER is only useful for RAID installations. In theory it would hurt in a single drive application, but it only gets invoked once the hard drive is dying. Leaving it on for normal use shouldn't matter. I might turn it off only if I'm trying to copy the data off a failing hard drive. Otherwise there's no harm in leaving it on.

I also remember that WD had a problem with one of their tools, and that running it to turn off that feature would accidentally brick the hard drive. I assumed they fixed that by now. I also remember that you couldn't turn it off for some models.

That hard drive you were having problems with did sound like a weak write. I wouldn't trust that hard drive. Weak writes should never happen.


----------



## clouduser1

green AV bought! thanks for the guidance. ill let you peeps know when i get it. ill be posting on the installing thread (if there is one)


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> Most WD hard drives use "PWL" (not just AV drives), but it can only be activated when the hard drive is idle. A DVR is never idle, so the PWL is never activated.<snip>


I respectfully disagree with nearly everything you posted, but only quoted this part.

How long ago did you work in the industry, as you claim you did?

Most of what you posted sounds outdated, like as if (happens with the best of us) you left a job in an industry, lost your ability to have access to inside information you say you had, and what you know from then, no longer applies now. No offense intended. We can't verify your employment. Technology also doesn't stay the same as what it was, when leaving a job in such technology.


----------



## telemark

nooneuknow said:


> Can you please provide links to these threads?


I created a new thread for power analysis and included them there:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=519901


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> I created a new thread for power analysis and included them there:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=519901


Thank You! :up:


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> I created a new thread for power analysis and included them there:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=519901


For those who have Cisco tuning adapters, and base Roamios, you might want to take a look at what might be a possible solution, if the 12V, 2.0A wall-wart is stressing with drive upgrades.

Heck, I'll just copy it over:



nooneuknow said:


> The wall-warts for my base Roamios are 12V 2.0A.
> The BRICKS for my tuning adapters are 12V 2.5A.
> 
> I verified the plugs make proper contact when swapped, and the polarity is the same. I have not tried swapping the two around, live (yet).
> 
> Any comments or questions? It would seem like a TA should require less than a whole TiVo.
> 
> They are the Cisco STA1520 TAs. Could it be a solution is right there for those with these TAs (possibly even other TAs)?
> 
> If I wasn't such an honest guy, I'd have three extra of those Cisco bricks (made by LiteOn). When I went to return three of them, the rep told me all they needed was the TA, and not the rest. I explained that they were wrong, and gave them the bricks, power cord, and coax that each came with. But, I kept the self-install kit(s) contents: splitter, high-end coax, MoCA PoE filter, etc.
> 
> If I'd just gave them the TA's alone, I'd have three 2.5A bricks to use, without using the 2.0A TiVo wall-warts for the TAs.


----------



## ShoutingMan

Forgive me for wanting a quick summary of a 65 page thread  I've read the first several pages and last couple, but not the middle 50 pages...

Is it still the case that a Tivo Roamio Plus can be upgraded simply by removing the original drive, plug in a new drive, and power up? Nothing else?

And this is the right type of hard drive: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...00DXOJJQQ/ref=psdc11_t1_B00DXFEQGI_B00DXOJJQQ

I assume I'd lose all recordings on the original drive. What about season passes, settings, etc; are those lost too?
Are there any downsides,


----------



## ThreeSoFar

ShoutingMan said:


> Forgive me for wanting a quick summary of a 65 page thread  I've read the first several pages and last couple, but not the middle 50 pages...
> 
> Is it still the case that a Tivo Roamio Plus can be upgraded simply by removing the original drive, plug in a new drive, and power up? Nothing else?
> 
> And this is the right type of hard drive: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...00DXOJJQQ/ref=psdc11_t1_B00DXFEQGI_B00DXOJJQQ
> 
> I assume I'd lose all recordings on the original drive. What about season passes, settings, etc; are those lost too?
> Are there any downsides,


It is. You lose any content that was on your drive, it starts clean.

Season passes and such MAY come back once it powers up and calls 'home'. That I am not sure of. I upgraded our drive before ever using it, the stock drive sits on a shelf as a backup.

Test your new drive with a long test (takes a day or more?) to ensure longest life.

It works up to 3TB, I think it will use most of a 4TB drive and waste the remaining space but otherwise be functional.

Don't get a loud drive, especially for a bedroom unit. I used WD30EURS, similar to the one you quoted.

I forget why, someone else may chime in--but I think for some reason the "S" ones are better than the "X" ones. Something about the 4K formatting or some such? SEP 2013 mine cost $145 at Amazon.

From elsewhere in this thread:


> The AV drives like WD20EURS come with Intellipark already disabled, but the regular Green drives like a WD20EZRX will come with it set for 8 seconds, so in the past you have to disable it or set it higher to get a Tivo to boot past the first screen, we dont know if you still have to do that yet. With a Tivo the heads will never park anyhow, they write 24/7.


Good luck!


----------



## eboydog

ShoutingMan said:


> Forgive me for wanting a quick summary of a 65 page thread  I've read the first several pages and last couple, but not the middle 50 pages...
> 
> Is it still the case that a Tivo Roamio Plus can be upgraded simply by removing the original drive, plug in a new drive, and power up? Nothing else?
> 
> And this is the right type of hard drive: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...00DXOJJQQ/ref=psdc11_t1_B00DXFEQGI_B00DXOJJQQ
> 
> I assume I'd lose all recordings on the original drive. What about season passes, settings, etc; are those lost too?
> Are there any downsides,


Yes, simple as you stated and you will lose everything and start all over including cable card pairing.


----------



## lessd

eboydog said:


> Yes, simple as you stated and you will lose everything and start all over including cable card pairing.


But your software version will remain intact.


----------



## jmbach

If you are interested in a 4TB image then check  4TB Roamio Image community edition.  You will need a computer to put the image on the drive and the Roamio will finish the rest.


----------



## nooneuknow

ThreeSoFar said:


> It is. You lose any content that was on your drive, it starts clean.
> 
> Season passes and such MAY come back once it powers up and calls 'home'. That I am not sure of. I upgraded our drive before ever using it, the stock drive sits on a shelf as a backup.
> 
> Test your new drive with a long test (takes a day or more?) to ensure longest life.
> 
> It works up to 3TB, I think it will use most of a 4TB drive and waste the remaining space but otherwise be functional.
> 
> Don't get a loud drive, especially for a bedroom unit. I used WD30EURS, similar to the one you quoted.
> 
> I forget why, someone else may chime in--but I think for some reason the "S" ones are better than the "X" ones. Something about the 4K formatting or some such? SEP 2013 mine cost $145 at Amazon.
> 
> From elsewhere in this thread:
> 
> Good luck!


It sounds like you've been out of the drive upgrade circuit for a while, as most of what you posted seems pretty dated. I've stayed active, so I'll try to help update (without meaning any disrespect).

What I have verified, in triplicate:

*Starting clean:* If one truly wishes to "start clean", a used drive needs to we fully zero-wiped, first. If one wishes to do the minimum, with a used drive, taken from another TiVo, but wants to make sure the Roamio does a full-preparation (properly), wipe the first 64 sectors (boot sector, plus APM data) before installing.

*Change of drives, your SPs, and other things:* No recovery of anything more than your software version (retained in flash), sub status, and a few personalized preferences, from the TiVo mothership. Use KMTTG for that, and you'll never want TiVo's "help" anyway. TiVo's online SP manager (mangler) randomly corrupts, reorganizes, and removes SPs. Removal is due to ones that don't have guide data for them at the time. KMTTG backs up and restores all, in the order they are in, regardless of what's in guide data, and can do so between different units and models.

*Drive tests:* 4-6 hours, per test pass, on a 3TB drive, running on any controller that meets/exceeds the internal read/write speed of the drive, which is ~150-160 MB/s outer tracks, and ~60-80 MB/s inner tracks for all the WD "intillipower" drives (5400RPM).

*Drive capacity limits:* 3TB for TiVo to format it. 4TB DIY, for free, by preparing the drive first, now available, thanks to telemark, and all the others who contributed. Anything larger is being investigated.

*Loud drives:* It's getting hard to find any 5400 RPM drives that are "loud" anymore, and meet the power-profile window. The WD Red NAS is very quiet. Like with almost all modern drives, user-adjustable AAM is being phased out as something that can be set, even on some of the newest AV-GP drives. Things like WD "intelliseek" are becoming the auto full-control on this, as they've found that optimized seeking can achieve quiet drives, improve performance, and reduce wear/tear involved with loud, hard, seeking. Any control over this with setting AAM to max, or disabling it, used to be a trade off between quiet & performance. Technology has advanced to change this.

*Drives ending in "S" or "X":* The only difference is that "S" drives are SATA-2, and "X" drives are SATA-3. That's ALL. The "X" drives in 5400RPM/intellipower are marketing jokes, since they max-out at 157-160 MB/sec internal speed. On top of that, once the Roamio negotiates SATA 2/3, it turns it down to SATA-1, then turns-off that mode, and changes to FPDMA transfer mode at 133MB/s (TiVo logs, and the SMART logs of my drives verify this). The Roamio is still using the IDE-mode compatibility modes.

*Idle3-timer/head parking/wdidle3.exe/Roamio:* Idle mode 3 is a timer that counts down from a factory default of 7 seconds, then parks the heads, and leaves the platters spinning, on NON-AV drives (FYI WD Red NAS is an AV drive). AV-drives have this timer factory disabled. Pre-Roamio, the time the TiVo didn't send commands to the drive after a menu reboot, or TiVo self-reboot, let this timer expire, and the TiVo would fault, rather than unpark, when drive communication was re-established. Pulling the power cord, and booting from that state, wasn't an issue. Due to differences with the order and ways the Roamio communicates with the drive, this timer no longer expires, so Roamio owners have not had issues with it (so far).

*My added notes:* Old posts, and older threads, about old/outdated tech run deep on TCF, in triplicate, or more (many of them being posts I made myself, which were accurate at the time I posted). The problem is, some keep repeating/preaching the outdated info, and just can't grasp that hard drive tech has changed, continues to change, and still think they are experts, while they haven't made any effort to update their vast (limited & outdated) knowledge. At the same time, some of the most outdated info is in forum sticky posts. This is often where new members start, then get upset, when they tried to use 5-10yrs old data, to upgrade their new TiVo...


----------



## boyet_m

nooneuknow said:


> It sounds like you've been out of the drive upgrade circuit for a while, as most of what you posted seems pretty dated. I've stayed active, so I'll try to help update (without meaning any disrespect).
> 
> What I have verified, in triplicate:
> 
> *Starting clean:* If one truly wishes to "start clean", a used drive needs to we fully zero-wiped, first. If one wishes to do the minimum, with a used drive, taken from another TiVo, but wants to make sure the Roamio does a full-preparation (properly), wipe the first 64 sectors (boot sector, plus APM data) before installing.
> 
> *Change of drives, your SPs, and other things:* No recovery of anything more than your software version (retained in flash), sub status, and a few personalized preferences, from the TiVo mothership. Use KMTTG for that, and you'll never want TiVo's "help" anyway. TiVo's online SP manager (mangler) randomly corrupts, reorganizes, and removes SPs. Removal is due to ones that don't have guide data for them at the time. KMTTG backs up and restores all, in the order they are in, regardless of what's in guide data, and can do so between different units and models.
> 
> *Drive tests:* 4-6 hours, per test pass, on a 3TB drive, running on any controller that meets/exceeds the internal read/write speed of the drive, which is ~150-160 MB/s outer tracks, and ~60-80 MB/s inner tracks for all the WD "intillipower" drives (5400RPM).
> 
> *Drive capacity limits:* 3TB for TiVo to format it. 4TB DIY, for free, by preparing the drive first, now available, thanks to telemark, and all the others who contributed. Anything larger is being investigated.
> 
> *Loud drives:* It's getting hard to find any 5400 RPM drives that are "loud" anymore, and meet the power-profile window. The WD Red NAS is very quiet. Like with almost all modern drives, user-adjustable AAM is being phased out as something that can be set, even on some of the newest AV-GP drives. Things like WD "intelliseek" are becoming the auto full-control on this, as they've found that optimized seeking can achieve quiet drives, improve performance, and reduce wear/tear involved with loud, hard, seeking. Any control over this with setting AAM to max, or disabling it, used to be a trade off between quiet & performance. Technology has advanced to change this.
> 
> *Drives ending in "S" or "X":* The only difference is that "S" drives are SATA-2, and "X" drives are SATA-3. That's ALL. The "X" drives in 5400RPM/intellipower are marketing jokes, since they max-out at 157-160 MB/sec internal speed. On top of that, once the Roamio negotiates SATA 2/3, it turns it down to SATA-1, then turns-off that mode, and changes to FPDMA transfer mode at 133MB/s (TiVo logs, and the SMART logs of my drives verify this). The Roamio is still using the IDE-mode compatibility modes.
> 
> *Idle3-timer/head parking/wdidle3.exe/Roamio:* Idle mode 3 is a timer that counts down from a factory default of 7 seconds, then parks the heads, and leaves the platters spinning, on NON-AV drives (FYI WD Red NAS is an AV drive). AV-drives have this timer factory disabled. Pre-Roamio, the time the TiVo didn't send commands to the drive after a menu reboot, or TiVo self-reboot, let this timer expire, and the TiVo would fault, rather than unpark, when drive communication was re-established. Pulling the power cord, and booting from that state, wasn't an issue. Due to differences with the order and ways the Roamio communicates with the drive, this timer no longer expires, so Roamio owners have not had issues with it (so far).
> 
> *My added notes:* Old posts, and older threads, about old/outdated tech run deep on TCF, in triplicate, or more (many of them being posts I made myself, which were accurate at the time I posted). The problem is, some keep repeating/preaching the outdated info, and just can't grasp that hard drive tech has changed, continues to change, and still think they are experts, while they haven't made any effort to update their vast (limited & outdated) knowledge. At the same time, some of the most outdated info is in forum sticky posts. This is often where new members start, then get upset, when they tried to use 5-10yrs old data, to upgrade their new TiVo...


thank you so much for this excellent post...


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> I respectfully disagree with nearly everything you posted, but only quoted this part.
> 
> How long ago did you work in the industry, as you claim you did?
> 
> Most of what you posted sounds outdated, like as if (happens with the best of us) you left a job in an industry, lost your ability to have access to inside information you say you had, and what you know from then, no longer applies now. No offense intended. We can't verify your employment. Technology also doesn't stay the same as what it was, when leaving a job in such technology.


It's been 3-4 years. Due to my termination agreement, I can't say which one it was. But since there's only two major companies (and one minor one) left, you have a 33% chance of getting it right. 

WD has had "PWL" in many models of their drives since 2008. Is it possible that PWL has changed since I left? Sure. It's just a meaningless buzzword that could describe anything the HD is doing. When I worked there, we never had a single return that was a result of the hard drive not being able to unpark just because the arm was stuck. Or for any other uneven wearing issues.

Regarding the purple drives, it's like changing the design of an internal combustion engine. How would you redesign it so that it could only run for eight hours a day but not 24? Especially since a lot of work over the last few decades has gone into making it more reliable? Are you saying they sabotaged the hard drive design? First, that's incredibly tricky to get just right. Second, if they did manage it, NOBODY should buy a purple hard drive.

When I left that industry, the handwriting was on the wall. HDs are slowly being replaced with solid state. The only way an HD can compete is the capacity/cost ratio. The HD industry is trying to capture all the solid state buzzwords (like PWL) onto their datasheets, especially regarding reliability and speed, even if they make no sense. Some mfrs have gotten so nervous that they put their products through a prism, yielding multiple colors of the same product. They look and sound different on the outside, but they only have small differences (almost exclusively in firmware) that don't have any significant real-world benefits (and some are actually slightly harmful). It's still basically the same engine inside. Trust me, the rainbow existed when I was in the industry 3 years ago. It was always meant to be a distraction. Hard drives have not significantly changed in the last 3 years. Or the last 10 years for that matter. (They will probably start changing soon, however, as aerial density limits with the current technology are probably close to being reached).

Your posts are generally correct and have very useful and up-to-date information regarding upgrading a Tivo in 2014. As an engineer, I'm just warning you to not buy into all that marketing hype. And as an engineer, I can't stand when something is stated which isn't technically correct. It's my design defect.


----------



## ShoutingMan

Thanks all for your info!


----------



## ShoutingMan

nooneuknow said:


> *Starting clean:* If one truly wishes to "start clean", a used drive needs to we fully zero-wiped, first. If one wishes to do the minimum, with a used drive, taken from another TiVo, but wants to make sure the Roamio does a full-preparation (properly), wipe the first 64 sectors (boot sector, plus APM data) before installing.


What about minimum work, new drive? That's plug-and-play, no prep work?


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> It's been 3-4 years.
> When I worked there, we never had a single return that was a result of the hard drive not being able to unpark just because the arm was stuck. Or for any other uneven wearing issues.


I'm going to just focus on this, for this post, for now, or this reply will go on forever (or longer than the forever it will seem to, for some).

It's been 3-4 years since you worked for a an unstated hard drive company (this exclusion I understand), for an unstated number of time, in an unstated position. In that unstated time (and other unstated factors) you (as an individual) say the whole company never had a drive failure due to any sticking, uneven wear conditions, or being unable to park?

I have news for you. Every failure condition you have claimed the company never had, I have personally experienced/witnessed/diagnosed, many times, with many drives, by many manufacturers, over the last 15 years. The vast majority of this happened anywhere from a short time before the warranty was over, to any time after the warranty was over. Most that were within warranty, I never sent back, or reported to the company. Often, I could have sent drives back, but was busy with other things, and let the warranty lapse. That's just me. I'm sure I'm not the only one. ...and, Yes, I'm speaking of drives that meet the criteria for the failures you claim never happened.

Let's not forget the long warranties drives used to have, then were almost industry-wide shortened to 1 yr for non-enterprise class drives, and only recently, have the warranty periods become longer again.

I used to work for many large-scale companies. Just because I never was aware of something, didn't mean it didn't happen, and/or wasn;t happening. Even if, in a meeting, it was stated to me that something had never happened, that still limits the scope to what the customers of that company reported. Take it to the next level, and internal company breakdowns of numbers are sometimes what the company chooses to let their employees know. Often learned that companies I worked for were hiding more from their employees (or just not disclosing it), than the customers or public.

There are many times when working for a company, in an industry, means you know less that people outside the company. No matter what level employee you are, it creates compartmentalization.

I know I'm not the only enthusiast, who autopsies drives, or goes to the extremes of using "donor drives" to replace the head stack/actuator, on a drive that fails this way. There's tons of youtube videos that show people how to do this (not always in a way that inspires confidence).

I used to work for companies that made their own computers, as well as repairing other brand computers (on an international scale). Every time I would state this, to bolster/back-up my posts, it created an interesting effect. I would find my credibility would tank, and be inundated with people telling me how it meant squat, and accusing me of making it up to appear more credible. This effect was not limited to just me. In some ways, it makes sense. If it earned unconditional credibility, everybody would use "I used to work in the industry" or "I work in the industry", simply to enhance credibility.

I'm not trying to destroy your credibility. I'm saying "how it is", no matter how disheartening it can be, for those who are legit, to have their cred lowered by stating work experience.

I'll see how you, and the rest of the members react, or fail to react, before I consider addressing any other points. Believe me, I have a lot more I'd like to say, about every part of what you've posted. You were making the same claims about your employment when this thread started, and also dismissing what others were posting, using your alleged prior employment, to bolster your claims, which were mostly dismissed, as I see it.

Discussions involving things you claim never happened, during your ambiguous/unspecific employment, are around TCF. Move to a larger picture than TCF, and the sheer volumes of contradictions to your claims, just don't add-up. No offense. But, for all any of us know, you could have been the night-shift janitor at WD, who sometimes had chit-chats with other employees. It fits the limited scope of detail you provide.

I appreciate the kudos you gave me about what I post. If you followed me in other threads, I often wage war against "marketing fluff/BS", like the "MoCA-enabled" and "MoCA-enhanced" coax splitters now flooding the market. It's just like selling "modem-enabled/enhanced phone jacks", or "wireless enabled air". I'm no fool, when it comes to misleading marketing. I'm a one-man "mythbuster", who does not require being protected from false/misleading marketing, as you seem to think I do.

FWIW: My recent hard drive fact-finding and real-life testing missions, show WD Red NAS reserves 40% idle-time during constant writing, and 20% idle-time, during heavy constant writing, which seems counter-intuitive, until multiple tests are done at the same time, flooding the drive with writes, and reads, where eventually that idle-time gets down to less than 5%, and the performance falls off a cliff. Now the 20% idle-time number makes sense. If you can't stay above it, performance suffers, and the drive is over-worked. The solution (for RAID applications), is to add another drive to pick up the excess load. The WD Purple is meant for RAID, but isn't restricted to RAID-only. So, using it as a single drive solution for a DVR, will "work", but I doubt a drive (WD Purple) rated at 60TB/yr, is a better choice than a Red NAS, rated at 120-150TB/yr. The target workload for an AV-GP drive is unspecified. So, comparisons can not be made to/against it (only guesses). I don't currently have any AV-GP drives to see if my simu-loads might fill in the blanks, after comparisons, and calculations. Does all this sound like somebody who is swallowing the marketing "hook, line, and sinker"? I'll save the rest the quips, and say it sounds like severe OCD.

EDIT/ADD: After re-reviewing your posts, and mine, as I often do (OCD), I see you do state you are an engineer, at the very bottom of your last post. However, you still have never stated (that I can find), that you were an engineer, while you say you were employed by a HDD mfg (or for how long, or other pertinent details). I am not an engineer, but did work in the mfg/eng dept of a multi-national company, that made medical equipment. My cubicle was in the dept, and I interacted with the antisocial engineers daily (not at their desire). I could walk by after they'd spent weeks huddled around an issue, make three suggestions, get scoffed at, and the next week, all three of my suggestions were used to solve the issue. This isn't for "bragging rights", but yet another example of how an employment position compartmentalizes things, and can create tunnel-vision. The non-engineer (me), free of the engineer tunnel-vision, solves a major product hold-up, in passing. For all I know, they'd still be holding-up release of that device, if the engineer collective was left to be the only ones to work on it, compartmentalized.

I really don't wish to fight, or insult you. But, I'm no good at communicating what needs to be, if I am forced to be PC, and tiptoe delicately.

Hard drive technology has changed, and still is changing. Platter drives will always have a place (for the reasonable, foreseeable, future). Tape drive still do. SSD is not the have-all, end-all, cure-all for storage. Comparing platter drive PWL to the wear-leveling tech of SSD is not an apple to apples comparison at all, and platter-drive PWL was NOT born out of SSD. While you are right, that the only differences between some drives is the firmware, that firmware can create much greater differences and improvements than you give it credit for.

Bringing internal combustion engines in as a comparison is just so far off, it's absurd, in the context you used it. But, once again, you seem to underestimate how much difference there will be between two cars with identical engines, when one is controlled by a computer with last-gen tech, and the other is fitted with current-gen tech. While such computers have "firmware", if we're going to compares internal combustion engines, to hard drives, some comparisons would be between the two different gen computers, or could also be identical computers, programmed with different firmware. Two identical engines, and one might have twice the output, but comes with many downsides. The other might have half the output, but comes with many upsides.

That you seem to not appreciate/understand just how much difference firmware makes, makes you seem out-of-date on tech. With the current WD refresh, some of the drives are enterprise-class inside, but have consumer-class firmware. Tech is always doing this. They take an enterprise class product, and cripple it, to sell it to the general public, at a price-point that makes sense. They can do the same thing in the other direction, but are limited by the consumer-grade product only having enough capability to handle a limited amount of firmware enhancements (as opposed to not being as limited in crippling high-end products, to sell to the masses).

I think I need to stop thinking about a drive technology thread, and just make one. This discussion merits continuing, just not at the atom-level, in a thread about upgrading Roamio drives. As relevant as the refined details are here, in this thread, the bulk discussion is likely unwelcome and wearing on nerves.


----------



## nooneuknow

ShoutingMan said:


> What about minimum work, new drive? That's plug-and-play, no prep work?


Skip any testing, throw in a 3TB drive, let the TiVo prepare it for you, and hope that skipping testing it doesn't come back to bite you later (assuming it's not a DOA, which will be a no-starter).

The TiVo does not do anything to "verify" the drive is error free. The "format" it does is just writing block 0 and the APM, not any surface scan, like a long format a PC does. TiVo does the short/quick "format", in it's own proprietary way.

Given the number of DOA, and "infant mortality" drives out there, for quite a while now, and not seeming to get better, I'd never skip full write/read tests. I'm doing them in triplicate, before I use a drive in anything I want to work. I'm even forcing myself to pass-up great deals, due to the state of reviews on hard drives (especially WD). There are multiple reports of people buying 5 drives, with as many as three are DOA, and then the other two fail shortly after being installed... The "It works great, and is still working great", reviews are getting hard to come by.


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## slowbiscuit

For the umpteenth time, drives are a crapshoot. Always have been, always will be. Doesn't matter how many times you test them, or take them apart to see how they tick, or post walls of text trying to explain how you know way more than anyone else here about them.

Buy the cheapest green drive in the size you want and stick it in. Ignore ALL the other way-overblown posts about them. Enjoy your Tivo. That's it.


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## eric102

slowbiscuit said:


> For the umpteenth time, drives are a crapshoot. Always have been, always will be. Doesn't matter how many times you test them, or take them apart to see how they tick, or post walls of text trying to explain how you know way more than anyone else here about them.
> 
> Buy the cheapest green drive in the size you want and stick it in. Ignore ALL the other way-overblown posts about them. Enjoy your Tivo. That's it.


I agree.

I'm pretty sure Tivo does the same thing when building the boxes and the HD failures are probably relatively small compared to what we see on the Newegg and Amazon HD reviews.


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## nooneuknow

You can gang-up on me all you like. I'll still keep posting valid and applicable information.

Perhaps, considering $10 more for an AV-GP, gets a year longer warranty, if some would quit yelling to "Just buy the cheapest green drive you can find, because ALL drives are the same!" (paraphrasing/combining), I'd be posting less often.

Considering the number of people who thank me, rather than berating me (even though it's often lopsided), I have no intention of changing what I do, because some some others don't like it.

I make recommendations, provide suggestions, and back-up the "why", using current information. Unless somebody asks a question that merits an answer that tells them what to do, I have been doing my best not to tell people what to do. I can't say the same about those who are so bothered by me.

Unlike some, I don't just take info from outdated forum posts, and keep parroting/propagating it around. I post what's current, and state what is pure marketing, and what is fact (and what can't be determined how to classify, as being that).

It's easy to just keep repeating "use the cheapest green drive you can find". That doesn't require the hours per day I spend getting fresh information to post here, when somebody asks about a drive, and it's 2014, not 2004 (or 2001, with some of the recycled answers).

If I bother you, click on my member name, and select to ignore posts by me. Problem solved! If you don't, keep reading my posts, and keep hounding me, that either makes you a troll, bully, or somebody who benefits from what I post (whether you like me, or not).


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## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> It's easy to just keep repeating "use the cheapest green drive you can find". That doesn't require the hours per day I spend getting fresh information to post here, when somebody asks about a drive, and it's 2014, not 2004 (or 2001, with some of the recycled answers).


The problem here is not the hours you waste, it's the hours wasted by folks reading this thread trying to figure out what drive to get. The simplest answer I posted, in this case, is the correct one for all but completely OCD folks and really should be in the OP or posted as a sticky somewhere.


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## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> *Buy the cheapest green drive in the size you want and stick it in. Ignore ALL the other way-overblown posts about them. Enjoy your Tivo. That's it.*


Wow! Great job on proving my point about about those who tell people what to do, as opposed to giving information, advice, and leaving choices.

There are choices. Just because you feel one is the best, doesn't mean everybody wants what you feel is best. Even though I recommend some drives over others, I don't get upset, or offended, when a member chooses the drive I find the least appealing, or recommend not to use.

Your way is more like the Nazi & TiVo Communist Forum.

Good luck on getting that old sticky updated. Many have tried. It will take effort, so you have been warned it's not just a one-liner and done.


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## telemark

slowbiscuit said:


> Buy the cheapest green drive in the size you want and stick it in. ... Enjoy your Tivo. That's it.


I don't recommend the lack of testing. There can be debate about how much testing is enough, but NO testing at ALL is taking on additional unnecessary risk.

Enough new drives arrive DOA to warrant basic testing.
Enough new drives die during infant mortality to warrant burn in.

If you don't have a PC so can't do it, then you have no choice. The reason you want to stress it in a PC, is the PC can tell you something's wrong. The Tivo's communications is limited and will not protest many types of problems.

Depending on where you get the drive from, you have shortened periods to get it replaced. You want to encourage the drive to fail during the replacement period, and without any data you care about on it. Treating the drive with kit gloves is similar to leaving the drive on a shelf and is not going to be informative. Later if a problem surfaces you would have lost the retailer exchange period unneedlessly .

It's standard practice in system building to validate the drives before putting them into production. Tivo (factory) would also have to run more tests during assembly than just assuming they're fine, to meet industry norms. And there's evidence that they do.


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## slowbiscuit

It's in a Tivo, it's not running some mission-critical app. When it dies you get another one, in-warranty or not. If you're that worried about losing recordings, offboard them to a PC with pyTivo and kmttg.

Oh and btw, no one at my Megacorp stress-tests drives when they replace them, whether it's in a server or a PC. They just replace them.


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## trip1eX

I'm in the "just buy a green drive at a good price and put it in your Tivo" camp.

Don't bother doing anything else.


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## telemark

> It's in a Tivo, it's not running some mission-critical app. When it dies you get another one, in-warranty or not.


That choice is up to you, it's your money and your data. As it should be.

You're in effect recommending to other people who got sent a bad drive initially to eat the cost down the road. Because it's not worth their time to find out by doing any type of drive scan.



> Oh and btw, no one at my Megacorp stress-tests drives when they replace them, whether it's in a server or a PC. They just replace them.


That's their choice as well, it's their money / data / employees time. I can name another company with more drives than yours that doesn't do it that way.
It's more meaningful discussing accepted industry best practices.

If you ordered a drive from Amazon or NewEgg, would you test it before selling it to someone else? I personally would.


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## lessd

trip1eX said:


> I'm in the "just buy a green drive at a good price and put it in your Tivo" camp.
> 
> Don't bother doing anything else.


Been doing that for years and never had any problem except a few DOA drives out of more than 200 drives I have put into TiVos over the last 10 years. I have not had any DOA in the last 3 or 4 years as Newegg and Amazon do pack them very well now.


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## slowbiscuit

Exactly, it's not worth the time. Way too much overanalysis in this thread.


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## HomieG

slowbiscuit said:


> Exactly, it's not worth the time. Way too much overanalysis in this thread.


+1,000,000!


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## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> It's been 3-4 years since you worked for a an unstated hard drive company (this exclusion I understand), for an unstated number of time, in an unstated position. In that unstated time (and other unstated factors) you (as an individual) say the whole company never had a drive failure due to any sticking, uneven wear conditions, or being unable to park?


Yes and no. I said I've never seen it be unable to unpark due to the goop that's supposed to be there, because it isn't there. There is no uneven wearing -- there's wearing, it's just not uneven. A hard drive is an incredibly fragile and cutting-edge device. It can fail for a multitude of other reasons -- just not the one supposedly addressed by the "PWL" feature.

You've made some other conclusions about my posts that are incorrect, but I'm not going to go into each one. I can see how you came to those conclusions, it's because I wasn't clear, but I don't want to hijack the thread any more that I already have. Boy, I could tell you some things....

Predicting hard drive reliability is incredibly frustrating. Trust me. The published MTBF and AFR figures are almost totally made up. TRUST ME.     Even though they all have very (very very) similar designs, there is a huge variance in actual reliability across models, a huge variance in actual reliability between lots of the same model, and a moderate variance in actual reliability within each particular lot. And the failure modes are generally widely different within each lot (although sometimes trends do appear). The reasons are:

- Hard drives are insanely sensitive, cutting-edge devices. How it was shipped and what environment it is installed in can have a huge impact on reliability (think vibration and dust, not so much temperature).

- The firmware and hardware design can vary from lot to lot for a given model. Most of these changes are minor, but sometimes they are not minor.

- The production line is constantly being tweaked, and is highly susceptible to contamination (dust, ESD, etc.) for various reasons. Mostly incompetence.

- Part tolerances factor in a lot more than they should, due to the cutting-edge design.

So Tivo compatibility, noise, and a nice warranty are the things one should look for in buying a hard drive for their Roamio. Posts like "this model worked in my Tivo" are very helpful. It won't mean you won't have any problems -- approximately 20% of hard drives are damaged just in shipping alone, and the reliability of your particular hard drive is completely unknown for reasons I've stated above. But it's either live with that problem or throw out your Tivo and PC. 

Edit: (me smacking forehead) Were you think of PMR? PMR has been around for a while. Maybe SMR? Those drives are supposed to show up soon, but not in anything less than an 8 TB drive. Maybe HAMR? That kept having issues, I can ask around if you want me to.


----------



## telemark

*BobCamp1:* 
If you have knowledge, could you cover acceptance or burn-in testing?


----------



## BobCamp1

telemark said:


> *BobCamp1:*
> If you have knowledge, could you cover acceptance or burn-in testing?


For personal use, I use a random read/write test followed by the butterfly (read) test in a continuous loop for 4 - 7 straight days. Any error is unacceptable. That doesn't guarantee you won't have any problems in a month or so, but it'll at least cross off the most common failures that result from shipping. At least you won't plug it in and have it die just a few days later.

On a Roamio, this testing might not be so important because it's trivial to replace its hard drive. In older Tivos, you had to grab a special software tool, crack open a PC, and prepare the hard drive for Tivo use. Now you can just plug the new drive in directly into the Roamio and away it goes.


----------



## telemark

I had meant for Systems or CE vendors, but this is totally fine too.



BobCamp1 said:


> For personal use. ... Any error is unacceptable. ...


Agreed, but in practice I don't run so long.



> On a Roamio, this testing might not be so important because it's trivial to replace its hard drive. ...


So I don't see why you would want to keep a drive that might not pass your PC test. That is, the drive put into a Tivo might have thrown those errors, but the Tivo would not mention it to you. They're additionally at different loads, but can ignore that.


----------



## bradleys

I don't know why it is SO important that other people test their hard drives that every hard drive thread has devolves into discussions about testing. And the conversation gets so ungodly technical that the average user just shuts down and goes away.

Have I upgraded several TiVo's? - Yes. Have I ever pretested a hard drive? - No. Have I ever had a failure? - Yes, the hard drive in the ESATA enclosure failed.

Did that change my mind about pretesting a hard drive? - No, but it changed my mind about using an external hard drive setup on a TiVo.


Yes, yes, yes - pretesting a hard drive is probably the most prudent thing to do, but odds are, the test isn't going to diagnose an early hard drive failure or confirm a good hard drive, so to the actual value is rather negligible. 

If it gives you peace of mind, or if the thought of loosing shows really keeps you up at night - then pretest your hard drive.

I will pretty much guarantee, it will be the first hard drive tested before going into your TiVo because TiVo sure as heck isn't doing it!


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> Edit: (me smacking forehead) Were you think of PMR? PMR has been around for a while. Maybe SMR? Those drives are supposed to show up soon, but not in anything less than an 8 TB drive. Maybe HAMR? That kept having issues, I can ask around if you want me to.


No, I was not confusing the technologies. I did mean PWL, in the way it is used for non-SMR drives. I *never* made *any* references to "goop". Unfortunately, you are confusing things I say, with things others say. I intentionally neglected to correct the member who does use that term. He and I disagree on enough points as it is, but share just enough views that we don't publicly bicker about things. I simply try to keep it that way. While the "goop" doesn't exist, there is lubrication in platter drives, in places where lubrication can't be avoided. It's sealed, though, and not something that gets exposure to dust. FDB (Fluid Dynamic Bearings) are what the name implies. They have a viscosity critical lubricant, that allows zero-contact bearings (at operating speed), but must lubricate when the drive is spinning up/down, and the speed isn't there to eliminate bearing contact. Many still believe there is a layer of lubricant on the platters of modern drives. It's been gone ever since drives that never allow head/platter contact came along. This is another point where I tend to avoid correcting people, unless they are giving advice based on incorrect/outdated info. Any film that might be on a modern platter, would be there for protection when things that ideally shouldn't happen, do happen, causing head contact.

As far as PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) goes: Even though PMR was announced as being used, a long while back (shortly before 2TB drives hit market), it was not being used on all drives (or even most) since it's debut, unless NOT using it would result in the drive being too high, due to too many platters. Since drive size increases on larger drives had hit the threshold, the companies had to start using it, to keep the form-factor. Marketing, as you are so worried I'm now falling for, had (falsely) lead many to believe it was being used in all drives made after the announcement it was being used (I fell for it, at the time). After they had to to use it, it had been finding its way into smaller drives, and reducing the number of platters, due to increased density (still not all new drives). I like this technology. It makes sense.

As far as SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) goes: This technology scares me. It overwrites parallel tracks next to the track being written, forcing rewriting of data not even involved in the write operation. This tech is being used in the largest drives available now, and not just the largest ones. Without its own kind of wear leveling (much like the kind used in SSD, not the platter drive PWL kind), sectors would wear-out faster than before. Now the drive has to make sure it's distributing the writes (and rewrites) in some sort of balance. I want nothing to do with this Seagate innovation, that has been licensed for use by others. The tech sites I've found, that provide opinions, share my concerns.

As far as HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) goes, I'm still working on separating fact from marketing, so I can form an opinion.

As much as I'd like to say "just PM me", so we can talk about all this without upsetting some of those who are too tech non-savvy to understand it, thus don't want it here, I feel public discussion is best. I have some PM conversations going on, where I've been advised this stuff is just too technical for many, and some who don't understand it, will simply do their best to tar and feather, and run out of town, those who do understand it, and talk about it here. I only agree that it's best to create a new thread, and just post links to that thread here, when somebody asks for an explanation about technical things. I just wish I could move the posts I have in this thread over to a new one. Starting from scratch is not going to be easy...

Those who would like a HDD technology thread (or insist this thread be "for dummies" could help by suggesting exactly where such a thread belongs. It seems like neutral areas, non model specific make sense. But, I've seen far too many threads get started, and never go anywhere, as people tend to go model-specific areas when asking questions, or looking to learn. In the off-topic areas, it's impossible to keep a thread on-topic. The forum rules are very relaxed in such areas.

All this is "on-topic". But, I recognize the fact that it's "worthless" to some. It's just a shame that those with the most to offer, are being driven out of many threads, just because some are set in their ways, along with being stuck in the last decade, and don't want to learn anything new, or simply can't understand the tech speak, and want to keep everything dumbed-down.

If this thread was kept to the bare minimum, and kept dumbed-down, like some want, the only questions which have not already been addressed, in triplicate (and then some), would be "Will this new drive that just came out work in my Roamio?" or "Will this drive I see no mention of anywhere work in my Roamio?". Even then, like with the WD Purple, my answers will be attacked, like they have been (example: WD Purple PURX drives).

Heaven forbid some might learn something, or that people have up to date information, from which to make an educated/informed decision on a purchase...

This is intended to be the last argument I'll make on what has a small number of member's underpants in a bundle. I'm consolidating my opinions and arguments, in this post, to try and not increase the number opposed. I'm sure the napalm is headed my way as soon as I post this. I expect nothing less (I'm NOT trying to incite it, it's just the way it is).

I'm not leaving, and I'm not going to stop providing answers, when somebody finds their way here, and asks a question. But, THIS conversation is over, and I'm not going to be goaded into continuing it here. It will have to take place somewhere else, where I will welcome friendly discussion, and friendly opposing views.


----------



## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> This is intended to be the last argument I'll make


For the love of god, please let this be true. Somehow I doubt it.


----------



## mattack

4-7 days before you use a drive you just bought? Wow..


----------



## gonzotek

mattack said:


> 4-7 days before you use a drive you just bought? Wow..


There was a time, not so very long ago, when you could wait a year or more for your data to be copied with high reliability. What's a couple days?


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> *BobCamp1:*
> If you have knowledge, could you cover acceptance or burn-in testing?


For those who missed it, this was an excellent test question (whether or not it was used/intended that way, which I'm not implying either way).

The answer given answered questions that were not asked, but were there.

If you are scratching your head, or thinking "huh, what?", don't worry about it.

Thanks to telemark, a burning question I had was answered. The test question only works for the first response. So, any new/extended answer doesn't count.

Just enjoy the silence, if you still don't get it. I need a break anyway.


----------



## clouduser1

clouduser1 said:


> green AV bought! thanks for the guidance. ill let you peeps know when i get it. ill be posting on the installing thread (if there is one)


Im back! installed the 3tb ab wd hd i posted about earlier (got a good deal on eBay, the dude is selling more of them You could probably get them for around 80 bucks). The installation was pretty easy but i did experience on issue;

Cable card was unpaired.

Now i don't know if this was caused by Time Warner (they recently updated their guide info so they may have messed more stuff up. they have done this before). Or could this issue have come about because of my tampering with the HD? I did disconnect the tivo for about a day, could this have caused it?

To be clear, i am missing most of my channels; when i go to a premium channel that i should be subscribed to i get the tivo message saying the channel is unauthorized.


----------



## lessd

clouduser1 said:


> Im back! installed the 3tb ab wd hd i posted about earlier (got a good deal on eBay, the dude is selling more of them You could probably get them for around 80 bucks). The installation was pretty easy but i did experience on issue;
> 
> Cable card was unpaired.
> 
> Now i don't know if this was caused by Time Warner (they recently updated their guide info so they may have messed more stuff up. they have done this before). Or could this issue have come about because of my tampering with the HD? I did disconnect the tivo for about a day, could this have caused it?
> 
> To be clear, i am missing most of my channels; when i go to a premium channel that i should be subscribed to i get the tivo message saying the channel is unauthorized.


Most times when you change a TiVo hard drive you have to re-pair the cable card, in your case you going to have to call your cable co to get your Cable card re-pared.


----------



## clouduser1

lessd said:


> Most times when you change a TiVo hard drive you have to re-pair the cable card, in your case you going to have to call your cable co to get your Cable card re-pared.


Yeah i called and got the issue resolved and yeah it was just a matter of getting the cable card re-paired. All good now! just have to wait a while for the complete cable guide to come in.


----------



## dave_d

I might as well (since I just bought one) what's a decent drive for the upgrade these days? (I mean I know when I upgraded my Tivo 4 I got a WD EURS) Mostly I ask since otherwise I'd have to read through all 67 pages. (I did see that if I'm willing to play with Linux I can do 4TB but 3 is plug and play so to speak.) I guess I should ask have a lot of people done the 4tb upgrade?


----------



## dave_d

Sorry, found the link

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10201281#post10201281

I guess I'll go from there.


----------



## DancyMunchkin

dave_d said:


> I might as well (since I just bought one) what's a decent drive for the upgrade these days? (I mean I know when I upgraded my Tivo 4 I got a WD EURS) Mostly I ask since otherwise I'd have to read through all 67 pages. (I did see that if I'm willing to play with Linux I can do 4TB but 3 is plug and play so to speak.) I guess I should ask have a lot of people done the 4tb upgrade?


You don't have to read all 67 pages, just post 67, to get an answer to your question. Every time someone makes a post like yours, this thread gets off the Information Highway and onto Pedantic Drive and comes to a stop at the intersection with Technical Irrelevancy Way.


----------



## telemark

dave_d said:


> I guess I should ask have a lot of people done the 4tb upgrade?


I guess I should answer. Based on the download history, there should be 20-60 installs.

I don't have more accurate numbers which could skew higher because I don't force posting back data from the installer, which I'm reconsidering now.


----------



## ShoutingMan

Thanks all for the summary on how to upgrade a TiVo drive. I see there's differing opinions on how much testing to do before installing the drive. I'll keep that in mind, but testing adds cost and complexity as I'd have to also buy an external drive enclosure for the task.



slowbiscuit said:


> It's in a Tivo, it's not running some mission-critical app. When it dies you get another one, in-warranty or not. If you're that worried about losing recordings, offboard them to a PC with pyTivo and kmttg.


Are pytivo and kmttg two-way? The practical problem with upgrading is losing many seasons of recorded shows. If I could pull all the shows off the original drive and then push them back onto the new drive, I might get the necessary SAF


----------



## lpwcomp

ShoutingMan said:


> Are pytivo and kmttg two-way? The practical problem with upgrading is losing many seasons of recorded shows. If I could pull all the shows off the original drive and then push them back onto the new drive, I might get the necessary SAF


pyTivo is two way. You could use it to push or pull the recordings back to the TiVo. I prefer pull since that will restore things )as far as possible) to the situation ante. Or you could just leave them on the PC until you want to watch one.

Be forewarned that any recordings marked "copy protected" cannot be transferred. Normally, this is just premium channels (HBO, Showtime, etc.) but some cable systems, TWC in particular, protect just about everything except locals.


----------



## ThAbtO

PyTivo works both directions to download (pull) and upload (Push and pull) video. FYI, Pull is downloading to the intended device at the same device for which it was called, push is uploading to the remote device (Tivo) from the distant device (PC). 

KMTTG is download to PC only, but it has a feature to push to Tivo, which is borrowed from PyTivo.


----------



## lpwcomp

ThAbtO said:


> KMTTG is download to PC only, but it has a feature to push to Tivo, which is borrowed from PyTivo.


It's not "borrowed from pyTivo", it _*invokes*_ pyTivo to actually do the push.


----------



## telemark

ShoutingMan said:


> I see there's differing opinions on how much testing to do before installing the drive... I'd have to also buy an external drive enclosure for the task.


I didn't mean to imply that spending money for a case (or computer) especially is worthwhile. 
Only meant to address situations with access to testing hardware already but perceived there's no value in utilizing it, in exchange for time.

Addendum: if I personally did not have access to a PC, I would try to get a Hard Drive (everything else being equal) that works with at least some of the KickStart 54 test. 
Unfortunately that depends on user reports, and there's been limited reporting.


----------



## nooneuknow

DancyMunchkin said:


> You don't have to read all 67 pages, just post 67, to get an answer to your question. Every time someone makes a post like yours, this thread gets off the Information Highway and onto Pedantic Drive and comes to a stop at the intersection with Technical Irrelevancy Way.


Sure ... and this post of yours carries what value, to do with anything?

Talk about somebody living in a glass house, who throws stones...

I couldn't help but notice the pattern that can be seen by "Find more posts by DancyMunchkin", since your recent joining to TCF. One screen worth, and 80% of it is rude/negative commentary about me, and others here. Since you are so quick to state "_________ isn't worth...", and appear to have a problem with a vast number of members, it make me wonder when you were banned, and under what username you used to be here. If that's not the case, you're awfully quick to start spewing vitriol and venom, about others.

I also couldn't help but notice that during the time those who post (perfectly valid) technical data were not posting, the zero-value, off-topic posts, which filled the vacuum.

Believe it, or not, there are people on TCF who understand technical things, and don't require the Sesame Street for Dummies (or Simpson family) version.

Whatever ... many here would shoot the messenger, just because they can't understand the terminology used in the message...

I just put on my kevlar, and do my best, anyway. Some people have been kind enough to publicly thank me for my help, here, and in other threads, where I broke out the technical data to back up the advice I offer. It's a heck of a lot better than somebody who only has one POV (their own), and the only backup supporting it is "because I said so".


----------



## DancyMunchkin

ShoutingMan said:


> Thanks all for the summary on how to upgrade a TiVo drive. I see there's differing opinions on how much testing to do before installing the drive. I'll keep that in mind, but testing adds cost and complexity as I'd have to also buy an external drive enclosure for the task.


You don't need to do any testing.


----------



## DancyMunchkin

nooneuknow said:


> Sure ... and this post of yours carries what value, to do with anything?


The value is obvious to most people. It tells dave_d he doesn't have to read 67 pages of technical navel gazing.

And I understand what you write. That's not the problem. The problem is 99% of it is irrelevant to the question asked. You are the quintessential example of the person who is asked what time it is and they tell you how to build a watch.


----------



## DancyMunchkin

DancyMunchkin said:


> You don't need to do any testing.


ShoutingMan and dave_d - Lest there be any confusion...I was browsing this forum long before I joined. I've owned first generation Tivos, ReplayTVs as well as cable company DVRs. When the Roamios were first available I saw this thread.

1. Ordered a Roamio Basic since the option to use OTA appealed more to me than additional tuners or a faster Ethernet port.
2. Order the hard drive shown in post 67, 2 TB.
3. Both arrived on the same day.
4. Without first powering up the Roamio, I replaced the drive it came with with the new drive.
5. Powered the Roamio and went through Guided Setup. 
6. Cable company came out to install the CableCard and a TA and take away their 2 DVRs, which I replaced with the Roamio Basic and a Mini. 
7. I also use a separate Stream for viewing when away.

It's been running this way for almost a year without issues.

I imagine what I did was successfully done by dozens of people, who, like on many discussion forums don't post their successes, they simply move on with life.

Good luck with whatever path you choose.


----------



## lessd

DancyMunchkin said:


> I imagine what I did was successfully done by dozens of people, who, like on many discussion forums don't post their successes, they simply move on with life.
> 
> Good luck with whatever path you choose.


The first successful upgrade is worth noting, but after that your correct just filling a Thread by *posting their successes *gives out no usefull information.


----------



## ShoutingMan

telemark said:


> I didn't mean to imply that spending money for a case (or computer) especially is worthwhile.
> Only meant to address situations with access to testing hardware already but perceived there's no value in utilizing it, in exchange for time.
> 
> Addendum: if I personally did not have access to a PC, I would try to get a Hard Drive (everything else being equal) that works with at least some of the KickStart 54 test.
> Unfortunately that depends on user reports, and there's been limited reporting.


I understand  there's definitely a range of opinions on how much to test. If I do this, and it's easy and cheap, I'd be inclined to do a days worth of testing on a drive to check it's not going to die immediately. But I don't have the tools for drive testing, so realistically I'd plug in a new drive and pray my wife doesn't collect on my life insurance early due to a premature TiVo failure


----------



## slowbiscuit

If you don't have the tools then pop the drive in and move on with life. And if you do have the tools, just pop the drive in and move on with life.

Pretty easy.


----------



## nooneuknow

I'd break KS 54 down this way (lacking easy access to a PC to test)

* Install drive & Set-up the TiVo.
* Switch remote to IR-mode, by holding-down Tivo + red C, until LED on remote flashes red (or grab a pre-Roamio remote).
* Reboot the TiVo.
* Wait for amber light to rapidly flicker then quickly press pause (don't hold it down), now green and yellow should be on solid, quickly press 5 then 4.
* Select to run SMART tests (but not the non-SMART ones)
* Short test: is just that - 2 minutes of doing a simple test
* Conveyance test: 7 minutes of doing tests designed specifically to detect shipping/mis-handling damage, and the types of errors caused by such.
* Extended test: 6-7 hours to complete (3TB). If not done after 8 hours, abort it (there are some drives, like the WD Red and Purple, which will never report test finished), and don't panic if it says "fail" after aborting it (normal).
* (Optionally, if the extended completes/passes) Run the Offline Data Collection test, if have another 8-9 hours to spare. Abort if 10 hours has passed (without completion), ignore a "fail" result, if you abort (normal).
* View the SMART attributes, if you know what they represent, or skip doing so. If no failures are reported (most common is a "Fail 7 - Read Element").
* Move on with life during the time the tests take, or sleep on the long one.
* The short and conveyance tests might be the only two you can do. If you pass the extended test, much better. If you can pass the offline test, you will know that you have done all you can do with KS54.
* Switch remote back to RF-mode, by holding-down Tivo + green D, until LED on remote flashes yellow (or don't, if you used a pre-Roamio remote).
* Move on with your life, and enjoy your TiVo!

It's been a while since this stuff has been covered. This is as short as it gets, when I'm posting a "how-to KS54 (HDD SMART test)" with a Roamio.
The KS54 tests can be exited by pressing left repeatedly.


----------



## malba2366

I am looking to upgrade the tivo 1tb drive to 3tb. I saw that the wd30eurs/Eurx were considered to be the best fit. I cannot seem to find
Those drives directly from a trustworthy vendor (ie amazon and not marketplace vendors). According to newegg the wd purple drives (WD30puex) is the replacement...does anyone have experience with these purple drives?


----------



## poppagene

malba2366 said:


> I am looking to upgrade the tivo 1tb drive to 3tb. I saw that the wd30eurs/Eurx were considered to be the best fit. I cannot seem to find
> Those drives directly from a trustworthy vendor (ie amazon and not marketplace vendors). According to newegg the wd purple drives (WD30puex) is the replacement...does anyone have experience with these purple drives?


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10127194#post10127194


----------



## nooneuknow

malba2366 said:


> I am looking to upgrade the tivo 1tb drive to 3tb. I saw that the wd30eurs/Eurx were considered to be the best fit. I cannot seem to find
> Those drives directly from a trustworthy vendor (ie amazon and not marketplace vendors). According to newegg the wd purple drives (WD30puex) is the replacement...does anyone have experience with these purple drives?


poppagene was kind enough to provide a link to one of my earliest posts on the WD Purple (one of many, none in favor of it, but none saying it won't work). I assure you that the Purple is not the "new" AV-GP, like Newegg (misleadingly) makes it out to be. I say go with the drive that TiVo factory installs in TiVos (when they use WD), which is also the drive with the best track record, the AV-GP (WD__EURX) drives. The older model of the same drive was the EURS, which also has that history/track record factor.

Until the day comes that somebody opens up a factory fresh TiVo and sees a Purple PURX drive inside, or WD does replace/refresh/rename the AV-GP drive line, I'll stick with recommending AV-GP.


----------



## knuckles

Is there anything special to perform if you swap a hard drive from one Roamio to another Roamio?


----------



## telemark

knuckles said:


> Is there anything special to perform if you swap a hard drive from one Roamio to another Roamio?


I recall someone needing to do the Factory Reset or equivalent, when moving a Roamio prepped drives between models.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10187178
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=518961

It's theorized when moving between the same models, a C&DE would be enough, but I would prefer the Factory Reset still, because it's fast and C&DE is slow.


----------



## eboydog

knuckles said:


> Is there anything special to perform if you swap a hard drive from one Roamio to another Roamio?


I had to do a kickstart factory reset when I swapped a drive from a basic to a plus, clear and delete didn't work, I couldn't record anything and in system info, it woylnt display the boxes TSN.

If you are swapping drives from same type of Roamio, a clear and reset might work fine, it's believed that since the basic doesn't have stream, there is a slightly different software missing if you do as I did and just try swapping drives without doing anything the box isn't happy. (when I did it, the first boot stated there was an error and it supposlyvcorrected it but in reality, it didnt until I did the factory reset.

Fyi you won't be able to save any recordings no matter what you end up doing, might be good to run the drive though a full write zeros diag on a pc.


----------



## knuckles

Thanks for the help.


----------



## BuffaloDenny

Is there an external solution? How would you connect an external drive - USB, eSata, etc. I am clueless so I don't know what drive to buy. If it has to be internal, what are the key requirements I need to buy - 3.5 inch drive, SATA, etc? Once I get the basic requirements down I can search Amazon, but am nervous to break open the box. I looked at post 67 and that looks hard!

Is this an appropriate internal drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX or Seagate Desktop 3 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 7200 RPM 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST3000DM001?


----------



## HarperVision

BuffaloDenny said:


> Is there an external solution? How would you connect an external drive - USB, eSata, etc. I am clueless so I don't know what drive to buy. If it has to be internal, what are the key requirements I need to buy - 3.5 inch drive, SATA, etc? Once I get the basic requirements down I can search Amazon, but am nervous to break open the box. I looked at post 67 and that looks hard! Is this an appropriate internal drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX or Seagate Desktop 3 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 7200 RPM 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST3000DM001?


I installed the WD30EZRX in my basic and it works fine.


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> I installed the WD30EZRX in my basic and it works fine.


Just for the record, not to be snarky, how long has it been installed?

I have my doubts as to how many (standard green drives) will surpass 2 years (or make it to 3 years), problem-free, in a 4 tuner DVR, even more so with 6 tuners. However, the data on how any drive holds up in a Roamio (other than what TiVo tested), is limited by how long the Roamios have been on the market, which would be coming up to roughly a year at this point.

Since 4 tuner Premieres have been around longer, and should have roughly the same TB/yr workload as a 4 tuner Roamio, that would be a better reference point for different drives, in a TiVo with a tuner count greater than 2, but still doesn't address 6.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> Just for the record, not to be snarky, how long has it been installed? I have my doubts as to how many (standard green drives) will surpass 2 years (or make it to 3 years), problem-free, in a 4 tuner DVR, even more so with 6 tuners. However, the data on how any drive holds up in a Roamio (other than what TiVo tested), is limited by how long the Roamios have been on the market, which would be coming up to roughly a year at this point. Since 4 tuner Premieres have been around longer, and should have roughly the same TB/yr workload as a 4 tuner Roamio, that would be a better reference point for different drives, in a TiVo with a tuner count greater than 2, but still doesn't address 6.


Gee, thanks for that, but I'm not uninstalling it and spending about ~$125 for another 3TB HD "just in case" something happens to it in a couple years. It's been installed for a few months now, btw. You must drive yourself absolutely insane with your OCD.


----------



## ThAbtO

BuffaloDenny said:


> Is this an appropriate internal drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX or Seagate Desktop 3 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 7200 RPM 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST3000DM001?


You can also use WD30EFRX Red drive in a Roamio. Last time, I saw it selling on Amazon for about $122 while the similar WD Green drive was going for $130+.

Doubt anyone here would recommend an external drive expansion, only the Tivo Branded 1GB drive works and later in its life, it can fail at some point and you lose recordings.


----------



## BuffaloDenny

Showing my ignorance here, but what's the difference between red and green drives?


----------



## ThAbtO

BuffaloDenny said:


> Showing my ignorance here, but what's the difference between red and green drives?


Red are NAS drives which usually run 24/7.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

knuckles said:


> Is there anything special to perform if you swap a hard drive from one Roamio to another Roamio?


A quick reformat of the drive would allow the boot up firmware to treat it as a brand new drive and do a fresh install. Zeroing the master boot record (MBR) may well do the trick.


----------



## eboydog

BuffaloDenny said:


> Showing my ignorance here, but what's the difference between red and green drives?


Without going though the entire discussion of which is better, the red drives run at a faster rpm, consume more power, generate more heat and are designated for enterprise use and power users. Green drives spin at a slightly lower rpm, consume less power, generate less heat. The newest similar models with only the color designation are physically the same just with different drive firmware that changes their physical operation designation.

Both drives works in the Roamio and the green drives are preferred due the above listed differences. In the base Roamio there has been reports of issues with those drives that use more power (not necessarily the red drives) due to smaller power supply of the base TiVo.

As the Roamio doesn't utilize the full performance of the high performance drives, you don't gain anything by using a high performance drives such as 7200 rpm or faster drives and heat, power consumption and noise are a much more important factors when choosing a hard drive upgrade.


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> Gee, thanks for that, but I'm not uninstalling it and spending about ~$125 for another 3TB HD "just in case" something happens to it in a couple years. It's been installed for a few months now, btw. You must drive yourself absolutely insane with your OCD.


I never suggested changing the drive you are using. How else will you/we know when that model drive fails? All platter drives will fail at some point. But, what I'm more interested in, is the point where it will pass all tests, but start causing issues with recordings, due to slow sectors. I've had that happen with six standard green drives. It only took just short of two years to have it happen, and was only isolated to the drive, using tools that measure sector read/write completion times, in addition to testing and benchmarking. This was when I had 2 tuner TiVo HDs, and 2 tuner Premieres. The mfg tests don't look for slow sectors. If they did, everybody would be getting RMAs while still in warranty. TiVo's non-SMART tests in KS54 do graph access times. But, those tests don't work on non-stock drives.

Be thankful I edited my post and nuked a longer mention of what I found out about the stock base-Roamio wall-wart power supplies. Hint: I'm no longer using them, and it's clear I was over-taxing their whopping 2.0A output rating. Telemark started a thread on this, so I cut my test results out of that post, and am cutting it short here.


----------



## nooneuknow

eboydog said:


> Without going though the entire discussion of which is better, the red drives run at a faster rpm, consume more power, generate more heat and are designated for enterprise use and power users. Green drives spin at a slightly lower rpm, consume less power, generate less heat. The newest similar models with only the color designation are physically the same just with different drive firmware that changes their physical operation designation.
> 
> Both drives works in the Roamio and the green drives are preferred due the above listed differences. In the base Roamio there has been reports of issues with those drives that use more power (not necessarily the red drives) due to smaller power supply of the base TiVo.
> 
> As the Roamio doesn't utilize the full performance of the high performance drives, you don't gain anything by using a high performance drives such as 7200 rpm or faster drives and heat, power consumption and noise are a much more important factors when choosing a hard drive upgrade.


*All of this is false*, unless you are referring the the NEW line of WD Red NAS PRO line of drives, aimed for another market, and not a replacement of the existing 5400RPM drives, less the "Pro" part of the name.

My god, does anybody do any real (thorough) research before posting anymore? I covered that the *Pro* line was 7200 RPM, and should not be used in a TiVo, right in this very thread.

The Red NAS has been the preferred drive for many on TCF, as it has the same or better of all these things:

Low power
Low (5400) RPM
Low heat
AV-rated
marketed for 24/7 operation
3 year warranty
Premium special support channels, for Red customers only.

There's more, that make them a great drive to buy in bulk, since they aren't so limited, like Green or AV-GP are. I use them all throughout my house, not just in my TiVos.


----------



## BuffaloDenny

OK, so it sounds like this is the best choice for a hard drive upgrade in a base Roamio:
WD Red 3 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD30EFRX

$122 for the Red vs. $106 for the green. They don't list the speed, but I'll assume it's 5400 RPM.

Thanks for all the input folks - really helped me out!


----------



## ThAbtO

BuffaloDenny said:


> OK, so it sounds like this is the best choice for a hard drive upgrade in a base Roamio:
> WD Red 3 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD30EFRX
> 
> $122 for the Red vs. $106 for the green. They don't list the speed, but I'll assume it's 5400 RPM.
> 
> Thanks for all the input folks - really helped me out!


At Amazon, the Green WD30EURX was going for about $165, and the WD30EURS for about $155, but the 30EFRX stayed at $122. That is a significant dent to your wallet.

Edit: Just checked Amazon, WD30EURX $131, 30EURS $168.


----------



## BuffaloDenny

Geez, I thought I was set with the EFRX, but now I just looked up the EURS and EURX. EURS seems to get a lot of good reviews for the Roamio. I'm gonna guess that is now the best choice for Roamio basic, which of coarse is the most expensive, followed by the green EURX. Didn't notice a "red" designation on the EURS, not sure that it matters.


----------



## ThAbtO

BuffaloDenny said:


> Geez, I thought I was set with the EFRX, but now I just looked up the EURS and EURX. EURS seems to get a lot of good reviews for the Roamio. I'm gonna guess that is now the best choice for Roamio basic, which of coarse is the most expensive, followed by the green EURX. Didn't notice a "red" designation on the EURS, not sure that it matters.


Both EURS and EURX are Green drives, not sure where the Red comes in. The EFRX is a Red, generally for NAS running 24/7. Most have found the Red works well in their Tivos.


----------



## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> Both EURS and EURX are Green drives, not sure where the Red comes in. The EFRX is a Red, generally for NAS running 24/7. Most have found the Red works well in their Tivos.


Just some friendly, added notes (for the others here): The EURS and EURX are AV-GP (Green, plus AV-rated and 24/7 marketed), not just "green". Green simply means a low power profile (low power requirements). Other "color-named" drives, like the Red NAS, and Purple, also are considered "green".

For comparison the EZRX is "green", but doesn't have those two factors going for it, and only has a 2yr warranty, whereas EURS/EURX have a 3yr warranty.

The WD Red Nas EFRX drives are not as intentionally crippled as the AV-GP and standard green drives are. Some of their added functions make it easy to repurpose a good one, pulled out of a TiVo, if you upgrade again. On top of that, they are often compared (in reviews) to 7200RPM performance, when used for computer and/or RAID/NAS use, without running at the higher RPMs. They aren't fast enough for that comparison, IMO, just faster than Green, with or without the AV part.

Since it's bound to come up again: The WD Purple PURX drives are very use-specific. Sure, one member has verified they could make one work in a Roamio. But, only as a drive for developing a free Roamio 4TB drive-prep tool. Extended use was never the goal for that member.

Both the Red & Purple have TLER/ERC, which handles error correction in a manner that is not optimal for TiVo, should you have any weak/slow/bad sector issues (later on down the road). While I use Red NAS, as do several others here, my own experiences with some weakly-written sectors, and the way they were handled by the drive, rather than letting the TiVo deal with them, was not a great confidence booster. The drive operated as designed to, which is great for RAID, but not so much for TiVo, where you want the TiVo to see the error and deal with it, not having it hidden from the TiVo, by the drive.

I already do not recommend the Purple drives. Unless I verify that TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery), better known as ERC (Error Recovery Control), can be disabled, and remain disabled, in an easy manner, I just might begin advising those who aren't hard drive gurus, should just stick to drives without this function, and even avoid the Red NAS, since it has it, and it comes factory-enabled on Purple and Red.

It's also worth noting that the Red and Purple drives each have compatibility lists, for what they are known to work with. TiVo is not in the list for either. This could lead to support issues, should you call WD to get support for using these drives in a TiVo.

Could somebody please tell me what chipset the Roamios use, for their hard drive functions? I'd like to know that the same chipset is used in all Roamios, plus I'd like to know if at least the chipset is on either one of the compatibility lists.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> Just some friendly, added notes (for the others here): The EURS and EURX are AV-GP (Green, plus AV-rated and 24/7 marketed), not just "green". Green simply means a low power profile (low power requirements). Other "color-named" drives, like the Red NAS, and Purple, also are considered "green".
> 
> For comparison the EZRX is "green", but doesn't have those two factors going for it, and only has a 2yr warranty, whereas EURS/EURX have a 3yr warranty.
> 
> The WD Red Nas EFRX drives are not as intentionally crippled as the AV-GP and standard green drives are. Some of their added functions make it easy to repurpose a good one, pulled out of a TiVo, if you upgrade again. On top of that, they are often compared (in reviews) to 7200RPM performance, when used for computer and/or RAID/NAS use, without running at the higher RPMs. They aren't fast enough for that comparison, IMO, just faster than Green, with or without the AV part.
> 
> Since it's bound to come up again: The WD Purple PURX drives are very use-specific. Sure, one member has verified they could make one work in a Roamio. But, only as a drive for developing a free Roamio 4TB drive-prep tool. Extended use was never the goal for that member.
> 
> Both the Red & Purple have TLER/ERC, which handles error correction in a manner that is not optimal for TiVo, should you have any weak/slow/bad sector issues (later on down the road). While I use Red NAS, as do several others here, my own experiences with some weakly-written sectors, and the way they were handled by the drive, rather than letting the TiVo deal with them, was not a great confidence booster. The drive operated as designed to, which is great for RAID, but not so much for TiVo, where you want the TiVo to see the error and deal with it, not having it hidden from the TiVo, by the drive.
> 
> I already do not recommend the Purple drives. Unless I verify that TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery), better known as ERC (Error Recovery Control), can be disabled, and remain disabled, in an easy manner, I just might begin advising those who aren't hard drive gurus, should just stick to drives without this function, and even avoid the Red NAS, since it has it, and it comes factory-enabled on Purple and Red.
> 
> It's also worth noting that the Red and Purple drives each have compatibility lists, for what they are known to work with. TiVo is not in the list for either. This could lead to support issues, should you call WD to get support for using these drives in a TiVo.
> 
> Could somebody please tell me what chipset the Roamios use, for their hard drive functions? I'd like to know that the same chipset is used in all Roamios, plus I'd like to know if at least the chipset is on either one of the compatibility lists.


Over the years I have used the least costly WD drives at the upgrade time for myself and friends, only had one drive fail in the last 8 years, (my kids have a drive in a series 2 upgraded in 2005 and still working) and one WD drive fail within the warranty, WD never asked anything about the drives use, I just did a fast replacement without problems.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> Over the years I have used the least costly WD drives at the upgrade time for myself and friends, only had one drive fail in the last 8 years, (my kids have a drive in a series 2 upgraded in 2005 and still working) and one WD drive fail within the warranty, WD never asked anything about the drives use, I just did a fast replacement without problems.


But, none of the drives you speak of was a Red or Purple, right?

I'm also going to go out on a limb, and assume you have not recently visited WD's "Support Portal", where all (mainstream) registration/support/warranty matters go through. If you haven't, you might want to review their new, more restrictive, policies. Seriously, you might think twice before buying WD, again. Try getting a copy of wdidle3.exe from them, without having one of the ~5 drives it was intended for registered to you (by serial number). Try getting any tool that used to be available by simply going the the product page. Registration now determines what tools/utilities you are granted access to.

The Red NAS has it's own support channels. They are supposed to be exclusive and premium (I have yet to test this claim).

The WD Purple has such a short compatibility list, even the marketing says to check it before buying.

WD (seems to have) learned from the original Red NAS v1.0 (which was terribly incompatible with a lot of devices/chipsets), that a specialized product without established compatibility should not just be put on market, without advising it's a work-in-progress, and it has a compatibility list.

I'm happy for you that the cheapest possible drives have worked so well, and your claim of 1 failure being a RMA breeze.

I'm just a bit concerned that you're possibly letting fond memories, and past experiences, cloud what is here and now, and assuming nothing pertinent has changed. If you are running an 8yr old drive, now, how does that apply to what's in inventory at Newegg, manufactured 1-3 months ago, which will be under the fresh, new, support and warranty T&C at WD?

I have some drives that "just won't die", too. Some are as old as 12yrs. I had a great RMA experience a year ago, with six drives. Can I even go about the RMA the same, easy, way it worked then, now? Heck no. WD clearly is trying to make it harder to get RMAs. It was their almost "without question or scrutiny" policies and procedures for RMAs that bought my brand loyalty. I just might be switching to Seagate, at the rate WD has been pumping out drives that arrive DOA, defective, or die shortly after testing and installation. If this recent product refresh cleans out the pipeline, and starts providing good drives again, I might stick with WD. I'm on the fence, right now.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> But, none of the drives you speak of was a Red or Purple, right?
> 
> I'm also going to go out on a limb, and assume you have not recently visited WD's "Support Portal", where all (mainstream) registration/support/warranty matters go through. If you haven't, you might want to review their new, more restrictive, policies. Seriously, you might think twice before buying WD, again. Try getting a copy of wdidle3.exe from them, without having one of the ~5 drives it was intended for registered to you (by serial number). Try getting any tool that used to be available by simply going the the product page. Registration now determines what tools/utilities you are granted access to.
> 
> The Red NAS has it's own support channels. They are supposed to be exclusive and premium (I have yet to test this claim).
> 
> The WD Purple has such a short compatibility list, even the marketing says to check it before buying.
> 
> WD (seems to have) learned from the original Red NAS v1.0 (which was terribly incompatible with a lot of devices/chipsets), that a specialized product without established compatibility should not just be put on market, without advising it's a work-in-progress, and it has a compatibility list.
> 
> I'm happy for you that the cheapest possible drives have worked so well, and your claim of 1 failure being a RMA breeze.
> 
> I'm just a bit concerned that you're possibly letting fond memories, and past experiences, cloud what is here and now, and assuming nothing pertinent has changed. If you are running an 8yr old drive, now, how does that apply to what's in inventory at Newegg, manufactured 1-3 months ago, which will be under the fresh, new, support and warranty T&C at WD?
> 
> I have some drives that "just won't die", too. Some are as old as 12yrs. I had a great RMA experience a year ago, with six drives. Can I even go about the RMA the same, easy, way it worked then, now? Heck no. WD clearly is trying to make it harder to get RMAs. It was their almost "without question or scrutiny" policies and procedures for RMAs that bought my brand loyalty. I just might be switching to Seagate, at the rate WD has been pumping out drives that arrive DOA, defective, or die shortly after testing and installation. If this recent product refresh cleans out the pipeline, and starts providing good drives again, I might stick with WD. I'm on the fence, right now.


Things will change with all technology, I not doing any more TiVo upgrades now, the last ones were in 2013, so your correct about me going to the WD web page, as I have not, I have only used WD red (for the 3Tb upgrade) and green drives, all working great now but for the future I don't know, maybe I will be sorry, I will let you know if that happens.


----------



## nooneuknow

I was doing some refresher digging on the matter of compatibility, suitability, & warranty, finding this recurring fine print is on the bottom of WD spec sheets for every drive model I checked:



> WD hard drives are designed and tested for use in specific applications and environments. This ensures that your hard drive is compatible with and functions properly in your application. *Our hard drives are warranted against defects in materials and workmanship in the system for which they were designed.* *Use in systems other than for what the hard drive was designed could result in compatibility problems that affect proper function, unrelated to material and/or workmanship defects.* For best results, be sure to select the appropriate product for your application by consulting our product spec sheets on our website at www.wd.com or by calling our customer support line where we would be happy to help you through the selection process.


Besides adding some bold and underlining, I wrote up a post I thought some would appreciate about the changes going on with drive warranties, and enforcement of the T&C of drive warranties.

Then, I woke-up and realized I'm on TCF, where people will just roll their eyes at me, be snarky, and make crude comments about OCD, etc. So, the rest of the post is saved as a text document. PM me if you'd like to see the rest.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Good call.


----------



## unitron

nooneuknow said:


> I was doing some refresher digging on the matter of compatibility, suitability, & warranty, finding this recurring fine print is on the bottom of WD spec sheets for every drive model I checked:
> 
> Besides adding some bold and underlining, I wrote up a post I thought some would appreciate about the changes going on with drive warranties, and enforcement of the T&C of drive warranties.
> 
> Then, I woke-up and realized I'm on TCF, where people will just roll their eyes at me, be snarky, and make crude comments about OCD, etc. So, the rest of the post is saved as a text document. PM me if you'd like to see the rest.


Email it to me and I'll post it under my name (giving proper credit, of course), for the benefit of future searchers, and everybody can ***** at me instead.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> I was doing some refresher digging on the matter of compatibility, suitability, & warranty, finding this recurring fine print is on the bottom of WD spec sheets for every drive model I checked:
> 
> WD hard drives are designed and tested for use in specific applications and environments. This ensures that your hard drive is compatible with and functions properly in your application. Our hard drives are warranted against defects in materials and workmanship in the system for which they were designed. Use in systems other than for what the hard drive was designed could result in compatibility problems that affect proper function, unrelated to material and/or workmanship defects. For best results, be sure to select the appropriate product for your application by consulting our product spec sheets on our website at www.wd.com or by calling our customer support line where we would be happy to help you through the selection process.
> 
> Besides adding some bold and underlining, I wrote up a post I thought some would appreciate about the changes going on with drive warranties, and enforcement of the T&C of drive warranties.
> 
> Then, I woke-up and realized I'm on TCF, where people will just roll their eyes at me, be snarky, and make crude comments about OCD, etc. So, the rest of the post is saved as a text document. PM me if you'd like to see the rest.


I wonder how rigorously WD enforce this, about 6 month ago I sent in a WD drive for a warranty replacement (for a friend) and WD asked nothing about how it was used, I guess if you needed to return 100 drives WD might ask something.


----------



## nooneuknow

unitron said:


> Email it to me and I'll post it under my name (giving proper credit, of course), for the benefit of future searchers, and everybody can ***** at me instead.


Very long PM sent. There are no capacitors involved, so maybe you'll agree with it.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> I wonder how rigorously WD enforce this, about 6 month ago I sent in a WD drive for a warranty replacement (for a friend) and WD asked nothing about how it was used, I guess if you needed to return 100 drives WD might ask something.


I wonder if there's a more relaxed set of rules for full-retail drives, as opposed to OEM ones. That could explain some things. WD's system always has correctly identified OEM/retail, that I can recall. But, I haven't bought a retail drive in a long time. So, what I post is all OEM drive experiences.

Currently, it's a "no registration record, no RMA" enforcement, at minimum (although you can do the two in the same portal session).
Six months would be right around the time the portal was being reworked. While they were doing so, anything might have gone through.
I was able to register and RMA the stock drives in Lenovo laptops, and even TiVos. When somebody said it wasn't possible, I went back to try it again, and the portal rejected those I hadn't yet registered.
Before the new portal, I went to correct the purchase dates on drives I had guessed on, but found my invoices, and entered earlier dates, which extended the in-warranty date by six months. Huh, what? I re-adjusted the date, then re-corrected it back again, and... six more months of warranty. The portal now no longer allows editing the info you provide. I wonder why...

I almost chucked drives the portal had said were out of warranty, then magically said were in warranty, when I edited the purchase date to an earlier date (should have made them more out of warranty). I tested the dates by requesting the RMAs, no problems. Again, no wonder the portal has been reworked. Of the 52 drives I have registered, the in-warranty dates that were there before, even though longer than "should be possible", were retained.

I have an OEM laptop drive that will be going back soon, which is in the pre-existing list, and incorrectly extended. So, when I get around to that, I'll be taking notes on anything that goes differently.


----------



## nooneuknow

I didn't address the question of WD caring (or not) how a drive was used.

Unless I open a support ticket, and interact with somebody, the subject has never come up for me. If I select a reason for RMA that attempts to redirect me to support, I back-out, or start-over.

I have seen what happens when you interact, and say something like "My WD20EZRX drive isn't working in my RAID array". You get canned responses about not using the right drive and a link to the drives meant for RAID arrays. It's the same canned responses you see in the mfg reply entries in the Newegg reviews where people whine that that their standard green, or AV-GP drive, isn't playing well in a RAID array.

WD used to give special links to use to enter the portal, if you were a review poster. That special treatment has been revoked as part of the overhaul. I can't speak for phone-in support, other than the new portal is supposed to be the one, and only, way to registration, support, and warranty services. How tight they will be on that (like if you buy hard drives, but somehow don't have the internet), remains to be seen.

EDIT/ADD: WD Red NAS drives include an "exclusive" toll-free number sticker. I haven't tried it. I have seen many reports of it being completely useless, and/or a joke. Maybe I'll try it, since I do have one erratic Red NAS drive yet to deal with. I'd rather just take my chances with the portal.


----------



## nooneuknow

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9455/

Frequently asked questions about your WD Support Portal account
Answer ID 9455 | *Last Updated 03/27/2014*
https://westerndigital.secure.force.com/
<-- -->
IMPORTANT
Important: We recently upgraded our support portal to make it easier to contact Western Digital for support. If you already have an account with us or have contacted us for support previously, you will need a new password for your account by clicking on the I forgot my password link. If you don't have a support account with us, you will need to create one.

Some of the features of the WD Support Portal include:
Support case submissions
History of support cases
Product registration
Access to restricted downloads based on your registered products
RMA & Warranty Services
RMA Creation
RMA Status
RMA Pre-mailer (RMA ship-to address)
RMA History

Please see below for a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Q: Why do I need a support account?
A: A WD Support account is required in order for us to provide you with support. In addition, the account will give access to support and warranty services that are only available within the WD Support Portal.
Q: I previously registered or logged into your WD registration account before May 19th. Can I use the same login and password?
A: The WD Support Portal requires a new password even if you previously have used our registration service. Please click on the "I forgot my password" link to get your new password.
Q: Do I have to register my WD product to create an RMA?
A: Yes. Product registration is required for RMA creation. However, if you need assistance with your RMA and you do not have a WD Support account, please Contact Us for assistance.
Q: What happened to my emails that I sent in for support? Can I still access them and can I use the same login and password?
A: The will have all your support emails for the past 6 months. In order to access your emails through the WD Support Portal, you can use your email address but you will need a new password. Please click on the I forgot my password link to get your new password.
Q: How do I check the warranty on my WD product?
A: You can check the warranty from our warranty status page or within the WD Support Portal.
Q: How do I check the status on my RMA?
A: You can check the status of your RMA within the WD Support Portal.
Q: Where can I get my RMA Pre-Mailer?
A: You can get your RMA Pre-Mailer within the WD Support Portal.
Q: How do I contact WD for support?
A: For our hours of operation and contact information, please visit our Contact Us page.
Q: How can I create a new support case or send an email for support?
A: You can create a a new support case or send us an email for through the WD Support Portal.


----------



## JWhites

I see a lot of talk about Western Digital and barely anything about Seagate. Could we please give it equal attention?


----------



## jmpage2

JWhites said:


> I see a lot of talk about Western Digital and barely anything about Seagate. Could we please give it equal attention?


It is barely mentioned because almost no one is going with it. People recommend what is working well for them, which at the moment are the WD drives.


----------



## HarperVision

My base Roamio had a 500GB Seagate in it, so we know they at least use them.


----------



## lessd

HarperVision said:


> My base Roamio had a 500GB Seagate in it, so we know they at least use them.


One of the first Roamio Plus I got also had a Seagate in it (1Tb).


----------



## JWhites

HarperVision said:


> My base Roamio had a 500GB Seagate in it, so we know they at least use them.


Yeah my Premiere 4 has a Seagate ST3500312CS 500GB drive.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> It is barely mentioned because almost no one is going with it. People recommend what is working well for them, which at the moment are the WD drives.


Exactly! This could change, though. TiVo might go all Seagate. But, people here are also always looking for deals and low prices. How often do we see insanely great deals on Seagate drives, of the same model line that TiVo chose to use? If this changes, as well, the whole forum could go from a WD slant, to to a Seagate slant. Still some people wouldn't touch a Seagate drive, even to put it in another's TiVo (I've been in this camp for years)...

This is a transplant plucked from another thread, where the subject of "number of streams supported" came up, and I felt this thread needed a reminder of the context of "streams", and how the drive marketing context of them has no bearing on TiVo use, at all:



JWhites said:


> I only expressed concern because *the new hard drives support 16 simultaneous streams at a time* and I wasn't sure an 8 year old drive could handle it, and was pleased it can.


Why does everybody fall for this marketing, that has absolutely zero relevance for TiVo use, at all? I keep trying to stop these false assumptions, but my posts get buried by all the fallout I get for being technical (and there is no other way to explain it).

When drive mfg's say their drives support xx "streams", they aren't talking about the "streams" in the same context as TiVo's way of writing AV data to a drive. So far, the only DVR-like devices I'm aware of that use such streams, are true surveillance systems. In these scenarios, not only does each stream being recorded need to get every frame, the date/time stream that accompanies it needs to be spot-on accurate. Each stream is also being displayed, while recorded, making a 16 camera system require 32 streams. Don't have enough supported streams to use just one drive? Add more drives to the array to add more streams. This is where the AV-GP can't go, and Red NAS steps in (or the Purple for RAID host devices that work with WD's "allframe" which supports 32 streams). Since the Purple only has 1/3 the TB/yr rating of a Red NAS, you'd need more drives for the workload, or you'd need the cameras to me motion-activated, which is exactly the target market for the Purple drives. Still not enough, because you don't have motion activated cameras? Now there is the WD Red NAS Pro, at 7200RPM, for that.

TiVo never implemented the ATA AV Streaming feature set, which writes data using an entirely different algorithm. TiVo just writes it like any other data on the drive, using the same algorithms and error correction as if you were running your computer OS on it, or it was a second drive that you used for bulk storage or backup. This is why you can (and people have been) opting to save some money (used to be ~$100 difference versus ~$10 now), by getting plain "green" drives, like the EZRX, EARS, EADS, & other non-AV models.

With a TiVo, how much your drive can handle, before everything becomes too much, is limited by the rate at which the drive can internally write the data to the platters, in normal desktop drive mode, but also running in IDE compatibility mode (another potential bottleneck).

The ATA AV Streaming feature set is the base, upon which WD created "silkstream" and the newer "allframe" proprietary iterations, but backward compatible with the base feature set. But, the number of streams supported will be reduced if the host device doesn't use the full added functions in the proprietary additional extensions. Seagate has their own brand names for their enhanced proprietary iterations of the same base ATA standard.

It's almost always some of the members I least expect, to get hooked by this marketing bait. I just don't get it.

When it comes to a TiVo, the ONLY marketing speak that does really matter is the TB/yr rating, in conjunction with having a 24/7/365 rating, while the AV designation simply means the drive was designed around AV use, and, at minimum, supports the ATA AV Streaming base-standard, which tends to also include a year more of warranty. This gives you a better idea how much data the drive can handle, and how long it can do so for.

AnandTech has all the details on other brands. If you want the Seagate specifics, and other drive specifics, as well as comparisons, in the same classes, that's where you want to go get reading. A few days later, you'll have a migraine, and understand why I stick to WD, and don't factor in Seagate, in most threads. If TiVo goes Seagate exclusive, or I start using Seagate, that might change. I try not to play forum expert on a product I don't even use. The 500GB Seagate drives from my base Roamios never even got powered-up, before they hit the "original TiVo drive storage rack".


----------



## JWhites

jmpage2 said:


> It is barely mentioned because almost no one is going with it. People recommend what is working well for them, which at the moment are the WD drives.


I'm just concerned about new people getting the wrong impression because of the bias with Western Digital verses Seagate, assuming Seagate won't work and that one _has_ to use Western Digital. I mean heck a Toshiba drive could work perfectly well in a TiVo but I haven't seen it mentioned either. A good value for a hard drive is important but don't discount other brands just because it's not Western Digital. Brand loyalty can easily influence recommendations with no actual technical backing. When it comes down to it a hard drive is a hard drive.
I look at it this way, yes people recommend what works well for them, but there's no technical reason not to go with Seagate instead if the price isn't a factor. Seagate could "work well for them" too but not enough people are willing to try. For example, two identical drives are on a shelve at the same price, one from Seagate and the other from Western Digital, people will flock to Western Digital just because "everyone else is" when the Seagate is just as good. That's my concern.


----------



## slowbiscuit

No, it's a lot easier to simply get the cheapest green drive rather than read through these interminable and mostly useless posts. Drives are a crapshoot, doesn't matter what brand or type you get. Always have been, always will.


----------



## JWhites

slowbiscuit said:


> No, it's a lot easier to simply get the cheapest green drive rather than read through these interminable and mostly useless posts. Drives are a crapshoot, doesn't matter what brand or type you get. Always have been, always will.


That just sounds like laziness, and the people of this thread aren't. People here actually care and effort is made. :up:


----------



## trip1eX

JWhites said:


> That just sounds like laziness, and the people of this thread aren't. People here actually care and effort is made. :up:


No it's just the reality that any green drive is going to do.

The differences between drives for this application just amount to a hill of beans.


----------



## lessd

trip1eX said:


> No it's just the reality that any green drive is going to do.
> 
> The differences between drives for this application just amount to a hill of beans.


:up:

People think that with research they will have a better outcome, sometimes that is the case but with TiVo hard drives not so much as the drives keep changing so no long term study can be done on any model with this years firmware, as next year the firmware will change and the hardware may also change, so how can anybody do a long term test, if one started today with five different models of hard drives and put 100 in each TiVo (that is 500 drives) in five years you may have seen what the best drive was five years ago, but one can't purchase that drive five years later.


----------



## JWhites

What? I just want less WD bias and discuss Seagate more for fairness. There doesn't seem to be any technical reason why people don't recommend Seagate drives, they just don't want to spend any added cost of a Seagate to put it in their TiVo's to say "Seagate works well for me" and recommend it. Is literally the only reason why more people don't go with Seagate is because it might cost a little more?


----------



## lpwcomp

JWhites said:


> What? I just want less WD bias and discuss Seagate more for fairness.


Feel free to discuss away.


----------



## jmpage2

JWhites said:


> What? I just want less WD bias and discuss Seagate more for fairness.


Why stop there, surely all manufacturers "deserve" equal time. People should not just recommend Seagate or WD. They need to recommend Hitachi, Samsung, Fujitsu and others in equal measure!

Do you realize how childish you are being? People are recommending WD drives because many have upgraded to them with very good results based on the characteristics of them matching well for DVR use. Seagate or others are fine also but claiming there is bias is silly.

Do you work for Seagate? Who cares what drives are being recommended?


----------



## squint

I looked at Seagates when shopping for a 4 tb drive for my Roamio Plus. They were more expensive than WD and I wasn't convinced they were worth the price difference.


----------



## jmbach

For the most part any drive will probably work just fine. Unfortunately we don't have any independent labs that can test for all the theoretical reasons some members choose one drive over another. Some members have done a lot of testing on their own which, like a pilot study, implies that the results are probably correct but that a larger study is needed to prove the result. 

The only thing I have seen that people might have to be careful with is using drives that have higher power requirements in the Roamio Basic as the power brick might not have enough reserve power to power on the drive.


----------



## JWhites

jmpage2 said:


> Why stop there, surely all manufacturers "deserve" equal time. People should not just recommend Seagate or WD. They need to recommend Hitachi, Samsung, Fujitsu and others in equal measure!


Well Samsung was purchased by Seagate in 2011, Hitachi was ST3500312CS 2009. This is why I only mentioned Toshiba and Seagate. Someone else said there was a slant towards WD, I just pointed it out further.



jmpage2 said:


> Do you realize how childish you are being? People are recommending WD drives because many have upgraded to them with very good results based on the characteristics of them matching well for DVR use. Seagate or others are fine also but claiming there is bias is silly.


What characteristics? From some of the responses lately, it's just because it's cheaper.

No I don't work for Seagate, I just believe in equality and allowing everyone be aware they are offered the choice of multiple brands and not limited to just one brand. 



jmpage2 said:


> It is barely mentioned because almost no one is going with it. People recommend what is working well for them, which at the moment are the WD drives.


That's just because it's cheaper, not a technical reason. That's the only reason why I'm mentioning all this. If Seagate was the exact same price, what would the answer be?


----------



## trip1eX

JWhites said:


> If Seagate was the exact same price, what would the answer be?


The answer would be.... it doesn't matter.

Buy any green drive.


----------



## JWhites

This seems useful. http://www.hddfiresafe.com/storage_hardware/compare-hard-drive-brands.htm
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/understanding-hard-drive-performance,1557.html
By green drive you mean what? Green seems to mean different things.


----------



## trip1eX

JWhites said:


> By green drive you mean what? Green seems to mean different things.


lower rpm drive. ~5900rpm. Something that runs a bit cooler and is more efficient.


----------



## JWhites

Does the amount of cache on a hard drive matter when it comes to using it with a TiVo? If so how noticeable is the performance between 8, 16, 32, and 64MB?


----------



## JWhites

trip1eX said:


> lower rpm drive. ~5900rpm. Something that runs a bit cooler and is more efficient.


Ah ok cool makes sense.


----------



## nooneuknow

WD's Green "Intellipower" = 5400RPM. Nothing special, no variable speed once spinning, just made to spin up with less current draw, so spin up is done in stages, taking longer to get spun up, before the heads can be loaded off the parking/loading ramps.

Seagate's green AV drives = 5900RPM, same deal. Likely has a catchy name for the same thing.

Hard drive mfg's tend to take the most mundane things, and somehow trademark the names they use for such things (to make it sound like you are getting something special).

With WD, there's: Intellipower, Intellipark, Intelliseek, Silkstream, Allframe, TLER, ...and dozens more.

With Seagate: Same things, different names.

With other drives: Same things, different names.

I get the impression if they make even the slightest change/enhancement from an established standard, but keep it backwards compatible, they can name it whatever they like, and trademark it. In some cases there are enough enhancements made to merit a trademarked name. But, the different brands that have the have the same enhancements, but under a different name, are just confusing. WD's "Intellipower" RPM is a great example.


----------



## nooneuknow

JWhites said:


> Does the amount of cache on a hard drive matter when it comes to using it with a TiVo? If so how noticeable is it between 8, 16, 32, and 64MB?


Ever since AF (Advanced Format) drives came along, drives have had to double the cache to mask the performance penalties inside the drive, due to AF 512e (4k physical sectors emulating as 512 byte physical sectors). This is why drives with 32MB cache, came with 64MB for the AF versions. Even with the extra cache, recent reports from owners of 2 tuner S3 OLED & TiVo HD models have noticed a performance improvement by aligning.

Before this, TiVo used drives with the lowest amount of cache available (apparently they didn't need it, so they saved money by buying drives having less). The drives in some of the first TiVo HDs could only be bought special order with the 1-2MB cache they had. TiVo stuck with practice this until AF 512e came along. Then they went with the normal full-size cache, like you get when you buy an OEM drive from Newegg. If not for all that cache, an AF 512e drive would probably fail to keep up with a TiVo, with all the cache-intensive RMW (Read, Modify, Write) write operations, where the drive has to read a whole 4K sector, just to change something to be written to one emulated 512 byte sector, then re-write the whole 4k sector. Misaligned partition start boundaries make this worse, and the drive has to RMW write two whole 4k sectors, if a write will land on an emulated block straddling two physical 4k sectors, plus all the RMW overhead this creates. But, wait, it gets worse. As fragmentation sets in, even an aligned drive has to do RMW operations, and it's far worse if not aligned.

So, IMO, the more cache, the merrier, unless it's so excessive that a power loss causes too much pending data to be lost. Too little cache, and the drive will be too slow, from doing RMW operations. I think TiVo might have felt their drives were more power-loss friendly with the lesser cache sizes, before AF 512e drives. As part of the core design of any DVR, they need to be able to recover from unexpected power losses. WD Red NAS claims it can complete the pending operation upon power loss. They don't write the whole cache, but just insure whatever is about to write, or has started writing, completes, without only writing part of the data and stopping mid-sector (how they do this is a trade secret). I suspect an on-drive supercapacitor, and a firmware that keeps a close eye out for signs the drive is about to use the last of what is in the power supply's output rails.

There is a point where the cache size could be too large to be safe, without having extreme levels of power integrity protection. Since cache also adds to the power consumption, laptop drives tend to have less, unless you get a drive that has more. So, AF 512e (or some just say "4k") alignment is obviously even more critical, when the drive doesn't have the cache to deal with unaligned writes, without slowing to a crawl.

At least we know that the Roamios all will do 4k alignment. They don't write in 4k blocks, which would be optimal. But, only TiVo can change how TiVos write. If they start finding the drives deteriorate too quickly, they will have to do something on that side of it. Otherwise, all we can do is use Roamios, or learn how to align the previous models' drive images, if not using Roamios. Buying prepared and aligned pre-imaged drives for older models is also an option.


----------



## lessd

JWhites said:


> What? I just want less WD bias and discuss Seagate more for fairness. There doesn't seem to be any technical reason why people don't recommend Seagate drives, they just don't want to spend any added cost of a Seagate to put it in their TiVo's to say "Seagate works well for me" and recommend it. Is literally the only reason why more people don't go with Seagate is because it might cost a little more?


I don't think that WD bias is a problem, people may love their TiVo but not their hard drive, it just that TiVo has used both but mostly WD so with a lower price on WD why not use WD. I used both in the past and price is the big factor for me, after drive size. Never had any problems with any hard drive I put into a TiVo.


----------



## JWhites

Ok.


----------



## consumedsoul

Anyone try using a WDBMMA0030HNC-NRSN for their Roamio (base)?


----------



## nooneuknow

consumedsoul said:


> Anyone try using a WDBMMA0030HNC-NRSN for their Roamio (base)?


That's the retail version of the OEM 3TB WD Red NAS WD30EFRX. I'm running three of the OEM (bulk pack) in three base Roamios.

I'd call them the best option, for those who aren't in the "All hard drives are the same. So, just buy the cheapest green drive you can find" camp.

They are better than AV-GP, if you should ever want to take it out, as your TiVo drive, and drop it into a NAS device or RAID array. They are AV-rated, marketed as 24/7 duty-cycle, have a 3yr warranty, dedicated exclusive support channels, and have the best published TB per year (TB/yr) workload rating of consumer grade energy-efficient (aka "green") drives.

The TLER/ERC function (Time Limited Error Recovery/Error Recovery Control), that does whatever it takes to not drop out of a RAID array, upon a read/write error, can have negative effects for use in a TiVo, if there is a read/write error in the areas with critical system files and/or databases are located.

I had to pull one, and do a full read/wipe test to fix some sectors that were not bad, but the ECC data didn't match when being read, and the drive would mask the problem, rather than report a failed read to the TiVo. So, the TiVo file system couldn't flag the sectors, or correct them.

I don't know what the odds are of this happening. But, I spent months trying to figure out why the TiVo was running slow, hanging, and rebooting. The drive had to be removed to discover the issue using a PC. The TiVo would never have been able to even detect what the drive itself was masking/hiding from it. It would seem that the cause was weak writes, which I suspect were caused by the "barely enough" wall-wart power supply for the base Roamio.

I've since substituted 12V 2.5A power bricks, in place of the 12V 2.0A wall warts, and smooth sailing since.

I'm of the opinion that the same weak writes would have happened with any drive I used. But, drives not made for NAS/RAID, which don't have TLER/ERC, would have let the TiVo deal with the problem, rather than masking the problem (the latter is only desirable for NAS/RAID).

If not for this one experience, I'd have said "go far it, great drive". Others have also had issues with the stock wall-wart, when installing a drive that draws more power that the one it comes with.

The majority of people just get an OEM WD__EURX AV-GP "green" drive (or a retail version of it), pay the ~$10 extra it costs (over a plain "green" drive) just to get an an added year of warranty (three, instead of two), and the fact they are the same drives TiVo uses in larger capacity TiVos, gives some even greater peace of mind...


----------



## danm628

Some history for those who don't care. And maybe for those who do. 

Back in the mid-80s I started writing HD drivers. Initially built on PC bios but later direct access. And also on multiple personal computers with different interfaces (ST506, ATA, SASI, SCSI). 

I lived through the great ST506 "stiction" problem. Platters had (and probably still do) a tiny amount of lubricant to handle the heads landing during spin down. There was a batch of ST506 drives with too much lubricant. This slowly was pushed to the head parking zones (outermost or innermost tracks). And ultimately the drive would not spin up because the heads were stuck. Of course 6 months before this WD drives had a different failure and Seagate were the greatest thing ever.

After a stint at a large communications research development lab (where they invented the transistor) I ended up at a small company selling hard drive upgrades for a few non-PC (i.e. not IBM PC compatible) systems. They used a variety of drives. Seagate. Western Digital. Quantum. Others that I don't remember.

Except for one forgotten brand that I do recall as being absolutely amazing. HP built drives back then though they quit after only a few generations. They sold SCSI drives, initially a 200 MB (approximately -- don't recall the exact size) and later 1 GB drives. They were all but indestructible. The only drives I'm aware of that were actually tested in a vacuum which functioned for a long period. (Tests for attempted sales to NASA.) Of course they didn't sell well since they cost a lot more and weren't the fastest drives on the market. Which is probably why HP got out of that business. 

They all died. Even the HP drives though they lasted a lot longer than others. In general brand doesn't matter on a long term basis. Brand A is good this month. Or this production batch. And the next batch sucks and brand B is fantastic. 

Drives die. All of them. Live with it.

Many moons ago I bought a TiVo series 1. I then did a 2 drive internal upgrade by adding a WD drive (no idea what model -- roughly 200 GB). The paired drives ran fine for about 2 years. Then died. I replaced the pair with a 250 GB (??? long time ago) Seagate desktop driver. Because I could pick it up on the way home at the long computer store. 

The 250 GB Seagate ran for 8 years. I shut it down when I had to quit using the Series 1 due to the move to digital cable. It's still in a box in storage; waiting for the return of analog. 

I bought a Series 3 a couple of years before that. When TiVo had a good upgrade and migrate lifetime option. I upgraded to a 1 TB drive almost immediately. A WD Green drive. 

The WD Green 1 TB lasted a bit over 6 years. Then the S3 died. I waited a while (debating cord cutting) and bought a Roamio. And then figured out what had gone wrong on the S3. The drive was dead but it was due to the power supply dying. Replaced power supply and installed a new WD AV GP drive.

Again the point of all of this ---- Hard drives die. ALL OF THEM. 

Predicting when a specific model and a specific work load will die is impossible. 

The best you can do is check what people are reporting works today. Or for the last few months. And hope that is true for the new production drive you just bought. Since there is a chance that a change was made and your drive will die in 6 months. Or 3 years so it's out of warrenty. Instead of 6 or 8 years.

I still care about drive reliability. But I refuse to stress over it. My NAS use WD Red and no failures (so far). My TiVos use WD AV GP (currently) and seem to be ok. At the end of the day I'm more worried about the NAS than the TiVo. One has my photos, videos, financial info, etc. The other is just TV. I can live if I lose an episode of a show. (I will be hunted down and killed for saying that on a TiVo forum. )

My advice: Look what people say works well. Look at pricing. Buy what you feel happy with. And enjoy. It is just a TV. It is the best TV ever but still it is a TV.


----------



## consumedsoul

Thanks for the info!



nooneuknow said:


> That's the retail version of the OEM 3TB WD Red NAS WD30EFRX. I'm running three of the OEM (bulk pack) in three base Roamios.
> 
> I'd call them the best option, for those who aren't in the "All hard drives are the same. So, just buy the cheapest green drive you can find" camp.
> 
> They are better than AV-GP, if you should ever want to take it out, as your TiVo drive, and drop it into a NAS device or RAID array. They are AV-rated, marketed as 24/7 duty-cycle, have a 3yr warranty, dedicated exclusive support channels, and have the best published TB per year (TB/yr) workload rating of consumer grade energy-efficient (aka "green") drives.
> 
> The TLER/ERC function (Time Limited Error Recovery/Error Recovery Control), that does whatever it takes to not drop out of a RAID array, upon a read/write error, can have negative effects for use in a TiVo, if there is a read/write error in the areas with critical system files and/or databases are located.
> 
> I had to pull one, and do a full read/wipe test to fix some sectors that were not bad, but the ECC data didn't match when being read, and the drive would mask the problem, rather than report a failed read to the TiVo. So, the TiVo file system couldn't flag the sectors, or correct them.
> 
> I don't know what the odds are of this happening. But, I spent months trying to figure out why the TiVo was running slow, hanging, and rebooting. The drive had to be removed to discover the issue using a PC. The TiVo would never have been able to even detect what the drive itself was masking/hiding from it. It would seem that the cause was weak writes, which I suspect were caused by the "barely enough" wall-wart power supply for the base Roamio.
> 
> I've since substituted 12V 2.5A power bricks, in place of the 12V 2.0A wall warts, and smooth sailing since.
> 
> I'm of the opinion that the same weak writes would have happened with any drive I used. But, drives not made for NAS/RAID, which don't have TLER/ERC, would have let the TiVo deal with the problem, rather than masking the problem (the latter is only desirable for NAS/RAID).
> 
> If not for this one experience, I'd have said "go far it, great drive". Others have also had issues with the stock wall-wart, when installing a drive that draws more power that the one it comes with.
> 
> The majority of people just get an OEM WD__EURX AV-GP "green" drive (or a retail version of it), pay the ~$10 extra it costs (over a plain "green" drive) just to get an an added year of warranty (three, instead of two), and the fact they are the same drives TiVo uses in larger capacity TiVos, gives some even greater peace of mind...


----------



## mattack

So what is Tivo doing in their Mega, and will it help get a >3 TB Tivo "easily"? (i.e. we're already beyond the built in 3 TB auto-upgrade for "relatively cheap drives")


----------



## nooneuknow

danm628 said:


> Some history for those who don't care. And maybe for those who do. <snip>


The trip down memory lane was nice. But, you pretty much just quoted the preface to CSC's Hard Drive Bible, from the late 80's (I still have my copy), spoke of platter lubrication, landing zones, and stiction (all eliminated around a decade ago), then gave advice for TiVo upgrades...

I do the stressing-out over modern drive technology, so the rest don't have to (unless they choose to).

Ignorance may be bliss. But, bliss is an area I have no experience with, so I wouldn't know.


----------



## JWhites

The current Western Digital MyBook AV expanders are all running the WD AV WD10EURX drives which brings 64 MB of cache and Buffer To Host rate of 6 Gb/s (Max).


----------



## nooneuknow

mattack said:


> So what is Tivo doing in their Mega, and will it help get a >3 TB Tivo "easily"? (i.e. we're already beyond the built in 3 TB auto-upgrade for "relatively cheap drives")


From the reports I've seen, even TiVo can't get their facts straight, like if they are using RAID 5 or 6. The total capacity says one, the RAID level says another. Until it gets past the speculation and rumor threads, which have probably went from 5 to 10 threads, since I last checked, I honestly don't have a clue, and honestly don't want to bring the speculation here. I get into enough trouble trying to make an educated guesstimate of how well single drives will hold up in 6 tuner TiVos.

I do figure that there's a chance the existence of the Mega has forced TiVo to code in ways that can use a >20TB logical volume, which could be good news if TiVo still tries to keep their software unified. Until the product is actually being sold, and the right people get their hands on it, nobody here knows, that I'm aware of. The reports say it supports 10x3TB drives, but some speculate with only 6 tuners, it's just the "Mega basic model"... See what I mean?


----------



## nooneuknow

JWhites said:


> The current Western Digital MyBook AV expanders are all running the WD AV WD10EURX drives which brings 64 MB of cache and Buffer To Host rate of 6 Gb/s (Max).


...and... I'm lost. While the host (TiVo) has a chipset that the TiVo logs would indicate SATA-3 (6Gb/s) support, the logs show it negotiates all drives down to SATA-1, and uses basic IDE compatibility mode.

SATA-1 is 150MB/s, and the fastest AV-GP peaks at ~137MB/s sequential read on the outermost, fastest, tracks. Even the fastest Red NAS peaks at ~157MB/s, same deal with specifics.

You have to get up to 7200RPM (Red NAS Pro), before SATA-2 is really of use, and closer to 10,000RPM before a platter drive can taste SATA-3 speed. Only SSDs can saturate SATA-3.

Green drives are hobbled by low RPM, low seek performance, and low processing power (on-drive processing). Throw in anything not sequential, and the performance falls off a cliff. Unless what needs to be read, just happens to be in the cache, the higher interface to host rate can't help, especially when TiVo seems to want (or it is required) that communication rate dialed down to the same as it has been since the S3. If you can figure out why TiVo does this, you earn a gold star in my book. I only know they do it, not the "why" they do it. My best guess is they require consistency in the data flow, and having burst rates might be problematic, in any number of ways, unless they throw out their coding and start over.

Also, the eSATA port is done via port-multiplier, which shares the bandwidth of a single channel. The way TiVo "stripes" when using an added eSATA drive isn't any form of RAID. It's purely proprietary to TiVo, and not a performance enhancement.


----------



## HomieG

danm628 said:


> My advice: Look what people say works well. Look at pricing. Buy what you feel happy with. And enjoy. It is just a TV. It is the best TV ever but still it is a TV.


Snipped as folks can read the whole thing above...

+1

Finally, a long post worth reading!


----------



## aaronwt

squint said:


> I looked at Seagates when shopping for a 4 tb drive for my Roamio Plus. They were more expensive than WD and I wasn't convinced they were worth the price difference.


The higher capacity Seagates use more power than an equivalent WD size drive. That is the reason I would not use a 4TB Seagate in my TiVo. At least that was the case when I researched them earlier this Summer.

Although I use dozens of 2TB and 3TB Seagates in my three unRAID setups. I still have a few Dozen WD drives in there too, but I've only been purchasing the Seagates for the last few years instead of WD.


----------



## danm628

nooneuknow said:


> The trip down memory lane was nice. But, you pretty much just quoted the preface to CSC's Hard Drive Bible, from the late 80's (I still have my copy), spoke of platter lubrication, landing zones, and stiction (all eliminated around a decade ago), then gave advice for TiVo upgrades...
> 
> I do the stressing-out over modern drive technology, so the rest don't have to (unless they choose to).
> 
> Ignorance may be bliss. But, bliss is an area I have no experience with, so I wouldn't know.


I've never seen/read the Hard Drive Bible. I've been out of the drive world for 15 years now after a move back to data comm. So I have plenty of bliss about HDs.

Wireless on the other hand... No bliss at all. It's interesting and occasionally fun but not a relaxing field. It's a little better on the research side; at least now I don't have millions of people using something I built and finding bugs that I need to fix.

- Dan


----------



## nooneuknow

danm628 said:


> I've never seen/read the Hard Drive Bible. I've been out of the drive world for 15 years now after a move back to data comm. So I have plenty of bliss about HDs.


I appreciate the honesty, and you have my respect, for being honest.


----------



## nooneuknow

HomieG said:


> Snipped as folks can read the whole thing above...
> 
> +1
> 
> Finally, a long post worth reading!


I thought I was on your ignore list. I suggest you place me there, if you feel long nostalgic posts, mostly on drive issues of decades past are worth reading, but posts about what is available here and now (or what is about to come onto the market, shortly), are not.

Funny, that you had called me a "blowhard" (in another thread), for warning others that a "deal" on a drive you splattered around, was, by your own admission, a better deal (for you) because your credit card extended the warranty by a year, at no cost to you. Now, here you are, saying which long posts are worth reading...

FWIW, I enjoyed that post, as I am nostalgic. In the end, it spoke the truth about how all hard drives will die at some point, and going with what people are having the best luck with now, is at least part of good advice.


----------



## danm628

nooneuknow said:


> I appreciate the honesty, and you have my respect, for being honest.


I've been an engineer for around 30 years now. Software and some hardware. Several patents. My name is on a few standards that lots of people use (or used -- some are now irrelevant in the modern world). Some magazine articles back in the day.

The most important thing to engineering is being honest. I respect the engineers who come to me and say they "f'd up". I will work with them to fix it and help them learn not to do it again. The engineers who hide things are the ones I will actively work to get transferred off my projects or fired (even better since they can't mess up another teams project costing the company money).

We all make mistakes. Hiding them doesn't help.

The above applies to life in general though very few actually follow it.

I do appreciate all of your posts on HDs. You are the main reason I selected an WD GP AV instead of a WD GP this time. I am well aware that things have changed since I last bought a TiVo or did an upgrade.

I did do a single read/write pass on the new drive. Something I've done on most of the drives I've purchased for the last 20+ years. It will catch a large percentage of the infant mortality drives but not all of them. I didn't do a long burn in. They may catch more infant mortality drives but they also take time that I wasn't willing to devote to it. I wanted the S3 up and running so I could leave and let it record a few things while I was gone. As I said my TiVo is just a TV. I want it to work but when it occasionally dies it isn't the end of the world.

- Dan


----------



## HarperVision

Is this a good drive and deal if anyone wants to upgrade to a 4TB? Hitachi 4TB for $99. Figured I'd pass it along if so.

http://sellout.woot.com/offers/hita...il&utm_term=0_c5ca76da11-ff0d2dd3d9-303976033


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> Is this a good drive and deal if anyone wants to upgrade to a 4TB? Hitachi 4TB for $99. Figured I'd pass it along if so.
> 
> http://sellout.woot.com/offers/hita...il&utm_term=0_c5ca76da11-ff0d2dd3d9-303976033


Only 32MB cache, and only a 60 day warranty?

TiVo use: I'll pass - Not a 24/7 or AV drive, not known if base Roamio can spin this up and keep stable power.
Regular use: Price is tempting for 4TB, but 32MB cache and 60 day warranty makes me think you are getting exactly what you are paying for.

If somebody wants to try one out and see what happens, at least we'd know if this drive will even work. It has no TiVo track record. I've seen a lot of off-brand 4TB external drives being sold as refurbs, and this is the drive inside them. I wonder if it had 64MB cache, and half of it had to be disabled due to a defect.

*EDIT/ADD:* *This drive's power requirements would overload the base-Roamio wall-wart power supply on spinup, even if the drive was the only thing being powered by it. I recommend avoiding this drive for any model TiVo.*
.
.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> Only 32MB cache, and only a 60 day warranty? TiVo use: I'll pass - Not a 24/7 or AV drive, not known if base Roamio can spin this up and keep stable power. Regular use: Price is tempting for 4TB, but 32MB cache and 60 day warranty makes me think you are getting exactly what you are paying for. If somebody wants to try one out and see what happens, at least we'd know if this drive will even work. It has no TiVo track record. I've seen a lot of off-brand 4TB external drives being sold as refurbs, and this is the drive inside them. I wonder if it had 64MB cache, and half of it had to be disabled due to a defect. EDIT/ADD: This drive's power requirements would overload the base-Roamio wall-wart power supply on spinup, even if the drive was the only thing being powered by it. I recommend avoiding this drive for any model TiVo. . .


OK, thanks for the info! I figured you'd have some good opinions on this one.


----------



## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> TiVo use: I'll pass - Not a 24/7 or AV drive,


...and a zillion other 'non 24/7 or AV' drives have been used successfully in Tivos for years...


----------



## jmbach

slowbiscuit said:


> ...and a zillion other 'non 24/7 or AV' drives have been used successfully in Tivos for years...


What you and nooneuknow said are both true. One statement is more liberal while the other more conservative. Both are helpful to the people looking in this forum for help and provide some balance. They get both sides and then can make up their mind on which way to lean.


----------



## trip1eX

I've read this about other threads, but for me, I can't believe this thread is 70 pages. 

IT's a hard drive for recording tv. All you really have to do is look at what's inside your tivo (or google it) and get something with roughly equivalent rpms, power usage and maybe the operating temp spec.


----------



## elborak

trip1eX said:


> I can't believe this thread is 70 pages.


There are some whose nature is to thoroughly research/analyze things to an extreme level of detail.

To a fair degree, their efforts can be a benefit to others, though it does run the risk of swamping the useful advice with too much detail.

Probably the best plan is to have separate "research" and "advice" threads; most folks don't need/want the data and verbosity of the research threads, just the final recommendations. Of course that only works if the researchers have the discipline to post in the right thread.


----------



## JWhites

It's better to make an informed decision then to make a decision off of a blind recommendation. I do agree that sometimes information can become too overwhelming but it's a very finite line.


----------



## slowbiscuit

elborak said:


> There are some whose nature is to thoroughly research/analyze things to an extreme level of detail.
> 
> To a fair degree, their efforts can be a benefit to others, though it does run the risk of swamping the useful advice with too much detail.
> 
> Probably the best plan is to have separate "research" and "advice" threads; most folks don't need/want the data and verbosity of the research threads, just the final recommendations. Of course that only works if the researchers have the discipline to post in the right thread.


This is exactly the issue with this thread and a good recommendation. I nominate noone to start the research thread.


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> ...and a zillion other 'non 24/7 or AV' drives have been used successfully in Tivos for years...


Did I say all should pass due to it not being 24/7 or AV? No! I said "I'll pass". That is called an "opinion", which you only allow to be left un-attacked, if they match your own opinions.

Then, after doing some more digging into the drive specs, for the benefit of those who don't care if a drive is endorsed by the mfg for 24/7, or if it's an AV drive, I found cold, hard, facts on the current/amperage requirements, which showed, without even any reasonable doubt, that even if the base-Roamio's power supply was used to only power this drive (such as in an external USB/eSATA enclosure, without anything else needing any power), it would still far exceed the rated output. The drive in question, will not work in a base Roamio. I guarantee it. Even if one were to increase the size of the external power supply to accommodate it, that would risk overloading the internal circuits and components that carry the power to the drive. I then came back and added that crucial data, long before more than most could have read my post, and before anybody commented or quoted it.

Then, in usual fashion, you use the one line that you can selectively quote, to come at me with, leaving the most relevant parts (some of which can't even be disputed, unless disputing the drive's published specs are incorrect), completely out of your attack.

The drive in question requires so much spin-up current, It would be likely to stress (at minimum), or damage (potentially), power supplies in even the Plus/Pro, if they were even able to get it spun up. The drive in question does not have any of the mechanisms to stage the spinup, which even the most basic "Green" drives have in place. This is absolutely critical for use in a TiVo.

That leaves the drive in question, one that won't even work for a base Roamio, and extremely likely it won't even work for the Plus/Pro. Even if it somehow does spin up in a Plus/Pro, see the paragraph before this one.



slowbiscuit said:


> This is exactly the issue with this thread and a good recommendation. I nominate noone to start the research thread.


No "research" thread is required to see the forest for the trees, with this drive, for TiVo use.


----------



## nooneuknow

I will start by saying "thank you" to those who have actively, passively, or equally, posted supportive POVs. The supportive PMs are much appreciated, as well.

Why do I (now) tend to favor a 24/7 AV "green" drive over a plain "green" drive?
#1 Reason is that is what TiVo uses, and the same drives are available to end-user upgraders, at minimal price difference over others.
#2 Reason is that the price difference (excluding refurbs), is worth the extra year of warranty to many.
#3 Reason is #1 & #2 combined bring peace-of-mind to many, especially those new to TiVo, and/or those new to TCF, who come here to ask for information. I could list even more reasons, but I'm trying for short.

You only need look at the early portion of this thread, to see I used to be the most vocal about "not wasting money on a drive having AV features, that TiVo doesn't even use, and a 24/7 designation, which was only marketing gimmick". This was back when the price difference could buy you another drive, not the ~$10 difference, now, if you shop around. In the past, you could get non-AV WD Caviar Green drives with 3yr warranties. Those have been EOL for a while now, and had been my #1 choice (WD__EADS). Every single one failed to stay reliable in 2 tuner TiVos, after 2-3 years (the performance degraded too much, over time). Due to the (then) 3yr warranty, I got all of them replaced. But, circumstances made it practical to snap up a deal on 2TB EURS AV-GP drives, while WD processed my 6 (out of 10) drives sent back. It was the only way I could get a 3yr warranty, for a price that made sense for me.

I 100% welcome bringing more drive "contenders" to the discussions. Here's what I see as most important, *if you leave AV-rated, 24/7 duty cycle, and TB/year workload rating out of the equation*:

1. A "green" (energy efficient, low-current spinup) designation, making sure that you check that actual drive current specs for spinup and operating, compare to what you are intending to replace, and if higher, verify the power supply leaves room for the difference. Not all "green" or 5400/5900RPM drives actually have low-current, often "staged", spinup. Some "green" drives are only as green as the label. It's very important you get true "green" drives. This is key to the TiVo, and it's power supply, operating stably, and for longevity of everything. Since some drives are only relabeled low-performance, low-RPM drives, now called "green" for the tree-huggers, buyer beware.

2. A drive that operates creating little heat, but is able to operate in the presence of other heat, and in fanless (even non ventilated) enclosures. This gives peace of mind, knowing the drive should hold-up if the cooling fan quits working. Also, the cooler the drive is, the greater the lifespan (within reason, in both directions). Fake "green" drives often fail to run cool, and lose longevity if not able to get adequate cooling.

3. A drive that meets, or exceeds (in a good way), as many requirements and factors as the original drive, or better yet, what TiVo uses in higher-capacity models. If TiVo pays for 64MB cache, when less is an option, you probably should avoid drives that have less cache for the same, or greater, size drive capacity.

4. Warranty - This means little when it comes to if it will work for a TiVo, and how well. The only way this factors in, is that most mfgs have enough faith in a drive model, to risk potential profit losses by offer longer warranties. If you are looking at a drive, and see refurbished, remanufactured, or recertified models of it being widely available, you might want to reconsider that drive, especially if it's a new product, only on the market for a short time. If you are tempted to buy a recertified one, make sure it is recertified by the mfg, and has warranty from the mfg.

In trying to keep this short, in sure I missed a few parameters that some would feel belong included.

A final note on why some may want to use the same drive that TiVo would use, for a given capacity, is that each TiVo knows the drive model that is installed, and passes that information to TiVo with every scheduled service connection. Should you use a drive model that stands out as a model they don't use, the greater the risk of being denied support. The risk is always there, and several TCF members have been denied support, due to an unauthorized drive change. While most don't get denied warranty, so long as they put the original drive back in, some say they have (and other members are quick to pounce on them as they must have been stupid enough to tell TiVo they changed the drive).

If being able to get technical support through TiVo is very important to you, I suggest you buy a model with the capacity you need, and/or add a TiVo-approved DVR expander drive, rather than unapproved upgrading. For me, I need to have OTA fallback capability, so the base-Roamio was my only option, as was upgrading the drive.

You are also not allowed to participate in beta testing, or field trials, for upcoming software, if you don't have the stock model drive installed.


----------



## jschaffhauser

Hi All,

Just replaced the stock 500GB drive in my Roamio with a 3TB WD Purple. No problems with the installation, and everything booted up fine.

Problem is I called TWC this morning to re-pair the card with my TiVo (I wasn't getting anything other than basic channels after setup), and while the tech could "see" the cable card, he couldn't get it to authorize correctly, and has no idea why.

Has anyone else had this problem? I don't think it is the hard drive, but would like confirmation of this. Everything was working fine before the hard drive replacement which is causing me to hesitate.

Thanks for your help/input!!!


----------



## ThreeSoFar

jschaffhauser said:


> Hi All,
> 
> Just replaced the stock 500GB drive in my Roamio with a 3TB WD Purple. No problems with the installation, and everything booted up fine.
> 
> Problem is I called TWC this morning to re-pair the card with my TiVo (I wasn't getting anything other than basic channels after setup), and while the tech could "see" the cable card, he couldn't get it to authorize correctly, and has no idea why.
> 
> Has anyone else had this problem? I don't think it is the hard drive, but would like confirmation of this. Everything was working fine before the hard drive replacement which is causing me to hesitate.
> 
> Thanks for your help/input!!!


It's not the drive.

It's the cableco. And yes, 95% of anyone that's had to have a cable company pair a CableCARD has had that problem.

Be persistent. Ask for their CableCARD expert. Convince them they are at fault. Have them read back to you each and every number in your account. Any tiny typo in those numbers kills it.


----------



## lpwcomp

jschaffhauser said:


> Hi All,
> 
> Just replaced the stock 500GB drive in my Roamio with a 3TB WD Purple. No problems with the installation, and everything booted up fine.
> 
> Problem is I called TWC this morning to re-pair the card with my TiVo (I wasn't getting anything other than basic channels after setup), and while the tech could "see" the cable card, he couldn't get it to authorize correctly, and has no idea why.
> 
> Has anyone else had this problem? I don't think it is the hard drive, but would like confirmation of this. Everything was working fine before the hard drive replacement which is causing me to hesitate.
> 
> Thanks for your help/input!!!





ThreeSoFar said:


> It's not the drive.
> 
> It's the cableco. And yes, 95% of anyone that's had to have a cable company pair a CableCARD has had that problem.
> 
> Be persistent. Ask for their CableCARD expert. Convince them they are at fault. Have them read back to you each and every number in your account. Any tiny typo in those numbers kills it.


It gets even messier when you are *re-*pairing a CableCARD.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

lpwcomp said:


> It gets even messier when you are *re-*pairing a CableCARD.


True. In fact, for any new Roamio owner, I HIGHLY recommend you just yank that stock drive (make sure it boots to guided setup first), plop in a new one, let it install over the Internet, go through guided setup, THEN call your cableco, get it paired, enjoy your TiVo.


----------



## lpwcomp

ThreeSoFar said:


> True. In fact, for any new Roamio owner, I HIGHLY recommend you just yank that stock drive (make sure it boots to guided setup first), plop in a new one, let it install over the Internet, go through guided setup, THEN call your cableco, get it paired, enjoy your TiVo.


I disagree. I would recommend installing the CableCARD (don't get it paired), going through guided setup and making sure everything works before replacing the HD, re-doing guided setup and _*then*_ getting the card paired.


----------



## jschaffhauser

ThreeSoFar said:


> It's not the drive.
> 
> It's the cableco. And yes, 95% of anyone that's had to have a cable company pair a CableCARD has had that problem.
> 
> Be persistent. Ask for their CableCARD expert. Convince them they are at fault. Have them read back to you each and every number in your account. Any tiny typo in those numbers kills it.


We went through all the numbers, and tried pairing with and without the tuning adapter attached. Frustrating part was that everything was working perfectly this morning before the hard drive replacement.

I remember last time I had to pair they wanted the EMMs (whatever those are) over like 300... this guy didn't seem to care about that and they never got over 100. The pairing kept timing out. I may try calling again later.

He wants to send a guy out to adjust my signal somehow (didn't really understand him).


----------



## jmbach

What brand CableCARD do you have.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

lpwcomp said:


> I disagree. I would recommend installing the CableCARD (don't get it paired), going through guided setup and making sure everything works before replacing the HD, re-doing guided setup and _*then*_ getting the card paired.


Good point, actually--I'll concede this one.

Going through guided setup will check a little bit more of the hardware, which is worth doing--and it doesn't cost hardly any time.


----------



## jschaffhauser

jmbach said:


> What brand CableCARD do you have.


Cisco/SA


----------



## jmbach

My experience is with the Motorola M-Cards. My recommendation is like those above. See if they can connect with a cableCARD expert. If not then ask to go their supervisor. Keep on going up the chain. I have Charter and rarely do I luck out and get someone right from the start that knows cableCARDs. I have gone up 3 supervisors before finding someone that knows what they are doing. In a sense what needs to happen is to delete the pairing and then perform the pairing all over again. Most tech support people just want to send a hit to the card. That only works if nothing has been changed. Here is  TiVo's link for the Cisco cards.

I used to let them do truck rolls but I find the tech has the same issues except they usually have a more knowledgeable person when they call for support. Now I just call back different times during the day to get someone who listens and troubleshoots without going by their script. Rarely will a truck roll is needed to pair a cableCARD, especially if it was working just prior to a drive upgrade.


----------



## ravingfans

Great advice all! I'm upgrading from S3 to Roamio Plus and not sure if my CableCards are the MCard variety or not. Is there a way to tell by physically looking at it, or by any of the TiVo settings or diagnostics page? 

From the discussion, I think I would like to plug the old CableCard in, run through Guided Setup, replace HDD, re-run Guided Setup, then call TWC to get it paired


----------



## lpwcomp

ravingfans said:


> Great advice all! I'm upgrading from S3 to Roamio Plus and not sure if my CableCards are the MCard variety or not. Is there a way to tell by physically looking at it, or by any of the TiVo settings or diagnostics page?
> 
> From the discussion, I think I would like to plug the old CableCard in, run through Guided Setup, replace HDD, re-run Guided Setup, then call TWC to get it paired


You might check the CableCARD Decoder screen. It may tell you. It should also be indicated physically on the card.

Edit: If you've had it for a while, they are most likely s-cards so you'll need to obtain a new card.


----------



## jschaffhauser

jmbach said:


> My experience is with the Motorola M-Cards. My recommendation is like those above. See if they can connect with a cableCARD expert. If not then ask to go their supervisor. Keep on going up the chain. I have Charter and rarely do I luck out and get someone right from the start that knows cableCARDs. I have gone up 3 supervisors before finding someone that knows what they are doing. In a sense what needs to happen is to delete the pairing and then perform the pairing all over again. Most tech support people just want to send a hit to the card. That only works if nothing has been changed. Here is  TiVo's link for the Cisco cards.
> 
> I used to let them do truck rolls but I find the tech has the same issues except they usually have a more knowledgeable person when they call for support. Now I just call back different times during the day to get someone who listens and troubleshoots without going by their script. Rarely will a truck roll is needed to pair a cableCARD, especially if it was working just prior to a drive upgrade.


Thanks everyone... I walked away for 4 hours, came back and everything was working. No idea why it wasn't authenticating when I was on the phone with TWC but I'm getting my channels now!


----------



## dbpaddler

Easy as pie. Did the setup, swapped in the 3tb Red. It ran through the setup again, and 475 hrs or so of hd recording. Had to unpair and re-pair my cable card, but all is good. 

My only but is the tivo website shows it active, but it doesn't show as an option to record shows. Just shows my other two units. Figured it couldn't be 100% smooth. And very annoyed nome of the new units can do both OTA & cable. Makes no sense.


----------



## ravingfans

*Update:* I swapped of of my M-Cards and the tuning adapter from my old S3 to my new Roamio Plus and called TWC. Within 5 minutes after reading off the codes and confirming a couple things they sent the signal out and we were testing the channels, all of which worked on first pass. Got my new 8TB WK kit (I know, I could read the forums and with a bunch of time get it done for a bunch less!) and went through the CableCard setup again and it also came right up.


----------



## HarperVision

Not sure if this is a good deal or not, but figured I'd pass it on just in case. WD Red 3TB $122:

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00...rect=true&ref_=pe_847760_124877640_em_1p_0_ti.


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> Not sure if this is a good deal or not, but figured I'd pass it on just in case. WD Red 3TB $122:
> 
> http://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00...rect=true&ref_=pe_847760_124877640_em_1p_0_ti.


Newegg had a 4-pack deal on them for $399 just the other day. Limit 2 packs per customer. I passed, even though I had the funds. Newegg tends to have them for as low as $115, about once a month.

Due to the issues with TLER/ERC that comes factory-enabled, on all Red & Purple drives, as well as other brand "NAS" drives, which can't be persistently disabled across power cycles, I'm wishing I had stuck with AV-GP (at least for my TiVo drives). I had bought three 3TB AV-GP drives a short while back, for $115 each, then sold them at cost to a member here, before realizing that the issues I thought I'd figured out with my Reds, were likely to re-occur.

There's also the fact that without changing the model numbers, WD has been shipping updated versions of Reds, with NASware 3.0, and most resellers are not guaranteeing what you get, making it "luck of the draw", and 2.0 can't be upgraded to 3.0. So, buying a few WD30EFRX drives could get you either the old, or the new (or even a mix). Most of the differences have no real impact, unless actually used for RAID, and in a use where you need what 3.0 has.

For those who have no issue tempting fate with TLER effectively crippling half the error correction mechanism, when used in a non-TLER host (like a TiVo), or having other uses for the drives, I wouldn't pay more than $120 per drive. I was hoping to see a super-deal on 2.0, to clear inventories out for the 3.0 drives. I guess that's not going to happen.

If anybody doubts what I say about TLER drives being used without a controller that can't complete the other half of what TLER does, just contact WD and tell them you want to use a Red or Purple in a TiVo. They don't support that, and will say you are using the wrong drive.

WD will also confirm that the AV-GP line has not been discontinued, is not scheduled to be, and despite Newegg claiming Purple is the newer model AV-GP, it's not true, and they are not interchangeable. RAID feature enabled drives belong with RAID enabled hosts, able to make TLER a Pro, instead of a con.

Just see this post here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10270152#post10270152 , as well as the post immediately following it. That way I don't have to carry it all over to here.

I'm rather upset that I gave my blessing for using Red drives, only to find out I shouldn't have... The link I just gave is addressing somebody who ordered an AV-GP drive, specifically, and received a Purple, instead. This was through an Amazon seller, and was completely wrong to happen. Purples actually tend to be cheaper than AV-GP, plus the cons of being a TLER drive...


----------



## jellyandtoast

I'm new to this so please bear with me. 

About 4 months ago, I upgraded the stock drive in the Roamio Basic to the WD 3TB AV drive.

During the recent reboot loop debacle, I noticed that the upgraded hard drive upgrade on my Roamio basic was making some strange 'clicking' noise on occasion (especially during the initial phases of the reboot loop). So at first I thought the reboot loop issue was because my drive had gone bad, though I have no idea if the two issues are related. I did the Kickstart 54 SMART test and noticed that all 3 of the HD tests gave me a "Fail 7" error. I didn't do the offline test since it takes forever.

Should I pretty much assume the HD is done for and I should be getting a warranty replacement? Could this have been caused by the reboot issue or was the bad drive causing reboots?

Any help would be appreciated. for reference, the drive in question is the WD30EURS. 

thanks


----------



## ggieseke

jellyandtoast said:


> I'm new to this so please bear with me.
> 
> About 4 months ago, I upgraded the stock drive in the Roamio Basic to the WD 3TB AV drive.
> 
> During the recent reboot loop debacle, I noticed that the upgraded hard drive upgrade on my Roamio basic was making some strange 'clicking' noise on occasion (especially during the initial phases of the reboot loop). So at first I thought the reboot loop issue was because my drive had gone bad, though I have no idea if the two issues are related. I did the Kickstart 54 SMART test and noticed that all 3 of the HD tests gave me a "Fail 7" error. I didn't do the offline test since it takes forever.
> 
> Should I pretty much assume the HD is done for and I should be getting a warranty replacement? Could this have been caused by the reboot issue or was the bad drive causing reboots?
> 
> Any help would be appreciated. for reference, the drive in question is the WD30EURS.
> 
> thanks


If you can hear clicking on any EURS drive it's not a good sign. While it's still running use kmttg or TiVo Desktop to copy all of your shows, and use kmttg to back up your Season Passes.

Once your data is safe (or as much of it as you can get), pull the drive and run WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic on it. You'll have to do that anyway to get an RMA number.


----------



## telemark

Just after the reboot loop night, I copied the logs off a stock 320GB AV-GP, and tried to reimage it to a larger drive. Then discovered the whole drive was not readable. Missing: 208,896Bytes according to ddrescue.

Short test on PC fails.
Then ran KS 54 to see how it reports, and it said Fail 7 across 3 SMART tests.

Can I blame the reboot loop? No, cause my box never rebooted except I unplugged it for this testing.

Drives fail. But too often we only notice when we go look.

I bet your drive is already bad. WD will confirm that for certain. Did the extra reboots contribute, maybe it tipped an already failing drive to fail then. But be glad it made you check now instead of later where it would be worse off.

PS. Did you happen to run KS54 when you first installed it? 4months might be infant mortality.


----------



## ThAbtO

ggieseke said:


> Once your data is safe (or as much of it as you can get), pull the drive and run WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic on it. You'll have to do that anyway to get an RMA number.


I had RMA'd a couple of drives to WD and they didn't ask for any diagnostics data to be sent along. Both were 1 TB drives and I got back a 2 TB and a 1TB. I have not even done anything with these drives except to put them in the closet.


----------



## JWhites

telemark said:


> infant mortality.


Such a grim term.


----------



## dbpaddler

Quick question. Can I swap a drive from a Roamio to a Roamio Plus without formatting? Wasn't thinking when I bought the basic Roamio that it couldn't do OTA and Cable. Still quite annoyed at that. Since I'm going to stream and do Moca and my buddy I'm setting up isn't and is all ethernetted up. Was going to do put the Pro drive in the Plus and my 3TB drive in the Pro and set him up with the Plus and some Minis. 

I have a Premier and HD with lifetime, but was thinking about selling both and just picking up a basic Roamio down the line so I can still do OTA in one room instead of putting a Mini there.


----------



## telemark

Moving drives between boxes requires at a minimum Clear&DeleteEverything.

Between Models, it's believed that even more than that is needed, but we only had one report so far, going from a Roamio Basic (4) to Roamio Pro/Plus (6 tuner).

What models are you moving between? Between Pro<->Plus, C&DE might be enough.

But you should be prepared with the factory reset code when you find problems.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=518961&highlight=factory+reset


----------



## dbpaddler

telemark said:


> Moving drives between boxes requires at a minimum Clear&DeleteEverything.
> 
> Between Models, it's believed that even more than that is needed, but we only had one report so far, going from a Roamio Basic (4) to Roamio Pro/Plus (6 tuner).
> 
> What models are you moving between? Between Pro<->Plus, C&DE might be enough.
> 
> But you should be prepared with the factory reset code when you find problems.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=518961&highlight=factory+reset


Just swapping between a Roamio Basic (the 4 tuner) with recordings on it to a Roamio Plus which is brand new. Rather do it sooner than later before I fill it with movies I can't transfer.

I don't mind doing the retailer reset on both after the swap. Better safe than sorry.


----------



## lpwcomp

dbpaddler said:


> ... Was going to do put the Pro drive in the Plus and my 3TB drive in the Pro and set him up with the Plus and some Minis.


That makes no sense. The Pro comes with a 3TB drive and the only difference between the Plus and the Pro is the drive size.


----------



## dbpaddler

lpwcomp said:


> That makes no sense. The Pro comes with a 3TB drive and the only difference between the Plus and the Pro is the drive size.


I thought I was confused for a second, but I think you are now. I'm not swapping between a Plus and a Pro. I'm swapping between a standard and the Plus. I put a 3TB Red in my standard one. I didn't need 6 tuners and only have 3 TV's total where I'd never be watching more than one at a time and have never needed to record more than three things at once. My buddy watches less TV than I do.

But now that I have the scare in me about the red drives, I suppose I can format and sell the red drive then and just buy the Pro. Or buy the Plus and 3tb AV-GB and sell the 1tb drive that comes in the Plus. Is it worth it to buy the Plus and separate 3tb AV-GB and sell the 1tb that comes with the Plus? It seems like it's only a $100 difference with the discount code. Think the buying, selling and installation isn't worth the hassle at that point.

If my buddy gets close to filling up the 500gb in the standard I have a 500gb Tivo Expander collecting dust I can connect to it.

Does all that makes sense?


----------



## lpwcomp

dbpaddler said:


> I thought I was confused for a second, but I think you are now. I'm not swapping between a Plus and a Pro. I'm swapping between a standard and the Plus. I put a 3TB Red in my standard one. I didn't need 6 tuners and only have 3 TV's total where I'd never be watching more than one at a time and have never needed to record more than three things at once. My buddy watches less TV than I do.
> 
> But now that I have the scare in me about the red drives, I suppose I can format and sell the red drive then and just buy the Pro. Or buy the Plus and 3tb AV-GB and sell the 1tb drive that comes in the Plus. Is it worth it to buy the Plus and separate 3tb AV-GB and sell the 1tb that comes with the Plus?
> 
> If my buddy gets close to filling up the 500gb in the standard I have a 500gb Tivo Expander collecting dust I can connect to it.
> 
> Does all that makes sense?


I was responding to what you wrote in the sentence I quoted.


----------



## dbpaddler

lpwcomp said:


> I was responding to what you wrote in the sentence I quoted.


Definitely my bad then. I was confused as to the three models at first.


----------



## jfmartin

I received my new Roamio a few days ago and set it up before I realized how small the disk was (I had upgraded drives on my previous TiVos but I guess I assumed the Roamio was bigger).

I have read most of the disk thread and searched elsewhere and I am unsure if I can still swap in a 2TB drive (WD20EURS) *after* I have already done setup? Will it just start again with the guided setup? Has anyone here done this?

Thanks in advance,
John


----------



## HarperVision

jfmartin said:


> I received my new Roamio a few days ago and set it up before I realized how small the disk was (I had upgraded drives on my previous TiVos but I guess I assumed the Roamio was bigger). I have read most of the disk thread and searched elsewhere and I am unsure if I can still swap in a 2TB drive (WD20EURS) after I have already done setup? Will it just start again with the guided setup? Has anyone here done this? Thanks in advance, John


Yes you just rerun guided setup as if it were new.


----------



## jfmartin

Great - thank you.

Regards,
John


----------



## telemark

@jfmartin : And you'll want to do it when your Cable Company support is open for business because many people needed to re-pair their Cable Cards.


----------



## jfmartin

telemark said:


> @jfmartin : And you'll want to do it when your Cable Company support is open for business because many people needed to re-pair their Cable Cards.


I only use an antenna right now so i should be good. Thanks.


----------



## jfmartin

amseven11 said:


> Upgrade your Roamio with a new drive. No discs needed.
> 
> *What you need:*
> T8 Screw driver
> T10 Screw Driver
> New Hard Drive


I just upgraded my Roamio and I would add a few notes:

1. There has been a lot of discussion about Seagate and WD on this thread and also whether the WD "green" drives were suitable. Well, my Tivo shipped with a WD "Green" drive - see picture below.

2. I don't know if this is a change but the top on my Roamio did not "slide forward". I had to tilt it forward - there are friction tabs along the side. There is also a tab at the front of the top that needs to slide under a metal clip on the lower case. So - at the risk of being pedantic - more of a "tilt, then slide forward" for me. See picture below.

3. The two screws on the back look the same but they are different threads. The finer thread is for the hole above the HDMI port. See picture below.

The upgrade was painless. I replaced the 500GB WD with a 2TB WD and re-did the setup. I noticed that I had to re-enter my netflix password so I'm assuming that is stored on the hard disk somewhere. So if, like me, you are replacing a disk in an already-configured system, you probably want to wipe the removed disk if you plan on selling it.

Regards,
John


----------



## jfmartin

jfmartin said:


> I just upgraded my Roamio and I would add a few notes:
> 
> 1. There has been a lot of discussion about Seagate and WD on this thread and also whether the WD "green" drives were suitable. Well, my Tivo shipped with a WD "Green" drive - see picture below.
> 
> 2. I don't know if this is a change but the top on my Roamio did not "slide forward". I had to tilt it forward - there are friction tabs along the side. There is also a tab at the front of the top that needs to slide under a metal clip on the lower case. So - at the risk of being pedantic - more of a "tilt, then slide forward" for me. See picture below.
> 
> 3. The two screws on the back look the same but they are different threads. The finer thread is for the hole above the HDMI port. See picture below.
> 
> The upgrade was painless. I replaced the 500GB WD with a 2TB WD and re-did the setup. I noticed that I had to re-enter my netflix password so I'm assuming that is stored on the hard disk somewhere. So if, like me, you are replacing a disk in an already-configured system, you probably want to wipe the removed disk if you plan on selling it.
> 
> Regards,
> John


Missing 4th picture below.


----------



## telemark

Nice photos and clarification.

While we're being precise. The screw above the HDMI port should _not_ be removed [on the Base/OTA model].

Only one screw (above the eSata port) needs to be removed to open the case.

PS. when opening a base Roamio, I'm looking for some internal details as requested this thread:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=521591


----------



## elborak

jfmartin said:


> There has been a lot of discussion about Seagate and WD on this thread and also whether the WD "green" drives were suitable. Well, my Tivo shipped with a WD "Green" drive - see picture below.


More specifically, your TiVo shipped with an AV-GP drive, which is SOP.


----------



## jfmartin

telemark said:


> Nice photos and clarification.
> 
> While we're being precise. The screw above the HDMI port should _not_ be removed.
> 
> Only one screw (above the eSata port) needs to be removed to open the case.
> 
> PS. when opening a base Roamio, I'm looking for some internal details as requested this thread:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=521591


[NB: Mine is a base Roamio (ie with the cablecard slots) whereas that thread seems to pertain to an OTA (which I assume to refer to the BestBuy model without the Cablecard slot)...? ]

The manufacture date for my system was "11-Sep-14"; the manufacture date for the disk was "04 SEPT 2014".


----------



## jfmartin

elborak said:


> More specifically, your TiVo shipped with an AV-GP drive, which is SOP.


Correct. It shipped with a WD5000AUDX, which is indeed AV-GP. I was referring to the "green" versus "red" discussion earlier in the thread (though reading further this appears to be moot now), as well as some comments regarding a bias towards WD versus Seagate, given that it seems the early shipments were using Seagate, as far as I can tell.

Regards,
John


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## telemark

So that thread was to find any difference between a Roamio Basic and Roamio OTA. I added the Roamio OTA info, but need a corresponding Roamio Basic that has similar date. Could you read off your P/N & Rev? They're just above the bar codes on the board.

There's at least two types of WD drives that get labeled green <-lowercase. One's literally called the WD Green and the other AV-GP is targeted for DVR's.

So your Tivo may be interesting cause they switched from Seagate back to WD. But they switched from one AV line (Pipeline) to another AV line (AV-GP).


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## fred2

I guess this is the place to ask. I purchased a two-year warranty from Tivo. That may have been a mistake but - done!

How does Tivo know if I've done opened the case and installed a larger drive? Is there a "seal" or taped screw or .....?

Or do they just read the storage info that I see when I go to "Account and System Info" and then the info on how much "Recording Capacity" I have? 

Thanks in advance?


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## nooneuknow

Comparing Seagate and WD, when it comes to AV & "green" drives:

One commonality that sticks, no matter what color the name, label, box, or whatever else, is that all WD drives with "intellipower" have a "green" power profile.

Most resellers that list specs, list RPM. For WD drives that are 5400RPM, but also have more functions, like staged spin-up, to lower the current required to get the platters to the full 5400RPM, it will say "intellipower", rather than say "5400RPM". WD confuses people, with this branding scheme, leading many to believe their drives have variable RPM (not true, no matter how many people on the internet say it means variable RPM).

Of notable mention, Seagates AV drives, in the "green" category, run at 5900RPM, which some also just assume means that WD's "intellipower" drives, must be 5900RPM (also, not true).

In performance benchmarks, Seagate wins in performance with the extra 500RPM. In lowest power requirements, WD wins. The power factor is more important here, with larger drives, having more platters, and requiring more power, than what the product was designed for. The base Roamio and Roamio OTA are the only models with a wall-wart power adapter, and only come with 500GB drives, period.

The other Roamio models have an internal power supply, which is designed to run up to a 3TB drive, giving more breathing room for upgrades.

The different cases, and different internals, causes some confusion when it comes up opening and upgrading instructions. The Plus and Pro keep the form-factor of a 4-tuner Premiere. The Roamio base-model, and Roamio OTA have a different, plastic, case.


----------



## fred2

nooneuknow said:


> Comparing Seagate and WD, when it comes to AV & "green" drives:
> 
> One commonality that sticks, no matter what color the name, label, box, or whatever else, is that all WD drives with "intellipower" have a "green" power profile.
> 
> Most resellers that list specs, list RPM. For WD drives that are 5400RPM, but also have more functions, like staged spin-up, to lower the current required to get the platters to the full 5400RPM, it will say "intellipower", rather than say "5400RPM". WD confuses people, with this branding scheme, leading many to believe their drives have variable RPM (not true, no matter how many people on the internet say it means variable RPM).
> 
> Of notable mention, Seagates AV drives, in the "green" category, run at 5900RPM, which some also just assume means that WD's "intellipower" drives, must be 5900RPM (also, not true).
> 
> In performance benchmarks, Seagate wins in performance with the extra 500RPM. In lowest power requirements, WD wins. The power factor is more important here, with larger drives, having more platters, and requiring more power, than what the product was designed for. The base Roamio and Roamio OTA are the only models with a wall-wart power adapter, and only come with 500GB drives, period.
> 
> The other Roamio models have an internal power supply, which is designed to run up to a 3TB drive, giving more breathing room for upgrades.
> 
> The different cases, and different internals, causes some confusion when it comes up opening and upgrading instructions. The Plus and Pro keep the form-factor of a 4-tuner Premiere. The Roamio base-model, and Roamio OTA have a different, plastic, case.


Does that mean that upgrading a Basic Roamio (OTA and cable card slot) with a 3Tetra drive might cause problems, power or otherwise?

Thanks in advance.


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## telemark

fred2 said:


> Does that mean that upgrading a Basic Roamio (OTA and cable card slot) with a 3Tetra drive might cause problems, power or otherwise?


Only limited data was compiled thus far, but initial impressions is that [Roamio Basic/OTA] upgraders should be conservative in their drive selection's power usage. AND it would be prudent to replace the included wall wart with something beefier. nooneuknow found a near perfect one from his MSO, and I had the same model, so it must be pretty common. Mine came from a Cisco SD cablebox from Comcast.

While I likely had power trouble, I should clarify, I had an unpowered hub and other USB accessories plugged in, so causing additional load. Normally people wouldn't be operating their base Roamio at such extremes.

Nevertheless, it's an indication the power margin is not as generous as the other Tivo models we're used to dealing with.

What would be a smoking gun, is if Tivo switched to WD on the Base/OTA models but kept Seagate on the Pro/Plus models.


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## lpwcomp

telemark,

Couple of questions:

What are the specs on the "beefier" power adapter that you and nooneuknow are using?

Aren't there risks involved?


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## jfmartin

telemark said:


> So that thread was to find any difference between a Roamio Basic and Roamio OTA. I added the Roamio OTA info, but need a corresponding Roamio Basic that has similar date. Could you read off your P/N & Rev? They're just above the bar codes on the board.
> 
> There's at least two types of WD drives that get labeled green <-lowercase. One's literally called the WD Green and the other AV-GP is targeted for DVR's.
> 
> So your Tivo may be interesting cause they switched from Seagate back to WD. But they switched from one AV line (Pipeline) to another AV line (AV-GP).


P/N: SPCA-0095-000E REV E3

I have the top off right now (running). Let me know if there is anything else you need.

Regards,
John


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## jfmartin

telemark said:


> Only limited data was compiled thus far, but initial impressions is that [Roamio Basic/OTA] upgraders should be conservative in their drive selection's power usage. AND it would be prudent to replace the included wall wart with something beefier. nooneuknow found a near perfect one from his MSO, and I had the same model, so it must be pretty common. Mine came from a Cisco SD cablebox from Comcast.
> 
> While I likely had power trouble, I should clarify, I had an unpowered hub and other USB accessories plugged in, so causing additional load. Normally people wouldn't be operating their base Roamio at such extremes.
> 
> Nevertheless, it's an indication the power margin is not as generous as the other Tivo models we're used to dealing with.
> 
> What would be a smoking gun, is if Tivo switched to WD on the Base/OTA models but kept Seagate on the Pro/Plus models.


When I removed / replaced the drive in my Roamio, I was surprised to see that the 500GB AV-GP drive I removed had (slightly) higher power specs than the 2TB AV-GP drive with which I replaced it.

Original 500GB drive:
Model: Western Digital WD5000AUDX (WD AV-GP)
5VDC 0.70A
12VDC 0.55A

Replacement 2TB drive:
Model: Western Digital WD20EURS (WD AV-GP)
5VDC 0.60A
12VDC 0.45A

Since these appear to be average numbers, I'm guessing it probably wont help much with determining if the existing wall wart will suffice or not. A lot depends on how these numbers are calculated for the spec sheet and I would imagine it involves a specific duty cycle - which might be different between drive classes and will also likely be different to the Roamio's usage. I would imagine that MAX current consumption - or the comparison between the two - is a better indicator.

For reference, the spec sheet for the WD20EURS is here: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers...wd-av-gp-advanced-format-internal-hard-drives

...and indicates the MAX 12V is 1.725A

The spec sheet for the WD5000AUDX is here: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800015.pdf

...but it only seems to give the average, not MAX.

The peak current draw for the Red drives is also very close: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800002.pdf

I could be way off here and perhaps I am over-simplifying but since I believe the 12V power is for the rotational motor, and both disks have very similar physical characteristics (ie the platters, motor and arms / heads should be near identical), and the same rotational maximum (5400 RPM) then the MAX power consumption should be similar (assuming the motors are similar in efficiency within the same model range and the different drivers don't cause this to differ much).

I am also ignoring the fact that they could generate different amounts of heat, leading to more fan use, and more power consumption.

In other words, with what data I have, my inference is that if they are shipping these 500GB WD drives then a similarly (MAX current) spec'd 2TB WD drive is probably fine, at least from a power budget perspective.

...but as I said, I could be way off. I'm sure someone that knows more about the internals of drives will correct me.

Regards,
John


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## NJ Webel

lpwcomp said:


> telemark,
> 
> Couple of questions:
> 
> What are the specs on the "beefier" power adapter that you and nooneuknow are using?
> 
> Aren't there risks involved?


Here is a link to one. http://www.ebay.com/itm/281224514601?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

It is 12V 2.5A, and in terms of risk (I assume you refer to overloading the mobo), it's a little early to tell but it seems to be negligible.


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## jfmartin

jfmartin said:


> (ie the platters, motor and arms / heads should be near identical)


Hmmm.... thinking about this a little more, let me correct myself.

The number of platters might well be the same when comparing a 500GB drive to a 1TB drive but less likely when comparing a 500GB to a 2 or 3TB drive. (It's one thing to short-stroke but whole redundant platters make less sense, unless there is some manufacturing / volume reason for keeping them the same).

But given what I could find regarding MAX current draw - all very similar - my conclusion remains the same (existing wall wart probably OK). Happy to be corrected, of course and if my wall wart melts, I promise to post a picture.

Thanks,
John


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## ncbill

The [email protected] OEM base Roamio power supply will power a 3TB WD AV-GP drive just fine.

But the USB ports on any Tivo aren't meant to power anything other than their wireless adapters.

Use a separate, powered USB hub for anything else.


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## nooneuknow

Sometimes it seems like some of the members here, only factor in the load of the hard drive, when discussing the Base or OTA Roamio, and the power requirements.

Every single drive adapter, dock, or enclosure I have, which either came with a low-power, low-RPM, "green" drive, or only is designed for 5400-5900RPM drives (per the manufacturer), come with, *at minimum*, a 12V 1.5A, power wart/brick. That's just for one drive, and the USB bridge board. TiVo uses essentially the same thing, plus a mere 0.5A, *to run the whole TiVo, not just the drive.* Only 500mA additional, to run everything other than the drive, if you go by what seems to be pretty standard, to just run a USB drive dock/adapter/enclosure, with a 5400RPM drive.

All I did was swap the LiteOn 12V 2.5A brick from my Cisco STA1520 tuning adapter, with the TiVo 12V 2.0A wall-wart from the base Roamio (reversed their roles).

If changing out the Roamio wall-wart, it is important that the power supply you use is rated (UL listed) for use with I.T.E. (Information Technology Equipment) devices. My TA bricks have an additional UL listing/rating for Audio Video accessories. Combined, the two ratings insure electrical safety for coax connected devices, and insure against interference.

The 12V 2.5A LiteOn bricks for Cisco STA1520 TAs have the AV listing/rating (while the Base Roamio wart doesn't), and have shielded power cabling, complete with ferrites (while the Base Roamio wart doesn't).

My swap of the two around, on three Base Roamios, has kept the operating temp of the bricks the same, and significantly reduced the operating temp of the warts, bringing them down to the same temps as the bricks. I used an IR heat gun to measure, before and after. My Roamios seem much more stable now, and my TAs are working fine, as the bricks they came with, were rated for over double the actual maximum current they require.

As far as ratings on drives go, if the drive doesn't specify what the spin-up current draw requirements are, I advise considering using a drive that does.

Somebody semi-recently posted a drive sale (Hitachi GST, 4TB, 5400RPM) that seemed like a great deal. Upon examining the mfg specs, I found that drive required more 12V current, than the TiVo wall-wart, alone, could provide, if only powering the hard drive, and nothing more. Even a 12V 2.5A brick would be insufficient, for that drive, plus the TiVo. I warned that anybody considering getting an even larger brick, just to run a drive like that one, should consider the dangers of giving the internal DC to DC carrying/conversion components, more current than designed to have available.

Adding 0.5A (500mA), for a total of 2.5A is likely within the safety margin. 3.0A would likely be right at the edge. Going higher than a total of 3.0A would worry me, especially when my TiVos have lifetime service, and any DC12V to DC5V conversion components, plus other power conversions, internally, or even passive circuits, are on the TiVo mainboard, for most of that, and could literally burn open-circuit, like a fuse, if allowed too much external power, and anything internal caused a high-current draw, through underrated components, or mainboard traces.

Since TiVo utterly cheaped-out on their choice for the external wall-wart, I wouldn't just assume they went "spare no expense" on internal overcurrent protection. Like in some other CE devices I have seen, a mfg will often leave the overcurrent protection to the power adapter/supply, and how much current it can handle at momentary peaks, as well as sustained draw.

I see some saying things like "Well, only the hard drive is really pulling on the 12V" (paraphrased). Well, all the base/OTA Roamios get is 12V, which has to both spin-up and run the hard drive, while also being converted, and running other things, like the power-hungry tuners, the cablecard (base, not OTA), the USB ports, and so on, and so forth.

Most people (with base/OTA), who stick with the same hard drive model product lines as TiVo uses (or a true equivalent), will likely get to upgrade as high as 4TB. The exceptions will be those who don't make sure the drive they get has low spin-up current requirements. There's no shortage of 5400RPM drives out there (even some 7200RPM ones), that are sold as being "green", but lack the multi-stage, low-current, spin-up, found in the WD and Seagate drives TiVo uses.

For the record, I am using WD Red NAS v2.0 drives in my three base Roamios. I have also noticed that sometimes the larger drives people buy for upgrades, actually have lower power requirements than original TiVo drives did. It's been that way, through many generations of TiVo models, in my experience, as well as that of others. I just feel that (based on facts, ratings, and measurements), TiVo should have used a 12V 2.5A brick for the base/OTA Roamios, even for the drives they came with. If the MSOs, who were forced to provide TAs for free, chose to pay for the higher-rated, and UL AV-listed, power bricks, I feel TiVo should have just sourced the same ones, or equivalents to them. TiVo cheaped-out, and went with literally, the lowest grade, cheapest, power adapter possible, IMO (based on facts, specs, and measurements). I also said essentially all this same stuff in this post, over here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10254149#post10254149


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## ThAbtO

ncbill said:


> The [email protected] OEM base Roamio power supply will power a 3TB WD AV-GP drive just fine.
> 
> But the USB ports on any Tivo aren't meant to power anything other than their wireless adapters.
> 
> Use a separate, powered USB hub for anything else.


I use the USB ports to charge devices and they work just fine, as long as its 5V and about 500 mA, using it to Charge the PS3 controller. The controller is rather picky, it will not charge when the USB power source is over 500mA.


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## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> I use the USB ports to charge devices and they work just fine, as long as its 5V and about 500 mA, using it to Charge the PS3 controller. The controller is rather picky, it will not charge when the USB power source is over 500mA.


Your signature doesn't specify which model Roamio you have,,,

Have you verified you can (truly) pull a full 500mA per port, at the same time? I'm fairly certain I've already verified that the current available is shared between the two ports, and even a full 500mA on one port isn't possible (you can plug in a 500mA charger, it will charge, but slower, as the output is closer to 300mA). It's kind of like charging an android phone with a 1000mA charger, when it's supposed to have 1200mA. It works, just charges slowly as heck.

It might be interesting to see if the TiVo USB ports are active at the time the hard drive is spinning-up. Care to put a 500mA load on each port, pull power, and see if the ports have power at the time the drive is spinning up, and verify there are no issues (and check the KS54 attributes for spin-up time)?

If I was going to try it (again), I'd rather buy a $50 Roamio OTA unit, than risk my lifetime units. That's actually my plan, so I can risk something that is still good for parts, and an extra remote, with no TiVo service commitment (or one I have 30 days to cancel without penalty).

I'm getting weary over a few things I'd like to prove, disprove, and just plain "put to bed". But, all I have are lifetime service units.

If you have a Cisco TA, the funny-looking port in the front is a dual purpose connector, one purpose is USB and the other is something I've only seen on a charger made by GameStop (I found it, as I'm not a gamer), and that charger has a USB port out, and a cable that converts USB to this odd, large mostly-rectangular and shallow connector (with the contacts on the outside), like the TA will also accept. I have spotted posts online about people using that TA port for the same thing you say you do with your Roamio.

My Roku 2 XS has a 5V 1A wart, and has the same colored USB port as the TiVos (black), but it can only give 120mA. Not all USB ports follow the USB specs, especially when it comes to color, and current.

I have a clear USB cable that has LEDs in the ends, that is good for verifying when USB power is present. Outside of that, I'm not too crazy about seeing how much I can push my luck. I know I have some wired USB keyboards that didn't work on my base Roamios without using a powered hub, or powered extension cable.

Really, I'd suggest that those with base/OTA Roamios avoid using their USB ports to charge things, or drive multiple devices on a bus-power hub. One thing to consider it that the USB is pulling on the 5V rail the mainboard's DC to DC converter supplies from 12V, so the mA @ 5V needs to be calculated accordingly, on how much it uses from the 12V power-in.

Telemark has a thread on power concerns, if you care to discuss this over there. I'll post a link, when I can find that thread again (or telemark can).


----------



## NJ Webel

I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the testing work you've done on the Roamio Basic. Based on your posts (and my own observations), I bought a replacement power supply and couldn't be more pleased with how it's worked out.


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## ThAbtO

nooneuknow said:


> Your signature doesn't specify which model Roamio you have,,,
> 
> Have you verified you can (truly) pull a full 500mA per port, at the same time? I'm fairly certain I've already verified that the current available is shared between the two ports, and even a full 500mA on one port isn't possible (you can plug in a 500mA charger, it will charge, but slower, as the output is closer to 300mA). It's kind of like charging an android phone with a 1000mA charger, when it's supposed to have 1200mA. It works, just charges slowly as heck.
> 
> [Snipped the lengthy post]


Currently I am using the USB off the Series 3 and have not used the Roamio Basic's, but I just tested it on the PS3 controller and it works. They should not be a shared power source but each should have their 500 mA.


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## nooneuknow

NJ Webel said:


> I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the testing work you've done on the Roamio Basic. Based on your posts (and my own observations), I bought a replacement power supply and couldn't be more pleased with how it's worked out.


Always great to hear from those who benefit. 

Care to take a moment to lay out what drive you are using, and which power supply you substituted? Sometimes it takes just a few details/specifics on success stories to help those "on the fence" to make a move. If you can post links to what you used, that's always a great way to pay it forward (pictures are cool, too, if listings aren't available). Enjoy that new TiVo! :up:


----------



## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> Currently I am using the USB off the Series 3 and have not used the Roamio Basic's, but I just tested it on the PS3 controller and it works. They should not be a shared power source but each should have their 500 mA.


The devil truly is "in the details". Short version of what I was saying, is that USB ports built-into things other than computers, don't always provide independent power, per port, and don't always follow the USB specs. I've even seen computers with on-board sockets, which were part of an integrated hub, and shared the power across the ports.

I sincerely appreciate that you cleared it up which TiVo you were using the ports from, for charging things. The S3 & HD had no shortage of 5V power, right off the internal power supply, and I'd never have any worries about using them for USB charging power. The Premieres were also very capable, as I'm sure the Roamio Plus & Pro are, too.


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## jfmartin

nooneuknow said:


> I see some saying things like "Well, only the hard drive is really pulling on the 12V" (paraphrased).


I'm not sure if you are referring to my post from earlier today but perhaps I should clarify just in case?

My post was looking at the power consumed by various the _drives_ - the one included and the replacement one I purchased. I was concerned about potentially drawing more power than was available by using a bigger drive, which could have nasty consequences (excess heat, voltage converter burn out).

The spec sheets for the drives list current consumption for two voltages - a 5V value and 12V value. I was looking specifically at the MAX values because they likely define the maximum current draw _for the drive._ Turns out their consumption is pretty close (see post).

[ The speculation on my part was where there was no MAX value for 12V on some of the drive spec sheets, so I tried to infer how different it was likely to be (given similar physical characteristics) since the 12V supply to the drive is for the motor, I assume. Like I said: I don't know much about drive internals. ]

My logic was that if the power consumed by the two drives is approximately the same then - all other things being equal - the power draw for the whole unit should be approximately the same too and the power supply should work.

I do take your point about the power supply itself. I was surprised and disappointed the base Roamio unit didn't have internal power. It feels less well built than my previous Tivos.

I'm curious to know if you've measured the current drawn by the Roamio with the Red drives installed - does it ever get above 2.0A?

Finally, I'd also like to thank you and the other posters here for your testing and other great information supplied - it certainly helped make my upgrade painless.

Regards,
John


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## telemark

Max current draw for a Hard Drive is during spin-up. I suppose the subtle point there is it's not accurate to use avg power numbers when you need peak.

Pretty graph:
[media]http://www.storagereview.com/images/hitachi_deskstar_5k4000_4tb_power_values.png[/media]

That said, I'm not saying thas was a bad drive swap. It's probably an improvement. But I've had the suspicion the power is close to the borderline even on a non-upgraded unit, so it's worth keeping an eye on.

There's a drive [7200rpm] in that chart that has 20watts spin-up. 2x USB ports are suppose to be 500mA each so 5watts total. Cable-card is 2.5watts. That's 17.5watts variance based on user accessory choices.

When the Roamio gets powered up, is the main period it's vulnerable to being under-powered.. It's booting the kernel from flash while the Hard Drive is still spinning up. If they staggered those two, like not boot until the Hard Drive is ready, it would have been a slower boot, but there would not be the simultaneous power demand. Another time this could show up is if the Hard Drive ever spins down while the box is running. I don't know if that ever happens without the user doing something to cause it.


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## NJ Webel

nooneuknow said:


> Always great to hear from those who benefit.
> 
> Care to take a moment to lay out what drive you are using, and which power supply you substituted? Sometimes it takes just a few details/specifics on success stories to help those "on the fence" to make a move. If you can post links to what you used, that's always a great way to pay it forward (pictures are cool, too, if listings aren't available). Enjoy that new TiVo! :up:


Thanks for the sentiment, even though it isn't a 'new' Tivo - I was having drive and tuners issues which I suspected was at least partly due to inadequate power concerns. Replacing both corrected the problem.

The drive: Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The power supply: EMERSON AA25540L AC/DC ADAPTER (Output: 12V, 2.5A, 30W) http://www.ebay.com/itm/281224514601?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT


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## Random User 7

New Roamio basic owner here, hasn't arrived yet but I know I want to upgrade the storage to a larger drive. Do all upgrades require a new power supply or is there a drive that has been "blessed" by the community that works as is? Looks like it might be the WD20EURS from the past few pages of reading.



NJ Webel said:


> The drive: Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


The drive pictured is a WD20EURS but you describe and link to a WD30EURX. This is Amazon's fault and not your own but FYI. Anyways another question which TiVo box do you have? I'm wanting to upgrade the hard drive before I put it in action and would choose a 3tb over a 2tb since the price is so close but is a new power supply needed as well? Not having the Roamio yet I can't tell if this is provides more power or was just a replacement.

BTW I'm also in Richmond as well neighbor.


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## ncbill

IIRC the only difference between the S & the X is the SATA spec (3Gb/s vs. 6Gb/s), nothing else.


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## nooneuknow

Random User 7 said:


> New Roamio basic owner here, hasn't arrived yet but I know I want to upgrade the storage to a larger drive. Do all upgrades require a new power supply or is there a drive that has been "blessed" by the community that works as is?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Looks like WD20EURS is the drive to buy from the past few pages of reading.


If you stick with the WD Green/GreenPower/Intellipower drives, preferably the AV-GP ones (as TiVo uses, and has lower power requirements than Seagate's AV green drives), like the WD_0EURX, or WD_0EURS (1, 2, 3 TB), you will likely not have issues with the stock power wart. 4TB drives require preparation before installing, rather than being "plug and play".

The (S) is the older model of the drives ending in (X). Other than not being manufactured for a while, which can make warranty length shorter, when going by date of mfg, versus date of purchase, they are just as suitable, and not a bit less desirable, since the 3Gbps external rate of the S drives is still faster than the drive can do internally, and all TiVos turn the speed down to 1.5Gbps, anyway.

The stock drives TiVo uses (500GB) tend to actually be old enough technology, that the larger drives, of the same product lines, which are newer tech, can wind up using less current than the stock ones.

As long as you stick with AV-GP EURX(or S) drives, you shouldn't lose any sleep over things. But, it's my opinion, that TiVo should have used 2.5A power adapters, to begin with. Regardless of the drive you use, even stock, the stock wall-wart will be operating near its max output potential, which is not the ideal way of operating.

I don't have time to refine this post, or add more to it. I have an appointment to get to. I'll be back later.


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## lpwcomp

Looking at the power requirements for various drive sizes, it would appear to me that _*if*_ there is a problem with the standard adapter, it _*could*_ begin manifesting itself with any drive larger than 1TB.


----------



## L David Matheny

Random User 7 said:


> New Roamio basic owner here, hasn't arrived yet but I know I want to upgrade the storage to a larger drive. Do all upgrades require a new power supply or is there a drive that has been "blessed" by the community that works as is? Looks like it might be the WD20EURS from the past few pages of reading.
> 
> The drive pictured is a WD20EURS but you describe and link to a WD30EURX. This is Amazon's fault and not your own but FYI. Anyways another question which TiVo box do you have? I'm wanting to upgrade the hard drive before I put it in action and would choose a 3tb over a 2tb since the price is so close but is a new power supply needed as well? Not having the Roamio yet I can't tell if this is provides more power or was just a replacement.
> 
> BTW I'm also in Richmond as well neighbor.


I have a Roamio basic, used for OTA reception. After using the original drive for a few days (to make sure all tuners worked, etc), I replaced that drive with a WD30EURS AV-GP drive, starting over as if new. (I believe the WD30EURX is identical except that it has SATA-III 6Gb/s interface circuitry.) Both the Roamio and the wall wart are out in the open, and both run detectably warm but certainly not hot. I have never observed any problem with startup. I think AV-GP drives spin up more gradually than most drives to avoid drawing enough startup current to pull the 12v supply down, which can trigger a reboot.


----------



## NJ Webel

Random User 7 said:


> New Roamio basic owner here, hasn't arrived yet but I know I want to upgrade the storage to a larger drive. Do all upgrades require a new power supply or is there a drive that has been "blessed" by the community that works as is? Looks like it might be the WD20EURS from the past few pages of reading.
> 
> The drive pictured is a WD20EURS but you describe and link to a WD30EURX. This is Amazon's fault and not your own but FYI. Anyways another question which TiVo box do you have? I'm wanting to upgrade the hard drive before I put it in action and would choose a 3tb over a 2tb since the price is so close but is a new power supply needed as well? Not having the Roamio yet I can't tell if this is provides more power or was just a replacement.
> 
> BTW I'm also in Richmond as well neighbor.


Yes, I have a Roamio Basic. Thanks for the insight on the photo, I took it down due to the inaccuracy, but the drive I bought is indeed the WD30EURX.

This is the second upgraded drive in this unit, the first was the WD30EUR*S*, and the Tivo ran that drive for 10 months on the original wall wart, until last week when I started having issues. See HERE for an account of what was happening.

Oh, and 'howdy, neighbor!'


----------



## NJ Webel

lpwcomp said:


> Looking at the power requirements for various drive sizes, it would appear to me that _*if*_ there is a problem with the standard adapter, it _*could*_ begin manifesting itself with any drive larger than 1TB.


This is what I suspect was happening with mine, and why I pulled the trigger on replacing the power supply in addition to the drive. It was well worth it for a little peace of mind to me.


----------



## Random User 7

Thanks for the input from everyone. I will pickup a WD30EURX/S whichever happens to be cheaper at the moment. I have a Hopper with a 2TB, granted most of that is from channels I wont have any longer but I still think 500GB will be too small. We like to binge watch and let the episodes stack up.


----------



## ncbill

The 3TB WD AV-GP consumes slightly less power than the 1TB model.

Again, the lesson is don't cheap out - buy the WD AV-GP model, not any random drive for your Tivo upgrade.



lpwcomp said:


> Looking at the power requirements for various drive sizes, it would appear to me that _*if*_ there is a problem with the standard adapter, it _*could*_ begin manifesting itself with any drive larger than 1TB.


----------



## lpwcomp

ncbill said:


> The 3TB WD AV-GP consumes slightly less power than the 1TB model.
> 
> Again, the lesson is don't cheap out - buy the WD AV-GP model, not any random drive for your Tivo upgrade.


Both the Red and the regular Green have lower power consumption.


----------



## nooneuknow

L David Matheny said:


> I think AV-GP drives spin up more gradually than most drives to avoid drawing enough startup current to pull the 12v supply down, which can trigger a reboot.


I'll give a gold star, and a free copy of free software, to the first person to count how many times I have brought up the fact that WD "intellipower" drives (and other drives I recommend for use in TiVo) spin up in stages, taking more time, in order to use the least amount of current, and how critical this is for most TiVos, especially the Roamio Base/OTA.

I know that most TiVos will spend most of their installed lifetimes with the hard drive spinning, and have very few cold power-cycles (warm reboots don't count). But, as electronics and (especially) hard drives age, power consumption, and start-up requirements tend to get higher. This could mean that if you only power-cycle once a year, you just may lose the ability to boot, after year two or three, if you started out just barely on the right side of the line between enough power to cold-boot, and not enough.

Realistically, doing a full cold-boot, rather than a warm reboot, is part of most diagnostic procedures (the good ones, anyway).

I keep all my Tivos, and all supporting hardware (other than the TVs), on UPS's w/AVR. My line voltage tends to be at ~125V (per leg), tends to not vary, and power outages are typically limited to cars hitting poles or transformers.

I recall living in the midwest, and the utility voltage being ~110V (per leg), often finding one leg would be as low as 90V (or less), making for some hellish troubleshooting. In my time there, I had three instances of residential transformers getting replaced, due to my insistence that the issue be fixed, and two business-serving transformers, as well.

It may be safe to assume that somebody plugging a stock base model wart into an outlet with = or < 110VAC will have more pronounced issues than those getting = or > 120VAC.

I do have an AV receiver somewhere, that has a switch on the back for 110V, 115V, 120V, and a few others (but not 220-250V). When I moved, not changing that switch created an amplified humming on the outputs. Do modern AV receivers still have such switches, or do they auto-sense? If both types still exist (manual and auto-set), which type is found on "high-end" ones?


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> Both the Red and the regular Green have lower power consumption.


Yes, as I've peppered recent posts with, buying a WD drive that has "intellipower" gets you the low-current, staged, longer time-to-ready, spin-up.

WD Green*, Caviar Green*, AV-GP, Red NAS, and Purple, all have it.

*There may be some really old models of Green and Caviar Green, that came out before "intellipower" became the "norm".

As also mentioned in a prior post, WD enterprises-class drives can be set to the spin-up needs of the enterprise system, allowing one drive to work in multiple systems and/or configurations, for multiple purposes.

For consumer, CE/OEM, and SMB markets, one way around having a long time-to-ready, is "Idle Mode 3", where the drive parks the heads, but the platters stay spinning. It doesn't affect the spin-up current/time, but saves electricity by taking away the drag of the heads and actuator arms being above and below the platters. Those of us who owned TiVos before Roamios, and upgraded with WD non-AV plain-green drives, had to disable (or increase the timer value for) this function, with wdidle3.exe, or the older TiVos would hang on a warm boot, when the 8 second timer default would park the heads, but the TiVo couldn't/wouldn't make the drive unpark them (or some compatibility issue made it impossible).

The WD Purple is targeted at motion activated camera systems, and is designed around spending a lot of time in Idle-3, but being very quick to write every frame received, on any/every camera that becomes active.

WD tweaked the firmware of the Purple, so much, I think that weighs in heavily on the 60TB/yr per drive workload rating. I think they had to sacrifice something to get the fastest time-to-ready, from Idle-3.

Unless you have a motion-activated camera system, I fail to see any point in spending roughly the same amount of money on a Purple, when the Red NAS has a 120-150TB/yr per drive workload rating. Bought in bulk, the Purple is cheaper, which likely explains why WK is using them for at least some of their upgrade solutions.

There is one missing link in all of this (especially when tuner counts are 4, or more), and making comparisons. The TB/yr workload rating of the AV-GP is unpublished and unstated, not even having an "unofficial" rating out there.

Throw in that when WD and Seagate start talking about AV "streams", they are speaking of their proprietary enhancements to the base ATA Streaming Feature, which TiVo chooses not to use, and never has, instead writing the AV data as standard data, without any special enhancements applied, and subject to the same error correction as any old data, comparing apples to apples, gets difficult.

My spiel used to end there. Now, I know that WD's Red & Purple, and Seagate's AV+NAS drives support TLER/ERC, which is enabled, by default, and can only be disabled using a SCT ERC script, as the setting is lost at power-off, and restored to 7 seconds, at power-on.

I had better cut it off here, and get back to work on the TLER/ERC project.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow,

What I was saying, which should have been obvious based on what I quoted, was that both the Red and the regular Green have lower power consumption _*than the same size AV-GP drive.*_.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> nooneuknow,
> 
> What I was saying, which should have been obvious based on what I quoted, was that both the Red and the regular Green have lower power consumption _*than the same size AV-GP drive.*_.


What if they are measuring that based on the drive spending even part of the time with the heads parked (Idle-3)?

The drive mfg tend to either spec it out per mode, or they just publish a spec, based on how they assume a drive will be used, typically as the marketing lays it out.

I don't think WD ever expected anybody to run a regular Green 24/7/365, without ever parking the heads. Why would they publish specs for 24/7/365, with no Idle-3 time, then? I'll spare the list of other things they consider "normal" or "average" in their synthetic definitions of things.

As for the Red, yes, I've always found it interesting that it seems to have the best of all worlds, in a 5400RPM drive.


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> What if they are measuring that based on the drive spending even part of the time with the heads parked (Idle-3)?


There are separate values for Read/Write, Idle, and Standby/Sleep.


----------



## danm628

nooneuknow said:


> I do have an AV receiver somewhere, that has a switch on the back for 110V, 115V, 120V, and a few others (but not 220-250V). When I moved, not changing that switch created an amplified humming on the outputs. Do modern AV receivers still have such switches, or do they auto-sense? If both types still exist (manual and auto-set), which type is found on "high-end" ones?


I've started hunting for a new AV receiver to replace my 15 year old one (among other issues it has no HDMI). It seems the majority of AV receivers have moved to Class-D (PWM) amplifiers and switching power supplies. Most switching supplies will work with a wide range of input voltages and frequencies.

Having said that the couple of higher end receivers I'm looking at list power as 120 V at 60 Hz. I'm not sure if that is simply keeping the manual short for the US or if the the power supply voltages and frequencies are limited.

Either way there is no switch to set power supply voltage on the receivers I've looked at so far.

- Dan


----------



## slowbiscuit

ncbill said:


> The 3TB WD AV-GP consumes slightly less power than the 1TB model.
> 
> Again, the lesson is don't cheap out - buy the WD AV-GP model, not any random drive for your Tivo upgrade.


Or just buy a cheaper and same power use WD Green and save a few bucks. It will last just as long.

There is no proof that an AV-GP drive is any better than a Green in a Tivo, nor is there any proof favoring the Green. None.


----------



## lessd

slowbiscuit said:


> Or just buy a cheaper and same power use WD Green and save a few bucks. It will last just as long.
> 
> There is no proof that an AV-GP drive is any better than a Green in a Tivo, nor is there any proof favoring the Green. None.


+1
I know of no test that can give you the meantime to failure of any Hard drive, unless you purchased say 1000 drives each of each model hard drive and ran them over the next 8 to 10 years, then you would have your answer, but 8 or so years from now. Hard drives change all the time, firmware upgrades internal hardware changes, the same model can be different 6 months after your purchase, for better or worse. In general hard drives have gotten better, and I know of no model hard drives that constantly fails quickly in TiVo use. My upgraded Series 1 two hard drives lasted over 6 years and the drives were made in 2001.
People looking for a definite answer as to what hard drive to use in a TiVo will not find that answer. The best one can do is use a drive with low power and low heat, 5400rmo to 5900rpm drives should meet this requirement, one should not use say a 15000 rpm drive or a SSD for TiVo use.


----------



## DeltaOne

lessd said:


> I know of no test that can give you the meantime to failure of any Hard drive, unless you purchased say 1000 drives each of each model hard drive and...


When helping friends and family I tell them I've seen hard drives die when 3 months old, I've seen them last 9 years.

Google did a comprehensive evaluation in 2007. It's very long, maybe jump towards the end to their conclusions:

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/archive/disk_failures.pdf

More recently, Backblaze posted some data:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-long-do-disk-drives-last/


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> Or just buy a cheaper and same power use WD Green and save a few bucks. It will last just as long.
> 
> There is no proof that an AV-GP drive is any better than a Green in a Tivo, nor is there any proof favoring the Green. None.


I was wondering how long it would take for your next carbon-copy post to appear...

Since you can't be bothered to say more than your usual bait, which usually kicks-off the next battle here, or even be bothered to mention the 1yr difference in warranty, which I'm not the only member to feel is worth mentioning (for those who don't know), I won't bother to do more than to bring up the warranty, and state your "no proof" arguments apply to what you say, as well (especially so, given some pretty obvious facts & factors, about how short of a time four and six tuner DVRs, especially TiVos, have even been on the market, available to buy, and how long it has been since people upgraded their drives in them).

That's the rise you get. The thread should be fun (the opposite of), now that links to the studies on drives, also controversial, and highly debated, have been posted... Blech...


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> The best one can do is use a drive with low power and low heat, 5400rmo to 5900rpm drives should meet this requirement, one should not use say a 15000 rpm drive or a SSD for TiVo use.


As I have been trying to correct for, myself, I politely suggest you add "low-current spinup" (which WD calls intellipower), to your parameters. Many here have had it drilled into their minds, that intellipower simply means 5400 RPM, and/or any 5400/5900 RPM drive will do (still not always true, even if labeled "green" & 5400/5900 RPM).

There are drives, like HGST/Hitachi (to name just one brand), that market as "green", "energy efficient", "low power requirements", "5400RPM/5900RPM", or all of these things, yet require more than the rated output of the base Roamio wall-wart, at spinup. One such drive I looked into recently (4TB), would even be pushing the limits of units with internal power supplies.

While most TiVo users will likely have very few spin-up cycles in their future, via planned unplug, or via power-outage, it would suck to later find the drive has increased requirements with age (tends to happen), and will no longer spin-up.

*ETA:* I also suggest that it's best to go with "5400/5900", or "5400 & 5900" rather than using "-" or "to", which only helps keep some people thinking variable spindle speed drives exist.


----------



## aaronwt

danm628 said:


> I've started hunting for a new AV receiver to replace my 15 year old one (among other issues it has no HDMI). It seems the majority of AV receivers have moved to Class-D (PWM) amplifiers and switching power supplies. Most switching supplies will work with a wide range of input voltages and frequencies.
> 
> Having said that the couple of higher end receivers I'm looking at list power as 120 V at 60 Hz. I'm not sure if that is simply keeping the manual short for the US or if the the power supply voltages and frequencies are limited.
> 
> Either way there is no switch to set power supply voltage on the receivers I've looked at so far.
> 
> - Dan


Take a look at the Denon 4520 Receiver which is still it's flagship untill the upper end Atmos receiver is released next year for $3K. The 4520 was $2500 when it was released two years ago, but it is only around $1K on closeout now. Accessories4less has new and refurbs. I picked up a refurb from them this Summer for $1300. If I had known the new ones would be going for $1K I would have waited. They are also an authorized Denon seller. The 4520 was a big upgrade in sound from the 2008 Denon 3808 I replaced. The 4520 has nine built-in amps and can handle up to 11.2 processing.( with an external two channel amp)


----------



## DougJohnson

DeltaOne said:


> More recently, Backblaze posted some data:
> 
> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-long-do-disk-drives-last/


The Backblaze data is interesting. It shows an extrapolated MTBF of about 6 years or roughly 50,000 hours. Which is reasonably consistent with the Google data.

The original RAID paper of 1988 used 30,000 hours. Currently, WD claims 1,000,000 hours for its Red drives. I can't say I believe that. I just had one fail after 5,000 hours. That doesn't really say much. But if I were budgeting failure rates, the number would be far closer to 50,000 than 1,000,000.

-- Doug


----------



## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> I was wondering how long it would take for your next carbon-copy post to appear...
> 
> Since you can't be bothered to say more than your usual bait, which usually kicks-off the next battle here, or even be bothered to mention the 1yr difference in warranty, which I'm not the only member to feel is worth mentioning (for those who don't know), I won't bother to do more than to bring up the warranty, and state your "no proof" arguments apply to what you say, as well (especially so, given some pretty obvious facts & factors, about how short of a time four and six tuner DVRs, especially TiVos, have even been on the market, available to buy, and how long it has been since people upgraded their drives in them).
> 
> That's the rise you get. The thread should be fun (the opposite of), now that links to the studies on drives, also controversial, and highly debated, have been posted... Blech...


Since Tivo doesn't use the AV features of the extra-cost drives, why bother with them? Pretty obvious to me that the rest is just marketing, but I'll grant you that the extra 1-year of warranty is worth something, as is the fact that Tivo is using them.

So yeah, given the nominal price diff and extra warranty length there's no real reason not to get the AV drives unless you're really cheap or get a great deal on a Green (you don't see deals on the AVs). Just saying that there is no real proof that one is better than the other in a Tivo, so the WD Greens are a decent alternative.


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> Since Tivo doesn't use the AV features of the extra-cost drives, why bother with them? Pretty obvious to me that the rest is just marketing, but I'll grant you that the extra 1-year of warranty is worth something, as is the fact that Tivo is using them.
> 
> So yeah, given the nominal price diff and extra warranty length there's no real reason not to get the AV drives unless you're really cheap or get a great deal on a Green (you don't see deals on the AVs). Just saying that there is no real proof that one is better than the other in a Tivo, so the WD Greens are a decent alternative.


It is a bit ironic, that even back when this thread was started, I was one of the most proactive members, telling people not to spend the extra money, just to get an AV drive, since TiVo doesn't use the AV ATA Streaming command set features. At the time, I had just as many detractors/naysayers, as I do now.

At the time (back then), it wasn't as bad as it used to be, where if you thought you needed an AV drive, and purchased thinking you needed it, you could have just bought two drives, for the same money, if you had gone with plain WD Green.

The price gap has (or had) closed, and the WD *Caviar* Green EADS/EARS drives are EOL'd. Those Caviar Green drives had a 3yr warranty.

With the price gap between AV-GP and plain Green, being what is was a few months ago, you could often get the AV-GP for within single-digit dollars, or at the same price, as the plain Green, and get that extra year warranty.

I will agree that deals on AV-GP drives are scarce. There are still no signs of them being EOL'd. I asked WD about it. They said the AV-GP isn't going away, and it is the only drive they consider to be proper intended usage, for TiVo, or any DVR/PVR, using a single drive, not RAID. DVR/PVR & surveillance systems, with RAID, are supposed to be using the Red or Purple, and each has it's own proper usage profiles.

While I doubt an RMA will be denied, over using a drive they don't approve of, or using it improperly, good luck if you want to get technical support.

Given the fact that the price gap is growing apart again, I'm trying to keep an open mind, but will not go back to preaching about TiVo not using the streaming features. I will just stick to the warranty, and hope you can add that factor in to your own posts. Some will pay more for the extra warranty, regardless of all else, some will stick with using what TiVo chose to use, and some will inevitably go as cheap as they can, and the rest means nothing to them.

In the spirit of trying to get along, I'm not going to post another list of things AV drives have going for them, even if not using the streaming features. I've posted all the potentials, possibilities, probabilities, and explanations enough times already.


----------



## danm628

aaronwt said:


> Take a look at the Denon 4520 Receiver which is still it's flagship untill the upper end Atmos receiver is released next year for $3K. The 4520 was $2500 when it was released two years ago, but it is only around $1K on closeout now. Accessories4less has new and refurbs. I picked up a refurb from them this Summer for $1300. If I had known the new ones would be going for $1K I would have waited. They are also an authorized Denon seller. The 4520 was a big upgrade in sound from the 2008 Denon 3808 I replaced. The 4520 has nine built-in amps and can handle up to 11.2 processing.( with an external two channel amp)


I've currently have a Denon AVR-4800 I purchased in 1999 (I think). The lack of HDMI is only one issue; center channel is noisy and the subwoofer output has failed. All fixable if I'm willing to put the effort in or spend the money to get someone to do it for me. Or I can use it as a 2 channel (or bi-amped 2 channel) setup for music.

I am currently looking at the AVR-X5200W or if I choose to spend less the AVR-X4100W.

I've been partial to Denon since D&M Holdings (Now D+M Group) purchased the remains of a previous employer. A few former co-workers ended up there. Last time I checked they were the assignee for several of my old patents.

I'm not in a rush to buy which is nice. I may end up waiting till next years models which should have HDCP 2.2. I'm purchasing a home in the next few months and will wait till afterwards to replace the receiver. I'm waiting on the sale of my father's home as part of his estate. I need a bigger place for the pianos I took from the estate. Plus literally a ton of books; a mix of mine and his.

We should continue this in a receiver thread (if there is one). 

- Dan


----------



## HarperVision

This must be the infamous Dan Miller? Hi Dan, long time no talk bro!


----------



## danm628

HarperVision said:


> This must be the infamous Dan Miller? Hi Dan, long time no talk bro!


Nope, not Dan Miller. Correct last initial but wrong last name.

- Dan


----------



## HarperVision

danm628 said:


> Nope, not Dan Miller. Correct last initial but wrong last name. - Dan


Wow that's strange! He worked for D&M as well.


----------



## danm628

HarperVision said:


> Wow that's strange! He worked for D&M as well.


I worked at Supra, Diamond Multimedia, S3 and SONICblue. That's 10 years and 1 month in a single job. Two purchases and one rename during the period.

I left SONICblue about 16 months before they shutdown when they laid off the one division in the company that turned a profit. During the bankruptcy D&M purchased the assets of SONICblue and brought on some of the staff. Mostly for RIO mp3 players and ReplayTV. I was at a startup working on WiFi and Bluetooth by the time that happened.

Annoyingly "Dan" is a very common first name in the US. As is my last name. At one point there were 7 people at my current fairly large employer (100K+ employees) with the same first and last name. None with the same middle name though one had the same middle initial. On a regular basis I get emails that should go to one of the other Dans at the company.

- Dan

PS. If any one really wants to figure it out -- Google "Dan PaperClip". I should be one of the first couple of hits, look for the word processor. Though that was a very long time ago.

Edit: If you pick the right search you end up on the Wikipedia page that mentions me and PaperClip. Which is scary.


----------



## ravingfans

danm628 said:


> PS. If any one really wants to figure it out -- Google "Dan PaperClip". I should be one of the first couple of hits, look for the word processor. Though that was a very long time ago.


Very, very cool Mr. PaperClip!


----------



## fred2

Well, so far the install of a 3gig seems to have gone reasonably well. Finding the 3 clips on each side of the top of the Roamio BASIC case was the challenging aspect. Don't want to break anything!

Okay, had to reattach the left rail since it installs upsidedown.

Now loading whatever on initiation.

Oh, ADVICE wanted. I saw a series of references to providing a more powerful power supply. With a variety of older power supplies, I grabbed one from an older IBM laptop.

.............. Warned that the following specs were DEFINITELY WRONG ..................

( I hope that I did not go overboard as I recall reading that most devices only draw what they need. The one I hooked up (now if I can read it) is:

OUTPUT 16V, 3.36A

Comments? )

............. Ignore my poor substitution above ..........

It is scanning my Antenna channels. So, so far, so good.

Thanks for the support and information I found in this thread and in varous threads.

edited to add: I can breathe - there's room to expand my chest. I now have 477 HD HOURS.

Also, re-transferred my Season Passes thanks again to kmttg


----------



## telemark

No no. Bad, very very Bad.

*12V *only!!


----------



## fred2

telemark said:


> No no. Bad, very very Bad.
> 
> *12V *only!!


THANKS VERY MUCH FOR THE QUICK CAUTION


----------



## unitron

fred2 said:


> Well, so far the install of a 3gig seems to have gone reasonably well. Finding the 3 clips on each side of the top of the Roamio BASIC case was the challenging aspect. Don't want to break anything!
> 
> Okay, had to reattach the left rail since it installs upsidedown.
> 
> Now loading whatever on initiation.
> 
> Oh, ADVICE wanted. I saw a series of references to providing a more powerful power supply. With a variety of older power supplies, I grabbed one from an older IBM laptop.
> 
> .............. Warned that the following specs were DEFINITELY WRONG ..................
> 
> ( I hope that I did not go overboard as I recall reading that most devices only draw what they need. The one I hooked up (now if I can read it) is:
> 
> OUTPUT 16V, 3.36A
> 
> Comments? )
> 
> ............. Ignore my poor substitution above ..........
> 
> It is scanning my Antenna channels. So, so far, so good.
> 
> Thanks for the support and information I found in this thread and in varous threads.
> 
> edited to add: I can breathe - there's room to expand my chest. I now have 477 HD HOURS.
> 
> Also, re-transferred my Season Passes thanks again to kmttg


What you really want is a power supply rated at the same voltage but at a higher amperage than the stock unit.

It might be that the Roamio has enough voltage regulation and protection on the power input that you can get away with that extra 4 volts, especially since in many cases 12V actually means 12.6 (for reasons that go all the way back to running vacuum tube radios on batteries).

Or it might be that it doesn't and that overvoltage might do some damage (actually the extra current pushed by the extra voltage would do the damage).

So probably better to look for something rated at 12.

And be sure to check the polarity of the barrel connector--most are + on the inside connector and - on the outside one that you can touch, but not all of them.

And make sure that non-stock power supply is a DC output and not AC output--there are some telephone answering machine wall warts from past years that were AC output and I don't know what all you have in your junk drawer.


----------



## NYHeel

Anyone have any thoughts on this Seagate 4TB drive. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A45JFJS/?tag=cl03f-20

I know that I'd need to do some linux work to get the 4 TB drive working.


----------



## Random User 7

be better off with WD40EURX


----------



## DougJohnson

NYHeel said:


> Anyone have any thoughts on this Seagate 4TB drive. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A45JFJS/?tag=cl03f-20
> 
> I know that I'd need to do some linux work to get the 4 TB drive working.


Look at the power consumption on that: 10.5 watts. The WD40EURX is about half that and much closer to TiVo's OEM drives. The Seagate drive will be hotter in the case and may exceed power supply limits. -- Doug


----------



## NYHeel

I found it on a big sale or maybe just a price mistake. http://www.pcrush.com/product/Hard-...229&siteID=XDbotxbyEF4-Oaliadsn5HrqD4zHPRhDFQ

Hence I thought about using it in the Tivo. Heck I might still buy it at that price.


----------



## A J Ricaud

with PROMO CODE EXLWWPE22 if you don't mind the 2yr. warranty instead of 3yrs. w/the AV/GP mdl., WD40EURX for $183.95.


----------



## Random User 7

A J Ricaud said:


> with PROMO CODE EXLWWPE22 if you don't mind the 2yr. warranty instead of 3yrs. w/the AV/GP mdl., WD40EURX for $183.95.


I believe based on previous reports you need to upgrade your power supply as well with these drives.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> As I have been trying to correct for, myself, I politely suggest you add "low-current spinup" (which WD calls intellipower), to your parameters. Many here have had it drilled into their minds, that intellipower simply means 5400 RPM, and/or any 5400/5900 RPM drive will do (still not always true, even if labeled "green" & 5400/5900 RPM).
> 
> There are drives, like HGST/Hitachi (to name just one brand), that market as "green", "energy efficient", "low power requirements", "5400RPM/5900RPM", or all of these things, yet require more than the rated output of the base Roamio wall-wart, at spinup. One such drive I looked into recently (4TB), would even be pushing the limits of units with internal power supplies.
> 
> While most TiVo users will likely have very few spin-up cycles in their future, via planned unplug, or via power-outage, it would suck to later find the drive has increased requirements with age (tends to happen), and will no longer spin-up.
> 
> *ETA:* I also suggest that it's best to go with "5400/5900", or "5400 & 5900" rather than using "-" or "to", which only helps keep some people thinking variable spindle speed drives exist.


Note that some of those Intellipower drives ran at 5000 rpm, but they did all run at constant _final _speed.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page2.html

http://ettcweb0.aa0.netvolante.jp/tips/WdcAADS00S9B0.html

Intellipower is a way WD can put in a smaller/cheaper spindle motor so they can make more profit. The motor in an Intellipower drive isn't powerful enough to spin the platter(s) up from 0 rpm all by itself. Intellipower is nothing more than a simple speed controller circuit. Rather than trying to immediately get to 5000/5400 rpm, the speed controller limits the initial speed then increases it over the next few seconds. It only takes three seconds or so to get it up to full speed. During this time, the drive is inaccessible. But the BIOS is performing its own startup sequence while this is going on, and that takes longer, so this process is invisible. It's actually rather ingenious.

A side benefit of this is lower startup current and a fancy marketing term to invent and put into the datasheet. You can also add the terms "variable speed" and "energy saving". If you did something to cheapen your product, you might as well flaunt it and make it look like a feature.

The 4 TB hard drives might indeed have a startup current concern since their platters should be heavier. The capacitors in the Tivo power supply might be able to provide enough temporary power for the spindle motor to start up -- or not. You don't know unless you try it.


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> Note that some of those Intellipower drives ran at 5000 rpm, but they did all run at constant _final _speed.
> 
> http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page2.html
> 
> http://ettcweb0.aa0.netvolante.jp/tips/WdcAADS00S9B0.html
> 
> Intellipower is a way WD can put in a smaller/cheaper spindle motor so they can make more profit. The motor in an Intellipower drive isn't powerful enough to spin the platter(s) up from 0 rpm all by itself. Intellipower is nothing more than a simple speed controller circuit. Rather than trying to immediately get to 5000/5400 rpm, the speed controller limits the initial speed then increases it over the next few seconds. It only takes three seconds or so to get it up to full speed. During this time, the drive is inaccessible. But the BIOS is performing its own startup sequence while this is going on, and that takes longer, so this process is invisible. It's actually rather ingenious.
> 
> A side benefit of this is lower startup current and a fancy marketing term to invent and put into the datasheet. You can also add the terms "variable speed" and "energy saving". If you did something to cheapen your product, you might as well flaunt it and make it look like a feature.
> 
> The 4 TB hard drives might indeed have a startup current concern since their platters should be heavier. The capacitors in the Tivo power supply might be able to provide enough temporary power for the spindle motor to start up -- or not. You don't know unless you try it.


If your usual logic of every drive feature being a fancy name for a shortcoming, or that it is just BS, is true, then all the enterprise-class drives with programmable levels of low-current spin-up are all just a bunch of cheap junk, too. I bet they really saved a ton of money by making such drives. 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with using a smaller spindle motor, combined with a controller that spins it up in stages. There's a need for such drives, and the industry provided them.

Just because something is cheaper, and/or smaller, doesn't make it a bad thing. There's no point in every car having a V12 engine, nor is there any point in using a high-performance spindle motor, in a low-RPM, low-performance drive, marketed for use in applications where there isn't a 500 watt power supply to give whatever it takes to spin it up.

The whole point was that "intellipower", as WD calls it, is a desirable thing to have for a drive going into a TiVo, and doesn't mean "variable speed" during actual operation, as some mistakenly think it does, nor does it simply mean that the drive is 5400RPM, as a great many think (or come across as saying that's all it means). It's all about getting the drive spun up, requiring as little current as possible, without taking too long to be operational. Such drives are specifically stated as not intended to be the primary drives for computers. Yet, some use them for exactly that, and they have no issues.

You do get a gold star for not completely dismissing staged spin up technology. Without it, everything that uses a hard drive would need a much larger power supply, resulting in higher total cost to the consumer, as well as more electricity wasted, as the bigger the power supply, the bigger the amount of wasted electricity, lost due to inefficiency.


----------



## NYHeel

Random User 7 said:


> I believe based on previous reports you need to upgrade your power supply as well with these drives.


Is that true even with the Roamio Plus/Pro?


----------



## lpwcomp

NYHeel said:


> Is that true even with the Roamio Plus/Pro?


No. Which is a good thing since I don't know of any way of doing so since they don't have an external adapter.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> If your usual logic of every drive feature being a fancy name for a shortcoming, or that it is just BS, is true, then all the enterprise-class drives with programmable levels of low-current spin-up are all just a bunch of cheap junk, too. I bet they really saved a ton of money by making such drives.


Since several enterprise models have the same hardware as their consumer counterparts, they saved quite a bit of money by NOT creating a new product line just for enterprise use. The Intellipower feature in the enterprise model was simply inherited from a previous design.

If you can save $1 in each of the 558 million hard drives you sell each year, that's $558 million annual savings. Yes, in 2009, WD sold 558 million hard drives. (http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/13/western-digital-has-sold-more-hard-drives-this-year-than-seagate/) And in 2013, Seagate sold around 250 million hard drives. The compound annual growth rate is expected to be 30% until at least 2016 (http://www.neowin.net/news/seagate-sells-two-billion-hard-drives-half-that-in-the-last-four-years) if you believe the marketing hype, which I always view with a skeptical eye. So yes, they are saving a lot of money.

I can also tell you that 5 years ago, at least one other hard drive mfr put in very similar technology, but you won't see it advertised on their datasheet. So unless you measure it, you can't tell if a non-WD hard drive has that feature or not.

Like I've always said, this forum is great to determine hard drive compatibility with a Tivo. Even though any drive _should_ work in theory, there may be hardware or software compatibility issues. There may also be deals or longer warranties (warranties are very important) which make a certain drive more attractive. So if one wants to try a model that hasn't been listed as working, just make sure the return policy is generous.


----------



## slowbiscuit

A J Ricaud said:


> with PROMO CODE EXLWWPE22 if you don't mind the 2yr. warranty instead of 3yrs. w/the AV/GP mdl., WD40EURX for $183.95.


Now that's a big enough discount to justify using a Green, if you want to bother with getting the 4TB to work.


----------



## unitron

BobCamp1 said:


> ...The motor in an Intellipower drive isn't powerful enough to spin the platter(s) up from 0 rpm all by itself...


Then unless there's an external pull cord like on a lawn mower, it will never exceed 0 RPM.

The hardest, most power demanding thing the spindle motor will ever be called upon to do is move the platters from 0 RPM to any state where RPM is greater than 0.

Do you mean the motor isn't powerful enough to do it unless a voltage greater than +12 is applied momentarily?


----------



## SVTarHeel

Would a WD10EUR* be the recommended 1TB upgrade for a TCD746320 Premiere?


----------



## CoxInPHX

SVTarHeel said:


> Would a WD10EUR* be the recommended 1TB upgrade for a TCD746320 Premiere?


The WD10EURX is newer, the WDxxEURS models have been discontinued, and you are likely to receive a Recertified HDD rather than new.

Beware of 3rd party sellers on Amazon, some of them are selling Recertified as new.

Personally, I would jump to 2TB and the WD20EURX


----------



## unitron

You'll almost always do better GB/$ wise with a 2TB than anything smaller.


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> Since several enterprise models have the same hardware as their consumer counterparts, they saved quite a bit of money by NOT creating a new product line just for enterprise use. The Intellipower feature in the enterprise model was simply inherited from a previous design.
> 
> If you can save $1 in each of the 558 million hard drives you sell each year, that's $558 million annual savings. Yes, in 2009, WD sold 558 million hard drives. (http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/13/western-digital-has-sold-more-hard-drives-this-year-than-seagate/) And in 2013, Seagate sold around 250 million hard drives. The compound annual growth rate is expected to be 30% until at least 2016 (http://www.neowin.net/news/seagate-sells-two-billion-hard-drives-half-that-in-the-last-four-years) if you believe the marketing hype, which I always view with a skeptical eye. So yes, they are saving a lot of money.
> 
> I can also tell you that 5 years ago, at least one other hard drive mfr put in very similar technology, but you won't see it advertised on their datasheet. So unless you measure it, you can't tell if a non-WD hard drive has that feature or not.
> 
> Like I've always said, this forum is great to determine hard drive compatibility with a Tivo. Even though any drive _should_ work in theory, there may be hardware or software compatibility issues. There may also be deals or longer warranties (warranties are very important) which make a certain drive more attractive. So if one wants to try a model that hasn't been listed as working, just make sure the return policy is generous.


We are supposed to drink your years-old Kool-Aid, but not drink any of the Kool-Aid drive makers offer. We are all just a bunch of blind sheep, and we should choose you as our shepherd, based on things that you can't substantiate...

You had several opportunities in the past, in this very thread, to earn credibility. This post here made up my mind: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10204630#post10204630

That is not how an insider, with the type/level of knowledge you want us to believe you have, would have answered the question. You answered the question like a well-informed (or enthusiast) consumer would. The answer is not wrong, but is not the answer such a person, at such a level, as you claim you are, would answer it.

It is clear to me, that besides your years of no longer (allegedly) working for the hard drive mfg you (allegedly) can't name, due to an (alleged) NDA, that you did not leave on good terms and/or just hold a grudge against the company. The only credible evidence that you may have held any position within such a company, is your desire to slam specific subjects/topics when they come up, and the consistency of doing so. All it takes is a click to "find more posts by (you)", and it's quickly clear you have an agenda.

You can claim it is trying to protect us from the evil hard drive companies, protect us from marketing materials, protect us from spec sheets, or some other good-faith motive(s). But, I'm not buying it.

You have yet to post anything that can't be found by a Google search, and watching an episode of How It's Made (or any such show, with an episode on hard drives).

Whatever your official position/job title was, in whatever hard drive company, the last person I would take as being objective, would be the disgruntled prior employee, still holding a grudge, years later, with no indication of ever getting another job, within the same industry.

One thing I consistently find, is that there are a great many people who have worked in (whatever) position, at (whatever) technology company, in a certain industry, and think they know so much. Yet, place these same people on the consumer side of the industry, and what they truly know is a compartmentalized slice, not even big enough to help them, let alone put them in a position to help others.

It's that chip on your shoulder, manifesting in your posts, mostly attacking the hard drive industry, that is keeping me from taking you on your word. Everything is "marketing hype", when you get the itch to post yet another pot shot at the hard drive industry.


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> Now that's a big enough discount to justify using a Green, if you want to bother with getting the 4TB to work.


Yeah, I was almost tempted on that deal, as well.

I'm still gun-shy on buying hard drives. I want to be sure that all the inventory at Newegg (or elsewhere) has been cleared-out, and refreshed with new stock, before I buy another drive.

A good indication that (most of) the inventory has refreshed will be when they change the product page on the 4TB and lower drives, for the WD Red NAS, to come with Nasware 3.0. Right now, it's luck of the draw, and some are getting orders with a mix of 2.0 & 3.0 (with no upgrade possible from 2.0 to 3.0).

The last time I bought AV-GP drives, they were manufactured almost a year before I bought them, not the typical three months, or less, I was accustomed to.

I have amazon Prime now. So, I'll likely be busy comparing the review ratios, to see if I can find a source with less DOA and infant mortality rates. There's a lot of griping going on about getting stuck paying for return shipping, only to get another bad drive, often a recert (or recert claimed to be new, but the SMART data says otherwise). I'm even seeing reports of people finding years worth of POH, on the original purchase, sold as new.

As the saying goes: Things can ALWAYS be worse, no matter how bad they seem.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> Yeah, I was almost tempted on that deal, as well.
> 
> I'm still gun-shy on buying hard drives. I want to be sure that all the inventory at Newegg (or elsewhere) has been cleared-out, and refreshed with new stock, before I buy another drive.
> 
> A good indication that (most of) the inventory has refreshed will be when they change the product page on the 4TB and lower drives, for the WD Red NAS, to come with Nasware 3.0. Right now, it's luck of the draw, and some are getting orders with a mix of 2.0 & 3.0 (with no upgrade possible from 2.0 to 3.0).
> 
> The last time I bought AV-GP drives, they were manufactured almost a year before I bought them, not the typical three months, or less, I was accustomed to.
> 
> I have amazon Prime now. So, I'll likely be busy comparing the review ratios, to see if I can find a source with less DOA and infant mortality rates. There's a lot of griping going on about getting stuck paying for return shipping, only to get another bad drive, often a recert (or recert claimed to be new, but the SMART data says otherwise). I'm even seeing reports of people finding years worth of POH, on the original purchase, sold as new.
> 
> As the saying goes: Things can ALWAYS be worse, no matter how bad they seem.


I have purchased many (well over 100) hard drives (WD only) from both Amazon and Newegg and none have a date on the hard drive label of more than 4 months old, most are in the 2 to 3 month range, if the drive is new and for TiVo use any WD green or red drive seem to work without any problems, I have gone for the lowest price (for WD green or red drives) to make my decision, years ago Newegg packing problems provided me with some DOA drives but its been years since I gotten any DOA drives from Newegg and never from Amazon. One can spend as much time as one wants to find the perfect TiVo WD hard drive, and it will not make any difference. Other brands of hard drives most likely will work also but I have never used any for TiVos.

If anybody has first hand experience with any hard drive that did* not work * or had problems with a TiVo upgrade, please post the information.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> I have purchased many (well over 100) hard drives (WD only) from both Amazon and Newegg and none have a date on the hard drive label of more than 4 months old, most are in the 2 to 3 month range, if the drive is new and for TiVo use any WD green or red drive seem to work without any problems, I have gone for the lowest price (for WD green or red drives) to make my decision, years ago Newegg packing problems provided me with some DOA drives but its been years since I gotten any DOA drives from Newegg and never from Amazon. One can spend as much time as one wants to find the perfect TiVo WD hard drive, and it will not make any difference. Other brands of hard drives most likely will work also but I have never used any for TiVos.
> 
> If anybody has first hand experience with any hard drive that did* not work * or had problems with a TiVo upgrade, please post the information.


Only 100? Is that lifetime, that you can recall, or is there some context you could put that in, which doesn't require guessing/assumptions?

Newegg has been packaging their drives like they are made of very expensive glass, for a while now. I wonder if the people at Newegg, who pull them out of the bulk packaging boxes, and place them inside the new packaging for drives, each in it's own air-pillow-packaging and box, are just "dropping" them in, on a hard bench, or literally saying "hey, throw me 5 of those drives over there", or if there is some other mishandling between the bulk pack and what gets shipped...

Even those posting the reviews (at Newegg) are wondering where the drives, that WD claims are thoroughly tested before leaving, are possibly exposed to force, or other mishandling (or if anybody at WD is actually looking at the results of the "testing" WD claims they do)...

The AV-GP (3TB x3) drives that were excessively old stock, came from Newegg, and that was unusual, as I usually marvelled over how fast drives were making it from WD to Newegg to me. The AV-GP (2TB x 5) drives I bought from them a year earlier, had a mfg date of 1-2 months, before the order. I've seen the way WD bulk ships, 12 per box, with hard styrofoam (RMA replacements for failed regular 2TB Green drives came in such a box). For the sheer weight of 12 drives, there wasn't much to prevent shock, if handled the way I've seen UPS (mis)handle packages.

Unless there's some factor(s) that kills drives, after factory testing, when not being handled (which there could be), it would seem like the handling from bulk-pack to individual pack might be the point where low-wage workers could mishandle them, in a number of ways. No amount of cushioning will help, if the drives are being mishandled in-between packaging types...

*As far as drives that people have had issues with:* Seagate 7200RPM (formerly known as Barracuda), when upgrading the base Roamio. There have been multiple reports of this, but a few success stories, as well. I'll make a well-educated guess, that those successes were right on the edge of not being so.

There was a very recent report of a Premiere upgrade to 3TB, that failed to boot on the first try, and it was a Barracuda 7200 drive, per the member who called it a success, but "didn't know what the deal was with it not working the first time he plugged it in". Nobody has bothered to tell him that the next time (or a future time) he unplugs it, or there is a power outage, it might not boot on the first try (or at all). I guess success stories trump saying something (when I'm not around, or I don't say something).

TiVo has been tweaking the fan speeds with the software updates. My 3TB WD Red NAS drives are no longer excessively cooled (but are adequately cooled), and I've seen a 10 degree increase on the TiVo MBT (from 40 to 50C), and there's no other obvious factors, like dust buildup. Those who went against the grain, and used 7200RPM drives (before TiVo dialed-down the fan speeds), might want to check their temps, feel the case above the drive (particularly on the base models), and verify a full power loss can be recovered from. While I don't miss the fans being at constant full-speed, whining at a high pitch, I'm glad I used the drives I did. Every night, the fans kick back up to full-speed, while the indexing and GC processes are running, reminding me of what I used to hear all the time (and I've wondered about the possible effects on those using hot-running drives).

There is a thread on the subject matter of power requirements for the base Roamio, and reporting of there being a blue internal LED, next to the green one, which will come on if the unit senses a low-power condition at POST. If that LED comes on, it will be the only thing operating, until resolved. The discovery of the LED is credited to a member who used a non-green 7200RPM high-performance drive, and wound up on TCF to ask about the blue LED. Telemark was the only member to acknowledge there is one inside (besides the front panel one), along with other colors, also for indicating fault conditions. Everybody else just said "there is no blue LED inside".

Back to the regularly scheduled programming (and naysaying/heckling that usually follows anything I post)...


----------



## SVTarHeel

SVTarHeel said:


> Would a WD10EUR* be the recommended 1TB upgrade for a TCD746320 Premiere?


In an odd coincidence, tonight I randomly discovered a 1TB WD10EARS that I had forgotten I had. Here's my situation... I recently bought 2 used Premieres (a TCD746320 and a TCD748000). I activated the TCD746320 since it was the oldest and the previous owner thought she remembered declining a $99 lifetime offer on it when she deactivated it. I tried getting $99 PLS but was shot down, so I let it ride with $19.99 monthly as a 30-day test.

Due to some family illness, I didn't get a chance to test it much and fortunately remembered the 30-day money back guarantee on day 29. I called to cancel, having been told previously that $99 PLS wouldn't be an option for me. The first question from the CSR was why the previous CSR hadn't offered me that. He went away, came back with the offer and I accepted.

So now, I have a lifetime Premiere with a 320GB HD. Having searched this forum a lot when trying to decide whether or not TiVo might work for us, I ran across the thread of people who immediately upgraded their new Roamios. I had since forgotten that the Premieres required more effort than the simple drop-in replacement of the Roamios.

So, I'm trying to decide whether 1) to keep the 320GB drive - or upgrade it to 1TB - for my own use/further testing, 2) sell it as a PLS 320GB - or upgrade it to 1TB - to generate cash to purchase PLS for the TCD748000 (or maybe get a Roamio).

As for my skills, I clone hard drives often as I'm refurbishing vintage machines, so I'm not leery of external USB connections and the like, but I have yet to read the details on copying/expanding my current drive to a 1TB unit.

All that being said, any thoughts or advice on the pros and cons of keeping/upgrading/selling my TCD746320?

_(I did a quick search for a Premiere HD upgrade thread. If this question doesn't belong in this thread in the Roamio section, please accept my apologies and move it accordingly.)_

Thanks in advance for any help.


----------



## unitron

SVTarHeel said:


> In an odd coincidence, tonight I randomly discovered a 1TB WD10EARS that I had forgotten I had. Here's my situation... I recently bought 2 used Premieres (a TCD746320 and a TCD748000). I activated the TCD746320 since it was the oldest and the previous owner thought she remembered declining a $99 lifetime offer on it when she deactivated it. I tried getting $99 PLS but was shot down, so I let it ride with $19.99 monthly as a 30-day test.
> 
> Due to some family illness, I didn't get a chance to test it much and fortunately remembered the 30-day money back guarantee on day 29. I called to cancel, having been told previously that $99 PLS wouldn't be an option for me. The first question from the CSR was why the previous CSR hadn't offered me that. He went away, came back with the offer and I accepted.
> 
> So now, I have a lifetime Premiere with a 320GB HD. Having searched this forum a lot when trying to decide whether or not TiVo might work for us, I ran across the thread of people who immediately upgraded their new Roamios. I had since forgotten that the Premieres required more effort than the simple drop-in replacement of the Roamios.
> 
> So, I'm trying to decide whether 1) to keep the 320GB drive - or upgrade it to 1TB - for my own use/further testing, 2) sell it as a PLS 320GB - or upgrade it to 1TB - to generate cash to purchase PLS for the TCD748000 (or maybe get a Roamio).
> 
> As for my skills, I clone hard drives often as I'm refurbishing vintage machines, so I'm not leery of external USB connections and the like, but I have yet to read the details on copying/expanding my current drive to a 1TB unit.
> 
> All that being said, any thoughts or advice on the pros and cons of keeping/upgrading/selling my TCD746320?
> 
> _(I did a quick search for a Premiere HD upgrade thread. If this question doesn't belong in this thread in the Roamio section, please accept my apologies and move it accordingly.)_
> 
> Thanks in advance for any help.


There doesn't appear to be that much difference between the 746320 and the 748000 if you ignore drive size, and whether you can get lifetime on the other TiVo cheaper than full price is an unknown at this point, I assume?

Anyway, this thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=455968

about the jmfs cd will tell you about one way to migrate a Series 4 to a larger drive and this one

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261

will tell you about DvrBARS, a newer, more versatile software package for backing up and restoring S4 images.

I suggest you see if DvrBARS will let you upgrade to a 1TB now and a 2TB later without losing shows.

And you should make backup images of both machines ASAP, just in case.


----------



## SVTarHeel

unitron said:


> There doesn't appear to be that much difference between the 746320 and the 748000 if you ignore drive size, and whether you can get lifetime on the other TiVo cheaper than full price is an unknown at this point, I assume?


After clarifying the $99 PLS on the older 320GB unit, he said lifetime was available for the TCD748000 for $199. After seeing what lifetimed TCD746320s are selling for on eBay - with both stock drives and 1TB upgrades - and what stock lifetimed TCD748000s bring, it's tempting to 1) add lifetime to the TCD748000, 2) upgrade the 320GB model, 3) sell both and 4) get an NIB lifetimed Roamio basic and upgrade the HD right out of the box.

Thanks for the specific thread links for the HD upgrade info.


----------



## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> Yeah, I was almost tempted on that deal, as well.
> 
> I'm still gun-shy on buying hard drives. I want to be sure that all the inventory at Newegg (or elsewhere) has been cleared-out, and refreshed with new stock, before I buy another drive.
> 
> A good indication that (most of) the inventory has refreshed will be when they change the product page on the 4TB and lower drives, for the WD Red NAS, to come with Nasware 3.0. Right now, it's luck of the draw, and some are getting orders with a mix of 2.0 & 3.0 (with no upgrade possible from 2.0 to 3.0).
> 
> The last time I bought AV-GP drives, they were manufactured almost a year before I bought them, not the typical three months, or less, I was accustomed to.
> 
> I have amazon Prime now. So, I'll likely be busy comparing the review ratios, to see if I can find a source with less DOA and infant mortality rates. There's a lot of griping going on about getting stuck paying for return shipping, only to get another bad drive, often a recert (or recert claimed to be new, but the SMART data says otherwise). I'm even seeing reports of people finding years worth of POH, on the original purchase, sold as new.
> 
> As the saying goes: Things can ALWAYS be worse, no matter how bad they seem.


Return shipping? I know if it's from Newegg or Amazon I never pay return shipping for a defective product. Although I do make sure I call Newegg and Amazon so they give me a prepraid return label.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> Return shipping? I know if it's from Newegg or Amazon I never pay return shipping for a defective product. Although I do make sure I call Newegg and Amazon so they give me a prepaid return label.


I meant for the unfortunate souls whose drives fail, don't work properly, or are discovered DOA, outside the 30-day window for NewEgg (or those who foolishly go straight to WD, when they could have used the reseller). Sometimes people just don't have the time to get to projects in time, even if they do their best to.

With Newegg Premier membership for $49.99/yr (plus 30-day free trial) http://promotions.newegg.com/premier/14-0730/trial/index.html , they pay return shipping, expedite orders/RMAs, up the level of free shipping + discount the rest, and there are no restocking fees. It's like Amazon Prime, half-price, minus the "free" Prime video, but plus an always displayed, priority toll-free customer service phone number, which places you in front of non premier queues, and the levels of what they will do to keep you happy, is quite a contrast. I don't know when your last Newegg RMA, or customer service interaction was. But, the standard service was not that great before, the membership paid for itself on my first order, and created a virtual profit on my first RMA. They have also done things their policy says they don't do, period, "only because I am a Premier member".

Before the DOA/I.M. glut, when AV-GP drives would go Newegg shell shocker, at the best price I felt I'd see them within the next 3 months, I'd buy as many as the offer allowed (used to be 5, now is often 3 or 2), but not open them (the anti-static bags), unless I was 100% sure I would use them in the next 3 months. This worked out well, when I still had 5 sealed AV-GP WD20EURS drives, but my TiVo models (and capacity needs) changed, and/or I bought drives I didn't need, because the price was THAT good, and I'd just pass them along to TCF members, at cost.

In my experience, even going back a while, 18 out of 20 times, if I ask a buyer if they want one of these two options, they will choose #1.
1. New sealed drive, in warranty, if DOA they deal with it, not me.
2. New sealed drive, in warranty, opened to test before shipping, and if it arrives DOA, I deal with it.

I was starting to think my fresh Amazon Prime membership (in trial period), was going to be worth it. But, some recent discussion over people being inexplicably locked out of their accounts (for as long as a year, and getting the runaround), amazon closing their accounts, losing all their non-physical-item purchases forever, and being cancelled by Amazon for too many returns has me concerned, as these are not one-off reports of such things.

The whole paying sales tax thing for Amazon purchases, is also a real downer. 8.5% sales tax, plus not getting things any faster than non-taxed Newegg purchases, is what will likely result in me cancelling Amazon Prime, and sticking with Newegg, once I have reached day 29 of the trial. Trying to keep up with Newegg prices, and what sales were repeating, or the best I'd ever see, was sucking up way too much time.

Although, I do hear that Amazon doesn't do things like take an order, then have a sale before it has shipped, and refuse to adjust. I hear they make adjustments (when the seller is Amazon directly), while Newegg still requires you to place a new order for the new sale price, then return the order they refused to cancel or adjust. It's idiotic for them to stick to this with their Premier members, as they pay all the shipping, and the customer incurs no losses, other than the time involved...

Sorry for the topic drift on Newegg & Amazon.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> Only 100? Is that lifetime, that you can recall, or is there some context you could put that in, which doesn't require guessing/assumptions?
> 
> Newegg has been packaging their drives like they are made of very expensive glass, for a while now. I wonder if the people at Newegg, who pull them out of the bulk packaging boxes, and place them inside the new packaging for drives, each in it's own air-pillow-packaging and box, are just "dropping" them in, on a hard bench, or literally saying "hey, throw me 5 of those drives over there", or if there is some other mishandling between the bulk pack and what gets shipped...


Quick answer, I have been upgrading TiVos from about 2004 on, I know that WD green was not available then, but as soon as WD green drives were on the market I started using them, the least expensive I could find. The 100+ drives I purchased is just a good guess as I never tracked this.
Newegg had bad packing back in 2004 and at some point improved their packing, again I did not keep track of the date this happened.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> Quick answer, I have been upgrading TiVos from about 2004 on, I know that WD green was not available then, but as soon as WD green drives were on the market I started using them, the least expensive I could find. The 100+ drives I purchased is just a good guess as I never tracked this.
> Newegg had bad packing back in 2004 and at some point improved their packing, again I did not keep track of the date this happened.


Could you please quantify and break down the number of drives purchased in the last 2 years, and the last 12 months, along with where you bought from, and what product lines? I'm most interested in purchases made in the last 12 months, and the specifics on those. Guesstimates are fine, but firm data would be more helpful. Thanks.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> Could you please quantify and break down the number of drives purchased in the last 2 years, and the last 12 months, along with where you bought from, and what product lines? I'm most interested in purchases made in the last 12 months, and the specifics on those. Guesstimates are fine, but firm data would be more helpful. Thanks.


I don't have that data without going into a lot of work I can't do now, If I have time I will look at my past orders with both Amazon and Newegg (does Newegg go back two years ? on past orders)


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> I don't have that data without going into a lot of work I can't do now, If I have time I will look at my past orders with both Amazon and Newegg (does Newegg go back two years ? on past orders)


Understood. Newegg goes back as far as I've had an account with them (over 2 years). The info can only be extrapolated to useful data, fully, if it's all-inclusive, including mfg date of the drives. So, if you don't keep all that data together, I don't expect you to dig it up. If you are of the type that registers your drives with WD, you can pull a lot of data from your registered products at the WD portal.

I'd say the most critical period I'm looking at is any WD drive purchased in the last 18 months, with the middle 6 months being the time-frame it seems most were getting more DOA and infant mortality drives, than the first 6, or last 6 months. Without knowing the date of mfg, in relation to date of purchase, and the reseller, it's hard to know if there was a bad batch, or bad handling practices at the resellers (or some other factor/vector involved).


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> Understood. Newegg goes back as far as I've had an account with them (over 2 years). The info can only be extrapolated to useful data, fully, if it's all-inclusive, including mfg date of the drives. So, if you don't keep all that data together, I don't expect you to dig it up. If you are of the type that registers your drives with WD, you can pull a lot of data from your registered products at the WD portal.
> 
> I'd say the most critical period I'm looking at is any WD drive purchased in the last 18 months, with the middle 6 months being the time-frame it seems most were getting more DOA and infant mortality drives, than the first 6, or last 6 months. Without knowing the date of mfg, in relation to date of purchase, and the reseller, it's hard to know if there was a bad batch, or bad handling practices at the resellers (or some other factor/vector involved).


I don't have the mfg dates as most of the 10 or so drives I purchased in the last 2 years were for friends TiVo upgrades and I did not register with WD as I found that if you have any problems with WD, the SN will tell WD if your drive(s) are covered.


----------



## ncted

I should receive my new drive today. I was wondering if, after upgrading, I need to resubmit my serial to the priority page for 20.4.5 to get the latest firmware, or will it automatically put back what was there previously?

Also, will I need to re-register with Netflix and Amazon?


----------



## fred2

ncted said:


> I should receive my new drive today. I was wondering if, after upgrading, I need to resubmit my serial to the priority page for 20.4.5 to get the latest firmware, or will it automatically put back what was there previously?
> 
> Also, will I need to re-register with Netflix and Amazon?


I did have to re-register with Netflix. I believe all of that data is lost as the entire thing gets re-initialized. I don't know what happens with the Software version although the tivo service number does not change so it might get the newer version.


----------



## ggieseke

On a Roamio the software in in the flash memory, but you'll have to set everything else up from scratch.


----------



## ncted

ggieseke said:


> On a Roamio the software in in the flash memory, but you'll have to set everything else up from scratch.


You are correct. It booted up with 20.4.5, and even had the Amazon app. I was able to copy off the shows I wanted to keep to my laptop using pyTivo. Now I just need to figure out how to copy them back to my embiggened Roamio. It went very smoothly.


----------



## Random User 7

ncted said:


> You are correct. It booted up with 20.4.5, and even had the Amazon app. I was able to copy off the shows I wanted to keep to my laptop using pyTivo. Now I just need to figure out how to copy them back to my embiggened Roamio. It went very smoothly.


Glad to hear it was near painless because I'll need to do this too. I'm assuming copying the files back will be just as painless. I've been waiting to see if the WD30EURX would drop some in price. I figure if it doesn't drop in early December I might as well just pay the asking.


----------



## ncted

Random User 7 said:


> Glad to hear it was near painless because I'll need to do this too. I'm assuming copying the files back will be just as painless. I've been waiting to see if the WD30EURX would drop some in price. I figure if it doesn't drop in early December I might as well just pay the asking.


I got the WD20EURX. It is probably twice what I need, but it was a much better price/TB than the 1TB model. I will let you know how the transfer back goes. I need to read up on how that works first though.


----------



## Random User 7

ncted said:


> I got the WD20EURX. It is probably twice what I need, but it was a much better price/TB than the 1TB model. I will let you know how the transfer back goes. I need to read up on how that works first though.


I'm betting the 2TB would be fine but just to be sure I'm going to go with the 3TB. We have been recording a lot of PBS Kid's shows since the Roku app only has 5 episodes. Though everything is on Amazon and Netflix so I guess we would be OK. Hmm maybe I just talked myself into the 2TB.


----------



## ncted

Random User 7 said:


> I'm betting the 2TB would be fine but just to be sure I'm going to go with the 3TB. We have been recording a lot of PBS Kid's shows since the Roku app only has 5 episodes. Though everything is on Amazon and Netflix so I guess we would be OK. Hmm maybe I just talked myself into the 2TB.


Given I could only access 1.25TB of my Hopper, which I never filled more than 60%, and that MPEG2 will take up twice as much space, 2TB seemed like plenty. Especially as we are watching more Netflix and Amazon and less recorded content.


----------



## SVTarHeel

unitron said:


> this thread
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=455968
> 
> about the jmfs cd will tell you about one way to migrate a Series 4 to a larger drive and this one
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261
> 
> will tell you about DvrBARS, a newer, more versatile software package for backing up and restoring S4 images.
> 
> I suggest you see if DvrBARS will let you upgrade to a 1TB now and a 2TB later without losing shows.
> 
> And you should make backup images of both machines ASAP, just in case.


As I was looking through those threads and rethinking this process, I thought of one more question... if I have nothing that needs saving on the stock drive, is using an image (for the upgrade) a solution that is either quicker, cleaner, easier, etc.?


----------



## lpwcomp

SVTarHeel said:


> As I was looking through those threads and rethinking this process, I thought of one more question... if I have nothing that needs saving on the stock drive, is using an image (for the upgrade) a solution that is either quicker, cleaner, easier, etc.?


Well, you do avoid having to have two disks attached at once or using a DvrBARS to backup and restore. OTOH, if use use a backup from anther TiVo, you'll probably have to do a "Clear & Delete Everything" when you first boot up the TiVo after installing the new drive. Also, you'll have to boot JMFS to do the expand no matter how you get the image on the new drive.


----------



## ggieseke

My 746 and 750 images require a C&DE. The 748 and 758 images should work without it, since they were taken from never-booted factory drives.


----------



## Random User 7

ncted said:


> Given I could only access 1.25TB of my Hopper, which I never filled more than 60%, and that MPEG2 will take up twice as much space, 2TB seemed like plenty. Especially as we are watching more Netflix and Amazon and less recorded content.


Good point, I forgot the reason I chose the 3tb is MPEG2. Good reminder thanks.


----------



## ncted

Random User 7 said:


> Glad to hear it was near painless because I'll need to do this too. I'm assuming copying the files back will be just as painless. I've been waiting to see if the WD30EURX would drop some in price. I figure if it doesn't drop in early December I might as well just pay the asking.


Copying back was painless once I realized that initiating the copy from the PC to the Tivo *from the Tivo* was easiest. As far as I know everything I restored is unharmed by the copying.


----------



## SVTarHeel

ggieseke said:


> My 746 and 750 images require a C&DE. The 748 and 758 images should work without it, since they were taken from never-booted factory drives.


It's not looking promising, but I'm exchanging messages with someone who claims to have a 'never used' 746320 for sale. If it turns out to be what he said, I was thinking of trying to get it as a win-win-win, meaning potentially of benefit to you, the community here and me as well.

Feel free to contact me privately (or here) if you have interest, thoughts, caveats, etc.


----------



## ggieseke

SVTarHeel said:


> It's not looking promising, but I'm exchanging messages with someone who claims to have a 'never used' 746320 for sale. If it turns out to be what he said, I was thinking of trying to get it as a win-win-win, meaning potentially of benefit to you, the community here and me as well.
> 
> Feel free to contact me privately (or here) if you have interest, thoughts, caveats, etc.


I wouldn't mind having a truly factory 746 image since it would speed up the process for people using it. If you get the unit, run a Full backup with DvrBARS and send me a PM.


----------



## unitron

SVTarHeel said:


> It's not looking promising, but I'm exchanging messages with someone who claims to have a 'never used' 746320 for sale. If it turns out to be what he said, I was thinking of trying to get it as a win-win-win, meaning potentially of benefit to you, the community here and me as well.
> 
> Feel free to contact me privately (or here) if you have interest, thoughts, caveats, etc.


If you can get it cheap, like $25 or under, you'll have a spare power supply, and a drive from which you can make virgin images if you don't run Guided Setup on it.


----------



## aaronwt

So is the 4TB WD AV drive still the recommended one? I plan to keep an eye out for some Black Friday deals. Hopefully I can pick one up at a good sale price and replace the 3TB drive in my Roamio Pro.


----------



## SVTarHeel

ggieseke said:


> I wouldn't mind having a truly factory 746 image


If this starts to look like it's going to work out after all, I plan to clarify just what he means by never used. What do I need to ask him?


----------



## jmbach

Has it ever been plugged in. Has it ever been booted to guided setup screen. The former is truly a virgin image. The latter is the next closest to a virgin image. It may require a c&de when installed on another unit.


----------



## ggieseke

jmbach said:


> Has it ever been plugged in.


That's the most important question.


----------



## Cavar

I just bought a Roamio Plus and wanted to upgrade the HD and I was wondering if anyone can answer these questions without me wading through 71 pages?

1) Can the drives really be upgraded just by putting in a new unformatted drive?

2) Will the Plus handle a 4TB drive without upgrades to the power supply? If so, is the Western Digital AV-GP WD40EURX the best drive? If 4TB can't be used, which 3TB do you recommend?

3) Do I need to activate the Plus before I can upgrade the drive?

4) Are there other issues/questions I need to be aware of?

Thanks,
Cavar


----------



## Darkon

Cavar said:


> I just bought a Roamio Plus and wanted to upgrade the HD and I was wondering if anyone can answer these questions without me wading through 71 pages?
> 
> 1) Can the drives really be upgraded just by putting in a new unformatted drive?
> 
> 2) Will the Plus handle a 4TB drive without upgrades to the power supply? If so, is the Western Digital AV-GP WD40EURX the best drive? If 4TB can't be used, which 3TB do you recommend?
> 
> 3) Do I need to activate the Plus before I can upgrade the drive?
> 
> 4) Are there other issues/questions I need to be aware of?
> 
> Thanks,
> Cavar


1) Yes, you can just swap in a new drive. I just did this yesterday with a drive I ordered from Amazon...straight from the box into the TiVo.

2) Everything I read indicates that you use up to a 3TB without doing anything special, but 4TB requires extra steps.

3) No, I swapped the drive before I even plugged in the TiVo.

4) Regarding the drive swap, I don't think so. But if you are like me and are using a Motorola TA, you may run into a problem where the Roamio won't detect the TA. From another thread, it sounds like the problem will need to be resolved with a firmware updated for the TA.


----------



## Cavar

Darkon said:


> 1) Yes, you can just swap in a new drive. I just did this yesterday with a drive I ordered from Amazon...straight from the box into the TiVo.
> 
> 2) Everything I read indicates that you use up to a 3TB without doing anything special, but 4TB requires extra steps.
> 
> 3) No, I swapped the drive before I even plugged in the TiVo.


Perfect thanks. I'll go with a 3TB WD then.



Darkon said:


> 4) Regarding the drive swap, I don't think so. But if you are like me and are using a Motorola TA, you may run into a problem where the Roamio won't detect the TA. From another thread, it sounds like the problem will need to be resolved with a firmware updated for the TA.


I do have a Motorola TA. If I have issues then I wonder if getting a new TA from my cable company would fix the issue? Otherwise I'm not sure how I would upgrade firmware on the TA.


----------



## Random User 7

Yeah 3tb WD30EURX is the drive of choice.


----------



## abovethesink

This thread is absurdly overwhelming so I will keep it short and sweet. I need a new drive ASAP and tis one is a good price and prime eligible. Will it serve in a Roamio Basic?

www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Cavi...id=1416020309&sr=1-2&keywords=3+tb+hard+drive


----------



## Random User 7

it would work but the wd30eurx is considered better because of the extra year warranty and is av-gp drive.


----------



## daytraderjo

I am new and am Looking to buy my first tivo. 

I am Looking at either a roamio plus (1TB) or roamio pro (3TB). (Plus 2 Mini's)
I would definitely purchase lifetime service, and get the extra 3 yr warranty. 
(If it matters, I Would be using the PC software and ipad)

I have read a bunch of posts but was looking for confirmation from a veteran, or perhaps someone can lead me to another link.... 

Aside from extra storage, is there any difference/benefit in purchasing the stock roamio pro (3TB)vs. roamio plus (1TB), except for the extra included storage on the roamio pro?

Would the "stock" version of "plus" work more seamlessly then an upgraded "plus"? Ie...Will a better hd give better performance? 

Would the "pro" work more seamlessly with everything then an upgraded hd version of "plus"? 

Or is it all the same? 

Has any of this been quantitatively tested by any tech gurus out there?

Also - Are there any warranty implications for upgrading to 3TB, or anything else I may not be thinking of? 

Thanks so much for your help.


----------



## ggieseke

daytraderjo said:


> I am new and am Looking to buy my first tivo.
> 
> I am Looking at either a roamio plus (1TB) or roamio pro (3TB). (Plus 2 Mini's)
> I would definitely purchase lifetime service, and get the extra 3 yr warranty.
> (If it matters, I Would be using the PC software and ipad)
> 
> I have read a bunch of posts but was looking for confirmation from a veteran, or perhaps someone can lead me to another link....
> 
> Aside from extra storage, is there any difference/benefit in purchasing the stock roamio pro (3TB)vs. roamio plus (1TB), except for the extra included storage on the roamio pro?
> 
> Would the "stock" version of "plus" work more seamlessly then an upgraded "plus"? Ie...Will a better hd give better performance?
> 
> Would the "pro" work more seamlessly with everything then an upgraded hd version of "plus"?
> 
> Or is it all the same?
> 
> Has any of this been quantitatively tested by any tech gurus out there?
> 
> Also - Are there any warranty implications for upgrading to 3TB, or anything else I may not be thinking of?
> 
> Thanks so much for your help.


You will bust the warranty by upgrading, but if something bad happens TiVo usually turns a blind eye if you stick the factory drive back in and let it call home before calling them. YMMV.

Other than the drive size there is no difference between a Plus and a Pro.


----------



## daytraderjo

Thanks, I guess I'll get a pro. I mean plus. Ehhhhh. Pro. I think. Lol.


----------



## ej42137

You might think about getting a Plus and replacing the HD with a 4 TB drive from either Weaknees or DVR_GUY. I've done that twice now and I've very happy to have the extra space.


----------



## elborak

Random User 7 said:


> it would work but the wd30eurx is considered better because of the extra year warranty and is av-gp drive.


The extra year warranty is without a doubt better. There are various opinions but no true consensus as to whether the AV designation is really of any value.

It all depends on how much of a price premium the AV drive is commanding.


----------



## aaronwt

ej42137 said:


> You might think about getting a Plus and replacing the HD with a 4 TB drive from either Weaknees or DVR_GUY. I've done that twice now and I've very happy to have the extra space.


I wish he sold a 4TB drive for the Roamio pro. But he only has them for the Roamio Plus and Roamio Basic.

I do wish now that I had bought the Roamio Plus instead of the Roamio Pro last year.


----------



## Diana Collins

I would think there is no difference between the Plus and Pro in this case...they probably don't list the Pro since it is a very expensive way to add only 1 more TB. Weaknees is supposed to offer a 6TB upgrade soon (for *only* $450).


----------



## Cavar

Diana Collins said:


> Weaknees is supposed to offer a 6TB upgrade soon (for *only* $450).


I got an email about the 6TB and 12TB upgrade are now shipping.


----------



## Random User 7

What makes weaknees's drives better than drives you buy from anywhere else?


----------



## nooneuknow

As I posted in the DIY thread, I figured this had a good place here, as well:



nooneuknow said:


> For those who may be tempted to take WK using the WD Purple as a reason to buy one for DIY, you'd be better off with a Red. They also go to 6TB and are AV drives (support the ATA AV streaming command set extensions), not that it necessarily matters, since TiVo doesn't use them).
> 
> Purple rated workload: 60TB/yr
> Red rated workload: 120-140TB/yr
> 
> Both drives are for NAS (thus have TLER/ERC, which can be a detriment on a non-RAID controller). But, the Purple is designed specifically for motion-activated surveillance, not true 24x7 (unless you count idle time as 24x7). Since TiVo can't do RAID, you can't just add more drives, to meet the TB/yr workload, as WD expects, if you exceed it with one drive. The rating is per drive.
> 
> If you can wait to buy, sales on the Red NAS are frequent, often coming very close to the regular price of a Purple. Obviously, WK is going to go with what they can always get for the lowest cost, to increase their margins, and only cares that the drive last as long as the WK warranty.
> 
> I've done the math, and 4-tuner TiVos can easily exceed 60TB/yr, unless you don't record in HD. Don't forget that all tuners are always buffering, which still counts towards this, and 6-tuner TiVos insure there's no (logical) way to not exceed the workload rating.
> 
> For telemark's sake, and his thread, I won't go into details about what I found out about, through experience, with TLER/ERC drives, used in TiVos (I use WD Red). It seems to take a "perfect storm" of conditions to bite you, which is why I'm trying to just keep it as a footnote to everything else (and have not stopped using Red drives).
> 
> ETA: WD still only considers the AV-GP as the proper drive for non-RAID DVR/PVR use. You will not be able to get assistance from them, if you try to, for other drives. While their warranty terms clearly state the warranty is only valid for intended drives for intended use, getting warranty RMAs for other drives has not yet been reported as an issue (which they could start enforcing, and change that, at any time).


Of course, to some, it might sound like I'm saying AV-GP (or other "AV") drives offer nothing more over a plain "green". A year longer warranty is one thing it does, while the rest of what makes it an AV-drive can't be proven as a benefit for TiVo use. That just leaves the 24x7 "rating", which is seen as more of a blessing, than a rating, to some (or a vast storage industrial complex marketing conspiracy to others).

Until the day comes that I see a factory-fresh TiVo come with something other than an AV-GP (or the Seagate equivalent of it), I can't help but think that if TiVo felt they had nothing to lose by going with something different, that they would have (every penny of cost per unit matters to them).

I'm not saying that those who are happy with other drives, and have yet to have any problems, are intentionally misleading anybody with their success and satisfaction reports. But, many of such reports are from experience with their older, fewer tuner, TiVos and/or experience limited to the time they have had them in a Roamio, considering they haven't even been on the market long enough for anybody to say they have passed more than 1-1/2 years of operation, and not everybody even bought (and upgraded) theirs that long ago.

The jury is still out, as there is insufficient evidence to convict or acquit, on the suitability of drives not used by TiVo themselves, for the Roamios.


----------



## BuffaloDenny

Random User 7 said:


> it would work but the wd30eurx is considered better because of the extra year warranty and is av-gp drive.


How about the EURS?


----------



## nooneuknow

BuffaloDenny said:


> How about the EURS?


Older model w/3Gb (SATA-II) max drive-to-host rate, versus 6Gb (SATA-III). For TiVo use, no difference, whatsoever, at all, in any context, other than any EURS drive you buy will be new-old-stock, and the warranty will be shortened, if not bought from a WD authorized distributor/reseller.

Why no difference? All TiVos set the connection to SATA-I spec of 1.5Gb, or 150MB/s, and then only operate at 133MB/s, which is right around the average max sequential R/W speed of 5400/5900 RPM drives, anyway.


----------



## BuffaloDenny

Thanks for quick reply - only about a $20 premium on the EURX on Amazon right now.

Is the EZRX a decent alternative?


----------



## nooneuknow

BuffaloDenny said:


> Thanks for quick reply - only about a $18 premium on the EURX on Amazon right now.
> Is the EZRX a decent alternative?


The same warranty issues can happen with even the newest model, if not purchased through a WD authorized distributor/reseller.

WD will honor their warranty starting from the date of purchase, if authorized. If not, they go by the S/N and mfg date, as the start date of the warranty.

I've seen a few claims that make it sound like WD might not honor the warranty at all, if purchased through an unauthorized middleman, even if the drive is new in sealed bag. I can not confirm, nor deny these claims. I do know it is in the fine print of the warranty that WD can do so, making it a possibility.

Unlike most, I register my hard drives with WD before I even open the bag, to confirm the warranty. As another benefit, this locks your warranty in-place, and any changes to warranty terms/enforcement are less likely to affect you later. If you don't use the drive, but register it, then you've started the clock on the warranty. This only matters if you opt to sell a drive you didn't ever use.

If the EURS is from an authorized reseller, $18 is a big savings.

The EZRX is a plain green drive with 2yr warranty, versus 3yr, and is not an AV drive, nor "24x7 rated" but will "work". I've used them in the past, but only on 2-tuner TiVos. Others use them. I wouldn't recommend them, at this point. I'm sure others will. See my post a few posts back for more on this.


----------



## nooneuknow

A few notes about buying on Amazon:

Unless the drive is sold and shipped by Amazon, you must verify the party/shop/reseller simply using Amazon to list the drive is WD authorized, if you want to be sure you get a full warranty (or possibly any warranty at all).

I also made some heavy edits/adds to my last post, as there were changes made to the post I was replying to (the EZRX question).


----------



## ThAbtO

If you should get a warranty replacement drive from Western Digital, there is a chance they will not send you another green drive replacement. I had done the WD warranty on 2 1tb green drives and got back a 2tb black and a 1tb (forget which drive) in return.


----------



## nooneuknow

ThAbtO said:


> If you should get a warranty replacement drive from Western Digital, there is a chance they will not send you another green drive replacement. I had done the WD warranty on 2 1tb green drives and got back a 2tb black and a 1tb (forget which drive) in return.


Sounds like a valid additional reason to buy AV-GP, as the drive is application specific, much more so than most (consumer) drives, like "plain" green EZRZ (and earlier models of such drives). The possibility of WD sending you anything other than an AV-rated drive should be reduced, from both a logical and technical perspective. The possibility of getting a higher-performance drive, unsuitable for TiVo use, should also be reduced.

Sending in a "plain" Green or Blue drive, and getting a Black, is within the terms of WD's warranty, in the "equal or greater capacity/capability" part.

Some applications/devices require AV drives, and will not work with non-AV drives. So, the "worst" that should happen, if you buy AV-GP, is you send in an EURS and get an EURX, which is technically better, but really makes no difference, for a TiVo, or a PVR/DVR system that only accepts AV drives.


----------



## hotoru

I have Romeo with lifetime. Anyone have problems getting box to reactivate lifetime after HDD upgrade? Any problem getting charter cable card to re-pair after upgrade? Tips?
Thanks,
Hotoru

I am sorry if this has already been addressed. I scanned the thread but could not slog through 1500 posts.


----------



## nooneuknow

hotoru said:


> I have Romeo with lifetime. Anyone have problems getting box to reactivate lifetime after HDD upgrade? Any problem getting charter cable card to re-pair after upgrade? Tips?
> Thanks,
> Hotoru
> 
> I am sorry if this has already been addressed. I scanned the thread but could not slog through 1500 posts.


Lifetime service continuity will not be an issue, at all.

You will have to re-pair your cablecard, if in a cable market where an unpaired card causes loss of channels, PPV, or on-demand services (most markets are this way). How hard, or easy, the re-pair will be is often a roll of the dice, and there are threads specific to providers and markets, where you can find out more on that matter (not really what this thread is for).


----------



## nooneuknow

WD has some early "Black Friday/Cyber Monday" sales going on, for those on their mailing list. Let me know if these links work, or not, for anybody else. The 1TB WD My Book AV DVR Expander is $69.99, with free shipping & extended 60-day return period, using promo code WDCYBERSALE (through online WD store only), through Dec. 1st.

http://archives.subscribermail.com/msg/da64997352284be6aa9beb6f30de375e.htm

http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdus/ContentTheme/pbPage.Promotions_US_2nd


----------



## Random User 7

Lowest price I've seen in the 3TB AV-GP $118.29 http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI


----------



## nooneuknow

Random User 7 said:


> Lowest price I've seen in the 3TB AV-GP $118.29 http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI


Newegg had them on shellshocker deals for $114.99 w/free 3-day shipping, a while back (over 6 months ago).

This is the closest to that, I've seen since then, and it's sold and shipped by Amazon, for $118.29 w/Prime. No doubts about warranty to worry about, and less reports of DOAs with any hard drives, compared to Newegg (their handling of the drives in the path to individually packing bulk drives seems to be damaging them before they arrive in some of the best packaging I have ever seen).

If you've been waiting for the best price, from a WD authorized reseller, this is likely to be it (for a while).


----------



## TexasGrillChef

This thread is all over the place and so long! With topics going all over the place...
I am so throughly confused...

Can't stand it when threads get so long... 76 pages.. geez! I don't have time to read through 76 pages! ugg

Just need a simple answer now that the romio has been out a while, on upgrading the internal drive!

lol

TGC


----------



## ThAbtO

TexasGrillChef said:


> Just need a simple answer now that the romio has been out a while, on upgrading the internal drive!


Simply drop and load the drive into a Roamio, no PC required. Cable cards still need to be paired again.


----------



## TexasGrillChef

ThAbtO said:


> Simply drop and load the drive into a Roamio, no PC required. Cable cards still need to be paired again.


How do you get the TiVo OS onto the drive? Without buying one from Weaknees.com

TGC


----------



## nooneuknow

TexasGrillChef said:


> This thread is all over the place and so long! With topics going all over the place...
> I am so throughly confused...
> Can't stand it when threads get so long... 76 pages.. geez! I don't have time to read through 76 pages! ugg
> Just need a simple answer now that the romio has been out a while, on upgrading the internal drive! lol TGC


I don't see you asking for that, in the recent posts here. You make it sound like you already asked, but didn't get a straight answer. Geez! I can't stand it when people do that! Ugg... You didn't even make a specific inquiry in the post I just quoted. It's so vague, with no indication of what size, brand/model of drive, or any other factors you may be considering, and could have provided, that could help me give you a straight, and short, answer! lol

ETA:


TexasGrillChef said:


> How do you get the TiVo OS onto the drive? Without buying one from Weaknees.com TGC


That's in the first few posts of this terrible thread. I should have psychically known you wanted to know that, and wouldn't even read them, just due to the 76 pages factor!

Up to 3TB, the Roamio does it all for you. 4TB has a thread on a DIY method, that takes some prep work.


----------



## ThAbtO

TexasGrillChef said:


> How do you get the TiVo OS onto the drive? Without buying one from Weaknees.com
> 
> TGC


You don't. Its already in the Roamio itself. Out of the box, the drive is blank and is setup upon powering it on for the 1st time.


----------



## rickydee

Will the new OS allow one to install a 6TB drive internally now? Does there still need to be any mods? Anyone have any info on using a 6TB drive now without going via weaknees?


----------



## telemark

If you put in a 6TB into a 20.4.5c Roamio, it will no long crash / reboot, but it'll only give you something like 3TB worth of storage.

If you write the 4TB image to a 6TB drive it should at least give you 4TB instead of the 3TB.


----------



## TexasGrillChef

nooneuknow said:


> I don't see you asking for that, in the recent posts here. You make it sound like you already asked, but didn't get a straight answer. Geez! I can't stand it when people do that! Ugg... You didn't even make a specific inquiry in the post I just quoted. It's so vague, with no indication of what size, brand/model of drive, or any other factors you may be considering, and could have provided, that could help me give you a straight, and short, answer! lol
> 
> ETA:
> 
> That's in the first few posts of this terrible thread. I should have psychically known you wanted to know that, and wouldn't even read them, just due to the 76 pages factor!
> 
> Up to 3TB, the Roamio does it all for you. 4TB has a thread on a DIY method, that takes some prep work.


Duh silly me, sorry. Guess it was the stress of thanksgiving and Black Friday lol....

So ok... As I understand it... Up to 3tb I just drop a blank UNFORMATED drive into it, and the romio does the rest for me. If I want to use a 4tb drive or a 6tb drive then it requires some additional steps?

Now I have a premiere unit, that I upgraded the drive on. During that process it copy all of the copy protected shows from the old drive to the new drive, as well as expanding the new drive. So I didn't loose any of the recordings from HBO showtime etc.... Now is there a way to do that same thing from the premier to the romio? Either the romio drive that came with the romio or even the 3tb drive I want to put in it?

Tgc


----------



## TexasGrillChef

telemark said:


> If you put in a 6TB into a 20.4.5c Roamio, it will no long crash / reboot, but it'll only give you something like 3TB worth of storage.
> 
> If you write the 4TB image to a 6TB drive it should at least give you 4TB instead of the 3TB.


So what is weakness doing t get the full 6tb out of the drive?

Also am a correct in thinking the romio plus comes with a 1tb drive?


----------



## jmbach

Pre-formatting the drive like telemark did with the 4TB community image before placing it in the TiVo. 
Currently there is no way to copy and expand a Roamio image. Not that it cannot be done but the tools to do it have not been created yet.


----------



## Random User 7

Random User 7 said:


> Lowest price I've seen in the 3TB AV-GP $118.29 http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI


Dropped again to $116+


----------



## ThAbtO

WD Red 3 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD30EFRX 
$109.99 Prime


----------



## Teeps

If this has been asked & answered, please accept my apology in advance.
I would like to know if the Roamio basic will expand a larger drive that was cloned from the original smaller drive?
(Need the basic to record OTA)


----------



## ej42137

Teeps said:


> If this has been asked & answered, please accept my apology in advance.
> I would like to know if the Roamio basic will expand a larger drive that was cloned from the original smaller drive?
> (Need the basic to record OTA)


Apology accepted. I'd rag on you for not searching the forums, but the searching here doesn't work very well so you get a pass for that.

I'm afraid the answer is not what you want to hear; it doesn't work like that.


----------



## fred2

Teeps said:


> If this has been asked & answered, please accept my apology in advance.
> I would like to know if the Roamio basic will expand a larger drive that was cloned from the original smaller drive?
> (Need the basic to record OTA)


If I understand the question - from what I've read, you cannot "save" drive contents directly to a proposed new, larger drive. You take any drive (formatted or NOT) put it in the Roamio Basic (and the other snazzier ones) and as long as it is 3T bytes or less, Roamio will prepare it and ERASE anything that was on it. After that initialization, you are good to go. Larger than 3T needs special process(es).

I don't believe you can clone/copy a smaller drive's contents to a larger drive and use it with those saved contents.


----------



## eelton

Same price on Newegg, plus you can get $10 off for using Visa Checkout using promotion code NAFVC10.



ThAbtO said:


> WD Red 3 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD30EFRX
> $109.99 Prime


----------



## Teeps

ej42137 said:


> Apology accepted. I'd rag on you for not searching the forums, but the searching here doesn't work very well so you get a pass for that.
> 
> I'm afraid the answer is not what you want to hear; it doesn't work like that.


Thanks for the answer. And you're correct, not what I wanted to hear; but it is what it is.

After reading 25 pages in this thread I was getting nauseous.
So figured I'd compose a succinct question and hope for the best.



fred2 said:


> If I understand the question - from what I've read, you cannot "save" drive contents directly to a proposed new, larger drive. You take any drive (formatted or NOT) put it in the Roamio Basic (and the other snazzier ones) and as long as it is 3T bytes or less, Roamio will prepare it and ERASE anything that was on it. After that initialization, you are good to go. Larger than 3T needs special process(es).
> 
> I don't believe you can clone/copy a smaller drive's contents to a larger drive and use it with those saved contents.


Thanks for your consideration and insights.


----------



## sangahm

lessd said:


> In my experience one can use any drive except the ones over 7200RPM, the best is any 5400RPM drive, (or green drive) and any color will work for a TiVo, its all about marking and hard drive warranty, most people will get, on the low end, 4 to 5 years on a drive and some people have reported getting up to 7 years or more. I have an old Series 2 from 2005 that I stopped using in 2011, it still works and has over 6 years on a upgraded PATA drive made in 2005, newer drives are better.


FWIW, I just installed the WD20PURX into my Premiere this past weekend and it looks good so far.

I'll report back in 7 years, or sooner if it craps out before then.


----------



## nooneuknow

sangahm said:


> FWIW, I just installed the WD20PURX into my Premiere this past weekend and it looks good so far.
> 
> I'll report back in 7 years, or sooner if it craps out before then.


At a 60TB/yr workload rating, I'd estimate sooner, rather than later.

WD Red has a 120-140TB/yr rating, and same length warranty, and is also an "AV" drive with a green power profile.


----------



## nooneuknow

I just wrapped up a two-day long search for *ANY* reference, whatsoever, that the AV-GP in the EURX family has an EOL or "end of life" designation. Aside from the false claims made on TCF, and a few false positives, which closer investigation revealed to be the fault of the search engines, *there was none, whatsoever.*

It exists in sizes up to 4TB, in the EURX AV-GP family.

Newegg doesn't call it EOL, but puts up a banner that says "A newer version of this item is available" & "Click here to find the newer model", which redirects to the PURX Purple drives. This is causing marketplace resellers to also incorrectly make claims the Purple PURX is the newer model, with reports of people paying the price for an AV-GP, and instead getting a Purple (getting fleeced, as the Purple is cheaper to buy, for the reseller, and a profit margin fattener for the likes of Weaknees).

While the WD40EURX AV-GP (now officially renamed WD "AV", losing the "-GP", as part of the product refresh cycle) drives can be bought from all the major resellers. This will likely cause some confusion. http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800015.pdf

I did find a few references to the EUR*S* ones being EOL designated, as well as many of the even older ones that would obviously be EOL.

This same research located many references to compatibility lists for many DVR/PVR/NVR products, which specify AV-GP drives belong in single drive devices, and should *not* be used in those with RAID capabilities, while the Purple/Red drives are listed as the only acceptable drives for those with RAID capabilities, also stating the AV-GP drives should not be used in them (flat-out stated as incompatible/unsupported).

I hate starting new threads. But, I truly believe this misinformation, started by Newegg, getting unwarranted validation by WK, and leading to false proclamations of EOL status for EURX AV-GP drives, needs to be addressed, in a manner better than playing TCF whack-a-mole, across many threads.


----------



## JWhites

EURS is SATA 3 Gb/s and EURX is SATA 6 Gb/s. Makes sense for WD to move to just SATA 6Gb/s as the industry shifts towards faster speeds.


----------



## nooneuknow

JWhites said:


> EURS is SATA 3 Gb/s and EURX is SATA 6 Gb/s. Makes sense for WD to move to just SATA 6Gb/s as the industry shifts towards faster speeds.


The whole point of my checking, are the false reports on TCF (spreading around many threads) that the AV-GP EUR*X* is slated for EOL, and the incorrect Newegg redirect on the AV-GP EUR*X*, to the *Purple* PURX.

I didn't say the EUR*S* isn't at EOL designation.

I'm trying to prevent people from believing Newegg's click-bait redirect away from the AV-GP, touting the *Purple* as a newer version of it. That's false. I'm also trying to set the record straight on TCF, as I've seen a record number of *Purple* drive mentions, as what people bought, to upgrade their TiVos, in just a few days. I worry that they believed Newegg's false redirect. One specifically mentioned they were told by the reseller, that the *Purple* was the new AV-GP, as the AV-GP (whole line) had been EOL'd. That's not true.

I've spoken with WD three times now, and they say the AV-GP line will continue on, and the *Purple* is in a different class, not intended for use on non-RAID hosts. TiVo is not an approved use of the *Purple*. To muddy things more, Weaknees has switched to using *Purple*s.

*Purple*s sell for cheaper than AV-GP, giving WK a fatter profit on their sales of upgraded TiVos and upgrade kits.

*ETA:* I promise to stick this post onto my foot, then place it in my mouth, should the day come I see a TiVo-supplied TiVo, with a *Purple* PURX drive inside. If the AV-GP line came to an end, I'd bet on TiVo going exclusively with Seagate equivalents (or use another brand's equivalents), rather than use the *Purple* .

*ETA2:* *NEWS: WD renames "AV-GP" line of drives to "AV".* http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800015.pdf


----------



## CoxInPHX

nooneuknow said:


> While the WD40EURX AV-GP drives can be bought from all the major resellers, WD has not updated their own documents to include it in the AV-GP family list, yet.


Isn't it listed here:
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800015.pdf


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> You quoted my pointing-out of that (see part now in red, and underlined).
> 
> While the WD40EURX AV-GP drives can be bought from all the major resellers, *WD has not updated their own documents to include it in the AV-GP family list, yet.*


 That was his point. They have. The WD40EURX _*is*_ in the WD list of AV-GP drives. In fact, it is the _*first*_ one in the list.


----------



## nooneuknow

lpwcomp said:


> That was his point. They have. The WD40EURX _*is*_ in the WD list of AV-GP drives. In fact, it is the _*first*_ one in the list.


*NEWS: WD renames "AV-GP" line of drives to "AV".*

I just figured it out: *There are TWO PDFs now*.

One PDF is for *"AV-GP"*, which only goes to *3TB* (first in list)

The second one is for *"AV"*, includes 4TB (first in list) which is the new name for the product refresh cycle. *They dropped the "-GP".*
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800015.pdf

I guess *"AV"* sounds sportier that *"AV-GP"*. This is further proof that they are refreshing the line.

*From new PDF:*
WD AV (formally WD AV-GP) SATA hard drives store more
hi-def audio and video than ever before - up to 4 TB. They
are optimized with SilkStream™
technology to capture data
from up to 16 simultaneous HD video streams. With 24x7
operation, low temperature, and best-in-class reliability,
WD AV hard drives are ideal for DVR/PVR and IPTV
applications. 3-year limited warranty

I doubt it will bring anything good to the discussions here, likely more confusion, than anything, like was just demonstrated.


----------



## appleye1

Got a new Roamio Plus today (PLS). I have also already ordered the cable card and tuning adapter but before installing the cable card I planned to drop a new drive in it. (I have a new WD30EURX AV-GP waiting.) Im trying to figure out what the best sequence to follow. Here are the tasks in my best guess at the order.


Activate and setup Roamio. (Flyer in box says activation is already done but we'll see.)
Install new hard drive.
Install cable card/tuning adapter.
Enjoy.
I think that's everything but I wonder about the best way to sequence it. From what I've read it seems that I should do it in that order but I have concerns. One is possible warranty issues as I haven't even taken the unit out of the shipping box yet. If I install the HD too early and then find out the Roamio is DOA that wouldn't be good. But I have read that its a good idea to install the drive before installing the cable card as that will save some time in re-pairing. (Which is a concern as Cox Cable here is not great at getting that done efficiently.) I should also mention that I am getting a new cable card rather than swapping in my current one because I plan to keep my Premiere unit with lifetime running as it is.

Thanks!


----------



## Catul

appleye1 said:


> I think that's everything but I wonder about the best way to sequence it. From what I've read it seems that I should do it in that order but I have concerns. One is possible warranty issues as I haven't even taken the unit out of the shipping box yet. If I install the HD too early and then find out the Roamio is DOA that wouldn't be good.


I had similar concerns - just received my new Roamio Plus and a WD30EURX yesterday. Decided to just open it up without powering it on, install the new 3Tb drive, then go through Guided Setup etc. Took a couple of hours for everything (including installing the new Service Update) but it was a breeze.

Small risk about the DOA, but I think it's cleaner/easier this way.


----------



## fred2

appleye1:

I am OTA but I did activate and setup everything before installing the drive. That way I knew the roamio basic worked, then put in the new 3t drive. But then I had to take another hour (it probably took that long to tune channels, get the info from tivo) or so to get everything setup again. Just some time but still tedious doing it all twice in about 3 hours.


----------



## Random User 7

appleye1 said:


> If I install the HD too early and then find out the Roamio is DOA that wouldn't be good. But I have read that its a good idea to install the drive before installing the cable card as that will save some time in re-pairing. (Which is a concern as Cox Cable here is not great at getting that done efficiently.) I should also mention that I am getting a new cable card rather than swapping in my current one because I plan to keep my Premiere unit with lifetime running as it is.
> 
> Thanks!


You can always pop the old drive back in. I believe there is not intruder tape on these if I remember correctly.


----------



## nooneuknow

Random User 7 said:


> You can always pop the old drive back in. I believe there is not intruder tape on these if I remember correctly.


There isn't. But, the TiVo identifies the drive, and logs it internally, as well as in the logs that get sent to TiVo with every TiVo Service connection.

If TiVo ever was to start enforcing the TOS/UA, that everybody agrees to, upon activation, they can tell if any drive changes have been made, and deny any support and/or warranty services.

As it stands, warranty has not been denied, unless somebody is dumb enough to state they have changed the drive (which has led to denial of warranty service), or a non-stock drive is installed when requesting warranty service (sometimes they catch this, sometimes they don't).

More common, is denial of support, for an TiVo with a non-stock drive installed. All it takes is a CSR at a tier capable of pulling up your logs, and spotting it.

Some will always just say "No worries, just make sure you put the original drive back in before sending it back, and everything will be fine". This has not always been 100% true, and TiVo could crack down at any time they like, without changing the TOS/UA. Every now and then, somebody reports denial of warranty and/or support, only to have others here post that they must have done something really dumb to get caught, like disclosing they tampered with the TiVo, or changed the drive.

Any unauthorized service, repair, upgrading, tampering, and so on, is grounds for a voided warranty, and denial of support services, under the TOS/UA.

If you change the drive, ever want to participate in beta testing (insert joke here about retail customers already being the beta testers) or "field trials", you are disqualified from participating, and TiVo will check for a drive change. Long ago, TiVo used to actually encourage those with non-stock drives to participate.

*Short version:* Changing the drive is a risk you should know the possible consequences of, before even opening the TiVo, and be aware that the reports of TiVo not caring if you change drives, are due to lax enforcement of the TOS/UA. If under TiVo warranty, it could be voided (and support services denied). If the warranty is over, you could still be denied support, especially if it moves up to the higher tier levels of support.


----------



## slowbiscuit

nooneuknow said:


> There isn't. But, the TiVo identifies the drive, and logs it internally, as well as in the logs that get sent to TiVo with every TiVo Service connection.
> 
> If TiVo ever was to start enforcing the TOS/UA, that everybody agrees to, upon activation, they can tell if any drive changes have been made, and deny any support and/or warranty services.
> 
> As it stands, warranty has not been denied, unless somebody is dumb enough to state they have changed the drive (which has led to denial of warranty service), or a non-stock drive is installed when requesting warranty service (sometimes they catch this, sometimes they don't).


aaronwt had the warranty denied after a drive upgrade a few years ago (Tivo saw the change, he didn't say anything), so there's no guarantee there either. It's never stopped me from doing an upgrade right after getting a new box, though, and my Plus is doing fine after I did a 2TB upgrade when I got it 6 months ago.


----------



## Jayboy3

I have one of the previous Western Digital My DVR Expanders ( 1TB external SATA drive), and it has worked great for years on an HD Tivo. Will this unit work with my Tivo Roamio, or do I have get the more recent "My Book" model?


----------



## DrewTivo

Random User 7 said:


> Lowest price I've seen in the 3TB AV-GP $118.29 http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI


$113.84 today.


----------



## DrewTivo

nooneuknow said:


> That's in the first few posts of this terrible thread. I should have psychically known you wanted to know that, and wouldn't even read them, just due to the 76 pages factor!
> 
> Up to 3TB, the Roamio does it all for you. 4TB has a thread on a DIY method, that takes some prep work.


Would be great if there were an FAQ thread for this, with as much relevant information as possible in the first post (with someone who updates it), including information like this, recommended HDDs for use, and tools needed.


----------



## DrewTivo

nooneuknow said:


> *Short version:* Changing the drive is a risk you should know the possible consequences of, before even opening the TiVo, and be aware that the reports of TiVo not caring if you change drives, are due to lax enforcement of the TOS/UA. If under TiVo warranty, it could be voided (and support services denied). If the warranty is over, you could still be denied support, especially if it moves up to the higher tier levels of support.


Not denying this risk exists, but my understanding of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act is that warranty coverage cannot be denied if you use third-party replacement parts unless those parts cause the damage requiring warranty coverage. Put more simply, if you install a third-party hard drive but the power supply dies (e.g.), and not because of the hard drive, Tivo can't deny you coverage for that (if it's otherwise covered).


----------



## lessd

DrewTivo said:


> Would be great if there were an FAQ thread for this, with as much relevant information as possible in the first post (with someone who updates it), including information like this, recommended HDDs for use, and tools needed.


The TiVo recommended hard drive(s) changes with time (new models of hard drives are introduced), size, cost, and (peoples) option, it is not fixed.


----------



## DrewTivo

lessd said:


> The TiVo recommended hard drive(s) changes with time (new models of hard drives are introduced), size, cost, and (peoples) option, it is not fixed.


Hence the suggestion for updating in the first post.

I realize there are several options, and even different views on what is best at a given time, but even a list of a few would be helpful.


----------



## Thos19

Are there any incompatibility issues regarding using a WD30EZRX. I realize the warranty is shorter...


----------



## uw69

DrewTivo said:


> Hence the suggestion for updating in the first post.
> 
> I realize there are several options, and even different views on what is best at a given time, but even a list of a few would be helpful.


+1


----------



## WVZR1

Received my "Plus" today with a 12August 2014 EURX and had a 3TB EURX 22October2014 waiting for the install. 10 -15 minutes with a T10 and T15 job done. Doing some rewiring and likely won't do a set-up until Thursday or Friday next week. I don't have any Comcast higher tiered add-ons so I'm expecting I'll have no M-card issues. Should I have the re-pairing of them seems to be much better understood by the providers these days.


----------



## DrewTivo

WVZR1 said:


> 10 -15 minutes with a T10 and T15 job done.


Question - photo on first post of thread says T8 and T10. Have they changed screws or is that post wrong? (Looks like Weeknees says T10, T15).


----------



## nooneuknow

DrewTivo said:


> Question - photo on first post of thread says T8 and T10. Have they changed screws or is that post wrong? (Looks like Weeknees says T10, T15).


Base model has a different case, and one T8 screw on the cover. The drive rail to case screws on all are T10, while the rail to drive screws are T15.

Some don't know the proper tool for the last one is a T15, and use a T10 (as long as the bit isn't worn, and the screws came from a "tight fit" batch). Some have use a T8 on the T10 ones, under the same variables.

If you are going to work on TiVos, you should have a T15, T10, and a T8 driver (or bits if using a multi-driver), and use the right ones for the job.


----------



## WVZR1

I posted the T10 & T15 assuming that maybe interested people would see that and maybe make sure they had the appropriate tools for the Plus. Good to see that it was noticed.

What might be very helpful and I've mentioned it before would be for someone to actually post a snapshot of the "BASE" cover retention clips so that there's less likely a chance someone demolishes the cover cosmetically attempting the removal. I watched a video with someone using a flat blade screwdriver as a "wrecking bar" attempting to remove it.


----------



## fred2

WVZR1 said:


> I posted the T10 & T15 assuming that maybe interested people would see that and maybe make sure they had the appropriate tools for the Plus. Good to see that it was noticed.
> 
> What might be very helpful and I've mentioned it before would be for someone to actually post a snapshot of the "BASE" cover retention clips so that there's less likely a chance someone demolishes the cover cosmetically attempting the removal. I watched a video with someone using a flat blade screwdriver as a "wrecking bar" attempting to remove it.


Sorry I did not think about it. I will say that it was not that hard but I was afraid that I was going to snap the plastic case trying to pry/free the top shell from the main chassis. I used a plastic pry tool. There were a few on each side and it did take a bit of force to separate the pieces.


----------



## ThAbtO

Jayboy3 said:


> I have one of the previous Western Digital My DVR Expanders ( 1TB external SATA drive), and it has worked great for years on an HD Tivo. Will this unit work with my Tivo Roamio, or do I have get the more recent "My Book" model?


It should work, and I think there is a limit on the size, up to 3TB total.

Be aware that if either drive fails, you will lose recordings since it was connected.


----------



## aaronwt

slowbiscuit said:


> aaronwt had the warranty denied after a drive upgrade a few years ago (Tivo saw the change, he didn't say anything), so there's no guarantee there either. It's never stopped me from doing an upgrade right after getting a new box, though, and my Plus is doing fine after I did a 2TB upgrade when I got it 6 months ago.


It's been over seven years now. It was when the TiVoHD was first launched in Summer 2007.

I see Newegg has the 6TB EZRX on sale for $228 with a code. WOuld that drive even work well in a TiVo if a 6TB could be used?
I plan on getting one to replace the Seagate 4TB drive in my KMTTG/TiVo Desktop PC. AT that good price I could get a second one if it could possibly be used in the TiVo in the short term future.


----------



## ThAbtO

Roamio can only handle up to 3TB without extra PC work, and I think up to 4 TB with a PC.
A Series 3 can only handle up to 2TB.


----------



## BrentOMatic

DrewTivo said:


> $113.84 today.


I just got a Roamio plus and installed this 3tb drive. Is this new 1tb I removed from the Plus good to go if I put it on eBay or does it have to be formatted? I did power on the Plus before installing the 3tb but did not record anything.


----------



## 1283

BrentOMatic said:


> I just got a Roamio plus and installed this 3tb drive. Is this new 1tb I removed from the Plus good to go if I put it on eBay or does it have to be formatted?


"Good to go" for what? What are you going to do if the TiVo breaks within the warranty period?


----------



## aaronwt

Yes. I wasn't sure if someone would have a DIY process to get 6TB anytime soon since Weaknees is now offering 6TB drives for the Roamios. I just went ahead and ordered one 6TB drive(for my KMTTG/TiVo Desktop PC) and ordered several of the 2TB EZRX drives to use in my first unRAID. I have a bunch of 1.5TB green drives that are many years old and I want to gradually replace them. 

I haven't purchased a WD drive in a very long time. I had been using Seagate drives the last few years. But my choice was refurb Seagate 2TB drives for $65 with a 90 day warranty or the 2TB WD drives for $75 with a 2 year warranty. I really liked those 5900 rpm seagate drives since I have used over a dozen for a few years with no issues. But you never know with the refurbs. Heck nowadays even with the new drives you never know what you will get.

Plus now I guess now I will have to disable the WDIDLE crap on the WD drives.


----------



## BrentOMatic

c3 said:


> "Good to go" for what? What are you going to do if the TiVo breaks within the warranty period?


Sell the 1tb I just pulled our of the new Roamio Plus in eBay.

If it breaks I suppose I would buy a new one.


----------



## delgadobb

BrentOMatic said:


> Sell the 1tb I just pulled our of the new Roamio Plus in eBay.
> 
> If it breaks I suppose I would buy a new one.


A simple formula many people wiser than myself would advocate here:

Hassle getting Roamio Plus back to original state if Tivo help needed *>* $$ gained by selling drive


----------



## DrewTivo

delgadobb said:


> A simple formula many people wiser than myself would advocate here:
> 
> Hassle getting Roamio Plus back to original state if Tivo help needed *>* $$ gained by selling drive


Yeah, what does a new equivalent drive cost? $55? After discount for not new/no warranty/ebay fees and time/hassle seems like it's just not worth selling.


----------



## DrewTivo

Question about general thinking/advice:

Just go ahead and upgrade the plus to 3TB upon purchase? Or is it a YMMV situation? My current 1TB Tivo HD has enough space for current recordings, although like anyone we tend to accumulate a bit . . .


----------



## ej42137

Here's my suggestion: Get 6TB from Weaknees right away; record almost everything that sounds interesting but don't watch it right away. Binge-watch those shows that you really like, and when something has been sitting out there unwatched for too long delete it without regret. You'll find yourself enjoying the TV you do watch more.


----------



## mattack

Seagate 8 TB drives will be under $300

http://www.seagate.com/products/ent...earline-storage/archive-hdd/?sku=ST5000AS0001

(Yes, I know we don't have any tools to use more than 4 TB, and built in formatting only does 3 TB..)


----------



## nooneuknow

mattack said:


> Seagate 8 TB drives will be under $300
> 
> http://www.seagate.com/products/ent...earline-storage/archive-hdd/?sku=ST5000AS0001
> 
> (Yes, I know we don't have any tools to use more than 4 TB, and built in formatting only does 3 TB..)


The power requirements for 8TB drives must be pretty high, unless they are using some serious spin-up staging. Even if they are, the time it might take could exceed how long the Roamio waits for the drive to say it's ready...

I'll have to find time to take a look into the link. I'm kind of busy these days...


----------



## elwaylite

Up to this point Ive been using my Roamio for downloads, but my Directv DVR just sucks with the AM21N tuner, so Im going back to OTA recording fully on the Roamio.

I was one of the early upgraders to a 2TB drive on my previous Roamio, so I'm going with the WD20EURX since it worked great last time. If it werent for ESPN, Id just drop Directv. I still may a year from now when my contract is up...


----------



## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> The power requirements for 8TB drives must be pretty high, unless they are using some serious spin-up staging. Even if they are, the time it might take could exceed how long the Roamio waits for the drive to say it's ready...
> 
> I'll have to find time to take a look into the link. I'm kind of busy these days...


7.5 watts if I remember correctly from reading the specs yesterday. That was for the 8TB and 6TB versions. The 5TB dropped lower but that was because it was using five platters instead of the six platters that the 6TB and 8TB drives use.. They still use a fair amount of more power than the WD drives.

Edit: yes the 5TB uses 5.5 watts while the 6TB and 8TB use 7.5 watts. The drives spin At 5900 rpm.


----------



## mattack

is 7.5 watts too much?


----------



## nooneuknow

mattack said:


> is 7.5 watts too much?


IMO, based on facts, it is too much for a base Roamio, without changing-out the wall-wart power source. The Plus/Pro, I just don't know (how much margin is there)...

Even my "green" Netgear router, with internal drive bay, comes with a 12V 5A power brick, and isn't designed for 7200RPM drives, and was designed for a max of 2TB (but has since had firmware allow some 3TB drives to work).

If I can find the time, I will try to ascertain just how much of the 12V 2A wall-wart should be reserved for the Tivo (alone, w/out drive), and what margin of reserve should never be compromised by a drive. All the electronics inside have an inrush factor, upon power being applied, not just the hard drive getting up to speed.

As tempting as it may seem, I'm not willing to plug a 5A brick into my base Roamios w/PLS, just to see how well the internals handle over 2x the amps of the stock wart, trying to both power-up the TiVo, plus spin-up a power-thirsty hard drive. TiVo has moved all but the inbound 12V to on-the-mainboard distribution, and regulation. The days of this all being done by the "power supply" ended around the time of the Premiere XL4/Elite.

If somebody else wants to try it, don't take this as me saying not to. I simply advise that any drive you use should not require the base-model wall-wart to be changed to anything greater than 3.0A (2.5A for those who want to feel like they aren't taking excessive risks).


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> IMO, based on facts, it is too much for a base Roamio, without changing-out the wall-wart power source. The Plus/Pro, I just don't know (how much margin is there)... Even my "green" Netgear router, with internal drive bay, comes with a 12V 5A power brick, and isn't designed for 7200RPM drives, and was designed for a max of 2TB (but has since had firmware allow some 3TB drives to work). If I can find the time, I will try to ascertain just how much of the 12V 2A wall-wart should be reserved for the Tivo (alone, w/out drive), and what margin of reserve should never be compromised by a drive. All the electronics inside have an inrush factor, upon power being applied, not just the hard drive getting up to speed. As tempting as it may seem, I'm not willing to plug a 5A brick into my base Roamios w/PLS, just to see how well the internals handle over 2x the amps of the stock wart, trying to both power-up the TiVo, plus spin-up a power-thirsty hard drive. TiVo has moved all but the inbound 12V to on-the-mainboard distribution, and regulation. The days of this all being done by the "power supply" ended around the time of the Premiere XL4/Elite. If somebody else wants to try it, don't take this as me saying not to. I simply advise that any drive you use should not require the base-model wall-wart to be changed to anything greater than 3.0A (2.5A for those who want to feel like they aren't taking excessive risks).


I'm pretty sure that a power supply with a higher amperage rating is OK to use for anything that needs and is spec'd at a lower amperage. (i.e. - using a 5A PS on a device that calls for say only 2A). The device will only draw what amperage it needs. The rating of the PS is it's max allowable, not what it's pushing to the device being powered by it.

It's the voltage rating that is key (12V, 5V, etc.) as well as at least meeting or exceeding the called for amps. For example if your device calls for 12V, 2A you can use a PS that's rated at 12V and anything 2 Amps and above (3,4,5A etc.) Just make sure the tip/ring polarities are correct.


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> I'm pretty sure that a power supply with a higher amperage rating is OK to use for anything that needs and is spec'd at a lower amperage. (i.e. - using a 5A PS on a device that calls for say only 2A). The device will only draw what amperage it needs. The rating of the PS is it's max allowable, not what it's pushing to the device being powered by it.
> 
> It's the voltage rating that is key (12V, 5V, etc.) as well as at least meeting or exceeding the called for amps. For example if your device calls for 12V, 2A you can use a PS that's rated at 12V and anything 2 Amps and above (3,4,5A etc.) Just make sure the tip/ring polarities are correct.


I'm not about to engage in one of your hair-splitting debates. I do agree that keeping the voltage the same, and insuring the polarity is correct, are no-brainers, on the matter. Beyond that, I don't agree with you (on the amperage of the wart/brick being open-ended, just because a properly working TiVo should only draw what it requires, not the whole amount).

If you think it's OK to just plug a 5A brick into your base Roamio, under an assumption that the internals were built to carry that much current, I invite you to find a high-performance 7200RPM hard drive, non-green, with non-staged spindle motor, install it into yours, plug the 5A brick in, and test it. If everything survives, test it a few more times, then report back. Even if you tested as I laid-out, and reported back w/out issues, I'd still advise others to go with only as much as need be, plus a small margin, for a drive of the type that should be used in a TiVo.

It's the responsible thing to do, to not just assume everything will be OK, not harming the TiVo internally (best case), not a fire hazard, just waiting to burn the house down (worst case), and remain that way, when *any number of events could happen that might pull all the amperage an overkill brick can provide.*

Might there be some internal protections against this? Sure. But, they will be SMD fusible links (not easy to replace), not necessarily there to protect the TiVo, but to prevent a fire. The main fuse in the base Roamio is within the wart, as opposed to in the PS inside TiVos with internal power supplies. TiVo skimped on the base-Roamio wart (but, this is likely by design), leaving only a slim margin left, as-is. But, since many of the drives used in upgrading use the same or less amps/watts as the factory drive, most have been fine with their stock warts (but, not all). Simple math can determine what alternate power brick to use, without going overkill.

Unless somebody is going to intentionally use a drive that doesn't fit the profile of what belongs in a TiVo, 2.5A has been golden for most so far (that have had power issues), and 3A hasn't been necessary (but, is reasonable for the drive that was questioned). If you do the math on the 500GB drives that come in the base-Roamios, both WD & Seagate, then look at the extra needed for the drive in question, there's no reason to just give it 5A, if 2.5 or 3A will do just fine.

You might have the background and expertise to get away with your now infamous component video arguments and endless hair-splitting. So be it. But, this is where my background is, is one of my areas of expertise, and is what I do. If you feel you must be right on this, please take it to the thread devoted to it, here: base Roamio power calculations / tests


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> I'm not about to engage in one of your hair-splitting debates. I do agree that keeping the voltage the same, and insuring the polarity is correct, are no-brainers, on the matter. Beyond that, I don't agree with you.
> [/URL]


If the brick (that comes with the TiVo) was say 2 amps and you used a 6 amp brick of the same voltage you would have to make sure that the voltage regulation is within limits of the TiVo, and the TiVo has no internal fuses that may be set too low for a 6 amp brick. If there was a internal problem and the TiVo was tested such that the 2 amp brick would not cause anything to burn up, and you put in a 6 amp brick, who knows. It most likely will work but you are going off the TiVo spec.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> If the brick (that comes with the TiVo) was say 2 amps and you used a 6 amp brick of the same voltage you would have to make sure that the voltage regulation is within limits of the TiVo, and the TiVo has no internal fuses that may be set too low for a 6 amp brick. If there was a internal problem and the TiVo was tested such that the 2 amp brick would not cause anything to burn up, and you put in a 6 amp brick, who knows. It most likely will work but you are going off the TiVo spec.


Exactly. If something should happen inside the TiVo, that results in it trying to pull more current than any internals are designed/rated to handle, you get a toasted TiVo. Even going .5 amps over stock wall-wart is increasing the risk factor, but likely to be within a built-in safety margin.

I have fried a fair amount of electronics by failing to insure more than just the voltage and polarity match. Part of the protection scheme in consumer electronics is a current-limited power supply. It's cheaper to mass-produce this way, and the customer's fault, if the customer uses a power supply that is capable of more current, before the power supply's internal overcurrent protection kicks in (and might not kick in, before the device it is plugged into is toast, if it even ever does kick in).


----------



## opus2

Tried searching for this but didn't find anything. I recently got a roamio from my cable co. and they set it up. I ordered a 3tb drive and installed it this week and got a message on screen saying the cable card needed to be activated by the cable co. or all proramming would end in 30 days. This was at the end of the setup process. I put the old drive back in and all is fine. I emailed the cable co about upgrades and they said they were not allowed other than external. I'm assuming there is no way for me to get the internal drive method to work?

I know most people here seem to be against the external drive but honestly if I loose the recordings it isn't a big deal to me. I have seen some people mention using a 3tb external drive. How do I do that? Will it recognize it just like it did when I put the 3tb drive in internally? I tried it last night with a esata case I had but it said it wasn't supported. The case is very old so I wasn't sure if it was a Tivo issue or an issue with my case.

Thanks for any help.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> I'm not about to engage in one of your hair-splitting debates. I do agree that keeping the voltage the same, and insuring the polarity is correct, are no-brainers, on the matter. Beyond that, I don't agree with you (on the amperage of the wart/brick being open-ended, just because a properly working TiVo should only draw what it requires, not the whole amount). If you think it's OK to just plug a 5A brick into your base Roamio, under an assumption that the internals were built to carry that much current, I invite you to find a high-performance 7200RPM hard drive, non-green, with non-staged spindle motor, install it into yours, plug the 5A brick in, and test it. If everything survives, test it a few more times, then report back. Even if you tested as I laid-out, and reported back w/out issues, I'd still advise others to go with only as much as need be, plus a small margin, for a drive of the type that should be used in a TiVo. It's the responsible thing to do, to not just assume everything will be OK, not harming the TiVo internally (best case), not a fire hazard, just waiting to burn the house down (worst case), and remain that way, when any number of events could happen that might pull all the amperage an overkill brick can provide. Might there be some internal protections against this? Sure. But, they will be SMD fusible links (not easy to replace), not necessarily there to protect the TiVo, but to prevent a fire. The main fuse in the base Roamio is within the wart, as opposed to in the PS inside TiVos with internal power supplies. TiVo skimped on the base-Roamio wart (but, this is likely by design), leaving only a slim margin left, as-is. But, since many of the drives used in upgrading use the same or less amps/watts as the factory drive, most have been fine with their stock warts (but, not all). Simple math can determine what alternate power brick to use, without going overkill. Unless somebody is going to intentionally use a drive that doesn't fit the profile of what belongs in a TiVo, 2.5A has been golden for most so far (that have had power issues), and 3A hasn't been necessary (but, is reasonable for the drive that was questioned). If you do the math on the 500GB drives that come in the base-Roamios, both WD & Seagate, then look at the extra needed for the drive in question, there's no reason to just give it 5A, if 2.5 or 3A will do just fine. You might have the background and expertise to get away with your now infamous component video arguments and endless hair-splitting. So be it. But, this is where my background is, is one of my areas of expertise, and is what I do. If you feel you must be right on this, please take it to the thread devoted to it, here: base Roamio power calculations / tests


Haha, here we go again! Am I doing something to you by just having a little knowledge that maybe you don't know? Is that threatening to you or something? Is your self esteem really that fragile, because EVERY thread where you're involved that I happen to nicely post a helpful comment, you come flying in with an attitude trying to defend something you may know nothing about apparently.

I think the electrical engineers and science would beg to differ with you, if you'd care to learn a little. "nooneuknow" or even I know is capable of knowing everything, including you.



> *"Choosing power supply, how to get the voltage and current ratings?*
> 
> Power supplies are available in a wide range of voltage and current ratings. If I have a device that has specific voltage and current ratings, how do those relate to the power ratings I need to specify? What if I don't know the device's specs, but am replacing a previous power supply with particular ratings?
> 
> Is it OK to go lower voltage, or should it always be higher? What about current? I don't want a 10 A supply to damage my 1 A device."
> 
> "Voltage Rating
> 
> If a device says it needs a particular voltage, then you have to assume it needs that voltage. Both lower and higher could be bad.
> 
> At best, with lower voltage the device will not operate correctly in a obvious way. However, some devices might appear to operate correctly, then fail in unexpected ways under just the right circumstances. When you violate required specs, you don't know what might happen. Some devices can even be damaged by too low a voltage for extended periods of time. If the device has a motor, for example, then the motor might not be able to develop enough torque to turn, so it just sits there getting hot. Some devices might draw more current to compensate for the lower voltage, but the higher than intended current can damage something. Most of the time, lower voltage will just make a device not work, but damage can't be ruled out unless you know something about the device.
> 
> Higher than specified voltage is definitely bad. Electrical components all have voltages above which they fail. Components rated for higher voltage generally cost more or have less desirable characteristics, so picking the right voltage tolerance for the components in the device probably got significant design attention. Applying too much voltage violates the design assumptions. Some level of too much voltage will damage something, but you don't know where that level is. Take what a device says on its nameplate seriously and don't give it more voltage than that.
> 
> *Current Rating
> 
> Current is a bit different. A constant-voltage supply doesn't determine the current: the load, which in this case is the device, does. If Johnny wants to eat two apples, he's only going to eat two whether you put 2, 3, 5, or 20 apples on the table. A device that wants 2 A of current works the same way. It will draw 2 A whether the power supply can only provide the 2 A, or whether it could have supplied 3, 5, or 20 A. The current rating of a supply is what it can deliver, not what it will always force thru the load somehow. In that sense, unlike with voltage, the current rating of a power supply must be at least what the device wants but there is no harm in it being higher. A 9 volt 5 amp supply is a superset of a 9 volt 2 amp supply, for example.
> 
> Replacing Existing Supply
> 
> If you are replacing a previous power supply and don't know the device's requirements, then consider that power supply's rating to be the device's requirements. For example, if a unlabeled device was powered from a 9 V and 1 A supply, you can replace it with a 9 V and 1 or more amp supply.*"...............
> 
> ............"The three main parameters for a power supply are:
> 
> voltage
> type of voltage: AC or DC
> current
> 
> If your device or broken wall wart says 9 V DC, get a 9 V DC replacement. The right voltage and type of voltage are important: a too high voltage may damage your device, a too low voltage too, though that's less common. But at a too low voltage it may not work properly.
> 
> *Get a power supply at minimum the rated current. If the device says 500 mA, get a power supply that can deliver at least that. A 100 mA wall wart may overheat and set your house on fire if not properly protected. A 1000 mA is safe, even if you only need 500 mA.
> 
> Olin explained with fruit, I'll try to explain with another flow: water. If my faucet can fill a bucket in a minute that's its maximum flow, or current. That's the 1000 mA the wall wart specifies. Yet I can open the faucet partly to fill my glass, and then I'm the 500 mA device. The faucet still can supply 10 liter per minute, but will supply less if I ask for less. I can ask for anything as long as it isn't more than the 10 liter per minute. If I want only a few drops to fill a thimble I'll be a 1 mA device. From a 1000 mA supply."*
> 
> This was referenced from here: http://electronics.stackexchange.co...ly-how-to-get-the-voltage-and-current-ratings


This isn't MY science so don't shoot the messenger like you have a habit of doing with me, should I happen to say something you don't know (OMG, is that even possible?!?!?!  ) or agree with.

Please call or ask ANY electrical engineer, don't reply back to me because you are unequivocally incorrect in this matter and this is all I will post on the subject in reply to you.

Happy Holidays!


----------



## Random User 7

HarperVision said:


> This isn't MY science so don't shoot the messenger like you have a habit of doing with me, should I happen to say something you don't know (OMG, is that even possible?!?!?!  ) or agree with.
> 
> Please call or ask ANY electrical engineer, don't reply back to me because you are unequivocally incorrect in this matter and this is all I will post on the subject in reply to you.
> 
> Happy Holidays!


Oh now you've gone and done it Mr Harper!:up:


----------



## elborak

HarperVision said:


> I'm pretty sure that a power supply with a higher amperage rating is OK to use for anything that needs and is spec'd at a lower amperage. (i.e. - using a 5A PS on a device that calls for say only 2A).


Unless my time as an EE major at CMU was totally wasted, this is generally correct.


----------



## HarperVision

elborak said:


> Unless my time as an EE major at CMU was totally wasted, this is generally correct.


Uh oh, now nooneuknow is going to come to your house and rip up your degree and transcripts!!!


----------



## elborak

HarperVision said:


> ... your degree and transcripts!!!


Not to mislead; I changed majors after a few years and now work in CS. So no EE degree, just several years of course work.

But that's largely beside the point. This is very basic stuff you learn freshman year (assuming you didn't already know it coming in). Heck, I learned more than that just by reading _Popular Electronics_ and building Heathkits in High School. Ah, back in the day when you could buy more than batteries, toys and cell phones at Radio Shack...

But we're swerving off-topic. So I'll bow out for now. This thread already has a pretty poor S/N ratio and I'll try not to degrade it further.


----------



## HarperVision

elborak said:


> Not to mislead; I changed majors after a few years and now work in CS. So no EE degree, just several years of course work.
> 
> But that's largely beside the point. This is very basic stuff you learn freshman year (assuming you didn't already know it coming in). Heck, I learned more than that just by reading _Popular Electronics_ and building Heathkits in High School. Ah, back in the day when you could buy more than batteries, toys and cell phones at Radio Shack...


HERETIC!!! 



elborak said:


> ....But we're swerving off-topic. So I'll bow out for now. This thread already has a pretty poor S/N ratio and I'll try not to degrade it further.


Agreed, even though the original reply was very much on topic where I corrected and posted that you can use a PS that at least met or exceeded it's current ratings.

I'm out too, until I notice another incorrect post that could confuse a new member or someone that may not know. Isn't that why we are all here, to assist people?


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> I know you feel I've been behaving as the thread police, when I have no right to (and I won't disagree that I can come across that way). You have stated as much before. I have tried to do better. But, I'm not shocked to see you taking this opportunity to try and take me down a notch.
> 
> The giveaway, in your post, is the "generally correct" you end on. You know that as long as nothing inside pulls more that any the internals can handle, it being safe to use a higher amperage source is "generally correct".
> 
> I know that you know, that the part you are deliberately skirting, is what can happen, should somebody overload the internals (by changing something), or some fault condition inside does, and the current limiting factor of the substitute power source been changed, too much, in the direction away from safety.
> 
> I'll spell it out:* I do understand that if I take a base-Roamio, pulling ~1.85A, from the 2.0A stock wart, as-is, and change that wart to a brick, rated at even 10A, the Roamio left as-is, will still only pull ~1.85A (inrush factors aside for this).*
> 
> Why I failed to spell this out before, or at least firmly acknowledge this much, eludes me. It seems to be the crux of all the argument and debate.
> 
> It is what can (and not just as a theoretical possibility) happen, should something be changed inside the TiVo, or something just goes wrong.
> 
> What do you expect to happen, should you intentionally short anything inside the TiVo, downstream of where the power comes in, with a stock 2.0A wart, versus a replacement brick of 5A (or greater) capacity? Might the TiVo still be damaged, requiring repair, with the stock PS? Yes. But, the extent of the damage, the risks of being unrepairable, and the risks of starting a fire, are all increased by every step up in the current available from the source.
> 
> This is why code does not allow us to (legally) just install a 15A power outlet onto the same circuit meant to run a 50A central air conditioner. Can one do so, if they are determined? Yes. But, they have just removed the primary protection afforded by using a proper 15A branch circuit (and 15A breaker). What makes this analogy fit here, is that code allows the use of 20A rated wire, so long as the breaker and outlet are of the 15A kind. I analogize this as the "margin of safety" I speak of, when I say it likely will be OK to add 0.5A of available current, as the internal traces are not going to be only good to 2.0A, and then vaporize, should 2.5A run through them. There does come a point in available amperage, where this is no longer "safe", should a user change, or fault condition, effectively create a short, or just an over-current condition.
> 
> I see you "bowed out" while I was typing this. I respect that, but have already spent the time to try and "make things right", as best I can, with this post. Stay bowed out, and we need not continue.
> 
> I will still continue to address other posts, from other members, if they choose to ask questions, or reasonably question the subject matter. Trying to separate power requirements from a thread devoted to upgrading hard drives, far beyond what TiVo intended (especially on the base Roamio), is not really feasible, especially when folks inquire about 8TB drives...


I agree, but *my understanding* is the "device" is what is supposed to have the protections built in (TiVo in this case) based on what it's specs are, not the external PS. So if the tivo is rated at 12V, 2A and something internal to it is caused to exceed that, then it is the job of the TiVo to protect itself and shut itself down. If it doesn't, then it's actually BETTER to have a higher rated PS as far as current is concerned because it can take the higher current being produced by the device (tivo), up to it's own rating (5, 10, 20A?) without frying and burning up at anything above the stock wal-wart of 2A, causing the house fire, etc you referenced.

elborak, I believe this is on topic since we are talking about the increased power needs of a Roamio when you add larger hard drives, which is the topic of this thread. Can you elaborate on this and let me know if my thoughts are correct please?

ADD: It's like having headroom on your speakers that exceeds the specs of your amp in case your amp goes haywire and it's voltage/current protections fail. Your expensive speakers would be saved annihilation if it has some headroom built in for it's amperage specs above and beyond the amp's ratings.


----------



## ThAbtO

opus2 said:


> Tried searching for this but didn't find anything. I recently got a roamio from my cable co. and they set it up. I ordered a 3tb drive and installed it this week and got a message on screen saying the cable card needed to be activated by the cable co. or all proramming would end in 30 days. This was at the end of the setup process. I put the old drive back in and all is fine. I emailed the cable co about upgrades and they said they were not allowed other than external. I'm assuming there is no way for me to get the internal drive method to work?
> 
> I know most people here seem to be against the external drive but honestly if I loose the recordings it isn't a big deal to me. I have seen some people mention using a 3tb external drive. How do I do that? Will it recognize it just like it did when I put the 3tb drive in internally? I tried it last night with a esata case I had but it said it wasn't supported. The case is very old so I wasn't sure if it was a Tivo issue or an issue with my case.
> 
> Thanks for any help.


I assume you are renting that Tivo from your CableCo? Unless you had bought it, you cannot modify "their" equipment. Besides, the cable card must be paired again.


----------



## lpwcomp

opus2 said:


> Tried searching for this but didn't find anything. I recently got a roamio from my cable co. and they set it up. I ordered a 3tb drive and installed it this week and got a message on screen saying the cable card needed to be activated by the cable co. or all proramming would end in 30 days. This was at the end of the setup process. I put the old drive back in and all is fine. I emailed the cable co about upgrades and they said they were not allowed other than external. I'm assuming there is no way for me to get the internal drive method to work?
> 
> I know most people here seem to be against the external drive but honestly if I loose the recordings it isn't a big deal to me. I have seen some people mention using a 3tb external drive. How do I do that? Will it recognize it just like it did when I put the 3tb drive in internally? I tried it last night with a esata case I had but it said it wasn't supported. The case is very old so I wasn't sure if it was a Tivo issue or an issue with my case.
> 
> Thanks for any help.


This is the first I've heard of a cable co offering a Roamio. Did you buy the Roamio or are you renting it? If the latter, I'm not sure why you thought you could modify it. If the former, then tell the cable co to re-pair the CableCARD.

As far as external drives are concerned, the only one officially supported by TiVo is the Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander. You can't just attach any eSata enclosure and have it work. weaKnees offers other options but you have to send the TiVo to them to get the eternal drive "married" to the TiVo.


----------



## telemark

I'm not a fan of hashing this topic in this thread (which is why I created a separate thread) because end users can't tell what's advice vs discussion and theory.

There's like two vocal views here. If you want a true answer, presumably the one that matters, then someone should map the Roamio Basic power circuit. If you can't trace a circuit and run a power calculation, maybe, don't give expert advice on what it does or doesn't already do. (whether we are experts, a lot of people here look to us like we are)

I haven't (analyzed the circuit) which is why I don't comment here.

Addendum:
I'm following my own advice and moved my technical comments to the power thread.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10340442#post10340442

If you want put an end to this quickly. I have an extra Roamio OTA.
For the $50 it cost me, I'll run 12V current through it until it catches fire.
$100 though if you want the 5V rail tested too, and the first Roamio is already incinerated


----------



## lpwcomp

One thing that hasn't been mentioned in the recent discussion about power requirements - a disk drive that uses more power generates more heat. This could be a serious problem, especially in a base model Roamio.


----------



## JoeKustra

lpwcomp said:


> One thing that hasn't been mentioned in the recent discussion about power requirements - a disk drive that uses more power generates more heat. This could be a serious problem, especially in a base model Roamio.


It is something to look at. For a device with external power, the area around the RF connector is pretty warm. It's a shame they didn't include the drive stats in the S.M.A.R.T. tests. My old Sony DHG was usually 20F above ambient and it also had an internal fan like the Roamio (but much bigger).


----------



## opus2

ThAbtO said:


> I assume you are renting that Tivo from your CableCo? Unless you had bought it, you cannot modify "their" equipment. Besides, the cable card must be paired again.


Yes, I'm renting. There is no "purchase" option. Same with the cable modem. I wanted to buy my own and they said no.


----------



## HarperVision

telemark said:


> .......... If you want put an end to this quickly. I have an extra Roamio OTA. For the $50 it cost me, I'll run 12V current through it until it catches fire. $100 though if you want the 5V rail tested too, and the first Roamio is already incinerated


See, that's what's not being understood here. It's not that the power supply is "pushing amps through" the Roamio or any device for that matter. The device "pulls" the amps it needs, which is why it's fine to use a PS that exceeds what is spec'd and needed by the device.


----------



## ThAbtO

opus2 said:


> Yes, I'm renting. There is no "purchase" option. Same with the cable modem. I wanted to buy my own and they said no.


You can buy your own Tivo, and upgrade the drive. You would buy it from a Retail outlet, such as Best Buy, or Amazon, not from your CableCo. You would still need to rent the cable card, have it paired, and when you upgrade the Tivo, the card needs to be paired again.Cable card data is pretty much saved to the drive. The rental cost would be lower, Tivo box Vs. the cable card.


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> See, that's what's not being understood here. It's not that the power supply is "pushing amps through" the Roamio or any device for that matter. The device "pulls" the amps it needs, which is why it's fine to use a PS that exceeds what is spec'd and needed by the device.


Could you possibly take some time way from spin-doctoring, word-twisting, nit-picking, splitting hairs, and putting words into others' mouths, to be bothered to back up your rhetoric here? http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10340442#post10340442

The dedicated thread on this has been politely suggested at least three times now, complete with link, from more than one member. He never once said anything about "pushing amps through". He referenced "running 12V current through". Rather than me clarifying on his behalf (which you'd never let be), why don't you please just go the the thread and have your duel at high-noon, if that's what you must have?

I sure hope you (come to) realize who you just treated like some everyday novice. Of all the people to disrespect, the member who brought us a FREE to all 4TB Roamio DIY upgrade solution, who has also sunk money into a variety of 6TB drives, just to work on a 6TB DIY solution, for the rest of us. He doesn't even need 4TB for himself, yet he provided it (and discovered some power issues along the way). Sometimes inactions and avoidance can speak louder than anything you could possibly say or do.



telemark said:


> Addendum:
> I'm following my own advice and moved my technical comments to the power thread.
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10340442#post10340442
> 
> If you want put an end to this quickly. I have an extra Roamio OTA.
> For the $50 it cost me, I'll run 12V current through it until it catches fire.
> $100 though if you want the 5V rail tested too, and the first Roamio is already incinerated


----------



## Bigg

What I guess I'm missing is why 6TB would be any different than 4TB in terms of formatting and setup? Once you're over the 3TB limit, aren't you over the limit?



nooneuknow said:


> IMO, based on facts, it is too much for a base Roamio, without changing-out the wall-wart power source. The Plus/Pro, I just don't know (how much margin is there)...


And why on earth would anyone put a 6TB or 8TB drive into a Base Roamio? Anyone who wanted to record that much would have a Plus/Pro, and OTA users don't have that much content to record in the first place (it's debatable whether you really need that much space for cable, but I could see situations where it would be nice to have, like the Olympics, and especially for FIOS users).


----------



## ThAbtO

Bigg said:


> And why on earth would anyone put a 6TB or 8TB drive into a Base Roamio? Anyone who wanted to record that much would have a Plus/Pro, and OTA users don't have that much content to record in the first place (it's debatable whether you really need that much space for cable, but I could see situations where it would be nice to have, like the Olympics, and especially for FIOS users).


For those who record everything and never delete.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> Could you possibly take some time way from spin-doctoring, word-twisting, nit-picking, splitting hairs, and putting words into others' mouths, to be bothered to back up your rhetoric here? http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10340442#post10340442 The dedicated thread on this has been politely suggested at least three times now, complete with link, from more than one member. He never once said anything about "pushing amps through". He referenced "running 12V current through". Rather than me clarifying on his behalf (which you'd never let be), why don't you please just go the the thread and have your duel at high-noon, if that's what you must have? I sure hope you (come to) realize who you just treated like some everyday novice. Of all the people to disrespect, the member who brought us a FREE to all 4TB Roamio DIY upgrade solution, who has also sunk money into a variety of 6TB drives, just to work on a 6TB DIY solution, for the rest of us. He doesn't even need 4TB for himself, yet he provided it (and discovered some power issues along the way). Sometimes inactions and avoidance can speak louder than anything you could possibly say or do.


Sometimes I swear I'm being punked by you with some of your completely insane, ignorant replies!

He DID reference "pushing amps through" because if you had a shred of basic electronics knowledge you'd know that him saying "running 12V *current* through" doesn't clarify a thing because the "V" stands for VOLTS and the measure of "current", which he clearly stated is, lo and behold.....AMPS! Also, He never clarified how many amps he was going to "run through", just the volts, and that is what the topic of the discussion is.

I'm not sure where you get the "disrespect" thing from??? All I did was clarify my point of view and the facts about how current/amps work. I'm sure he's a big boy and can fight his own battles if I happened to disrespect him in some way anyway. I don't think he needed the self esteem police to come protect him.

By the way, I was at work all day so couldn't just sit around reading threads. I planned to read it later and and join the discussions. I have only been popping in here, replying to posts like this one.

What is it about you? Have I done something? Why is it so hard for you to just admit something maybe you don't know, or have written wrong, even if inadvertently? All I have EVER done is try to share MY knowledge and what I know and can bring to the table. I don't come on here and post on things I don't understand. I leave that up to the people that have experience in the topic at hand, including YOU! I don't pop in and question your knowledge about Hard Drives, MoCA filters and splitters, etc. so why do you insist on fighting every thread of knowledge that I impart? I just don't get it!

I'll see you in the other thread, cowboy!


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> I'll see you in the other thread, cowboy!


Just in case it slips your mind, or you get distracted by something else, here's the place, again: base Roamio power calculations / tests

But, I'm deferring the side of the matter, which you refuse to acknowledge as valid, to somebody I recognize as more knowledgeable than me on this matter. You'll be presenting your arguments up against telemark. I'll be on the sidelines, just in case he needs an assist in wrangling you. Member elborak has already found his way there, and seems fine with the other side of the matter, as presented there.


----------



## Bigg

ThAbtO said:


> For those who record everything and never delete.


I just calculated, even if PBS picked up the regularity of some of their programming, I'd have to not delete anything from PBS for 7 years in order to fill up an OTA Basic's 8TB drive! Even with the 1/4 of the Olympics programming that's on OTA, it would still take 4 years. 

Now with cable, or even better, FIOS, I could just record every single bit of Olympic broadcasting, and still have room left over.  I guess I know what my next TiVo is going to be. 6TB Roamio Pro here I come!


----------



## DeltaOne

Posting without comment...thought the gang here might get a kick out of reading this. Came from another forum I frequent:

-----
_From what I've been told, I've done the unthinkable. I took a Samsung 840 series SSD and used it to replace the spinning hard drive in my Series 2 Tivo. The PVR allows you to pause and rewind live video, so the device is always recording to the drive. I've read on several different Tivo forums that it would ill advised to perform this sort of "upgrade." The unit has been in service with the SSD for about a year now, and I haven't noticed any severe performance deficit, even with recording programs daily with the system.

Considering the age of the operating systems used for the Tivo recorder, it's quite likely there's no TRIM setting as part of it, especially if it was originally intended for a spinning disc. If one were to consider this a worst case scenario for a SSD, I think that these drives are more durable than some might think._
-----


----------



## lessd

DeltaOne said:


> Posting without comment...thought the gang here might get a kick out of reading this. Came from another forum I frequent:
> 
> -----
> _From what I've been told, I've done the unthinkable. I took a Samsung 840 series SSD and used it to replace the spinning hard drive in my Series 2 Tivo. The PVR allows you to pause and rewind live video, so the device is always recording to the drive. I've read on several different Tivo forums that it would ill advised to perform this sort of "upgrade." The unit has been in service with the SSD for about a year now, and I haven't noticed any severe performance deficit, even with recording programs daily with the system.
> 
> Considering the age of the operating systems used for the Tivo recorder, it's quite likely there's no TRIM setting as part of it, especially if it was originally intended for a spinning disc. If one were to consider this a worst case scenario for a SSD, I think that these drives are more durable than some might think._
> -----


A year is one thing 5 to 7 years is another plus you have the added expense per Mb of storage that is about 10 times as much as the non SSD drive.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> A year is one thing 5 to 7 years is another plus you have the added expense per Mb of storage that is about 10 times as much as the non SSD drive.


+1


----------



## Teeps

lessd said:


> A year is one thing 5 to 7 years is another plus you have the added expense per Mb of storage that is about 10 times as much as the non SSD drive.





nooneuknow said:


> +1
> 
> Due to TCF rules & the way they are enforced, I will be quietly watching some of the rest of you break them, hoping for a Christmas miracle (that some get what they deserve). Happy Holidays!


What does that mean?


----------



## jefeuno

Hi, fairly new, but replaced the stock 500gb drive in my Roamio basic with a 3 tb drive, just days after receiving it from Tivo. A week later, had a problem with my HDMI not outputting sound. Tivo is sending a replacement. MY QUESTION(s): Can I install the 3 tb drive in my replacement Roamio Basic, without having to reformat it? Will I have to do anything else? Or will the new Roamio reformat and install the drive on it's own?
Thanks, Jefeuno


----------



## ThAbtO

jefeuno said:


> Hi, fairly new, but replaced the stock 500gb drive in my Roamio basic with a 3 tb drive, just days after receiving it from Tivo. A week later, had a problem with my HDMI not outputting sound. Tivo is sending a replacement. MY QUESTION(s): Can I install the 3 tb drive in my replacement Roamio Basic, without having to reformat it? Will I have to do anything else? Or will the new Roamio reformat and install the drive on it's own?
> Thanks, Jefeuno


You will lose all the recordings because they were encoded to that specific Tivo and it cannot be used on another.

You may even need to do "Clear & Delete Everything" or it would not record.


----------



## unitron

HarperVision said:


> See, that's what's not being understood here. It's not that the power supply is "pushing amps through" the Roamio or any device for that matter. The device "pulls" the amps it needs, which is why it's fine to use a PS that exceeds what is spec'd and needed by the device.


Actually, power supplies do push amperes (or fractions thereof).

The voltage (the difference in potential that makes one terminal positive in respect to the other--or the other negative with respect to the one) is the "pressure", called electromotive force, or EMF (That's the E in E=IR). It will "push" current through a circuit in direct proportion to that circuit's conductance, which is the same as in inverse proportion to the circuit's resistance.

Unless the resistance is so low (the conductance is so high) that the current delivering capability of the power supply is exceeded.


----------



## mattack

Bigg said:


> What I guess I'm missing is why 6TB would be any different than 4TB in terms of formatting and setup? Once you're over the 3TB limit, aren't you over the limit?
> 
> And why on earth would anyone put a 6TB or 8TB drive into a Base Roamio? Anyone who wanted to record that much would have a Plus/Pro, and OTA users don't have that much content to record in the first place (it's debatable whether you really need that much space for cable, but I could see situations where it would be nice to have, like the Olympics, and especially for FIOS users).


Even though I have cable, the VAST majority of what I record is on broadcast stations, and I'm currently at about 70% full of a 3 TB drive I put in a few months ago, after upgrading most of my SPs to HD. (I _hope_ to greatly eat into that over my log Xmas vacation, or will move a bunch of them back to SD...)

6 TB could be different than 4 TB, if anything involved in the volume format involves going over 2^32.. Total speculation.


----------



## ej42137

Bigg said:


> What I guess I'm missing is why 6TB would be any different than 4TB in terms of formatting and setup? Once you're over the 3TB limit, aren't you over the limit?
> 
> And why on earth would anyone put a 6TB or 8TB drive into a Base Roamio? Anyone who wanted to record that much would have a Plus/Pro, and OTA users don't have that much content to record in the first place (it's debatable whether you really need that much space for cable, but I could see situations where it would be nice to have, like the Olympics, and especially for FIOS users).


A one-hour show takes about 5-7 GB of space to record depending upon whether it's broadcast at 720p or 1080i. ABC, CBS, NBC, CW, Fox and one PBS station equal six tuners. There's about 3 hours of prime time TV, plus news, late night and daytime TV, let's call it 3 per day and six days a week. That's about 0.5 TB to record a week, just 16 weeks to fill an 8 TB drive. For someone that wants to record everything off the air that big hard drive is looking kind of puny.

On the other hand, recording at this rate for seven years would consume only about 0.2 petabytes. The continuing SSD Challenge over at Tech Report had the worst drives fail at 0.7 PB and the two best are still going after reaching the 2 PB mark. An SSD could be expected to last significantly longer than a conventional drive in a TiVo.


----------



## telemark

ej42137 said:


> A one-hour show takes about 5-7 GB of space to record depending upon whether it's broadcast at 720p or 1080i.
> ...
> On the other hand, recording at this rate for seven years would consume only about 0.2 petabytes. The continuing SSD Challenge over at Tech Report had the worst drives fail at 0.7 PB and the two best are still going after reaching the 2 PB mark. An SSD could be expected to last significantly longer than a conventional drive in a TiVo.


At first blush, their experiment is using 10GB of static data. By your calculation, that's 2 hours of Keep Forever video.

If you run the calculation again assuming a Tivo that keeps, 50% / 75% / 95% of total storage, you might get a different result.

Edit: 
You also have to factor in the live buffers.
12 Mbps * 1 year * 1 = 47.335389 terabytes
12 Mbps * 1 year * 2 = 94.6707779 terabytes (Premiere 2)
12 Mbps * 1 year * 4 = 189.341556 terabytes (Roamio Basic)
12 Mbps * 1 year * 6 = 284.012334 terabytes (Roamio Pro/+)


----------



## ej42137

telemark said:


> At first blush, their experiment is using 10GB of static data. By your calculation, that's 2 hours of Keep Forever video.
> 
> If you run the calculation again assuming a Tivo that keeps, 50% / 75% / 95% of total storage, you might get a different result.
> 
> Edit:
> You also have to factor in the live buffers.
> 12 Mbps * 1 year * 1 = 47.335389 terabytes
> 12 Mbps * 1 year * 2 = 94.6707779 terabytes (Premiere 2)
> 12 Mbps * 1 year * 4 = 189.341556 terabytes (Roamio Basic)
> 12 Mbps * 1 year * 6 = 284.012334 terabytes (Roamio Pro/+)


From all external performance evidence live buffers are implemented with file links and not by duplicating data.

As far as your other point, it is valid that keeping a different balance of retained data would produce a different result. Feel free to do the math with a different set of assumptions.

Edit: Whoops! I missed your point about the live buffers the first time I read your post. Which greatly simplifies the assumptions needed. About three years for a "bad" SSD and at least eight for the two "good" SSDs. Still comparable to hard drives, IMHO.


----------



## Bigg

mattack said:


> Even though I have cable, the VAST majority of what I record is on broadcast stations, and I'm currently at about 70% full of a 3 TB drive I put in a few months ago, after upgrading most of my SPs to HD. (I _hope_ to greatly eat into that over my log Xmas vacation, or will move a bunch of them back to SD...)


I haven't found there to be much of anything on the big 4, and few cable channels produce much high-value content. Sports, HBO, and PBS is most of what's left on TV. 



ej42137 said:


> A one-hour show takes about 5-7 GB of space to record depending upon whether it's broadcast at 720p or 1080i. ABC, CBS, NBC, CW, Fox and one PBS station equal six tuners. There's about 3 hours of prime time TV, plus news, late night and daytime TV, let's call it 3 per day and six days a week. That's about 0.5 TB to record a week, just 16 weeks to fill an 8 TB drive. For someone that wants to record everything off the air that big hard drive is looking kind of puny.


Why would you record every possible show? That makes no sense. Cable is around 5GB/hour for most channels, FIOS used to be closer to 9, some high bitrate channels still are, others have been tri-muxed down. OTA is all over the place depending on how many sub-channels are crammed in.



> On the other hand, recording at this rate for seven years would consume only about 0.2 petabytes. The continuing SSD Challenge over at Tech Report had the worst drives fail at 0.7 PB and the two best are still going after reaching the 2 PB mark. An SSD could be expected to last significantly longer than a conventional drive in a TiVo.


Yeah, but it sits there buffering 24/7.


----------



## telemark

telemark said:


> At first blush, their experiment is using 10GB of static data. By your calculation, that's 2 hours of Keep Forever video.
> 
> If you run the calculation again assuming a Tivo that keeps, 50% / 75% / 95% of total storage, you might get a different result.


I have to retract this comment. After some research, it turns out there were advances in wear leveling techniques, and there are SSD models that are minimally affected (life wise) by static data. Though there are others that are still affected, they could be avoided.

I moved the calculations I do use, to it's own thread.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10344994


----------



## lpwcomp

Isn't a good portion of wear leveling the responsibility of the file system, driver, and/or controller? A TiVo would have none of that and the only wear leveling would be whatever was implemented on the SSD itself.


----------



## telemark

lpwcomp said:


> Isn't a good portion of wear leveling the responsibility of the file system, driver, and/or controller? A TiVo would have none of that and the only wear leveling would be whatever was implemented on the SSD itself.


It is mostly handled inside the SSD, by the SSD controller (didn't know if you meant SATA or SSD controller).

The OS / filesystem only helps out by providing hints of which blocks are are empty as they're getting deleted. (TRIM support) But this is not required, just improves things.


----------



## lpwcomp

telemark said:


> It is mostly handled inside the SSD, by the SSD controller (didn't know if you meant SATA or SSD controller).
> 
> The OS / filesystem only helps out by providing hints of which blocks are are empty as they're getting deleted. (TRIM support) But this is not required, just improves things.


Yeah, I misread or completely missed something the first time I read one of the articles on the subject. It seems that these days, most of the wear leveling is done by a built-in microcontroller.


----------



## nooneuknow

I find the SSD discussion helping to back-up my posts about WD Purple drives, with only a 60TB/yr workload rating rating, possibly/potentially being a poor choice, when the WD Reds have a 120-150TB/yr workload rating.

The WD Purples have not been on the market long enough to know how they will last (at 4-6 tuner TiVo use, always-buffering, TB/yr workloads), certainly not long enough to start any arguments, just because somebody (or some entity selling upgraded TiVos/upgrade kits), has passed the 1yr mark, and the drive hasn't died yet.

Just food for thought. I already know that some here feel all platter drives are the same, with the only differences being performance, power requirements, and RPM classes, and/or consider mfg "ratings" to be for the mindless sheep, who don't share the "same drives with different labels/names/prices" mentality.

I politely ask those of the latter mentality to please refrain from attacking me, or anybody else, just because we have not (yet) joined the HDD mfg conspiracy theorist group.

I do a great many things with a great many products, that the mfgrs straight-out prohibit. I just consider my TiVos' contents to be too important for me to use anything but the best drives (within the limits of power and heat constraints), with the best warranty, and the best ratings.

If what you have on your TiVo is nothing you care about losing, and downtime (and RMA efforts/costs) don't matter to you, then your priorities are likely the opposite of mine, and one of the cheapest drives you can find, that will "work", may be just fine for you.

It's all speculation, and YMMV, until enough people try enough drives, for long enough. Drive mfgrs do test drives before they get to market, for the intended markets/uses. Not all of what they call "ratings" are absolutes, or close to them. Some ratings are simply blessings, or marketing twisted into selling points for higher profit margin drives.

I've bent over backwards to make this post as unbiased as I can be. I guess I'll find out how good I did, soon enough...


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> I find the SSD discussion helping to back-up my posts about WD Purple drives, with only a 60TB/yr workload rating rating, possibly/potentially being a poor choice, when the WD Reds have a 120-150TB/yr workload rating.
> 
> The WD Purples have not been on the market long enough to know how they will last (at 4-6 tuner TiVo use, always-buffering, TB/yr workloads), certainly not long enough to start any arguments, just because somebody (or some entity selling upgraded TiVos/upgrade kits), has passed the 1yr mark, and the drive hasn't died yet.
> 
> Just food for thought. I already know that some here feel all platter drives are the same, with the only differences being performance, power requirements, and RPM classes, and/or consider mfg "ratings" to be for the mindless sheep, who don't share the "same drives with different labels/names/prices" mentality.
> 
> I politely ask those of the latter mentality to please refrain from attacking me, or anybody else, just because we have not (yet) joined the HDD mfg conspiracy theorist group.
> 
> I do a great many things with a great many products, that the mfgrs straight-out prohibit. I just consider my TiVos' contents to be too important for me to use anything but the best drives (within the limits of power and heat constraints), with the best warranty, and the best ratings.
> 
> If what you have on your TiVo is nothing you care about losing, and downtime (and RMA efforts/costs) don't matter to you, then your priorities are likely the opposite of mine, and one of the cheapest drives you can find, that will "work", may be just fine for you.
> 
> It's all speculation, and YMMV, until enough people try enough drives, for long enough. Drive mfgrs do test drives before they get to market, for the intended markets/uses. Not all of what they call "ratings" are absolutes, or close to them. Some ratings are simply blessings, or marketing twisted into selling points for higher profit margin drives.
> 
> I've bent over backwards to make this post as unbiased as I can be. I guess I'll find out how good I did, soon enough...


Just because I and some others have not found any differences in what hard drive upgrade we use in a TiVo, except record space, does not mean there are no differences, try purchasing a set of new tires for your car, you can get a headache looking at all the options.


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> Just because I and some others have not found any differences in what hard drive upgrade we use in a TiVo, except record space, does not mean there are no differences, try purchasing a set of new tires for your car, you can get a headache looking at all the options.


It's hard to tell if that is you agreeing with me, in a different contextual manner, or if you are saying I'm looking at it wrong (or misstating context). But, the headache factor rings a bell for me. I find shopping on Amazon to be a migraine, compared to shopping on Newegg. It's just too much stuff, with something as simple as an ultrasonic cleaner being a 30 department cross-comparison, rendering the "#1 in _______" categorizations nearly moot to me.

I'm not immune to "information overload". One of my first jobs was working at a tire store. The amount of information that those who work at a tire store are expected to know, was within my limits, but knocked a great many right out of their jobs. Every slit (sipe) in a tire has a purpose. Of course, knowing all there is to know about snow tires, has little use, when living in a desert. Where I live, the same tires that lasted until the tread was gone (in the midwest), are unlawful to be repaired (or even reinstalled on a rim), even if they only have 10 miles on them, and zero wear, if past a certain date of mfg. Car batteries also have a contrast, in that the midwest was hard on them getting a car started, while the heat in the desert starts killing them as soon as they leave the air-conditioned store...

I think the reason TiVo wound up using AV-GP drives, in the first place, was that those were the only drives WD had specifically tested, specifically for a host like a TiVo, and TiVo did their own testing with AV-GP. Whatever the OEM agreement TiVo has with WD contains, I doubt it has anything to do with AV ATA streaming extensions, at all.

I used to only use plain green drives (for 2-tuner TiVos), until the Caviar green line (WD__EADS) w/3yr warranty went away, plus the introduction of AF drives. Ever since AF, my luck with hard drives has gone south. No drive has come to gain as much trust as I had in the pre-AF drives. The timing could be coincidence. I'm not convinced it is. I have decade old hard drives that lasted through three computer upgrade cycles, will still spin, and read without error (even though they sound like a circular saw cutting plywood). I have "brick wall" of drives that lasted only long enough to be out of warranty, then suddenly died without any warning, or hope of DIY recovery, without replacing head stacks/actuators (I blame RMW operations in AF drives for thrashing them to death).

I do hope that I live to see the day that there's an affordable, reliable, SSD drive for DVR AV use. I'm sick of drives that only last roughly as long as their 2-3yr warranty, with only a few exceptions (in my experience).


----------



## JamieP

nooneuknow said:


> I find the SSD discussion helping to back-up my posts about WD Purple drives, with only a 60TB/yr workload rating rating, possibly/potentially being a poor choice, when the WD Reds have a 120-150TB/yr workload rating. ...


Has WD published workload specifications for the Red and Purple drives? I've seen them in reviews (e.g. anandtech, tomshardware), but never in a WD published specifications document. If you have links to anything, I'd appreciate seeing them.

There are a lot of WD documents explaining hard drive reliability in general and why they are including the workload spec now on enterprise drives. e.g. link1,link2.


----------



## nooneuknow

JamieP said:


> Has WD published workload specifications for the Red and Purple drives? I've seen them in reviews (e.g. anandtech, tomshardware), but never in a WD published specifications document. If you have links to anything, I'd appreciate seeing them.
> 
> There are a lot of WD documents explaining hard drive reliability in general and why they are including the workload spec now on enterprise drives. e.g. link1,link2.


I started at Anandtech, and worked my way to verifying it somewhere buried deep within WD's site (places you can't get to starting off at their site). The one drive I can find no estimated or published TB/yr on, that I looked high and low for, was the AV-GP (now renamed just "AV").

If I find my way back, I'll post the links. I remember I wasn't about to post the ratings here, going by the word of a single review site. So, there should be a post somewhere around here, in which I included the links, so everybody could verify for themselves.


----------



## JamieP

nooneuknow said:


> I started at Anandtech, and worked my way to verifying it somewhere buried deep within WD's site (places you can't get to starting off at their site). The one drive I can find no estimated or published TB/yr on, that I looked high and low for, was the AV-GP (now renamed just "AV").
> 
> If I find my way back, I'll post the links. I remember I wasn't about to post the ratings here, going by the word of a single review site. So, there should be a post somewhere around here, in which I included the links, so everybody could verify for themselves.


If you can find the links again, I'd appreciate seeing them. Even anandtech seems to have inconsistent information. For example: [link]


Anandtech said:


> On a comparative basis, the WD Red apparently has a workload rating of *less than 100 TB/yr* (the client storage division doesn't give out specific numbers) despite coming with a higher MTBF rating (1M hours compared to the 800K for the WD Se).


versus [link]


Anandtech said:


> That said, WD expects (unofficially) the Red drives to be able to handle workloads *between 120 and 150 TB/year*.


----------



## SVTarHeel

We're considering a move to the basic Roamio so we can have OTA access now but with CableCard access as a safety net in the future. I'll definitely upgrade the hard drive. Does anyone have a specific wall wart model number I can look for as an upgrade rather than endless searching for the right specs, positive/negative, etc.?


----------



## telemark

SVTarHeel said:


> We're considering a move to the basic Roamio so we can have OTA access now but with CableCard access as a safety net in the future. I'll definitely upgrade the hard drive. Does anyone have a specific wall wart model number I can look for as an upgrade rather than endless searching for the right specs, positive/negative, etc.?


12V <- Only, no more, no less
2.5A or 3.0A, most people are getting. Which equates to 30watts or 36watts

Don't buy (pay) for something less than 2.5A, cause the included one is 2.0A, You would you just keep using that one for free, if you can't find better.

There's disagreement here on going as high as 4.0A or 5.0A, but those are more rare and expensive typically anyway.

I've been suggesting this LiteOn, because there are a lot of them in circulation (from returned cable boxes) on eBay, it keeps the price low. Physically fits so has been tested in that way.

Those specs are:
Output: 12V 2.5A 30W 
Part Number: 4019611B 
AC Adapter Model: PB-1300-02SA
Barrel Connecter size: 
- Int. Diameter: 2.50mm 
- Ext. Diameter: 5.50mm

Delta's a good brand too, but you'd have to check the Barrel Size is right.
Really don't pay more than $15 total for something used. There's some new kinds for $10-$12 shipped.


----------



## SVTarHeel

telemark said:


> I've been suggesting this LiteOn...AC Adapter Model: PB-1300-02SA


That's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.


----------



## Teeps

I understand that Roamio has the OS on a chip on the board and if a blank HDD is installed. 
Roamio formats and installs the OS to the HDD from the chip on the board, regardless of HDD size (up to a limit.)

Question: 
If the HDD in a Roamio shows signs of failing, but still works, can it be cloned to a like size drive and preserve recordings and settings?

Apologies to lpwcomp, 
I posted a similar question in Premier board...


----------



## jmbach

The OS stays on the chip on the motherboard. When the drive is formatted, it essentially populates the MFS structure on the drive The answer to your question is yes. The issue would be if there are bad spots in the MFS structure that makes the original drive unusable the clone would be unusable as well.


----------



## Teeps

jmbach said:


> The OS stays on the chip on the motherboard. When the drive is formatted, it essentially populates the MFS structure on the drive The answer to your question is yes. The issue would be if there are bad spots in the MFS structure that makes the original drive unusable the clone would be unusable as well.


Understood.
Ran into that situation when the HDD went crap in my XL4, a few weeks back. Cloned the old to the new; TiVo was not happy, would not boot.
Had to install a fresh image to replacement HDD before it would boot up.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> 12V <- Only, no more, no less
> 2.5A or 3.0A, most people are getting. Which equates to 30watts or 36watts
> 
> Don't buy (pay) for something less than 2.5A, cause the included one is 2.0A, You would you just keep using that one for free, if you can't find better.
> 
> There's disagreement here on going as high as 4.0A or 5.0A, but those are more rare and expensive typically anyway.
> 
> I've been suggesting this LiteOn, because there are a lot of them in circulation (from returned cable boxes) on eBay, it keeps the price low. Physically fits so has been tested in that way.
> 
> Those specs are:
> Output: 12V 2.5A 30W
> Part Number: 4019611B
> AC Adapter Model: PB-1300-02SA
> Barrel Connecter size:
> - Int. Diameter: 2.50mm
> - Ext. Diameter: 5.50mm
> 
> Delta's a good brand too, but you'd have to check the Barrel Size is right.
> Really don't pay more than $15 total for something used. There's some new kinds for $10-$12 shipped.


Those are what came with my Cisco STA1520 tuning adapters (LiteOn 2.5A bricks). I swapped my base Roamio 2.0A wall-warts around with them (all three in the house).

The results have been noticeable in the Roamio drive SMART attribute for how long it takes my WD Red 3TB drives to spin up (improved), plus less incidents of my Roamios self-rebooting, and less times that I have had to manually reboot them. There have been no negative consequences from using the base Roamio warts on the TAs.

The bricks that came with the TAs were over-rated for what the TAs actually require, not factoring in what might happen if I used the USB port on the front of the TAs to charge a phone, or run a USB-powered device, that required a high current (some people have posted around the forums that they do such things with their TA front USB ports, while I would never do so).

Infrared thermal readings show that my TA bricks didn't increase in max case temperature running my Roamios, while the Roamio wall-warts decreased substantially in max case temperature, being used to run the TAs. The decrease should mean the aforementioned variable of using those who use their TA front USB port for charging/powering devices, might not be an issue, as long as that port is current-limited to 500mA/0.5A, or less. Personally, I question the wisdom of using USB ports for such things "just because they are there", when the (specific) product literature doesn't define the port as any more than reserved for possible future scenarios.

It's a win-win-win situation for those with the LiteOn bricks already on-hand. Cox, in my market, only requires return of the TA itself, not the power brick, cables, or "self-install kit" (Cox markets provide a box of extra hardware for using the splitter method to connect, plus a MoCA PoE filter).

You might recall that I was the first to dare to try making the swap, and post all the details, in fine detail, in the power requirements/calculations thread. The LiteOn bricks also have shielded output wiring, plus ferrite chokes, insuring the least RFI ingress/egress/passing. The Roamio wall-warts have none of this (although TiVo adds a ferrite choke to the TiVo stream adapter, of the same specs, with the same part number as the Roamio wart, as you discovered).


----------



## unitron

Teeps said:


> I understand that Roamio has the OS on a chip on the board and if a blank HDD is installed.
> Roamio formats and installs the OS to the HDD from the chip on the board, regardless of HDD size (up to a limit.)
> 
> Question:
> If the HDD in a Roamio shows signs of failing, but still works, can it be cloned to a like size drive and preserve recordings and settings?
> 
> Apologies to lpwcomp,
> I posted a similar question in Premier board...


Use a live linux cd to boot from and run either

dd_rescue

or

ddrescue

(depending on which your cd has)

and set the options for small chunks at a time and lots of retries and you'll stand your best chance of getting a good "Xerox" of the old drive.

Freeze water in zip lock bags to make ice packs to rest the drives on top of (with paper towel wrapped around bag) to help keep the drive temps down during what could be several hours to a couple of days depending on how many retries on how many iffy sectors are involved.

If you can set up a small fan to blow on them that'd be good, also.

The MFS Live cd v1.4 has

dd_rescue

and the Ultimate Boot CD has

ddrescue

and I think the jmfs cd v1.04 has

ddrescue

as well, and they're all free to download and burn to cd "as an image".


----------



## nooneuknow

unitron said:


> Freeze water in zip lock bags to make ice packs to rest the drives on top of (with paper towel wrapped around bag) to help keep the drive temps down during what could be several hours to a couple of days depending on how many retries on how many iffy sectors are involved.


I strongly object to your continued advice (we've been through this before) on placing hard drives in freezers, placing blocks of frozen water in ziplocks around them, or anything involving water, in any form, and platter hard drives. This includes the inevitable condensation that will form inside the drive, on the platters, as well as everywhere else that is chilled to below dew-point. Unless the drive is one of the new helium-filled models, all platter drives have breather ports to balance inside/outside air pressure, and they don't have any desiccant factor. Using towels and/or dry rice to surround the drive still is not enough dessicant to make this safe for everyday people who find their way here.

While there are some youtube videos that are fixed to show how this will kill a drive, created by data recovery companies and "specialists", there's valid science behind the dangers of doing this. Not all the naysayers are just trying to convince you to send your drive in to them, as some would say, if I didn't pre-address the matter.

Your advice is "old-school", from a different time, with different drive technologies. Here's a few questions:

1. When was the last time this worked for you?
2. When was the last time this worked for somebody you recommended it to?
3. How old were the drives, of any claimed successes, and what technologies did they employ?
4. What's an honest success/failure/unknowns ratio here?
5. Do you honestly believe everybody who sees you suggest this method will know this is a last-resort, one-chance-only, rare-success-rate, option?

That aside, if people want to try this, they need far more hand-holding and specifics than provided.

The "freezer method" has permanently destroyed drives that I could have recovered with heatsinks and fans, and/or repaired with a head stack swap. The last drive it worked with, for me, was almost 10 years ago, on a drive manufactured years before. I've had much greater success using non conductive thermal adhesive pads to affix old heatsinks to the PCB of the drive. That is where modern drives need cooling, for thermal intermittent issues, not the internals.

If you can't be swayed to stop carelessly dispensing such advice, my suggestion is to create a thread on the process, detail every little bit, provide the proper disclaimers and safety warnings, then link to that thread, when you feel the urge to recommend something so riddled with cons, and only one potential pro, and only one shot at the off-chance it will work.

Have you never heard of using an inverted can of air to expel super-cooling non-conductive liquid, for cooling a controlled area? Even that has its own dangers, but is far more safe, and less of a complete drive killer, than freezing whole drives, or surrounding them with baggies of frozen water.

I truly do not intend for my only replies to your posts to be like this. There are some matters I've just opted to disagree in silence about. But, I draw the line at careless/reckless/unsafe advice, posted without adequate warnings.

I can feel the fallout before I even press submit reply. I've said what I felt needed to be said, and am not interested in yet another duke-it-out death match on the subject matter. The questions I posed were more to ask yourself, or for the few left that still mix water and electronics, when there are so many other ways to achieve the same goal, that don't tend to be a one-shot gamble, with such poor odds of success.


----------



## L David Matheny

nooneuknow said:


> I strongly object to your continued advice (we've been through this before) on placing hard drives in freezers, placing blocks of frozen water in ziplocks around them, or anything involving water, in any form, and platter hard drives. This includes the inevitable condensation that will form inside the drive, on the platters, as well as everywhere else that is chilled to below dew-point. Unless the drive is one of the new helium-filled models, all platter drives have breather ports to balance inside/outside air pressure, and they don't have any desiccant factor. Using towels and/or dry rice to surround the drive still is not enough dessicant to make this safe for everyday people who find their way here.


I agree with much of what you said, but I feel compelled to relate that I recovered a (non-TiVo) drive using freezer packs earlier this year. I have tried freezing before without much success, and it is hard on the drive, but remember it's a last-ditch method to be used only when you're ready to give up on the drive anyway. And of course you will never trust the failing drive with any valuable data again.

The failing drive, a 160GB WD1600 SATA drive, wasn't even being seen by the BIOS. I put it into the freezer for a few hours (as I recall), then sealed it (except for a gap for the cables) into a 1-quart zip-lock bag (to keep condensation off the drive), with a paper towel (to absorb condensation) and a freezer pack on top of the bag. My computer could now see it, and ddrescue started copying but got many errors. By the time ddrescue finished (hours later) it seemed to be reading better, so I restarted it with a fresh freezer pack on top, using the same log file but dropping the -n option, and I went to bed.

By morning ddrescue had managed to copy all but 150MB! Encouraged by that surprising success, I shut down, swapped in another target drive, and started ddrescue again. This time it breezed right through the copy with no errors. If the original problem was with the heads and/or platters, I don't see how that could happen, so I speculated that possibly the drive controller had a bad solder joint or something similar that was now making good contact after a few heat/cool cycles. I don't expect to have such good luck in the future. But I would probably try freezing again, because by that point in the disaster I have nothing to lose.


----------



## nooneuknow

L David Matheny said:


> I agree with much of what you said, but I feel compelled to relate that I recovered a (non-TiVo) drive using freezer packs earlier this year. I have tried freezing before without much success, and it is hard on the drive, but remember it's a last-ditch method to be used only when you're ready to give up on the drive anyway. And of course you will never trust the failing drive with any valuable data again.
> 
> The failing drive, a 160GB WD1600 SATA drive, wasn't even being seen by the BIOS. I put it into the freezer for a few hours (as I recall), then sealed it (except for a gap for the cables) into a 1-quart zip-lock bag (to keep condensation off the drive), with a paper towel (to absorb condensation) and a freezer pack on top of the bag. My computer could now see it, and ddrescue started copying but got many errors. By the time ddrescue finished (hours later) it seemed to be reading better, so I restarted it with a fresh freezer pack on top, using the same log file but dropping the -n option, and I went to bed.
> 
> By morning ddrescue had managed to copy all but 150MB! Encouraged by that surprising success, I shut down, swapped in another target drive, and started ddrescue again. This time it breezed right through the copy with no errors. If the original problem was with the heads and/or platters, I don't see how that could happen, so I speculated that possibly the drive controller had a bad solder joint or something similar that was now making good contact after a few heat/cool cycles. I don't expect to have such good luck in the future. But I would probably try freezing again, because by that point in the disaster I have nothing to lose.


I have no issues with your success report, as it does spell-out "last resort/last ditch attempt". There's no point arguing about success, so long as the person who did the (less than ideal) chilling method, knew it was a "this will either work, or any alternative measures will no longer have much hope of being on the table anymore, or succeeding", situation, with no turning-back to try again, should it cause more damage, or create damage that wasn't already present. I think you agree (and I don't expect you to outright state so) that the post I pulled the objectionable quote from, was far too complacent about jumping right to one of the last things one should ever attempt as a drive cooling method, and not clear enough on risk/reward matters (for general public consumption). Some things are not as obvious, or "duh factor" to those who have never seen such advice before.

I am very confident that had you given the PCB alone, a few blasts of inverted canned air, to keep it chilled, and/or only chilled the PCB, and/or only used a chill-pack surface contact to the PCB (taking measures to keep moisture off the PCB), you would have likely seen the same success. The drive failing detection by BIOS/POST is a dead giveaway that the problem is on the PCB, a bad connection between the spring-loaded contacts between the board and drive interconnects, a failing chip, or a "combo platter" mix.

There are older TiVos out there that have an opposite problem, with the memory chips on the mainboard. If allowed to cool, they won't boot, until the memory chips are heated manually. Some folks might "have a cow" over using a hairdryer to do this (due to the magnetic fields the heating coils create). I remember when tech was so sensitive, that not using personal grounding straps and demagnetized tools, could destroy it, easily. While modern tech has gotten better at surviving this, hard drives have become less and less tolerant of condensation, if it occurs inside the drive casing, especially on the platters. The cushion of air that platter drives use to float the heads, has been shrinking. The size of a condensate droplet, which could do anything from damage a head, to rip a head right off, has gone from a size visible to the human eye, to a size invisible to the human eye.

The drive you had success with, is old enough tech (low platter capacity density, higher head flying height, and more structural rigidity to the micro-interconnections) to stand a better chance of survival, than the high-density, low head flying height, drives that have far too many other contributing factors to list, without angering those who just want a "hard drives for dummies thread" here.

You may find it shocking (or some might), that I'd seriously consider chucking a sealed SSD drive into a freezer, if data could not be read. Without moving parts, chilling or heating a SSD can yield results, with less inherent danger (though condensation in electronics is never a good thing, if it can be avoided).

If you buy OEM hard drives in full cases, directly from WD, the box will state how long you must allow the drives to be exposed to room temperature, after being exposed to high/low temperature in-transit, and/or before coming indoors, before even opening them, plus how long before they can be used. I think humidity (and the resulting dew-point temp), is in the chart. When I dig that box out, I'll upload a picture of the chart, or I'll see if WD has the same chart posted online.

I have had great success rates with:

1. Simply remove the PCB from drive and clean the contacts/interconnect points (on PCB and drive case), then reconnect the PCB.
2a. Attach heatsinks with to (outer face of) the PCB, placing them in chip positions, and give them one good canned-air inverted blast (aimed at the heatsinks).
2b. Just cool the PCB alone (in freezer inside a freezer ziplock with all the excess air removed first), reattach to drive, and/or use inverted air can to keep chips on PCB from getting much warmer than room temp).
3. Heat the PCB alone (hoping to reflow a bad solder joint, which may be imperceivable to the human eye).

(Once condensation has formed on the internals, most drives are doomed, shy of doing a head stack transplant, still only feasible if the only condensate damage is to a head/or to multiple heads).

While all additional operational time on a suspected failing drive can cause more damage, and greater data loss, this tends to be limited to actual physical/mechanical breakdown (more common on older drives). Unless the heads are making platter contact, which grinds data to dust, modern drives are far more likely to suffer electrical issues, outside the moving parts areas, either in the form of a bad/cracked solder joint, or a chip that starts to malfunction when it reaches a certain temp.

I can honestly say that I had been able to both recover all data from dozens of modern platter drives, plus make them stable again (even trustworthy), by avoiding any freezing, or use of ice-packs, and trying every other approach first. Even 10 years ago, I suspect that many of the drives that I had recovered data from after using a freezer/ice-pack, which I had to then discard, could still be working today, had I used the modern methods, back then. Back then, drives were just more tolerant of condensate inside. Some semi-modern drives are a coin-toss, if you go straight to extreme measures.

Your approach was close to my own recipe, if I wanted to place a drive in a freezer, or otherwise indiscriminately chill it:

1. Get a good freezer ziplock, test it seals.
2. Connect a data cable, and power adapter/extender cable to the drive.
3. Fill space in bag with desiccant gel packs or dry rice, but insure PCB has minimal filler between it and bag wall.
4. Make sure cables are attached well and extending through the seal side of bag.
5. Seal bag zipper around cables as well as possible, seal the rest of the way with silicone caulk, and/or packing tape.
6. Place in freezer overnight, check seal integrity before allowing it back out of the freezer for long.
7. Have ice-packs handy to place around this sealed package, once out of freezer. Best placing is against PCB side of drive. Dry ice can have many advantages (only creates condensate from air, dry ice itself is a frozen gas), but requires added safety precautions to handle.
6. Don't unseal the bag, until you have completed the recovery, or given up on the method.
7. Don't unseal the bag until the drive inside had been at room temperature long enough that there is no doubt the inside are at room temp, or at least above dew-point.

Do all this, and there may still be other things to try, if you are going to go for freezer/ice-packs, earlier, as oppose to last attempt. If this were a drive from a computer, and the data was worth paying recovery costs for (but you just "have to" try DIY first), the way I laid out, done with care and caution, lessens the chances of completely killing a drive, that may have been possible for a recovery specialist to work with.

So far, all my DIY drive data recovery attempts have worked best with the PCB side of the drive facing upward while running (with the drive face down on a flat surface). This makes it easy to keep the PCB cool, as well.

If it can be avoided, it has been my repeat experience, that platter drives don't seem to recover well in any vertical (side edge down) position. This can make vertical slot USB/eSATA drive docks the worst way to connect the drive (especially if you had placed the drive in a freezer and/or are using ice packs).

*For everybody's sake:* Please make sure to use common sense, and take added safety precautions, when using water (in any form) around electronics. Please don't be the guy who gets electrocuted before being able to see if your recovery worked, or proceed after recovery.


----------



## Teeps

nooneuknow said:


> Those are what came with my Cisco STA1520 tuning adapters (LiteOn 2.5A bricks). I swapped my base Roamio 2.0A wall-warts around with them (all three in the house).


Should I take this to mean, that the power supply provided with Roamio (base?) is marginal and has caused you or others reliability problems?


----------



## Teeps

unitron said:


> Use a live linux cd to boot from and run either
> 
> dd_rescue
> 
> or
> 
> ddrescue


Thanks unitron, my question above was speculative.

I purchased a Roamio Basic (w/ota) and would like to upgrade to a 2 or 3 TB drive in the future.
Can't afford to do it out of the box (retired/fixed income.)
I was hoping the 500GB drive could be written to a larger drive; taking advantage of the increased recording space.
But, as I have come to understand, it is not possible to retain data from a smaller drive when copied to a larger drive.

nooneuknow,
Thanks for your insight with regard to freezing hard drives.

Please no pissing contests guys...


----------



## jmbach

You can retain the data but the recording space will be the same. Until a JMFS version for the Roamio is created, the drive will not be expanded to use the full recording space.


----------



## Teeps

jmbach said:


> You can retain the data but the recording space will be the same. Until a JMFS version for the Roamio is created, the drive will not be expanded to use the full recording space.


That's encouraging to hear.
Thanks for that nugget jmbach!


----------



## nooneuknow

Teeps said:


> Should I take this to mean, that the power supply provided with Roamio (base?) is marginal and has caused you or others reliability problems?


For me, with my 3TB WD Red drives, yes. A "think tank" of TCF members has been helping me to figure out why I was encountering what seemed to be weak writes, leading to unreadable sectors, that were not bad sectors, but the ECC data did not match the sector data. Since my power supply swap-over, no such issues arose again, and the drive that I had to rewrite with zeroes hasn't had any further hiccups. The reliability of my TiVos also increased, as I spoke of in my other post. I have spent about 6 months on this matter, having one TiVo always being more of a "test platform", than actually just using it as my 3rd TiVo, and leaving it be.

Member telemark had an issue, but has since chalked that up to his use of a bus-powered USB hub, with multiple devices running off the Roamio's USB capacity. While some called this his mistake, in that "he should have used a powered hub", TiVo should have spec'd the power supply to power both USB ports, even if operating at their full rated output. Most USB ports of the USB 2.0 type are 500mA per port, or 500mA total, shared between two ports on the same USB controller and internal root hub (the current "standards" are kind of loose). IMO, if TiVo couldn't limit the port current enough to work without losing stability, they should have went with a higher-current power supply.

Other members have reported that 7200 RPM drives from Seagate, of the line formerly known as Barracuda, failed to work, illuminating an internal LED, which is a POST error indicating insufficient current to POST.

Really, if you start adding up USB port current, cablecard current, wireless radio TX current, hard drive current, and so on, there's not much left to actually run the TiVo itself.

Most of my 5400/5900 RPM green drives I bought in enclosures, came with 12V 2.0A minimum bricks/warts, and as high as 12V 3.0A, just to run a green drive, in a fanless USB enclosure. My "green" netgear router with internal bay for a low-RPM drive came with a 12V 5.0A brick. Other members in the think tank found the same, when it comes to how many amps, at 12V, external drives were given, as well as drive docks, USB-SATA adapters, and so on.

If not for the fact that some of the larger drives people have used to upgrade actually requiring less total watts, than the stock drives, upgraders would likely all have issues. There are some questions about total watts, and how current is divided between the 12V and 5V rails for the drives, and how some drives seem to be pulling more on the 5V rail, than the historic duty of the 12V rail being for the HDD spindle motor.

For more, the devoted thread is here: base Roamio power calculations / tests


----------



## Teeps

nooneuknow said:


> For me, with my 3TB WD Red drives, yes.


OUCH!
Thanks for the info and the link.
Would appear the original PS should be ok with Roamio Basic on OTA! :up:


----------



## L David Matheny

nooneuknow said:


> I am very confident that had you given the PCB alone, a few blasts of inverted canned air, to keep it chilled, and/or only chilled the PCB, and/or only used a chill-pack surface contact to the PCB (taking measures to keep moisture off the PCB), you would have likely seen the same success. The drive failing detection by BIOS/POST is a dead giveaway that the problem is on the PCB, a bad connection between the spring-loaded contacts between the board and drive interconnects, a failing chip, or a "combo platter" mix.


I believe I did detach, inspect, clean, and reattach the drive's PCB, which didn't help. Next time I'll try freezing only the PCB as a first step. And trying a similar enough PCB from another drive sometimes works, but there's the problem of drive-specific data sometimes being stored on the PCB.



nooneuknow said:


> (Once condensation has formed on the internals, most drives are doomed, shy of doing a head stack transplant, still only feasible if the only condensate damage is to a head/or to multiple heads).


Unless you have a "clean room" to work in, I can't imagine that opening a drive is likely to get you anything more than an extended learning experience. In the old days (30 years ago), a speck of dust could cause a "head crash" where the heads stop flying and start plowing furrows in the disk coating. Modern drives with plated platters may be less likely to self-destruct that way, but modern heads are more easily ripped off, which (as you say) internal condensation can surely cause.



nooneuknow said:


> While all additional operational time on a suspected failing drive can cause more damage, and greater data loss, this tends to be limited to actual physical/mechanical breakdown (more common on older drives). Unless the heads are making platter contact, which grinds data to dust, modern drives are far more likely to suffer electrical issues, outside the moving parts areas, either in the form of a bad/cracked solder joint, or a chip that starts to malfunction when it reaches a certain temp.


I generally assume that drive failures are mechanical and that runtime is data loss, but I have read that some (WD?) drives store firmware or parameters on the platters that make them especially vulnerable to boot failures if those areas become unreadable. And I will consider electrical issues more seriously in the future.



nooneuknow said:


> Your approach was close to my own recipe, if I wanted to place a drive in a freezer, or otherwise indiscriminately chill it:
> 
> 1. Get a good freezer ziplock, test it seals.
> 2. Connect a data cable, and power adapter/extender cable to the drive.
> 3. Fill space in bag with desiccant gel packs or dry rice, but insure PCB has minimal filler between it and bag wall.
> 4. Make sure cables are attached well and extending through the seal side of bag.
> 5. Seal bag zipper around cables as well as possible, seal the rest of the way with silicone caulk, and/or packing tape.
> 6. Place in freezer overnight, check seal integrity before allowing it back out of the freezer for long.
> 7. Have ice-packs handy to place around this sealed package, once out of freezer. Best placing is against PCB side of drive. Dry ice can have many advantages (only creates condensate from air, dry ice itself is a frozen gas), but requires added safety precautions to handle.
> 6. Don't unseal the bag, until you have completed the recovery, or given up on the method.
> 7. Don't unseal the bag until the drive inside had been at room temperature long enough that there is no doubt the inside are at room temp, or at least above dew-point.
> 
> Do all this, and there may still be other things to try, if you are going to go for freezer/ice-packs, earlier, as oppose to last attempt. If this were a drive from a computer, and the data was worth paying recovery costs for (but you just "have to" try DIY first), the way I laid out, done with care and caution, lessens the chances of completely killing a drive, that may have been possible for a recovery specialist to work with.


"First do no harm" is always a good philosophy. In my case the worst likely outcome was reinstalling Windows from scratch and then restoring data files from backup, but it was nice to recover the whole drive.

Winston Churchill (and maybe others) said, "I apologize for writing such a long letter, but I didn't have time to write a shorter one." Those are words of wisdom. But sometimes detail is needed. Thanks for the detailed write-up.


----------



## Woodburner

Sorry could not find the answer and I did a quick search. Can you add an external drive to the Tivo roamio so I don't lose all my current shows?


----------



## jmbach

You can add an approved TiVo expander


----------



## lpwcomp

Woodburner said:


> Sorry could not find the answer and I did a quick search. Can you add an external drive to the Tivo roamio so I don't lose all my current shows?


What exactly do you mean by "so I don't lose all my current shows"?


----------



## Teeps

lpwcomp said:


> What exactly do you mean by "so I don't lose all my current shows"?


Same as I was asking a few post up this page...

Appears Woodburner would like to add HDD capacity to his Roamio. But, does not want to do an internal upgrade, which at this time cannot be done without losing what is on the smaller original drive.

jmbach, answered the question, an "approved" external drive will work, for what Woodburner wants to do.


----------



## ehardman

Is this drive OK to use? $89.99 at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...7&ie=UTF8&qid=1419609940&sr=8-2&keywords=3+tb


----------



## ThreeSoFar

ehardman said:


> Is this drive OK to use? $89.99 at Amazon.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...7&ie=UTF8&qid=1419609940&sr=8-2&keywords=3+tb


Yes, but depending on the TiVo you have (you didn't say), it will not recognize all 3TB. Only Roamios recognize all 3TB I think--possibly the Premieres do, too.


----------



## HarperVision

ehardman said:


> Is this drive OK to use? $89.99 at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Green-Desktop/dp/B004RORMF6/ref=sr_1_2?tag=slickdeals&ascsubtag=ef78ecba6f9240469afd85f89c558197&ie=UTF8&qid=1419609940&sr=8-2&keywords=3+tb


This is the one that I used in my basic then moved it to my plus and it has worked flawlessly. Hopefully nooneuknow comes and gives his thoughts because he's the HD pro for Roamios here.


----------



## ehardman

ThreeSoFar said:


> Yes, but depending on the TiVo you have (you didn't say), it will not recognize all 3TB. Only Roamios recognize all 3TB I think--possibly the Premieres do, too.


Romio Plus.


----------



## JPA2825

ehardman said:


> Is this drive OK to use? $89.99 at Amazon.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...7&ie=UTF8&qid=1419609940&sr=8-2&keywords=3+tb


Would like to know same for a Roamio Plus scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. Thanks in advance.


----------



## bmgoodman

Early last year I bought 3 WD20EURS drives to use as Tivo upgrades. Today I installed the last of the 3, somewhat unexpectedly, for a relative whose original Tivo HD drive was about to fail. I see these drives are $115 now. I'm thinking of ordering another 1-3 to keep on hand, but part of me thinks I should just get 3 TB drives from now on.

That said, I've heard a lot of complaints recently about problems with new WD drives' reliability.

So, I'm wondering if I should order WD20EURS before they're gone, order some newer WD30 green drive now, or just bide my time until the next failure and see what the market is like by then.

Thoughts?


----------



## SVTarHeel

bmgoodman said:


> I've heard a lot of complaints recently about problems with new WD drives' reliability.


I just bought a WD10EURX to upgrade my 320GB Premiere unit. Before doing anything else, I booted to the WD DataLifeguard and ran the full test. The drive passed with no errors. I also bought a WD20EURX to have on hand if we upgrade to a Roamio and it's next to go through the full DLG test.


----------



## SVTarHeel

SVTarHeel said:


> I just bought a WD10EURX to upgrade my 320GB Premiere unit. Before doing anything else, I booted to the WD DataLifeguard and ran the full test. The drive passed with no errors. I also bought a WD20EURX to have on hand if we upgrade to a Roamio and it's next to go through the full DLG test.


Well, that didn't take long. Yesterday, as I was leaving for work, I noticed an unexpectedly illuminated green light on this unit. I turned the TV on and was greeted by a TiVo green screen.

I had never seen/heard of this, so I did a couple of quick searches and it appears that the most likely culprit is a faulty drive. I haven't yet taken the WD10EURX out. Other than rerunning the WD tests, is this likely to be something I could fix with SpinRite?

Somewhere recently (maybe this thread) I saw a report of 1 in 5 WD A/V drives being duds out of the box. I may have placed too much faith in my drive's successful passing of the full DLG test.

Thanks in advance for any input.


----------



## nooneuknow

SVTarHeel said:


> Well, that didn't take long. Yesterday, as I was leaving for work, I noticed an unexpectedly illuminated green light on this unit. I turned the TV on and was greeted by a TiVo green screen.
> 
> I had never seen/heard of this, so I did a couple of quick searches and it appears that the most likely culprit is a faulty drive. I haven't yet taken the WD10EURX out. Other than rerunning the WD tests, is this likely to be something I could fix with SpinRite?
> 
> Somewhere recently (maybe this thread) I saw a report of 1 in 5 WD A/V drives being duds out of the box. I may have placed too much faith in my drive's successful passing of the full DLG test.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any input.


The last time I dared to discuss spinrite, other members started slamming it as snake oil, and a product to part fools from their money. I suggested that it sounded like they had never actually used it. BAM! - Insulting other member(s) infraction. I was truly trying to help a fellow forum member.

The last time I dared to participate (in the spirit of being helpful) in this thread, I got hit with another of the same.

I've decided that I've posted enough here over time, as I have in other threads/topics, where it's just best if I stay out of certain areas/topics, and suggest searching for past posts of mine, in the matters of hard drives, MoCA, and a few other threads/topics, where I really don't have anything new to add, and would only be repeating past advice/suggestions, to address a new post/inquiry. Sorry.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> The last time I dared to discuss spinrite, other members started slamming it as snake oil, and a product to part fools from their money. I suggested that it sounded like they had never actually used it. BAM! - Insulting other member(s) infraction. I was truly trying to help a fellow forum member.
> 
> The last time I dared to participate (in the spirit of being helpful) in this thread, I got hit with another of the same.
> 
> I've decided that I've posted enough here over time, as I have in other threads/topics, where it's just best if I stay out of certain areas/topics, and suggest searching for past posts of mine, in the matters of hard drives, MoCA, and a few other threads/topics, where I really don't have anything new to add, and would only be repeating past advice/suggestions, to address a new post/inquiry. Sorry.


If you just answer with your opinion on the problem nobody should give you any problem, if other have different opinion they are free to give it also. Nobody should insult anyone for their opinion.


----------



## philt56

SVTarHeel said:


> Well, that didn't take long. Yesterday, as I was leaving for work, I noticed an unexpectedly illuminated green light on this unit. I turned the TV on and was greeted by a TiVo green screen.
> 
> I had never seen/heard of this, so I did a couple of quick searches and it appears that the most likely culprit is a faulty drive. I haven't yet taken the WD10EURX out. Other than rerunning the WD tests, is this likely to be something I could fix with SpinRite?
> 
> Somewhere recently (maybe this thread) I saw a report of 1 in 5 WD A/V drives being duds out of the box. I may have placed too much faith in my drive's successful passing of the full DLG test.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any input.


I recently bought a wd20eurx and ran the full wd diagnostics on it with no errors. I then went through all the different tools to copy my old drive to it as well as a pristine image and consistently had the premiere hang on the welcome screen. Was thinking it was tools, the usb sata cable and everything else. Finally asked for a rma from Amazon, got the new drive and it copied and booted with no problems.


----------



## DeltaOne

SVTarHeel said:


> I had never seen/heard of this, so I did a couple of quick searches and it appears that the most likely culprit is a faulty drive. I haven't yet taken the WD10EURX out. Other than rerunning the WD tests, is this likely to be something I could fix with SpinRite?


There's only one way to tell if SpinRite will fix the problem -- give it a try.

SpinRite certainly won't harm the drive, and there's a high degree of likelihood that it will fix the problem.

I'm a SpinRite fan. Many folks won't put a drive in service until it's been spinrite'd. If you know of SpinRite then you probably know that "spinrite'd" is now a word. ;-)


----------



## lessd

philt56 said:


> I recently bought a wd20eurx and ran the full wd diagnostics on it with no errors. I then went through all the different tools to copy my old drive to it as well as a pristine image and consistently had the premiere hang on the welcome screen. Was thinking it was tools, the usb sata cable and everything else. Finally asked for a rma from Amazon, got the new drive and it copied and booted with no problems.


This has happened to me a few times, about 1% of drives will not work in the TiVo for some reason and pass all diagnostics, not worth the trouble to find out why, I just get a new drive as you did.


----------



## SVTarHeel

DeltaOne said:


> There's only one way to tell if SpinRite will fix the problem -- give it a try.


Agreed. I just started it and the current estimate is 189 hours and 28 minutes to go. That's the real reason I asked to begin with - I wasn't sure about the kinds of errors that cause the green screen, so I didn't know if SpinRite would/could fix them. I was trying to avoid days of testing a large-ish drive like this just to find out it had all been a waste of time and an exercise in false hope.

Maybe I'll have an answer in a week


----------



## BobCamp1

SVTarHeel said:


> Agreed. I just started it and the current estimate is 189 hours and 28 minutes to go. That's the real reason I asked to begin with - I wasn't sure about the kinds of errors that cause the green screen, so I didn't know if SpinRite would/could fix them. I was trying to avoid days of testing a large-ish drive like this just to find out it had all been a waste of time and an exercise in false hope.
> 
> Maybe I'll have an answer in a week


Spinrite is best used to recover a hard drive just long enough to copy the contents onto another hard drive. Spinrite might work for you, and it might not. It will try to recover the data, but it might not do so successfully. It will have to guess what the bits were that were trampled on. I use it all the time, and sometimes it works for a Tivo, and sometimes it doesn't. It recently did NOT work for me -- it did not detect the bad sector because the hard drive had already relocated it, but unfortunately the hard drive did not guess the missing bits correctly and I was stuck in a green screen boot loop.

But you're missing the bigger picture here. You should NEVER actually see bad sectors or any kind of error on a brand new hard drive. What will happen is that you'll slowly but exponentially get more and more bad sectors. It might take days, weeks, or even a month or two. But it's not going to end well.

This is a common but hard to detect failure mode for a hard drive. Spinrite will probably not detect it because it's reading the sectors sequentially, but a random seek test might. A butterfly seek test will usually destroy a hard drive in this condition if it is run long enough (1-4 weeks).

The drive is defective. It will cause you nothing but grief. Return it immediately.


----------



## DeltaOne

BobCamp1 said:


> The drive is defective. It will cause you nothing but grief. Return it immediately.


If this problematic hard drive were in a computer I'd agree. No question, hard drives are cheap -- get a new one.

But this is a TiVo, we're only talking about TV shows and movies. It's not like a hard drive failure means you lose irreplaceable documents, pictures, music, etc.

A techie, just for the heck of it, might like to see if something like SpinRite can get more use out of a hard drive. Or someone else might say this isn't worth their time and decide to replace the hard drive.


----------



## telemark

Tivo Green Screens is a recovery procedure for one type of data corruption.

You really should never see one on a healthy system.

I'd run KS54 while you're waiting to pull it, and when you get a chance pull it and test it on a PC more extensively.

There's a narrow set of reasons that could cause corruption with a good drive, flickering power, a buggy OS, using MFS tools with a bug. These are rare compared to bad drives.

Considering the drive was recently purchased, I'd try to catch the exchange window rather than try to debug it.


----------



## L David Matheny

DeltaOne said:


> If this problematic hard drive were in a computer I'd agree. No question, hard drives are cheap -- get a new one.
> 
> But this is a TiVo, we're only talking about TV shows and movies. It's not like a hard drive failure means you lose irreplaceable documents, pictures, music, etc.
> 
> A techie, just for the heck of it, might like to see if something like SpinRite can get more use out of a hard drive. Or someone else might say this isn't worth their time and decide to replace the hard drive.


Yes, a defective hard drive is certainly a more critical problem in a computer. But the pain and suffering from losing a TiVo hard drive is real too. Besides, unless maybe you cheaped out and bought a refurbished drive, you should expect 100% accurate storage performance from a new drive (allowing for invisible sector substitution as needed).

We recommend that people run the long test of the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic program on any new drive. It should be noted occasionally that those programs (WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic, SeaTools, etc) are not really rigorous diagnostic programs. As normally used anyway, I believe that they just read all sectors of the drive to insure that there are no read errors in the current data.

In the old days, real disk diagnostic programs wrote and read back various patterns to each sector to detect data-sensitive disk areas, sometimes writing and reading immediately after seeking to insure that the access mechanism wasn't sloppy, etc. Of course, that took many hours even with the smaller drives of that era. More sophisticated hardware, firmware and ECC codes may have made such exhaustive testing less necessary, but it can still be a good idea for a suspect drive.

A friend of mine had a sign in his office that said, "We strive to exceed the minimal." If you want to exceed the minimal in hard drive testing, you may want to try SpinRite (or something similar if there is anything else these days). I may have to try it again just to remember geeky old times.


----------



## DeltaOne

L David Matheny said:


> In the old days, real disk diagnostic programs wrote and read back various patterns to each sector to detect data-sensitive disk areas, sometimes writing and reading immediately after seeking to insure that the access mechanism wasn't sloppy, etc. Of course, that took many hours even with the smaller drives of that era. More sophisticated hardware, firmware and ECC codes may have made such exhaustive testing less necessary, but it can still be a good idea for a suspect drive.
> 
> A friend of mine had a sign in his office that said, "We strive to exceed the minimal." If you want to exceed the minimal in hard drive testing, you may want to try SpinRite (or something similar if there is anything else these days). I may have to try it again just to remember geeky old times.


SpinRite works like your mention of the old days. SpinRite doesn't care what has formatted the disk, it doesn't care about files. It reads and writes each sector.

My understanding of the process is that if the read and write is successful, it moves on. If the read/write is problematic, it'll repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times. Either the drive eventually gets it right or the sector is moved. Witness the poster above saying the process was estimated to be 189 hours.

The author of SpinRite is Steve Gibson. I listen to his weekly security podcast. Each podcast usually has a two minute mention of SpinRite (since it's how he earns his living). He's read testimonials from users that say SpinRite finished in an hour or two, or took several weeks to run. Some of that depends on the health of the drive, some on the SpinRite "level" you've chosen to run.

Gibson will soon start work on a new version of SpinRite. One new feature will be speed, he'll be able to work with much larger chunks of data. And Gibson sometimes reads testimonials from SSD owners. SpinRite on level 2 can repair a SSD. SpinRite on level 4 would not be good. Level 2 is read only, but often invokes the SSD's own error correction. Level 4 reads and writes, many thousands of times -- which might shorten the lifespan of a SSD.

Sorry for the off-topic posts...


----------



## lessd

DeltaOne said:


> SpinRite works like your mention of the old days. SpinRite doesn't care what has formatted the disk, it doesn't care about files. It reads and writes each sector.
> 
> My understanding of the process is that if the read and write is successful, it moves on. If the read/write is problematic, it'll repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times. Either the drive eventually gets it right or the sector is moved. Witness the poster above saying the process was estimated to be 189 hours.
> 
> The author of SpinRite is Steve Gibson. I listen to his weekly security podcast. Each podcast usually has a two minute mention of SpinRite (since it's how he earns his living). He's read testimonials from users that say SpinRite finished in an hour or two, or took several weeks to run. Some of that depends on the health of the drive, some on the SpinRite "level" you've chosen to run.
> 
> Gibson will soon start work on a new version of SpinRite. One new feature will be speed, he'll be able to work with much larger chunks of data. And Gibson sometimes reads testimonials from SSD owners. SpinRite on level 2 can repair a SSD. SpinRite on level 4 would not be good. Level 2 is read only, but often invokes the SSD's own error correction. Level 4 reads and writes, many thousands of times -- which might shorten the lifespan of a SSD.
> 
> Sorry for the off-topic posts...


Don't be sorry, good information.


----------



## 1283

I used SpinRite before the IDE drive days. I'm surprised that it's still around.


----------



## nooneuknow

It is nice to see the thread carry on without me.

I see some of the same opposing views:

1. Just return the drive, forget the testing.
2. It's just a TiVo.
3. People love their TiVo data too.
4. SpinRite is a dinosaur, how is it still relevant?
5. You are wasting your time.

... and so on, and so forth...

I'm too passionate about hard drives to (properly) deal with debate, and lately care more about my TiVos' data, than much of what is on my PCs. I can back up my PCs to multiple other drives, in multiple locations. I can't do that with my TiVos (not in an efficient manner, anyway).

I "spinrite" drives before they go into service, in anything I care about. Doing so requires forgoing the instant gratification many are used to and/or crave. They order a TiVo, order a drive, and just want the two to work, without waiting hours, or weeks, to see if they got a good drive, a bad one, or a borderline one.

There's no universal answer, and one size will never fit all.

I've put some good posts out in the past, and many of the best are here. Some vehemently disagree. But, PMs about the posts speak volumes.

Maybe the next step is for me to use google to search within TCF for my best posts, and compile a list of links. I know the TCF search function is more like the "frustrate" function, and practically useless. I really have no new content to contribute. Nothing new, that matters in a TiVo, has came about, since I bailed out of here.

Happy trails...


----------



## SVTarHeel

Well, moving on to plan J. I ended up killing the process because I thought I needed the computer it was running on. That turned out to be a false alarm, so I restarted SpinRite at level 1 - it had been set on 5. The estimate was something like 2:45, so I anticipated a completed test when I got in this evening. Unfortunately, it had climbed to something like 155 hours remaining, so I stopped that as well.

I have initiated the return process but I haven't heard anything back yet.



nooneuknow said:


> I "spinrite" drives before they go into service, in anything I care about.


That may be the way to go for me. Do you get the 'full meal deal' and run them at level 5 or do you do a quicker test at a 'lower' level?


----------



## nooneuknow

SVTarHeel said:


> That may be the way to go for me. Do you get the 'full meal deal' and run them at level 5 or do you do a quicker test at a 'lower' level?


If I have the time to let it do a level 5, it gets it.

If it's a new drive, and the time estimate suddenly makes an abrupt leap, and it is clear the drive is bad, I abort and return the drive. No point in trying to repair/recover a drive that is brand new. The point is to test it.

If you only have one computer, spinrite isn't so great. As you know, it runs in a DOS mode, and ties up that computer.


----------



## SVTarHeel

nooneuknow said:


> If you only have one computer, spinrite isn't so great. As you know, it runs in a DOS mode, and ties up that computer.


Would that I only had one. I took the easy way out and used the machine I use for cloning drives for refurbishing off lease machines. I thought I needed to get a desktop ready for someone in a hurry, necessitating access to the machine, but that was the false alarm. When/if I get a replacement, I'll set up a dedicated machine and let it run to my/its heart's content.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> If I have the time to let it do a level 5, it gets it.
> 
> If it's a new drive, and the time estimate suddenly makes an abrupt leap, and it is clear the drive is bad, I abort and return the drive. No point in trying to repair/recover a drive that is brand new. The point is to test it.
> 
> If you only have one computer, spinrite isn't so great. As you know, it runs in a DOS mode, and ties up that computer.


+1


----------



## BobCamp1

DeltaOne said:


> Gibson will soon start work on a new version of SpinRite. One new feature will be speed, he'll be able to work with much larger chunks of data.


He's been saying that for 10 years now, I think. I don't think it'll ever happen. I'd like to see him update support for SATA drives and more modern motherboards. It flat out refuses to run with my newest motherboard.

Invoking the drive's own error correction is how Spinrite has done its work over the last 15 years, ever since drives could no longer be low-level formatted. It forces the hard drive to read every sector. Spinrite doesn't take "no" for an answer. It even tries to get the head to approach that sector from both directions in the hope that there are enough good bits for the ECC to correct the data just the one time so the sector can be properly relocated.

Very often, Spinrite won't detect an error but the hard drive might have relocated a sector anyway. Spinrite can get the SMART data from most drives to determine if this happened during its scan.

I forgot to mention that if one already has a green screen, just run Spinrite at level 2. You just want the hard drive to last long enough so that MFSTools can immediately copy the data once Spinrite is done. Hard drive errors are like leaky tires and cockroaches -- they never get better and for every one you see there are hundreds you don't see.


----------



## telemark

While the SpinRite users are here- I watched the youtube video on "What It Does" which was interesting.





But it strikes me as something that can be written in an hour?
Read all sectors (Check SMART)
Write all sectors (Check SMART)
Flip all bits (Check SMART)

Sure error recovery is tricky, but this stuff for preventative maintenance is easy.

Just curious what I'm missing that makes it worth $90.


----------



## DeltaOne

BobCamp1 said:


> He's been saying that for 10 years now, I think. I don't think it'll ever happen. I'd like to see him update support for SATA drives and more modern motherboards. It flat out refuses to run with my newest motherboard.


Gibson actually began work on version 6.1 about two years ago. I was pleasantly surprised, as one of the new features is huge for me -- version 6.1 will run on a Macintosh. Saves me from moving Macintosh hard drives to a Windows box for inspection by SpinRite. Other new features are just what you're asking for -- support for USB and modern motherboards.

Then Gibson came up with an idea for a secure authentication system for web sites. His idea doesn't use user names or passwords and he says it is totally secure. Gibson calls this new authentication scheme SQRL (squirrel). He's been working on SQRL for about 16 months and seems to be nearing the finish line.

https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm

Gibson has promised to return to SpinRite 6.1 development as soon as he finishes SQRL. I hope he does.


----------



## BobCamp1

telemark said:


> While the SpinRite users are here- I watched the youtube video on "What It Does" which was interesting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But it strikes me as something that can be written in an hour?
> Read all sectors (Check SMART)
> Write all sectors (Check SMART)
> Flip all bits (Check SMART)
> 
> Sure error recovery is tricky, but this stuff for preventative maintenance is easy.
> 
> Just curious what I'm missing that makes it worth $90.


It's not worth $90. Who said I paid $90 for it?


----------



## h2oskierc

I see Newegg says that WD replaced the WD30EURX with this one:

WD 3 TB WD Purple SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive 3 sata_6_0_gb 64 MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare or OEM Drives WD30PURX

Which drive would be the best choice? Or would the WD30EURS be a better choice? What is the difference between the three?


----------



## Teeps

h2oskierc said:


> I see Newegg says that WD replaced the WD30EURX with this one:
> 
> WD 3 TB WD Purple SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive 3 sata_6_0_gb 64 MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare or OEM Drives WD30PURX
> 
> Which drive would be the best choice? Or would the WD30EURS be a better choice? What is the difference between the three?


I have read here in this thread that the purple drives are not the best choice. 
Having said that, I have XL4 with a 2TB purple drive (original drive failed), and so far (about 6 months?) it's been working fine.

Try using search this thread tool: 
keyword: purple


----------



## tootal2

What happens to the cable card when a hard drive is replaced?


----------



## joewom

tootal2 said:


> What happens to the cable card when a hard drive is replaced?


the pairing is broken and you must call the cable company to have it re-paired.


----------



## randrake

Weaknees says they sell up to 12 TB upgraded TiVo's. Anyone try to do this with a drive larger than 3 TB? With 51 pages, that would be a lot of reading through if someone did and said in here.


----------



## tootal2

joewom said:


> the pairing is broken and you must call the cable company to have it re-paired.


guess I will upgrade the drive before I take the cable card out of my computer. Can I put a 3 tb in a TiVo roamio basic?


----------



## HarperVision

tootal2 said:


> guess I will upgrade the drive before I take the cable card out of my computer. Can I put a 3 tb in a TiVo roamio basic?


. Yes


----------



## nooneuknow

h2oskierc said:


> I see Newegg says that WD replaced the WD30EURX with this one:
> 
> WD 3 TB WD Purple SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive 3 sata_6_0_gb 64 MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare or OEM Drives WD30PURX
> 
> Which drive would be the best choice? Or would the WD30EURS be a better choice? What is the difference between the three?


The reason another posted to search past posts here, is that NewEgg's declaration is FALSE, period. Don't want to take my word for it? Go to WD's website, or even call WD to ask them. I did, multiple times, and always got the correct information.

Some of the "confusion" might be due to WD officially renaming the AV-GP line to just "AV". Same drives, same model numbers, different official product name. The other thing is that if you want >4TB, there are no current free tools to prep for a TiVo (>3TB (4TB max) must be prepared first). Getting a drive ready to go >4TB requires paying WeaKnees to send you a prepared drive. Also, the AV-GP/AV does not exist (yet) in capacities greater than 4TB (which, itself, was slow to become available).

While the AV-GP/AV line is alive, well, and is not slated for End Of Life designation, at all, the -GP part of the name is only on old stock and/or outdated reseller/seller listings now. The only thing EOL'd was the -GP in the name. As with all drives lines, older models of the same thing have been EOL'd, like the ones ending in EURS (now replaced by EURX).

I won't go into details on why I'd never use a Purple myself, or advise others to use them (for a TiVo). I've peppered many threads (this one, especially) with all the details before. It just draws out the "any cheap drive will do" crowd, and then I either have to engage in battle, or look like I backed down. "Working", and being the best drive (and warranty) for your buck, are two different ends of a spectrum. Any plain WD "green" drive will "work", unless you bought a dud.

The WD Red line is the better workhorse drive, for those who want an AV-GP/AV alternative drive. Everything the AV-GP/AV drives can do, the WD Red drives can also do, and are held to a much higher workload (double) capacity than Purples. IMO, worth every penny extra, over the cost of a Purple.

I won't be drawn back into battles of the past, as the players, logic, and arguments never really change. Some simply advocate for the best, while some advocate for the cheapest (while also implying equality, thus cheaper is best, in their minds).

Your call to make on what you buy, nobody else's.


----------



## h2oskierc

Thanks nooneuknow. For some reason whenever I try to search the forums here, it never works for me. I'll take your word for it.

I was searching for a 3TB drive for my plus, stumbled upon New Egg and saw that message. I will probaby go for the WD30EURX then.


----------



## ThAbtO

tootal2 said:


> guess I will upgrade the drive before I take the cable card out of my computer. Can I put a 3 tb in a TiVo roamio basic?


3TB is the max you can drop in a Roamio without any PC work.


----------



## nooneuknow

h2oskierc said:


> Thanks nooneuknow. For some reason whenever I try to search the forums here, it never works for me. I'll take your word for it.
> 
> I was searching for a 3TB drive for my plus, stumbled upon New Egg and saw that message. I will probaby go for the WD30EURX then.


Yeah I hear you on the forum search function problem (almost useless, even to those who know how to make the most of it). A Google search, limited to within the forum, with the right parameters, is the best way to search TCF.

I've tried to get NewEgg to correct their "error". That error has led to other resellers (mostly marketplace ones) to follow NewEgg's lead. It's misinformation, but may be intentional, for all I know. For that alone, if I didn't known everything else I do, I wouldn't let myself get click-baited into buying a different drive than what I went looking to buy.


----------



## tootal2

ThAbtO said:


> 3TB is the max you can drop in a Roamio without any PC work.


I have a pc. so how do I do this pc work?


----------



## ThAbtO

tootal2 said:


> I have a pc. so how do I do this pc work?


For a 3TB into a Roamio? NOTHING! Just swap out the drive for the 3TB.


----------



## Teeps

tootal2 said:


> I have a pc. so how do I do this pc work?


The basic TiVo OS is embedded on the motherboard somewhere. PC no longer needed to do upgrade on Roamio models.


ThAbtO said:


> For a 3TB into a Roamio? NOTHING! Just swap out the drive for the 3TB.


Just connect the new hdd, after torture testing it first, TiVo will do the rest.

However, at present, there is no way to, expand the new HDD, and save recordings or settings to the new larger drive from the original drive.



tootal2 said:


> What happens to the cable card when a hard drive is replaced?


You will have to call your cable co and have it linked to the TiVo.
Should not be a problem. 
Anecdote: the last time I did a hdd upgraded. The time warner cable card telephone agent asked if that is what I had done! She, then said: "no problem, I know just what to do." 10~15 minutes later TiVo was back on line...


----------



## telemark

tootal2 said:


> I have a pc. so how do I do this pc work?


For 3TB you use PC to view post:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=507695

For 4TB you use PC to view post:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860

More seriously, you can test the drive in the PC before either.


----------



## don544

randrake said:


> Weaknees says they sell up to 12 TB upgraded TiVo's. Anyone try to do this with a drive larger than 3 TB? With 51 pages, that would be a lot of reading through if someone did and said in here.


So still looking and searching ,did you ever find were someone did this other than weaknees?


----------



## telemark

don544 said:


> So still looking and searching ,did you ever find were someone did this other than weaknees?


I know of a few people looking into it with results that looks promising, but busy with day jobs is why it isn't done by now.


----------



## don544

telemark said:


> I know of a few people looking into it with results that looks promising, but busy with day jobs is why it isn't done by now.


Understand about the day job


----------



## lessd

12Tb in a Roamio is what, over 1800 hours of HD record storage, or 75 days of recordings if watched 24/7. This need must be for archiving, is not a RAD server a much better choice for that then a 12Tb TiVo drive setup, as if a single drive goes bad, poof, all is lost.


----------



## unitron

telemark said:


> For 3TB you use PC to view post:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=507695
> 
> For 4TB you use PC to view post:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860
> 
> More seriously, you can test the drive in the PC before either.


Both snarky and helpful and informative.

I stand in awe.


----------



## Mikeguy

(I just finished reading all 82 pp. of this thread. (OK, I admit that I skimmed through the not-few posts that were more than a screen long . . . . Folks, really?) Apart from my migraine, do I also now get a free 3TB drive with which to upgrade my new Roamio?  )


----------



## telemark

unitron said:


> Both snarky and helpful and informative.
> 
> I stand in awe.


I think I picked up the snarkiness here. Learned from the best. 



Mikeguy said:


> (I just finished reading all 82 pp. of this thread. (OK, I admit that I skimmed through the not-few posts that were more than a screen long . . . . Folks, really?) Apart from my migraine, do I also now get a free 3TB drive with which to upgrade my new Roamio?  )


We were going to give one away but then couldn't agree which model would be best, so you're on your own.
Really that sounds like volunteering to write a summary warning to save the others who accidentally stray in from the same fate.


----------



## HarperVision

Mikeguy said:


> (I just finished reading all 82 pp. of this thread. (OK, I admit that I skimmed through the not-few posts that were more than a screen long . . . . Folks, really?) Apart from my migraine, do I also now get a free 3TB drive with which to upgrade my new Roamio?  )





telemark said:


> ........We were going to give one away but then couldn't agree which model would be best, so you're on your own. Really that sounds like volunteering to write a summary warning to save the others who accidentally stray in from the same fate.


Maybe nooneuknow should give him a WD AV-GP 3TB drive for free for having to deal with those long winded diatribe (yet informative!), War & Peace style posts.


----------



## astrohip

HarperVision said:


> Maybe nooneuknow should give him a WD AV-GP 3TB drive for free for having to deal with those long winded diatribe (yet informative!), War & Peace style posts.


Speaking of which, where is NOuK? Haven't seen him in a while.


----------



## HarperVision

astrohip said:


> Speaking of which, where is NOuK? Haven't seen him in a while.


I don't know......I swear, you're not gettin' me to talk, I'm not a blabber mouth, copper!!!


----------



## Mikeguy

telemark said:


> I think I picked up the snarkiness here. Learned from the best.
> 
> We were going to give one away but then couldn't agree which model would be best, so you're on your own.
> Really that sounds like volunteering to write a summary warning to save the others who accidentally stray in from the same fate.


 Actually had considered that, by the time that I got to the end. But then I got fearful that I just would be stirring up more debate . . . . It's too bad that this board does not have a Wiki feature at the top of the threads, where contributors collaboratively can place and refine the wisdom of the threads--especially helpful with, um, long threads.

Having said that, and especially for those new to this hard drive upgrade thread, the gist, as I follow it (without writing a treatise or going back and researching) and subject to others' commentary/corrections/expansion:

-- yes, the hard drive in all flavors of the Roamios can be upgraded

-- the upgrade process is almost at the level of plug-and-play: open the Roamio case (just a few screws; 1 or 2 Torx screwdrivers required, depending on Roamio unit or model), unscrew and remove the old hard drive (again, limited screws, and Torx screwdriver required), screw the new hard drive in, and close up the case (if I recall correctly, Torx size 8 and 10 screwdrivers are required for the Roamio basic and a Torx 10 screwdriver for the Roamio Plus and Pro, but you may wish to verify this above--also, the screw sizes may have changed over time)

-- the Roamio Plus and Pro cases will slide off after the case screws are removed, while the basic's case has 3 internal tabs that will require the top to be twisted off a bit, perhaps assisted by pushing in on the sides of the case (has been recommended: watch a YouTube video on the Roamio upgrade process, to see this in action)

-- no special treatment of the replacement hard drive is needed, for drives up to 3TB; simply plug the Roamio in after the hard drive upgrade and the unit will do what is needed to it, with your simply needing to go through the regular guided setup again

-- hard drive upgrade sizes: up to 3TB hard drives, without any special preparation of the hard drive needed; for drives over 3TB, the drive will need to be prepared through a computer first

-- any previously-recorded shows will be lost with the upgrade; to save them, you may transfer them from the Roamio (before the upgrade) to your computer (using the TiVo Desktop Plus pay software or pyTivo freeware) or to another TiVo DVR on your network and then back again after the upgrade

-- any previous cable card pairing will be lost in the upgrade and will need to be repeated

-- previous Season Passes will be lost--but, as I understand it, it is possible to save them before the upgrade and then to reapply them after, using the kmttg freeware or, possibly, through the TiVo website (I'm unclear as to this latter possibility--it only may apply as to moving from an earlier TiVo model to the Roamio, or I may have misunderstood)

-- often recommended for the upgrade (but certainly not mandatory or exclusive--successful upgrades have been done with other drives), Western Digital green and red hard drives; personally, I like what I've read about the Western Digital model WD30EURX (see the many positive Amazon.com comments about it from Roamio owners doing upgrades)--note also Western Digital model WD30EFRX

-- the upgrade can be done at any time, that is, with a new Roamio and before ever turning it on (having said that, in my mind, I'd check the unit out first, to make sure that it is working), after the Roamio initially has been checked out, or thereafter--but in determining the timing, note the issues surrounding the loss of recordings and settings

-- opening the Roamio case could void the TiVo warranty and TiVo could deny future warranty or other service; having said that, TiVo seemingly has been more generous than not in this area in the past, when matters are not shoved in its face, and there are no tamper-proof seals on the Roamio (one might want to retain the original drive and put it back in the machine in case the Roamio needs to be returned for TiVo service--but note that TiVo machine logs may indicate the interim hard drive replacement regardless, if the warranty issue gets pushed).

Perhaps this attempt at a summary will assist others. Also, recommended especially to look at the first page (or pages) of this thread and the pictures there--very helpful, indeed. And many thanks to all for their efforts and information here!


----------



## lpwcomp

Mikeguy said:


> -- any previously-recorded shows will be lost with the upgrade; to save them, you may transfer them from the Roamio (before the upgrade) to your computer (using the TiVo Desktop Plus pay software or pyTivo freeware) or to another TiVo DVR on your network and then back again after the upgrade


Only works for non-copy protected recordings. Very problematic if your cable company copy protects most everything but locals.


----------



## Mikeguy

lpwcomp said:


> Only works for non-copy protected recordings. Very problematic if your cable company copy protects most everything but locals.


Absolutely right--thanks for the addition. Less problematic in the over-the-air world.

And so, even pyTivo won't transfer copy-protected shows?


----------



## lpwcomp

Mikeguy said:


> Absolutely right--thanks for the addition. Less problematic in the over-the-air world.
> 
> And so, even pyTivo won't transfer copy-protected shows?


Correct. It's not the PC program that is in control of what can be transferred, it is the TiVo.


----------



## foghorn2

HarperVision said:


> Gee, thanks for that, but I'm not uninstalling it and spending about ~$125 for another 3TB HD "just in case" something happens to it in a couple years. It's been installed for a few months now, btw. You must drive yourself absolutely insane with your OCD.


Well I have 2 basics, one with the EZRX the other with the EURS both 2TB.
We will see which one outlasts the other or me. Still would be inconclusive since one could just be a bad lemon. We would need more samples.


----------



## cherry ghost

astrohip said:


> Speaking of which, where is NOuK? Haven't seen him in a while.


I think he may be using a different name.


----------



## HarperVision

cherry ghost said:


> I think he may be using a different name.


I'm thinking you're probably right.


----------



## nooneuknow

Wow! 

I spend a couple weeks not posting, and you guys start speculating and gossiping like a bunch of high school girls...  

I'd blush, if there was an emoticon for that.  (close enough?)

@Mikeguy: Good summary. Now, just make all of that fit into the size of text message, or tweet, without losing any of the important specifics/details, make it a sticky post, and everybody will be happy! 

@HarperVision: Nah. Others will come, they'll still complain how many pages or posts there are, and like sands through the hourglass, blah, blah, blah...  (War & Peace enough for ya?)

@telemark: Good zinger of a post on how to use a PC to upgrade. 

@astroship: I think it's best we don't talk to each other, don't talk about each other, and just mutually agree to disagree on everything (quietly).

@all: Unless something new and relevant happens with the hard drives of the right profiles for TiVo use, is there really anything I haven't already covered, in triplicate (at minimum)? If anybody is about to say no, you haven't read the whole thread. Cheaters!


----------



## SVTarHeel

I neglected to follow-up my post from a couple of weeks ago. I RMA'ed my bad 1TB WD Green and got a replacement. I ran both WD diagnostic tests and then ran SpinRite level 5. Everything was passed, so I copied the original 320GB drive over, expanded and supersized it, and all is right with the world.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> [email protected]: Nah. Others will come, they'll still complain how many pages or posts there are, and like sands through the hourglass, blah, blah, blah...  (War & Peace enough for ya?) ............


Haha yeah, that'll work  Welcome back!

P.S. - Do I know you?


----------



## Mikeguy

Highly recommended, for people looking to upgrade: watch the 1-2 or so YouTube videos on the upgrade process (search on, "upgrade Roamio"). Very helpful, especially for Roamio basic owners and dealing with the box's lid, to see the process in action. And then combine with the info. above and it looks like one is set to go.


----------



## passname22

10TB single drive is coming out sometimes during 2015. hope tivo supports that.



Mikeguy said:


> -- previous Season Passes will be lost--but, as I understand it, it is possible to save them before the upgrade and then to reapply them after, using the kmttg freeware or, possibly, through the TiVo website (I'm unclear as to this latter possibility--it only may apply as to moving from an earlier TiVo model to the Roamio, or I may have misunderstood)


I read somewhere that one passes won't be lost since it's in the cloud. Which makes sense and more useful for users.


----------



## Mikeguy

At least using TiVo's online Season Pass Manager, it appears that one moves the Season Passes from one TiVo unit to another--I didn't see a possibility to reapply one's Season Passes on one unit back to the same unit. But perhaps others know better. (If one has 2 TiVo units, one presumably could move the Roamio's Season Passes to the other TiVo, upgrade the Roamio's hard drive, and then move Season Passes of one's choice back to the upgraded Roamio from the other TiVo.)


----------



## HerronScott

Mikeguy said:


> At least using TiVo's online Season Pass Manager, it appears that one moves the Season Passes from one TiVo unit to another--I didn't see a possibility to reapply one's Season Passes on one unit back to the same unit. But perhaps others know better. (If one has 2 TiVo units, one presumably could move the Roamio's Season Passes to the other TiVo, upgrade the Roamio's hard drive, and then move Season Passes of one's choice back to the upgraded Roamio from the other TiVo.)


Although I've never tested this, my understanding is that they should repopulate on the same unit assuming you are opted-in.

Scott


----------



## Mikeguy

HerronScott said:


> Although I've never tested this, my understanding is that they should repopulate on the same unit assuming you are opted-in.
> 
> Scott


Now, that certainly would be nice, wouldn't it.


----------



## gespears

Mikeguy said:


> Now, that certainly would be nice, wouldn't it.


It would be even better if it actually moved all your settings, SPs, etc. Like an android phone or Harmony remote. 

I've always connected my new box to the net and transferred the SPs manually. I've never seen where it would do it for you. Are you sure it works that way? Where is that option?

Thanks.


----------



## Mikeguy

Are you referring to the Season Pass Manager at tivo.com? Here's a TiVo info. page about it, and a link to get to it.

https://www.tivo.com/my-account/how-to/how-use-season-pass-manager-tivocom


----------



## HarperVision

Mikeguy said:


> Are you referring to the Season Pass Manager at tivo.com? Here's a TiVo info. page about it, and a link to get to it. https://www.tivo.com/my-account/how-to/how-use-season-pass-manager-tivocom


KMTTG does it a LOT better!


----------



## gespears

Mikeguy said:


> Are you referring to the Season Pass Manager at tivo.com? Here's a TiVo info. page about it, and a link to get to it.
> 
> https://www.tivo.com/my-account/how-to/how-use-season-pass-manager-tivocom


That's the one I always use. But I was referring to HerronScott saying "Although I've never tested this, my understanding is that they should repopulate on the same unit assuming you are opted-in." That's what I wanted to see.


----------



## Mikeguy

HarperVision said:


> KMTTG does it a LOT better!


And does what the online TiVo Season Pass Manager may not be able to do . . . .


gespears said:


> That's the one I always use. But I was referring to HerronScott saying "Although I've never tested this, my understanding is that they should repopulate on the same unit assuming you are opted-in." That's what I wanted to see.


Yep, would be wonderful to see confirmation of that.


----------



## HerronScott

gespears said:


> That's the one I always use. But I was referring to HerronScott saying "Although I've never tested this, my understanding is that they should repopulate on the same unit assuming you are opted-in." That's what I wanted to see.


Check out this post from TivoPony back in 2006 regarding TiVo Magic. 

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4121063

Scott


----------



## Mikeguy

HerronScott said:


> Check out this post from TivoPony back in 2006 regarding TiVo Magic.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4121063
> 
> Scott





> No 'Twilight Zone', just a bit of TiVo Magic.
> 
> Both Guru Guides and the new KidZone Guides feature in KidZone require that you modify your account settings to allow the service to have access to what is scheduled on your DVR (that's how we can resolve conflicts, place priority, etc automatically with the new Guides).
> 
> If you replace the hard drive on your box...well, the service sees that things are out of sync and automagically fixes that. All of the missing Season Passes, Wishlists, and Guru/KidZone Guides are automatically repopulated.
> 
> It's not a documented feature, nor a supported feature. So don't call Customer Support about it. They won't be able to help you. It's just a side benefit of having signed up for the new Guru/KidZone Guide Features.
> 
> Note that it's all tied to your TSN...so if you RMA a box, this likely won't have any benefit for you (the replacement would have a different TSN).
> 
> But if you're the adventurous type that likes to tinker with things (and I can't endorse opening the box)...it's a perk.
> 
> Selling your box? If you Clear and Delete Everything the TiVo Service will know it shouldn't sync the old stuff to the new drive.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Pony


Wow--nice (unofficial) feature (and investigative work there)! And so I guess the question remains: as the Guides no longer exist (as far as I know), can the Season Pass auto-repopulation feature still kick in and under what conditions, especially given that the online TiVo service has access to one's scheduling information?


----------



## scotc585

I just retired my 11 year old Series 2 and replaced it with the Roamio Basic. I'm about to upgrade the drive with a 3TB WD30EURX. I've read through this entire thread (all 83 pages as of today, 01March2015) in detail. *** I'd like to thank all TC members for their contributions. What a valuable resource! *** Anyway, one thing that caught my eye was the power supply discussion (I also read through that thread).

My setup is simple - I'm OTA only (No cable card / tuning adapter). I also use an ethernet cable to connect (I'm not sure if when hardwired, TiVo powers down the wireless card.) In any case, my power needs are on the lower end. Given this, I'm wondering if I should buy one of the LiteOn 12V 2.5A 30W adapters mentioned or should I just stick with the stock, as supplied power supply?


----------



## Mikeguy

From what I've read, the stock supply should be just fine; I'm not reading of most people upgrading the power supply in more simple circumstances. But I'll leave it to the pontificators to pontificate. 

P.S. Congratulations, and welcome to the "I read the entire thread" club!


----------



## foghorn2

I've been using a 20EURS and a 20EZRX in my basics, I have not had to swap the power adapters with the Cisco tuning adapters yet, probably never will. The power adapter for the Roamio's never feel hot either.


----------



## raqball

foghorn2 said:


> I've been using a 20EURS and a 20EZRX in my basics, I have not had to swap the power adapters with the Cisco tuning adapters yet, probably never will. The power adapter for the Roamio's never feel hot either.


Awesome.. I just purchased a WD20EURX for my Roamio.. I was going to get 3TB but that is probably serious overkill for me. Heck, 2TB (300HD hours) might still be overkill..


----------



## nooneuknow

scotc585 said:


> I just retired my 11 year old Series 2 and replaced it with the Roamio Basic. I'm about to upgrade the drive with a 3TB WD30EURX. I've read through this entire thread (all 83 pages as of today, 01March2015) in detail. *** I'd like to thank all TC members for their contributions. What a valuable resource! *** Anyway, one thing that caught my eye was the power supply discussion (I also read through that thread).
> 
> My setup is simple - I'm OTA only (No cable card / tuning adapter). I also use an ethernet cable to connect (I'm not sure if when hardwired, TiVo powers down the wireless card.) In any case, my power needs are on the lower end. Given this, I'm wondering if I should buy one of the LiteOn 12V 2.5A 30W adapters mentioned or should I just stick with the stock, as supplied power supply?


IMO, you'll be fine. You are using a drive that likely requires/uses about the same as the drive you took out. Many who compared the power requirements between drives found this to be the case. Sometimes the bigger drives are more efficient (due to advances in efficiency), so long as they are low power requirement, or of a "green" power profile.

Not using a cablecard gives you some extra reserve margin.
Not using a TA makes no difference in Roamio load.

Most people who require that extra .5A are using atypical drives (not the ones recommended here), and/or were doing things like using USB hubs w/out an external power source, and hanging excessive USB loads off such hubs.

IMO, if you find yourself winding up with a Cisco TA, with that 12V 2.5A brick, it just makes sense to take the over-spec'd TA brick and use it for the Roamio, and use the Roamio's wart for the TA. This leaves more margin for the Roamio, and still excess margin for the TA.

While many here will say your TiVo should be on a UPS (battery backup), and I agree (all of mine are, as is all the supporting infrastructure/devices), not everybody will have theirs on one. In the event of a brown-out, or micro-outage, the extra reserve could keep the Roamio running, as opposed to rebooting (or becoming unstable).

The LiteOn bricks also are made to a higher quality spec, are shielded, have ferrites, allowing for cleaner power, with less potential for RF ingress/egress.

Congrats on making it through the thread, and welcome!

I tried to kill a few birds with this one post, while still addressing your specifics.


----------



## Alf Tanner

So... About the 6TB upgrade. Is the issue with the roamio image not physically being able to see the 6Tb? Is it a formatting issue with the partition scheme? Could you, in theory just take a drive cloning software like acronis and clone the drive (whether virgin image or something else) and recover it to a larger drive?


----------



## Alf Tanner

Mostly asking because 6tb WD Red drives were on sale at microcenter for $250 or so.


----------



## jmbach

A 6TB drive, although can be formatted by a Roamio, does not use all available space. The drive will work but you are left with about 250GB of recording space. Copying your current drive to a 6TB will give you the same space as your current drive. At this time there is nothing available to expand the recording space to use the whole drive.


----------



## Alf Tanner

jmbach said:


> A 6TB drive, although can be formatted by a Roamio, does not use all available space. The drive will work but you are left with about 250GB of recording space. Copying your current drive to a 6TB will give you the same space as your current drive. At this time there is nothing available to expand the recording space to use the whole drive.


I'm guessing nobody has any idea how weaknees does it, either?


----------



## lessd

Alf Tanner said:


> I'm guessing nobody has any idea how weaknees does it, either?


Not yet, but I don't think there would be a big demand for drives over 4Tb that we can have now, but I expect somebody will figure out how to format a 6 Tb TiVo Roamio drive sometime in the future, for the challenge!


----------



## Alf Tanner

lessd said:


> Not yet, but I don't think there would be a big demand for drives over 4Tb that we can have now, but I expect somebody will figure out how to format a 6 Tb TiVo Roamio drive sometime in the future, for the challenge!


I didn't realize when I posted that weaknees was a forum sponsor, my apologies if it seemed like I was trying to step on his or her toes.

After reading threads other places discussing tivos file system and partition structure it's not clear to me if the MFS tools through Linux are applicable to current generation Tivos. Is it possible to SSH into your tivo somehow? I wonder if you could get the correct partition structure by remote SSH into your tivo and mounting the partitions through Linux. If that's possible couldn't someone figure it out if they had a 3TB internal drive and 3TB expansion drive connected via esata?


----------



## s10023

My roamio drive died. I'm replacing it today with a new one. Just want to confirm: all one passes are lost and need to be recreated, right?


----------



## Mikeguy

s10023 said:


> My roamio drive died. I'm replacing it today with a new one. Just want to confirm: all one passes are lost and need to be recreated, right?


Yes, unless you had saved them on your computer earlier or can transfer them from another TiVo (previously located there) to the Roamio and its new drive.


----------



## BobCamp1

Alf Tanner said:


> I didn't realize when I posted that weaknees was a forum sponsor, my apologies if it seemed like I was trying to step on his or her toes.
> 
> After reading threads other places discussing tivos file system and partition structure it's not clear to me if the MFS tools through Linux are applicable to current generation Tivos. Is it possible to SSH into your tivo somehow? I wonder if you could get the correct partition structure by remote SSH into your tivo and mounting the partitions through Linux. If that's possible couldn't someone figure it out if they had a 3TB internal drive and 3TB expansion drive connected via esata?


Note that there is a separate forum for upgrading the hard drives, called "Tivo upgrade center", which talks about the details.

To summarize: 
- None of the older MFS tools work with the Roamios.
- The default partition system (APM) only supports 4 TB maximum.*
- A bug in the Roamios prevents them from correctly initializing a blank hard drive over 3 TB.
- There is a PC tool (in the other forum) that prepares a 4 TB drive for the Roamio. A Roamio can use a 4 TB hard drive prepared in this way.
- Yes, Weakness sells a 6 TB solution. The 12 TB solution involves an external 6 TB drive, though external solutions are generally frowned upon in these forums due to the poor reliability of eSATA enclosures. Plus, to channel Bill Gates, "4 TB ought to be enough for anybody."

I looked in the Tivo code and it looks like it might support a file system that exceeds 4 TB, even though it would never initialize a drive using this system. But a PC could prep. the hard drive similar to the 4 TB solution. I don't think anybody's had the time to look into it except for Weakness.

* Not true, if Tivo will properly recognize a 4K native HDD.


----------



## Time_Lord

BobCamp1 said:


> Plus, to channel Bill Gates, "4 TB ought to be enough for anybody."


I thought it was nobody would ever need more than 640KB


----------



## lessd

Time_Lord said:


> I thought it was nobody would ever need more than 640KB


In the 80s that was true, but there is diminishing returns at some point, 99% of home PC don't need more than 8Gb of RAM, and most can work with 4Gb of RAM without problems. As Hard drives get bigger it will become hard for the home user to manage all that information that can be stored on such a drive, plus backing up big drives are also a problem, although most people don't back up anyways.
That why RAD is the way to go for storage of a lot of information.


----------



## lpwcomp

lessd said:


> In the 80s that was true, but there is diminishing returns at some point, 99% of home PC don't need more than 8Tb of RAM, and most can work with 4Tb of RAM without problems. As Hard drives get bigger it will become hard for the home user to manage all that information that can be stored on such a drive, plus backing up big drives are also a problem, although most people don't back up anyways.
> That why RAD is the way to go for storage of a lot of information.


I hope you meant "Gb" rather that "Tb".


----------



## 1283

B=byte(s)
b=bit(s)


----------



## scotc585

Thanks to everyone for weighing in. Although I'd probably be fine, I managed to find the recommended Liteon power adapter for a great price so I bought it. It might not help, but for the minimal investment it won't hurt either.



nooneuknow said:


> While many here will say your TiVo should be on a UPS (battery backup), and I agree (all of mine are, as is all the supporting infrastructure/devices), not everybody will have theirs on one. In the event of a brown-out, or micro-outage, the extra reserve could keep the Roamio running, as opposed to rebooting (or becoming unstable).


Instead of a UPS, for many years I've used and relied on APC Line-R Power conditioners. They are designed specifically to provide automatic voltage regulation for protection from brownouts, overvoltages, and surge protection. A UPS unit can do the same, but that's not their primary function and if it needs to condition often, the battery will need to be replaced more frequently. Line conditioners don't provide power in a blackout but I don't see the benefit of providing power to a Tivo in a blackout. Unlike a computer which can have software that kicks in to do an unattended shutdown, the Tivo would just run until the UPS battery died or the power came back on. One big advantage of a line conditioner is that unless you have a catastrophic power event (e.g., lightning strike) they last indefinitely - no battery to eventually replace. In my opinion, for something like a Tivo, a line conditioner is the better way to go.


----------



## BobCamp1

c3 said:


> B=byte(s)
> b=bit(s)


I apologize for my lazy left pinky and its accidental capitalization of letters.

Has anybody tried to put in this hard drive in a Tivo just to see what happens?

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-ST6000NM0004-128MB-3-5IN-ENCRYPTION/dp/B00J62A6OI

Or this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-ST4000NM0004-SATA-128MB-3-5IN/dp/B00R2WY7CG

I'm guessing this is Weaknees's trick to get 6 TB hard drives working. He's using 4Kn drives (I made sure my lazy left pinky finger lifted up in time for that).


----------



## lpwcomp

c3 said:


> B=byte(s)
> b=bit(s)


Doesn't make it any more correct.


----------



## 1283

BobCamp1 said:


> I apologize for my lazy left pinky and its accidental capitalization of letters.


I don't see anything wrong with your post.



lpwcomp said:


> Doesn't make it any more correct.


I agree.


----------



## aaronwt

scotc585 said:


> Thanks to everyone for weighing in. Although I'd probably be fine, I managed to find the recommended Liteon power adapter for a great price so I bought it. It might not help, but for the minimal investment it won't hurt either.
> 
> Instead of a UPS, for many years I've used and relied on APC Line-R Power conditioners. They are designed specifically to provide automatic voltage regulation for protection from brownouts, overvoltages, and surge protection. A UPS unit can do the same, but that's not their primary function and if it needs to condition often, the battery will need to be replaced more frequently. Line conditioners don't provide power in a blackout but I don't see the benefit of providing power to a Tivo in a blackout. Unlike a computer which can have software that kicks in to do an unattended shutdown, the Tivo would just run until the UPS battery died or the power came back on. One big advantage of a line conditioner is that unless you have a catastrophic power event (e.g., lightning strike) they last indefinitely - no battery to eventually replace. In my opinion, for something like a Tivo, a line conditioner is the better way to go.


??? When the power is out you still want your shows recorded. For me I still watch Tv when the power is out since I have a UPS for all my electronic devices.


----------



## nooneuknow

scotc585 said:


> Thanks to everyone for weighing in. Although I'd probably be fine, I managed to find the recommended Liteon power adapter for a great price so I bought it. It might not help, but for the minimal investment it won't hurt either.
> 
> Instead of a UPS, for many years I've used and relied on APC Line-R Power conditioners. They are designed specifically to provide automatic voltage regulation for protection from brownouts, overvoltages, and surge protection. A UPS unit can do the same, but that's not their primary function and if it needs to condition often, the battery will need to be replaced more frequently. Line conditioners don't provide power in a blackout but I don't see the benefit of providing power to a Tivo in a blackout. Unlike a computer which can have software that kicks in to do an unattended shutdown, the Tivo would just run until the UPS battery died or the power came back on. One big advantage of a line conditioner is that unless you have a catastrophic power event (e.g., lightning strike) they last indefinitely - no battery to eventually replace. In my opinion, for something like a Tivo, a line conditioner is the better way to go.


While hoping this doesn't take the thread off into another sideways-drift, I wanted to say that all of my UPS units are of the AVR (automatic voltage regulation) power-conditioning type, with the fact that they only use the battery when absolutely needed, being a major factor in my choice of equipment.

Unlike where I used to live (where power could be out for weeks), power brownouts and outages here have always been a matter of seconds to minutes. Even if the batteries inside my AVR UPSes were flat/failed, they'd still condition the power. Units advertised as "green", also tend to waste far less electricity during normal operation. I'm running a mix of AVR-green and AVR. The next time any of my batteries fail a test, I'll move to active PFC (power factor correction) units. Switch-mode power supplies without active PFC, are very inefficient. But, if like me, you are moving towards equipment with active PFC, any conditioning/UPS devices should at least state they are for use with active PFC.

About the only (home entertainment) devices I don't have on any backup, are my CCFL energy-hogging LCD TVs. In the event that I'm away, and my backups' batteries run-out during an outage, at least I know I get a clean shutdown, and am protected against the typical brownout and surge combo platter that can happen when power is restored. I have commercial-grade whole home surge protectors as a first-line defense, which I just might eventually change to power conditioners, as well, if it ever becomes affordable. Just because some "cheap" ones are out there, doesn't mean they are worth the materials they are made out of...

I could go on forever about just how important it is that the right AVR/UPS product is used, and how many ways the wrong kind can damage equipment, rather than protecting it. I'll defer any questions on the matter to "Go look it up on Google and wikipedia", in the interest of keeping the thread on topic.

There's a few threads on these subject matters, if anybody wishes to dig them up, post links, and take the discussion there. I try to abstain from those threads, as the next thing you know, there's a big argument on proper grounding, and it all just goes to hell. Proper grounding is critical. But, the degree to which some insist all must go, is often easier accomplished (or will feel that way) with a bulldozer and new home, built to exceed (not just meet) electrical codes, than trying to achieve it with many existing homes.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> ??? When the power is out you still want your shows recorded. For me I still watch Tv when the power is out sin e I have a UPS for all my electronic devices.


I'd call this one of those proverbial YMMV situations. Some folks really do mean it when they say "It's just TV". I'm not one of them. I can deal with my TVs going off, so long as my TiVos and networking stay up.

As soon as I upgrade to LED backlit TVs, I'll be joining the ranks of those who can watch TV through a outage (within obvious limitations). I had a ~10 second outage last week, and my Netflix viewing through my Roamio was only interrupted by the time the TV was without power...

Apparently Cox must not rely on the same grid/segment that I'm on, as my cable signal has never even flinched, even when the whole visible area was dark...

Darn it! Now, everybody's going to blame me for however long this subject derails the thread...


----------



## lpwcomp

c3 said:


> I don't see anything wrong with your post.


You don't see anything wrong with a post that talks about home PC's having 2 Terabytes (or bits) of _*Random Access Memory*_?


----------



## jmbach

BobCamp1 said:


> I apologize for my lazy left pinky and its accidental capitalization of letters.
> 
> Has anybody tried to put in this hard drive in a Tivo just to see what happens?
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-ST6000NM0004-128MB-3-5IN-ENCRYPTION/dp/B00J62A6OI
> 
> Or this one?
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-ST4000NM0004-SATA-128MB-3-5IN/dp/B00R2WY7CG
> 
> I'm guessing this is Weaknees's trick to get 6 TB hard drives working. He's using 4Kn drives (I made sure my lazy left pinky finger lifted up in time for that).


No but I have put a 6TB WD Green drive in my Roamio. It formats it and boots but only gives you about 250HD recording hours.


----------



## 1283

lpwcomp said:


> You don't see anything wrong with a post that talks about home PC's having 2 Terabytes (or bits) of _*Random Access Memory*_?


BobCamp1 did not write that.


----------



## lpwcomp

c3 said:


> BobCamp1 did not write that.


You are correct. The problem was your original post on the subject immediately followed lessd's post and my response to it so I got confused as to what the subsequent exchange was referring.


----------



## BobCamp1

jmbach said:


> No but I have put a 6TB WD Green drive in my Roamio. It formats it and boots but only gives you about 250HD recording hours.


It needs to be an advanced format 4k native (4Kn) drive, not a 512e or 512n drive. There must be a 4Kn logo on the hard drive. It would be interesting to see if the Tivo's built-in formatting tools could handle it, or if the drive needs to be partitioned and formatted with a PC first.

Windows XP SP3 32-bit and Linux run just fine with a 4Kn 6 TB drive. That's because the partition system of MBR and APM (Tivo's) uses numbers of sectors, not numbers of bytes. So do the FAT32 and EXT4 file systems. And the hard drive tells you how big each sector is. So as long as nothing is hard coded to 512 bytes per sector, and the variables reporting drive and partition sizes in bytes are types that are big enough to hold the larger numbers, the limit should be around 32 TB with a PC helping with partitioning or 24 TB native Tivo support (Linux's fdisk handles 4Kn drives with no problem).

Here's an article on somebody doing this for various flavors of Windows and Linux:

http://wp.xin.at/archives/2581

Weakness does not appear to use a customized kernel for 6 TB support, so I'm guessing the Roamio's HDD controller and kernel natively support 4Kn drives. It would also help explain the ridiculous price of the 12 TB system -- 4Kn drives aren't exactly cheap right now.


----------



## jmbach

It would be interesting. Currently the Roamio will format the drive using a 64bit APM table using 512 byte blocks. The whole drive is used but when you look at the logs the TiVo generates, it only gives you a portion of the usable space in the available MFS. The space is smaller than the max amount of 32bit space that could be generated regularly.


----------



## Alf Tanner

nooneuknow said:


> While hoping this doesn't take the thread off into another sideways-drift, I wanted to say that all of my UPS units are of the AVR (automatic voltage regulation) power-conditioning type, with the fact that they only use the battery when absolutely needed, being a major factor in my choice of equipment.
> 
> Unlike where I used to live (where power could be out for weeks), power brownouts and outages here have always been a matter of seconds to minutes. Even if the batteries inside my AVR UPSes were flat/failed, they'd still condition the power. Units advertised as "green", also tend to waste far less electricity during normal operation. I'm running a mix of AVR-green and AVR. The next time any of my batteries fail a test, I'll move to active PFC (power factor correction) units. Switch-mode power supplies without active PFC, are very inefficient. But, if like me, you are moving towards equipment with active PFC, any conditioning/UPS devices should at least state they are for use with active PFC.
> 
> About the only (home entertainment) devices I don't have on any backup, are my CCFL energy-hogging LCD TVs. In the event that I'm away, and my backups' batteries run-out during an outage, at least I know I get a clean shutdown, and am protected against the typical brownout and surge combo platter that can happen when power is restored. I have commercial-grade whole home surge protectors as a first-line defense, which I just might eventually change to power conditioners, as well, if it ever becomes affordable. Just because some "cheap" ones are out there, doesn't mean they are worth the materials they are made out of...
> 
> I could go on forever about just how important it is that the right AVR/UPS product is used, and how many ways the wrong kind can damage equipment, rather than protecting it. I'll defer any questions on the matter to "Go look it up on Google and wikipedia", in the interest of keeping the thread on topic.
> 
> There's a few threads on these subject matters, if anybody wishes to dig them up, post links, and take the discussion there. I try to abstain from those threads, as the next thing you know, there's a big argument on proper grounding, and it all just goes to hell. Proper grounding is critical. But, the degree to which some insist all must go, is often easier accomplished (or will feel that way) with a bulldozer and new home, built to exceed (not just meet) electrical codes, than trying to achieve it with many existing homes.


I guess I've not seen those threads... Here's what I have for tivo UPS tell me if those are good or no: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102134


----------



## nooneuknow

Alf Tanner said:


> I guess I've not seen those threads... Here's what I have for tivo UPS tell me if those are good or no: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102134


That exact one is on my private wish lists for when there's a good deal, and on my short list for what I'd buy if I needed a replacement "right now".

It is overkill for just a TiVo, but a must have (or other brand equivalent), if you are using equipment with APFC, and/or other equipment, where you just can't go wrong with pure sine wave output from battery.

Brand loyalty, and/or bad experiences, can turn these discussions ugly, which is why I'm trying to be as brand neutral as I can muster. My brand choice for such devices has changed over time. YMMV, as with so many things.


----------



## Alf Tanner

nooneuknow said:


> That exact one is on my private wish lists for when there's a good deal, and on my short list for what I'd buy if I needed a replacement "right now".
> 
> It is overkill for just a TiVo, but a must have (or other brand equivalent), if you are using equipment with APFC, and/or other equipment, where you just can't go wrong with pure sine wave output from battery.
> 
> Brand loyalty, and/or bad experiences, can turn these discussions ugly, which is why I'm trying to be as brand neutral as I can muster. My brand choice for such devices has changed over time. YMMV, as with so many things.


Got it, I'll take it to PMs as to not keep cluttering this thread. Thank you for the reply.


----------



## BobCamp1

jmbach said:


> It would be interesting. Currently the Roamio will format the drive using a 64bit APM table using 512 byte blocks. The whole drive is used but when you look at the logs the TiVo generates, it only gives you a portion of the usable space in the available MFS. The space is smaller than the max amount of 32bit space that could be generated regularly.


The magic is that only 32-bit addressing would be needed with a 4Kn drive. It talks to a 6 TB 4Kn drive exactly like it does a 750 GB 512e or 512n hard drive.

Even if the Tivo can't prepare the disk itself, it wouldn't be that difficult to prepare the hard disk for the Tivo.


----------



## s10023

s10023 said:


> My roamio drive died. I'm replacing it today with a new one. Just want to confirm: all one passes are lost and need to be recreated, right?


As an update to this, I replaced the drive and none of my season passes were there EXCEPT the one OnePass I had created in the past two weeks. It was the only onepass i had created natively (as opposed to all my others which were converted from old "season passes")


----------



## lessd

BobCamp1 said:


> The magic is that only 32-bit addressing would be needed with a 4Kn drive. It talks to a 6 TB 4Kn drive exactly like it does a 750 GB 512e or 512n hard drive.
> 
> Even if the Tivo can't prepare the disk itself, it wouldn't be that difficult to prepare the hard disk for the Tivo.


Then you do it !!


----------



## Mikeguy

s10023 said:


> As an update to this, I replaced the drive and none of my season passes were there EXCEPT the one OnePass I had created in the past two weeks. It was the only onepass i had created natively (as opposed to all my others which were converted from old "season passes")


Well, now _that's_ interesting: and so, unlike what was thought to be the case with Season Passes, OnePasses will repopulate on a new hard drive? Will be interesting to see if this proves to be the case for others.


----------



## nooneuknow

Mikeguy said:


> Well, now _that's_ interesting: and so, unlike what was thought to be the case with Season Passes, OnePasses will repopulate on a new hard drive? Will be interesting to see if this proves to be the case for others.


I wouldn't get too excited, until it has been verified by others, and verified it can do a complete list.

I had some Season Passes "backed up in the pipe", created using the online guide, from before the 20.4.6 update, which keep coming down with every CPI&TDL I do, even though they already exist (creating duplicates OnePasses, which is not supposed to be possible). It could be a bug, not a feature...

After about a dozen runs, I gave up hoping the pipe would clear out, and stop creating duplicate OnePasses.

In weeks leading up to 20.4.6, the only way I could schedule anything, was through TiVo's website. I'd get the blue circle timeout, locally. KMTTG didn't work either. Even the online method took between an hour to 3 days to send them down to my Roamios. With all the attempts I made, I can't be sure if they are residual failed attempts to schedule, or otherwise.

I don't like thinking that the only way I might be able to get a clean slate is with a C&DE. I have no intentions of trying one, and wiping a 60% full 3TB drive, just to see if the pipe stops dumping them out.


----------



## philhu

nooneuknow said:


> I wouldn't get too excited, until it has been verified by others, and verified it can do a complete list.
> 
> I had some Season Passes "backed up in the pipe", created using the online guide, from before the 20.4.6 update, which keep coming down with every CPI&TDL I do, even though they already exist (creating duplicates OnePasses, which is not supposed to be possible). It could be a bug, not a feature...
> 
> After about a dozen runs, I gave up hoping the pipe would clear out, and stop creating duplicate OnePasses.
> 
> In weeks leading up to 20.4.6, the only way I could schedule anything, was through TiVo's website. I'd get the blue circle timeout, locally. KMTTG didn't work either. Even the online method took between an hour to 3 days to send them down to my Roamios. With all the attempts I made, I can't be sure if they are residual failed attempts to schedule, or otherwise.
> 
> I don't like thinking that the only way I might be able to get a clean slate is with a C&DE. I have no intentions of trying one, and wiping a 60% full 3TB drive, just to see if the pipe stops dumping them out.


I just ended up in this exact situation on a new Roamio Plus. I was fiddling with my switch while tivo was populating channel maps in my initial calls and unplugged it by accident, got an immediate 'Interrupted system call' status in the call. So had alot of internal corruption in the tivo. I saw what you see AND about 90 channels not get guide data.

Anyway. Try redo guided setup. It fixed it completely and nothing recorded was lost and my 2 new season passes stayed through it.


----------



## nooneuknow

philhu said:


> I just ended up in this exact situation on a new Roamio Plus. I was fiddling with my switch while tivo was populating channel maps in my initial calls and unplugged it by accident, got an immediate 'Interrupted system call' status in the call. So had alot of internal corruption in the tivo. I saw what you see AND about 90 channels not get guide data.
> 
> Anyway. Try redo guided setup. It fixed it completely and nothing recorded was lost and my 2 new season passes stayed through it.


I had tried repeating guided setup, and changed to a semi-secret blank 00000 zip code/Tiny TiVo provider lineup, good for cleaning up bad data, as it's meant to be a blank-slate guide data download, and has cleanup routines. Same thing.

I then switched back to my correct zip/lineup, same thing. I essentially tried every trick I know, short of Clear & Delete Everything (C&DE), and every time, duplicate OnePasses got added, for programs that I had been forced to resort to use the TiVo website to add, as nothing local would work in the weeks before 20.4.6 came.

I have not had any issues locally scheduling/adding anything after the update. There are no signs of any local (on the TiVo) corruption. Even if there was, the 00000/Tiny TiVo "trick" should have cleared it, and I also ran kickstarts 57 & 58 at each reboot, before and after, to be sure of that.

This is kind of OT, but not. As I'd like to hear about anybody swapping drives, who see any "repopulating" of SPs/1Ps. As I said, it may not be a feature, but some sort of bug. I'd hate for anybody to count on a bug to preserve their SP/1P list for them. Best to just use KMTTG locally, and forget using TiVo's website/online system, which is where the duplicates are being fed down from. The pop-up messages saying "program has been successfully scheduled on this TiVo" are unique to passes/recordings scheduled through their online system.

I didn't have any of the other problems you wound up with, and do keep a close eye out for anything wonky with my guide data.

Thanks for trying to help, and sharing, though.


----------



## brian1269

Before even plugging in my Roamio Plus that I got about four months ago, I installed a WD30EURX drive. I started it up and everything went fine and it worked okay. Once in a while, maybe once every two weeks, something would lock up the TiVo and not let me delete programs out of the My Shows list, and when trying to play a program it would just go to a black screen with no audio from the show. It would not let you get back to the menus; if you pressed the TiVo button or back button or live TV, you would hear the TiVo sounds but it would just stay on the black screen. The only way to get things back to normal was to reboot.

When the 20.4.6 update hit, it started doing this more frequently, and finally wouldn't go 30 minutes without this issue. I tried everything I could think of. I cleared the thumb ratings and programs info & to do list. Then I tried a clear & delete everything. I tried different HDMI cables, then bypassing the receiver and hooking it up directly to the TV, and removing the tuning adapter. I even did a low level format (write zeros) on the drive. I ran all the S.M.A.R.T. tests (all passed). Nothing worked.

Finally I re-installed the original drive and it has worked flawlessly for a week now.

So did I just get a bad drive that doesn't work well with the software? None of the tests showed that it was bad.


----------



## Kash76

I am interested in what is said about this. My basic is coming tomorrow and I plan to put a 1TB in it before I power it on.


----------



## Arcady

My understanding is that it's possible that a 3TB can use more power than the included AC adapter was designed to handle. People on this forum have talked about swapping power supplies (in some cases using the overpowered one that comes with a tuning adapter, and using the TiVo one on the TA.) This isn't an issue on the Plus/Pro because it uses the higher-power internal power supply like a TiVo Premiere.

Someone else can probably provide more specific AMP ratings and suggestions if this may be the issue.


----------



## jmbach

That would be true for the basic but he has a plus. 

What program(s) did you use to check the drive.


----------



## Mikeguy

And actually, no one has posted here about such a power issue, and the genuine consensus amongst the electrical sorts here has been that there would not be such an issue with a 3TB drive. Likewise, I have not read of anyone raising that issue at Amazon.com, on the product page for what seems to be the drive attracting TiVo folk.


----------



## Arcady

jmbach said:


> That would be true for the basic but he has a plus.


Sorry, I thought I read base for some reason. Never mind.


----------



## nooneuknow

Mikeguy said:


> And actually, no one has posted here about such a power issue, and the genuine consensus amongst the electrical sorts here has been that there would not be such an issue with a 3TB drive. Likewise, I have not read of anyone raising that issue at Amazon.com, on the product page for what seems to be the drive attracting TiVo folk.


Actually, I happen to be one of the first to encounter such an issue. But, I use the WD30EFRX Red drives. Their power profile is comparable to an AV-GP of the same capacity (going by the specified numbers).

I was having issues with unreadable sectors, that could read just fine if written outside the base Roamio. I noticed the stock warts ran hotter than any other wart or brick in the same class, and realized I had the solution powering my TAs (and running exceptionally cool).

Fast forward to nearly a year of testing (actual methodical testing), and I've not had an issue since I swapped them around.

It has since been a subject of debate if any drive with TLER/ERC belongs in a non-RAID setting. TLER basically devotes 7 seconds to dealing with a sector error, then just skips it, without correcting or flagging it.

Telemark first hypothesized that I probably was riding right on the edge, and sectors were being weakly written. I then realized this was a perfect storm situation, when combined with TLER, and certain zones of the drive.

I waged a few campaigns to raise awareness, but had too many naysayers and detractors to remain civil. I had to just drop it all.

I can't even suggest somebody might want to consider changing out the stock base Roamio wall-wart, or bring up TLER, without it blowing back in in face, as flaming petrol.

So, most of the time, I just silently let this thread pass by, and don't warn about something that only "can/might happen".

But, I don't want to be lumped into some imaginary consensus on either matter, or both. "YMMV and good luck", is the only way I can participate without it getting ugly.

That reminds me. I might as well go shut down my simulation test, as the results don't matter, and I know what I need to know to keep my own TiVos running much better than before I swapped.

(Yeah, I've been stewing for a while over all this)

Moving along...


----------



## Mikeguy

Thanks for the info.--it is appreciated, sans petrol. 

In reading reviews at Amazon.com for the Western Digital WD30EURX drive (which seems to be an oft-purchased 3T drive there for the Roamios), I can't recall anyone pointing to a possible power issue--but then, I don't know if such a concern would be posted there. My guess, from your post, is that this drive would fall within the parameters of your discussion. For whatever it's worth, one of the key features noted for the drive is its power conservation and reduced power consumption--I wonder if that affects matters, positively. http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-AV-GP-Intellipower-WD30EURX/dp/B00DXFEQGI/ref=cm_cd_ql_qh_dp_t

(And showing my ignorance, but in the vein of, there is no stupid question: TA = ? Thanks--)


----------



## gespears

Mikeguy said:


> TA = ? Thanks--)


TA = Tuning adapter. Some cable networks use them to map channels. So you need a cable card and a TA. They can be problematic depending on which manufacture you get.


----------



## nooneuknow

Mikeguy said:


> Thanks for the info.--it is appreciated, sans petrol.
> 
> In reading reviews at Amazon.com for the Western Digital WD30EURX drive (which seems to be an oft-purchased 3T drive there for the Roamios), I can't recall anyone pointing to a possible power issue--but then, I don't know if such a concern would be posted there. My guess, from your post, is that this drive would fall within the parameters of your discussion. For whatever it's worth, one of the key features noted for the drive is its power conservation and reduced power consumption--I wonder if that affects matters, positively. http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-AV-GP-Intellipower-WD30EURX/dp/B00DXFEQGI/ref=cm_cd_ql_qh_dp_t
> 
> (And showing my ignorance, but in the vein of, there is no stupid question: TA = ? Thanks--)


I've pretty much gone through all the data I could find through WD, other sources, my own measurements, and come up with no reason that the Red drives would take more power. Others run them. You just don't hear much about them, as a certain type of person is attracted to the Reds, [for a variety of reasons left out here].

The WD Purples that WeaKnees uses are also comparable power profile, but also TLER drives. They are cheaper than the Reds, because they are only WD endorsed for 60TB/yr total workload.

You don't hear many complaints about those either, unless it's the angry replies of those who believed Newegg's (utterly false) clickbait that the Purple is the new model of AV-GP, then see me posting that the AV-GP is the best choice for the typical DIY upgrade installer [reasons why left out here], and if I had to choose something not AV-GP, I'd either pay the extra for a Red, or go cheap with a plain Green, before I'd use a Purple in my TiVo.

To answer your question that is safe to answer: TA = Tuning Adapter (for tuning channels in SDV cable markets). SDV = Switched Digital Video.

The TA with the power brick I feel should come with every base Roamio is the Cisco STA1520. The brick it comes with is made by LiteOn.

I mean, really, start doing the math on just how little [email protected] (or 24 watts) is, when there are so many things inside a Roamio that all need power, and the CPU load can take more when it's really working hard, which just might coincide with the drive working hard, at the same time.

Since the LiteOn bricks are often not required to be returned with leased cable equipment using them, there are plenty out there to find, cheap.

Even if the two were equally rated output, the brick has a shielded DC-out cable, with an additional ferrite at the end. It carries the same ITE listing, but also has an additional A/V equipment listing, the Roamio wart does not. I think you can appreciate all these finer points, that most just would gloss by.

If I didn't figure I'd get tarred and feathered for it, I'd suggest anybody who happens to have a Cisco STA1520 TA just make the swap, even if they leave the stock drive in. But, I know better than to make such a recommendation, or give such an endorsement. 

There are threads around on these matters, created to try and leave this thread to the bare minimums for Roamio upgrade noobs. I made some, others made some, and there's some cool stuff in them.

Search for threads started by telemark, which tend to be in the underground and development areas. He's the TCF rockstar who made 4TB DIY for free possible, without ripping off WK's work to get there. I create very few threads, and most of them have gone stale.


----------



## Mikeguy

Thanks for the posts above, with the helpful information. Will have to re-digest it tomorrow, after a good night's sleep, but it gives me a further feel for this corner of upgrades (and despite the bracketed missing info.! ). I did do a quick check at eBay.com for the LiteOn brick, just to get a feel for it, but didn't see a listing for one showing the Cisco STA1520 compatibility, although I did see one for a Motorola device.


----------



## brian1269

jmbach said:


> That would be true for the basic but he has a plus.
> 
> What program(s) did you use to check the drive.


The "kickstart 54" S.M.A.R.T. tests on the TiVo itself and the diagnostic tool from Western Digital. When I hook the drive up to my computer using a USB to SATA adapter, it doesn't see the drive. I can only see it in the diagnostic software.


----------



## nooneuknow

The alternate power supply (AC adapter) for a base Roamio (or Roamio OTA):

For a Cisco STA1520 Tuning Adapter, made by LiteOn, and here are the details:

LITEON
AC ADAPTER

MODEL: PB-1300-02SA-ROHS
INPUT: 100-120V ~1A 60Hz
OUTPUT: 12V DC 2.5A 30W MAX.
PART NO.: 4019611B

OTHER MARKINGS:
LPS
C UL US LISTED
9T54
LEVEL 3
E132068
I.T.E POWER SUPPLY
*ALSO LISTED AS ACCESSORY-AUDIO/VIDEO POWER SUPPLY*

MADE IN CHINA(B) CM-1

OUTPUT CABLE MARKINGS:
E228674 AWM 1185 18AWG 80C 300V --LINETEK-- CSA LL90989 18AWG I A/B 80C 300V FT1 LM

[NOTES]:
Positive (+) inner connector, Negative (-) outer shell tip.
Has molded ferrite RFI choke 1" from DC connector, plus internal RFI choke.
Uses separable POLARIZED universal 2-conductor AC input cable.


----------



## Kash76

Thanks for sharing all of these details. Should I not just throw in an extra 1TB WD drive into my basic when I get it tonight? Do I have to be worried about the power profile or is this only for the larger drives?


----------



## Pilot20

brian1269 said:


> Before even plugging in my Roamio Plus that I got about four months ago, I installed a WD30EURX drive. I started it up and everything went fine and it worked okay. Once in a while, maybe once every two weeks, something would lock up the TiVo and not let me delete programs out of the My Shows list, and when trying to play a program it would just go to a black screen with no audio from the show. It would not let you get back to the menus; if you pressed the TiVo button or back button or live TV, you would hear the TiVo sounds but it would just stay on the black screen. The only way to get things back to normal was to reboot.
> 
> When the 20.4.6 update hit, it started doing this more frequently, and finally wouldn't go 30 minutes without this issue. I tried everything I could think of. I cleared the thumb ratings and programs info & to do list. Then I tried a clear & delete everything. I tried different HDMI cables, then bypassing the receiver and hooking it up directly to the TV, and removing the tuning adapter. I even did a low level format (write zeros) on the drive. I ran all the S.M.A.R.T. tests (all passed). Nothing worked.
> 
> Finally I re-installed the original drive and it has worked flawlessly for a week now.
> 
> So did I just get a bad drive that doesn't work well with the software? None of the tests showed that it was bad.


I had the exact same experience. I installed a WD20EURX drive in my new Roamio Basic right out of the box. The drive worked fine for about a month. Then, I started getting freezing and lots of blue circles. I tired rebooting and it would just keep rebooting itself. I pulled the drive out and replaced it with the original drive and it's been working fine now for about 3 months.

Western Digital replaced the bad drive under warranty but I haven't installed it yet because it is such a hassle with TWC and setting everything up again.


----------



## Teeps

nooneuknow, 
Thanks for the information on power supplies.
I remember reading about a possible sup par power supplies a while back.

In the end, it never hurts to have MO' Power!


----------



## Mikeguy

^ +1 as well. Thanks for taking the time to look for and posting the info.-- good to have it all in one place. Will need to do some further Internet searching. Although wish that there wasn't this additional sometimes complication. 

I wonder what WeaKnees has determined in this regard. In looking at its 3TB upgrade kit info. for the Roamio (base), nothing seems to be said about the power supply and the kit doesn't include a power adapter, for use along with its 3TB Western Digital AV Line hard drive. Nor does the 6TB upgrade kit say anything about this or include a separate power adapter.


----------



## Mikeguy

And the LiteOn adapter is easily found on eBay.com (and elsewhere) using the part number--thanks, again! 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...S0&_nkw=PB-1300-02SA-ROHS&ghostText=&_sacat=0


----------



## BobCamp1

brian1269 said:


> So did I just get a bad drive that doesn't work well with the software? None of the tests showed that it was bad.


It's entirely possible you just have a bad drive. Those tests don't always show the errors.

If others have used this same drive without problems, then it's probably not a power supply issue.

I'd return the hard drive first before buying an upgraded power brick.


----------



## Kash76

I checked my drive and it is a WD Blue. Should I expect this drive to work in my basic?


----------



## nooneuknow

Kash76 said:


> I checked my drive and it is a WD Blue. Should I expect this drive to work in my basic?


NO. The power profile, thermal profile, and class of drive, are all just wrong.

Take some time to read ANY hard drive thread related to upgrading TiVos, and it should be abundantly clear a WD Blue is the 2nd to last drive you'd ever want in a TiVo (WD Black takes spot #1).

You should "expect" it NOT to work, in most TiVo's, especially, of all, the Base Roamio, or Roamio OTA. Even in old TiVos with a beefy power supply, there were compatibility issues with Blue.


----------



## Kash76

Thanks for the tip. Running the stock drive now. Hopefully my minis update soon


----------



## nooneuknow

Mikeguy said:


> ^ +1 as well. Thanks for taking the time to look for and posting the info.-- good to have it all in one place. Will need to do some further Internet searching. Although wish that there wasn't this additional sometimes complication.
> 
> I wonder what WeaKnees has determined in this regard. In looking at its 3TB upgrade kit info. for the Roamio (base), nothing seems to be said about the power supply and the kit doesn't include a power adapter, for use along with its 3TB Western Digital AV Line hard drive. Nor does the 6TB upgrade kit say anything about this or include a separate power adapter.


I wish I knew more about what WK knows and any determinations they have made on power requirements and adequate margins (power, not profit). I'm sure their profit margins are more than adequate.  But, I dare not say that out loud. 

WK had everybody wondering what drives they were using for their first upgrade kits, and pre-upgraded Roamio packages. They'd only say it was a WD drive of the AV line. As it turned out, they went with the WD Purple, which is an AV drive (but not of the official "AV line", which would be the actual AV, formerly called AV-GP).

Unless they've changed course, they use WD Purple for everything that I'm aware of. Technically, even though both the Purple and Red drives are AV drives, WD does not endorse them for use in products lacking a proper RAID controller, which is required for proper TLER handling.

I can't comment on drive warranty matters/concerns, as I don't know if WK uses the proper OEM channel and/or is purchasing as an authorized reseller, which can make a big difference in warranty areas.

Some jump to conclude if WK uses a drive, it must be the right one (or even the best one). I have other thoughts/opinions on the matter [self-censored thoughts and opinions here]. What I can outright say I believe, is that if the WD Purple is good enough for WK, then I'll take the WD Red, please (applying the "follow what WK is doing" logic, not my own, on its own).

I've just crossed into the danger zone. Nice knowing, you. <ducking, and running>


----------



## Mikeguy

Not being knowledgeable enough about this all, it's just nice to see a concern like WeaKnees in the same boat, and knowing that there is a possible solution should there be an issue, thanks to your considerate and detailed power supply info. above. That is, assuming that your LiteOn power adapter info. is correct and is not instead intended to blow out a whole lot of people's Roamios. (Kidding!)


----------



## Arcady

I have opened 5 TiVo boxes so far this month (Premieres and Roamios) and all of the stock drives were WD AV Green drives.


----------



## nooneuknow

Arcady said:


> I have opened 5 TiVo boxes so far this month (Premieres and Roamios) and all of the stock drives were WD AV Green drives.


Any particular conversation this data is meant to go with, or just posting an observation?

It is good to know what TiVo is currently using/shipping. But, you didn't say if what you opened was new, used, old stock, or anything to put it into any context. Like, are you implying TiVo knows what is best, over WK, since that was the recent topic, along with power requirements discussion?

For a while, there were almost exclusively Seagate AV 500GB drives in base Roamios.

Not trying to be a jerk, just trying to make sure we all know the relevance, so we all can make the most of your input.


----------



## Arcady

I'm just saying what TiVo has been using. If they put a WD Green AV drive in at the factory, why wouldn't someone want to upgrade using the same thing? Why is this even a question? Is it so hard to just buy the same model of drive?


----------



## nooneuknow

Arcady said:


> I'm just saying what TiVo has been using. If they put a WD Green AV drive in at the factory, why wouldn't someone want to upgrade using the same thing? Why is this even a question? Is it so hard to just buy the same model of drive?


That's been my advice. That model does top out at 4TB, FWIW. (and topped out at 3TB, when WK was prepping their 4TB offerings)

Then there has been the indisputable fact that TiVo has used the closest Seagate equivalent to it, and more base/OTA Roamios were probably shipped with Seagates, than WDs.

But, this thread will always have folks who post links to something on sale, and ask "will this work?".

Then it can come down to endless hair-splitting over the definition of "work", and which context of it they mean.

Even if I were to put my stock 500GB Seagate AV drives back in, I'd still want the LiteOn AC adapter brick, over the wart TiVo included. I'd want the same brick if they had came with 500GB WD AV-GP drives, too.

If I were to enable the new power savings modes, or simply use the new standby, which results in the hard drive spinning down and back up again, I just wouldn't trust the stock wart to handle doing that with a 3TB drive, with many more platters to get spinning, than the drive it came with, even if sticking to the exact 3TB drive TiVo uses in the Pro, which has an internal power supply.

*ETA:* WD didn't help matters any, by renaming the "AV-GP" to just "AV", at the same time they added the 4TB model, leading to two different product line PDFs for a while, and confusing the market. See my next post after this one for more.

Sometimes I swear you create more confusion than you say you are trying to eliminate. But, some can say the same thing about me...


----------



## nooneuknow

Arcady said:


> I'm just saying what TiVo has been using. If they put a WD Green AV drive in at the factory, why wouldn't someone want to upgrade using the same thing? Why is this even a question? Is it so hard to just buy the same model of drive?


Try visiting Newegg to buy the drive that you ask "why is this even a question?"

WD AV-GP WD30EURX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Note the clickbait that falsely claims: A newer version of this item is available

Which sends you here: WD Purple WD30PURX 3TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive

Thanks to this BS bait and switch, other resellers have gone as far as to advertise the WD AV 3TB and ship you a WD Purple 3TB.

Some folks might notice "Hey WK uses these drives, this must be right".

Well, it's not! It's confusing, misleading, and not everybody will know better, than to believe different than the planted false thought, that by buying the WD AV, they are buying an old, outdated, model. Total BS.

Do you understand why this thread is the way it is, now?


----------



## Arcady

Newegg shouldn't say a WD Purple WD30PURX is a newer version of the WD AV-GP WD30EURX. That's just silly.

If I order a green AV drive, I want a green AV drive. If they shipped me the wrong thing, I would send it right back. I haven't yet had that problem with Newegg.

As far as WK doing something, I would probably not use that for my guidance. I know I can't sell $65 drives for $300. I'll leave that up to them.


----------



## unitron

brian1269 said:


> The "kickstart 54" S.M.A.R.T. tests on the TiVo itself and the diagnostic tool from Western Digital. When I hook the drive up to my computer using a USB to SATA adapter, it doesn't see the drive. I can only see it in the diagnostic software.


Do you mean the computer can't see it when it first boots, before an operating system is loaded, or that the OS (I'm guessing some flavor of Windows) can't see it?


----------



## nooneuknow

Arcady said:


> Newegg shouldn't say a WD Purple WD30PURX is a newer version of the WD AV-GP WD30EURX. That's just silly.
> 
> If I order a green AV drive, I want a green AV drive. If they shipped me the wrong thing, I would send it right back. I haven't yet had that problem with Newegg.
> 
> As far as WK doing something, I would probably not use that for my guidance. I know I can't sell $65 drives for $300. I'll leave that up to them.


Newegg's been making the claim for as long as the WD Purple has been available to buy through them.

I've contacted WD, multiple times, through multiple means, and they have always assured me that the WD AV Green isn't slated for EOL, and have stated that the WD Purple is NOT an equivalent, nor will they provide support for use in a TiVo, or any other device for which it is not intended. Same "no support" stance for my use of WD Reds in TiVo, for the same reasons.

I can not state what Newegg's reasoning is. But, the wording is deceptive, yet just murky enough, that they probably can't be forced to stop the practice.

I've been using Newegg since my first TiVo HD 2TB drive upgrades, and buy so much, I pay for Premier membership privileges (well worth the $49/yr). This is the only time I've seen Newegg falsely flag a product as old, and leave it that way.

I can't say too much about WK. Bad luck seems to follow those who cast the sole forum sponsor in anything resembling a negative light, or who make a habit of it. Simply saying they are overpriced can lead to some nasty words from some members here...


----------



## brian1269

unitron said:


> Do you mean the computer can't see it when it first boots, before an operating system is loaded, or that the OS (I'm guessing some flavor of Windows) can't see it?


I haven't looked to see if it is detected in BIOS. It doesn't show up as a usable drive in Windows (7). It just shows up in the "devices and printers" and device manager as a storage device.


----------



## telemark

brian1269 said:


> I haven't looked to see if it is detected in BIOS. It doesn't show up as a usable drive in Windows (7). It just shows up in the "devices and printers" and device manager as a storage device.


I'm not a Windows person, but I figure this is exactly what it's suppose to do.
Windows does not speak Tivo.

If Windows thought there was storage available, you would have no TV recordings anymore cause Windows erased the disk to be in Windows format instead of Tivo format.

It is possible but rarer to have a drive that's problematic but it passes SMART tests. If you have a way of swapping from where you bought or WD, it might be the easiest thing to try next. If you get the new drive first, you can copy the data over directly.


----------



## Teeps

nooneuknow said:


> Unless they've (*weaknees*) changed course, they use WD Purple for everything that I'm aware of.
> Technically, even though both the Purple and Red drives are AV drives,
> 
> WD does not endorse them for use in products lacking a proper RAID controller, which is required for proper TLER handling.


Answer if you like, though I'm not adverse to reading up on it if provided links. Thanks nooneuknow.

So what does that mean, "TLER" handling?
Or.
What problem might occur from using a WD-Purple drive in TiVo XL4 (in my case)?


----------



## brian1269

telemark said:


> I'm not a Windows person, but I figure this is exactly what it's suppose to do.
> Windows does not speak Tivo.
> 
> If Windows thought there was storage available, you would have no TV recordings anymore cause Windows erased the disk to be in Windows format instead of Tivo format.
> 
> It is possible but rarer to have a drive that's problematic but it passes SMART tests. If you have a way of swapping from where you bought or WD, it might be the easiest thing to try next. If you get the new drive first, you can copy the data over directly.


It didn't see it after it had been formatted either. Not sure if it's the drive or windows and the USB-SATA converter thing don't get along.

A replacement drive from WD is on the way so we'll see how it does.


----------



## nooneuknow

Teeps said:


> Answer if you like, though I'm not adverse to reading up on it if provided links. Thanks nooneuknow.
> 
> So what does that mean, "TLER" handling?
> Or.
> What problem might occur from using a WD-Purple drive in TiVo XL4 (in my case)?


Trying to explain it on it's own, without including the details of how error recovery/correction works in a RAID system (plus covering the basics of RAID), makes it difficult to summarize, and leads to chaos. I should know. I've tried to raise awareness, and educate, before. Although, nobody had actually first asked me to explain it, before I tried to do exactly that.

If you don't mind opening the floodgates of Google and spending some time on wikipedia, don't just take my word for my summary of a year's worth of OCD on the subject (and actual testing).

TLER = Time Limited Error Recovery (what WD calls it)
ERC = Error Recovery Control (what Seagate and other companies call it, and the more universal name for the same thing)

The rest, I'm putting inside a spoiler entry, or I'll anger those who want everything to be text/tweet size (and simple):



Spoiler



A hard drive without TLER/ERC (which is the case with most drives), will have a built-in spinrite-like mechanism, that can spend as long as it takes (up to the drive mfg set timeout period) to keep re-reading a sector, until the ECC and data match, at the expense of holding up all other operations. This is desirable for most non-RAID devices, in a world where the reality is things are not backed up, or backed up often enough. A host device can still have some say in how these are handled through the controller and software, but it's not always more elaborate than simply panicking, and rebooting the host. For the most part, all actual on-drive sector errors, are handled by proprietary, patented by mfg, algorithms (somewhat like SpinRite emulates). When the drive's timeout finally happens (which used be be near infinity), or the host intervenes, on an unrecoverable sector, it gets marked as bad, and pending reallocation.

A hard drive with TLER/ERC (most RAID/NAS/enterprise drives), will have a set period to try to deal with a sector issue. In the case of WD, TLER is 7 seconds default, but can be adjusted (even turned-off), by the host RAID controller (or through a normal controller, and the right software, like a soft-RAID system). It's not a persistent setting, other than the default, leading to the default being restored on a reboot or reset command. The host will then re-set it, if not using the mfg default, before going back online.

Why it matters: TLER/ERC puts more of the burden on the host's RAID system, to deal with errors. When the drive time-limited timeout occurs, the RAID controller (or a proper soft-raid system) will retrieve the data from a mirror drive, or acquire it from parity data on a striped RAID. Most RAID systems have a default 8-second timer on the host controller side, which if timed-out, will trigger a fault and rebuild the array. These events are not trivial, which is why the drive should always be set to a lower timeout, than the host.

If TiVo had actually went with making use of the ATA Streaming command extensions set, there would be a very loose likeness to TLER being used on any drive "zone" containing only AV data streams (true ones, not the regular-data ones TiVo uses), where errors would be skipped over, to keep the streams flowing without interruption, but still logged internally to the drive, to be dealt with later. Any non-AV zones of the drive would get blunt-force, mfg tailored, unfettered error correction (in a non TLER drive). ERC/TLER AV drives, like the Purple and Red, would get TLER treatment in non-AV data zones.

Here's the rub: My ~1 year worth of OCDness on this matter, has led me to understand that as long as the sectors get overwritten and can then read successfully, they are unlikely be a problem again, unless they truly are bad sectors, versus just bad data/ECC mismatch. If you have a read-error in a TiVo AV plain-data area of the drive, it will tend be be overwritten later on. If you have a error in a system-critical area, or just an area that tends to be mostly read-only, it can render your TiVo useless, until you force a rewrite and verifiable, ECC correct, read-pass, outside of the TiVo (like by writing all zeroes, then reading all those zeroes back, as an example).

The "what burns" factor: Should you be as unlucky as I, and wind up with some physically sound, not truly bad sectors, containing critical non-AV data, while using a TLER/ERC drive in a TiVo, the SMART fails to record errors on TLER drives, that would be recorded in SMART, with a regular or regular-AV drive.

You can have a whole slew of sectors that could not be read, but due to the TLER trying to pass off half the error handling to the host (and falling on "deaf ears", the SMART data won't reflect it.

I feel TiVo could "fix" this, in a number of ways, by implementing a software solution to hear and respond to TLER errors, or simply set the TLER to disabled, at every boot. The latter is is the workaround many use to safely run TLER/ERC drives in things like PCs and Laptops, while not using RAID, by scripting this into the early boot processes. Even the latter workaround is not endorsed, or supported by drive mfg.

With a TLER/ERC drive in your TiVo, you could actually have a bunch of truly bad sectors, or ones that are borderline and about to go bad, and you'd likely mistake the behavior of your TiVo as being "anything, but the hard drive". I did, for months. The behavior would vary, depending on where the problem sectors are. It could be small enough to miss, or large enough to make you think your TiVo has failed.

I respect other enthusiast-expert member input, that the Roamio has most of its OS on flash, and has far less locally-stored databases, than previous generation TiVos Most of these some folk agree that it is best to just avoid using such drives in the older TiVos (even if they personally use/used them in them, without issue). If you know the risks, it's your call to make.

You may run across an old WD-provided (and recalled) utility, known as WDTLER. It could flash a portion of the drive firmware, much like WDIDLE3, and the similar tools for WD Reds do, and eliminate Idle Mode 3 problems.

People abused the utility (in the eyes of WD), buying cheap desktop drives, then using WDTLER to enable TLER on them, then using them as RAID drives. WD has since changed drive firmwares to thwart use of the utility, besides stopping providing, or updating, it.

There does exist a version that seems to disable (or adjust) TLER on drives that come with it. So far, nobody has been able to tell, for sure, if it truly does disable or adjust the setting, and the behavior that should be controlled by the setting. It has only been verified to change what setting the drive reports, and that it persists across reboots and power cycles (unlike all other known means/methods/utilities, which don't persist).

The ONLY way to know for sure, without very expensive equipment to snoop on the drive, is to deliberately create sectors that are not truly defective, but that also can't be read successfully, on a drive pulled from a working TiVo, then put it back in, run it, then pull the drive back out, and use something like smartmontools to read the drive's internal logs, looking for what the drive did when dealing with those sectors.

The second test would involve the same process, done with a drive with known actual bad sectors, to see how that gets handled.

Of course, there's more. It would also need to be known how the TiVo is logging the above testing (what it is logging the drive events as).

It's a gamble, or a somewhat calculated risk, to run TLER/ERC drives in anything not equipped to manage TLER/ERC (like a TiVo). You could have a drive that is under warranty, reporting all is fine, with perfect SMART data, yet that's not the true health of the drive, and it could catastrophically fail, just out of warranty.

Any company or person in the business of selling TiVo drive upgrades, can buy buy WD Purples for cheaper than the actual AV-GP/AV drives, then count on the odds of bad sectors being in critical non-AV areas of the drive being slim, to save on RMAs.

Technically, any OEM drive such an entity acquires, then resells, should place the burden of end-user warranty claims and support upon the reseller/OEM (entity), not the drive mfg.

I must stop here, as that last paragraph is likely as far as some will read, before going nuclear. I don't even want to post it. But, it's the truth. This is all just the tips of many icebergs, and is all simplified down, leaving it vulnerable to attacks.



There's likely to be a few edits made, as I tend to only notice poor phrasing, or holes I left, hours after I compose something of this length and nature.


----------



## BobCamp1

I see WD changed the Purple datasheet in Sep. 2014. Instead of saying the reliability numbers were calculated assuming the drive was only used for 8 hours a day, it's now 24/7 but with a 60 TB/year limit.

That's a problem, since a Roamio Basic is expected to write 189 TB/year.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=523916

The Purple is targeted for security cameras. Not 1920x1080i or even 1280x720p HD, regardless of what the advertising says. How can they claim it can handle 32 HD cameras when it can't even handle four TV HD streams? Because you're supposed to buy 8 of them. It's four HD streams per hard drive, but even then the cameras can't all record 24/7 unless you also really crank up the compression of the HD output.

I'm still wondering what WD did to cheapen the Purple that would have such a negative effect on reliability. And yet they're charging the same price for it. It's a good thing it comes with a 3-year warranty -- you'll need it.


----------



## lpwcomp

BobCamp1 said:


> That's a problem, since a Roamio Basic is expected to write 189 TB/year.


Maybe that's the _*real*_ reason for the "power" saving modes.


----------



## nooneuknow

Teeps said:


> Answer if you like, though I'm not adverse to reading up on it if provided links. Thanks nooneuknow.
> 
> So what does that mean, "TLER" handling?
> Or.
> What problem might occur from using a WD-Purple drive in TiVo XL4 (in my case)?


Did I manage to answer your question (in my previous reply) to your satisfaction, or did it get lost in all the technical speak?


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> I see WD changed the Purple datasheet in Sep. 2014. Instead of saying the reliability numbers were calculated assuming the drive was only used for 8 hours a day, it's now 24/7 but with a 60 TB/year limit.
> 
> That's a problem, since a Roamio Basic is expected to write 189 TB/year.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=523916
> 
> The Purple is targeted for security cameras. Not 1920x1080i or even 1280x720p HD, regardless of what the advertising says. How can they claim it can handle 32 HD cameras when it can't even handle four TV HD streams? Because you're supposed to buy 8 of them. It's four HD streams per hard drive, but even then the cameras can't all record 24/7 unless you also really crank up the compression of the HD output.
> 
> I'm still wondering what WD did to cheapen the Purple that would have such a negative effect on reliability. And yet they're charging the same price for it. It's a good thing it comes with a 3-year warranty -- you'll need it.


Old news, and something I seem to recall you took issue with me saying the same things you just did, as far back as a year from now. I've been throwing that 60TB/yr "workload rating", and those same "what it is intended for" details, out there for about a year, as well.

I was anti-Purple from the day I looked up the specs. They've only been slightly revised, and that 60TB/yr total workload rating has been that for this whole time. In the past, I've posted links to the specs direct from WD, plus multiple review/tech news sites.

*ETA: As with my posts on reasons why the WD AV-GP was the best drive for the everyday DIY TiVo upgrade, you implied I was being too ignorant to know that I was being suckered by nothing but marketing fluff (paraphrased, but very accurate). Look up some older posts of mine, before you respond, please. You'll see I've been all over this for as long as I say I have, and you just kept saying I was drinking marketing Kool-Aid.*


----------



## lessd

If truth be known WD most likely has one maybe two platforms for consumer Hard drives and just tinkers with the firmware for different applications, sells a less expensive model and just changes the specs. Who would know?


----------



## foghorn2

nooneuknow said:


> ....
> I was anti-Purple from the day ...... [/B]


:up:

qUoTe oF tHe dAy!


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> If truth be known WD most likely has one maybe two platforms for consumer Hard drives and just tinkers with the firmware for different applications, sells a less expensive model and just changes the specs. Who would know?


It's deja-vu all over again...

I'm the guy who tends to pull the PCB off a brand-new drive, examine it, and compare it to others, before I put it back on, and use the drive. I autopsy those that fail out of warranty (and some still in-warranty). Heck, I don't trust ROHS defluxing yet, as I keep finding PCBs with contaminated/oxidized contact pads for the drive to PCB contacts.

If anybody really wants some good reviews/news, I find Anandtech seems to be my favorite outlet, complete with lots of links to actual mfg datasheets/whitepapers, block diagrams, and so on. I often skim the articles, just for the external links there.

If (any of) you are easily offended by posts from my past, don't click here:


Spoiler



I don't tell people how their 2015 Ford Fusion car is made, if I only worked for Ford until 2005, and so on, and so forth (just a randomized example to try and politely make a point to a member I won't name). What position did I have in this hypothetical employment? If I stated one, how do you know I speak the truth? If I fail to state one, what am I hiding, and is it for an honest & good reason?

If I were in another's shoes, I'd take the word of a reputable, thorough, review/news site, over some guy called "nooneuknow", on an internet forum, unless he has a YouTube channel, showing his teardowns and examinations of technologies. Unfortunately, he doesn't


----------



## nooneuknow

foghorn2 said:


> :up:
> 
> qUoTe oF tHe dAy!


Don't know what you see in that to deserve QOTD (or a good roasting over it).

I didn't say what day, month, or year it was when I read the aforementioned spec sheet, or specify that was the only factor involved, just for the record.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> If (any of) you are easily offended by posts from my past, don't click here:
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> I don't tell people how their 2015 Ford Fusion car is made, if I only worked for Ford until 2005, and so on, and so forth (just a randomized example to try and politely make a point to a member I won't name). What position did I have in this hypothetical employment? If I stated one, how do you know I speak the truth? If I fail to state one, what am I hiding, and is it for an honest & good reason?


How do you do this spoiler thing ??


----------



## Arcady

lessd said:


> How do you do this spoiler thing ??


There's a "HIDE" icon in the reply box header.


----------



## lessd

Arcady said:


> There's a "HIDE" icon in the reply box header.


I see it now, cool


----------



## telemark

I think BobCamp1 has demonstrated enough knowledge that I could believe he worked at a HD company at one point.

Have you guys seen this presentation:
https://indico.cern.ch/event/247864/session/3/contribution/37/material/slides/3.pdf

It explains the rationale behind the new "workload" specification. I wouldn't call it obvious and I recall some prominent blogs not quite grasping it.


----------



## steetyj

So is the general consensus that the base Roamio needs the aftermarket power supply to run a 3TB drive? Or is the jury still out on this? 

Is it cheap insurance against drive failure? Or just a solution to fall back on if things start behaving strangely?


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> Old news, and something I seem to recall you took issue with me saying the same things you just did, as far back as a year from now. I've been throwing that 60TB/yr "workload rating", and those same "what it is intended for" details, out there for about a year, as well.
> 
> I was anti-Purple from the day I looked up the specs. They've only been slightly revised, and that 60TB/yr total workload rating has been that for this whole time. In the past, I've posted links to the specs direct from WD, plus multiple review/tech news sites.
> 
> *ETA: As with my posts on reasons why the WD AV-GP was the best drive for the everyday DIY TiVo upgrade, you implied I was being too ignorant to know that I was being suckered by nothing but marketing fluff (paraphrased, but very accurate). Look up some older posts of mine, before you respond, please. You'll see I've been all over this for as long as I say I have, and you just kept saying I was drinking marketing Kool-Aid.*


We keep almost agreeing with each other. I've been anti-Purple as well.

The spec. sheets are written to attract as many buyers as they can. There usually isn't a lot of difference between the various models of hard drives. It's more like little tweaks here and there, usually firmware in nature, and maybe some focused testing on whatever that particular model is sold to do. All of them are tested (or at least used to be tested) in a general purpose setting (it was the "GP" in "AV-GP") in case somebody just threw one into a PC because it was lying around.

All hard drives could work in a Tivo because it's ATA interface is basic. But since Tivo is an embedded device, the hard drive might draw too much power or have some weird incompatibility issues. Those aren't minor issues, which is why it is nice to have people like you report which models work and which ones don't.

So what on Earth made WD put a load or time limit on just the Purple drive and none of the other ones? It's very bizarre for the industry and a red flag to me that something isn't quite right with this drive. It's like seeing all the packets of Kool-Aid, with just one of the packets having a statement on it that says "do not drink more than 4 glasses per day." It makes me want to not drink it at all, even though I might only drink a glass or two, since the other packets don't have that restriction.


----------



## Teeps

nooneuknow said:


> Did I manage to answer your question (in my previous reply) to your satisfaction, or did it get lost in all the technical speak?


Thanks for that, nooneuknow, above and beyond my expectations.

I won't pretend that I fully understood all the tech speak. But, the take away is the WD20PURX is not a good choice for TiVo.
(some times you just want to know what time it is, though at this time I wanted to know how the clock works...)
At least I know that problems are likely to occur in the future.

For now, due to budget constraints, I have to continue to tumble the dice with the purple drive (WD20PURX) installed OCT2014 in my XL4. 
The original drive in that TiVo only lasted just 2 years. Before XL4 went into the GSOD serious error reboot loop.

And, if/when green drives take a big dip in price, I'll be sure to obtain one and swap with the purple. 
I guess at that point I take the purple out to the desert and put a bullet in it.


----------



## lessd

BobCamp1 said:


> So what on Earth made WD put a load or time limit on just the Purple drive and none of the other ones? It's very bizarre for the industry and a red flag to me that something isn't quite right with this drive. It's like seeing all the packets of Kool-Aid, with just one of the packets having a statement on it that says "do not drink more than 4 glasses per day." It makes me want to not drink it at all, even though I might only drink a glass or two, since the other packets don't have that restriction.


It may be all marking, the Purple drive may be just as good, but WD wants to charge less for them, so they give out a spec. so one will not purchase the drive for any DVR. This is just a guess on my part, so I would never use the Purple drive for any TiVo upgrade as the price difference is not great enough to take that risk, but WeaKnees does use the Purple WD drive, got to make one think as to why.


----------



## BobCamp1

telemark said:


> I think BobCamp1 has demonstrated enough knowledge that I could believe he worked at a HD company at one point.
> 
> Have you guys seen this presentation:
> https://indico.cern.ch/event/247864/session/3/contribution/37/material/slides/3.pdf
> 
> It explains the rationale behind the new "workload" specification. I wouldn't call it obvious and I recall some prominent blogs not quite grasping it.


That presentation is fascinating. Somebody from marketing didn't do their job -- they let an engineer speak about hard drive reliability. It's about @%$# time!

Basically, the head is so close to the media now that they can't use the useless reliability numbers that they've been putting on their datasheets for the past 30 years. I wonder if a lot of customers complained when those numbers didn't come close to matching reality.

The head floats a lot closer to the hard drive when it's reading or writing than when it's idle. The closer it is, the more likely it is to have problems. This is (supposedly) best measured by the number of bytes read and written instead of the way they've been doing it for the past 30 years. I also wonder if Seagate started posting the workload numbers, and WD was forced to do the same? Or vice versa?

Anyway, I've looked around and sure enough, Seagate is putting these numbers on their 1-4 TB desktop HDs (55 TB/yr), but they are using the old, useless reliability numbers on the "special for DVR" 1-4 TB HDs. Of course, the basic design for both models is the same, and they both have the same fundamental problem and dominant failure mode of head-way-too-close-to-the-media. Which means the maximum workload of their DVR hard drives is still less than required for a 4 tuner DVR.

The WD AV drives also mention nothing substantial about reliability -- only the Purple drives have the new workload rating. WD Enterprise drives only list the workload numbers on the website -- the datasheets for the RE drives use the old-style numbers.

The problem is that 4-tuner DVRs are really operating at enterprise workloads, yet nobody uses an enterprise drive in their DVR.

So, if the paper and datasheets are correct, my recommendations would be:

1. Avoid Roamios at all costs. The hard drives they put in there can't handle 4 HD streams, let alone 6. It's a defective product with a fundamental design flaw. Demand your money back.
2. Buy the smallest capacity hard drive you can live with. 250 GB sounds about right.
3. Get an Enterprise hard drive (assuming the Tivo can power and work with it. Based on nooneuknow's excellent work in this area, I don't think it can). It comes with a five year warranty and is the only drive actually rated for 4 or 6 tuner DVR use.

Or,

1. It's a no-win situation. Just buy a hard drive that is known to work in a Tivo and has a nice warranty. Hope it lasts a long time, but expect to replace it every 2-3 years.


----------



## BobCamp1

lessd said:


> It may be all marking, the Purple drive may be just as good, but WD wants to charge less for them, so they give out a spec. so one will not purchase the drive for any DVR. This is just a guess on my part, so I would never use the Purple drive for any TiVo upgrade as the price difference is not great enough to take that risk, but WeaKnees does use the Purple WD drive, got to make one think as to why.


He got a good deal on it from somebody. Note that if Weakness and I contacted WD to double-check using it in a DVR, our conversations would be different.

Here's how the conversation would go for me:

Me: "I want to use a Purple drive inside a Tivo."
WD: "How many are you buying?"
Me: "One."
WD: "It's not recommended for use inside a DVR. Buy one of our more expensive products."

Here's how Weakness's conversation went:
Weakness: "I want to use a Purple drive inside a Tivo."
WD: "How many are you buying?"
Weakness: "At least 1,000."
WD" "Sure, no problem!"

This happens at every company I've worked for. I've been on both ends of this conversation.


----------



## Arcady

BobCamp1 said:


> 1. It's a no-win situation. Just buy a hard drive that is known to work in a Tivo and has a nice warranty. Hope it lasts a long time, but expect to replace it every 2-3 years.


I would add:

2. Back up your recordings and passes on a regular basis.


----------



## nooneuknow

I'm going to put all things TCF on ice, or back-burner, for now (could wind up being for the foreseeable future).

TCF is being moved to a new server, location, and being upgraded, starting tonight. Who knows how well that's going to go, and how long before we can expect normality to be restored.

Plus, my real world, real life circumstances/situations just took a turn for the worst. The last place I should be, is one here, and my time/focus need to be elsewhere. That hasn't stopped me before. But, it will have to, at some point.


----------



## Mikeguy

nooneuknow said:


> I'm going to put all things TCF on ice, or back-burner, for now (could wind up being for the foreseeable future).
> 
> TCF is being moved to a new server, location, and being upgraded, starting tonight. Who knows how well that's going to go, and how long before we can expect normality to be restored.
> 
> Plus, my real world, real life circumstances/situations just took a turn for the worst. The last place I should be, is one here, and my time/focus need to be elsewhere. That hasn't stopped me before. But, it will have to, at some point.


I hope that things improve for you. Thank you for your participation here, information and advice. And do come back, when you can.


----------



## Mikeguy

steetyj said:


> So is the general consensus that the base Roamio needs the aftermarket power supply to run a 3TB drive? Or is the jury still out on this?
> 
> Is it cheap insurance against drive failure? Or just a solution to fall back on if things start behaving strangely?


I don't take matters to understand that the aftermarket power supply automatically is needed--rather, that the 3TB drive could be fine (especially see the reviews at Amazon.com) but if the drive starts getting wonky, the power supply is out there to consider getting.


----------



## h2oskierc

nooneuknow said:


> Plus, my real world, real life circumstances/situations just took a turn for the worst. The last place I should be, is one here, and my time/focus need to be elsewhere. That hasn't stopped me before. But, it will have to, at some point.


Sorry to hear this. I have valued your input on many things. Prayers that whatever these circumstances are they work out quickly for you and you can be back to it.


----------



## h2oskierc

BobCamp1 said:


> He got a good deal on it from somebody. Note that if Weakness and I contacted WD to double-check using it in a DVR, our conversations would be different.
> 
> Here's how the conversation would go for me:
> 
> Me: "I want to use a Purple drive inside a Tivo."
> WD: "How many are you buying?"
> Me: "One."
> WD: "It's not recommended for use inside a DVR. Buy one of our more expensive products."
> 
> Here's how Weakness's conversation went:
> Weakness: "I want to use a Purple drive inside a Tivo."
> WD: "How many are you buying?"
> Weakness: "At least 1,000."
> WD" "Sure, no problem!"
> 
> This happens at every company I've worked for. I've been on both ends of this conversation.


The question, to me, is. How many different drive types does WD actually manufacture, and how many of them are just labeled differently and maybe just have a different warranty?


----------



## L David Matheny

nooneuknow said:


> I'm going to put all things TCF on ice, or back-burner, for now (could wind up being for the foreseeable future).
> 
> TCF is being moved to a new server, location, and being upgraded, starting tonight. Who knows how well that's going to go, and how long before we can expect normality to be restored.
> 
> Plus, my real world, real life circumstances/situations just took a turn for the worst. The last place I should be, is one here, and my time/focus need to be elsewhere. That hasn't stopped me before. But, it will have to, at some point.


Bummer. As others said, come back when you can, and I hope your real world things improve soon.


----------



## nooneuknow

I felt one post, to specifically acknowledge some things, and try to make my pending exit on the best terms, needed to go out, before TCF goes down for maintenance and upgrades:

@BobCamp1:


Spoiler



Many gold stars for finally picking up on that particular odor wafting from the hard drive tech sector (one of many), and seeing the discrepancies it felt as if only I were picking up on. It only took roughly a year. Better late than never, though.

I don't have doubts that you had worked on the inside. I'm just naturally suspicious of those who make such claims, mostly on how long it has been since, and what the position was (as opposed to if it has any truth at all behind it).

That being said, I'd feel it safe to assume that you don't have the insider scoop on drives like the Purple, and have to rely on assuming some things haven't changed, while skeptical about trusting the marketing materials and spec sheets. I understand this, is what I'm saying.

I've been a bit confounded/confused by how what people believe, and want to know about, has taken such a drastic turn. My PM box runneth-over, like as if there's no longer a controversy over the validity of year-old concerns.

Please take a look at the TLER/ERC side of things. With all the "workload ratings" (essentially duty-cycle) concerns, I think you should come around to understanding just how much worse a TLER-enabled drive, running without a TLER-capable host, can make things. I see it as being of greater concern, as drives age, and rack up those TBs of workload.

I'll share a nugget of learned-the-hard-way knowledge with you, to help you out on the forum: Tune down the fire and brimstone talk of all our 4-6 tuner TiVos being fatally flawed products, doomed to fail. It will only result in your good data, and your valid thoughts/opinions, being lost in all the skirmishes it will spawn, which will attract certain members who only participate when they see a chance to create/fuel a bar-room brawl.


As another member mentioned, TiVo did suddenly introduce new "power savings" functions to the Roamio line, with 20.4.6. While they are (currently) disabled by default. Even the manually triggered "standby mode" now will let the drive spin down. For some, enabling the new modes, and making use of standby, will lower the TBs/yr workload being placed on the drive. It sounds like a recipe for other disasters, especially for those with oversized drives in their base Roamios/Roamio OTAs, with just a 24W wall-wart. Heck, I don't feel those are adequate for continual cycles of drive spin-downs/ups, with the stock drives still in them.

How long until TiVo starts telling customers that their TiVo has a maximum workload, since none of the changes in drive behavior can help, if the TiVo is almost always recording (as opposed to always buffering)? I don't see that day coming. But, I never expected TiVo to suddenly (or ever) even give an option/function that shuts off Live TV buffers (which some have been asking for the ability to do, and some also wanted the drive to spin down). I could like that they've done this, if only the implementation didn't suck (IMO), lacking options that many seem to want, as do I...

With modern drives always running right at the edge of failure, especially under high workloads, some should re-evaluate their stances that are based on drives based on almost last-decade technology. I fully expect to see a greater number of TiVo drives becoming unreliable after 2 years, and failing after 3.

I predicted we'd see a larger number of image requests for 4-tuner Premieres, and general help requests, as they aged. I attributed that to both tuner count, and Advanced Format drives, being partitioned un-aligned, and used in TiVos not optimized for AF at the OS level. I feel I called that out fairly accurately, no matter who will take exception, stating I'm full of it, just because they have one or more, that are still running strong.

*@Everybody who has posted a response to my announcement in my previous post, before I opted to send this one out:

Thanks guys, that really means a lot to me. More than you might possibly know. Prayers, if that's your thing, may be just be exactly what I need. I don't see anything short of a miracle helping much. This has been playing out for a while, and finally became reality and undeniable.*

I hope to share what might be a parting gift, soon, that has been in testing for a long time. It's a boot CD that facilitates disabling TLER on many WD drives that have it. It needs to be documented, though, before I just send it out into the wild. The limited testing done by myself and my fellow collaborators indicates it is safe, and seems to do the job, if used as meant to be used. I wouldn't call it something that makes the WD Purple a good choice for TiVo use, but something that takes away the only downside of using a WD Red, that I'm aware of.

If I am unable to get it out, I'll make sure to leave it with somebody else to get it out there. Please don't PM just to ask for a copy, unless your intent is to blindly trust and test it without documentation. I'm backed-up on PMs as it is (responding to, not the space to store them).

@telemark: That presentation you posted a link to is awesome, and the kind of information I crave. I haven't seen that exact one, until now.

My estimated death-watch clock, counting down to not being able to participate or visit here at all, is roughly a max of 60 days. Unless a miracle comes my way, it just is what it is.  No matter what is going on, it's hard to stay away from the only "community" I know, no matter how much I might complain about it, or how I tend to bring my problems in with me.


----------



## Mikeguy

Not a religious sort here, but miracles indeed do happen, whatever they might be. The best of wishes--


----------



## lessd

h2oskierc said:


> The question, to me, is. How many different drive types does WD actually manufacture, and how many of them are just labeled differently and maybe just have a different warranty?


That was the point I was trying to make, for consumer drives now being made I would guess many less different hardware than models, one hardware may take 1 to 3 platters, or WD may just put 3 platters in all drives and set them (in firmware) for what their selling. (I am just making a guess as the number of platters for any drive)

An *nooneuknow* I also want to thank you for you input on this Forum and hope you can fix whatever bad is going on in your life.


----------



## Pilot20

I installed a WD20EURX drive in my new Roamio Basic right out of the box. The drive worked fine for about a month. Then, I started getting freezing and lots of blue circles. I tired rebooting and it would just keep rebooting itself over and over. It would get to the "please wait" screen and then reboot. I tried all of the usual fixes, but nothing would bring it back. I pulled the drive out and replaced it with the original drive and it's been working fine now for about 3 months.

Western Digital replaced the bad drive under warranty but I haven't installed it yet because it is such a hassle with TWC and setting everything up again.

I didn't bother testing the WD drive to see if I could detect problems. I just knew that it wasn't playing nice with the Tivo, so I sent it back.

I took the advice on the forum and ordered a wall wart "Cisco STA1520 Tuning Adapter, made by LiteOn" from Ebay. It only cost $8 shipped, so I figured...what the heck. I might as well give it a try.

It arrived yesterday and I will replace the original Tivo wall wart today. 

When I get the time and patience to install the replacement hard drive, we will see if it makes any difference. It's not exactly a scientific experiment since the WD20EURX drive may have just been a bad drive, although, in years of building computers, I have only experienced one bad hard drive and that was years ago with a Seagate that quit several days after it was installed.

I have two Series 3 Tivos that I have had for 7 years. I replaced the hard drives in those about every 2 to 3 years as a preventative maintenance measure. Each time I would upgrade to a larger drive since the cost kept getting less expensive. Since I could copy the old drive to the new drive, I didn't have to deal with TWC...just copy and replace. I never had a drive fail in any of my Tivo Series 3 boxes.


----------



## Mikeguy

Pilot20 said:


> I took the advice on the forum and ordered a wall wart "Cisco STA1520 Tuning Adapter, made by LiteOn" from Ebay. It only cost $8 shipped, so I figured...what the heck. I might as well give it a try.
> 
> It arrived yesterday and I will replace the original Tivo wall wart today.
> 
> When I get the time and patience to install the replacement hard drive, we will see if it makes any difference. It's not exactly a scientific experiment since the WD20EURX drive may have just been a bad drive, although, in years of building computers, I have only experienced one bad hard drive and that was years ago with a Seagate that quit several days after it was installed.


Please keep us advised--I like simple solutions.

Also, which source for the LiteOn power adapter did you use (and what was the condition of the adapter)? I think it likely that I'll be going down your path as well. Thanks--


----------



## Pilot20

Mikeguy said:


> Please keep us advised--I like simple solutions.
> 
> Also, which source for the LiteOn power adapter did you use (and what was the condition of the adapter)? I think it likely that I'll be going down your path as well. Thanks--


The seller on ebay that I purchased the wall wart from doesn't have any more to sell. They originally had 34 available. I see this morning that they now have zero. There must be a big run on these things.

The one I ordered was used, but it looked like new. I switched it out about an hour ago, and so for so good. No smoke or flames shooting out of the wall wart or Tivo.

Here is a new wall wart on ebay for $9.50 plus $4 shipping.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-Lite-On-...138?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19f3d6254a

There are plenty of used wall warts like this available on ebay. Just do a search.


----------



## Mikeguy

Great--thanks for the info.! Do you have the name of the seller, in case he/she offers again?


----------



## Pilot20

Mikeguy said:


> Great--thanks for the info.! Do you have the name of the seller, in case he/she offers again?


The seller's ebay name is... lrcowles. 100% rating.

I ordered on Wednesday and it arrived Friday.

Here is a link to what I purchased. Scroll down the page and it should show the item.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271343509546?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT


----------



## HarperVision

Mikeguy said:


> Not a religious sort here, but *miracles indeed do happen*, whatever they might be. The best of wishes--


Hmmmmmm..........interesting.

Well, my real prayers to the real God go out to you and yours @nooneuknow! I know we've had our debates but I certainly wish no one any ill will. I am genuinely concerned now. Since your PMs are backed up and I don't want to add to it, feel free to shoot me one if you so desire. God Bless you sir!


----------



## Teeps

Pilot20 said:


> Western Digital replaced the bad drive under warranty but I haven't installed it yet because it is such a hassle with TWC and setting everything up again.


Call this number for timewarner cable card support 866-532-2598
You shouldn't be on the phone for more than 10 minutes and no hassle at all has been my recent experience.


----------



## Mikeguy

Pilot20 said:


> The seller's ebay name is... lrcowles. 100% rating.
> 
> I ordered on Wednesday and it arrived Friday.
> 
> Here is a link to what I purchased. Scroll down the page and it should show the item.
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/271343509546?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT


Thanks, again--good to have the info., should it be needed in the future--


----------



## brian1269

brian1269 said:


> Before even plugging in my Roamio Plus that I got about four months ago, I installed a WD30EURX drive. I started it up and everything went fine and it worked okay. Once in a while, maybe once every two weeks, something would lock up the TiVo and not let me delete programs out of the My Shows list, and when trying to play a program it would just go to a black screen with no audio from the show. It would not let you get back to the menus; if you pressed the TiVo button or back button or live TV, you would hear the TiVo sounds but it would just stay on the black screen. The only way to get things back to normal was to reboot.
> 
> When the 20.4.6 update hit, it started doing this more frequently, and finally wouldn't go 30 minutes without this issue. I tried everything I could think of. I cleared the thumb ratings and programs info & to do list. Then I tried a clear & delete everything. I tried different HDMI cables, then bypassing the receiver and hooking it up directly to the TV, and removing the tuning adapter. I even did a low level format (write zeros) on the drive. I ran all the S.M.A.R.T. tests (all passed). Nothing worked.
> 
> Finally I re-installed the original drive and it has worked flawlessly for a week now.
> 
> So did I just get a bad drive that doesn't work well with the software? None of the tests showed that it was bad.


I got a replacement drive from Western Digital and it worked for about a day before it started having the exact same issue. The TiVo works fine with the original 1GB drive, but not with a 3GB. It gets into this mode where it won't delete programs out of the My Shows list, it doesn't show programs that are currently being recorded, and when you try and play any show it just goes to a black screen. I seem to be the only one having this issue. It just makes no sense that it works with the original WD10EURX but not with a WD30EURX.


----------



## Mikeguy

And so, I wonder, then: time to try out the LiteOn power adapter and see if that fixes the situation?


----------



## brian1269

Mikeguy said:


> And so, I wonder, then: time to try out the LiteOn power adapter and see if that fixes the situation?


What is that and what's it supposed to do? Others with a Roamio Plus are running a WD30EURX without any issues it sounds like. I just can't figure out what could be wrong with mine.


----------



## Mikeguy

It's an alternate power adapter that has been suggested for the Roamio, especially with a hard drive update where the new drive may be requiring more power than the original drive. But this generally has been mentioned for the Roamio standard, which has a less-powerful power adapter.

Earlier posts on this, in this thread.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10431623#post10431623
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10431682#post10431682
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10431968#post10431968


----------



## telemark

brian1269 said:


> What is that and what's it supposed to do? Others with a Roamio Plus are running a WD30EURX without any issues it sounds like. I just can't figure out what could be wrong with mine.


Roamio Plus, so ignore the power adapter suggestions, that's a discussion for Basic/OTA.

Did you use a blank WD drive or recopy over the old drive's data?
What OS version are you on?


----------



## brian1269

telemark said:


> Roamio Plus, so ignore the power adapter suggestions, that's a discussion for Basic/OTA.
> 
> Did you use a blank WD drive or recopy over the old drive's data?
> What OS version are you on?


It was a brand new blank drive, both times. Two drives, straight from the factory. 20.4.6a


----------



## lessd

Mikeguy said:


> It's an alternate power adapter that has been suggested for the Roamio, especially with a hard drive update where the new drive may be requiring more power than the original drive. But this generally has been mentioned for the Roamio standard, which has a less-powerful power adapter.
> 
> Earlier posts on this, in this thread.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10431623#post10431623
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10431682#post10431682
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10431968#post10431968


Just to add to another data point, I updated a Roamio Plus (for a friend) to 3Tb and the drive power spec were:

Original TiVo drive WD 10EURX

5vdc @ 0.7 amps
12vdc @ 0.55 amps

Upgraded drive WD 30EZRX

5vdc @ 0.6 amps
12vdc @ 0.45 amps

So it would appear that the 3Tb drive takes less power than the original drive.


----------



## HarperVision

lessd said:


> Just to add to another data point, I updated a Roamio Plus (for a friend) to 3Tb and the drive power spec were: Original TiVo drive WD 10EURX 5vdc @ 0.7 amps 12vdc @ 0.55 amps Upgraded drive WD 30EZRX 5vdc @ 0.6 amps 12vdc @ 0.45 amps So it would appear that the 3Tb drive takes less power than the original drive.


What about power for the equivalent 30EURX instead of 30EZRX tho?


----------



## b-ball-fanatic

HarperVision said:


> What about power for the equivalent 30EURX instead of 30EZRX tho?


I happen to have one sitting right here....

5vdc @ 0.60A
12vdc @ 0.45A

So apparently the same.


----------



## HarperVision

b-ball-fanatic said:


> I happen to have one sitting right here.... 5vdc @ 0.60A 12vdc @ 0.45A So apparently the same.


Sweet!


----------



## gespears

Just a little off topic, but Newegg is having a promotion on WD red 3tb drives, four for 399. It's only for a day though I believe.

"Off Topic" off. Please resume "On Topic."


----------



## nooneuknow

I still have some periods of time where I can pop on to share (some of) my knowledge. That's the "back burner", as opposed to what's "on ice". It's a fluid situation, subject to change, and with a good chance of an abrupt end to any presence here.

Hard drive power specs, especially those printed on the drive are misleading. There's more to it, and unless they specify "max", those numbers should not be interpreted as such.

Here's just a few (generically stated) modes, which should all be spec'd out somewhere, if you can find them (some specs are not shared with the general public):

Inrush current (part of a cold spin-up from a powerless state, which is a momentary spike, often in excess of any product's power supply rated max).
Spin-up from cold start.
Spin-up from standby.
Idle Mode 3 (platters spinning, heads parked).
Idle with heads not parked.
Other idle states.
Standby (heads parked, platters not spinning, on-drive PCB powered).
Read (min avg max).
Write (min avg max).
Read + Write (min avg max).
Offline data collection mode (if/when applicable, part of SMART).

Really, no HDD power specs are etched in stone. There's a Min/Average/Max factor to most, and even those numbers can be estimates/guesstimates, subject to vary.

A lot of review sites will measure these, whether or not published by the mfg. Don't forget, this is a "generic, off the top of my head" list.

I can't spend the time to fully explain the 12V & 5V rails, the "inrush" factor, and the differential factors that cause specified current to change (age is one factor). Some drives make very unconventional uses of the different rails.

*ETA:* While my use of WD30EFRX (WD Red) drives in three base Roamios should have required roughly the same power as (or less than) a stock drive, or an AV-GP/AV EURX, going by the specs on the drives and in the datasheets, I did have overall stability and reliability issues, before I swapped-in the LiteOn power "bricks". I see some calling them "wall-warts", which is what the stock (Roamio) ones are. I have not seen any signs of of any issues using the Roamio wall-warts for my Tuning Adapters, and they run cooler than when they were running my base Roamios.

Off-topic content:


Spoiler



What's "on ice" for me is being a constant source of tech support, participating in debates, arguments, PMs requesting help that would take too much time (especially if they'd help others, if posted in a thread), and keeping up with TCF at the level I used to.

Thank you, all, who have expressed such kindness/concern. Perhaps I can PM a more personalized thank you to each, if the future allows me the time to do so. I didn't expect responses when I made the announcement. If I had, I'd have made an announcement thread, and just linked to it. I'm not big on publicizing my personal problems in detail, though...

TC Club members get a LOT more PM space, and PMs are CC'd to my email. It's all just a day at a time, what time I can spare, and knowing things will have to get worse, before they can possibly get better. Popping in just made today a lot better, even if only for a moment.


----------



## Mikeguy

I wasn't suggesting that a new power adapter such as the LiteOn certainly would solve the issue above--as noted, the earlier LiteOn power adapter discussion was focused on the Roamio standard. But not having a Roamio Plus nor its power adapter, I don't know the power that the adapter provides, and I was wondering if the issue above in fact could be power supply related and if the LiteOn might supply more power than the Plus' own power adapter, possibly to be a solution as with the Roamio standard. Just looking to see if there is a simple road--it's hard to see 2 new drives in a row being defective (although anything is possible).


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> I still have some periods of time where I can pop on to share (some of) my knowledge. That's the "back burner", as opposed to what's "on ice". It's a fluid situation, subject to change, and with a good chance of an abrupt end to any presence here.
> 
> Hard drive power specs, especially those printed on the drive are misleading. There's more to it, and unless they specify "max", those numbers should not be interpreted as such.
> 
> Here's just a few (generically stated) modes, which should all be spec'd out somewhere, if you can find them (some specs are not shared with the general public):
> 
> Inrush current (part of a cold spin-up from a powerless state, which is a momentary spike, often in excess of any product's power supply rated max).
> Spin-up from cold start.
> Spin-up from standby.
> Idle Mode 3 (platters spinning, heads parked).
> Idle with heads not parked.
> Other idle states.
> Standby (heads parked, platters not spinning, on-drive PCB powered).
> Read (min avg max).
> Write (min avg max).
> Read + Write (min avg max).
> Offline data collection mode (if/when applicable, part of SMART).
> 
> Really, no HDD power specs are etched in stone. There's a Min/Average/Max factor to most, and even those numbers can be estimates/guesstimates, subject to vary.
> 
> A lot of review sites will measure these, whether or not published by the mfg. Don't forget, this is a "generic, off the top of my head" list.
> 
> I can't spend the time to fully explain the 12V & 5V rails, the "inrush" factor, and the differential factors that cause specified current to change (age is one factor). Some drives make very unconventional uses of the different rails.
> 
> Off-topic content:
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> What's "on ice" for me is being a constant source of tech support, participating in debates, arguments, PMs requesting help that would take too much time (especially if they'd help others, if posted in a thread), and keeping up with TCF at the level I used to.
> 
> Thank you, all, who have expressed such kindness/concern. Perhaps I can PM a more personalized thank you to each, if the future allows me the time to do so. I didn't expect responses when I made the announcement. If I had, I'd have made an announcement thread, and just linked to it. I'm not big on publicizing my personal problems in detail, though...
> 
> TC Club members get a LOT more PM space, and PMs are CC'd to my email. It's all just a day at a time, what time I can spare, and knowing things will have to get worse, before they can possibly get better. Popping in just made today a lot better, even if only for a moment.


I don't know about Hard Drives BUT most electronic gives the max power rating one could expect, my HDTV has a power rating of say 200 watts, but my Kill-A-Watt meter shows only 125 watts when on, the difference could be the cold start draw, my 3 ton AC has a power rating of 2600 watts, but the cold start is rated at 22,000 watts (or 90 amps), this information is on the name plate.


----------



## Arcady

The Roamio Plus and Pro do not have power adapters. They have a built-in power supply like every other TiVo previously had.


----------



## lessd

Arcady said:


> The Roamio Plus and Pro do not have power adapters. They have a built-in power supply like every other TiVo previously had.


Has anyone said any different, I have assume nobody is looking for a power adapter for the Roamio plus or pro, but who knows.


----------



## Arcady

lessd said:


> Has anyone said any different, I have assume nobody is looking for a power adapter for the Roamio plus or pro, but who knows.


Yes. I should have quoted:



Mikeguy said:


> But not having a Roamio Plus nor its power adapter, I don't know the power that the adapter provides, and I was wondering if the issue above in fact could be power supply related and if the LiteOn might supply more power than the Plus' own power adapter, possibly to be a solution as with the Roamio standard.


----------



## nooneuknow

Mikeguy said:


> I wasn't suggesting that a new power adapter such as the LiteOn certainly would solve the issue above--as noted, the earlier LiteOn power adapter discussion was focused on the Roamio standard. But not having a Roamio Plus nor its power adapter, I don't know the power that the adapter provides, and I was wondering if the issue above in fact could be power supply related and if the LiteOn might supply more power than the Plus' own power adapter, possibly to be a solution as with the Roamio standard. Just looking to see if there is a simple road--it's hard to see 2 new drives in a row being defective (although anything is possible).


I don't know what the deal is, either. The Plus and Pro Roamios use (essentially, AFAIK) the same internal power supply as a 4-tuner Premiere does. All signs point to something has changed, or is abnormal, either with the drives, or a batch of power supplies. Others have replaced blown internal Roamio power supplies with those from a 4-tuner Premiere.


----------



## Mikeguy

lessd said:


> Has anyone said any different, I have assume nobody is looking for a power adapter for the Roamio plus or pro, but who knows.


That appropriately was educating me in my ignorance over the Plus and Pro, and my comments above. I wasn't aware--or forgot--that their power supply is built-in (a Roamio standard guy here). So much for my hope for a simple solution, of simply throwing a more powerful external power adapter at the problem as potentially can work for the Roamio standard.


----------



## brian1269

Mikeguy said:


> I wasn't suggesting that a new power adapter such as the LiteOn certainly would solve the issue above--as noted, the earlier LiteOn power adapter discussion was focused on the Roamio standard. But not having a Roamio Plus nor its power adapter, I don't know the power that the adapter provides, and I was wondering if the issue above in fact could be power supply related and if the LiteOn might supply more power than the Plus' own power adapter, possibly to be a solution as with the Roamio standard. Just looking to see if there is a simple road--it's hard to see 2 new drives in a row being defective (although anything is possible).


And I appreciate you trying to help. If others aren't having power issues with Plus HD upgrades, then I am inclined to rule that out as the problem, although I know jack about the subject.

I am with you that it's very unlikely that both drives are defective, especially since running tests on them shows them to be good. So I'm left with a real puzzle as to why the 1GB original drive works fine and the two 3GB drives (same model as the 1GB) are causing the TiVo OS to have fits.


----------



## Arcady

The Plus has the same power supply as the Pro, which comes standard with a 3TB drive. I would look at the drives if the original 1TB works.


----------



## Mikeguy

Speaking from my logical and ignorant state of mind again, could it possibly be a defect with the power supply, such that it has enough to power a 1TB drive but not a 3TB (kinda, sorta like the possible issue some Roamio standards face)? This assumes that a 3TB drive draws more power. (OK, now I'll shut up and listen and learn.)


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> I don't know about Hard Drives BUT most electronic gives the max power rating one could expect, my HDTV has a power rating of say 200 watts, but my Kill-A-Watt meter shows only 125 watts when on, the difference could be the cold start draw, my 3 ton AC has a power rating of 2600 watts, but the cold start is rated at 22,000 watts (or 90 amps), this information is on the name plate.


This is one of those times where I'd love to take the time to discuss high-voltage versus low-voltage products/devices/components, and why it's not a good idea to assume the specs on a hard drive are the max, if not specifically labeled as "max".

Many devices will specify if the max is "continuous" or "peak". That's an important designation, too. I doubt that hard drive companies are saving a ton of money on ink, by not printing that which they used to.

I'm pretty sure there's an internal spec-sheet for every hard drive, under every conceivable mode of operation, that nearly takes up a full page. I'm pretty sure most of those specifics are only shared with OEM and enterprise customers.

That workload/duty-cycle presentation telemark shared probably has a cousin presentation on power ratings and requirements.

I've exceeded my time, and must leave this to sort itself out, or come back to it another time.


----------



## brian1269

Mikeguy said:


> Speaking from my logical and ignorant state of mind again, could it possibly be a defect with the power supply, such that it has enough to power a 1TB drive but not a 3TB (kinda, sorta like the possible issue some Roamio standards face)? This assumes that a 3TB drive draws more power. (OK, now I'll shut up and listen and learn.)


That's a possibility I guess. I mean I've bypassed every other piece of equipment. The only thing I haven't tried is using a different outlet. I don't know enough about electrical stuff to know if that could even make a difference, or how to test the power supply.


----------



## telemark

brian1269 said:


> It was a brand new blank drive, both times. Two drives, straight from the factory. 20.4.6a


I would clone the 1TB drive that's working to one of the 3TB drives that is not.
I would also try some outputs that do not use HDCP and a different TV with HDMI.
I would also try running the system without a TA if possible.

Depending on what the results of those, it might be clear what's going on, or not.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> .......... Others have replaced blown internal Roamio power supplies with those from a 4-tuner Premiere (HarperVision is one of them).


Sorry, but not me.


----------



## HarperVision

Mikeguy said:


> Speaking from my logical and ignorant state of mind again, could it possibly be a defect with the power supply, such that it has enough to power a 1TB drive but not a 3TB (kinda, sorta like the possible issue some Roamio standards face)? This assumes that a 3TB drive draws more power. (OK, now I'll shut up and listen and learn.)


That's actually what I was thinking when I first read it. Maybe a sagging power supply?


----------



## Pilot20

Teeps said:


> Call this number for timewarner cable card support 866-532-2598
> You shouldn't be on the phone for more than 10 minutes and no hassle at all has been my recent experience.


Thanks...I have used that number in the past. The hassle is setting up the season passes, channel preferences and losing recorded shows.

My cable service protects almost all content. I can't even copy shows from one Tivo to another.

Unless there is a way to clone the drive that I am unaware of, I basically have to spend several hours setting up the new drive in the same way as when the Tivo was originally installed.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,


----------



## brian1269

telemark said:


> I would clone the 1TB drive that's working to one of the 3TB drives that is not.
> I would also try some outputs that do not use HDCP and a different TV with HDMI.
> I would also try running the system without a TA if possible.
> 
> Depending on what the results of those, it might be clear what's going on, or not.


I have done all these things, except cloning the drive.


----------



## jmbach

brian1269 said:


> I got a replacement drive from Western Digital and it worked for about a day before it started having the exact same issue. The TiVo works fine with the original 1GB drive, but not with a 3GB. It gets into this mode where it won't delete programs out of the My Shows list, it doesn't show programs that are currently being recorded, and when you try and play any show it just goes to a black screen. I seem to be the only one having this issue. It just makes no sense that it works with the original WD10EURX but not with a WD30EURX.


I agree with you it makes no sense. Would still check the drive for errors and pending errors with the manufacturers software and 3rd party software. (Manufacturer software allows a certain amount of flaws to exist and still passes the drive). Getting a replacement drive from WD might net you a recertified drive that may contain passable flaws. Also might want to check the wdidle3 just to make sure WD decided to change the value that the TiVo may not like.


----------



## Vadi

What's the deal with these?

WDBABU0020HBK-NESN?

It supports Dish Network.

Directv says they are compatible, but I'm not finding anything for Tivo use.

I know the internal vs. external debate, I know the 1TB is the Tivo supported version, but I'm curious if anyone is using these?


----------



## telemark

I don't believe there are any 2TB expanders on the official Tivo white list, for plug-and-play use.

There are obviously hackish ways to get a Tivo box to use a larger external but most of them involve rewriting the internal drive at the same time.

I'm working on one, but it's 3rd on my todo list.


----------



## aaronwt

Pilot20 said:


> The seller on ebay that I purchased the wall wart from doesn't have any more to sell. They originally had 34 available. I see this morning that they now have zero. There must be a big run on these things.
> 
> The one I ordered was used, but it looked like new. I switched it out about an hour ago, and so for so good. No smoke or flames shooting out of the wall wart or Tivo.
> 
> Here is a new wall wart on ebay for $9.50 plus $4 shipping.
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-Lite-On-PB-1300-02SA-ROHS-AC-Adapter-Output-12V-2-5A-30W-MAX-P-N-4019611B-/111465080138?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19f3d6254a
> 
> There are plenty of used wall warts like this available on ebay. Just do a search.


That seems like a good deal since you get two of them for $9.50.


----------



## jmbach

Depends on how TiVo updates the list. If they send out a new one that supercedes the old one, a lot of WK customers would be unhappy. If the new list can be merged with the old one, then everybody is happy.


----------



## telemark

jmbach said:


> Depends on how TiVo updates the list. If they send out a new one that supercedes the old one, a lot of WK customers would be unhappy. If the new list can be merged with the old one, then everybody is happy.


I meant the model white list, but I think you mean the MFS partition list?

I never tried it myself, but there's a few posts on here about how official eSata expanders don't work after JMFS expansion so I'm figuring there's some limitation on Tivo's expansion routine.


----------



## jmbach

Meant the white list. 

No telling with TiVo. I seem to run across several partially implemented routines anytime I go outside TiVo's cookie cutter approach to all things TiVo.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> With modern drives always running right at the edge of failure, especially under high workloads, some should re-evaluate their stances that are based on drives based on almost last-decade technology. I fully expect to see a greater number of TiVo drives becoming unreliable after 2 years, and failing after 3.


First, I hope things improve for you in your personal life. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Second, the fact that the technology hasn't changed in 10 years is exactly why all these problems exist today. It's still a electromagnetic head floating just barely above magnetic media. If the technology had significantly changed, the problems wouldn't exist.

At least they're FINALLY trying to improve the reliability model, but it proves my point that the numbers on the datasheets aren't very useful. You've proven that the numbers for the power drawn paint an incomplete picture, and I can tell you those reliability numbers leave a lot to be desired. And all of those advertised features are basically polishing a turd.

Lastly, all DVR manufacturers to my knowledge are using Green or AV (based on green) drives. None are using an enterprise design, probably because it's too expensive. Because DVR mfrs. cut corners on interface and power supply design, there may be unknown incompatibility issues when replacing the HD with a different model. You just don't know until you try it and post your results here.


----------



## BobCamp1

brian1269 said:


> I got a replacement drive from Western Digital and it worked for about a day before it started having the exact same issue. The TiVo works fine with the original 1GB drive, but not with a 3GB. It gets into this mode where it won't delete programs out of the My Shows list, it doesn't show programs that are currently being recorded, and when you try and play any show it just goes to a black screen. I seem to be the only one having this issue. It just makes no sense that it works with the original WD10EURX but not with a WD30EURX.


Well, there are a few reasons why this might happen:

1. There's a 20% chance any drive you receive is defective by the time you get it. Hard drives absolutely HATE HATE HATE to be shipped anywhere. So yes, it is possible to get two duds in a row.

2. There's a power supply incompatibility with the new design. Just because the model numbers are almost alike, or even exactly alike, doesn't mean the design hasn't been tweaked. Especially when the capacities are different, there may be more platters and more heads drawing more power for the larger capacity hard drive.

Also, replacing just the external brick is only going to solve some of your problems. There is additional circuitry inside the DVR that creates the other voltages, and I'd bet even the 12 V line has a regulator and filter on it.

The ultimate experiment is to power the Tivo hard drive using a PC power supply.

3. There's an ATA incompatibility. I rank this the least likely. But it's also possible the Tivo just can't prepare this particular drive correctly. Maybe it's just a tad over 3 TB?


----------



## aaronwt

BobCamp1 said:


> .....................
> 
> At least they're FINALLY trying to improve the reliability model,...............................................


It seems just the opposite. The drives I used six or seven years ago seemed to be more reliable than what is available now. And they also had longer warranties.


----------



## philhu

aaronwt said:


> It seems just the opposite. The drives I used six or seven years ago seemed to be more reliable than what is available now. And they also had longer warranties.


But remember. These are 4-10 times larger than 6-8 yrs ago and much faster!


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> It seems just the opposite. The drives I used six or seven years ago seemed to be more reliable than what is available now. And they also had longer warranties.


But, what size(s) did those hard drives come in, and how many platters did they use to get those sizes (density per platter), and how much power did they require?

As platter density gets higher and higher, the heads have to fly lower, and the heads have to heat themselves during read/write operations to bring them even closer to the platters, than when idle.

What I believe he was stating, is that the new workload based system of estimating drive lifespan, is more accurate, thus an improvement.

It's all in that internal presentation that telemark posted a link to, and validates my posts over the last year, or so, questioning how we can expect these modern drives to hold up in a TiVo, in a single-drive non-RAID system, where our TiVos can easily exceed the TB/yr value getting placed on newer drive spec sheets. 2 tuner models were just barely in the range, as they were still buffering all tuners 24/7.

I've posted the math many times, along with posts clarifying that a drive's "supported stream" count, for AV data streams, is moot, as TiVo doesn't write data in that manner (writes it as any other data, instead of using the ATA Streaming command set extensions). Even if TiVo did, it would still have to use multiple drives in RAID formation, to be within the TB/yr workload rating. Beyond 2 tuners, in the age of HD, single drive DVRs with greater tuner counts are writing enterprise class amounts of data to general consumer grade technology drives.

It is what it is. If you want your single drive DVR, HD (or UHD), and more than 2 tuners, you'll have to live with that.

Before anybody starts yelling for TiVo to use enterprise-class drives, and to use RAID, Google the TiVo Mega and look at the price tag. Even for a smaller capacity version of that, in a non rack mount box, the cost would not be small, and would be added to the price tag.

Before anybody starts yelling at me, please remember not to shoot the messenger.

One does have to wonder if the move to the OS in flash, and a field replaceable hard drive, was coincidental, or planning-ahead. If the stock drive lasts past the warranty period of an unaltered stock TiVo, and any extended warranty, then fails, TiVo is off the hook, except for those who expect to get 10 years out of the drive, since the XXGB drive in their Series 1 TiVo lasted 10 years. I don't think that TiVo cares that much about retail to worry about this, and their MSO partners are likely already familiar with the failures rates.

I may have time for a few posts today. But, I'm trying to make them count, rather than respond to every nit I see could use some picking, or write an updated copy of "The Hard Drive Bible", by rewriting 180 pages of HDD mfg information using my own words.

I have decided that I'll stick with 3TB WD Red (WD30EFRX) drives, with the TLER disabled via a firmware hack of the drive, and theoretically should be able to do 4 tuners of HD, with minimal worries. They have an unofficial TB/yr rating double that of the official one for WD Purple.

Until the day comes that WD starts specifying a TB/yr rating for the WD AV Green drives, they certainly can't deny a warranty claim over the drive logs saying the workload was exceeded, continuously (should WD ever start actually looking at such things, before sending a RMA replacement, or refunding the deposit on an advance RMA).


----------



## brian1269

BobCamp1 said:


> Well, there are a few reasons why this might happen:
> 
> 1. There's a 20% chance any drive you receive is defective by the time you get it. Hard drives absolutely HATE HATE HATE to be shipped anywhere. So yes, it is possible to get two duds in a row.
> 
> 2. There's a power supply incompatibility with the new design. Just because the model numbers are almost alike, or even exactly alike, doesn't mean the design hasn't been tweaked. Especially when the capacities are different, there may be more platters and more heads drawing more power for the larger capacity hard drive.
> 
> Also, replacing just the external brick is only going to solve some of your problems. There is additional circuitry inside the DVR that creates the other voltages, and I'd bet even the 12 V line has a regulator and filter on it.
> 
> The ultimate experiment is to power the Tivo hard drive using a PC power supply.
> 
> 3. There's an ATA incompatibility. I rank this the least likely. But it's also possible the Tivo just can't prepare this particular drive correctly. Maybe it's just a tad over 3 TB?


All those are possibilities, but I don't see others having issues with the exact same Tivo and hard drive combo. According to the specs, the WD30EURX draws less power to read/write than the 1GB version. I could have gotten two bad drives in a row, but both passed all the tests and Tivo recognizes the drives and installs the software with no issues.

I guess the next step is to trade in the Tivo, something I really didn't want to do since I didn't get the extended warranty.


----------



## nooneuknow

brian1269 said:


> I guess the next step is to trade in the Tivo, something I really didn't want to do since I didn't get the extended warranty.


If you are able to pull that off, and are within the 30-day period TiVo will let you move your TiVo service plan (or lifetime service) to another TiVo, that makes the most sense.

Unfortunately, too many people keep getting their brain circuits crossed, not realizing that you can't just swap out your power supply in the same fashion those with a base/OTA Roamio can.

I've been following your situation, and would hate for you to miss your 30-day window, starting on the date you activated your TiVo service, mucking around with theoretical reasons for what's going on.

You are either unlucky enough to get two drives with something "off" about them, a TiVo with a quirky power supply, or just a TiVo with something else wrong with it. It happens. I got a Roamio with a tuner that didn't work above 860MHz, and nearly was stuck with it as a lifetime service unit, as I spent too much time going after "the usual suspects".

Sorry about your apparent unluckiness, and that we seem unable to help.


----------



## brian1269

nooneuknow said:


> If you are able to pull that off, and are within the 30-day period TiVo will let you move your TiVo service plan (or lifetime service) to another TiVo, that makes the most sense.
> 
> Unfortunately, too many people keep getting their brain circuits crossed, not realizing that you can't just swap out your power supply in the same fashion those with a base/OTA Roamio can.
> 
> I've been following your situation, and would hate for you to miss your 30-day window, starting on the date you activated your TiVo service, mucking around with theoretical reasons for what's going on.
> 
> You are either unlucky enough to get two drives with something "off" about them, a TiVo with a quirky power supply, or just a TiVo with something else wrong with it. It happens. I got a Roamio with a tuner that didn't work above 860MHz, and nearly was stuck with it as a lifetime service unit, as I spent too much time going after "the usual suspects".
> 
> Sorry about your apparent unluckiness, and that we seem unable to help.


Yeah me too, but thanks for trying. I am already outside the full warranty window so it's going to cost me at least $50 to swap it out. What bothers me the most is that I can't find anyone else that is having this exact same issue with the same symptoms.


----------



## nooneuknow

Something that has been bothering me, but wasn't sure what that was:

HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording), is a technology developed solely to achieve greater platter density, in order to make larger drives, that still fit the industry standard form factors.

This sounds like what the presentation telemark shared was using as part of the explanation for TB/yr workload ratings (duty-cycle ratings).

While I'd put SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) on the top of drive technologies I don't trust, HAMR comes in a close second. Both exist for the same reasons: the demand for larger platter drives.

The only new(ish) improvement in density I trust, is PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording), as it can improve data integrity with all platter drives, due to inhibiting spontaneous flipping of polarities, by not writing the same magnetic poles next to each other, on the platter surface (as older tech did). 

I have no opinion on the sealed helium-filled drives, yet. It sounds good, on paper...

While the companies that come out with these technologies love to pump out press releases, and feed the news outlets, they often don't advertise these sorts of technologies to the consumers. Even PMR is typically not advertised (per drive), and might not even be on the spec sheet the average consumer can easily obtain.

I think that speaks volumes, in the sense that the drive companies want to satiate our capacity desires, but seem to not want us to know how they made those capacities possible...

Once a drive mfg develops a technology, it doesn't take long for them to start using the same technology in their smaller drives, that don't actually require it. It can save them money, as they can use fewer platters and heads this way. This is also often the reason why a stock 500GB TiVo hard drive can state it requires more power, than the 3TB drive you are installing. They aren't going to advertise that they are using their newer technologies, in smaller and older drive lines. If they do advertise, they'll claim it's only in the largest capacity and/or highest price models.

Some drive models are just too small, or otherwise deemed to just stay as they are, and not receive denser platters. I think some of the stock TiVo drives might be examples of this.


----------



## nooneuknow

brian1269 said:


> Yeah me too, but thanks for trying. I am already outside the full warranty window so it's going to cost me at least $50 to swap it out. What bothers me the most is that I can't find anyone else that is having this exact same issue with the same symptoms.


From where I sit, that can still point to the TiVo itself. I haven't seen a single report of anybody else with the same oddball tuner problem I had. It's been almost 2 years since I swapped that one out.

I've seen other reports of "defective" tuners, but never anything close to what would describe what I saw happen. If not for having two other identical ones, purchased at the same store, in the same trip, I might still be trying to find a bad splitter, cable, or making calls to Cox about it. Sometimes it would tune, sometimes it wouldn't. Those are the worst kind of problems to deal with...


----------



## brian1269

nooneuknow said:


> From where I sit, that can still point to the TiVo itself. I haven't seen a single report of anybody else with the same oddball tuner problem I had. It's been almost 2 years since I swapped that one out.
> 
> I've seen other reports of "defective" tuners, but never anything close to what would describe what I saw happen. If not for having two other identical ones, purchased at the same store, in the same trip, I might still be trying to find a bad splitter, cable, or making calls to Cox about it. Sometimes it would tune, sometimes it wouldn't. Those are the worst kind of problems to deal with...


I agree. So a different box is on the way and we'll see what happens.


----------



## Dixon Butz

Put a new unformated WD30EURX earlier today in a 2 day old Roamio OTA with stock power supply. All good so far. Been doing lot of testing, rebooting, etc. Runs about 2 degrees warmer per MBT. Was 37-38, now it's 39-40. 

I forgot to measure the wattage using a wattage meter with the stock drive. I wanted to compare. This meter measures to tenths of a watt. Like 60.3. Still havn't measured it with the WD30EURX. 

Is it advisable to use the Liteon power brick with the OTA with this WD30EURX?


----------



## nooneuknow

Dixon Butz said:


> Put a new unformated WD30EURX earlier today in a 2 day old Roamio OTA with stock power supply. All good so far. Been doing lot of testing, rebooting, etc. Runs about 2 degrees warmer per MBT. Was 37-38, now it's 39-40.
> 
> I forgot to measure the wattage using a wattage meter with the stock drive. I wanted to compare. This meter measures to tenths of a watt. Like 60.3. Still havn't measured it with the WD30EURX.
> 
> Is it advisable to use the Liteon power brick with the OTA with this WD30EURX?


Do a full cold boot, by pulling the power (the connection that inserts into the TiVo), and giving the drive time to get to room temp. Plug it in, then use KS54 to get to the built-in TiVo SMART tests, select sda for the drive, and view smart data. In the first row of values at the bottom, there will be one for attribute 03 (0x03), for the spin-up time. A drive with unlimited current available might get as high as, or higher than 200 (higher values mean faster spin-up completion). I've seen it go as high as 220+, when the same drive was taken from the TiVo, then connected to a direct, unsplit, unshared SATA power connector on a 500W PC power supply.

If the value is much lower than the high 170's, the power supply might be struggling a bit (and the extra time lowers that attribute). This attribute is only measured at the spin ups, when power is applied (not at reboots, coming out of standby, etc.). A value of 200 means it spun up as fast as possible, based on what the mfg expects the drive to be used in.

If you need guidance with KS54 (KickStart code 54), I'll ask that another member please take the time to help you get there, and navigate the menus.

My 3TB drives were in the low 150's to 160's before I switched to a 2.5A brick, rather than the wall-wart AC adapter. After that, high 180's. Before the switch, I had stability issues in overall operation.


----------



## Dixon Butz

nooneuknow said:


> Do a full cold boot, by pulling the power (the connection that inserts into the TiVo), and giving the drive time to get to room temp. Plug it in, then use KS54 to get to the built-in TiVo SMART tests, select sda for the drive, and view smart data. In the first row of values at the bottom, there will be one for attribute 03 (0x03), for the spin-up time. A drive with unlimited current available might get as high as, or higher than 200 (higher values mean faster spin-up completion). I've seen it go as high as 220+, when the same drive was taken from the TiVo, then connected to a direct, unsplit, unshared SATA power connector on a 500W PC power supply.
> 
> If the value is much lower than the high 170's, the power supply might be struggling a bit (and the extra time lowers that attribute). This attribute is only measured at the spin ups, when power is applied (not at reboots, coming out of standby, etc.). A value of 200 means it spun up as fast as possible, based on what the mfg expects the drive to be used in.
> 
> If you need guidance with KS54 (KickStart code 54), I'll ask that another member please take the time to help you get there, and navigate the menus.
> 
> My 3TB drives were in the low 150's to 160's before I switched to a 2.5A brick, rather than the wall-wart AC adapter. After that, high 180's. Before the switch, I had stability issues in overall operation.


Great info thx!
I found the Kickstart instructions.
http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-kickstart-codes.php


----------



## nooneuknow

Dixon Butz said:


> Great info thx!
> I found the Kickstart instructions.


Thanks for my first "Thanks for this post"!

Make sure any other factors that would be using power are in play, like a cablecard, USB keyboard, USB network adapter, ethernet connection, and so on. Devices that have their own power source, like a Tuning Adapter, won't draw power from the TiVo USB ports and power supply, and need not be connected for the test.


----------



## Dixon Butz

Is this the correct screen? Wasn't cold boot. Just practicing.


----------



## nooneuknow

Dixon Butz said:


> Is this the correct screen? Wasn't cold boot. Just practicing.
> 
> [img removed]


Yes. Some drives start at 100. But, in a TiVo, if that was the case, I'd 100% expect it to be something below 100 reported, no matter which TiVo model.

Attribute 09 is power-on hours, and will take a long time to drop a digit, whereas 03 tends to fluctuate, and is updated every time. My 09 attribute started at 100, and ~2 years later is at 087 (which just indicates the drive has until 000, until it should be considered as having lived its expected guesstimate of operational hours, and might merit considering a new drive then). Attribute c2 is the temperature attribute, will vary, and is fine at that value (100 would be OK/good, and anything higher means lower temps, while values below 100 would mean running a bit warm).

*ETA:* I suspect the starting attribute to be 200, and the 100 value would mean you might want the power brick, instead. Verify that's the case, before you order a brick. Hooked up to a PC, and using PC software, should tell you the initial values, normal ones, and thresholds (some values start at 200 or 100, but become "bad" values at thresholds like 150 or 50). A PC would show you a value much closer to 200, if that's the initial value.


----------



## Dixon Butz

I already have a brick on the way that I ordered last Friday. I will be using it. 
I really appreciate all of your help!


----------



## lessd

brian1269 said:


> Yeah me too, but thanks for trying. I am already outside the full warranty window so it's going to cost me at least $50 to swap it out. What bothers me the most is that I can't find anyone else that is having this exact same issue with the same symptoms.


I have upgraded 7 Roamios (with WD green and or Red drives) in the last 3 months, never had any problem, and my friends would have let me know of any problems.


----------



## brian1269

lessd said:


> I have upgraded 7 Roamios (with WD green and or Red drives) in the last 3 months, never had any problem, and my friends would have let me know of any problems.


Good to know that they are supposed to work reliably. Hopefully I just had a defective Tivo. I'll let you know soon.


----------



## Mikeguy

Just curious: how does one report a defective TiVo box to TiVo, when the defect only manifests itself when one opens the box to put in a different hard drive? (Oops, maybe I shouldn't be asking that.)


----------



## aaronwt

philhu said:


> But remember. These are 4-10 times larger than 6-8 yrs ago and much faster!


They were 1.5TB and 2TB drives I used back in 2008/2009.


----------



## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> But, what size(s) did those hard drives come in, and how many platters did they use to get those sizes (density per platter), and how much power did they require?
> 
> As platter density gets higher and higher, the heads have to fly lower, and the heads have to heat themselves during read/write operations to bring them even closer to the platters, than when idle.
> 
> What I believe he was stating, is that the new workload based system of estimating drive lifespan, is more accurate, thus an improvement.
> 
> It's all in that internal presentation that telemark posted a link to, and validates my posts over the last year, or so, questioning how we can expect these modern drives to hold up in a TiVo, in a single-drive non-RAID system, where our TiVos can easily exceed the TB/yr value getting placed on newer drive spec sheets. 2 tuner models were just barely in the range, as they were still buffering all tuners 24/7.
> 
> I've posted the math many times, along with posts clarifying that a drive's "supported stream" count, for AV data streams, is moot, as TiVo doesn't write data in that manner (writes it as any other data, instead of using the ATA Streaming command set extensions). Even if TiVo did, it would still have to use multiple drives in RAID formation, to be within the TB/yr workload rating. Beyond 2 tuners, in the age of HD, single drive DVRs with greater tuner counts are writing enterprise class amounts of data to general consumer grade technology drives.
> 
> It is what it is. If you want your single drive DVR, HD (or UHD), and more than 2 tuners, you'll have to live with that.
> 
> Before anybody starts yelling for TiVo to use enterprise-class drives, and to use RAID, Google the TiVo Mega and look at the price tag. Even for a smaller capacity version of that, in a non rack mount box, the cost would not be small, and would be added to the price tag.
> 
> Before anybody starts yelling at me, please remember not to shoot the messenger.
> 
> One does have to wonder if the move to the OS in flash, and a field replaceable hard drive, was coincidental, or planning-ahead. If the stock drive lasts past the warranty period of an unaltered stock TiVo, and any extended warranty, then fails, TiVo is off the hook, except for those who expect to get 10 years out of the drive, since the XXGB drive in their Series 1 TiVo lasted 10 years. I don't think that TiVo cares that much about retail to worry about this, and their MSO partners are likely already familiar with the failures rates.
> 
> I may have time for a few posts today. But, I'm trying to make them count, rather than respond to every nit I see could use some picking, or write an updated copy of "The Hard Drive Bible", by rewriting 180 pages of HDD mfg information using my own words.
> 
> I have decided that I'll stick with 3TB WD Red (WD30EFRX) drives, with the TLER disabled via a firmware hack of the drive, and theoretically should be able to do 4 tuners of HD, with minimal worries. They have an unofficial TB/yr rating double that of the official one for WD Purple.
> 
> Until the day comes that WD starts specifying a TB/yr rating for the WD AV Green drives, they certainly can't deny a warranty claim over the drive logs saying the workload was exceeded, continuously (should WD ever start actually looking at such things, before sending a RMA replacement, or refunding the deposit on an advance RMA).


Back in 2007 I got several of the first 1TB drives available. From Hitachi. They were five platter drives. I put one in each of the three Series 3 TiVos I had. My girlfriend still has two of those S3 TiVos. They have been running 24/7/365 in those S3 boxes for eight years now. Surprisingly there have been no issues. Especially since those drives put out some serious heat.


----------



## lessd

aaronwt said:


> Back in 2007 I got several of the first 1TB drives available. From Hitachi. They were five platter drives. I put one in each of the three Series 3 TiVos I had. My girlfriend still has two of those S3 TiVos. They have been running 24/7/365 in those S3 boxes for eight years now. Surprisingly there have been no issues. Especially since those drives put out some serious heat.


That why finding a data point is so hard as the drives you used 8 years ago are no longer made, are todays drives more or less reliable ?? I don't know if we can get a good answer on that today, 8 years from now we may know.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> Something that has been bothering me, but wasn't sure what that was:
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording), is a technology developed solely to achieve greater platter density, in order to make larger drives, that still fit the industry standard form factors.
> 
> This sounds like what the presentation telemark shared was using as part of the explanation for TB/yr workload ratings (duty-cycle ratings).
> 
> While I'd put SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) on the top of drive technologies I don't trust, HAMR comes in a close second. Both exist for the same reasons: the demand for larger platter drives.
> 
> The only new(ish) improvement in density I trust, is PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording), as it can improve data integrity with all platter drives, due to inhibiting spontaneous flipping of polarities, by not writing the same magnetic poles next to each other, on the platter surface (as older tech did).
> 
> I have no opinion on the sealed helium-filled drives, yet. It sounds good, on paper...
> 
> While the companies that come out with these technologies love to pump out press releases, and feed the news outlets, they often don't advertise these sorts of technologies to the consumers. Even PMR is typically not advertised (per drive), and might not even be on the spec sheet the average consumer can easily obtain.
> 
> I think that speaks volumes, in the sense that the drive companies want to satiate our capacity desires, but seem to not want us to know how they made those capacities possible...
> 
> Once a drive mfg develops a technology, it doesn't take long for them to start using the same technology in their smaller drives, that don't actually require it. It can save them money, as they can use fewer platters and heads this way. This is also often the reason why a stock 500GB TiVo hard drive can state it requires more power, than the 3TB drive you are installing. They aren't going to advertise that they are using their newer technologies, in smaller and older drive lines. If they do advertise, they'll claim it's only in the largest capacity and/or highest price models.
> 
> Some drive models are just too small, or otherwise deemed to just stay as they are, and not receive denser platters. I think some of the stock TiVo drives might be examples of this.


That's a pretty good description as to what's going on. Hard drive mfrs hide the technology used because no customer wants to be the first one to try out a new design. Plus, it is a competitive industry, so you want to keep things close to the vest for as long as possible. Competitors do disassemble each other's drives to see if there's any ideas they can use.

But the main problem with the fundamental shifts in HD technology (SMR, HAMR and PMR) is their unexpectedly poor reliability. It's dealing with the devil you know vs. the devil you don't. For example, you shouldn't have two PMR drives next to each other because they can interfere with each other's writes. SMR, which seems like the solution for notebook PCs, are sensitive to even the slightest vibration which would exclude them from any portable device. HAMR is the best new tech. out there IMO, but it requires a ton of tweaking to get it right and more importantly, keep it working.

It's so bad that mfrs would rather put in an ARM processor to support 512e so they can use the additional error correction that Advanced Format provides. That allows them to milk the "tried and true" technology out a little longer.


----------



## HarperVision

I'm by no means a hard drive expert, but why aren't manufacturers putting all their R&D money into making Solid state useable in all applications, like DVRs, etc.?


----------



## Dixon Butz

HarperVision said:


> I'm by no means a hard drive expert, but why aren't manufacturers putting all their R&D money into making Solid state useable in all applications, like DVRs, etc.?


Samsung is. They sold their platter hard drive division to Seagate. Now they just focus on SSD.

Edit: Guess I didn't read your post right.

An SSD would probably die too quickly in a DVR. Flash memory can only be written to a certain number of times before it wears out.


----------



## h2oskierc

Dixon Butz said:


> An SSD would probably die too quickly in a DVR. Flash memory can only be written to a certain number of times before it wears out.


This. Would be awesome, though. My Windows 8 (blech) notebook with a SSD boots in seconds, if not a fraction of a second. Crazy fast...


----------



## aaronwt

h2oskierc said:


> This. Would be awesome, though. My Windows 8 (blech) notebook with a SSD boots in seconds, if not a fraction of a second. Crazy fast...


It's great in that application but for a TiVo it probably won't make a big difference.


----------



## lessd

Dixon Butz said:


> An SSD would probably die too quickly in a DVR. Flash memory can only be written to a certain number of times before it wears out.


Like making long lasting batteries for electronics this is a problem for SSD that has to be solved, unlimited writes without going bad, It will be solved, I just don't know when, 5 years or 50+ years. Cars are still using Pb batters that were invented over 100 years ago, no *practical* replacement has yet to be found. Some things just don't advance as fast as we would like.


----------



## atmuscarella

lessd said:


> Like making long lasting batteries for electronics this is a problem for SSD that has to be solved, unlimited writes without going bad, It will be solved, I just don't know when, 5 years or 50+ years. Cars are still using Pb batters that were invented over 100 years ago, no *practical* replacement has yet to be found. Some things just don't advance as fast as we would like.


Ya and I am not sure why - you can buy Lithium Ion batteries for motorcycles and people seem to like them they weigh allot less and last allot longer. Maybe lead acid batteries last long enough and are cheap enough now that no one cares anymore I know the ones in my 02 and 06 vehicles lasted a little over 7 years each. Back in the 80's & 90's it was more like 3-5 yrs and I think they actually cost allot more when you consider inflation.


----------



## Arcady

allot?


----------



## leiff

do we know is it likely we will soon be able to clone the TiVo Drive to a new one we plan to upgrade with? This is possible with S4 tivo right? Would this cancel the need to call comcast to pair the cable cards? Would it copy over all one passes? I just bought a Wd 30efrx. But I think I'll hold off on putting it in my TiVo basic for now and put it in my desktop PC and use TiVo to go to transfer over shows to it. I'm running DLG diag WD extended test on 3 t red drive now should take 5 hours. Im debating doing more stress testing after this. A great test would be to throw the drive in TiVo but that would be hard to do because then I have to call Comcast to re- pair cablecard.


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> do we know is it likely we will soon be able to clone the TiVo Drive to a new one we plan to upgrade with? This is possible with S4 tivo right? Would this cancel the need to call comcast to pair the cable cards? Would it copy over all one passes? I just bought a Wd 30efrx. But I think I'll hold off on putting it in my TiVo basic for now and put it in my desktop PC and use TiVo to go to transfer over shows to it. I'm running DLG diag WD extended test on 3 t red drive now should take 5 hours. Im debating doing more stress testing after this. A great test would be to throw the drive in TiVo but that would be hard to do because then I have to call Comcast to re- pair cablecard.


For Premiere (Series 4) there are programs to let you backup/restore and expand up to 2 TB with DVRBars and/or JMFS.

Currently there are no known programs that will work for Roamio (Series 5) Basic/Plus/Pro. You can just swap out the original drive for a new unused drive up to 3 TB and there is no need to hook up to a PC beforehand. This does mean all recordings will be lost as they would be on the swapped out drive (If any).

Cable card will need to be paired again whenever a drive is swapped out, whether its a Premiere, Series 3, or Roamio.


----------



## leiff

Off topic but in the meanwhile while my Wd 30efrx is in my PC, i chose to initialize with default allocation file size. Was this a mistake? This drive will only be for tivo mpeg2 videos. Also these drives are designed for raid. My PC is not. Should i be disabling tler that ive read about in this thread?


----------



## leiff

Is there a way to extract the tivo videos from my stock 500 gb drive if i decide to do my swap now and plug tivo drive into pc? I ask because my tivo drive is full and i dont have 500 gb free space anywhere to hold it and i assume new tivo drive has to be empty


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> Off topic but in the meanwhile while my Wd 30efrx is in my PC, i chose to initialize with default allocation file size. Was this a mistake? This drive will only be for tivo mpeg2 videos. Also these drives are designed for raid. My PC is not. Should i be disabling tler that ive read about in this thread?


For Tivo it does not matter since it does not use the standard windows file system (FAT, FAT32, NTFS), nor even a MAC format. For transferring recorded shows, you would need NTFS as FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB.

Tivo uses a sort of MFS so basically, restoring an image would go to an unformatted drive.


----------



## leiff

after a hard drive upgrade we lose thumb ratings right? and to restore all one-passes I understand I have two options? one is from the TiVo website in a web browser. I've done this in the past I realized only to que like 10 at a time when i transfer them or it would stall. I know people have mentioned another method but wondering if i should stay with what i know.


----------



## HarperVision

leiff said:


> after a hard drive upgrade we lose thumb ratings right? and to restore all one-passes I understand I have two options? one is from the TiVo website in a web browser. I've done this in the past I realized only to que like 10 at a time when i transfer them or it would stall. I know people have mentioned another method but wondering if i should stay with what i know.


The other one is KMTTG and is highly recommended and much quicker and simpler.


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> Is there a way to extract the tivo videos from my stock 500 gb drive if i decide to do my swap now and plug tivo drive into pc? I ask because my tivo drive is full and i dont have 500 gb free space anywhere to hold it and i assume new tivo drive has to be empty


The only way is to have the drive hooked up to the original running Tivo, and download them to the PC or another Tivo. They are encoded in a way that the Tivo which recorded/transferred to can access them.

The destination drive does not have to be empty, just have sufficient space to hold them. They will be .TiVo files which are encoded .mpg.


----------



## leiff

For one-passes transfered recording history is missing right? So i can count on a bunch of shows re-recording after harddrive upgrade? Is the link to kmttg in this forum? I have +200 season passes so this means using kmttg to transfer one passes is faster? Note i haven't used it before.


----------



## Mikeguy

A search engine is your friend.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmttg/


----------



## leiff

ThAbtO said:


> The only way is to have the drive hooked up to the original running Tivo, and download them to the PC or another Tivo. They are encoded in a way that the Tivo which recorded/transferred to can access them.
> 
> The destination drive does not have to be empty, just have sufficient space to hold them. They will be .TiVo files which are encoded .mpg.


having difficulty understanding your response , let me rephrase question.
If I take out stock tivo drive out now which is full of shows, will I have a way of extracting shows from it later by plugging it into PC or via USB port on TiVo for external hard drive enclosure?


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> For one-passes transfered recording history is missing right? So i can count on a bunch of shows re-recording after harddrive upgrade? Is the link to kmttg in this forum? I have +200 season passes so this means using kmttg to transfer one passes is faster? Note i haven't used it before.


For Tivo.com account, it may be better to go one at a time, but using KMTTG, you can download the entire list to a file and send that back after the upgrade. It is under the remote tab, after you have KMTTG setup and the Tivos listed. BTW, KMTTG also does download of shows, decrypting, etc.


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> having difficulty understanding your response , let me rephrase question.
> If I take out stock tivo drive out now which is full of shows, will I have a way of extracting shows from it later by plugging it into PC or via USB port on TiVo for external hard drive enclosure?


As I have said, the ONLY way to get shows off the Tivo drive is to have in the Tivo and running, download the shows. You cannot get the shows off any other way. If you connect to a PC, it will think the drive is blank. Tivo does not recognize USB external drives.


----------



## leiff

I don't have need of any of the download/decrypting features that kmttg provides. But if it's still a better way to save time just to transfer my one passes before a harddrive upgrade I'll do it. I'm happy using Tivos official to go software to transfer my shows to PC. From there I have video redo software that decrypts and cuts out commercials for me


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> I don't have need of any of the download/decrypting features that kmttg provides. But if it's still a better way to save time just to transfer my one passes before a harddrive upgrade I'll do it. I'm happy using Tivos official to go software to transfer my shows to PC. From there I have video redo software that decrypts and cuts out commercials for me


That is fine. KMTTG will use VideoReDo to do QuickStreamFix, and can mark/cut commercials automatically. What KMTTG will not do without help is sending video files to Tivos, that requires a server which Tivo Desktop (or PyTivo) will provide.


----------



## leiff

ok thanks for clarifying, in that case I think I'll take my stock TiVo drive out now even though it's full of shows and later when I have more empty space in my PC I'll swap out of TiVo a second time back to the stock hard drive just to transfer the shows to my PC. seems like this should work even though my tuners won't while im transfering shows because the cable card won't be functioning but at least once I swap back again to my 3 terabyte drive after emptying out the stock drive shows the cable card should still be paired to the 3 terabyte drive I hope.


----------



## leiff

ThAbtO said:


> That is fine. KMTTG will use VideoReDo to do QuickStreamFix, and can mark/cut commercials automatically. What KMTTG will not do without help is sending video files to Tivos, that requires a server which Tivo Desktop (or PyTivo) will provide.


are you suggesting I use kmttg as an alternative to a TiVo to go desktop software or in addition to? what's important for me to have that TiVo to go has is automatic download to my pc of certain shows.


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> ok thanks for clarifying, in that case I think I'll take my stock TiVo drive out now even though it's full of shows and later when I have more empty space in my PC I'll swap out of TiVo a second time back to the stock hard drive just to transfer the shows to my PC. seems like this should work even though my tuners won't while im transfering shows because the cable card won't be functioning but at least once I swap back again to my 3 terabyte drive after emptying out the stock drive shows the cable card should still be paired to the 3 terabyte drive I hope.


That should work, just the trouble of changing the drives. However, you cannot use that drive in another Tivo to access the shows because they are encoded to the original Tivo.


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> are you suggesting I use kmttg as an alternative to a TiVo to go desktop software or in addition to? what's important for me to have that TiVo to go has is automatic download to my pc of certain shows.


Use it in addition to Desktop. It just has better features than Desktop does, including auto transfers. The "Decrypt" function removes a Tivo encryption layer which allows transferring better, such as if ever your Media Access key changed or forgotten, would not be a problem


----------



## leiff

I don't know if I'm the only one who's doing this but with my basic Romeo I've been running it for over a year with the top lid completely removed and the fan disabled resulting in a pleasently quiet experience. Monitoring temps from setting screen showed only slightly increased in temps. perhaps I should re look into this if this 3TB red drive is supposed to run hotter than stock 500 gigabit Seagate Drive


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> I don't know if I'm the only one who's doing this but with my basic Romeo I've been running it for over a year with the top lid completely removed and the fan disabled resulting in a pleasently quiet experience. Monitoring temps from setting screen showed only slightly increased in temps. perhaps I should re look into this if this 3TB red drive is supposed to run hotter than stock 500 gigabit Seagate Drive


With the top off and no fan, what the sensor is detecting maybe the enclosure its sitting in and not entirely accurate. With the fan and top on, its pulling the air through and helps circulate cooler air around and detecting the temperature, speeding up/slowing down when needed.


----------



## leiff

will my media access key remain the same after i upgrade hard drives? Otherwise it sounds like my shows already downloaded onto my PC wouldnt be able to be uploaded back to my tivo with the new harddrive.


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> will my media access key remain the same after i upgrade hard drives? Otherwise it sounds like my shows already downloaded onto my PC wouldnt be able to be uploaded back to my tivo with the new harddrive.


That is fixed according to your Tivo.com account. It has to change there first.

After you upgrade the drive, you may need to have the Tivo connect to the Tivo servers and update itself for things such as Tivo service status, Media Access Key, guide data, etc.


----------



## leiff

with the lid and fan on., the top of my romeo basic was always hot to the touch. Now with the lid off, when I touch the hard drive it's hardly warm. I suspect my temps are hardly any hotter at all with these mods I've implemented. Positive side is fan noise is eliminated. Negative side is inside collects more dust. I also removed the wifi dongle that was attached with a single screw since I'm paranoid about unnecessary WiFi signals and i can report after reboot roamio basic works fine with out it. I questioned tivo on the phone about disabling the fan and they said if the TiVo overheated it would have a safety feature to turn itself off automatically


----------



## lessd

atmuscarella said:


> Ya and I am not sure why - you can buy Lithium Ion batteries for motorcycles and people seem to like them they weigh allot less and last allot longer. Maybe lead acid batteries last long enough and are cheap enough now that no one cares anymore I know the ones in my 02 and 06 vehicles lasted a little over 7 years each. Back in the 80's & 90's it was more like 3-5 yrs and I think they actually cost allot more when you consider inflation.


Starting a motorcycle takes much less amperage than most cars.


----------



## Johnland

Not to mention, most motorcycles also never get used in sub zero weather.


----------



## leiff

X2 questions:
My one-off to do list recordings I assume will not transfer over after hard drive swap?

Does it matter as far as anyone knows or is it neccessary to format or prepare my 3tb red in any way after error checking on PC before installing in TiVo?

*Thanks everyone for the help*!


----------



## telemark

A drive with data that looks like Roamio formatted, will be treated as such, and not be setup / initialized. 

Any other drive data, will be treated as blank and overwritten and initialized for that model Roamio.


----------



## leiff

Cool- no treatment necessary 

... one more thing--
for web series passes (c-net ect..) will these need to be re-added?


----------



## nooneuknow

I felt this thread was a better home for this, than the "Roamio Deals?" thread, in which I posted it.



HarperVision said:


> I'm pretty sure I read here somewhere that the recordings are split between the two drives after an external is attached? Not 100% sure though, so I agree we should wait to hear from telemark or nooneuknow.


It's not RAID. It is a proprietary system, where every so many seconds, the TiVo changes the drive it is writing to. There is no striping, mirroring, or other RAID-like way in how it works. The distributed writes and reads is a form of striping, just not done for the same reason, and not adding any data protection.

If you run your internal drive to 100% full, there's a bit of "reserve" left to still allow use of an expander. In order to not lose all the reserve, the TiVo just reduces how much data it writes to the internal drive (changes the from the normal 50/50 ratio). It becomes just enough to make it so that the recordings on the expander will never be able to be extracted via any hack or mod anybody comes up with.

I don't have the time anymore to indulge arguments about the TCF gospel of how expanders add points of failure, and should be avoided at all costs. I used to agree with this. Now, I don't completely agree, as there is one newly-realized major benefit to using them, besides not having to open the TiVo, and worrying about loss of support, or worrying TiVo will deny warranty, should the day come TiVo starts enforcing their TOS/policies/warranty T&C.

One thing I do know, which is a positive effect, is by doing it this way, especially if using a 50/50 ratio, using an expander lowers the duty-cycle, or workload, of the internal drive. Drive makers are realizing the old model of reliability and failure rate estimations don't fit modern, high platter density, drives, thus "rating" some newer ones in TB/yr workload capacity. This is a bad sign for 4 and 6 tuner DVRs, when it comes to how long a drive, in a single drive system, should be expected to last.

Using an expander can cut the workload/duty-cycle by as much as by half, theoretically resulting in at least the internal drive lasting longer, since it would no longer be exceeding the 60TB/yr rating of most modern consumer drives (or not exceeding it by as much).

I suspect the reason 20.4.6 added power savings modes, and tweaked standby mode, to allow the drive to spin down, rather than buffer 24/7, is a move to reduce failures due to TB/yr workloads becoming quite extreme.

The fact that the TiVo Mega uses RAID, but only supports 6 tuners, seems a bit more telling, IMO. Even RAID drives are meant to have periods where they are at minimum, idling, rather than continuously being written to (or even continuously read).

A single drive TiVo with 4 or 6 tuners works the drive harder (in TB/yr) than some enterprise-class drives are rated for.

The downside, that should the expander drive fail, or be declared no longer in use, will result in loss of all recordings since the first one made after connecting the expander, is still the absolute truth.


----------



## BobCamp1

nooneuknow said:


> One thing I do know, which is a positive effect, is by doing it this way, especially if using a 50/50 ratio, using an expander lowers the duty-cycle, or workload, of the internal drive. Drive makers are realizing the old model of reliability and failure rate estimations don't fit modern, high platter density, drives, thus "rating" some newer ones in TB/yr workload capacity. This is a bad sign for 4 and 6 tuner DVRs, when it comes to how long a drive, in a single drive system, should be expected to last.
> 
> Using an expander can cut the workload/duty-cycle by as much as by half, theoretically resulting in at least the internal drive lasting longer, since it would no longer be exceeding the 60TB/yr rating of most modern consumer drives (or not exceeding it by as much).


But reliability doesn't work that way. You've halved the failure rate for each individual drive, but you've doubled the number of drives (failure points). And because one drive failing brings the whole system down, the reliability of the system is roughly the same. Actually, since an internal drive+expander drive Tivo has worse reliability than a Tivo with two internal drives (ignoring the power and heat issues), you've definitely decreased the overall reliability of the system by adding an expander.



nooneuknow said:


> I suspect the reason 20.4.6 added power savings modes, and tweaked standby mode, to allow the drive to spin down, rather than buffer 24/7, is a move to reduce failures due to TB/yr workloads becoming quite extreme.


Me too, though I would have kept the drive spinning 24/7 and just stopped buffering unused tuners to reduce the workload.


----------



## nooneuknow

BobCamp1 said:


> But reliability doesn't work that way. You've halved the failure rate for each individual drive, but you've doubled the number of drives (failure points). And because one drive failing brings the whole system down, the reliability of the system is roughly the same. Actually, since an internal drive+expander drive Tivo has worse reliability than a Tivo with two internal drives (ignoring the power and heat issues), you've definitely decreased the overall reliability of the system by adding an expander.


I'm just going to have say I disagree, and move away from the subject matter. I was speaking to internal hard drive longevity, not everything, as a whole.

Some people are going to use them no matter what anybody says. Some are going to keep using them, as they've not had any issues with them, ever. Some are going to beat to the drum of the last time they tried one in 2007, and had a bad experience. Some will just keep repeating the "gospel", until they are dead, or the product is discontinued.

There are folks on here who don't want to open their TiVo, and won't open their TiVo, to get more space. Most of them have valid reasons for it.



BobCamp1 said:


> Me too, though I would have kept the drive spinning 24/7 and just stopped buffering unused tuners to reduce the workload.


That would have been my approach, too. Just because a drive has the internal automatic idle mode 3 timer disabled, or set to 5 minutes, doesn't mean the host can't tell it to enter that state.

As you say, we "keep almost agreeing with each other". But, there's always at least that one thing...


----------



## eddyj

Excuse me for asking, I just skimmed thread for a friend (I have DIRECTV and have not had a TiVo in years). From what I gather with the Roamio, I can:

1) Get an external drive, but only one on the TiVo list, and those are 1TB max

2) Get a 3TB internal, and swap it out, the Roamio will do all the work (not a good solution as the person is too far for me to do it, and cannot do something like this on their own)

3) Get a bigger Roamio (but 4 tuners is more than enough)

Am I correct?


----------



## nooneuknow

eddyj said:


> Excuse me for asking, I just skimmed thread for a friend (I have DIRECTV and have not had a TiVo in years). From what I gather with the Roamio, I can:
> 
> 1) Get an external drive, but only one on the TiVo list, and those are 1TB max
> 
> 2) Get a 3TB internal, and swap it out, the Roamio will do all the work (not a good solution as the person is too far for me to do it, and cannot do something like this on their own)
> 
> 3) Get a bigger Roamio (but 4 tuners is more than enough)
> 
> Am I correct?


4. 4TB Roamio Image community edition

5. Order a pre-upgraded one from WeaKnees, if you don't mind the markup.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> I felt this thread was a better home for this, than the "Roamio Deals?" thread, in which I posted it. It's not RAID. It is a proprietary system, where every so many seconds, the TiVo changes the drive it is writing to. There is no striping, mirroring, or other RAID-like way in how it works. The distributed writes and reads is a form of striping, just not done for the same reason, and not adding any data protection. If you run your internal drive to 100% full, there's a bit of "reserve" left to still allow use of an expander. In order to not lose all the reserve, the TiVo just reduces how much data it writes to the internal drive (changes the from the normal 50/50 ratio). It becomes just enough to make it so that the recordings on the expander will never be able to be extracted via any hack or mod anybody comes up with. I don't have the time anymore to indulge arguments about the TCF gospel of how expanders add points of failure, and should be avoided at all costs. I used to agree with this. Now, I don't completely agree, as there is one newly-realized major benefit to using them, besides not having to open the TiVo, and worrying about loss of support, or worrying TiVo will deny warranty, should the day come TiVo starts enforcing their TOS/policies/warranty T&C. One thing I do know, which is a positive effect, is by doing it this way, especially if using a 50/50 ratio, using an expander lowers the duty-cycle, or workload, of the internal drive. Drive makers are realizing the old model of reliability and failure rate estimations don't fit modern, high platter density, drives, thus "rating" some newer ones in TB/yr workload capacity. This is a bad sign for 4 and 6 tuner DVRs, when it comes to how long a drive, in a single drive system, should be expected to last. Using an expander can cut the workload/duty-cycle by as much as by half, theoretically resulting in at least the internal drive lasting longer, since it would no longer be exceeding the 60TB/yr rating of most modern consumer drives (or not exceeding it by as much). I suspect the reason 20.4.6 added power savings modes, and tweaked standby mode, to allow the drive to spin down, rather than buffer 24/7, is a move to reduce failures due to TB/yr workloads becoming quite extreme. The fact that the TiVo Mega uses RAID, but only supports 6 tuners, seems a bit more telling, IMO. Even RAID drives are meant to have periods where they are at minimum, idling, rather than continuously being written to (or even continuously read). A single drive TiVo with 4 or 6 tuners works the drive harder (in TB/yr) than some enterprise-class drives are rated for. The downside, that should the expander drive fail, or be declared no longer in use, will result in loss of all recordings since the first one made after connecting the expander, is still the absolute truth.


So, the simple answer is yes, it does write to both drives and you will only lose those recordings that were made after the external is added, should the external drive fail, just as I said correct?


----------



## eddyj

nooneuknow said:


> 4. 4TB Roamio Image community edition
> 
> 5. Order a pre-upgraded one from WeaKnees, if you don't mind the markup.


4 is a non-starter, for the same reason #2 won't work.

5 I thought of after posting. :up:


----------



## nooneuknow

eddyj said:


> 4 is a non-starter, for the same reason #2 won't work.
> 
> 5 I thought of after posting. :up:


I figured as much. I just figured it made sense to make the list complete, since you included #2.


----------



## eddyj

nooneuknow said:


> I figured as much. I just figured it made sense to make the list complete, since you included #2.


Maybe I will have to make a visit and deal with it directly. In which case, I will go with #2, since that seems like the most effective, given limited time.


----------



## Mikeguy

eddyj said:


> Excuse me for asking, I just skimmed thread for a friend (I have DIRECTV and have not had a TiVo in years). From what I gather with the Roamio, I can:
> 
> 1) Get an external drive, but only one on the TiVo list, and those are 1TB max
> 
> 2) Get a 3TB internal, and swap it out, the Roamio will do all the work (not a good solution as the person is too far for me to do it, and cannot do something like this on their own)
> 
> 3) Get a bigger Roamio (but 4 tuners is more than enough)
> 
> Am I correct?


A possibility--you get the Roamio, do the simple 3TB upgrade, and then mail the machine in its original shipping box to your friend. Still likely cheaper than going the WeaKnees route. Just a thought--


----------



## nooneuknow

HarperVision said:


> So, the simple answer is yes, it does write to both drives and you will only lose those recordings that were made after the external is added, should the external drive fail, just as I said correct?


Yes, with a side of YMMV, and bad luck can happen.

If a problem with an expander is handled incorrectly, a complete loss could happen. Sometimes, people just blame the expander, when something gets corrupted on the internal, taking out the content of both drives.

You asked for telemark or nooneuknow to chime in, in that thread, so I did. It was no surprise at all that the first response to that was a TiVo HD horror story, allegedly a loss of everything on two of them (2 HDs with expanders). I suspect user error, given the lack of any details (and I've learned not to ask for them).

If anybody has spotted any actual reports of an expander causing more losses than it should, on a Roamio, please send me the links to the posts.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> Yes, with a side of YMMV, and bad luck can happen. If a problem with an expander is handled incorrectly, a complete loss could happen. Sometimes, people just blame the expander, when something gets corrupted on the internal, taking out the content of both drives. You asked for telemark or nooneuknow to chime in, in that thread, so I did. It was no surprise at all that the first response to that was a TiVo HD horror story, allegedly a loss of everything on two of them (2 HDs with expanders). I suspect user error, given the lack of any details (and I've learned not to ask for them). If anybody has spotted any actual reports of an expander causing more losses than it should, on a Roamio, please send me the links to the posts.


Cool thanks, mission accomplished!


----------



## eddyj

Mikeguy said:


> A possibility--you get the Roamio, do the simple 3TB upgrade, and then mail the machine in its original shipping box to your friend. Still likely cheaper than going the WeaKnees route. Just a thought--


Looking at prices and videos, I think waiting until I visit in a month or so will be the best choice. The weaknees premium is quite high, for just doing a drive swap.


----------



## telemark

nooneuknow, jmbach and ggieseke probably have played with drive marriage more than me.

I'll explain a bit of why so many recordings are affected when the external disappears though.

Without the external, whatever data that was on it, of course is no longer available. So Tivo needs a routine that will go through and remove from the list of shows the programs whose data was on the external. Now there's an unfortunate predicament of what to do with episodes that only parts are missing. The easiest thing is to give up on any partial episodes, cause how are you going to play back partials?

The remaining unknown, and they made some conscious choice on this some suggest mandated by CableLabs, is how should an episode be distributed across the two drives. One method, is alternating the chucks. Another method, is randomly for each chunk. Another method, is exclusive for each episode.

I don't know the actual method they employed, but what results for most any choice is most episodes wind end up split to some degree. Even the most generous, when an episode is exclusive to a drive, the ratio of the drive sizes will determine the percentage of the library on each.

It would be interesting to take a full 2 drive system and calculate the ratio, but it's just informative until someone also writes the rearrange script that would fix it. Kinda like a defrag.

Recordings from before the marriage might be preserved, but if you assume an expander lasts 3 years, how may recording do you still have from 3 years ago?

I think expanders have their place, mainly people who don't want to open their Tivo, don't have a Torx (or PC for Premiere). Also T6 and Q owners, perhaps wouldn't want to be mucking around in there. There is that trade off that the recordings might not last as long as a single drive system, but some people might not care about that, but do care about the simplicity.

PS. That slide set I posted about workload and head fly height, I was sitting on and forgot about, cause I wasn't sure which generation of drives they were talking about. Are they talking about the drives we've been already buying for years? Recently started buying? Or some 6TB drives that just came out finally? Opinions welcome cause I didn't get anywhere further with it.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> nooneuknow, jmbach and ggieseke probably have played with drive marriage more than me.


I agree. They have more knowledge on the matter than I do, as well. There's also too many "how you use your TiVo's storage" factors, that can change the dynamics of these discussions.

The last subject I should have touched is such a "touchy" one, given that I shouldn't be spending time on here, as it is.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> PS. That slide set I posted about workload and head fly height, I was sitting on and forgot about, cause I wasn't sure which generation of drives they were talking about. Are they talking about the drives we've been already buying for years? Recently started buying? Or some 6TB drives that just came out finally? Opinions welcome cause I didn't get anywhere further with it.


I have an educated suspicion that the HAMR technology is being used in any WD drive that has any mention of TB/yr workload as an official "rating".

It likely started with 6TB drives, as a necessity, then silently started getting used in other drives which don't require it, but can be reduced in mfg costs, by using fewer platters and heads, by using it. WD isn't known for changing drive model numbers, or part numbers, when they do things like this. The way the WD Red has kept the EFRX model designation, while climbing to NASware 3.0, is proof of this. When WD does make claims of "improvements" or selling points, they tend to lie, and say it's only found in the most profitable, newest, capacities and drive lines. An example of this is how they market the spindle motor being anchored at both ends, on only their most expensive, and newest, drives. I have ancient drives that have both ends anchored, before they even started using that as a selling point (and newer drives that are supposedly not double anchored, per WD's spec sheets, but they are).

I'd say it's likely safe to assume the WD Purple is using HAMR. The WD Red line might have started using it with some drives, at some point. But, since WD doesn't declare an "official" TB/yr workload rating for the Reds, it's hard to guess what's what. I'd expect they have to use HAMR on the 6TB Reds, or they wouldn't have 6TB Reds to sell. What that means for the lower capacities, I can only guess that HAMR will trickle down to them, if it hasn't already started, perhaps at the time they refreshed the lineup, to NASware 3.0 and introduced the Red NAS Pro line. But, if they shifted to TB/yr workload rating for regular Reds, just think how that would play out for those running a mix of various revisions of the Reds, if WD put it out there that a mix of supposedly interchangeable and intermixable drives, are held to different standards for workload...

Like I've said before, the hard drive companies love to feed the media and review sites, with all the details of their new tech. Yet, they don't seem so willing to tell the consumers that the drives they are currently selling are using that bleeding-edge tech (in the cases when that is the case). Most just want bigger drives, and don't care how it gets done, yet will get vocal when their bleeding-edge drives don't work, or fail prematurely. I always stay at least one capacity behind the mainstream max capacity out there, for the reasons I've laid out about lack of transparency, and not wanting to be part of a public field trial, as everything is turning into these days, if you want the newest, biggest, and allegedly "the best" things out there...

I love this thread, and the stuff we get into (when no fighting is involved). But, I really have to police how much time I spend here now, like my sig says. At some point, I'll probably create a proper thread, in the proper area, and spill some details, as I need all the help (advice) I can get with some matters.


----------



## L David Matheny

nooneuknow said:


> I have an educated suspicion that the HAMR technology is being used in any WD drive that has any mention of TB/yr workload as an official "rating".
> 
> It likely started with 6TB drives, as a necessity, then silently started getting used in other drives which don't require it, but can be reduced in mfg costs, by using fewer platters and heads, by using it. WD isn't known for changing drive model numbers, or part numbers, when they do things like this. The way the WD Red has kept the EFRX model designation, while climbing to NASware 3.0, is proof of this. When WD does make claims of "improvements" or selling points, they tend to lie, and say it's only found in the most profitable, newest, capacities and drive lines. An example of this is how they market the spindle motor being anchored at both ends, on only their most expensive, and newest, drives. I have ancient drives that have both ends anchored, before they even started using that as a selling point (and newer drives that are supposedly not double anchored, per WD's spec sheets, but they are).
> 
> I'd say it's likely safe to assume the WD Purple is using HAMR. The WD Red line might have started using it with some drives, at some point. But, since WD doesn't declare an "official" TB/yr workload rating for the Reds, it's hard to guess what's what. I'd expect they have to use HAMR on the 6TB Reds, or they wouldn't have 6TB Reds to sell. What that means for the lower capacities, I can only guess that HAMR will trickle down to them, if it hasn't already started, perhaps at the time they refreshed the lineup, to NASware 3.0 and introduced the Red NAS Pro line. But, if they shifted to TB/yr workload rating for regular Reds, just think how that would play out for those running a mix of various revisions of the Reds, if WD put it out there that a mix of supposedly interchangeable and intermixable drives, are held to different standards for workload...
> 
> Like I've said before, the hard drive companies love to feed the media and review sites, with all the details of their new tech. Yet, they don't seem so willing to tell the consumers that the drives they are currently selling are using that bleeding-edge tech (in the cases when that is the case). Most just want bigger drives, and don't care how it gets done, yet will get vocal when their bleeding-edge drives don't work, or fail prematurely. I always stay at least one capacity behind the mainstream max capacity out there, for the reasons I've laid out about lack of transparency, and not wanting to be part of a public field trial, as everything is turning into these days, if you want the newest, biggest, and allegedly "the best" things out there...


This HAMR business is all very disturbing. The manufacturers are taking a technology that should last until the bearings wear out and adding a new design feature (apparently some type of heating element) that will fail prematurely due to a parameter (TB written) that wasn't a wear factor before. It sounds like a colossal design blunder that will haunt us all in the not-too-distant future. Is this their devious, backhanded way of phasing out rotating disk drives? Give those the same Achilles heel (write limitations) as solid-state drives so we'll all just go ahead and switch? Obviously I'll have to consider HAMR and TB/year ratings now when shopping for drives.


----------



## BobCamp1

telemark said:


> The remaining unknown, and they made some conscious choice on this some suggest mandated by CableLabs, is how should an episode be distributed across the two drives. One method, is alternating the chucks. Another method, is randomly for each chunk. Another method, is exclusive for each episode.


The FIOS DVR simply fills up the external drive first, then fills up the internal drive. Since it also uses Cablecards, I don't think Cablelabs had much to say about how to distribute the recordings across drives. But maybe they had to approve the final design.

In FIOS, the external hard drive is bonded with that specific DVR. You can't pull the shows off by connecting it to a PC. If you connect it to another DVR, that DVR can't use the drive until you first tell it to format the drive.


----------



## nooneuknow

L David Matheny said:


> This HAMR business is all very disturbing. The manufacturers are taking a technology that should last until the bearings wear out and adding a new design feature (apparently some type of heating element) that will fail prematurely due to a parameter (TB written) that wasn't a wear factor before. It sounds like a colossal design blunder that will haunt us all in the not-too-distant future. Is this their devious, backhanded way of phasing out rotating disk drives? Give those the same Achilles heel (write limitations) as solid-state drives so we'll all just go ahead and switch? Obviously I'll have to consider HAMR and TB/year ratings now when shopping for drives.


Opinionated rant inside:


Spoiler



Yeah, I hear ya. But, I'll take HAMR over SMR any day. Shingled magnetic recording actually DOES create the same problems as SSDs have, in that the write heads being wider than the read heads (nothing "new" on its own), combined with taking out margins between tracks, leads to partial overwriting of neighboring tracks (thus the name "shingled"), requiring garbage collection and rewriting of data that was not part of the write operation just performed... IIRC, SMR was Seagate's half-assed way to get 6TB into a drive of the same form factor WD used HAMR for. Check Anandtech for the facts on that...

If they'd stick to only using these new ways in the largest capacities, I'd just be happy buying smaller drives. But, that hasn't been how hard drive history has been going. The new ways tend to trickle down to anything they can use it in, if it results in lower production costs, as a whole...

Suddenly, all that talk about helium-filled drives, allowing for closer head to platter distance, sounds like a winner (once they can be sure the helium never escapes via any means, and stays at a constant pressure).


----------



## L David Matheny

nooneuknow said:


> Yeah, I hear ya. But, I'll take HAMR over SMR any day. Shingled magnetic recording actually DOES create the same problems as SSDs have, in that the write heads being wider than the read heads (nothing "new" on its own), combined with taking out margins between tracks, leads to partial overwriting of neighboring tracks (thus the name "shingled"), requiring garbage collection and rewriting of data that was not part of the write operation just performed... IIRC, SMR was Seagate's half-assed way to get 6TB into a drive of the same form factor WD used HAMR for. Check Anandtech for the facts on that...
> 
> If they'd stick to only using these new ways in the largest capacities, I'd just be happy buying smaller drives. But, that hasn't been how hard drive history has been going. The new ways tend to trickle down to anything they can use it in, if it results in lower production costs, as a whole...
> 
> Suddenly, all that talk about helium-filled drives, allowing for closer head to platter distance, sounds like a winner (once they can be sure the helium never escapes via any means, and stays at a constant pressure).


Oh come on, man, if we have to put a spoiler alert on every opinionated rant, people won't even recognize this as a forum. I didn't know how SMR works, but it doesn't sound good. And I suspect the new technologies will trickle down _onto_ anything where they can save money. Helium-filled drives do sound interesting, and if manufacturers can make them leak at just the right rate, they'll have yet another mechanism for planned obsolescence.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> I have an educated suspicion that the HAMR technology is being used in any WD drive that has any mention of TB/yr workload as an official "rating".
> 
> It likely started with 6TB drives, as a necessity, then silently started getting used in other drives which don't require it, but can be reduced in mfg costs, by using fewer platters and heads, by using it. WD isn't known for changing drive model numbers, or part numbers, when they do things like this. The way the WD Red has kept the EFRX model designation, while climbing to NASware 3.0, is proof of this. When WD does make claims of "improvements" or selling points, they tend to lie, and say it's only found in the most profitable, newest, capacities and drive lines. An example of this is how they market the spindle motor being anchored at both ends, on only their most expensive, and newest, drives. I have ancient drives that have both ends anchored, before they even started using that as a selling point (and newer drives that are supposedly not double anchored, per WD's spec sheets, but they are).
> 
> I'd say it's likely safe to assume the WD Purple is using HAMR. The WD Red line might have started using it with some drives, at some point. But, since WD doesn't declare an "official" TB/yr workload rating for the Reds, it's hard to guess what's what. I'd expect they have to use HAMR on the 6TB Reds, or they wouldn't have 6TB Reds to sell. What that means for the lower capacities, I can only guess that HAMR will trickle down to them, if it hasn't already started, perhaps at the time they refreshed the lineup, to NASware 3.0 and introduced the Red NAS Pro line. But, if they shifted to TB/yr workload rating for regular Reds, just think how that would play out for those running a mix of various revisions of the Reds, if WD put it out there that a mix of supposedly interchangeable and intermixable drives, are held to different standards for workload...
> 
> Like I've said before, the hard drive companies love to feed the media and review sites, with all the details of their new tech. Yet, they don't seem so willing to tell the consumers that the drives they are currently selling are using that bleeding-edge tech (in the cases when that is the case). Most just want bigger drives, and don't care how it gets done, yet will get vocal when their bleeding-edge drives don't work, or fail prematurely. I always stay at least one capacity behind the mainstream max capacity out there, for the reasons I've laid out about lack of transparency, and not wanting to be part of a public field trial, as everything is turning into these days, if you want the newest, biggest, and allegedly "the best" things out there...
> 
> I love this thread, and the stuff we get into (when no fighting is involved). But, I really have to police how much time I spend here now, like my sig says. At some point, I'll probably create a proper thread, in the proper area, and spill some details, as I need all the help (advice) I can get with some matters.


I can see a spec of X_Tb for the life of the drive, but I don't understand the yearly part, why is the time important, If you used a drive with a spec. of 60Tb/year for say 5 years, that a total of 300Tb, so if your drive was writing 1Tb per day the drive would die in a year ??


----------



## L David Matheny

lessd said:


> I can see a spec of X_Tb for the life of the drive, but I don't understand the yearly part, why is the time important, If you used a drive with a spec. of 60Tb/year for say 5 years, that a total of 300Tb, so if your drive was writing 1Tb per day the drive would die in a year ??


If you write more than the allowed terabytes per year, the driver manufacturer could claim that you voided the warranty. If you write only within the approved limits, they would expect the drive to fail only after the warranty has expired. Planned obsolescence has to be carefully planned.


----------



## evanborkow

L David Matheny said:


> Planned obsolescence has to be carefully planned.


:up:


----------



## lessd

L David Matheny said:


> If you write more than the allowed terabytes per year, the driver manufacturer could claim that you voided the warranty. If you write only within the approved limits, they would expect the drive to fail only after the warranty has expired. Planned obsolescence has to be carefully planned.


How would they know how much you used the drive, time on yes, but data written, never saw that parameter before.


----------



## ej42137

lessd said:


> How would they know how much you used the drive, time on yes, but data written, never saw that parameter before.


S.M.A.R.T. attribute 241.


----------



## BobCamp1

lessd said:


> I can see a spec of X_Tb for the life of the drive, but I don't understand the yearly part, why is the time important, If you used a drive with a spec. of 60Tb/year for say 5 years, that a total of 300Tb, so if your drive was writing 1Tb per day the drive would die in a year ??


It's to differentiate themselves from SSDs, which do have a total number of bytes. Every SSD will eventually die, and there's a known failure mechanism which causes it.

In theory, you can't say the same thing about traditional hard drives. Any one hard drive might go on forever. Of course, the technologies are so new that nobody knows if there's a failure mechanism that would limit the read or write cycles. But it's not a known failure mechanism, so it's OK. 

It should be read as, given a workload of 60 Tb/yr or less, the expected reliability is at least x (whatever x is). You can exceed the workload rating, it's just that you should expect the reliability to be less than x. There's a workload vs. expected reliability graph, but it'll never get published. Not that it matters, since expected reliability is always different than actual reliability.


----------



## Arcady

We need a downvote button in addition to the upvote button.


----------



## Mikeguy

(As Saint Taylor Swift recently admonished, "Shake it off."  )


----------



## Arcady

A six paragraph reply to tell me you don't like my post is exactly why I wrote my post.

People who need to know what kind of hard drive to stick in their TiVo don't need a dissertation on the merits of hard drive manufacturing techniques.


----------



## h2oskierc

Arcady said:


> A six paragraph reply to tell me you don't like my post is exactly why I wrote my post.
> 
> People who need to know what kind of hard drive to stick in their TiVo don't need a dissertation on the merits of hard drive manufacturing techniques.


Eh, I for one find the information interesting. I tend to not take anyone's word for anything without information to back it up. Anyone on the internet can spew any dribble they want. When they have the information to backup their claims it means a whole lot more.

I have nothing against either one of you, but seriously Arcady, if you don't want to read it, then don't. Otherwise, I would kindly ask you to pad your post count with something valuable, and I've had enough of this childish ******** that has been brought into this thread.


----------



## eddyj

Ever heard of the ignore function? It works well, and I recommend it to anyone that does not want to see another poster's stuff.


----------



## RacShade

nooneuknow said:


> I swore to myself that if I saw anything resembling "shut up and go away", things looked to be turning ugly, or the trolls came in, I'd make good on my earlier declaration/announcement, as I do have more pressing concerns, like the unspecified reasons for my vague sig.


As someone who wrote to you that way, and thought better of it shortly after (I wrote the comment about sending you a Simpsons box set a month ago), I do want to offer you an overdue apology. I hope OnePass (in that particular case) is working better for you than you anticipated, and I respect your contributions to this forum. I wish you luck with whatever you're going through.

I can't comment on the particulars of the debate here, just expressing regret for my own tone. A feature on a device that records TV programs isn't worth disrespecting strangers about.


----------



## h2oskierc

eddyj said:


> Ever heard of the ignore function? It works well, and I recommend it to anyone that does not want to see another poster's stuff.


Sure have. Arcady has some great information in most cases.


----------



## andrews777

This thread is far less useful than the Tivo HD and Premiere one(s) I used years ago to upgrade my hard drives in those. Too much chit chat at the start.

It would be nice to have a single authoritative thread with proper instructions at the start, rather than possibly scattered somewhere deep in the thread. I looked around and couldn't find anything about hard drive choices, steps, etc.


----------



## Dixon Butz

andrews777 said:


> This thread is far less useful than the Tivo HD and Premiere one(s) I used years ago to upgrade my hard drives in those. Too much chit chat at the start.
> 
> It would be nice to have a single authoritative thread with proper instructions at the start, rather than possibly scatter somewhere deep in the thread. I looked around and couldn't find anything about hard drive choices, steps, etc.


Really simple to do. Only 3 steps:

1) Buy this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/
2) Follow post #1 in this thread
3) Plug in and power on.

The TiVo Roamio does the rest.


----------



## andrews777

Dixon Butz said:


> Really simple to do. Only 3 steps:
> 
> 1) Buy this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/
> 2) Follow post #1 in this thread
> 3) Plug in and power on. The TiVo Roamio does the rest.


The base post is followed by several that indicate that was pre-release information and may not work.

We really need a cleaned up thread.


----------



## Dixon Butz

andrews777 said:


> The base post is followed by several that indicate that was pre-release information and may not work.
> 
> We really need a cleaned up thread.


It works.


----------



## Dixon Butz

There is tutorial on youtube


----------



## Masterchin

WD Mainstream 3TB SATA 6.0 Desktop 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive (WDBH2D0030HNC)
Item: 391828 Model: WDBH2D0030HNC


SHARE:
3 TB capacity internal hard drive for use in desktop computers
SATA 6.0 interface transfers data at rates up to 6 Gb/s
IntelliPower RPM delivers fast loading
See more details

I got a great deal but have not installed the drive yet. I wanted an expert opinion first.

This is the drive I have seen recommended Product Details
WD30EURX Western Digital 3TB 5400RPM SATA 6.0 Gbps 3.5 inch Hard Drive
by Western Digital

They both appear to have the same specs
Available at external website:Memory4Less
I currently have TiVo Roamio Plus HD Digital Video Recorder and Streaming Media Player (TCD848000) and four TiVo minis.

Thank you


----------



## nooneuknow

Masterchin said:


> WD Mainstream 3TB SATA 6.0 Desktop 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive (WDBH2D0030HNC) Item: 391828 Model: WDBH2D0030HNC <snip>
> 
> I got a great deal but have not installed the drive yet. I wanted an expert opinion first. Thank you


For future reference, this is the WD30EZRX Green (plain Green, non-AV, 2yr warranty) model. It isn't endorsed for 24/7 operation, nor was it designed with DVR use in mind.

The simple answer is "Yes, it will work. Others are using them".

It wouldn't be my first recommendation, due a year shorter warranty, and usually not saving that many dollars, as opposed to upgrading with a WD30EURX, the same drive TiVo uses in their factory 3TB TiVos.

How long it will operate without issues, or any longevity comparisons, aren't questions that anybody can give you any definite answers to.

You didn't state which Roamio model, or how many tuners, or any other pertinent specifics that might factor in. The more tuners, the harder the drive will have to work, and the greater the TB/yr workload. The rest of the equation for longevity guesstimation is more random luck, than science.


----------



## unitron

Masterchin said:


> WD Mainstream 3TB SATA 6.0 Desktop 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive (WDBH2D0030HNC)
> Item: 391828 Model: WDBH2D0030HNC
> 
> SHARE:
> 3 TB capacity internal hard drive for use in desktop computers
> SATA 6.0 interface transfers data at rates up to 6 Gb/s
> IntelliPower RPM delivers fast loading
> See more details
> 
> I got a great deal but have not installed the drive yet. I wanted an expert opinion first.
> 
> This is the drive I have seen recommended Product Details
> WD30EURX Western Digital 3TB 5400RPM SATA 6.0 Gbps 3.5 inch Hard Drive
> by Western Digital
> 
> They both appear to have the same specs
> Available at external website:Memory4Less
> 
> Thank you


Since, as nooneuknow points out, it's a "regular" WD Green, instead of an A/V type, you probably still need to run

wdidle3.exe

to make sure Intellipark is disabled.

Or you could use it hooked to a PC for storage and get a WD30EURX to put in the TiVo.

But no matter where you use what drive, any drive which is new (to you, so includes any used ones you might acquire) should have the drive manufacturer's own diagnostic software long test run on it before putting it into service.


----------



## brian1269

Dixon Butz said:


> It works.


Unfortunately it has not worked for me, and I can't figure out why. The WD30EURX drive worked for a few days, and then I start to have issues which I have outlined earlier in this thread. I've either bypassed or replaced every piece of equipment and still having the same issue.


----------



## Dixon Butz

brian1269 said:


> Unfortunately it has not worked for me, and I can't figure out why. The WD30EURX drive worked for a few days, and then I start to have issues which I have outlined earlier in this thread. I've either bypassed or replaced every piece of equipment and still having the same issue.


So you did get a replacement Roamio and still have issues?


----------



## brian1269

Dixon Butz said:


> So you did get a replacement Roamio and still have issues?


That's correct. So now it's a real mystery. Maybe I should have just paid a few extra $ and got the Pro. But it's the exact same hardware, including the hard drive right?


----------



## Dixon Butz

brian1269 said:


> That's correct. So now it's a real mystery. Maybe I should have just paid a few extra $ and got the Pro. But it's the exact same hardware, including the hard drive right?


I am new to the Roamio line. So I am not sure about the hardware differences.

Did you erase the drive before you put it in the new Roamio?


----------



## rsnaider

I will be moving an existing 3TB drive to a new Plus later this week.

Since the drive has already been formatted will I need to do anything to move the drive to a new unit? Will the drive reformat or will I need to do a Clear & Delete once the drive is in the new Plus?


----------



## jmbach

Most conservative approach would be to zero out the first 100 sectors of the drive.


----------



## rsnaider

I guess I will pull this down and run this.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=610&sid=3&lang=en

Thanks!!


----------



## Toddler

I have a new (never powered on) Roamio Plus and this Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP WD30EURX drive:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/

Following the instructions a few posts back, which say to follow the instructions in the first post. That first post says simply to connect the new drive, power on and the Roamio will do the rest. Is that literally all it takes? I don't need to have ever powered on the TiVo prior to the drive upgrade?


----------



## Dixon Butz

Toddler said:


> I have a new (never powered on) Roamio Plus and this Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP WD30EURX drive:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/
> 
> Following the instructions a few posts back, which say to follow the instructions in the first post. That first post says simply to connect the new drive, power on and the Roamio will do the rest. Is that literally all it takes? I don't need to have ever powered on the TiVo prior to the drive upgrade?


Doesn't matter if you powered on or not. Drop it in and turn it on.


----------



## RobertE

I've been doing lots of reading and need a little clarification.

We have a new Roamio OTA. I'm looking at putting in a 1.5tb drive. I'd prefer not to lose the handful of shows already recorded along with all the passes. If I understand the 2700+ posts correctly I can:

Use Tivo Desktop and/or kmttg to transfer the shows and passes to a PC 
Upgrade the drive - swap & go
Use Tivo Desktop and/or kmttg to transfer the shows and passes back to the Tivo

Is that correct?


----------



## lpwcomp

RobertE said:


> I've been doing lots of reading and need a little clarification.
> 
> We have a new Roamio OTA. I'm looking at putting in a 1.5tb drive. I'd prefer not to lose the handful of shows already recorded along with all the passes. If I understand the 2700+ posts correctly I can:
> 
> Use Tivo Desktop and/or kmttg to transfer the shows and passes to a PC
> Upgrade the drive - swap & go
> Use Tivo Desktop and/or kmttg to transfer the shows and passes back to the Tivo
> 
> Is that correct?


TD does not backup passes and kmttg cannot transfer recordings back to the TiVo. You'd need to use TD or pyTivo for that.


----------



## ThAbtO

RobertE said:


> I've been doing lots of reading and need a little clarification.
> 
> We have a new Roamio OTA. I'm looking at putting in a 1.5tb drive. I'd prefer not to lose the handful of shows already recorded along with all the passes. If I understand the 2700+ posts correctly I can:
> 
> Use Tivo Desktop and/or kmttg to transfer the shows and passes to a PC
> Upgrade the drive - swap & go
> Use Tivo Desktop and/or kmttg to transfer the shows and passes back to the Tivo
> 
> Is that correct?


Correct. However, if you are just using the Tivo for storage of the videos, it may not be the best device for long term. Keeping it on a PC or externally/network attached drive may be better. You can transfer back to the Tivo when you wish to watch. Tivo Desktop seems to have a limit of about 300 Videos it can list/transfer from the Tivo before it falters.

KMTTG works only 1 way, Tivo-To-PC, It does other jobs such as decrypting, encoding for other devices, etc. There is a Push function but it borrows that from PyTivo which pushes (transfer video files PC-to-Tivo from the PC side) rather than pulling (initiating transfer to Tivo from the Tivo side.)


----------



## BruinGuy

Toddler said:


> I have a new (never powered on) Roamio Plus and this Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP WD30EURX drive:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/
> 
> Following the instructions a few posts back, which say to follow the instructions in the first post. That first post says simply to connect the new drive, power on and the Roamio will do the rest. Is that literally all it takes? I don't need to have ever powered on the TiVo prior to the drive upgrade?


Yes, I did this last Sunday.


----------



## aaronwt

ThAbtO said:


> Correct. However, if you are just using the Tivo for storage of the videos, it may not be the best device for long term. Keeping it on a PC or externally/network attached drive may be better. You can transfer back to the Tivo when you wish to watch. Tivo Desktop seems to have a limit of about 300 Videos it can list/transfer from the Tivo before it falters.
> 
> KMTTG works only 1 way, Tivo-To-PC, It does other jobs such as decrypting, encoding for other devices, etc. There is a Push function but it borrows that from PyTivo which pushes (transfer video files PC-to-Tivo from the PC side) rather than pulling (initiating transfer to Tivo from the Tivo side.)


Kmttg works just like TiVo Desktop. While on the TiVo I can pull a show to it from the PC. T


----------



## lpwcomp

aaronwt said:


> Kmttg works just like TiVo Desktop. While on the TiVo I can pull a show to it from the PC. T


kmttg has nothing to do with it.


----------



## HerronScott

aaronwt said:


> Kmttg works just like TiVo Desktop. While on the TiVo I can pull a show to it from the PC. T


What James said. You either have TD or pyTiVo installed to pull from a show from the PC to the TiVo.

Scott


----------



## aaronwt

lpwcomp said:


> kmttg has nothing to do with it.


Yes, sorry I forgot. I have two programs start up when the PC boots. So PyTivo is the other one. I don't mess with it since it autoboots so I completely forgot about it.


----------



## telemark

One of the dedicated devs around here, has a proof of concept Roamio formatter / optimizer that goes up to 6TB (internal).

The details are being sorted out still, but I thought it best to announce early as I know a number of people were waiting on hearing this before deciding what HDD to buy.


----------



## trip1eX

I just picked up 2 Toshiba CAnvio 3TB external drives for dirt cheap.

I didn't pick them up with Tivo in mind, but now finding out they are 5700 rpm drives so the thought crossed my mind of opening one up and tossing it into my Roamio. 

However I did read they are compatible with XP and (because of this) have some kind of special controller that lets XP see the drive even though it is 3TB. And that it won't work after taking it out of case because something is on the drive that needs to see this controller? 

Well that's when I thought of this thread. And the experts here. 

Anyone happen to know anything about this drive or this type of external drive configuration and whether it can be used without the case?

Currenlty searching this thread for the testing recommendations I read about b4.


----------



## ThAbtO

trip1eX said:


> I just picked up 2 Toshiba CAnvio 3TB external drives for dirt cheap.
> 
> I didn't pick them up with Tivo in mind, but now finding out they are 5700 rpm drives so the thought crossed my mind of opening one up and tossing it into my Roamio.
> 
> However I did read they are compatible with XP and (because of this) have some kind of special controller that lets XP see the drive even though it is 3TB. And that it won't work after taking it out of case because something is on the drive that needs to see this controller?
> 
> Well that's when I thought of this thread. And the experts here.
> 
> Anyone happen to know anything about this drive or this type of external drive configuration and whether it can be used without the case?
> 
> Currenlty searching this thread for the testing recommendations I read about b4.


Try Googling the model number?


----------



## telemark

As a general rule it's common to have a controller in external drives that alter the behavior in some way.

Typically the drive can still be used as a raw drive, when what's called "deshelled", but they will often have funny settings by default.

For a certain answer, you'll have to find someone who already de-shelled your model, and if you can't find a post/video then you'd have to wait or chance it yourself. If it's a common model at a good price, it's just a matter of time.


----------



## zerdian1

Before that Physical replacement you purchase the drive number must already be in TiVo's WD Drive number table.
as far as I can tell only the WD 3TB internal drive and the 1TB external drive as well as the 500GB and the 1TB internal WD drives are in the table.

EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR ROAMIO'S
if you can get an external drive with the same drive number as the ROAMIO PRO'S 3TB internal drive, that will work without any modifications to the TiVo's SW or warranty.

start a quest to find out what drive number TiVo is using for its internal drive.
get an external drive with that WD number.
it may only be USB so you will need a USB TO ESATA CONVERTER. WD does not make one.

QUEST ONE: WHAT IS THE WD DRIVE NUMBER IN THE ESATA TABLE FOR THE ROAMIO PRO?

QUEST TWO: DOES ANYONE KNOW OF A GOOD USB TO ESATA CONVERTER?



amseven11 said:


> Upgrade your Roamio with a new drive. No discs needed.
> 
> *What you need:*
> T8 Screw driver
> T10 Screw Driver
> New Hard Drive


----------



## zerdian1

from what I gather but have no way of verifying this is the WD 3TB internal drive used by TiVo in Roamio Pro.

WD AV-GP 3TB AV Video Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA II, 64 MB Cache - WD30EURS

List Price:	$199.99
Price:	$151.00 & FREE SHIPPING
You Save:	$48.99 (24%)
Note: Not eligible for Amazon Prime.
Only 6 left in stock.
Ships from and sold by New World IT in easy-to-open packaging.
Estimated Delivery Date: Thursday, April 30 when you choose Two-Day Shipping at checkout.
Power-conserving WD AV-GP drives offer significant power savings and thermally optimized operation resulting in lower cost of ownership and unsurpassed reliability for PVR/DVR, IPTV boxes and media server manufacturers.
SilkStream - Optimized for smooth, continuous digital video playback of up to twelve simultaneous HD streams. SilkStream is compatible with the ATA streaming command set so CE customers can use standard streaming management and error recovery options.
Ideal for set-top boxes (PVR, DVR and IPTV), media servers, media centers, and surveillance applications.
3 TB capacity holds up to 600,000 digital photos, 750,000 MP3 files, and 360 hours of HD video.
Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging
Microsoft operating systems prior to Vista, 32-bit operating systems, and Mac systems prior to OSX 10.4 may not support volumes greater than 2TB. To recognize the full capacity of this drive, you may need multiple partitions. Check with the manufacturer to verify your system's compatibility.


----------



## b-ball-fanatic

What is the question? Whether that WD 3Tb works in a Roamio? It does.


----------



## ggieseke

There is no "table" for internal drives. You can slap in anything and it will try to use it (for better or worse).

There IS a list of approved externals and it's extremely limited by both the exact WD model number and firmware. It does not include any drives over 1TB.


----------



## trip1eX

The Toshiba externals I picked up today have essentially this model hard drive inside.

DT01ABA300V. Except without the V at the end.

The V model is made for DVR applications.

Amazon has my non-V version listed with same 5940 rpm and 32mb cache. Supports AV tech. No other data.

Label on my drive says 5V 430mA and 12V 330mA. 6.0 Gb/s SATA interface.

Sounding more doable to try out in a Roamio?

External is kind of loud though. Maybe the V means extra noise insulation.


----------



## andrews777

Sliding the top off is not easy. Trying to figure out how to do that now. The top does not slide forward when the screws are out.

I have the base model of the Roamio and it had 3 inside clips on each side that had to be loosened. I did so very carefully to avoid breaking anything while taking it off.

I also found that one outside screw was T8, but the other worked only with a T10 connector. A bit annoying, but I got it done.

The system then booted up with the new hard drive and did a full guided setup. It is running now. Much easier than in the past.


----------



## andrews777

Sliding the top off is not easy. Trying to figure out how to do that now. The top does not slide forward when the screws are out.

I have the base model of the Roamio and it had 3 inside clips on each side that had to be loosened. I did so very carefully to avoid breaking anything while taking it off.

I also found that one outside screw was T8, but the other worked only with a T10 connector. A bit annoying, but I got it done.

The system then booted up with the new hard drive and did a full guided setup. It is running now. Much easier than in the past.


----------



## telemark

Only 1 Torx screw needs to be removed to open the top on the Base Roamio.


----------



## foghorn2

Removing the top is more about bowing the top to unhook the side tabs more than it is "sliding". Its a piece of cake.


----------



## Toddler

I upgraded my Roamio Plus with the WD30EURX, and maybe this is silly, but the little black & white TiVo video that plays at startup only plays for about five seconds before it looks like it crashes and takes me to the Home Menu. Has anyone else ever seen that, or does anyone have advice?

I have gone through Guided Setup a few times, did Clear and Delete Everything, even did Kickstart 57. I don't want to start transferring all the recordings and Season Passes from my old TiVo only to discover when it's too late that the hard drive upgrade didn't go perfectly.


----------



## andrews777

foghorn2 said:


> Removing the top is more about bowing the top to unhook the side tabs more than it is "sliding". Its a piece of cake.


It wasn't hard once I realized that, but it took me a while to figure that out, all while trying to slide it per the instructions reposted just before this.


----------



## andrews777

telemark said:


> Only 1 Torx screw needs to be removed to open the top on the Base Roamio.


I didn't realize that. Though I did get them both out and back in. I am not sure which one was needed and which one was not.


----------



## telemark

Toddler said:


> I upgraded my Roamio Plus with the WD30EURX, and maybe this is silly, but the little black & white TiVo video that plays at startup only plays for about five seconds before it looks like it crashes and takes me to the Home Menu. Has anyone else ever seen that, or does anyone have advice?


This is a known Tivo OS bug unrelated to HDD upgrades. Don't draw any conclusions from it if it's your only symptom.


----------



## Mikeguy

Toddler said:


> I upgraded my Roamio Plus with the WD30EURX, and maybe this is silly, but the little black & white TiVo video that plays at startup only plays for about five seconds before it looks like it crashes and takes me to the Home Menu. Has anyone else ever seen that, or does anyone have advice?
> 
> I have gone through Guided Setup a few times, did Clear and Delete Everything, even did Kickstart 57. I don't want to start transferring all the recordings and Season Passes from my old TiVo only to discover when it's too late that the hard drive upgrade didn't go perfectly.


Is your TiVo on the latest software, that has been rolling out? The new software fixes the video glitch (which I found to be disconcerting, on a new TiVo).


----------



## husky55

I am really new to Roamio. Just bought a plus model. Want to upgrade the drive. My problem is my spare HD are all 3TB 7200. Do I need to buy a lower rpm drive like the
WD30EURX ? I've got 3 7200 drives already.


----------



## b-ball-fanatic

husky55 said:


> I am really new to Roamio. Just bought a plus model. Want to upgrade the drive. My problem is my spare HD are all 3TB 7200. Do I need to buy a lower rpm drive like the
> WD30EURX ? I've got 3 7200 drives already.


On the bright side, there's no harm in trying one of those drives. The two potential issues, IMO, are heat and noise. If either seems excessive, you'll probably want to go ahead and buy a drive meant for this application. Fortunately, they're not too expensive.


----------



## husky55

Thanks for the kind words. I am real shocked that my 3 TB drives were all 7200. I was building NAS.


----------



## HarperVision

I used a 1.5TB Seagate 7200 RPM Drive in a Roamio basic for a little bit and didn't seem to have any issues with it while it was installed. I didn't use it long though because I swapped it out for a Roamio Pro that had a 3TB 5600 already installed of course. 

I don't have official tests and numbers but I think member nooneuknow who posts here often has some if you want to PM him directly?


----------



## husky55

I was tempted to use the 7200 hds already owned and have no need for them yet but you guys nailed it. Heat and noise told me to suck it up and buy the WD 3TB EURX. So I did. I used a 7200 hd as a parity drive in my unraid server with no problem.


----------



## foghorn2

I noticed the Seagates draw a little bit more power in just about every mode, if its a basic R with the oem power adapter, I would trust WD drives over them. I would never use a 7200 rpm in a Tivo myself.


----------



## NashGuy

I've just ordered a new TiVo Roamio OTA with lifetime service and am considering upgrading the drive from the stock 500 GB to 2 TB. From what I've read, it looks like there are two different drives that TiVo puts in new Roamios:

WD AV-GP
Seagate Pipeline

From what I can read, these two drives are direct competitors with essentially the same feature set, both with a 64MB cache, both being optimized for use in DVRs based on heat, noise, HD video streaming capability, etc.

Here are my Qs:

1. Does TiVo use the older SATA II (3 Mbps) versions of these drives (i.e. the WD20EURS) or the newer SATA III (6 Mpbs) versions (i.e. the WD20EURX)?

2. Does it make any performance difference whether SATA II or SATA III is used? Is a Roamio OTA able to take advantage of the speed difference between the two?

3. I've seen more references to WD than Seagate on this thread. Is there a consensus that the WD AV-GP is better for use in a Roamio than a Seagate Pipeline? Why or why not? Both have the same 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Amazon, although most of those ratings probably come from non-TiVo users. In the 2 TB SATA III versions, the Seagate Pipeline is currently over $20 less than the WD AV-GP.

Thanks!


----------



## NashGuy

I've just ordered a new TiVo Roamio OTA with lifetime service and am considering upgrading the drive from the stock 500 GB to 2 TB. From what I've read, it looks like there are two different drives that TiVo puts in new Roamios:

WD AV-GP
Seagate Pipeline

From what I can read, these two drives are direct competitors with essentially the same feature set, both with a 64MB cache, both being optimized for use in DVRs based on heat, noise, HD video streaming capability, etc.

Here are my Qs:

1. Does TiVo use the older SATA II (3 Mbps) versions of these drives (i.e. the WD20EURS) or the newer SATA III (6 Mpbs) versions (i.e. the WD20EURX)?

2. Does it make any performance difference whether SATA II or SATA III is used? Is a Roamio OTA able to take advantage of the speed difference between the two?

3. I've seen more references to WD than Seagate on this thread. Is there a consensus that the WD AV-GP is better for use in a Roamio than a Seagate Pipeline? Why or why not? Both have the same 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Amazon, although most of those ratings probably come from non-TiVo users. In the 2 TB SATA III versions, the Seagate Pipeline is currently over $20 less than the WD AV-GP.

Thanks!


----------



## foghorn2

NashGuy said:


> I've just ordered a new TiVo Roamio OTA with lifetime service and am considering upgrading the drive from the stock 500 GB to 2 TB. From what I've read, it looks like there are two different drives that TiVo puts in new Roamios:
> 
> WD AV-GP
> Seagate Pipeline
> 
> From what I can read, these two drives are direct competitors with essentially the same feature set, both with a 64MB cache, both being optimized for use in DVRs based on heat, noise, HD video streaming capability, etc.
> 
> Here are my Qs:
> 
> 1. Does TiVo use the older SATA II (3 Mbps) versions of these drives (i.e. the WD20EURS) or the newer SATA III (6 Mpbs) versions (i.e. the WD20EURX)?
> 
> 2. Does it make any performance difference whether SATA II or SATA III is used? Is a Roamio OTA able to take advantage of the speed difference between the two?
> 
> 3. I've seen more references to WD than Seagate on this thread. Is there a consensus that the WD AV-GP is better for use in a Roamio than a Seagate Pipeline? Why or why not? Both have the same 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Amazon, although most of those ratings probably come from non-TiVo users. In the 2 TB SATA III versions, the Seagate Pipeline is currently over $20 less than the WD AV-GP.
> 
> Thanks!


1. SATA 2, but newer units may have 3.
2. No, the Roamios default to 1.5 mode no matter what sata version drive you put in it.
3. The Pipelines will work just fine. They draw a little bit more power. To me more power may mean more heat, and less power for everything else or taxing the power adapter more than normal.

When something glitches with the Tivo, Id rather play it safe with a better drive so its not a major point of concern as to the root cause. Thus I prefer the WD's.


----------



## BruinGuy

husky55 said:


> I am really new to Roamio. Just bought a plus model. Want to upgrade the drive. My problem is my spare HD are all 3TB 7200. Do I need to buy a lower rpm drive like the
> WD30EURX ? I've got 3 7200 drives already.


My understanding is that the Tivo power supply is weak and only specific drives are recommended. I suspect that a drive that draws too much power may eventually cause the power supply to overheat and/or fail. I put in a 3tb WD that was recommended and had no problems.


----------



## DallasGG

I just bought the Roamio OTA with the lifetime service for $299. I'm interested in upgrading the hard drive and have started reading this long thread trying to figure out what hard drive to use. Has anyone compiled a list of hard drives that have worked in the hard drive upgrade? (I'm guessing no, but I thought I'd ask anyway)

Thanks!


----------



## Mikeguy

Oft-recommended: Western Digital WD30EURX, a 3TB drive. Available Amazon.com $115-$120 shipped.


----------



## Dixon Butz

DallasGG said:


> I just bought the Roamio OTA with the lifetime service for $299. I'm interested in upgrading the hard drive and have started reading this long thread trying to figure out what hard drive to use. Has anyone compiled a list of hard drives that have worked in the hard drive upgrade? (I'm guessing no, but I thought I'd ask anyway)
> 
> Thanks!


No. 
This is the one to use

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/


----------



## DallasGG

Mikeguy said:


> Oft-recommended: Western Digital WD30EURX, a 3TB drive. Available Amazon.com $115-$120 shipped.


If I wanted to go with a 2TB drive for a little less money, I'm assuming that the WD20EURX would work right?

Thanks!


----------



## A J Ricaud

DallasGG said:


> If I wanted to go with a 2TB drive for a little less money, I'm assuming that the WD20EURX would work right?
> 
> Thanks!


Yup.


----------



## NashGuy

DallasGG said:


> If I wanted to go with a 2TB drive for a little less money, I'm assuming that the WD20EURX would work right?
> 
> Thanks!


If you find it for less, you could also go with the older version of that drive, the WD20EURS. It's SATA II while the newer "X" model is SATA III but (see my Q and A above) your TiVo cannot take advantage of the difference in the newer model, so may as well go with whichever's cheapest.

Another good option for a little less $ is the direct competitor to the WD20EURX, the Seagate 2 TB Pipeline HD ST2000VM003. According to the Q & A above, it draws slightly more power than the WD (and so *may* have a shorter life) but the feature set and recommended use-case (DVR) are basically identical. I've read that the Roamio OTA ships with a factory-installed Seagate 500 GB Pipeline HD.


----------



## Mikeguy

Looks like the WD30EURX has been coming down in price at Amazon.com these past few months. I seem to recall it at $119.99 a few months ago, and then down to $115.99, and now at $110.99.


----------



## NashGuy

Looks like the 2TB WD20EURX is now $75 w/ free shipping at Amazon via New World IT.

I could see a 3TB drive if you have cable but I don't think I'd come close to recording that much with just OTA. Haven't decided yet whether or not I'll upgrade my drive; if so, I'll go with 2TB. I just ordered a Roamio OTA and it hasn't arrived yet. Since I do a fair amount of streaming, a Slide Pro Remote may actually be the first upgrade I spring for...


----------



## Mikeguy

NashGuy said:


> Looks like the 2TB WD20EURX is now $75 w/ free shipping at Amazon via New World IT.
> 
> I could see a 3TB drive if you have cable but I don't think I'd come close to recording that much with just OTA. Haven't decided yet whether or not I'll upgrade my drive; if so, I'll go with 2TB.


I was amazed to see that my 4-month-old Roamio standard's hard drive (500GB) already is at 71% full from OTA content, and I haven't really been saving much of my own actions--much of this comes from TiVo's Suggestions and some new sub-channels having started, bringing with them older high-quality, classic movies.

More space always is a good thing.


----------



## philhu

Actually. Ota uses alot more space. The HD is uncompressed on OTA


----------



## husky55

BruinGuy said:


> My understanding is that the Tivo power supply is weak and only specific drives are recommended. I suspect that a drive that draws too much power may eventually cause the power supply to overheat and/or fail. I put in a 3tb WD that was recommended and had no problems.


I gave up hope for the 7200 hd and bought the WD 3TB EURX. So when I opened my Roamia, guess what's in there, WD1TB EURX.


----------



## Alf Tanner

Here's to hoping one of these days when checking this thread somebody has figured out the 6TB situation...


----------



## telemark

husky55 said:


> I gave up hope for the 7200 hd and bought the WD 3TB EURX. So when I opened my Roamia, guess what's in there, WD1TB EURX.


Btw, I'm looking for the version number on these (Roamio Plus HDD). If anyone is willing to grab it, it would just require hooking up the 1TB to a PC with any drive utility.


----------



## ggieseke

Alf Tanner said:


> Here's to hoping one of these days when checking this thread somebody has figured out the 6TB situation...


Do you mean something like this? 










It took about 400 hours over the last few months to figure out. I'm still tweaking the program, but I should release something in the next week or two.


----------



## telemark

Heh, why is Free Disk Space greater than Capacity?


----------



## ggieseke

telemark said:


> Heh, why is Free Disk Space greater than Capacity?


Good question.  I think it's the space reserved for Teleworld recordings.

Supersizing may come in a later version of the program.


----------



## jmbach

I also believe that part of it is unfilled buffer space.


----------



## Alf Tanner

ggieseke said:


> Do you mean something like this?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It took about 400 hours over the last few months to figure out. I'm still tweaking the program, but I should release something in the next week or two.


:up:
that is some good news! Thank you!


----------



## BogusBill

For all those who are hesitant about upgrading their Roamio to a larger drive, don't be.

I used a Western Digital WD30EURX, a 3TB drive. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI/0DXFEQGI/

I used an old credit card to carefully depress the tabs on the sides.

Start to finish took less than 10 minutes.

The drive was immediately recognized, and software updates were applied quickly and flawlessly. It took longer to download the guide than anything else.

Piece of cake. You can do it!!!!


----------



## ggieseke

Alf Tanner said:


> :up:
> that is some good news! Thank you!


Today's the day for 4TB - 6TB drives. Enjoy.


----------



## gespears

ggieseke said:


> Today's the day for 4TB - 6TB drives. Enjoy.


We are looking forward to it. Thanks for sharing your hard work with us.


----------



## ggieseke

Forgot the link...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428


----------



## husky55

WOW!!! This is so great!!! Power to the people!!!


----------



## telemark

_State of the Art as of May 2015 _

*Internal: 
*Tivo: 500GB-3TB (roamio built in)
telemark: 4TB only  (linux cd)
ggieseke: 3TB-6TB (windows app)

*External:
*Tivo: 500GB-1TB (plug-n-play)
telemark: 1TB-2TB (beta soon)

*Max Tested:
*Tivo: 3TB+1TB = 4TB
telemark: 4TB+2TB = 6TB
ggieseke: 6TB
jmbach: 6TB+2TB = 8TB

*Record holder:
*WK: 6TB+6TB = 12TB (preformatted drive pair)
Base Plus Pro

*next predicted:*
6TB+2TB = 8TB already confirmed working by jmbach
6TB+4TB = 10TB
6TB+6TB = 12TB


----------



## jmbach

I bet you max supported DIY will be

ggieseke internal 6TB + telemark external 2TB = 8TB

in the short term.


----------



## telemark

jmbach said:


> max supported DIY will be
> ggieseke internal 6TB + telemark external 2TB = 8TB
> in the short term.


That's at 2TB because of plug-n-play assumptions.

My opinion atm is the 6TB internals won't plug-n-play externals, but will require an explicit marriage.
Which is totally doable, but a different process. In some ways might actually be easier.

But hey, you know all about this stuff and everyones opinion is welcome.


----------



## nooneuknow

Is somebody jealous that the non-commercial entity (member) holding the internal record is using a <gasp> Windows program? 

I sense there's competition in the air! Linux versus Windows! Hell's hard drive lab, coming soon. Who will find the helium let out of their hard drive?

Weren't we all still friends, just like an hour ago?


----------



## jmbach

telemark said:


> That's at 2TB because of plug-n-play assumptions.
> I predict anyone's 6TB internals won't plug-n-play externals, but will require an explicit marriage.
> 
> Which is totally doable, but a different process. In some ways might actually be easier.
> 
> But hey, you know all about this stuff and everyones opinion is welcome.


I know that I can get a Roamio to boot your 4TB image and add a plug-in play 2TB external so it is not a small stretch to go 6TB + 2TB.


----------



## aaronwt

Will the 6TB WD ezrz(?) Drive work well with the windows software?


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> Will the 6TB WD ezrz(?) Drive work well with the windows software?


If you mean the EZRX, it should work just fine with the software.

Almost literally any drive that should/would work in a TiVo, in the 4-6TB range, should work with the software.
Reliability/longevity for these drive capacities, used in a TiVo: It is too early in these sizes, and technology used, to even guess.

My order of preferences list (starting with best WDs @5400RPM, all technically in the "green" class):

*WD AV Green EURX* - Currently only available up to 4TB - 3yr warranty.
*WD Red EFRX* (is an AV drive, but has TLER, and is meant for use with a proper RAID controller) - 3yr warranty.
*WD Green EZRX* (non-AV) - 2yr warranty. If it had 3yr, would be bumped up one line in list.
*Seagate AV* (5900RPM)
*Other brands*, as long as they are low-RPM "green" power profile 5400-5900RPM

For more details, click spoiler show button.


Spoiler



Any drive used should have the lowest possible cold-start/spin-up/peak power requirements.
Be wary of drives not clear on actual peak power requirements.
WD's "Intellipower" is all about requiring the least amount of power, to get spun-up to 5400 RPM.

*WD Purple PURX* - Nobody involved in the 4-6TB free/community projects recommends these, although they will "work" - 3yr warranty.
These are also AV drives, but have TLER, and *only a 60 TB/yr workload rating*. Exceeding it can kill the drive, void your warranty, and WD can find out if you have. Use at your own risk. Even a 2-tuner TiVo, buffering/recording HD 24x7 can push TB/yr to the limits.

To the best of my knowledge, this reflects a consensus among everybody involved with "mfsr" (although, posts by others others may vary slightly).

*** In the larger sizes, it is best to come to make your own educated decisions, through profile/spec comparisons, and knowing the limits of each TiVo's power supply/adapter, especially when it comes the the Base/OTA Roamio. An upgrade to a higher rated-capacity power "brick", to replace the Base/OTA's "wall-wart", may be required in some cases. I prefer to advise being proactive, but also to use caution, on this matter.


----------



## telemark

I'm suppose to eat my hat now. 

jmbach's prediction is correct and 
my prediction is wrong.

That makes at least 3 types of internal drive upgrades that look like they'll maintain compatibility with appropriate external expanders.

I hope we're all friends here, but a little sibling rivalry boosts productivity.

Now stop working so hard, tired of editing the summary chart.


----------



## Photo_guy

OK here is a drive change question that I haven't been able to find an answer to.
I have a Roamio OTA that I successfully upgraded to a 3TB drive. I was able to get the $300 lifetime deal so I would now like to move the 3TB drive from my old Roamio to my new unit.
If I remove the 3TB drive and put it into the new unit will the Tivo reformat the drive or will the existing recordings from the old unit be accessible?
I know I can move the recordings to my PC and reload them, I am just looking at what to expect. 
Has anyone tried this before?


----------



## jmbach

The recordings are tied to the unit. For the drive to work with the new unit, you will have to do a clear and delete everything. As a result, you will lose all your recordings.


----------



## Photo_guy

jmbach said:


> The recordings are tied to the unit. For the drive to work with the new unit, you will have to do a clear and delete everything. As a result, you will lose all your recordings.


Excellent. Thanks. That will save me some time as now I know I need to clear/reset first.(And I won't mess around running the experiment and installing/uninstalling drives.)


----------



## jmbach

Since you are using a 3TB drive in a new unit, you might give MFSR a try. It will truly 4k align the drive (partitions and zone) and optimize the layout better. In theory it should decrease drive and perhaps some improved performance.


----------



## HarperVision

jmbach said:


> The recordings are tied to the unit. For the drive to work with the new unit, you will have to do a clear and delete everything. As a result, you will lose all your recordings.


But he could still transfer the non-copy protected recordings to his PC to view later on his new Roamio. No reason to lose them totally if he doesn't want to.


----------



## TivoCom

Best Buy has the WD 6TB Red drive for $234 today.


----------



## Photo_guy

HarperVision said:


> But he could still transfer the non-copy protected recordings to his PC to view later on his new Roamio. No reason to lose them totally if he doesn't want to.


That part I understand, and I will do that for any important programs. 
I was looking to avoid unneeded experimentation. The answer provided gave me just what I needed to do that.

[I think I will avoid the MFSR suggestion at this point also to avoid extra frustration. The 3TB drive seems to be working fine as it is so I don't want to mess with it.]


----------



## nooneuknow

jmbach said:


> Since you are using a 3TB drive in a new unit, you might give MFSR a try. It will truly 4k align the drive (partitions and zone) and optimize the layout better. In theory it should decrease drive and perhaps some improved performance.


My technical write-up on this feature.

My follow-up post to augment the first one.


----------



## lessd

Photo_guy said:


> OK here is a drive change question that I haven't been able to find an answer to.
> I have a Roamio OTA that I successfully upgraded to a 3TB drive. I was able to get the $300 lifetime deal so I would now like to move the 3TB drive from my old Roamio to my new unit.
> If I remove the 3TB drive and put it into the new unit will the Tivo reformat the drive or will the existing recordings from the old unit be accessible?
> I know I can move the recordings to my PC and reload them, I am just looking at what to expect.
> Has anyone tried this before?


If you just move your drive from one Roamio to another you will have to do a clear and delete all, thus the loss of all your programs and SPs (OPs). To save your programs moving them is the only, you can move them to another Roamio or to your PC.


----------



## Photo_guy

I will summarize my experience swapping HD's between Tivo Roamio's with a quote from one of my favorite movies:
_" It's a procedure. Like rebuilding a carburetor has a procedure. You know, when you rebuild a carburetor, the first thing you do is you take the carburetor off the manifold? Supposing you skip the first step, and while you're replacing one of the jets, you accidentally drop the jet, it goes down the carburetor, rolls along the manifold, and goes into the head. You're f**d. You just learned the hard way that you gotta remove the carburetor first, right? So that's all that happened to me today. I learned the hard way. Actually, it was a good learning experience for me."_


----------



## husky55

Can the Red WD50EFRX be used in a Roamio with TLER enabled? Is TLER disabled in the WD green? As I understand it, TLER is used in a RAID setup where if a drive cannot read a sector for 7 seconds it stopped and tried to remap. Not sure if this is correct.


----------



## nooneuknow

husky55 said:


> Can the Red WD50EFRX be used in a Roamio with TLER enabled? Is TLER disabled in the WD green? As I understand it, TLER is used in a RAID setup where if a drive cannot read a sector for 7 seconds it stopped and tried to remap. Not sure if this is correct.


It's complicated (But, you got the 7 second part right). TLER-enabled RAID/NAS drives do "work" in TiVos. I'm running 3TB Red NAS in three base Roamios. But, one drive that had some soft errors, was hitting those time-outs, and I had a perfect storm of conditions that was a headache to diagnose. Seriously, migraine-level, and not behaving in a way that would suggest the hard drive. The drive was just moving on, after sending an error that a RAID controller would use to rebuild the data, and deal with the issue. It didn't even register the errors in the SMART tables, due to TLER.

But, ever since I ran the drive through several test cycles, and swapped in 2.5A power bricks, to replace the pathetic 2A stock wall-warts, I have not had a problem again, and it's now been a year since that headache hit me.

The WD AV Green line maxes-out at 4TB. Seagates are more power hungry, make more heat and cost more, leaving anything past 4TB kind of a "pick the least worst option" situation... The WD Reds are 24x7 AV drives, with a 3yr warranty, and not crippled by the 60TB/yr rating of a WD Purple, which also has TLER. If I'm honest, I wouldn't use a Purple for anything, unless it was free, and then it would be for archival backup, or some other low-load task. A Plain WD Green isn't blessed with being AV class (which really doesn't matter in TiVos), is not "24x7" badged, and only has a 2yr warranty, but may become the drive most wind up going with for the largest upgrades.

I pulled the posts sharing the deal, because I'm one of the people on here who believes TLER has no place in a host without a RAID controller (unless you know the risks and willingly accept them). WD's whitepapers, marketing materials, FAQs, forums, and warranties all say this as well.

I have to see if a tool I've been working on/with that was able to disable TLER on WD Red NAS drives, is safe, and works on the larger sizes, and newer firmware (NASware 3.0). If it does, I'll probably release it on TCF, so others can turn off the TLER, if they want. I've been holding back on setting it loose, since it directly flips bits in the drive firmware, and is not idiot proof (so far). I'm looking for other solutions, as well.


----------



## nooneuknow

@Photo_guy: Great analogy in that quote. Kind of ironic that I work on classic cars with carburetors, and know how it feels when even my special jet-gripping tool drops a jet into the manifold. One can always stuff shop rags into the barrels, but that doesn't analogize to your TiVo project experience so well...

Thanks for being a good sport, and stand-up guy, over missing a step when doing a C&DE for transplant of the drive to a different TiVo. That's pretty much how most of us learn how to do, or not do, our TiVo upgrades. Happy trails...


----------



## Photo_guy

nooneuknow said:


> @Photo_guy: Great analogy in that quote. Kind of ironic that I work on classic cars with carburetors, and know how it feels when even my special jet-gripping tool drops a jet into the manifold. One can always stuff shop rags into the barrels, but that doesn't analogize to your TiVo project experience so well...
> 
> Thanks for being a good sport, and stand-up guy, over missing a step when doing a C&DE for transplant of the drive to a different TiVo. That's pretty much how most of us learn how to do, or not do, our TiVo upgrades. Happy trails...


@nooneuknow - I admit I am on a learning curve here. You are clearly more knowledgeable on this topic than I. It does not help anyone to act differently - but it unfortunately often turns into a bad exchange with no value.

Since we deleted the posts from yesterday many others did not see some of the valuable tips you included in your reply. While I felt some of your tone was harsh, there was some good info there. Perhaps you could provide that info again or a link to it if it already exists for the benefit of others attempting the same HD swap?


----------



## nooneuknow

Photo_guy said:


> @nooneuknow - I admit I am on a learning curve here. You are clearly more knowledgeable on this topic than I. It does not help anyone to act differently - but it unfortunately often turns into a bad exchange with no value.
> 
> Since we deleted the posts from yesterday many others did not see some of the valuable tips you included in your reply. While I felt some of your tone was harsh, there was some good info there. Perhaps you could provide that info again or a link to it if it already exists for the benefit of others attempting the same HD swap?


@Photo_guy: Click show.


Spoiler



I feel the fastest and most sure way to best do what you aimed to do, was actually not doing the C&DE, but instead just moving the drive as-was, to the other TiVo, then using the "Retailer Reset" KickStart (KS), at the first opportunity, which uses the "code" 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0, after you have activated the kickstart, by pressing pause (not holding it down), when the amber LED on the front of the TiVo flickers, shortly after applying power. The amber light will then become solid, you enter the "code", and if done properly, it will acknowledge it by flashing the green and amber, and that kickstart will insure no residual "junk" or past marriage to the old TSN/hardware is retained, and will boot you right into guided setup.

You had attempted to do a C&DE on the first TiVo, then move the drive, but didn't pull the power at the reboot that happens right after the boot-time C&DE routine completed. By letting it boot into guided setup, the drive had been "divorced", only to be "married" again, to the first TiVo, forcing you to do GS on the second TiVo, only to see an error, then do another C&DE, then complete GS again.

If ever looking for a fast way to get through guided setup, just for the sake of being able to see if you get an error or not (or for some other reason), you can press "enter" on the 2nd GS screen for advanced options, select Installer Express, use zip 00000, provider Tiny TiVo, and not have to download all your localized guide data, before seeing if everything on the System Information screen is actually reading properly. If it is, then just repeat GS (use the express mode if you like), and use your proper zip & provider.

I think that covers it all. I tend to write these things up all the time, without actually being asked to, and catch grief for cluttering up threads. But, if asked, I'm not going to say "go spend two hours looking for the last time and place I wrote this up".


----------



## husky55

No need to pull that 5 TB deal. I was interested. I read somewhere that the WDTLER utility might harm the new WD drives. If you have a new utility which can disable tler then it will help out tivo community. Thank you for sharing your experience with the PS and the WD red. I just got the refurbished Roamio+ so I am on the learning curve here.


----------



## nooneuknow

husky55 said:


> No need to pull that 5 TB deal. I was interested. I read somewhere that the WDTLER utility might harm the new WD drives. If you have a new utility which can disable tler then it will help out tivo community. Thank you for sharing your experience with the PS and the WD red. I just got the refurbished Roamio+ so I am on the learning curve here.


I'm working with the WDTLER executable, which apparently only one version of works, and as you say, could be dangerous to newer drives. Right now, it's just a DOS-mode boot CD to run it from, and no safeguards or protections in place.


----------



## wco81

I have a Roamio Plus with the original 1 TB internal.

I also have an eSata dock and 2 GB external.

The internal is 75-80% full.

If I add the eSata, would I still be able to access the internal content or would it wipe it to form a new logical 3 TB drive?


----------



## Wattsline

wco81 said:


> I have a Roamio Plus with the original 1 TB internal.
> 
> I also have an eSata dock and 2 GB external.
> 
> The internal is 75-80% full.
> 
> If I add the eSata, would I still be able to access the internal content or would it wipe it to form a new logical 3 TB drive?


It will still be there and accessible. Adding an external drive is like adding another drive in a computer. No format of old drive will occur.


----------



## wco81

And if I removed the external (reboot between adding and removing the external), it would just revert back to what was in the internal?

Where will it store new recordings, use up the rest of the internal drive before using the external or start using the external for new recordings?


----------



## Wattsline

wco81 said:


> And if I removed the external (reboot between adding and removing the external), it would just revert back to what was in the internal?
> 
> Where will it store new recordings, use up the rest of the internal drive before using the external or start using the external for new recordings?


I don't know the answer to that. Since it's a Linux format, I never used MFS to see where the recording were going but I WOULD ASSUME they would go to the old drive first then the new one.


----------



## jmbach

wco81 said:


> And if I removed the external (reboot between adding and removing the external), it would just revert back to what was in the internal?
> 
> Where will it store new recordings, use up the rest of the internal drive before using the external or start using the external for new recordings?


I have not done this with a Roamio, but with the Premiere and S3 units, you would lose all recordings that occurred after the extender was added but keep all the ones that were present before it was added.


----------



## jkozee

nooneuknow said:


> My technical write-up on this feature.
> 
> My follow-up post to augment the first one.


Can you provide details on the additional alignment being done on the inodes. If they are 512 bytes, wouldn't they fall on a 4k boundary if the partition started on one?


----------



## ggieseke

jkozee said:


> Can you provide details on the additional alignment being done on the inodes. If they are 512 bytes, wouldn't they fall on a 4k boundary if the partition started on one?


Each inode is 512 bytes and it's followed immediately by a backup copy, so that's 1024 bytes each.

Multiple factors come into play here, so skip the rest of this if tech stuff bores you.

There are 3 types of "zones". File zones are used for a fairly standard file system with directories etc. Inode zones hold the inodes, which tell you where to look on the disk for a particular file or media stream. Media zones hold the actual recordings.

The headers for all 3 types of zones and the actual file and inode zones are located in the MFS application partitions. If you align the MFS media partitions correctly for a 4KB sector drive (and they do on Roamios) that takes care of one problem, but aligning the MFS application partitions doesn't automatically align the file and inode zones within them for 4K drives. In fact it never does on the factory layout.

What I did in mfsr was to make sure that the file and inode zones start at 4K boundaries. Doing that wastes a few 512 byte 'sectors' here and there, but I got that back and more by laying out the media partitions more efficiently.

Here's where somebody will probably say that since each inode takes up 1024 bytes, aligning the start of the zone doesn't matter. Did I mention that the minimum read/write block size in the inode zones is 256MB?


----------



## Record This

I purchased a new Roamio a few months ago. My hard drive is now full. I would like to get a 2 or 3 TB internal drive and swap it out. Can I copy over all of the files from my current internal drive to the new drive and somehow keep all of my recordings? Or am I going to lose my recordings no matter what?

Also, do I need to format the drive before I install it, or are they plug and play?

I tried to find the answer in this thread but 100 pages of posts is a lot to look through/


----------



## philhu

Record This said:


> I purchased a new Roamio a few months ago. My hard drive is now full. I would like to get a 2 or 3 TB internal drive and swap it out. Can I copy over all of the files from my current internal drive to the new drive and somehow keep all of my recordings? Or am I going to lose my recordings no matter what?
> 
> Also, do I need to format the drive before I install it, or are they plug and play?
> 
> I tried to find the answer in this thread but 100 pages of posts is a lot to look through/


Unless you can copy to another tivo on your account or to tivo desktop, you will lose all


----------



## Teeps

Record This said:


> Can*I copy over all of the files from my current internal drive to the new drive and somehow keep all of my recordings?
> 
> **Or am I going to lose my recordings no matter what?
> 
> ***Also, do I need to format the drive before I install it, or are they plug and play?


*NO

** NO as stated in the post 2825, above.

*** YES


----------



## lpwcomp

nooneuknow said:


> Guys, that last question came from somebody who wants to do a 2TB or 3TB upgrade. So, saying they need to format either size drive before installing it is not the correct info.


Look at Teeps post again. He was answering "Yes" to the part of the question in red


> are they plug and play.


----------



## brianle8

There are SO many posts in this thread, so apologies if what I'm about to say is well known already, but just in case ...

Today I upgraded my Roamio OTA from the included 500 GB drive to a 3 TB drive, I used a WD30EURX, one that had been recommended a lot ($105 plus tax on Amazon.com). I watched a couple of youtube videos beforehand, read through at least a lot of what's on this thread, just looked round in general to minimize the odds of unhappy surprises.

Anyway, it all went very very well, and quickly. I'm posting now just to note a couple of minor things that I hadn't known before doing this:

(1) When re-assembling the unit, attach the overlapping front part of the case top before pushing down to seat the rest.

(2) Look at how the side rails are screwed into the original hard drive --- they don't connect the same way, one is 'up', the other 'down'. I thought there might be something a bit odd there from one of the videos, but just looking carefully at the orientation before unscrewing these from the original HD makes it clear.

(3) I expected to lose anything previously recorded, and I did. I expected to have to go through setup as if installing a brand new unit, and I did. SORT OF. The setup was the same, and then I still had to go in and uncheck from the channel list several weak or undersirable (all religion or all commercials all the time ...) OTA channels that I don't want the unit to try to record on. But what I didn't expect and was very pleased to find is that all of my Onepass scheduled recordings are apparently copied into Tivo's cloud and automagically re-instantiated on my system. Wonderful. I had quite a lot of these.

(4) My Tivo Mini required zero interaction, once the main unit was once again set up (hardware and software), the Tivo Mini "just worked" as it had before.

Very pleased with this upgrade, and many thanks to all who went before on this, showing the way.


----------



## TomK

My upgrade experience was exactly as brianle8's upgrade experience. The same 3TB hard drive, the same loss of all of my recorded shows, etc., watching out for the internal hard drive tray mounting scheme. All is well, it was a painless upgrade.


----------



## ncbill

you could do what I did:

Buy another Roamio OTA, activate, transfer the shows from the old to the new via ethernet, drop the 3TB drive into the old Roamio, transfer the shows back.

Optional: cancel service within the 30 day window, return Roamio OTA to the store.



TomK said:


> My upgrade experience was exactly as brianle8's upgrade experience. The same 3TB hard drive, the same loss of all of my recorded shows, etc., watching out for the internal hard drive tray mounting scheme. All is well, it was a painless upgrade.


----------



## phughes200

If you have a computer on the same network, you can transfer the videos to your computer using TiVo Desktop (free version). After the upgrade, you can transfer the video back to the TiVo or just leave them on the computer. You can watch the videos on your TV using the TiVo to stream them or watch them on the computer. You might not be able to transfer some video do to copyright protection.


----------



## lessd

ncbill said:


> you could do what I did:
> 
> Buy another Roamio OTA, activate, transfer the shows from the old to the new via ethernet, drop the 3TB drive into the old Roamio, transfer the shows back.
> 
> Optional: cancel service within the 30 day window, return Roamio OTA to the store.


Not very ethical, if everybody did that we would all pay more for our electronics.


----------



## Wattsline

lessd said:


> Not very ethical, if everybody did that we would all pay more for our electronics.


You can copy the shows to your computer, replace the drive and copy back or play them from the computer. Takes time but....


----------



## brianle8

I knew about the copy-to-computer thing, but had owned the unit for less than a month, didn't have that much recorded yet.

I want to modify one comment that I made: not ALL of my Onepass stuff made it over.
First off, none of the wishlists did (three of those). But out of exactly 40 other (not wishlist) Onepass scheduled recordings, 32 showed up automagically when the unit was re-setup with the new hard drive, and 8 shows did not show up.
These were, one the off chance it makes any difference (?):
Nova
Nova scienceNOW
Masterpiece Classic
Al Punto
Noticiero Univision: Fin de Semana
Noticias Univision Seattle
Aqui y Ahora
Tommorow Today

So basically, some public broadcasting stuff, and some spanish language stuff, mostly (entirely?) from two or three channels.
The stuff that did come across made it over in the same order and with all of the options set the same as they were originally. 

I also want to add that I'm finding it pretty handy to use the Tivo android app --- infrequently. Very handy when I want to type in some text (search, wish list). Very handy in this case too as the way I figured out what was missing is that I took screen shots on my android tablet of all of my Onepass recordings before replacing the hard disk. Easy enough to do, and glad that I did!


----------



## lessd

Wattsline said:


> You can copy the shows to your computer, replace the drive and copy back or play them from the computer. Takes time but....


That is an ethical solution, as your not sticking the retailer with a used TiVo.


----------



## aaronwt

lessd said:


> That is an ethical solution, as your not sticking the retailer with a used TiVo.


It's also an easier and much simpler solution. Buying another tivo and later returning it would be much, much more work.


----------



## RWitkowski

I read through a lot of the posts in here, and I will admit some were above my knowledge base.
So, I have a Roamio Plus, since I got it it's hit 80% full a few times.
I bought a WD 2T drive (WD20EURX) to replace the original drive.
Is there anything I "need" to do to the drive prior to installing.
I have seen posts about testing the drive, I don't know what to use to do that. I have a PC running WINDOWS 7.
Also I have seen posts mentioning alignment of the drive, is that something I should do?


Thanks


----------



## fcfc2

RWitkowski said:


> I read through a lot of the posts in here, and I will admit some were above my knowledge base.
> So, I have a Roamio Plus, since I got it it's hit 80% full a few times.
> I bought a WD 2T drive (WD20EURX) to replace the original drive.
> Is there anything I "need" to do to the drive prior to installing.
> I have seen posts about testing the drive, I don't know what to use to do that. I have a PC running WINDOWS 7.
> Also I have seen posts mentioning alignment of the drive, is that something I should do?
> 
> Thanks


Hi,
Assuming you want to save the shows already recorded, your first step will be to backup/ copy the shows to your PC. Tivo has a free version of Tivo Desktop which you can use, assuming you have enough space to backup your recordings. 
WD has diagnostic software for your drive which you can download. Install it, connect your new drive and run the extended test. Once this is done, power down your tivo + and remove the 4 torx #10 from the back of the case and remove the metal top. Then pull the power and sata cable from the original drive and remove the 4 screws holding it in place. Make note of the metal slides on the drive and it's orientation. Remove the drive guide and reinstall on the new drive. Reverse the directions to install the new drive in the Tivo and power everything back up. You will have to run the setup again when it finishes loading. 
Drives 3TB and less do not require the align tool so...start copying the shows back to your new Tivo drive.


----------



## UCLABB

fcfc2 said:


> Hi,
> Assuming you want to save the shows already recorded, your first step will be to backup/ copy the shows to your PC. Tivo has a free version of Tivo Desktop which you can use, assuming you have enough space to backup your recordings.
> WD has diagnostic software for your drive which you can download. Install it, connect your new drive and run the extended test. Once this is done, power down your tivo + and remove the 4 torx #10 from the back of the case and remove the metal top. Then pull the power and sata cable from the original drive and remove the 4 screws holding it in place. Make note of the metal slides on the drive and it's orientation. Remove the drive guide and reinstall on the new drive. Reverse the directions to install the new drive in the Tivo and power everything back up. You will have to run the setup again when it finishes loading.
> Drives 3TB and less do not require the align tool so...start copying the shows back to your new Tivo drive.


I may be mistaken, but I think the cover screws are #8 torx.


----------



## RWitkowski

fcfc2 said:


> Hi,
> Assuming you want to save the shows already recorded, your first step will be to backup/ copy the shows to your PC. Tivo has a free version of Tivo Desktop which you can use, assuming you have enough space to backup your recordings.
> WD has diagnostic software for your drive which you can download. Install it, connect your new drive and run the extended test.


I am in the process of copying programs to my PC.
I will look for the WD tools.

Thanks


----------



## fcfc2

RWitkowski said:


> I am in the process of copying programs to my PC.
> I will look for the WD tools.
> 
> Thanks


http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?modelno=WD20EURX&x=11&y=15

Regarding the correct torx size, I used a #10 for both the back of the Plus and all drive screws, but a cheap torx head set is a good investment. Get one with the security feature if available. If you have a Harbor Freight store available, they have cheap serviceable sets.


----------



## osu1991

It took a #8 torx for one screw on the back of my Roamio and the rest were #10 torx on the back and the drive enclosure.


----------



## fcfc2

osu1991 said:


> It took a #8 torx for one screw on the back of my Roamio and the rest were #10 torx on the back and the drive enclosure.


Interesting, which Roamio do you have? I wonder if this is a quality control issue?


----------



## UCLABB

osu1991 said:


> It took a #8 torx for one screw on the back of my Roamio and the rest were #10 torx on the back and the drive enclosure.


Lol. When I did mine I was impatient and used a small flat blade screwdriver to remove the screws. But then I bought a cheap number 8 torx to tighten the screws after I put the cover back on. Then I thought why in the heck didn't they use the same size torx for all the screws as the screw size seemed the same.


----------



## osu1991

fcfc2 said:


> Interesting, which Roamio do you have? I wonder if this is a quality control issue?


It was a Roamio Basic that I swapped with 3TB WD drive. Next time I see them on sale, I will order another one for myself.

You had to make me think for a minute, as I was setting up the $299 Roamio OTA special that day too.

Those 2 Roamios are the ones I bought for my dad. I just checked the Roamio Basic I have for myself and it has a #8 torx screw in the center of the back plate and the other one is a #10 torx.


----------



## RWitkowski

I tried Tivo desktop to back up my programs but some would not transfer back to the new drive.? 
I am looking into using Pytivo to back up my shows.
Is there a way to back up my onepass (season pass)? I can see it on my TiVo.com page but cant save it or send it to my TiVo after I swap the hard drive.


----------



## lpwcomp

RWitkowski said:


> I tried Tivo desktop to back up my programs but some would not transfer back to the new drive.?
> I am looking into using Pytivo to back up my shows.
> Is there a way to back up my onepass (season pass)? I can see it on my TiVo.com page but cant save it or send it to my TiVo after I swap the hard drive.


You might want to take a look at kmttg. You can use it to backup your recordings and backup/restore OnePasses.


----------



## aaronwt

Yes. KMTTG worked great when I replaced my 3TB drive in my Roamio Pro with a 5TB Drive. All the One passes seemed to transfer fine. The only thing I had an issue with not transferring were a couple of wishlists I had.


----------



## JoeKustra

Just wanted to post a story on my drive upgrade to my base Roamio. I didn't have any recordings to save, and could write the 1P down on paper. I bought the suggested tools on eBay and used the drive from my WD expander since it wasn't being used anyhow. I may try to figure out how to put the 500GB into it someday.

I learned that the case needed to be gently pried off not slid back. The drive replacement was easy and put new drive in, even cleaned off the fingerprints from the top. I never saw any format operation. I know the drive was good, empty and using NTFS. It took longer to configure with the guide and firmware than the hardware part. I looked up how to remove the suggestions folder, set all my preferences, and was done. And we lived happily ever after.


----------



## aaronwt

When I took of the case to my Roamio Basic I found it easiest just to pull it off with a lot of force. I tried it several times and that worked without any issues. I initially tried to gently remove it and got frustrated since it wouldn't come off.


----------



## Dixon Butz

aaronwt said:


> When I took of the case to my Roamio Basic I found it easiest just to pull it off with a lot of force. I tried it several times and that worked without any issues. I initially tried to gently remove it and got frustrated since it wouldn't come off.


Yeah, I got frustrated on my first OTA and forced it. Didn't go back on quite right. 
But for the lifetime OTA, I used a spudger.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K9GQD4C

I used to blue tool on the left, small end. The cover came of really easy using that. And no scratches. 
It is also great for taking panels off computers and many other things.


----------



## Dissonance

nooneuknow said:


> crippled by the 60TB/yr rating of a WD Purple, which also has TLER. If I'm honest, I wouldn't use a Purple for anything, unless it was free


I wish I had read this first. I just got a PURX...
It seemed like the best option since it's an "AV drive rated for 24/7 recording, up to 32 HD feeds ect..."

Newegg failed to mention the 60TB/yr limit anywhere... probably because it contradicts everything they claim about this drive (I don't know what bitrate this "HD" video would have to be to stay under that limit). So now I want to return it for a different drive but if I do I'll have to pay a restocking fee and return shipping... almost $50 total!

Is it worth it to get a drive with a higher rating? Or should I just keep it now and take my chances? If I do keep it and it fails during the warranty, will WD say it's my fault for going past 60TB/yr? Can they even tell?

Crap...


----------



## Teeps

Dissonance said:


> Or should I just keep it now and take my chances? If I do keep it and it fails during the warranty, will WD say it's my fault for going past 60TB/yr? Can they even tell?
> Crap...


Installed a purple drive in my XL4 last October.
The original drive only lasted 2 years.
So, if I get 2 years out of the purple I won't feel bad about the purchase.
When this one fails I won't put another purple back in.
Your experience may differ...


----------



## HarperVision

WD Green 4TB EZRX Drive for $125 at Rakuten:

http://m.rakuten.com/product/254458731?adid=17654&scid=em_Promotional_20150604Daily

Use code "MORETECH"


----------



## CoxInPHX

Teeps said:


> The original drive only lasted 2 years.
> So, if I get 2 years out of the purple I won't feel bad about the purchase.


I also only got 2 years out of a 2TB WD20EURS AV-GP drive in an upgraded Premiere, before it quit, WD replaced it with a Re-Certified WD20EURS AV-GP, which I have never even used except to run a diagnostic.


----------



## Keen

New release of MFS Tools supports expanding Roamio drives while keeping recordings: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=529148


----------



## HerronScott

CoxInPHX said:


> I also only got 2 years out of a 2TB WD20EURS AV-GP drive in an upgraded Premiere, before it quit, WD replaced it with a Re-Certified WD20EURS AV-GP, which I have never even used except to run a diagnostic.


Ouch! I hope the 2TB WD20EURX that I just upgraded to in my 2 S3 OLEDs last longer than that. The 1TB WD10EVCS AV-GP ones that they replaced were still working well after 6 years.

Scott


----------



## Teeps

HerronScott said:


> Ouch! I hope the 2TB WD20EURX that I just upgraded to in my 2 S3 OLEDs last longer than that. The 1TB WD10EVCS AV-GP ones that they replaced were still working well after 6 years.
> 
> Scott


I veer a little off topic, but my recently retired S1 has a seagate 160gb drive that I dated (when installed) in August 2005, that was still running fine!


----------



## LeonC

After upgrading the hard drive on a basic roamio, does the cable card require pairing again?


----------



## lessd

LeonC said:


> After upgrading the hard drive on a basic roamio, does the cable card require pairing again?


In most cases, yes.


----------



## gespears

6 TB Red Harddrive is down to 250 at Newegg.


----------



## krkaufman

gespears said:


> 6 TB Red Harddrive is down to 250 at Newegg.


Barely more than a 3TB Red on a $/TB basis. I'd probably leap if I could easily migrate a stock 3TB to the new 6TB.


----------



## krkaufman

gespears said:


> 6 TB Red Harddrive is down to 250 at Newegg.


Yep, and Amazon, as well. Hope Thailand stays dry and the downward trend continues.


----------



## aaronwt

krkaufman said:


> Barely more than a 3TB Red on a $/TB basis. I'd probably leap if I could easily migrate a stock 3TB to the new 6TB.


Yes. I'm glad I picked up 5TB Red for only $180. The price per TB was the lowest I've seen for those larger size Red drives.


----------



## atmuscarella

aaronwt said:


> Yes. I'm glad I picked up 5TB Red for only $180. The price per TB was the lowest I've seen for those larger size Red drives.


What I don't get is why USB 3.0 drives come on sale for less than bare drives. I bought this 5TB Samsung USB 3.0 drive for $120 ($130 now on Newegg) and it came with a 3 year warranty. 5TB bare drives never get that low, even the ones with shorter warranties.


----------



## UCLABB

atmuscarella said:


> What I don't get is why USB 3.0 drives come on sale for less than bare drives. I bought this 5TB Samsung USB 3.0 drive for $120 ($130 now on Newegg) and it came with a 3 year warranty. 5TB bare drives never get that low, even the ones with shorter warranties.


Does warranty length equate to quality or longevity? Maybe not. The value of the warranty itself has little vaue to me because if I have a drive failure, the last of my worries is the money to replace it.


----------



## RoyK

UCLABB said:


> Does warranty length equate to quality or longevity? Maybe not. The value of the warranty itself has little vaue to me because if I have a drive failure, the last of my worries is the money to replace it.


I think not. It's likely that the vast majority of consumer owned hard drives are simply tossed when they fail without warranty replacement even being requested. Devices like hard drives generally fail early in life if there is some manufacturing defect. Those that don't generally last for a very long time. The warranty numbers quoted for consumer drives are more sales gimmicks than anything.


----------



## atmuscarella

UCLABB said:


> Does warranty length equate to quality or longevity? Maybe not. The value of the warranty itself has little vaue to me because if I have a drive failure, the last of my worries is the money to replace it.


Who knows but USB & bare drives warranties vary from 1-5 years so the manufactures must of some reason for the number they pick. But my main point was that bare drives seem to cost more than the same size USB 3.0 drive, which doesn't make allot of sense to me.


----------



## HarperVision

atmuscarella said:


> Who knows but USB & bare drives warranties vary from 1-5 years so the manufactures must of some reason for the number they pick. But my main point was that bare drives seem to cost more than the same size USB 3.0 drive, which doesn't make allot of sense to me.


I'm sure it's a supply and demand scenario due to them selling many more external drives than bare internals.


----------



## tome_9499

Looking on Amazon for a new 3TB drive for my Roamio basic. I don't want to spend a ton on the drive, but I do want one that will last several years. Any suggestions?

I was looking at these two:

Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX

Seagate 3TB Desktop HDD SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive (ST3000DM001)

I'd appreciate your help.

Thanks


----------



## tome_9499

Duplicat post . . . Snip


----------



## foghorn2

My vote goes to the WD.


----------



## HarperVision

foghorn2 said:


> My vote goes to the WD.


Ditto


----------



## MikeBear

tome_9499 said:


> Looking on Amazon for a new 3TB drive for my Roamio basic. I don't want to spend a ton on the drive, but I do want one that will last several years. Any suggestions?
> 
> I was looking at these two:
> 
> Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX
> 
> Seagate 3TB Desktop HDD SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive (ST3000DM001)
> 
> I'd appreciate your help.
> 
> Thanks


I ordered one of these the other day. $70.43 total! I signed up for the "Amazon card" and got $40 loaded to a gift card right away. I also had some points on my normal card that I used.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=od_aui_detailpages00


----------



## UCLABB

tome_9499 said:


> Looking on Amazon for a new 3TB drive for my Roamio basic. I don't want to spend a ton on the drive, but I do want one that will last several years. Any suggestions?
> 
> I was looking at these two:
> 
> Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX
> 
> Seagate 3TB Desktop HDD SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive (ST3000DM001)
> 
> I'd appreciate your help.
> 
> Thanks


*NEITHER*. Why not stick with what TiVo puts in their boxes, the AV model, WD30EURX. It may cost a bit more, but you did say you wanted it to last. I'm with MikeBear on this. If you do go with the Caviar Green, make sure you check and disable intellipark. I've read that if it is active, the drive won't work properly.


----------



## MikeBear

Nothing worse than getting a bunch of stuff recorded, and the drive takes a crap because it's not one of the ones Tivo is designed for...

Stick with the proper drives on Tivo's list, you won't regret it...


----------



## 21364guy

I may have a failing 2TB drive in my Roamio... a few details are here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10550720#post10550720

If "Fail 7" does require a quick replacement then I'll likely get another 2TB AV-GP drive ASAP. Is dd rescue the easiest approach... and one which will keep my recordings? Or can I use the latest MFS tools? Glancing at this thread I'm a bit confused on the current status, and whether or not there are some bugs I might encounter. In the past I've used both the Linux Live disc and WinMFS. Just trying to understand the best way to accomplish the replacement with the available software these days.


----------



## roger353

I'm looking to expand my viewing options of the TIVO Ota , what hard drive is recommended to increase the capacity of my current machine. Can I place a $TB drive in there? What drive is best?


----------



## ggieseke

roger353 said:


> I'm looking to expand my viewing options of the TIVO Ota , what hard drive is recommended to increase the capacity of my current machine. Can I place a $TB drive in there? What drive is best?


3TB and under drives will format automatically. 4-6TB drives need some additional prep (see the mfsr thread in the Upgrade forum).

Up to 4TB, the best choice is the Western Digital AV line (WDx0EURX). After 4TB it gets trickier since I don't know of any AV rated drives that big. My personal choice would be the WD Red (EFRX) line, followed by the Green (EFRZ) line. In any case you want something in the 5600-5900RPM range, and look carefully at the power consumption.

I would avoid the WD Purple line because the lifecycle ratings suck.


----------



## MikeBear

roger353 said:


> I'm looking to expand my viewing options of the TIVO Ota , what hard drive is recommended to increase the capacity of my current machine. Can I place a $TB drive in there? What drive is best?


Get this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=od_aui_detailpages00

Same one Tivo uses.


----------



## jmbach

21364guy said:


> I may have a failing 2TB drive in my Roamio... a few details are here:
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10550720#post10550720
> 
> If "Fail 7" does require a quick replacement then I'll likely get another 2TB AV-GP drive ASAP. Is dd rescue the easiest approach... and one which will keep my recordings? Or can I use the latest MFS tools? Glancing at this thread I'm a bit confused on the current status, and whether or not there are some bugs I might encounter. In the past I've used both the Linux Live disc and WinMFS. Just trying to understand the best way to accomplish the replacement with the available software these days.


There is not much real world experience with MFSTools 3.2 so no guarantees on what outcomes you will have.

ddrescue would be your best shot. What model Roamio are you running. If it a base, you might need a brick with a little more amperage.


----------



## MikeBear

jmbach said:


> There is not much real world experience with MFSTools 3.2 so no guarantees on what outcomes you will have.
> 
> ddrescue would be your best shot. What model Roamio are you running. If it a base, you might need a brick with a little more amperage.


I just ordered one of these for my Roamio that's coming. It's supposed to have more current for upgraded drives that need the extra power:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330946758662?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT


----------



## Dixon Butz

MikeBear said:


> I just ordered one of these for my Roamio that's coming. It's supposed to have more current for upgraded drives that need the extra power:
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/330946758662?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT


That is not a LiteOn branded power supply.


----------



## lpwcomp

MikeBear said:


> Get this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFEQGI?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=od_aui_detailpages00
> 
> Same one Tivo uses.


I'm pretty sure that "$TB" was intended to be "4TB".


----------



## ggieseke

lpwcomp said:


> I'm pretty sure that "$TB" was intended to be "4TB".


That was my guess as well.


----------



## MikeBear

Dixon Butz said:


> That is not a LiteOn branded power supply.


If true, is that an issue?


----------



## Dixon Butz

MikeBear said:


> If true, is that an issue?


It's an over priced substitute. I would not trust it. They don't even show a clear image of the label.

Either one of these genuine Liteons would be much better. I have both.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lite-On-PB-...817?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20fd2ca869

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LITEON-MODE...880?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ae75000c8


----------



## krkaufman

jmbach said:


> What model Roamio are you running. If it a base, you might need a brick with a little more amperage.


Is there a thread, somewhere, that discusses the power issue?


----------



## MikeBear

Dixon Butz said:


> It's an over priced substitute. I would not trust it. They don't even show a clear image of the label.
> 
> Either one of these genuine Liteons would be much better. I have both.
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lite-On-PB-...817?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20fd2ca869
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/LITEON-MODE...880?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ae75000c8


The only thing I hate *worse* than Ebay scammers that claim their whatever is the actual name-brand thing, is when I fall for it and pay good money to them..,

Bastards!

It this isn't a Lite-on brand name labeled power supply when I get it, I'm failing a SNAD claim with Ebay.


----------



## 21364guy

My WD AV-GP 2TB drive which gave "Fail 7" seems to be in better shape now. I pulled the drive and ran the WD utilities on it. Apparently it fixed some media errors (return code 0223):

Errors found, but have been repaired successfully. There were media errors that were within the repair capabilities of diagnostic utility. The drive should now be defect free.​
After that I reinstalled the drive and ran a kickstart 57. Everything seems healthy, but I'll keep an eye on the drive. Thanks to everyone for their knowledge and assistance. We are back in business :up:


----------



## jmbach

I still would not trust the drive for long. Once I see failures, it usually cascades into something catastrophic in the end.


----------



## 21364guy

jmbach said:


> There is not much real world experience with MFSTools 3.2 so no guarantees on what outcomes you will have.
> 
> ddrescue would be your best shot. What model Roamio are you running. If it a base, you might need a brick with a little more amperage.


The WD drive utility repaired a few media errors. So I'm going to stick with the drive for now, but keep a careful eye on it... I do have a TiVo HD running as backup, simply to hold any important recordings I may have.

I've got a Roamio Plus (six tuners)... in particular it doesn't have an external power brick.


----------



## Photo_guy

MikeBear said:


> The only thing I hate *worse* than Ebay scammers that claim their whatever is the actual name-brand thing, is when I fall for it and pay good money to them..,
> 
> Bastards!
> 
> It this isn't a Lite-on brand name labeled power supply when I get it, I'm failing a SNAD claim with Ebay.


I understand your frustration with scam ebay listings. They get you by using a 'brand name' somewhere in the listing so it comes up in your search and, if you are not really careful you get tricked into buying something that is not what you thought. Been there, done that.

Unfortunately I think they got you on this one. The key phrases in the listing are: "...*For *Liteon Model" in the title and "*To Replace and Compatible* Part Number/Model Number: Liteon Model: PB-1300-02SA-ROHS Part#: 4019611B"

IMO, The effort is probably not worth it to return it.


----------



## unitron

21364guy said:


> My WD AV-GP 2TB drive which gave "Fail 7" seems to be in better shape now. I pulled the drive and ran the WD utilities on it. Apparently it fixed some media errors (return code 0223):
> 
> Errors found, but have been repaired successfully. There were media errors that were within the repair capabilities of diagnostic utility. The drive should now be defect free.​
> After that I reinstalled the drive and ran a kickstart 57. Everything seems healthy, but I'll keep an eye on the drive. Thanks to everyone for their knowledge and assistance. We are back in business :up:


Hard drives have more sectors than they admit to having. In a situation like yours, they copy the data from the bad sectors to hidden sectors as best they can, then shuffle things around so the hidden ones used are no longer hidden and appear to have the addresses of the bad ones, and they mark the bad ones as bad and hide them.

But you've still got a drive that's started going bad.

Strongly suggest you pick up a WD20EURX as a replacement and "Xerox" the EURS to it very soon.

The MFS Live cd v1.4 has

dd_rescue

and the jmfs cd v1.04 has

ddrescue

which are similar to one another and either can be used to do the "Xeroxing".

If you were running the WD software off of a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD, you can launch PartedMagic on it and then exit to its shell and run

ddrescue

from it as well.

A lot of drive copying programs will be looking for PC type partition maps--the two Linux utilities I mentioned ignore that and just copy bytes without caring if it's a DOS style MBR or an Apple Partition Map or even if it's whatever those bytes are on an unformatted drive--they'll copy whatever's on the source drive at the byte level.


----------



## gespears

WD Green 6 TB on sale at Newegg for 220 using code ESCAVAP28 but only for 4 days. I just wish it had the 3 year warranty.


----------



## MikeBear

Photo_guy said:


> I understand your frustration with scam ebay listings. They get you by using a 'brand name' somewhere in the listing so it comes up in your search and, if you are not really careful you get tricked into buying something that is not what you thought. Been there, done that.
> 
> Unfortunately I think they got you on this one. The key phrases in the listing are: "...*For *Liteon Model" in the title and "*To Replace and Compatible* Part Number/Model Number: Liteon Model: PB-1300-02SA-ROHS Part#: 4019611B"
> 
> IMO, The effort is probably not worth it to return it.


It is in fact a 3rd party Chinese clone power supply, and not even the one pictured in the photos on their Ebay auction! I filed a SNAD claim with Ebay, and was given a postage paid label to send it back at their expense. I will then get a full refund.

It IS worth fighting these scammers, and you can get it all taken care of at no expense when handled right. Sure it's only $12, but I don't want to let a scammer win at my expense.


----------



## Photo_guy

MikeBear said:


> It IS worth fighting these scammers, and you can get it all taken care of at no expense when handled right. Sure it's only $12, but I don't want to let a scammer win at my expense.


If you get it refunded and return prepaid then you are only out your time. I understand your point and agree in principle.


----------



## lessd

MikeBear said:


> It is in fact a 3rd party Chinese clone power supply, and not even the one pictured in the photos on their Ebay auction! I filed a SNAD claim with Ebay, and was given a postage paid label to send it back at their expense. I will then get a full refund.
> 
> It IS worth fighting these scammers, and you can get it all taken care of at no expense when handled right. Sure it's only $12, but I don't want to let a scammer win at my expense.


I had this problem in reverse as I was the seller for a $30 item, the buyer made what I though a bogus claim, and E-Bay just returned the buyers money and did not take back the money the buyer paid to me. This may be a new policy of E-Bay so your seller still gets his money and you do also, E-Bay takes, in your case, the $12+shipping loss, in my case E-Bay took a $30 loss and did not make the buyer send back the item. May be less expensive this way for E-Bay.


----------



## whereiwannab

When shopping for hard drives to put in my refurb'd tivo, I came across this report on hard drive reliability:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

Basically, Seagates have high failure rates. HGSTs seem to live longer.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

whereiwannab said:


> When shopping for hard drives to put in my refurb'd tivo, I came across this report on hard drive reliability:
> 
> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/
> 
> Basically, Seagates have high failure rates. HGSTs seem to live longer.


Western Digital did something years back and got their act together. I've been very happy with them for years now. Years since I've had any failures, to include the S3 I unplugged two years ago (still works great) and the Premiere's I still have spinning.

Never used HGST. Had to look up what they even were. (Hitachi)


----------



## atmuscarella

ThreeSoFar said:


> Western Digital did something years back and got their act together. I've been very happy with them for years now. Years since I've had any failures, to include the S3 I unplugged two years ago (still works great) and the Premiere's I still have spinning.
> 
> Never used HGST. Had to look up what they even were. (Hitachi)


Actually HGST is a wholly own subsidiary of Western Digital, they basically are Western Digital's server division. When Hitachi was getting ready to spin off their Hard drive division into a stand alone company Western Digital made them an offer and bought the division outright. There were issues with China approving the deal with the compromise being HGST staying somewhat separate from Western Digital. My brother works for them in Rochester MN Started as IBM Hard drives, he is now on his third company/owner and still working from the same lab. They have a 10 TB server drive using new tech that Seagate can not match.


----------



## ddalessandro85

Hi. I bought a Roamio OTA a couple of months ago when TiVo was offering the box and lifetime for $300. Love it so far, however, storage is a little lacking. I did some research on here for a quick and painless way to upgrade and bought the WD30EURX from Amazon. My question is regarding the warranty. Will swapping the hard drive void it? If not, is the extended warranty through TiVo worth it? Thanks.


----------



## krkaufman

ddalessandro85 said:


> I did some research on here for a quick and painless way to upgrade and bought the WD30EURX from Amazon. My question is regarding the warranty. *Will swapping the hard drive void it? *If not, is the extended warranty through TiVo worth it? Thanks.


Hi-hi-hi.

Officially, yes; in practice, no. A good practice is to keep the original hard drive stored away in case anything ever *does* go wrong w/ your unit, requiring warranty assistance. The spare drive can be useful for troubleshooting should your upgrade drive ever start acting-up -- and you'd want to put the original drive back in before shipping the unit off.

Opinions will differ on the extended warranty. I've purchased it for a Roamio Pro and Base model, since the investment was so much greater when the Lifetime service was added-in, but I gambled and went without on my OTA purchased during the $300 sale.


----------



## ddalessandro85

krkaufman said:


> Hi-hi-hi.
> 
> Officially, yes; in practice, no. A good practice is to keep the original hard drive stored away in case anything ever *does* go wrong w/ your unit, requiring warranty assistance. The spare drive can be useful for troubleshooting should your upgrade drive ever start acting-up -- and you'd want to put the original drive back in before shipping the unit off.
> 
> Opinions will differ on the extended warranty. I've purchased it for a Roamio Pro and Base model, since the investment was so much greater when the Lifetime service was added-in, but I gambled and went without on my OTA purchased during the $300 sale.


I figured it would. As far as swapping the original hard drive back in, hopefully it won't look like it was tampered with. For that reason, I may pass on the extended warranty.

You've been very helpful. Thank you.


----------



## krkaufman

ddalessandro85 said:


> I figured it would. As far as swapping the original hard drive back in, hopefully it won't look like it was tampered with. For that reason, I may pass on the extended warranty.
> 
> You've been very helpful. Thank you.


Not a problem; you're very welcome.

Hopefully, though, someone w/ actual experience with a warranty claim on an upgraded TiVo will see your question and chime-in. The comments I recall seeing all seemed to indicate that TiVo isn't uber-strict on warranty inspections, barring obvious abuse/damage.

Also, aside from making your unit appear untouched, putting the original hard drive back into your TiVo before sending it off for warranty service is critical because I'm fairly certain you won't be getting your original unit or drive back; TiVo just sends out a replacement, possibly renewed/refurb unit, rather than attempting any repairs on the problem device.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

krkaufman said:


> Not a problem; you're very welcome.
> 
> Hopefully, though, someone w/ actual experience with a warranty claim on an upgraded TiVo will see your question and chime-in. The comments I recall seeing all seemed to indicate that TiVo isn't uber-strict on warranty inspections, barring obvious abuse/damage.


On the earliest TiVos, they had a piece of tamper evident tape visible on the case seam. They don't bother with that anymore, and I've never seen it on the inside of the 20-40 I've had open over the years since our first Series 1 in 2001.


----------



## aaronwt

ThreeSoFar said:


> On the earliest TiVos, they had a piece of tamper evident tape visible on the case seam. They don't bother with that anymore, and I've never seen it on the inside of the 20-40 I've had open over the years since our first Series 1 in 2001.


No need. They know whether the hard drive has been changed because the hard drive info shows up when the TiVo connects online. Whether they deny warranty service because of it is another story. That is not the norm and is rare, but I did have warranty service denied in 2007 on a launch TiVoHD because they could see the hard drive was replaced. I just put the original drive back in and exchanged the week old unit at Circuit City. Where I purchased it.


----------



## krkaufman

FYI... Slight price drop on Amazon for the *WD 3TB AV-GP* drive... currently at $110, $9 lower than a few days ago.

NOTE: Gamblers may wish to wait a few days, until the 15th and "*Prime Day*," to see if any add'l savings can be had.


----------



## Photo_guy

krkaufman said:


> FYI... Slight price drop on Amazon for the *WD 3TB AV-GP* drive... currently at $110, $9 lower than a few days ago.
> 
> NOTE: Gamblers may wish to wait a few days, until the 15th and "*Prime Day*," to see if any add'l savings can be had.


Two additional useful 'tools' for bargain hunting these type of items:

1) camelcamelcamel.com allows you to set price alerts for Amazon items and, shows a price trend history so you know what is a good deal when it comes up again.

2) I have a Citicard Visa (Hilton) that offers "price rewind". It will refund the difference if they (or you) find the same item for a lower price with 60 days. I used this successfully when I purchased my 3T HD and saved $12. (HD purchases are a good bet for this since prices do drop over time in addition to seller sales etc.)


----------



## krkaufman

Photo_guy said:


> 1) camelcamelcamel.com allows you to set price alerts for Amazon items and, shows a price trend history so you know what is a good deal when it comes up again.
> 
> 2) I have a Citicard Visa (Hilton) that offers "price rewind". It will refund the difference if they (or you) find the same item for a lower price with 60 days. I used this successfully when I purchased my 3T HD and saved $12. (HD purchases are a good bet for this since prices do drop over time in addition to seller sales etc.)


Thanks for the tips. And, yeah, that 60-day price match would be nice, since Best Buy's price match is limited to your return window, which may be as little as 15 days unless you're a Elite or Premier BB Reward Zone member. I'll have to check into that.


----------



## HarperVision

Is this a good Hard Drive to use and a good deal for the Roamio?

5TB Seagate for $160 on Rakuten:

http://m.rakuten.com/product/263150...&adid=18007&scid=em_Promotional_20150715Daily

I'm thinking no mostly due to the 7200 RPM speed, right?


----------



## filovirus

I am considering this: AV-GP 3 TB  vs.WD Red 3 TB 
Both have a 3 Year warranty and are within a few dollars of each other, with the AV-GP being less expensive. 
Are both drives plug and play in a Roamio Plus? Is there any WD features that have to be turned off or changed prior to using them?

Thanks,
Jerold


----------



## HarperVision

filovirus said:


> I am considering this: AV-GP 3 TB  vs.WD Red 3 TB Both have a 3 Year warranty and are within a few dollars of each other, with the AV-GP being less expensive. Are both drives plug and play in a Roamio Plus? Is there any WD features that have to be turned off or changed prior to using them? Thanks, Jerold


The AV-GP is what you want. That's what TiVo uses in their Pro. Yes plug and play for any under 3TB. No prep needed.


----------



## vjp

Hi, just popping into this forum after a long time away with a question (or two)...

It's my understanding that Western Digital "Purple" drives are the best-suited drives out there for expanding TiVo Roamios. Is this so, and are the "Purple" drives really any different than the less costly "Green" drives, or is the difference solely marketing & warranty based?


----------



## UCLABB

vjp said:


> Hi, just popping into this forum after a long time away with a question (or two)...
> 
> It's my understanding that Western Digital "Purple" drives are the best-suited drives out there for expanding TiVo Roamios. Is this so, and are the "Purple" drives really any different than the less costly "Green" drives, or is the difference solely marketing & warranty based?


No on the purple drives. Use a WD *AV* drive, the same ones that TiVo uses. EURX.


----------



## vjp

UCLABB said:


> No on the purple drives. Use a WD *AV* drive, the same ones that TiVo uses. EURX.


Thanks!

Do you know if there's a maximum capacity for replacement HD's? In other words, can I go up to 4TB, 5TB, or even beyond?


----------



## ThAbtO

vjp said:


> Thanks!
> 
> Do you know if there's a maximum capacity for replacement HD's? In other words, can I go up to 4TB, 5TB, or even beyond?


Up to 3TB without having to hook to computer
Up to 6TB with a hookup to computer.

You can use WD Green AV drives ending in EURS/EURX and red drives EFRX


----------



## vjp

ThAbtO said:


> Up to 3TB without having to hook to computer
> Up to 6TB with a hookup to computer.
> 
> You can use WD Green AV drives ending in EURS/EURX and red drives EFRX


Question for you - on Newegg's website, the WD30EURX drive's page says "A newer version of this item is available", and that link takes you to the WD30PURX drive; this drive is the 3TB "purple" drive.

Is there a reason to avoid the newer version?


----------



## HarperVision

vjp said:


> Question for you - on Newegg's website, the WD30EURX drive's page says "A newer version of this item is available", and that link takes you to the WD30PURX drive; this drive is the 3TB "purple" drive. Is there a reason to avoid the newer version?


I believe member "nooneuknow" did a study of the two and emphatically stated NOT to use the purple. It should be in this thread somewhere, so do a search or PM him.


----------



## lpwcomp

vjp said:


> Question for you - on Newegg's website, the WD30EURX drive's page says "A newer version of this item is available", and that link takes you to the WD30PURX drive; this drive is the 3TB "purple" drive.
> 
> Is there a reason to avoid the newer version?


Yes, because it isn't.


----------



## vjp

HarperVision said:


> I believe member "nooneuknow" did a study of the two and emphatically stated NOT to use the purple. It should be in this thread somewhere, so do a search or PM him.


Thanks - I did a search, perused the exchanges, and decided to go with the AV-GP drive.


----------



## krkaufman

FYI... Combo deal on Newegg for WD 3TB Red hard drive
Buy 3 for $300 total

*SuperCombo Storage Pack: 3X Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive 3TB*
Limited Time Sale Ends 8/16
In stock. Limit 2 per customer​Not bad timing relative to TiVo's "Super Savings" sale on 500GB Roamios.


----------



## krkaufman

Well that was a nice surprise.

I upgraded the stock 500GB HDD in my OTA w/ a WD Red 3TB drive, went through Guided Setup, and then ran out to do some errands. On returning home I was surprised to see that the OTA was recording, but then figured that maybe it was just auto-recording Suggestions, since I hadn't done anything to fine-tune the settings to my usual preferences (i.e. disabling Suggestions). Turns out, it wasn't recording Suggestions... rather, *all my OnePasses appear to have been automatically restored after the upgrade!*

I didn't realize this was a possibility. Nice feature, TiVo; thanks.


----------



## lessd

krkaufman said:


> Well that was a nice surprise.
> 
> I upgraded the stock 500GB HDD in my OTA w/ a WD Red 3TB drive, went through Guided Setup, and then ran out to do some errands. On returning home I was surprised to see that the OTA was recording, but then figured that maybe it was just auto-recording Suggestions, since I hadn't done anything to fine-tune the settings to my usual preferences (i.e. disabling Suggestions). Turns out, it wasn't recording Suggestions... rather, *all my OnePasses appear to have been automatically restored after the upgrade!*
> 
> I didn't realize this was a possibility. Nice feature, TiVo; thanks.


I had that happen sometimes and sometimes not, I don't know who the master is, the TiVo Web sight or the TiVo itself. If I remove a SP on my TiVo the sight removes the SP, if I remove the SP from the TiVo Web sight, the TiVo itself will remove that SP at the next call home, when you put in a new hard drive how does the TiVo Web sight know if you removed all the SPs from your TiVo and the Web sight should do what, replace them on your TiVo or remove them from the Web sight ??
If somebody has that answer I would like to know.


----------



## lpwcomp

lessd said:


> I had that happen sometimes and sometimes not, I don't know who the master is, the TiVo Web sight or the TiVo itself. If I remove a SP on my TiVo the sight removes the SP, if I remove the SP from the TiVo Web sight, the TiVo itself will remove that SP at the next call home, when you put in a new hard drive how does the TiVo Web sight know if you removed all the SPs from your TiVo and the Web sight should do what, replace them on your TiVo or remove them from the Web sight ??
> If somebody has that answer I would like to know.


There's a difference in a TiVo that has had all of its 1Ps deleted and a newly initialized one.


----------



## telemark

Additionally, The standard practice on syncing databases is when the entry is deleted, it's flagged with a version number or time instead. On next call in, deletions that are recent get sent to the cloud for replication.

Erasing a Tivo DVR after a box-side deletion but before syncing to the cloud, means that Tivo.com will never know about it.


----------



## RayChuang88

Question: does anyone sell a 3 TB external drive (connected through the E-SATA port) that can double the storage capacity of my Roamio Pro? Does such an external drive even exist?


----------



## TazExprez

I may be upgrading my 2 Roamio Basic boxes to 3TB and wonder whether I should get the WD Green EURX or the WD Red EFRX. I know that TiVo uses the Green drives, but would like to know if the Red drives might be a better option. Amazon has the 3TB Green EURX for $111.99. Amazon has the 3TB Red EFRX for $112.00. Are they basically the same drive, or is one better than the other in some way?


----------



## lpwcomp

RayChuang88 said:


> Question: does anyone sell a 3 TB external drive (connected through the E-SATA port) that can double the storage capacity of my Roamio Pro? Does such an external drive even exist?


Not any of which I am aware. weaKnees offers 2, 4, & 6TB add-ons but you must send your TiVo to them for installation.

There is also a DIY path for replacing the internal with a 6TB. Or you can get a pre-configured 6TB self-install drive from weaKnees.


----------



## TazExprez

I noticed that in the review sections for both drives, the Green EURX has significantly more mentions of the words TiVo and Roamio. The Green EURX review section mentions the word TiVo in 38 reviews and the word Roamio in 33 reviews. The Green EURX has 59 total reviews as of this writing.

The Red EFRX review section mentions the word TiVo in 3 reviews and the word Roamio in 2 reviews. The Red EFRX has 2,546 total reviews as of this writing.


----------



## ThAbtO

I have noticed that while searching Amazon for EURX drives, the WD green AV drives only go as high as 4TB. 
The Red EFRX only has up to 6TB (so far.)
Unless I am missing something.

On another note, here is an Amazon shipping fail.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...&ie=UTF8&qid=1440727541&sr=1-10&keywords=eurx

Note the shipping weight, and then look under Other Sellers for IPC Store and their shipping cost.


----------



## filovirus

I upgraded my plus to 3TB EURX and had no issues. Feel it's best to stay with the drives TiVo use.


----------



## TazExprez

ThAbtO said:


> I have noticed that while searching Amazon for EURX drives, the WD green AV drives only go as high as 4TB.
> The Red EFRX only has up to 6TB (so far.)
> Unless I am missing something.
> 
> On another note, here is an Amazon shipping fail.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...&ie=UTF8&qid=1440727541&sr=1-10&keywords=eurx
> 
> Note the shipping weight, and then look under Other Sellers for IPC Store and their shipping cost.


Wow that $369.49 shipping rate is amazing! Do they come to your place and install it for you the same day?


----------



## TazExprez

filovirus said:


> I upgraded my plus to 3TB EURX and had no issues. Feel it's best to stay with the drives TiVo use.


I'll probably go for the Green EURX drives. I am just curious because I have read that some forum members have been using Red EFRX drives.


----------



## filovirus

TazExprez said:


> I'll probably go for the Green EURX drives. I am just curious because I have read that some forum members have been using Red EFRX drives.


That's going to give you around 945 HD hours between both Roamios! good luck with your upgrade.


----------



## gespears

TazExprez said:


> I'll probably go for the Green EURX drives. I am just curious because I have read that some forum members have been using Red EFRX drives.


It's my understanding that 4 and under green drives are AVR rated but over 4 the Red drives have a better warranty and supposed have a heavier duty cycle.


----------



## krkaufman

filovirus said:


> Feel it's best to stay with the drives TiVo use.


I was surprised to find a 500GB Seagate Video 3.5 HDD (ST3500414CS) in my refurb Roamio basic when I did my HDD upgrade this week.


----------



## matk123

3TB WD30EFRX "RED" for $104.99 on newegg right now.

Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" NAS Hard Drive

Use promo code: 0830HPBUS07 (expires 8/30)


----------



## Mikey_C

TazExprez said:


> I may be upgrading my 2 Roamio Basic boxes to 3TB and wonder whether I should get the WD Green EURX or the WD Red EFRX. I know that TiVo uses the Green drives, but would like to know if the Red drives might be a better option. Amazon has the 3TB Green EURX for $111.99. Amazon has the 3TB Red EFRX for $112.00. Are they basically the same drive, or is one better than the other in some way?


I have exactly the same question.... Red or Green? Which one is recommended?


----------



## jmbach

I use both in my TiVo units. (Premiere, Roamio, S3) I have no issues with any of them. My preference is the EURX over the EFRX if the capacity is what I want and no significant price difference.


----------



## lessd

Mikey_C said:


> I have exactly the same question.... Red or Green? Which one is recommended?


I have used both type of drives and never had a problem, some will say one drive type may last longer than the other, or work better than the other over the long hall, but if one type of drive fails in about 4 years and the other fails in say 6 years, by the time you have this information the current drives will have changed components and other things so one will never have a good answer for the drives of today, just start with lowest power drives at a good price, as the TiVo does not need fast access like a PC would. Because TiVo has, for the most part, used WD, that is the type of drive I use, but TiVo has used other non WD drives at times.


----------



## Vadi

I remember mention of upgrading the PS for the base models if using a 3TB or more drive.

Is that still the consensus, and can anyone point me to which power supply is recommended if so?


----------



## aaronwt

Vadi said:


> I remember mention of upgrading the PS for the base models if using a 3TB or more drive.
> 
> Is that still the consensus, and can anyone point me to which power supply is recommended if so?


I'm also wondering the same thing. I'm thinking about taking the 3TB drive I took out of my Roamio Pro and putting it in my refurb Roamio Basic I got from the recent sale. Although I will wait until the Bolt is offically announced. In case I decide to replace my Roamio Pro with a Bolt.


----------



## ggieseke

I agree with most folks that the EURX (or AV Green) is the line that TiVo uses when possible and it's a sure bet. That said, almost any modern low RPM drive should work.

I'm running a 4TB Red drive in my base Roamio right now. It came with a 500GB Seagate drive BTW. The concern about Red drives is that the firmware changes that make it ideally suited to RAID controllers may have a negative impact on a TiVo. After 4TB it's not an option at this time.

If I was buying a drive today I'd go with the AV Green. I had the 4TB Red sitting on my coffee table and decided to slap it in.


----------



## filovirus

ggieseke said:


> I agree with most folks that the EURX (or AV Green) is the line that TiVo uses when possible and it's a sure bet. That said, almost any modern low RPM drive should work.
> 
> I'm running a 4TB Red drive in my base Roamio right now. It came with a 500GB Seagate drive BTW. The concern about Red drives is that the firmware changes that make it ideally suited to RAID controllers may have a negative impact on a TiVo. After 4TB it's not an option at this time.
> 
> If I was buying a drive today I'd go with the AV Green. I had the 4TB Red sitting on my coffee table and decided to slap it in.


Are you using the stock wall-wart or more powerful one?


----------



## HarperVision

Vadi said:


> I remember mention of upgrading the PS for the base models if using a 3TB or more drive. Is that still the consensus, and can anyone point me to which power supply is recommended if so?





filovirus said:


> Are you using the stock wall-wart or more powerful one?


There was talk of it but I'm not sure there was a consensus. Search member "nooneuknow" and some keywords and results should pop up.

I do recall one thing that came up is if you have an SA/Cisco TA, you can use the PS from that on your Roamio and then use the Roamio one on the TA since it didn't have the power draw as high as the Roamio and it's PS was over spec'd.


----------



## TazExprez

HarperVision said:


> There was talk of it but I'm not sure there was a consensus. Search member "nooneuknow" and some keywords and results should pop up.
> 
> I do recall one thing that came up is if you have an SA/Cisco TA, you can use the PS from that on your Roamio and then use the Roamio one on the TA since it didn't have the power draw as high as the Roamio and it's PS was over spec'd.


I am with Verizon FiOS, so I don't have a TA. If I upgrade to a 3TB WD Green EURX, would I also need to upgrade the power supply, or is it only required for 4TB+ upgrades?


----------



## TazExprez

aaronwt said:


> I'm also wondering the same thing. I'm thinking about taking the 3TB drive I took out of my Roamio Pro and putting it in my refurb Roamio Basic I got from the recent sale. Although I will wait until the Bolt is offically announced. In case I decide to replace my Roamio Pro with a Bolt.


I am probably going to be waiting until late September to do the upgrade, just in case the Bolt series is released by then and I really like it.


----------



## jmbach

I bought a LiteON Laptop Charger AC Adapter Power Supply PA-1041-71 12V 3.33A 40W for my Roamio Basic. Works well. The thought in this is that there would be increased power draw from the larger drives and the units power adapter may not be able to provide additional power needed causing system instability. There is no definitive proof of this only that some people experience some problems when they upgraded that went away with a power supply that can provide more power.


----------



## filovirus

jmbach said:


> I bought a LiteON Laptop Charger AC Adapter Power Supply PA-1041-71 12V 3.33A 40W for my Roamio Basic. Works well. The thought in this is that there would be increased power draw from the larger drives and the units power adapter may not be able to provide additional power needed causing system instability. There is no definitive proof of this only that some people experience some problems when they upgraded that went away with a power supply that can provide more power.


The plug fits the roamio ok without any modification?


----------



## jmbach

It does. The exposed barrel is a bit smaller than the one that comes with the TiVo but it "clicked" in place. I took a knife and trimmed the plastic off the barrel a little to make it the same size as the original. After I did that, I did not feel like it added any benefit.


----------



## ggieseke

filovirus said:


> Are you using the stock wall-wart or more powerful one?


Stock.


----------



## telemark

> There was talk of it but I'm not sure there was a consensus. Search member "nooneuknow" and some keywords and results should pop up.


The easy answer was suppose to be: the hard drive spin up time & sounds and the pitch of the fan were healthier after the power supply upgrade.

nooneuknow was the first to post numbers and observations of the effect. Really we were waiting on independent user reports who noticed the same thing. Seems like nobody runs A/B tests though so that never happened. People either upgrade and move on or not upgrade.


----------



## TazExprez

ggieseke said:


> Stock.


Have you had any stability problems at all with this setup? Have you noticed anything strange after upgrading the HDD to 4TB and leaving the stock power supply?

I am thinking about getting a 3TB WD Green EURX HDD for each of my two Roamio Basic boxes.


----------



## A J Ricaud

until 8/30: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.2468654


----------



## krkaufman

A J Ricaud said:


> until 8/30: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.2468654


Thanks for the heads-up. (That similar combo deal on the 6TB Red isn't quite as attractive.)


----------



## ggieseke

TazExprez said:


> Have you had any stability problems at all with this setup? Have you noticed anything strange after upgrading the HDD to 4TB and leaving the stock power supply?
> 
> I am thinking about getting a 3TB WD Green EURX HDD for each of my two Roamio Basic boxes.


I haven't noticed any problems so far, but it has only been running for two months. In any case I haven't seen any reports of power issues with the EURX line. The concern over inadequate power was fairly specific to Red drives with TLER. If you're concerned, getting one of the beefier LiteOn power supplies is probably cheap insurance. I kept it stock to see if I could replicate nooneuknow's results with Red drives and the factory 2A wart.

It's noticeably snappier than my Pro. I'd love to say that the speed increase is due to the MFS zone sector alignment that I do in mfsr, but comparing an OTA only 4-tuner with less than 100 recordings to a Pro with 6 tuners, the entire Comcast lineup, and around 500 recordings isn't apples to apples.


----------



## telemark

It's come to my attention I didn't describe my own opinion and data on the matter.

My observation IS that the fan runs at a more proper speed and HDD spinup is quicker after changing the power supply. Also I've been able to brick a Roamio Basic by stacking accessories off the USB ports, so I have switched and never run the stock power supply anymore.

I left out my view as a data point because I thought we were looking for independent confirmation and I originally developed this technique and picked out what was cheap. (They're used on many set top boxes, and some of us had them at home already after returning CableCo equipment)

nooneuknow's work could be considered the 2nd data point and confirmation. He compiled data at a detail that most people are not technical enough to replicate, including SMART spin up time values, and he was getting sector read errors on the HDD before he switched. (which is consistent with being underpowered)

I wrote my prior comment the way I did because it's an easy A/B test that anyone with both power adapters and an ear can do, which I thought would be more convincing when people have first hand experience with the differences.

But some people are convinced from their own experience. Some people are convinced from lots of compiled data. Some people are convinced by experts. Some people are never convinced of anything. To each their own I say.


----------



## DocNo

ThAbtO said:


> Up to 6TB with a hookup to computer.


Yeah - where is that discussed exactly? Been poking around on the forums for the past 20 minutes and I see occasional references to it having been apparently solved, but in threads like this one where you might expect to see such information - nothing. Well, so far. I'm slowing working my way through the thread manually since search doesn't seem to bring up anything 

EDIT: Nevermind - I finally found it here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860

One of those days  It would be lovely if @amseven11 could update the first post in this thread with that oh so helpful tidbit.

EDIT2: This looks to be even easier: http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428

A 6TB Tivo? Oh my...


----------



## ggieseke

DocNo said:


> Yeah - where is that discussed exactly? Been poking around on the forums for the past 20 minutes and I see occasional references to it having been apparently solved, but in threads like this one where you might expect to see such information - nothing. Well, so far. I'm slowing working my way through the thread manually since search doesn't seem to bring up anything
> 
> EDIT: Nevermind - I finally found it here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860
> 
> One of those days  It would be lovely if @amseven11 could update the first post in this thread with that oh so helpful tidbit.
> 
> EDIT2: This looks to be even easier: http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428
> 
> A 6TB Tivo? Oh my...


99 pages do tend to get confusing.


----------



## TazExprez

Which is the most recommended aftermarket power supply for a 3TB WD Green EURX HDD upgrade? Could it be any power supply that outputs 12V and 2.5A and does about 30 to 40 watts? I see that many members have Lite-On power supplies.


----------



## telemark

TazExprez said:


> Which is the most recommended aftermarket power supply for a 3TB WD Green EURX HDD upgrade? Could it be any power supply that outputs 12V and 2.5A and does about 30 to 40 watts? I see that many members have Lite-On power supplies.


So yes on the power range. The other thing to watch out for is the barrel size. If you don't have the barrel size dimensions on the replacement or can test a size match, better to use the model numbers we know fit.


----------



## DocNo

Adam1115 said:


> Yes but it doesn't even spin up. It starts to and the box reboots immediately.


Your power brick is not big enough to overcome the inrush startup current from your hard drive.

I was testing to see if my Roamio wasn't booting due to a bad power brick and if I put a smaller 1.5A brick on it, it does exactly what yours does as soon as I hear the hard drive try to start up.

Get a bigger power brick or one of the hard drive models posted here on the forums as known working with a Roamio Basic.

Don't look for complicated problems when more often than not the obvious problem is usually the right one


----------



## DocNo

telemark said:


> better to use the model numbers we know fit.


Got any posts/threads in mind with this info? I've spent quite a bit searching for posts on this topic and so far I'm not having any luck on any Lite-On model numbers other than the one Cisco Tuning Adaptor thread that was very entertaining...


----------



## Dixon Butz

DocNo said:


> Got any posts/threads in mind with this info? I've spent quite a bit searching for posts on this topic and so far I'm not having any luck on any Lite-On model numbers other than the one Cisco Tuning Adaptor thread that was very entertaining...


Look on Ebay for:

Lite-On PB-1300-02SA-ROHS
or
LITEON MODEL PB-1360-3SA1-ROHS

Make sure it is a genuine LiteOn.


----------



## DocNo

Dixon Butz said:


> Look on Ebay for:


Awesome. Thanks much!


----------



## jmbach

LiteON Laptop Charger AC Adapter Power Supply PA-1041-71 12V 3.33A 40W is the one I use.


----------



## TazExprez

jmbach said:


> LiteON Laptop Charger AC Adapter Power Supply PA-1041-71 12V 3.33A 40W is the one I use.


I noticed that your power supply is 3.3A, while other suggestions are about 2.5A. Is the voltage the only thing that needs to match, while the amperage could be about 2.5, or higher? The watts are just the voltage multiplied by the amps, and the total does not matter, right?


----------



## jmbach

That is correct. The voltage needs to match. The amperage is the amount of power that the adapter can supply if needed. The unit draws what it needs. 

The potential issue is if something internal to the TiVo causes a large draw through the circuitry. This could result in other component damage if the draw is higher than what those components can handle. If the adapter's max power rating is less than the components max rating, then when something internal to the TiVo causes excess amperage draw, no damage to the other components would happen.

 As a result, you do not want get an adapter with too high an amperage rating. What rating is the magic number is anybody's guess. 2.5 to 3.0 amps is probably pretty safe. The one I got is probably the max size. But I do a lot of testing with various drives and need a little extra every now and then. These numbers are my educated guess. I do not have any objective data to support it. It just appears that the 2 amp adapter is marginal based on posts in TCF when people have upgraded.


----------



## A J Ricaud

jmbach said:


> As a result, you do not want get an adapter with too high an amperage rating. What rating is the magic number is anybody's guess. 2.5 to 3.0 amps is probably pretty safe. The one I got is probably the max size. But I do a lot of testing with various drives and need a little extra every now and then. These numbers are my educated guess. I do not have any objective data to support it. It just appears that the 2 amp adapter is marginal based on posts in TCF when people have upgraded.


Very good info. I wonder, though, if Tivos have internal fuses like many other electronics products do, that blow if there is a short on an internal component?


----------



## lpwcomp

A J Ricaud said:


> Very good info. I wonder, though, if Tivos have internal fuses like many other electronics products do, that blow if there is a short on an internal component?


A TiVo is actually a special purpose computer. How many computers do you know of that have internal fuses? Besides, I think someone would have discovered that fact long before now.

There is a risk involved with replacing the Base Roamio's wall-wart. It enables the TiVo to draw more power than that for which it is (possibly) designed, increasing the risk of having warranty coverage denied.


----------



## telemark

DocNo said:


> Got any posts/threads in mind with this info? I've spent quite a bit searching for posts on this topic and so far I'm not having any luck on any Lite-On model numbers other than the one Cisco Tuning Adaptor thread that was very entertaining...


http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10348960
http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=519901


----------



## aaronwt

Dixon Butz said:


> Look on Ebay for:
> 
> Lite-On PB-1300-02SA-ROHS
> or
> LITEON MODEL PB-1360-3SA1-ROHS
> 
> Make sure it is a genuine LiteOn.


Hmmm...I think I might already have a couple of these. I need to check to make sure.

With my original Roamio Basic I specifically got the 1TB Red drive because it draws less power than the 500GB drive that came with it. But if I put the 3TB drive from my Roamio Pro in my refurbished Roamio then I want to make sure I have no power issues.


----------



## unitron

The TiVos that have internal power supplies have a fuse on the power supply board in the incoming 120V AC line, but no fuse on the motherboards as far as I know.

TiVos with outboard supplies probably won't have a fuse on the incoming +12V DC line, although there might be "something fusible"* inside the outboard power supply, in which case if it blows you replace it by getting a new outboard power supply.

*Kind of like a "fusible link" in car wiring.


----------



## gespears

*Today only!!!* Newegg has the WD Red 6 TB for 239.99 using Promo Code: ESCAXAN23


----------



## aaronwt

gespears said:


> *Today only!!!* Newegg has the WD Red 6 TB for 239.99 using Promo Code: ESCAXAN23


Amazon has the same price too.

http://www.amazon.com/Red-6TB-NAS-Hard-Drive/dp/B00LO3KR96


----------



## Nelson2009

just ordered Roamio basic that was on summer deal. After read this about upgrade Harddrive 
thank god this is so simple no need to like old day JMFS or MFS on Tivo HD and Premiere. 
when I get Roamio do you guy swap Hard drive right away before you first time turn it on? 
Also will move my MCARD from Tivo hd to roamio. Interesting things
people mention Roamio box is smaller than premiere ? and cardcard slot underneath.


----------



## A J Ricaud

lpwcomp said:


> A TiVo is actually a special purpose computer. How many computers do you know of that have internal fuses? Besides, I think someone would have discovered that fact long before now.


I think you are probably right about it already being discovered, but here is some info about P.C. motherboard fuses:
http://www.ehow.com/how_5849638_identify-pc-motherboard-fuses.html


----------



## jonw747

Thermal fuses are awsome. They self reset given time to cool off.


----------



## dennya

Anyone running the WD40EURX with the stock power supply in a Roamio OTA? 

Wondering if I need a more powerful supply. And if so, anyone know one available on Amazon Prime so I can get it the same time as my Roamio?


----------



## ThAbtO

I don't think there is a WD40EURX. I think WD Green AV drives go as high as WD30EURX. But I could be wrong.

I think I have seen as high as WD60EZRX, its green but not AV.

Edit: OK, looks like they go as high as 4TB.

Sectors/drive: 7,814,,037,168
Advanced Format: Yes
Cache: 64 Mb
Load/unload Cycles: 300K
Warranty: 3 Yrs
Power:
Read/Write: 5.1w
Idle: 4.5w
Standby/Sleep: 0.5w

Compared to the Red WD40EFRX:
Power Read/write: 4.5w
Idle: 3.3w
Standby/Sleep: 0.4w
Warranty: 3 yrs


----------



## dennya

There is too. I'm looking at it. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## ThAbtO

ThAbtO said:


> I don't think there is a WD40EURX. I think WD Green AV drives go as high as WD30EURX. But I could be wrong.
> 
> I think I have seen as high as WD60EZRX, its green but not AV.
> 
> Edit: OK, looks like they go as high as 4TB.
> 
> Sectors/drive: 7,814,,037,168
> Advanced Format: Yes
> Cache: 64 Mb
> Load/unload Cycles: 300K
> Warranty: 3 Yrs
> Power:
> Read/Write: 5.1w
> Idle: 4.5w
> Standby/Sleep: 0.5w
> 
> Compared to the Red WD40EFRX:
> Power Read/write: 4.5w
> Idle: 3.3w
> Standby/Sleep: 0.4w
> Warranty: 3 yrs


Looks like Red wins.


----------



## Teeps

ThAbtO said:


> Looks like Red wins.


So Red drives are ok?

I put a 2TB Purple drive in my Premier about a year ago.
Will see how long IT runs.


----------



## pig_man

dennya said:


> Anyone running the WD40EURX with the stock power supply in a Roamio OTA?


I've got that configuration. Haven't had any problems for the 3 months I've been running it that way.


----------



## lessd

Teeps said:


> So Red drives are ok?
> 
> I put a 2TB Purple drive in my Premier about a year ago.
> Will see how long IT runs.


Been using for a few years now, no problems...yet (there is an error correction mode on the red drives that in theory could cause a problem in TiVo use, but I have not seen any problem) I do have two Roamio Plus units, one 3Tb with a red drive the other with a 2Tb AV drive, I record the network news on both units, sometimes I do get picture breakup, I then test the recording from the other TiVo and get the same breakup, so the problem was from the cable xmission, not the TiVo hard drive.


----------



## leiff

I have an old WD20EADS id like to put in a basic roamio. Its manufacturing date is dec 2009. I know others would hesitate to put such an old drive in their TiVo but this Drive has been very lightly used. What drive testing should i put the drive thru before installing? Is it true i should
run wdidle3 on the EADS to disable Intellipark? Thanks!


----------



## ThAbtO

I believe Roamio will disable Intellipark on its own.


----------



## NatasNJ

Nelson2009 said:


> just ordered Roamio basic that was on summer deal. After read this about upgrade Harddrive
> thank god this is so simple no need to like old day JMFS or MFS on Tivo HD and Premiere.
> when I get Roamio do you guy swap Hard drive right away before you first time turn it on?
> Also will move my MCARD from Tivo hd to roamio. Interesting things
> people mention Roamio box is smaller than premiere ? and cardcard slot underneath.


Can some one chime in on this? I have same situation. I am not sure if I should setup factory drive 1st, then swap out hard drives or should I swap out hard drives right away before 1st boot?

Thanks.


----------



## ThAbtO

It depends on your preference.
Some use the original drive to make sure the Tivo fully works and later on swap out the drive, others just swap out beforehand.

Either way, you would have to re-run Guided setup and get cable card re-paired.


----------



## aaronwt

leiff said:


> I have an old WD20EADS id like to put in a basic roamio. Its manufacturing date is dec 2009. I know others would hesitate to put such an old drive in their TiVo but this Drive has been very lightly used. What drive testing should i put the drive thru before installing? Is it true i should
> run wdidle3 on the EADS to disable Intellipark? Thanks!


EADS drives run hot compared to a modern hard drive. I would avoid using one in a TiVo. I have several old 2TB EADS drives in one of my unRAIDs. They are always much hotter than any other drive. I really need to replace them since they are so old now.


----------



## dennya

pig_man said:


> I've got that configuration. Haven't had any problems for the 3 months I've been running it that way.


Thank you so much for the confirmation! Looking forward to getting set up tomorrow.

Already reprogrammed the Harmony One in anticipation.


----------



## leiff

aaronwt said:


> EADS drives run hot compared to a modern hard drive. I would avoid using one in a TiVo. I have several old 2TB EADS drives in one of my unRAIDs. They are always much hotter than any other drive. I really need to replace them since they are so old now.


Even though its a "green" drive still hot huh? Too bad. I hear you say its a bad idea because i know it gets hot in the basic small enclosure but couldnt i monitor the temps from within Tivo settings menu and make sure it doesn't get too hot?


----------



## aaronwt

leiff said:


> Even though its a "green" drive still hot huh? Too bad. I hear you say its a bad idea because i know it gets hot in the basic small enclosure but couldnt i monitor the temps from within Tivo settings menu and make sure it doesn't get too hot?


The 2TB EADS were the first 2TB drive. It ran cool for it's time but compared to anything now it runs hot.

I've retired dozens of them and only have a few left in my unRAIDs. I want to replace them before I have issues with them. I already see 49C temps(with high air flow over drives) when doing a parity check compared to 37C to 43C with my newer and higher capacity drives.

The 2TB EADS uses four platters and has a lower platter density. So it uses more power and gets hotter.

I would think the WD20EADS will work in the Roamio. But personally I would not be comfortable with the high temps I see from the drive.

But I will say My GFs Series 3(OLED)TiVos have the first available 1TB drive in both of them. A five platter Hitachi drive. Which run very, very hot. And they have been fine running 24/7/365 for over eight years.

But those TiVos also have a cooling design similar to the Roamio Pro/Plus and also has more space inside the enclosure. The cooling design of the Roamio OTA/Basic is different with a much smaller enclosure


----------



## jonw747

lessd said:


> (there is an error correction mode on the red drives that in theory could cause a problem in TiVo use, but I have not seen any problem)


Are you referring to the fact that the Red drives are designed for Raid, and give up and report a failure much faster than a typical HD?

While this could result in some blocky pixels when a failing sector is accessed, it's better than the drive sitting their retrying for numerous seconds.


----------



## ggieseke

jonw747 said:


> Are you referring to the fact that the Red drives are designed for Raid, and give up and report a failure much faster than a typical HD?
> 
> While this could result in some blocky pixels when a failing sector is accessed, it's better than the drive sitting their retrying for numerous seconds.


I think the biggest concern is that Red drives could result in weakly-written sectors that are unreadable later, and due to the difference in error correction mechanisms the TiVo wouldn't pick up on it at the time.

I haven't seen it myself, but I grind the heck out of any new drive using the factory diagnostics like WD's WinDlg before trusting it. That alone may account for my success (so far) in using them in a TiVo.


----------



## Jakk

Hello everyone. This will be my first post here and I only have a few dozen questions lol. JK.
Here goes.
Since WD isn't making 6TB AV drives yet, which drives does Weaknees use?

If the WD basic Green drives are just as good as the AV drives except for the Intellipark problem, wouldn't Seagate basic desktop drives be a better choice? Or do Seagate drives have a feature similar to WD Intellipark?

Is there anything about Seagate drives that makes them a bad choice for TiVo compared to WD drives?

Can the features in the WD Red drives that could cause problems in a TiVo be disabled? If not, would a WD Green drive with Intellipark turned off be a better choice than a WD Red drive?


----------



## ThAbtO

Speed + heat = bad for Tivo. Also other non-green drives use more power.


----------



## leiff

If i dont put my WD20EADS in my basic roamio then i need to decide between a new 2 or 3 tb drive.
I got the impression from reading from others that the larger capacity drives could be a problem for the basic Romeos weak power plug. Do you guys think a 2 tb drive will be a better choice for this reason rather than a 3 tb drive? I dont want to buy a new power cable. And i don't know if it matters but I use auto standby after 2 hr. Power setting


----------



## ThAbtO

I just got a WD40EFRX and am about 1/2 way through the install in the base Roamio. The original drive is a Seagate.


----------



## ChrisFix

ThAbtO said:


> I just got a WD40EFRX and am about 1/2 way through the install in the base Roamio. The original drive is a Seagate.


The original drive in your Roamio is a Seagate? I thought all Roamio factory drives were WD AV drives...


----------



## ThAbtO

ChrisFix said:


> The original drive in your Roamio is a Seagate? I thought all Roamio factory drives were WD AV drives...


Believe it or not, it is. I just opened it up.


----------



## lessd

ChrisFix said:


> The original drive in your Roamio is a Seagate? I thought all Roamio factory drives were WD AV drives...


One of my 3 Roamio from the past did have a Seagate drive, no big deal.


----------



## HarperVision

ChrisFix said:


> The original drive in your Roamio is a Seagate? I thought all Roamio factory drives were WD AV drives...


 I've had at least two Roamio basics that I've upgraded have the 500GB Seagates in them. I haven't heard any reports of the plus or pro having one though.


----------



## Imageek2

I bought a refurbished Roamio Basic one month ago and it has a Seagate.


----------



## dennya

Seagate's horrific reliability issues seem to have started with their 1TB drives, so probably not an issue.

Thanks so much for this topic! Between this and MFS Reformatter (donated!), it was about a 45 minute start-to-finish on upgrading my new Roamio OTA to 4TB. A lot of that was thanks to having the proper Torx screwdriver heads at the start and knowing how to get the top off the Roamio.


----------



## aaronwt

ThAbtO said:


> Believe it or not, it is. I just opened it up.


TiVo will use the small seagates in some of their boxes, but not the larger sizes. My Roamio Basic from 2013 had a Seagate 500 GB drive in it. The 1TB red I replaced it with uses less power than the 500GB Seagate.


----------



## lessd

HarperVision said:


> I've had at least two Roamio basics that I've upgraded have the 500GB Seagates in them. I haven't heard any reports of the plus or pro having one though.


All my three Roamios were the Plus model and one did have a Seagate drive.


----------



## pldmich

Refurb I got this week was a Seagate also. No longer. 3T WDEURX upgrade.


----------



## leiff

I see WD20EURX on sale through amazon 3rd party for $80. Is this a good choice for my roamio basic?


----------



## krkaufman

leiff said:


> I see WD20EURX on sale through amazon 3rd party for $80. Is this a good choice for my roamio basic?


 Better: 

WD AV-GP 3TB for $110  (50% more space for 27-38% price increase)
WD AV-GP 2TB for $86.30
... and both of the above prices are sold/shipped by Amazon


----------



## leiff

The second one you linked to is the one I just bought and if you scroll down further through the page you'll see third party sells
80.00 
+ Free Shipping
Sold by: Parts Bonanza

No tax for cali either even though it says it ships from cali came to $80 flat
I just noticed vender has only 8 feedback. Oh well. Backed by amazon.


----------



## krkaufman

leiff said:


> The second one you linked to is the one I just bought and if you scroll down further through the page you'll see third party sells
> 80.00
> + Free Shipping
> Sold by: Parts Bonanza
> 
> No tax for cali either even though it says it ships from cali came to $80 flat
> I just noticed vender has only 8 feedback. Oh well. Backed by amazon.


I understand (and saw that price). I typically avoid 3rd party sellers, unless they're a known entity.


----------



## ThAbtO

leiff said:


> The second one you linked to is the one I just bought and if you scroll down further through the page you'll see third party sells
> 80.00
> + Free Shipping
> Sold by: Parts Bonanza
> 
> No tax for cali either even though it says it ships from cali came to $80 flat
> I just noticed vender has only 8 feedback. Oh well. Backed by amazon.


I would check on their return policy and frown upon non-Amazon standards.


----------



## leiff

What about this $84 WD30EZRX from eBay?
http://m.ebay.com/itm?itemId=171898912397

EZRX VS. EURX?
Part of the reason I wanted to go to 2 instead of 3tb for my Rbasic was I thought It would put less strain on the weak power adapter.


----------



## HerronScott

leiff said:


> What about this $84 WD30EZRX from eBay?
> http://m.ebay.com/itm?itemId=171898912397
> 
> EZRX VS. EURX?
> Part of the reason I wanted to go to 2 instead of 3tb for my Rbasic was I thought It would put less strain on the weak power adapter.


At least for the EZRX series, the 2TB and 3TB models have the same power specifications. Those go up for the 4-6TB models.

Scott


----------



## HarperVision

lessd said:


> All my three Roamios were the Plus model and one did have a Seagate drive.


Thanks, that's the first I've heard that.



leiff said:


> What about this $84 WD30EZRX from eBay? http://m.ebay.com/itm?itemId=171898912397 EZRX VS. EURX? Part of the reason I wanted to go to 2 instead of 3tb for my Rbasic was I thought It would put less strain on the weak power adapter.


I've used the EZRX drives in a minimum of four different Roamios and have yet to see or have one issue. I'm about to put one in my new Roamio refurb base that's arriving tomorrow too. I personally think they're fine for TiVo use.


----------



## leiff

So i need to decide between amazon third party WD20EURX WD AV-GP for $80, Or WD30EZRX for $90 from ebay. Is the WD20EURX better suited because its AV-GP? Will it be better for my weak roamio basic stock power adapter than the WD30EZRX? Even though the 3 terabyte drive is only $10 more for me being in California I don't really need the extra space if there are other benefits from taking the smaller drive


----------



## HarperVision

leiff said:


> So i need to decide between amazon third party WD20EURX WD AV-GP for $80, Or WD30EZRX for $90 from ebay. Is the WD20EURX better suited because its AV-GP? Will it be better for my weak roamio stock power adapter than the WD30EZRX? Even though the 3 terabyte drive is only $10 more for me being in California I don't really need the extra space if there are other benefits from taking the smaller drive


Your power supply will handle both just fine. I've had at least 2 EZRX in base roamios and an OTA.


----------



## leiff

And what about the AV-GP bennifits of the EURX?


----------



## krkaufman

See http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10629236#post10629236


----------



## leiff

Guess I'll keep my $80 WD20EURX WD AV-GP in hopes of it being a better drive.


----------



## ChrisFix

I bought this Western Digital Elements 5TB external drive for $129.99 at B&H (free shipping, no tax) that has a WD50EZRX - removed the drive, and put it in my new Roamio Basic refurb...so far, so good.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...ternal_hd.html


----------



## rnaude241

For those who haven't used jet.com yet they have the price of a WD30EURX currently at $88.15. You can use promo code Android15 to take $15 off bringing it to $$69.86!


----------



## leiff

Jet.com also has WD20EURX AV-GP for $83. Wonder how much more it's worth to pay for AV-GP?


----------



## leiff

rnaude241 said:


> For those who haven't used jet.com yet they have the price of a WD30EURX currently at $88.15. You can use promo code Android15 to take $15 off bringing it to $$69.86!


I think You meant to say wd30ezrx is $88.14. I don't see WD30EURX at jet.com. thanks for the heads up though i was able to pick up WD20EURX WD AV-GP at jet for $65. I didn't really need the extra third terabyte of storage.


----------



## andydumi

My dilemma is how to move the WD20EURX from my Premiere to my new Roamio without losing the recordings...

Maybe backup the essentials to PC first, then push them back after it reformats in the Roamio...


----------



## aaronwt

Thanks for the Jet.com info. I just ordered a WD30EZRX for around $73 after the discount. But this isn't for my TiVo. It will go in one of my unRAID setups to get rid of another old, hot, WD20EADS drive.


----------



## rnaude241

andydumi said:


> My dilemma is how to move the WD20EURX from my Premiere to my new Roamio without losing the recordings...
> 
> Maybe backup the essentials to PC first, then push them back after it reformats in the Roamio...


Yeah I actually went with the 2TB Drive myself but for anyone who needs that extra 1TB 7 bucks it cheap.


----------



## rnaude241

aaronwt said:


> Thanks for the Jet.com info. I just ordered a WD30EZRX for around $73 after the discount. But this isn't for my TiVo. It will go in one of my unRAID setups to get rid of another old, hot, WD20EADS drive.


No Problem, glad it helped someone out.


----------



## ggieseke

andydumi said:


> My dilemma is how to move the WD20EURX from my Premiere to my new Roamio without losing the recordings...
> 
> Maybe backup the essentials to PC first, then push them back after it reformats in the Roamio...


That's the only way. You couldn't even put the drive in another Premiere and keep the recordings.


----------



## mickinct

Hi new member here, nooneuknow has stated that the hdd in tivo is always on spinning correct?? My hdd in my ota rom in standby mode is off after a few seconds and only spins up when I wake by pressing remote keys.


----------



## aaronwt

mickinct said:


> Hi new member here, nooneuknow has stated that the hdd in tivo is always on spinning correct?? My hdd in my ota rom in standby mode is off after a few seconds and only spins up when I wake by pressing remote keys.


If there are no recordings or transfers going on then the hard drive is spun down. At least this is how my three Roamios behave in standby. I use the two hour standby setting.


----------



## mickinct

aaronwt said:


> If there are no recordings or transfers going on then the hard drive is spun down. At least this is how my three Roamios behave in standby. I use the two hour standby setting.


two hour standby setting ? found it ...


----------



## A J Ricaud

With PROMO CODE ESCAXKS43--4 Days Only **Promotion expires at 11:59PM PT on 9/18/15:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Index-_-AllDesktopHardDrives-_-22236604-S2A7B


----------



## andydumi

And the 2TB is $70.


----------



## SC0TLANDF0REVER

A J Ricaud said:


> With PROMO CODE ESCAXKS43--4 Days Only **Promotion expires at 11:59PM PT on 9/18/15:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Index-_-AllDesktopHardDrives-_-22236604-S2A7B


I'm looking to finally upgrade to Roamio this Fall. Is the drop in hdd limit still 3Tb w/out additional prep or can I just drop this in and it formats like the < 3Tb drives?


----------



## A J Ricaud

SC0TLANDF0REVER said:


> I'm looking to finally upgrade to Roamio this Fall. Is the drop in hdd limit still 3Tb w/out additional prep?


Yes


----------



## SC0TLANDF0REVER

A J Ricaud said:


> Yes


Thanks! I'll just grab the "official" WD Drive from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-AV-GP-Intellipower-WD30EURX/dp/B00DXFEQGI


----------



## TazExprez

I wish that TiVo releases the Bolt series real soon. I am itching to get two 3TB EURX HDDs for my two Roamio Basic boxes, but I am waiting to decide whether to keep them, or upgrade to the Bolt series boxes.


----------



## aaronwt

Not using Jet.com again. I looked and had FedEx tracking info that my hard rive was delivered today. But my cameras show no FedEx person getting anywhere near my building. So after I contact Jet.com, they want me to go through all the crap with Fedex for finding the package. They didn't even open any kind of a case number. I guess you get what you pay for. I don't have this issue with other online merchants I use. I just know that so far, this experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.


----------



## MikeBear

aaronwt said:


> Not using Jet.com again. I looked and had FedEx tracking info that my hard rive was delivered today. But my cameras show no FedEx person getting anywhere near my building. So after I contact Jet.com, they want me to go through all the crap with Fedex for finding the package. They didn't even open any kind of a case number. I guess you get what you pay for. I don't have this issue with other online merchants I use. I just know that so far, this experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.


Maybe it was FedEx "SmartPost", which means the last bit of delivery is by the U.S. Post Office. So, check your mailbox.


----------



## keenanSR

MikeBear said:


> Maybe it was FedEx "SmartPost", which means the last bit of delivery is by the U.S. Post Office. So, check your mailbox.


Good point, I've had stuff shipped that way and often FedEx will show it delivered but it actually meant it was delivered to the USPS and the actual delivery was made later in the day or the next day.


----------



## lessd

aaronwt said:


> Not using Jet.com again. I looked and had FedEx tracking info that my hard rive was delivered today. But my cameras show no FedEx person getting anywhere near my building. So after I contact Jet.com, they want me to go through all the crap with Fedex for finding the package. They didn't even open any kind of a case number. I guess you get what you pay for. I don't have this issue with other online merchants I use. I just know that so far, this experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.


Had my Jet.com hard drive in two days shipped from Buy.com FDX home delivery. Packed in sealed bag in the WD box with the plastic holders on both ends. I ran the full WD diag. and no problems.


----------



## aaronwt

MikeBear said:


> Maybe it was FedEx "SmartPost", which means the last bit of delivery is by the U.S. Post Office. So, check your mailbox.


It was FedEx. The delivery person apparently cannot read a map. Since it was delivered to a street with a different name than my street. I filed a complaint against the delivery person at FedEx. Of course I have another package coming today from FedEx too. Hopefully that person has a clue about how to read.

I've had Smart Post deliveries in the past. And it has always showed in the tracking that it was handed off to the USPS. Those aren't the packages I typically worry about. Although I have had a couple of issues in the past too where a USPS delivery person also couldn't read a map. I've had more issues with FedEX delivery people. But nowhere near the amount of problems I have with LASERship. Now those delivery people can't find the right street 50% of the time. But with them, Amazon gives me a credit and sends out a new package.

Jet.com did nothing. Offered to do nothing. And when I called back had no info from my previous call either.

Hopefully the drive is fine. I need to find my WDIDLE3 disc to change the idle timer to 5 minutes. And then run the Diagnostics. Because I certainly don't want to have to deal with Jet.com for a return.


----------



## aaronwt

lessd said:


> Had my Jet.com hard drive in two days shipped from Buy.com FDX home delivery. Packed in sealed bag in the WD box with the plastic holders on both ends. I ran the full WD diag. and no problems.


Yes. Mine was the same way. Also from Buy.com. It's just the customer service experience with Jet.com was severely lacking.


----------



## mickinct

aaronwt said:


> Yes. Mine was the same way. Also from Buy.com. It's just the customer service experience with Jet.com was severely lacking.


 Price paid??


----------



## aaronwt

mickinct said:


> Price paid??


Around $73. I mentioned earlier I guess you get what you pay for. But that price was also only so low because of the extra $15 off with the Android coupon posted in this thread.


----------



## gespears

Mine is supposedly coming today, delivered by the Post Office. I need to get it in before I'm out of town this weekend so I hope it get's here today as stated. 


BTW, even though up to 3TB drives are "plug and play," it's very simple to put a larger hard drive in, up to 6 TB so I wouldn't let the "plug and play" keep me from getting a drive larger than 3 TB.


----------



## lessd

mickinct said:


> Price paid??


Because I did not want to deal with Jet.com return I took the $1.97 off the price and that removed the free return, If I had a problem I would have just used WD for the return, it is quick and easy and would have cost me about $6 to return or a net of $4, the drive is fine, no return needed, so I paid $86.15 -$15=$71 - $1.97 = $69.03, not bad for a 3Tb WD green drive.


----------



## rnaude241

Got my drive from jet.com today. No issues and it works great. I've never had a problem with jet.com, it looks like it was a delivery issue not jet.coms fault.


----------



## mickinct

rnaude241 said:


> Got my drive from jet.com today. No issues and it works great. I've never had a problem with jet.com, it looks like it was a delivery issue not jet.coms fault.


 Price Subtotal

$87.69

Total Savings

-$2.06

Shipping Fee

FREE

Estimated Tax

$0.00

Order Total

$85.63

Promotion Credit

-$15.00

Total Charge

$70.63 got my order in today. PS it was in my cart for 2 days. also got a WD - AV-GP WD30EURX with 3 yr warr for $86


----------



## aaronwt

rnaude241 said:


> Got my drive from jet.com today. No issues and it works great. I've never had a problem with jet.com, it looks like it was a delivery issue not jet.coms fault.


No question it was a delivery issue with fedEx for me. But it was the crappy customer service I received from Jet.com that turned me off.


----------



## gespears

I paid 219 for a 6 TB Red from Jet


----------



## HarperVision

aaronwt said:


> No question it was a delivery issue with fedEx for me. But it was the crappy customer service I received from Jet.com that turned me off.


Maybe you have to state that five or six more times for people to understand it? 

That seems to be a trend around here!


----------



## ramiss

jonw747 said:


> Thermal fuses are awsome. They self reset given time to cool off.


Technically you are referring to "resettable fuses", which heat up and expand the internal layers to open the circuit when a short is detected. Then cool to close the circuit once the short is removed.

"thermal fuses" are used to open/break a circuit when to much heat is detected, for example inside a heating element. These are usually not resettable.


----------



## bengalfreak

Is there a tutorial somewhere about how to upgrade your Tivo drive and keep your recordings? I put a 2TB drive in my new Roamio but I can see now that's not going to be enough. I've had it 2 weeks and its 20% full.


----------



## ThAbtO

bengalfreak said:


> Is there a tutorial somewhere about how to upgrade your Tivo drive and keep your recordings? I put a 2TB drive in my new Roamio but I can see now that's not going to be enough. I've had it 2 weeks and its 20% full.


There is only one way, and that is to transfer/copy the unprotected shows to a PC or another Tivo. Then after the drive change, to copy them back over. It can only be done one at a time, but you can set multiple shows, back to back. (Protected shows are another story.)


----------



## krkaufman

ThAbtO said:


> There is only one way, and that is to transfer/copy the unprotected shows to a PC or another Tivo. Then after the drive change, to copy them back over. It can only be done one at a time, but you can set multiple shows, back to back. (Protected shows are another story.)


I thought MFS Tools 3.2 could be used to upgrade drives, preserving recordings, so long as you didn't go too big (4TB or less)?



jkozee said:


> Announcing the release of MFS Tools 3.2!
> ...
> *Highlights*
> 
> Supports Series 1 through Roamio (and perhaps beyond).
> ...
> Supports 8 TB on Roamio (perhaps more, tested with dual 4 TB drives).
> Backup and restore (or drive-drive using mfscopy) single or dual drive setups, and preserve recordings if you choose.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

bengalfreak said:


> Is there a tutorial somewhere about how to upgrade your Tivo drive and keep your recordings? I put a 2TB drive in my new Roamio but I can see now that's not going to be enough. I've had it 2 weeks and its 20% full.


Do you need to keep things long term? TiVo's not great for that if you watch a lot or are hoarding a bunch of shows.

But if in ten weeks, you'll have watched and deleted what you want within ten weeks of airing (roughly, gauging on your 20% full now), then it shouldn't matter. TiVo will only delete the oldest shows when it needs to and if they're that old and you haven't watched it, then oh well.

Under settings/ System Info/system information, my Roamio says it can store up to 476 HD hours. That's a lot of TV. I forget if this is a 1TB or 2TB drive I dropped into this one.

For things like football or other shows you won't watch if it's not current, be sure to put a reasonable cap on how many that season pass will save--five in my case.

In our case, we have three such Roamios going though, so at least triple your capacity. Given how easily they share / play each other's content, that solution works great for us.


----------



## ThAbtO

ThreeSoFar said:


> Under settings/ System Info/system information, my Roamio says it can store up to 476 HD hours. That's a lot of TV. I forget if this is a 1TB or 2TB drive I dropped into this one.


I'm sure its a 3TB you got there.


----------



## krkaufman

bengalfreak said:


> Is there a tutorial somewhere about how to upgrade your Tivo drive and keep your recordings? I put a 2TB drive in my new Roamio but I can see now that's not going to be enough. I've had it 2 weeks and its 20% full.


Depending on how you've setup your OnePasses, in terms of how many you have and especially how many episodes each OnePass is configured to keep, your rate of growth will be much higher early on, before any of your OnePasses hit their maximum "Keep at Most" setting.


----------



## krkaufman

ThAbtO said:


> *I'm sure its a 3TB you got there.*


I'll vouch for that. I just went upstairs and checked our stock 3TB Roamio Pro and it says the same... *476 HD hours*.


----------



## missdona

I just ordered my roamio (tivo customer support offered me a $99 lifetime), could someone give me a link to the jet.com hard drive or give me the search term? Thank you in advance.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

missdona said:


> I just ordered my roamio (tivo customer support offered me a $99 lifetime), could someone give me a link to the jet.com hard drive or give me the search term? Thank you in advance.


$107 with prime shipping.

Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX


----------



## missdona

ThreeSoFar said:


> $107 with prime shipping.
> 
> Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX


Thanks, it's not cheaper on jet?


----------



## steff3

WD50EZRX.....Will this work in the Roamio?


----------



## ggieseke

steff3 said:


> WD50EZRX.....Will this work in the Roamio?


Yes, but not without some help and a Windows PC to format the drive correctly.

See the mfsr thread in the Upgrade forum.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428


----------



## steff3

ggieseke said:


> Yes, but not without some help and a Windows PC to format the drive correctly.
> 
> See the mfsr thread in the Upgrade forum.
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428


Thanks!


----------



## steff3

ggieseke said:


> Yes, but not without some help and a Windows PC to format the drive correctly.
> 
> See the mfsr thread in the Upgrade forum.
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428


So....the 3TB drives are drop and play but larger need help as described?


----------



## ggieseke

steff3 said:


> So....the 3TB drives are drop and play but larger need help as described?


Correct. As long as the software has already been upgraded to 20.4.6 or later Roamios will auto-format drives over 3TB and appear to work fine, but you might end up with 50 hours or less of usable storage due to a bug in their software. MFSR will reformat it correctly to give you roughly 160 hours per TB.


----------



## steff3

ggieseke said:


> Correct.


Great, thanks again....


----------



## bengalfreak

krkaufman said:


> Depending on how you've setup your OnePasses, in terms of how many you have and especially how many episodes each OnePass is configured to keep, your rate of growth will be much higher early on, before any of your OnePasses hit their maximum "Keep at Most" setting.


All of my One Passes are setup to keep them all and until I delete. For instance, we are just now getting around to watching last season's Gotham. Not on the Tivo, but an older DVR.


----------



## lpwcomp

bengalfreak said:


> All of my One Passes are setup to keep them all and until I delete. For instance, we are just now getting around to watching last season's Gotham. Not on the Tivo, but an older DVR.


Another option for non copy-protected recordings is to move them off to your PC.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

missdona said:


> Thanks, it's not cheaper on jet?


Why would I care, I'm not buying it?

What's the deal, do you work for this jet thing i've never heard of?


----------



## philt56

ggieseke said:


> Correct. As long as the software has already been upgraded to 20.4.6 or later Roamios will auto-format drives over 3TB and appear to work fine, but you might end up with 50 hours or less of usable storage due to a bug in their software. MFSR will reformat it correctly to give you roughly 160 hours per TB.


I just updated a roamio plus with a 3 tb drive and it shows the same 476 hours in system information as my stock pro. Would the bug you mention show the 50 less hours in system information or does it not show up until you fill up the whole drive?


----------



## krkaufman

philt56 said:


> I just updated a roamio plus with a 3 tb drive and it shows the same 476 hours in system information as my stock pro. Would the bug you mention show the 50 less hours in system information or does it not show up until you fill up the whole drive?


The quoted statement appears to be scoped to "drives > 3TB" (i.e. not your 3TB drive) -- along with the fact that he's saying it would report 50GB of total usable space or less, not 50GB of less usable space.

You're fine. 476 HD hours is the number you're looking for.


----------



## jonw747

ThreeSoFar said:


> TiVo's not great for that if you watch a lot or are hoarding a bunch of shows.


How so? My 6TB disk is already full thanks to TiVo suggestions, and it's running great.

It could use folders to organize things better, but we just switch between sorting by A-Z or by data and can find what we need.

The device hasn't slowed down a bit as our play list has gotten longer and longer.


----------



## bengalfreak

lpwcomp said:


> Another option for non copy-protected recordings is to move them off to your PC.


It is my understanding that TWC puts the copy protect flag up on almost everything. So that's not really an option either.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

jonw747 said:


> How so? My 6TB disk is already full thanks to TiVo suggestions, and it's running great.
> 
> It could use folders to organize things better, but we just switch between sorting by A-Z or by data and can find what we need.
> 
> The device hasn't slowed down a bit as our play list has gotten longer and longer.


It's not for permanent storage is what I mean. And that's not "full". I'm not sure if TiVo suggestions is even counted in its "percent full" value, but I'd assumed not.

The other poster was saying effectively "my TiVo is full of stuff I want to save so I can't fit new recordings". He's doing it wrong, is all I'm trying to point out.


----------



## krkaufman

bengalfreak said:


> It is my understanding that TWC puts the copy protect flag up on almost everything. So that's not really an option either.


Have you reviewed the previously suggested MFS Tools?

Though, reviewing your situation -- 3TB existing drive, TWC copy-flag hell -- you're pretty much out of luck, as MFS Tools, even if it were effortless, would apparently only net you 1 additional TB. It would seem like you're faced with going to a new 6TB drive, and restoring only whatever programs TWC allowed you to backup to a PC before removal.

Aside from periodically opening and swapping hard drives in your Roamio, your only other option would seem to be buying a 2nd DVR and setting it up w/ the capacity you want, and keeping your existing DVR running for as long as you want/need access to its existing content. (Though I'm uncertain whether you'd be able to remotely access your current content from the "new" DVR if the old DVR is not on a TiVo service plan.)

p.s. Given the keeping of everything, even the above may only be buying you a bit more time. Good luck.


----------



## lpwcomp

bengalfreak said:


> It is my understanding that TWC puts the copy protect flag up on almost everything. So that's not really an option either.


Well, you specifically mentioned "Gotham", which is on a local channel. It is my understanding (I'm on Comcast, so have no personal knowledge) that even TWC doesn't copy-protect locals.

Yes, I know doing it for "Gotham" is not an option at this point as it is not on a TiVo, but I assume that there are other shows on locals that you do record on the TiVo.


----------



## philt56

krkaufman said:


> The quoted statement appears to be scoped to "drives > 3TB" (i.e. not your 3TB drive) -- along with the fact that he's saying it would report 50GB of total usable space or less, not 50GB of less usable space.
> 
> You're fine. 476 HD hours is the number you're looking for.


Thanks I misread that completely.


----------



## krkaufman

bengalfreak said:


> All of my One Passes are setup to keep them all and until I delete. For instance, we are just now getting around to watching last season's Gotham. Not on the Tivo, but an older DVR.


There's always the Weaknees option for the record and keep everything crowd (especially those like customers of TWC, unable to offload content -- though maybe the Charter acquisition will change that policy for the better).

Alternatively, one way to conserve space, made possible via TiVo's OnePass upgrade, is to subscribe to streaming services, allowing you to merge available streaming content with your recorded content. Using your specific example, I hadn't gotten around to watching the premiere season of Gotham, either, before Season 2 came along -- but I was able to free-up all the space used by Gotham Season 1 because our 'Gotham' OnePass on our Roamio is merging the new Season 2 recordings with the Season 1 episodes now available via Netflix. Similarly, I just did the same for 'iZombie' and will also be snuffing Season 1 of 'The Flash' from our Roamio just as soon as OnePass sees that it's now available via Netflix.

Now, there's no guarantee that content won't be pulled out from under you by the streaming services, but the above is something to keep in mind.

Cable customers can also benefit if their TiVo has access to On Demand content from their provider, especially for premium channels. For example, since we can't out-of-home stream or offload premium channel content, we only keep a couple episodes of each on our Roamio, to fill the time window between when an episode premieres and when OnePass gets around to seeing it as available via the (Xfinity) On Demand app -- the "OnePass Availability Lag." However, we do keep more episodes for premium shows that multiple family members watch, or like to re-watch -- owing to the Xfinity On Demand app's finickiness and its tuner-related constraints (consumes a tuner, limit of 1 simultaneous session). All that said, leaning on On Demand, where possible, does save us additional storage space.


----------



## bluechipwi

Brand new to Tivo and this community. Hi folks!
I'm still on cable and fired up my new Roamio OTA TiVo Series 5 Monday.
Testing if we can cable cut or not ... not close to large community's, so OTA is the 4 networks, CW and PBS. Also have script's for Netflix and Hulu+ so I'm hoping after Charter cost adjustments dropping off TV, plus my scrip costs saves me enough money .. and keep wife happy to cable cut. Will continue with cable for 6 more months a make a decision

Ordered from Newegg today WD AV-GP WD30EURX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive to upgrade my Tivo (I get taxed from Amazon). Any good links and suggestions to guide me would be most appreciated.
*One QUESTION for now* ...
Since my Tivo is OTA, I'm hoping I can copy each show to backup drive on my desktop at normal Windows 7 speed for data files. YES-NO??
Thanks

*Side note ...*
My Cable Box, Motorola 3420 (17 months old) died last week.
Charter replaced with a Motorola 3510-M. This case has NO cooling fan, but top cover fully perfed metal.
Looking in between the top cover perfs, following specs for HDD ..
BRAND - Seagate Pipeline HD 2
SIZE - 500GB
MODEL# - ST3500414CS
FIRMWARE - CA14
VOLTAGE +5v .316A
VOLTAGE +12v .155A


----------



## ThAbtO

Shows can be copied/transferred to a PC/another tivo and then sent back after upgrading drives, except for protected shows.


----------



## lpwcomp

ThAbtO said:


> Shows can be copied/transferred to a PC/another tivo and then sent back after upgrading drives, except for protected shows.


Since his TiVo is OTA, no protected shows.

I would recommend a combination of kmttg and pyTivo for the transfers.

There is also s/w available that would allow you to copy the entire existing drive to the new drive using a PC.

There's also some thinking that the "power brick" that comes with the base Roamio doesn't provide enough juice to fully support a 3TB drive, but there is no definite information one way or the other.


----------



## bluechipwi

ThAbtO said:


> Shows can be copied/transferred to a PC/another tivo and then sent back after upgrading drives, except for protected shows.





lpwcomp said:


> Since his TiVo is OTA, no protected shows.
> 
> I would recommend a combination of kmttg and pyTivo for the transfers.
> 
> There is also s/w available that would allow you to copy the entire existing drive to the new drive using a PC.
> 
> There's also some thinking that the "power brick" that comes with the base Roamio doesn't provide enough juice to fully support a 3TB drive, but there is no definite information one way or the other.


Thank you both for your assistance.
I'm working through the weekend and my new drive should be here Monday.

*Question to lpwcomp* - Does the software you suggest for copying files from source to target done AFTER I install the new drive into Tivo and copying files over? Or is this Image Backup or Cloning software?
I'm very verse in windows Image Backup / Restore and/or creating a "Clone" drive from source to target drives. If this would allow me to target the new drive with all recorded shows, OnePass settings, and all of the required Tivo operating system and activated/blessed unit would be great. Could you please provide a link(s) to the software(s) to get this done.
Thanks


----------



## lpwcomp

bluechipwi said:


> Thank you both for your assistance.
> I'm working through the weekend and my new drive should be here Monday.
> 
> *Question to lpwcomp* - Does the software you suggest for copying files from source to target done AFTER I install the new drive into Tivo and copying files over? Or is this Image Backup or Cloning software?
> I'm very verse in windows Image Backup / Restore and/or creating a "Clone" drive from source to target drives. If this would allow me to target the new drive with all recorded shows, OnePass settings, and all of the required Tivo operating system and activated/blessed unit would be great. Could you please provide a link(s) to the software(s) to get this done.
> Thanks


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=529148&highlight=mfs+tools


----------



## ThAbtO

PyTivo is for transferring shows to/from Tivos, KMTTG is also for transferring, but only Tivo-to-PC and it also has other options.


----------



## dmurphy

lpwcomp said:


> There's also some thinking that the "power brick" that comes with the base Roamio doesn't provide enough juice to fully support a 3TB drive, but there is no definite information one way or the other.


It's only one anecdotal datapoint, but I have a pair of base Roamios, each with a 4TB Seagate ST4000DM001 drive in them that work great. I put the same drive in my Roamio Plus, and it also works great.

I prepped all 3 disks with MFSr, and have an extra drive prepped and sitting on the shelf as a spare.

Long story short - I had a half dozen or so of these disks sitting on the shelf, after I upgraded my NAS to all 6TB disks. So I repurposed them. Why not?


----------



## krkaufman

FYI... Newegg combo special on WD Red 3TB ... 4 for $380

May require subscription to marketing emails.


----------



## PedjaR

lpwcomp said:


> ...
> There's also some thinking that the "power brick" that comes with the base Roamio doesn't provide enough juice to fully support a 3TB drive, but there is no definite information one way or the other.


One vote for "it works" here. My base Roamio has been working fine with 3TB drive (WD30EURS) for almost two years; I have not replaced power brick or any other part, except for the hard drive. Just one data point, of course, your mileage may vary.


----------



## jmerr74

New to the community. Learning a lot. After a bit of a wait due to lack of time, I went ahead and tried to install a 3TB WD Green drive...I got flashing red/blue lights...is this standard? It wouldn't power up it just kept flashing. I put the original 500GB Seagate in it and works like a charm...is my power supply too weak?


----------



## ThAbtO

jmerr74 said:


> New to the community. Learning a lot. After a bit of a wait due to lack of time, I went ahead and tried to install a 3TB WD Green drive...I got flashing red/blue lights...is this standard? It wouldn't power up it just kept flashing. I put the original 500GB Seagate in it and works like a charm...is my power supply too weak?


Your post is too non-specific. What Tivo? Pre-Roamio cannot just swap out the drive without any PC work.


----------



## jmerr74

My apologies, I was out at dinner rushed through my post. Its a Roamio Basic. Nothing turns on when I plug the HDD in...not even the fan for the HDD. It's a WD 30EZRX. Is it not compatible?


----------



## ThAbtO

jmerr74 said:


> My apologies, I was out at dinner rushed through my post. Its a Roamio Basic. Nothing turns on when I plug the HDD in...not even the fan for the HDD. It's a WD 30EZRX. Is it not compatible?


I can't be too sure but it could be a bad drive, or the power is insufficient. It is a green (not AV) drive and it can work, but nothing is 100%.


----------



## HarperVision

jmerr74 said:


> My apologies, I was out at dinner rushed through my post. Its a Roamio Basic. Nothing turns on when I plug the HDD in...not even the fan for the HDD. It's a WD 30EZRX. Is it not compatible?


I've used at least 3 of the EZRX drives with no issues whatsoever so far, at least one going for over 2 years now.

I would connect the drive to a pc and run the manufacturer's tests on it to see if it's got any errors or issues.


----------



## jmerr74

That's what I thought. I hadn't read anything about the drives not working. I'll run the tests and see if it's an issue with the drive. At least there is a warranty for it. Thank you for the help.


----------



## lessd

jmerr74 said:


> That's what I thought. I hadn't read anything about the drives not working. I'll run the tests and see if it's an issue with the drive. At least there is a warranty for it. Thank you for the help.


If the drive was formatted it may not work, so after running the dia. tests write zeros in quick mode.


----------



## jmerr74

lessd said:


> If the drive was formatted it may not work, so after running the dia. tests write zeros in quick mode.


It wouldn't even power up on my computer. In fact my computer wouldn't even power up when it was attached. Granted...my PC is old...very old, but the power supply should more than handle the load. Something is wrong with the drive. That's what you get from eBay at times. Although, I have never had a problem. I have a RMA with WD. I will be returning it tomorrow. The good news is I will "hopefully" have a 3TB that works when I get it back.


----------



## aaronwt

jmerr74 said:


> It wouldn't even power up on my computer. In fact my computer wouldn't even power up when it was attached. Granted...my PC is old...very old, but the power supply should more than handle the load. Something is wrong with the drive. That's what you get from eBay at times. Although, I have never had a problem. I have a RMA with WD. I will be returning it tomorrow. The good news is I will "hopefully" have a 3TB that works when I get it back.


You should check out the drive before putting it in the TiVo. Just run the WD Diagnostics program on it first. In the old days I never bothered doing this. But the hard drives made today don't seem as reliable as in the past. With more chances of issues out of the Box. So now I check every new drive before putting them in service.


----------



## lessd

aaronwt said:


> You should check out the drive before putting it in the TiVo. Just run the WD Diagnostics program on it first. In the old days I never bothered doing this. But the hard drives made today don't seem as reliable as in the past. With more chances of issues out of the Box. So now I check every new drive before putting them in service.


Very good advice :up: If needed you can purchase a USB case that any SATA drive will just plug into for people that don't have any other way to connect a drive.


----------



## jmerr74

aaronwt said:


> You should check out the drive before putting it in the TiVo. Just run the WD Diagnostics program on it first. In the old days I never bothered doing this. But the hard drives made today don't seem as reliable as in the past. With more chances of issues out of the Box. So now I check every new drive before putting them in service.


I don't know how to do this. Lol. As I said it brought my PC to it's knees whe. I hooked it up...how do I run diags when my PC won't power up?


----------



## ThAbtO

jmerr74 said:


> I don't know how to do this. Lol. As I said it brought my PC to it's knees whe. I hooked it up...how do I run diags when my PC won't power up?


If it won't boot up while the drive is properly connected, and boots up while not connected, then the drive failed and no testing is possible.


----------



## jmerr74

ThAbtO said:


> If it won't boot up while the drive is properly connected, and boots up while not connected, then the drive failed and no testing is possible.


I just sent it back to WD it is still under warranty. I bought it off eBay so who knows where it's been, for $60 though it was a heck of a deal...lol. Even if I have to goto the trouble of sending it back.

Another question, when I finally get the drive and it is working...all I need to do is just swap it out? Right out of the box? I don't need to format it? This is all very new to me, I haven't had a Tivo since my Series 2 8/9 years ago...glad to be getting back into it all again.


----------



## A J Ricaud

jmerr74 said:


> Another question, when I finally get the drive and it is working...all I need to do is just swap it out? Right out of the box? I don't need to format it?


No formatting necessary-drop-in install. One of my WD 3TB drives failed a while back. WD sent me a "refurbished", not "new" drive. I pondered whether to use it in the Tivo, but did so. It's working fine-about a yr. now, I think.


----------



## HarperVision

You could run this on your drive. Its said to help it to run more efficiently I think, and allows you to expand the maximum drive size, although I haven't tried it yet personally. I've just used raw drives so far.


----------



## jmerr74

I want to thank you all for your help! You've all been very welcoming! I will report back when I get the drive and get everything hooked up...3 minis running on powerline as MOCA seems to alien for me... however it might be best in the long run!


----------



## bparker

Can I use mfsr to hookup an external esata drive? Presently you seem to only be able to buy the very specific drive that's only 1TB. I'd like to add space without opening the unit and voiding my warranty.


----------



## ggieseke

bparker said:


> Can I use mfsr to hookup an external esata drive? Presently you seem to only be able to buy the very specific drive that's only 1TB. I'd like to add space without opening the unit and voiding my warranty.


No. It's only designed to create an internal drive.


----------



## krkaufman

jmerr74 said:


> 3 minis running on powerline as MOCA seems to alien for me... however it might be best in the long run!


Yes, MoCA would be preferable to Powerline, and Ethernet to MoCA -- though you'll want to start a new thread or post to *the ongoing MoCA thread* for assistance on that front.


----------



## jmerr74

Thanks for everyone's help. I am now the proud owner of a 3TB Roamio! Sent the drive I bought on eBay back to WD they sent me back a brand new 3TB Green HDD...plopped it in this morning and it seems to be chugging along with updates now...$60 for the HDD...$40 for the Roamio, $25 (new cover as the Roamio off eBay was pretty scratched up) and I'm happy. Gotta love eBay!


----------



## Laserfan

Having recently repaired both my TiVoS3 and TiVoHD using WinMFS' Mfscopy, and making backups with it as well, I thought "I'd better make a backup NOW of my new Roamio OTA".

So I pulled the drive and am dismayed to see that WinMFS does not recognize the HDD as having a valid file format. OK so I come here and do some surfing and find out two things:

1. WinMFS does not work with the Roamio because the file system is different

2. I don't really NEED to make a backup of my Roamio OTA, because in the event of a hard disk failure you simply pop-in a new drive and the TiVo preps the drive without any special prep or software or incantations or what-have-you. Easy-peasy.

Posting this just to help others who may surf on this question in the future. It took me a half-hour to figure this out, along with risking my new OTA by taking it apart!


----------



## HarperVision

At Amazon:

$109.99 - WD Red 3TB NAS Desktop Hard Disk Drive - Intellipower SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD30EFRX

Also have 4TB ($149), 5TB ($199), 6TB ($249)

Not sure if these are great deals or not, but figured I'd pass it on in case they are.


----------



## krkaufman

HarperVision said:


> At Amazon:
> 
> $109.99 - WD Red 3TB NAS Desktop Hard Disk Drive - Intellipower SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD30EFRX
> 
> Also have 4TB ($149), 5TB ($199), 6TB ($249)
> 
> Not sure if these are great deals or not, but figured I'd pass it on in case they are.


Thanks.

I haven't yet setup any instant notification to catch price drops (what's the opposite of a price spike?), but the price on those darn 6TB drives barely budges off $249. (I do keep a list tracking the WD Red prices, and the 3TB has typically been $119, though Newegg has had several recent "bulk" sales bringing the total per drive to $100 or less, and I've seen the 5TB at $184, recently.)


----------



## osu1991

I had already upgraded my first Roamio Basic with the WD30EURX 3Tb a few months ago. I just put another one in my second Roamio Basic and a 2TB WD20EURX in the 3rd Roamio Basic. That just leaves one of my Roamios with the original 500gb drive in it.


----------



## VicVinegar

Since we are finally progressing away from the overpriced Verizon POS DVR to actually use the Roamio, I figure I need to hurry up and upgrade the HDD. So I grabbed a 4TB Red to be delivered tonight. From the price history on Amazon, $149 is not a bad price. Same day delivery sweetens the deal for me. 

Now I just need to get PyTivo to push shows back to the Tivo from a PC before the new drive arrives. Different thread for that.


----------



## ThAbtO

Laserfan said:


> Having recently repaired both my TiVoS3 and TiVoHD using WinMFS' Mfscopy, and making backups with it as well, I thought "I'd better make a backup NOW of my new Roamio OTA".
> 
> So I pulled the drive and am dismayed to see that WinMFS does not recognize the HDD as having a valid file format. OK so I come here and do some surfing and find out two things:
> 
> 1. WinMFS does not work with the Roamio because the file system is different
> 
> 2. I don't really NEED to make a backup of my Roamio OTA, because in the event of a hard disk failure you simply pop-in a new drive and the TiVo preps the drive without any special prep or software or incantations or what-have-you. Easy-peasy.
> 
> Posting this just to help others who may surf on this question in the future. It took me a half-hour to figure this out, along with risking my new OTA by taking it apart!


WinMFS only works on Series 3 and older Tivos.

A different program will work to expand 4-6TB for Roamios, The Tivo software is stored internally and up-to-date versions work on up to 3TB as a drop-in process.


----------



## ThAbtO

krkaufman said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I haven't yet setup any instant notification to catch price drops (what's the opposite of a price spike?), but the price on those darn 6TB drives barely budges off $249. (I do keep a list tracking the WD Red prices, and the 3TB has typically been $119, though Newegg has had several recent "bulk" sales bringing the total per drive to $100 or less, and I've seen the 5TB at $184, recently.)


I had been keeping an eye on those prices at Amazon, several days ago, the 6TB went down to about $211, if I remember correctly.


----------



## krkaufman

ThAbtO said:


> I had been keeping an eye on those prices at Amazon, several days ago, the 6TB went down to about $211, if I remember correctly.


That's not funny.

p.s. Hmmm, may be time to setup a notification. http://camelcamelcamel.com/Red-Desktop-Hard-Disk-Drive/product/B00LO3KR96


----------



## siratfus

What's the highest capacity the Roamio will take? 6tb, 8tb?


----------



## philwojo

I am thinking about taking advantage of the Turkey Day Special on the All-In Romaio, since I am OTA. I have a S3 and an HD Tivo now, both with upgraded 1TB. So, I am wondering, if I replace one of those units can I just take the 1TB drive out of it and slap it in to the new Romaio?

I don't want to save anything from the old unit in terms of shows, just looking to upgrade the capacity is all.

Thanks,
Phil


----------



## ggieseke

siratfus said:


> what's the highest capacity the roamio will take? 6tb, 8tb?


6tb


----------



## ggieseke

philwojo said:


> So, I am wondering, if I replace one of those units can I just take the 1TB drive out of it and slap it in to the new Romaio?


As long as it's not from a Bolt or another Roamio, yes. The boot sector and partition table on older models won't be recognized by a Roamio, so it will reformat the drive.


----------



## siratfus

ggieseke said:


> 6tb


Cool. Thank you.


----------



## audiodane

Hello all,

Terribly sorry, I've been away from this forum for several years. I have an S3 and THD, and only today am returning after taking advantage of the black friday Roamio all-in for $399 offer email.

I have been on the forums most of the day, but as you know TCF is SO packed with stuff, it's tough to really get basic questions answered quickly... 

So, if you pardon, I think I have only three or four questions:

1) I have read a few things about a $99 lifetime option on roamio, but obviously my deal from today was $199 roamio, $199 lifetime. While that seems like a good deal, did I actually miss out on an even better deal in October?

2) I am seeing here two links to HDD's (3TB), a WD30EFRX (amazon, $110) which is a NAS drive, and a WD30EURX (amazon, $107) which is an AV-GP.. Since they're the same price-- which should I buy? Does it matter? Power/heat differences, longevity?

3) Seems I can just "plug-and-play" the new drive with the Roamio once it arrives. Do I want to activate the new roamio and let it perform any updates before replacing the drive? Does it matter?

4) Since I've been stuck in S3 & THD + PyTivo for the last several years, I'm a bit behind; some friends suggested that kttmg is probably the best way to get all my old tivo recordings transferred over to my new roamio (so I can ebay the old ones) .. is that a good recommendation, and in doing so do I get to keep folders? (I know when pulling from one tivo to another from within the NPL, it looses folder information, grrrrr)

I think those are my only questions. Thanks for your time, and I'm sorry to be asking these questions. After several hours of searching with threads going back to 2013, it's difficult to remain "up to date." 

cheers,
..dane


----------



## unitron

audiodane said:


> Hello all,
> 
> Terribly sorry, I've been away from this forum for several years. I have an S3 and THD, and only today am returning after taking advantage of the black friday Roamio all-in for $399 offer email.
> 
> I have been on the forums most of the day, but as you know TCF is SO packed with stuff, it's tough to really get basic questions answered quickly...
> 
> So, if you pardon, I think I have only three or four questions:
> 
> 1) I have read a few things about a $99 lifetime option on roamio, but obviously my deal from today was $199 roamio, $199 lifetime. While that seems like a good deal, did I actually miss out on an even better deal in October?
> 
> 2) I am seeing here two links to HDD's (3TB), a WD30EFRX (amazon, $110) which is a NAS drive, and a WD30EURX (amazon, $107) which is an AV-GP.. Since they're the same price-- which should I buy? Does it matter? Power/heat differences, longevity?
> 
> 3) Seems I can just "plug-and-play" the new drive with the Roamio once it arrives. Do I want to activate the new roamio and let it perform any updates before replacing the drive? Does it matter?
> 
> 4) Since I've been stuck in S3 & THD + PyTivo for the last several years, I'm a bit behind; some friends suggested that kttmg is probably the best way to get all my old tivo recordings transferred over to my new roamio (so I can ebay the old ones) .. is that a good recommendation, and in doing so do I get to keep folders? (I know when pulling from one tivo to another from within the NPL, it looses folder information, grrrrr)
> 
> I think those are my only questions. Thanks for your time, and I'm sorry to be asking these questions. After several hours of searching with threads going back to 2013, it's difficult to remain "up to date."
> 
> cheers,
> ..dane


Are the 648 and 652 lifetimed?

If not, don't let the subs lapse, or no one will ever be able to get service on them again--TiVo changed policy on the S1s, 2s, and 3s about the time the Bolt came out.

Lifetime, of course, stays with the unit and stays in effect as long as it can still contact the mothership.

Whether you can transfer a non-lifetime sub to a new owner and let them start making the monthly payment is something I haven't seen a definitive answer to yet.

As for the drive, I'd go for the EURX. 3 year warranty, intended to be running 24/7/365


----------



## audiodane

unitron said:


> Are the 648 and 652 lifetimed?
> 
> If not, don't let the subs lapse, or no one will ever be able to get service on them again--TiVo changed policy on the S1s, 2s, and 3s about the time the Bolt came out.
> 
> Lifetime, of course, stays with the unit and stays in effect as long as it can still contact the mothership.
> 
> Whether you can transfer a non-lifetime sub to a new owner and let them start making the monthly payment is something I haven't seen a definitive answer to yet.
> 
> As for the drive, I'd go for the EURX. 3 year warranty, intended to be running 24/7/365


Yes, both lifetime'd (for many years now) ... S3 w/ 1TB, THD w/ 2TB..

Turns out both drives have a 3yr warranty. Otherwise I'd have said good catch!

I had not heard of the service change on 1-3's.. nor had I heard that I may not be able to transfer them- that was my plan to pay for the Roamio! Looks like I need to chat with customer service again soon. 

Thanks for the info,
..dane


----------



## audiodane

Just spoke to Tivo support - they said that since the units both already have lifetime service, I will still be able to sell them and transfer their service. It is simply that new service cannot be activated on series 1-3's.. whew! (maybe the price of an s3 w/ lifetime just went up??  )

..dane


----------



## singit

Just activated a new Roamio base unit purch @Best Buy, managed to get $199 lifetime from agent for it. I see its esata port - can I plug in just any external drive with esata support to it? Any suggested current best deals for good drives that will work with it? Thanks!


----------



## ThAbtO

The only Tivo approved external drives are the 500MB and the 1TB. However, they create more points for failure and loss of recordings since it was connected. Recordings are also spread across both drives for storage and cannot be retrieved once a drive fails.

Roamio can handle up to 3TB just by swapping out the drives. For up to 6TB, The Tivo software needs to be up-to-date, then it takes a little PC work for that to work. For 4-6TB, there is a program called MSFR, but you would have to copy shows to another PC or Tivo before upgrading. MFSTools 3.2, is still not perfect yet and some had issues. Other programs just as JMFS does not work on Roamio. 

For transfers, All Tivos must be subscribed to Tivo Service. PyTivo can be used to transfer PC to/from Tivos. 
The program KMTTG is only Tivo-to-PC transfers, pass copy/restore, etc. Tivo Desktop is getting out of date and isn't free.

Lifetime Service is now called All-in and is at $599.99, but it still is owner transferable. Multi-service discounts are not available only more. 

Series 3 and under, once activated, will still work to record/play, but with limited functions such as Netflix. Tivos S3 and under, which are not lifetimed will not get renewed for any service plans.


----------



## singit

I so appreciate your really helpful and very thorough reply! 
Some specific f/u questions (either to you, or the community!)

1. Swapping internal drives: I'm up for trying it, but is there any risk of "void of warrantee"-ish kind of thing? (Apple has imprinted that on my brain...)
2. I'm looking for further info re Pros/Cons versus: 
A. plugging an external drive in via the esata port, versus 
B. swapping out the Roamio's 500MB internal drive for a larger one.
3. Is the _*only*_ issue with adding a 3TB (or 6TB) external drive losing your saved programs in the case of a disk failure?
If so (esp as new user w/very few recordings) I can sure live with that rare occurence of a disk drive failure in exchange for a huge increase in storage space (i.e., flexibility). 
3. I'm starting to grok that this TiVo universe has an enormous range of subtleties, largely due to your thoughtful response to my inquiry. Thank you!



ThAbtO said:


> The only Tivo approved external drives are the 500MB and the 1TB. However, they create more points for failure and loss of recordings since it was connected. Recordings are alsspread across both drives for storage and cannot be retrieved once a drive fails.
> 
> Roamio can handle up to 3TB just by swapping out the drives. For up to 6TB, The Tivo software needs to be up-to-date, then it takes a little PC work for that to work. For 4-6TB, there is a program called MSFR, but you would have to copy shows to another PC or Tivo before upgrading. MFSTools 3.2, is still not perfect yet and some had issues. Other programs just as JMFS does not work on Roamio.
> 
> For transfers, All Tivos must be subscribed to Tivo Service. PyTivo can be used to transfer PC to/from Tivos.
> The program KMTTG is only Tivo-to-PC transfers, pass copy/restore, etc. Tivo Desktop is getting out of date and isn't free.
> 
> Lifetime Service is now called All-in and is at $599.99, but it still is owner transferable. Multi-service discounts are not available only more.
> 
> Series 3 and under, once activated, will still work to record/play, but with limited functions such as Netflix. Tivos S3 and under, which are not lifetimed will not get renewed for any service plans.


----------



## ThAbtO

As I have said, there is only a 500MB or 1TB (only Tivo approved drives work) for external. Failure for these drives are quite common, for which most prefer the internal upgrade. The Tivo expander drives last only about 2-3 years. You would also have to contend with 2 power plugs, instead of 1 for just the Tivo.

For a larger drives, upgrading the internal is to the 3-6TB drives. Green AV and Red drives are preferred, for using less power and less heat. Other drives would use too much power that the power supply may not keep up.

For me, I simply lived with the original drive for about 13 months, then upgraded to 4TB. 
Tivo warranty is about 3 months. Its a Don't tell warranty for us. Any problems, just swap back the original before returning.


----------



## krkaufman

audiodane said:


> 1) I have read a few things about a $99 lifetime option on roamio, but obviously my deal from today was $199 roamio, $199 lifetime. While that seems like a good deal, did I actually miss out on an even better deal in October?


Why do that to yourself?



audiodane said:


> 2) I am seeing here two links to HDD's (3TB), a WD30EFRX (amazon, $110) which is a NAS drive, and a WD30EURX (amazon, $107) which is an AV-GP.. Since they're the same price-- which should I buy? Does it matter? Power/heat differences, longevity?


WD AV-GP is generally recommended, since it's the model shipped with the Roamios, typically. I have 3 WD Reds installed and running fine, though; they were cheaper at the time I was upgrading.



audiodane said:


> 3) Seems I can just "plug-and-play" the new drive with the Roamio once it arrives. Do I want to activate the new roamio and let it perform any updates before replacing the drive? Does it matter?


It won't hurt to let the Roamio power-up and check out its features, to make sure it's working before replacing the drive. And not all the effort will be wasted; I believe the software update is stored to the motherboard, so you'll have less to go through after updating the drive. (Also, allowing the software to update prior to removing the drive is required if looking to go larger than 3TB via the mfsreformatter method.)



audiodane said:


> 4) Since I've been stuck in S3 & THD + PyTivo for the last several years, I'm a bit behind; some friends suggested that kttmg is probably the best way to get all my old tivo recordings transferred over to my new roamio (so I can ebay the old ones) .. is that a good recommendation, and in doing so do I get to keep folders? (I know when pulling from one tivo to another from within the NPL, it looses folder information, grrrrr)


I use KMTTG to offload shows, and it works great; however, KMTTG doesn't provide for getting shows back onto a DVR. You'll need pyTiVo or another utility for that.


----------



## HerronScott

audiodane said:


> Hello all,
> 
> Terribly sorry, I've been away from this forum for several years. I have an S3 and THD, and only today am returning after taking advantage of the black friday Roamio all-in for $399 offer email.
> 
> 1) I have read a few things about a $99 lifetime option on roamio, but obviously my deal from today was $199 roamio, $199 lifetime. While that seems like a good deal, did I actually miss out on an even better deal in October?


That deal/option was only for the more expensive Roamio Plus (no longer available) or the Roamio Pro (still available but total cost is $600).

Scott


----------



## enigma9o7

I just replaced the drive in my Roamio OTA. Any way to restore my onepass setup? I hoped it would stay intact since it's synced with tivo online but seems not.


----------



## HarperVision

enigma9o7 said:


> I just replaced the drive in my Roamio OTA. Any way to restore my onepass setup? I hoped it would stay intact since it's synced with tivo online but seems not.


You should've backed it up and reloaded it using KMTTG. You may be able to put the old drive back in and do this real quick, but depending on how many series you had saved it may just be easier to recreate them.


----------



## audiodane

krkaufman said:


> WD AV-GP is generally recommended, since it's the model shipped with the Roamios, typically. I have 3 WD Reds installed and running fine, though; they were cheaper at the time I was upgrading.
> 
> It won't hurt to let the Roamio power-up and check out its features, to make sure it's working before replacing the drive. And not all the effort will be wasted; I believe the software update is stored to the motherboard, so you'll have less to go through after updating the drive. (Also, allowing the software to update prior to removing the drive is required if looking to go larger than 3TB via the mfsreformatter method.)
> 
> I use KMTTG to offload shows, and it works great; however, KMTTG doesn't provide for getting shows back onto a DVR. You'll need pyTiVo or another utility for that.


green/red hdd: thanks!

power-up first: good recommendation, thanks!

kmttg: Hmm, I thought kmttg was what people were using to offload, remove commercials, and reload back to Tivo? I will certainly look more into that, somewhat off topic for this thread.. thanks!



HerronScott said:


> That deal/option was only for the more expensive Roamio Plus (no longer available) or the Roamio Pro (still available but total cost is $600).


awesome. thanks!

Thanks to everyone for all the replies; Feeling very excited for the new roamio to arrive! will be watching HDD's this coming week!

..dane


----------



## grimlock

I'm new to the forum. I just ordered a Roamio Pro to upgrade from my Tivo HD XL. I have the 1TB external drive on my current Tivo HD...and from what I'm reading here, it sounds like it would not be recommended to use that with my new Roamio Pro. So, is there a way to swap out the internal drive from the start to a larger size that a non-tech geek could handle? I've added drives to my PCs before, so I can do basic stuff.

I'm just curious if there is a quick and easy swap. Thanks in advance!


----------



## dmurphy

Very easy to do for a 3TB or smaller drive. Just install it and you're done. 

For a 4TB, it's a little more of a process. You go through Guided Setup with the current drive so it can download software updates. Then you would install the 4TB drive, let the TiVo install its software, and then when it gets to Guided Setup; turn the TiVo off, put the drive into your PC and run the 'MFSR' software (found in the TiVo Underground forum here) to re-format the drive, and then put it back in the Roamio Pro. 

Took me longer to type that than it'll take to actually do.


----------



## jetcobra

I am getting a new Roamio from the deal last week and will be replacing the 1TB HDD with a 3TB HDD.

Is this WD drive good for that? Is is listed as a very good 24/7 drive for NAS.
The PN is WDBMMA0030HNC-NRSN.

Thanks


----------



## dmurphy

jetcobra said:


> I am getting a new Roamio from the deal last week and will be replacing the 1TB HDD with a 3TB HDD.
> 
> Is this WD drive good for that? Is is listed as a very good 24/7 drive for NAS.
> The PN is WDBMMA0030HNC-NRSN.
> 
> Thanks


That drive should work great.

Easy cheesy... open the TiVo, install the new drive in place of the old one, close 'er back up. Nothing else to do.

Only "difficult" thing is that you'll need Torx screwdrivers as the TiVo uses Torx bits instead of phillips head screws.

Easy to do - no fear!


----------



## ShoutingMan

I apologize, but I'm going to ask the questions that have been asked dozens of times, and all are lost in this remarkable but 100+ page thread. But I'll do it in the form of a mini-guide, and hopefully aggregate the info for others' benefit 

*1) How do I backup my TiVo shows before upgrading my hard drive?*
I have a Mac, so I'll use cTivo (or Archivo) and download all my shows (in unencrypted TiVo format, with no re-encoding) to my hard drive. Presumably, I could run Windows 10 in Parallels and use KMTTG.

*2) How do I upgrade the Hard Drive in my Roamio Plus?*
Buy a WD 3TB AV-GP drive. Then follow directions in 1st post of this thread to remove original hard drive and install new hard drive. No other manipulations are needed for 3TB or smaller drives; the TiVo will auto-format the drive.

If I wanted a 4TB or larger drive, I'd have to use MSF Reformatter and do the process described a few posts earlier:
Go through Guided Setup with the current drive so it can download software updates. Then install the 4TB drive, let the TiVo install its software, and then when it gets to Guided Setup; turn the TiVo off, put the drive into your PC and run the 'MFSR' software (found in the TiVo Underground forum here) to re-format the drive, and then put it back in the Roamio Pro.

*2b) Can I use a Seagate Video hard drive instead of WD?*
TBD

*3) How do I preserve / restore my OnePass info?*
Is it restored automatically from the online.tivo.com 'cloud' service?
TBD

*4) How do I preserve / restore ... (ratings? Thumbs? What else?)*
TBD


----------



## krkaufman

ShoutingMan said:


> How do I upgrade the Hard Drive in my Roamio Plus?


If you're just trying to go from the Plus' stock 1TB HDD to a 3TB drive, I would think that MFS Tools 3.2 is your best option, as it should preserve everything, including premium/copy-once recordings.

See: MFS Tools 3.2


----------



## ThAbtO

ShoutingMan said:


> Presumably, I could run Windows 10 in Parallels and use KMTTG.


KMTTG will run on a Mac without Windows, Almost any OS works, all it needs to run is Java.


----------



## delgadobb

ShoutingMan said:


> I apologize, but I'm going to ask the questions that have been asked dozens of times, and all are lost in this remarkable but 100+ page thread. But I'll do it in the form of a mini-guide, and hopefully aggregate the info for others' benefit
> 
> *2b) Can I use a Seagate Video hard drive instead of WD?*


While quality MAY have improved in the interim, my trust level is destroyed with Seagate. They used to have great drives, then their quality control took a dive. I had 3 consecutive 5900 RPM drives that were supposed to be well-suited for this purpose die in Tivos - the only drives that I've had die in a Tivo. One might have been random chance, but 3 of them in different boxes? No thanks.

Otherwise, I've successfully used 1 Hitachi, 1 Samsung & (primarily) a bunch of WD drives in my Tivos & all have done great. At this point, I'd use one of the recommended WD drives unless (a) you already have a drive that may work lying around & (b) you don't mind if it goes belly-up & you lose your recordings. I *always* want to save a buck but in this case I'd recommend paying a few bucks extra if necessary for WD. Much better track record.

On a side note, I'm finally gonna get around to using MFSR to install a 5 TB WD drive from Black Friday that was $88 (a myBook external that I'll rip apart, sounds like it may be a 'Blue' drive from others' comments, funny that external deals are better than internal ...) This is for my refurbished Roamio base w/lifetime ($299), largely a backup machine (no cablecard) that'll get used for OTA & like a mini on steroids (to stream/transfer from other Tivos), so if I have a drive problem I can recover.

Sounds like this will give me about 800 HD hrs & 5500 SD hours, ought to be a lot of fun filling that much!


----------



## ShoutingMan

ThAbtO said:


> KMTTG will run on a Mac without Windows, Almost any OS works, all it needs to run is Java.


Thanks. I thought it was Windows specific. The screenshots on its website are Windows. Didn't realize it was a Java app.


----------



## ShoutingMan

krkaufman said:


> If you're just trying to go from the Plus' stock 1TB HDD to a 3TB drive, I would think that MFS Tools 3.2 is your best option, as it should preserve everything, including premium/copy-once recordings.
> 
> See: MFS Tools 3.2


Can a hard drive be done without MFS Tools? That tool brings in a whole new set of questions and confusion. I don't see a guide for doing a transfer with it. And there are details: how do I connect a bare drive to my iMac and how do I run MFS Tools on a Mac?

Perhaps it's manageable. But hopefully there's a straightforward solution that doesn't require something like MFS Tools.


----------



## phox_mulder

dmurphy said:


> That drive should work great.
> 
> Easy cheesy... open the TiVo, install the new drive in place of the old one, close 'er back up. Nothing else to do.
> 
> Only "difficult" thing is that you'll need Torx screwdrivers as the TiVo uses Torx bits instead of phillips head screws.
> 
> Easy to do - no fear!


One caveat, some Roamio's use a smaller torx bit than previous TiVo models, maybe it's only the OTA and Roamio Basic.
I have 2 set's of torx bits from previous Weaknees upgrades, and they were too big to upgrade my Roamio OTA, had to run to Home Depot and get a smaller one.
T-8 I think. (and maybe a T-10 or T-15?)

phox


----------



## lessd

phox_mulder said:


> One caveat, some Roamio's use a smaller torx bit than previous TiVo models, maybe it's only the OTA and Roamio Basic.
> I have 2 set's of torx bits from previous Weaknees upgrades, and they were too big to upgrade my Roamio OTA, had to run to Home Depot and get a smaller one.
> T-8 I think. (and maybe a T-10 or T-15?)
> 
> phox


Roamio basic used a T8, T10, and T15, another Roamio just uses the T10 and T15


----------



## Chuck_IV

Just ordered the 4tb EZRX for $125 from Amazon for my Roamio Plus. Gonna be adding my daughter to it via a mini for Christmas and wanted to add additional space. 

Had a hard time finding the EURX in a 4tb for a good price. I see many have used the EZRX so I'm thinking this should be ok. I know I will need to use the formatter tool on it but it seems easy enough these days.

I am wondering tho, I am on the priority update list for the new software update coming this week. I am wondering how that will play into things with the formatter as I am not scheduled to receive the drive till Wednesday.


----------



## ThAbtO

Chuck_IV said:


> Just ordered the 4tb EZRX for $125 from Amazon for my Roamio Plus. Gonna be adding my daughter to it via a mini for Christmas and wanted to add additional space.
> 
> Had a hard time finding the EURX in a 4tb for a good price. I see many have used the EZRX so I'm thinking this should be ok. I know I will need to use the formatter tool on it but it seems easy enough these days.
> 
> I am wondering tho, I am on the priority update list for the new software update coming this week. I am wondering how that will play into things with the formatter as I am not scheduled to receive the drive till Wednesday.


The Tivo software does not reside on the drive on Roamio and should be up to date or it may not read the drives larger than 3TB.

A new Tivo will get updated in the software on the 4th or so Tivo connection.Current version is 20.5.2b.

I used a 4TB Red WD drive for 636 HD Hrs. Its very quiet.

Amazon has it for about $139 now, I paid more.


----------



## Dssguy1

ThAbtO said:


> The Tivo software does not reside on the drive on Roamio and should be up to date or it may not read the drives larger than 3TB.
> 
> A new Tivo will get updated in the software on the 4th or so Tivo connection.Current version is 20.5.2b.
> 
> I used a 4TB Red WD drive for 636 HD Hrs. Its very quiet.
> 
> Amazon has it for about $139 now, I paid more.


I need to upgrade my drive as well. Probably go for the 4TB also.


----------



## grimlock

So which of the drive should I go for? and are these the correct models to upgrade my Roamio?

WD Green $200 http://www.frys.com/product/8297926?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

or

WD Red $240 http://www.amazon.com/Red-Desktop-H...ie=UTF8&qid=1448974206&sr=1-4&keywords=wd+red

Thanks in advance!

Edit- Someone in another thread posted that WD Green drives were being rolled into Blue drives. Is this true? And if so, does that mean I should consider this- http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Desktop-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B013HNYVCE

This seems so confusing!


----------



## grimlock

I ended up ordering the WD Red 6TB based on recommendations in another discussion.


----------



## jetcobra

I have my new Roamio and a WD BLUE EZRZ 3TB HDD to update it.

I wanted to check the park timing, so I checked the WD 3TB HDD on my PC to make sure it recognized it - it did. Then I booted the PC with my boot CD and opened wdidle3 and it says it does not recognize the drive (I disconnected the PC's primary drive). I rechecked that the PC recognized the WD HDD in a regular boot up and it recognizes it as drive E:.

Has anyone had this problem? If so what was done to make the HDD recognizable?

Thanks


----------



## unitron

jetcobra said:


> I have my new Roamio and a WD BLUE EZRZ 3TB HDD to update it.
> 
> I wanted to check the park timing, so I checked the WD 3TB HDD on my PC to make sure it recognized it - it did. Then I booted the PC with my boot CD and opened wdidle3 and it says it does not recognize the drive (I disconnected the PC's primary drive). I rechecked that the PC recognized the WD HDD in a regular boot up and it recognizes it as drive E:.
> 
> Has anyone had this problem? If so what was done to make the HDD recognizable?
> 
> Thanks


Did you have that new drive connected directly to the PC motherboard, rather than through a USB adapter?

If so, did you run

wdidle3 /S

to get the status of whatever drives it found before trying

wdidle3 /D

or anything like that?

If so, then it's likely that what's it's trying to tell you is that the Blue WD models aren't set up to be able to run Intellipark (I'm pretty sure none of the WD drives are, except the Green ones), although it might have had to use the error message it had available that most closely fit the situation rather than one that expressed things perfectly.


----------



## jmbach

Also may need to change BIOS to IDE or compatibility mode rather than SATA, RAID, or AHCI mode.


----------



## krkaufman

grimlock said:


> WD Red $240 http://www.amazon.com/Red-Desktop-H...ie=UTF8&qid=1448974206&sr=1-4&keywords=wd+red


*WD Red 6TB* available via Newegg for $240, supposedly through Dec.7, with *promo code 1201CWHDD02*

See Newegg product listing, here.


----------



## steff3

Apologies...I know I had asked this somewhere shortly before getting my Roamio Basic a couple months ago but can't seem to find it now....
I just received my WD30EURX to replace in my Roamio. My current drive is 50% full so I m moving everything over to my plus until after the replacement is installed. I know its time consuming but just am not confident in using the advised tools on my PC. My question is, using this method of just transferring back and forth to and from my Plus, will my 1P's be saved when I replace the Roamio stock drive with the 3TB drive or will I need to recreate them?


----------



## Chuck_IV

When I upgraded yesterday only 4 of my 12 one passes were still there. Luckily I had saved my list using KMTTG. I just copied the missing ones back from KMTTG to the Roamio.

KMTTG is really easy to use. Just go to the remote tab and select your Roamio and refresh, then click save and it will save the onepass list. To copy back, open the list, highlight the ones you want and click copy.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## grimlock212

krkaufman said:


> *WD Red 6TB* available via Newegg for $240, supposedly through Dec.7, with *promo code 1201CWHDD02*
> 
> See Newegg product listing, here.


Exactly the same $240 deal as the one I linked with Amazon. I went with Amazon since I'm a Prime member and I get free 2-day shipping. Though newegg.com may be preferable to some!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## steff3

Chuck_IV said:


> When I upgraded yesterday only 4 of my 12 one passes were still there. Luckily I had saved my list using KMTTG. I just copied the missing ones back from KMTTG to the Roamio.
> 
> KMTTG is really easy to use. Just go to the remote tab and select your Roamio and refresh, then click save and it will save the onepass list. To copy back, open the list, highlight the ones you want and click copy.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


Thanks but I thought KTMMG was only for coming from the Roamio to PC but not back to the Roamio...am I missing something (I am sure I am )?


----------



## Teeps

Any update with regard to clone existing hdd to a larger hdd.
Then expand larger hdd, while saving existing recordings?


----------



## HarperVision

steff3 said:


> Thanks but I thought KTMMG was only for coming from the Roamio to PC but not back to the Roamio...am I missing something (I am sure I am )?


That's true for recordings but you can go both ways with the text based Season Pass/OnePass lists.


----------



## krkaufman

grimlock212 said:


> *Exactly the same $240 deal *as the one I linked with Amazon. I went with Amazon since I'm a Prime member and I get free 2-day shipping. Though newegg.com may be preferable to some!


I think you're looking for the word "price" as they're different deals via different companies -- and the Amazon price/deal has expired. So, yeah, some people might benefit from knowing about the Newegg option.

I'd have preferred going with Amazon, as well, for the same reason, but the $10 difference and the current *"Arrives before Christmas" *delivery estimate on the Amazon product description page compelled me to go the Newegg route.


----------



## grimlock

krkaufman said:


> I think you're looking for the word "price" as they're different deals via different companies -- and the Amazon price/deal has expired.
> 
> I'd have preferred going with Amazon, as well, for the same reason, but the $10 difference and the current *"Arrives before Christmas" *delivery estimate on the Amazon product description page compelled me to go the Newegg route.


Thanks for the grammar correction, I am always looking for those online!


----------



## krkaufman

grimlock said:


> Thanks for the grammar correction, I am always looking for those online!


Yeah, it wasn't really a grammar correction, since your post seemed to communicate that people could simply choose between the two "deals." (i.e. Your content was incorrect.)


----------



## Chuck_IV

lessd said:


> Roamio basic used a T8, T10, and T15, another Roamio just uses the T10 and T15


I did my Roamio Plus upgrade yesterday and all the screws, including the drive screws, were T10.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## steff3

Is there a secret to getting the case off? I removed the 2 screws from the back but the case doesn't seem to want to budge. I know..I'm lame but help please......


----------



## ThAbtO

steff3 said:


> Is there a secret to getting the case off? I removed the 2 screws from the back but the case doesn't seem to want to budge. I know..I'm lame but help please......


I only removed 1 screw near the center. 
I then used a prying tool to get the sides apart. The front is just like a hinge that comes apart when swung out.


----------



## steff3

krkaufman said:


> Was that a Roamio Plus/Pro or basic/OTA model?


The one I am trying to open is a Basic


----------



## ThAbtO

Basic.


----------



## krkaufman

steff3 said:


> Is there a secret to getting the case off? I removed the 2 screws from the back but the case doesn't seem to want to budge. I know..I'm lame but help please......


For a base/OTA Roamio, I believe the trick is using a spudger, credit card, guitar pick, etc to help detach the top shell from the clips holding it to the case. (I recently used one of those fake Comcast pre-paid cards they include in special offers.) You just start from the rear and slowly slide it around, disconnecting each clip.

Oh, and I think the base Roamio only needs a single screw removed, dead center on the back of the unit, near the top.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10657417#post10657417
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10654224#post10654224


----------



## steff3

krkaufman said:


> For a base/OTA Roamio, I believe the trick is using a spudger, credit card, guitar pick, etc to help detach the top shell from the clips holding it to the case. (I recently used one of those fake Comcast pre-paid cards they include in special offers.) You just start from the rear and slowly slide it around, disconnecting each clip.


Got it! Thank you. I was afraid it was going to break so was being to gentle I guess but it's off now...thanks again!!!!!!!


----------



## krkaufman

steff3 said:


> Got it! Thank you. I was afraid it was going to break so was being to gentle I guess but it's off now...thanks again!!!!!!!


Thanks for letting us know; I was just about to open-up my Woot spare OTA to verify.

edit: p.s. I opened it up, anyway, to verify that it *is* just that *single T8 screw in the middle of the back panel that needs to be removed* for the base/OTA Roamios. (Contrary to the image in the first post, which says you need to remove 2 screws.)


----------



## ThAbtO

krkaufman said:


> Thanks for letting us know; I was just about to open-up my Woot spare OTA to verify.
> 
> edit: p.s. I opened it up, anyway, to verify that it *is* just that *single T8 screw in the middle of the back panel that needs to be removed* for the base/OTA Roamios. (Contrary to the image in the first post, which says you need to remove 2 screws.)


Yes, I only removed just that center screw, left the other one alone.


----------



## steff3

Yep..I realized that afterwards..also the hdd bracket is T10

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk


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## Robbo1

WD-Red 3TB on sale for $99 this weekend at Newegg w/Free Shipping. Use promo code-- ESCKNAS23

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-_-DesktopInternalHardDrives-_-22236344-S1A1B


----------



## ShoutingMan

I want to upgrade my TiVo Roamio Plus hard drive from its 1 TB drive. If I want to only plug-and-play (no drive formatting / manipulations with tools like MFSR), am I limited to 3 TB maximum? I'm ready to order, once I've got the right drive chosen.

What drive(s) are recommended? Going back to the beginning, what I understood was I need to use a WD AV drive:
 Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III

But here at the end of the thread I see folks buying WD Red drives. Are the Red drives better?
WD Red 3TB NAS

If I can plug-and-plug a 4TB drive (my ideal size / price option), will the 4TB Red work?
WD Red 4TB NAS

Thanks!


----------



## grimlock212

People prefer the WD Red due to the 3 year warranty. The Roamio Pro comes with a WD Green from the factory. 

From what I can tell, either works just fine. 

You are limited to 3tb without swapping and formatting on your PC. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## grimlock212

Also, I believe this is the one you want if you go with the Green-

Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RORMF6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_RTpzwb8SRSVPQ

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## grimlock212

I will also add that going with a larger drive 4tb - 6tb isn't too hard. As long as you don't have really bad luck like I did with my first WD drive that arrived dead. 

I think I could do the swap now with a 6tb drive in about 15 minutes (assuming the TiVo is already updated to the current software). 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## ShoutingMan

grimlock212 said:


> Also, I believe this is the one you want if you go with the Green-
> 
> Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB Cache Bare/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD30EZRX https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RORMF6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_RTpzwb8SRSVPQ


I'd seen an earlier post that advised the AV-GP, as it was what ships in the TiVo. But I'm seeing folks buying the EZRX and the Red. If all's equal, I'll buy the Red.



grimlock212 said:


> I will also add that going with a larger drive 4tb - 6tb isn't too hard. As long as you don't have really bad luck like I did with my first WD drive that arrived dead.
> 
> I think I could do the swap now with a 6tb drive in about 15 minutes (assuming the TiVo is already updated to the current software).


Upgrading to 4TB would be nice. But I've scanned the MFSR and JMFS (?) threads, and there's no tutorial. Just hundreds of posts on questions and man-page-like listings. I can't find a succinct explanation of how to do whatever needs to be done. If there's a summary you can point me to on how to upgrade with a 4TB drive, that would be awesome!


----------



## krkaufman

ShoutingMan said:


> Upgrading to 4TB would be nice. But I've scanned the MFSR and JMFS (?) threads, and there's no tutorial. Just hundreds of posts on questions and man-page-like listings. I can't find a succinct explanation of how to do whatever needs to be done. If there's a summary you can point me to on how to upgrade with a 4TB drive, that would be awesome!


The OP in the MFSR thread seems pretty succinct. See "THE BASICS" section.

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10501028#post10501028


----------



## ShoutingMan

krkaufman said:


> The OP in the MFSR thread seems pretty succinct. See "THE BASICS" section.
> 
> http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10501028#post10501028


Thanks. I think I was so confused by what the options of upgrading a TiVo hard drive, that I missed the forest for trees and overlooked that summary. Reading it now, with context, it makes more sense to me.


----------



## foghorn2

FYI, eventually there will be no more Green Drives. All new ones will be Blue.

Who knows how the new Blues will hold up in Tivos, so again it looks like the Reds would be the best choice once all the Greens are gone.


----------



## grimlock212

Reds were significantly more expensive when I was shopping. A WD Green 6tb is $200 at Fry's. The lowest I could find on a WD Red 6tb was $249. 

My opinion is to go with the largest drive. You only want to upgrade this once, so why skimp to save a few bucks? I get just under 1,000 hours of HD storage with the 6tb. That means I can store an entire series like Game of Thrones and it takes a small part of my drive space. I like that!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## grimlock212

ShoutingMan said:


> Thanks. I think I was so confused by what the options of upgrading a TiVo hard drive, that I missed the forest for trees and overlooked that summary. Reading it now, with context, it makes more sense to me.


Just make sure you use the program he lists on the 2nd post, not the first. Both will work, but there are improvements on the 2nd post version.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## ThAbtO

I have like 800 shows and its only about 55% full now on the 4TB Red drive.


----------



## jmerr74

ShoutingMan said:


> I want to upgrade my TiVo Roamio Plus hard drive from its 1 TB drive. If I want to only plug-and-play (no drive formatting / manipulations with tools like MFSR), am I limited to 3 TB maximum? I'm ready to order, once I've got the right drive chosen.
> 
> What drive(s) are recommended? Going back to the beginning, what I understood was I need to use a WD AV drive:
> Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III
> 
> But here at the end of the thread I see folks buying WD Red drives. Are the Red drives better?
> WD Red 3TB NAS
> 
> If I can plug-and-plug a 4TB drive (my ideal size / price option), will the 4TB Red work?
> WD Red 4TB NAS
> 
> Thanks!


I personally picked up a 3TB Green Drive on eBay for $60, it arrived dead, I sent it back to WD and they sent me back a brand new one. Installation was a complete breeze, took me 10 minutes max.


----------



## ShoutingMan

Assuming this would work via Win/Parallels, I'd need an adapter.

Any recommendations between drive-dock adapter, like this
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FDLCTQO...olid=UWXABWV8IJ76&coliid=I2IYQUU03EYAWQ&psc=1

or cable-based:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CPGYNV4...colid=UWXABWV8IJ76&coliid=I5V7HM9J8ENUS&psc=1


----------



## lpwcomp

ShoutingMan said:


> Assuming this would work via Win/Parallels, I'd need an adapter.
> 
> Any recommendations between drive-dock adapter, like this
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FDLCTQO...olid=UWXABWV8IJ76&coliid=I2IYQUU03EYAWQ&psc=1
> 
> or cable-based:
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CPGYNV4...colid=UWXABWV8IJ76&coliid=I5V7HM9J8ENUS&psc=1


If your computer has USB 3.0, then the dock would definitely be better.


----------



## ShoutingMan

lpwcomp said:


> If your computer has USB 3.0, then the dock would definitely be better.


Thanks. my iMac is only USB 2.0, but the wife's is newer with USB 3.0. So I can get the dock and have some options.


----------



## ShoutingMan

3TB WD Red drive and Torx driver set ordered.

(I was thinking of going with the 4TB drive. But that required buying a $20 external drive adapter. The price/storage value wasn't compelling then comparing a $110/3TB vs $170/4TB effective prices. And I do think 3TB is good for me. 4TB would have been more good  but not worth the extra cost and extra step of MFSR.)


----------



## ThAbtO

ShoutingMan said:


> or cable-based:
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CPGYNV4...colid=UWXABWV8IJ76&coliid=I5V7HM9J8ENUS&psc=1


This one worked for me using a laptop with Win7. All it took was about 5 min.


----------



## Mr Tony

Kind of a stupid question

On my Roamio OTA it still has the stock 500GB drive. I had installed a WD 2TB green AV internal drive in my Series3 (with lifetime) but that took a major dump. Can I just take the 2TB drive out of the Series3 and install it into the Roamio and it should work?

Or do I need to format it on the computer first? Or what should I do? The 2TB drive is only a couple months old so I want to use it.


----------



## ThAbtO

unclehonkey said:


> Kind of a stupid question
> 
> On my Roamio OTA it still has the stock 500GB drive. I had installed a WD 2TB green AV internal drive in my Series3 (with lifetime) but that took a major dump. Can I just take the 2TB drive out of the Series3 and install it into the Roamio and it should work?
> 
> Or do I need to format it on the computer first? Or what should I do? The 2TB drive is only a couple months old so I want to use it.


It should work but you would lose everything on it that was recorded prior. But, I believe either the drive or the power supply (or both) failed on you.

Otherwise, you could just swap out from the original Roamio drive.


----------



## BartmanJax

Quick "noob" question.

I have a Roamio OTA on the way. I also have a WD 3TB WD30EURX being delivered from Amazon.

Should I install the new drive before I plug it in the first time register the unit or should I register first and then install the new drive? Or does it really matter?

TIA...


----------



## Dixon Butz

BartmanJax said:


> Quick "noob" question.
> 
> I have a Roamio OTA on the way. I also have a WD 3TB WD30EURX being delivered from Amazon.
> 
> Should I install the new drive before I plug it in the first time register the unit or should I register first and then install the new drive? Or does it really matter?
> 
> TIA...


It doesn't matter. I just dropped in the HD before turning it on. It save a lot of time. Updates take too long.


----------



## lpwcomp

Dixon Butz said:


> It doesn't matter. I just dropped in the HD before turning it on. It save a lot of time. Updates take too long.


Excellent idea. Void the warranty before you make sure it's working and drop in an untested drive. After all, neither TiVos nor hard drives _*ever*_ arrive DOA.


----------



## jonw747

The AV/GP drives are designed to be used in a DVR, if you can find the size you want that should be your first choice.

The Red drives are designed for RAID arrays and because of that will not perform retries endlessly on a bad sector. This is a desirable feature for a DVR, so they're #2.

At least that was my take-away...

Go check out the Upgrade section of the message board for more info.


----------



## plazman30

Hello all. About to try and upgrade Roamio and am looking for HD options. I hopped to the end of this thread nsaw the recommendation for WD Green and Red drives.

I am not a huge fan of Western Digital drives. I have had 3 fail on me over the years.

Is there any issue with using a Seagate drive in a Roamio?


----------



## plazman30

Hello all. About to try and upgrade Roamio and am looking for HD options. I hopped to the end of this thread nsaw the recommendation for WD Green and Red drives.

I am not a huge fan of Western Digital drives. I have had 3 fail on me over the years.

Is there any issue with using a Seagate drive in a Roamio?


----------



## jmbach

Probably not. Main issues would be power draw and heat. Have not looked at the specs recently but at last peek, Seagate drew more power than WD. 

Some of the base Roamios had a 500GB Seagate AV drive in them.


----------



## plazman30

What about hard drive speed? The red drives are 5400 RPM. The green drives are 7200 RPM. Does that make a difference in a TiVo?


----------



## ThAbtO

plazman30 said:


> What about hard drive speed? The red drives are 5400 RPM. The green drives are 7200 RPM. Does that make a difference in a TiVo?


More power consumed, more heat created. Are you sure the green drives are 7200? Most should be about 5400.


----------



## plazman30

ThAbtO said:


> More power consumed, more heat created. Are you sure the green drives are 7200? Most should be about 5400.


The Green Desktop is 7200 RPM. The Green AV appears to be 5900 RPM.

In my experience. the lower the RPM, the longer the drive lasts.

10,000 RPM server drives fail all the time.


----------



## ThAbtO

Tivo prefers the green AV drives, ie: WD10EURX/S


----------



## aaronwt

plazman30 said:


> The Green Desktop is 7200 RPM. The Green AV appears to be 5900 RPM.
> 
> In my experience. the lower the RPM, the longer the drive lasts.
> 
> 10,000 RPM server drives fail all the time.


The green drives are rated as using Intellipower for speed. They are not 7200 rpm drives. They use the same amount of power as the Red drives which also use the same as the AV drives. Green, Red, and AV are all listed as using Intellipower which is not 7200 rpm. Their 7200 rpm drives use much more power.

I just put a 3TB green drive in a Roamio Basic. It was the only WD drive I had on hand. One of my GFs S3 (OLED) boxes took a dump and it was quickest to give her a Roamio instead of my old Premiere. Since the uprgade process is quicker with the Roamio. I just used msfrs on the drive and it was good to go.

Now I need to upgrade her wireless router in anticipation of the second S3 taking a dump. Then I will give her a mini and run it over Wifi.


----------



## plazman30

aaronwt said:


> The green drives are rated as using Intellipower for speed. They are not 7200 rpm drives. They use the same amount of power as the Red drives which also use the same as the AV drives. Green, Red, and AV are all listed as using Intellipower which is not 7200 rpm. Their 7200 rpm drives use much more power.
> 
> I just put a 3TB green drive in a Roamio Basic. It was the only WD drive I had on hand. One of my GFs S3 (OLED) boxes took a dump and it was quickest to give her a Roamio instead of my old Premiere. Since the uprgade process is quicker with the Roamio. I just used msfrs on the drive and it was good to go.
> 
> Now I need to upgrade her wireless router in anticipation of the second S3 taking a dump. Then I will give her a mini and run it over Wifi.


Why did you use msfrs on a 3 TB drive. I thought the Roamio can use a 3 TB natively?


----------



## aaronwt

plazman30 said:


> Why did you use msfrs on a 3 TB drive. I thought the Roamio can use a 3 TB natively?


It aligns the advanced format drives providing less wear and tear and better performance. (something like that anyway)

Although I think 2TB is the minimum size. I remember I couldn't use it with the 1TB Red I out in my other Basic.


----------



## jonw747

aaronwt said:


> It aligns the advanced format drives providing less wear and tear and better performance. (something like that anyway)
> 
> Although I think 2TB is the minimum size. I remember I couldn't use it with the 1TB Red I out in my other Basic.


Yep, in theory, the TiVo might have to perform 2 writes when only 1 write would have gotten the job done due to the misalignment problem, but drive caching may eliminate the inefficiency in common usage.

The Seagate Archive drives use a new type of "shingled" technology that hasn't been tested long-term in DVRs. Personally, I'd avoid them, but they're currently the best option to get a lot of HD space in the Bolt which needs a 2.5" HD.

The difference between the Green and the Red drive is something that would only come in to play as the HD ages and develops bad spots. The Green drive will tend to hang up playback trying to read the bad spot, while the Red drive will more quickly move on. The later will result in a quick video glitch, but it's preferable that the HD just move on past the bad sector and get back to work reading AND writing.

I'd imagine an Archive drives would be configured to perform tons of retries.


----------



## ggieseke

aaronwt said:


> It aligns the advanced format drives providing less wear and tear and better performance. (something like that anyway)
> 
> Although I think 2TB is the minimum size. I remember I couldn't use it with the 1TB Red I out in my other Basic.


3TB is the minimum with mfsr because it still takes two MFS media zones under 2TiB to fill up the drive. I could change that, but it would add a LOT more code and my only goal was to break the 3TB barrier.


----------



## aaronwt

ggieseke said:


> 3TB is the minimum with mfsr because it still takes two MFS media zones under 2TiB to fill up the drive. I could change that, but it would add a LOT more code and my only goal was to break the 3TB barrier.


I couldn't remember. Thanks. It worked fine without any problems with the 3TB green drive. The process is very quick. I've used it a bunch of times now with the Bolt and Roamio and I greatly appreciate your efforts.


----------



## steve220

Greetings All,

I am a total Tivo newbie.
I plan on purchasing a Roamio Plus 1 TB for use on Verizon FIOS.

I have read most of this thread about upgrading the HD, and the recommendations against purchasing a WD Purple drive for use in the Tivo.
I have a brand new 4 TB Purple drive left over from a DVR repair project.
Should I just go ahead and use this drive or is it entirely unsuitable for Tivo use.
Because I don't have to buy the drive, how does it effect opinions on its use.

I have no objections to buying a red/green/ whatever drive if thats the best route,

Looking for some opinions from people who know more than me about all of this.

Thanks


----------



## plazman30

aaronwt said:


> It aligns the advanced format drives providing less wear and tear and better performance. (something like that anyway)
> 
> Although I think 2TB is the minimum size. I remember I couldn't use it with the 1TB Red I out in my other Basic.


It doesn't cost anything to run it, other than time. I already have a SATA to USB 2.0 dock. So, I guess I'll run it on the 3 TB before I put it inside the Roamio tomorrow.


----------



## delgadobb

Although I haven't always had a great history with WD drives, in recent history (i.e. last several years) they've been quite good. All of my problems with WD drives were closer to 10 years ago. 

As a point of reference, the only drive I've had fail in a TIVO has been Seagate. Not one but THREE & all were 5900 RPM & supposed to be matched to this kind of situation. Years ago, Imprimis then Seagate was top-notch; I loved their stuff when I was managing large networks & doing IT stuff. Now, I'm not sure if you could GIVE me a Seagate & have me use it. My trust with them has eroded that badly. (The three drives that failed were within the 3-year warranty. By the time the runaround dance to claim warranty completed we were just past the 3 year mark & they used that as an excuse not to honor it. Never again, Seagate.)

More recently, I bought a stock Roamio pro, have used 2 WD green AV drives for upgrades & the latest was a Red in a Roamio OTA lifetime - working great so far!


----------



## unitron

steve220 said:


> Greetings All,
> 
> I am a total Tivo newbie.
> I plan on purchasing a Roamio Plus 1 TB for use on Verizon FIOS.
> 
> I have read most of this thread about upgrading the HD, and the recommendations against purchasing a WD Purple drive for use in the Tivo.
> I have a brand new 4 TB Purple drive left over from a DVR repair project.
> Should I just go ahead and use this drive or is it entirely unsuitable for Tivo use.
> Because I don't have to buy the drive, how does it effect opinions on its use.
> 
> I have no objections to buying a red/green/ whatever drive if thats the best route,
> 
> Looking for some opinions from people who know more than me about all of this.
> 
> Thanks


This post:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10224351#post10224351

will introduce you to the TCF member who seems to have spent the most time studying on the "use a Purple in a TiVo or not" question.

You may find user nooneuknow a bit abrasive at times, but he usually knows quite well what he's talking about when it comes to hard drives.


----------



## unitron

nooneuknow

talks more about red and green and purple on this page:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=507695&page=68


----------



## foghorn2

nooneuknow is a tcf legend, wish he could come up from under his rock, it way to boring without him


----------



## ggieseke

foghorn2 said:


> nooneuknow is a tcf legend, wish he could come up from under his rock, it way to boring without him


The work he put in researching Red & Purple drives is pretty awesome. 

I haven't had any problems with the 4TB Red in my basic Roamio so far, and that's probably due to the fact that I burned it in with several "write zero" passes before putting it in my TiVo to identify any weak sectors that TLER could hide.

If I had to sum up what I've learned from him (a lot) about how drives and operating systems interact, it's to stay away from Purple drives (for TiVos) and test the crap out of everything else. Happy holidays, dude.


----------



## krkaufman

ggieseke said:


> I haven't had any problems with the 4TB Red in my basic Roamio so far, and that's probably due to the fact that I burned it in with several "write zero" passes before putting it in my TiVo to identify any weak sectors that TLER could hide.


Did you just use WD's Lifeguard tools for the "write zero" operation?


----------



## boyet_m

steve220 said:


> Greetings All,
> 
> I am a total Tivo newbie.
> I plan on purchasing a Roamio Plus 1 TB for use on Verizon FIOS.
> 
> I have read most of this thread about upgrading the HD, and the recommendations against purchasing a WD Purple drive for use in the Tivo.
> I have a brand new 4 TB Purple drive left over from a DVR repair project.
> Should I just go ahead and use this drive or is it entirely unsuitable for Tivo use.
> Because I don't have to buy the drive, how does it effect opinions on its use.
> 
> I have no objections to buying a red/green/ whatever drive if thats the best route,
> 
> Looking for some opinions from people who know more than me about all of this.
> 
> Thanks


I just dropped a new wd green drive in my new roamio basic. Planning to do the same on my lifetimed roamio ota


----------



## ggieseke

krkaufman said:


> Did you just use WD's Lifeguard tools for the "write zero" operation?


Yes.


----------



## jonw747

steve220 said:


> I have no objections to buying a red/green/ whatever drive if thats the best route,
> 
> Looking for some opinions from people who know more than me about all of this.


Typically the goal is to avoid HD flakiness and failures to provide smooth recording/viewing over the longest possible time. In that case, you want a drive that will run cool, not over-tax the power supply, and when bad spots develop over time you want the drive to not keep glitching on that same spot for seconds on end.

For the longest/best performance you need to go with what's been qualified ... the WD AV/GP drive (for instance). If you really want extra space, then go with the WD Red 6TB. It has NOT been officially qualified, but there isn't an AV/GP HD bigger than 3TB and the Red drives seem closest because their power consumption/heat is similar and it comes pre-configured to fail quickly on a bad spot.

It's not that the Purple or Green drives won't work, they are hard drives after all, but if you bought a TiVo you most likely care about reliability and the long-term performance and health of your DVR.


----------



## ShoutingMan

I can't transfer shows back after a hard drive upgrade. Any suggestions?

I installed a WD Red 3TB drive in my Roamio Plus today. (Opened the TiVo and swapped drives. Didn't involve MFSR.) That went smoothly, with a call to Verizon to re-pair the cable card (so FOX channels would work). I used KMTTG to transfer back the OnePasses and Thumbs data.

I'd downloaded my shows using the latest version of cTiVo, and I've got pyTiVo running on my Mac. I'm transferring from the TiVo, navigating to the pyTiVo entry in My Shows and pulling shows from there. (I've previously transferred shows this way successfully.) But now, after transferring a show, when I select it in the Tivo's My Shows list, it brings up an Unexpected Problem (C501) error. I can't even delete; I have to user Archivo to remove it remotely.

However, I can watch a show while it transfers. But I can't access it from the My Shows list. I've seen this error a few times when playing around, but this is the first time it's happened for every show I try to transfer.

Is this an artifact of replacing the hard drive? This isn't a complete killer, but it's certainly a nuisance. Any suggestions on correcting this problem are appreciated


----------



## ShoutingMan

ShoutingMan said:


> I can't transfer shows back after a hard drive upgrade. Any suggestions?
> 
> ...


I just found the pyTiVo push feature. That is working so far.  but


----------



## jonw747

Did you try pushing any of the recordings back to the original drive when that was connected? Maybe you captured the recordings in a format not meant to be transferred back?


----------



## ShoutingMan

jonw747 said:


> Did you try pushing any of the recordings back to the original drive when that was connected? Maybe you captured the recordings in a format not meant to be transferred back?


They were downloaded in unencrypted TiVo format, which I've used previously.

Fortunately, it's working to "push" from the pytivo web interface (vice pulling from the TiVo).


----------



## ShoutingMan

I detailed my Roamio Plus upgrade with photos over at HTF.

Thanks for all the input and suggestions here! So far, it's been a pretty easy and successful upgrade.


----------



## jabingb

My apologies for not sloughing through ~108 pages of this thread, a quick simple question: 

I just ordered a 3TB green drive to replace the 500GB in my new Roamio. Do I need to do anything special to use ALL of the 3TB, eg mfsr, etc? Thx


----------



## ThAbtO

jabingb said:


> My apologies for not sloughing through ~108 pages of this thread, a quick simple question:
> 
> I just ordered a 3TB green drive to replace the 500GB in my new Roamio. Do I need to do anything special to use ALL of the 3TB, eg mfsr, etc? Thx


Not really.


----------



## krkaufman

ShoutingMan said:


> I detailed my Roamio Plus upgrade with photos over at HTF.


Good on you for spreading the word. One bit of feedback would be that I don't see mentioned that you need to take special care when putting the lid/cover back onto a Roamio Plus/Pro to ensure that the side panels are properly and snugly attached to the side retaining hooks.



> 4TB would have been more good  but not worth the extra cost and *extra step of MFSR*.


MFSreformatter can barely be considered an extra step, it's so simple and quick -- provided you have a compatible adapter. (Fortunately, the eSATA/USB3 adapter I had on-hand worked with my 6TB WD Red drive.)

With shows restored (not including premiums, of course), we've already hit 52% on our 6TB Pro. Nice to have the extra headroom.


----------



## ShoutingMan

krkaufman said:


> Good on you for spreading the word. One bit of feedback would be that I don't see mentioned that you need to take special care when putting the lid/cover back onto a Roamio Plus/Pro to ensure that the side panels are properly and snugly attached to the side retaining hooks.
> 
> MFSreformatter can barely be considered an extra step, it's so simple and quick -- provided you have a compatible adapter. (Fortunately, the eSATA/USB3 adapter I had on-hand worked with my 6TB WD Red drive.)
> 
> With shows restored (not including premiums, of course), we've already hit 52% on our 6TB Pro. Nice to have the extra headroom.


Yes. The case cover was finicky getting off and then back on. I'll make a note of that.

MFSR per se might be easy. But I needed a $40 USB drive adapter which adds to the effective $$/TB upgrade cost. And there were comments about drive adapters may or may not work with a 4TB drive. And I had some uncertainty about whether this would be seamless via Windows running in Parallels on my Mac. And my system is USB2, which is said to slow the MSFR time from minutes to an hour(s).

I had enough small uncertainties that added up to a desire to go with a 'dummies' option with minimum potential hiccups and cost adders.


----------



## HerronScott

ShoutingMan said:


> MFSR per se might be easy. But I needed a $40 USB drive adapter which adds to the effective $$/TB upgrade cost. And there were comments about drive adapters may or may not work with a 4TB drive. And I had some uncertainty about whether this would be seamless via Windows running in Parallels on my Mac. And my system is USB2, which is said to slow the MSFR time from minutes to an hour(s).


I bought this dual drive adapter original to help replace a drive in my Windows Home Server but I also used it with MFS Reformatter on the 3TB drive that came with my Roamio Pro (and it's supposed to work with 4TB drives as well). It was $27 when I bought it but it's only $22 now. I did buy a longer/higher quality USB 3.0 cable as that appeared to be the only complaint about it.

http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Drive-Docking-Station-CL-ENC50038/dp/B005BCNAWW/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

Even with USB 2.0, an hour doesn't sound right. I found a post by one user in the MFS Reformatter thread which indicated it took 5 minutes with a USB 2.0 adapter.

Scott


----------



## ggieseke

MFSR writes less than 6GB to the drive. Even at USB 2.0 speeds it shouldn't take an hour. 20 minutes wouldn't surprise me if your computer doesn't have any USB 3.0 ports, but even under Parallels that should be the max.


----------



## grimlock212

Just plug the drive into your PC's motherboard with a SATA cable. No $40 adaptor necessary. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## HerronScott

ggieseke said:


> MFSR writes less than 6GB to the drive. Even at USB 2.0 speeds it shouldn't take an hour. 20 minutes wouldn't surprise me if your computer doesn't have any USB 3.0 ports, but even under Parallels that should be the max.


USB 2.0 should be able to transmit roughly 1.8GB to 2.1GB per minute (30-35Mbps effective throughout versus the maximum signaling throughput).

Scott


----------



## alanerickson

jabingb said:


> My apologies for not sloughing through ~108 pages of this thread, a quick simple question:
> 
> I just ordered a 3TB green drive to replace the 500GB in my new Roamio. Do I need to do anything special to use ALL of the 3TB, eg mfsr, etc? Thx





ThAbtO said:


> Not really.


I'm looking at adding a 3TB drive also. Wouldn't msfr need to be ran after installing the new drive in order for ALL of the drive to be available? If I'm only adding a 2TB drive is it still worth it to run msfr to "align" the drive? Thanks.


----------



## HerronScott

alanerickson said:


> I'm looking at adding a 3TB drive also. Wouldn't msfr need to be ran after installing the new drive in order for ALL of the drive to be available? If I'm only adding a 2TB drive is it still worth it to run msfr to "align" the drive? Thanks.


It doesn't work on 2TB drives (only 3TB and larger) and it's not necessary to use all of the drive with a 3TB drive but it will align it for you.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428

Scott


----------



## NashGuy

I noticed that NeweggFlash has the Seagate Pipeline 2TB HD (the same line as the 500GB drive that TiVo uses in the base Roamio/OTA) on sale until Tues. for $50 with free shipping:

http://www.neweggflash.com/Product/9SIA5AD2HT2468

From the specs I read, it looks like it uses slightly more power than the comparable DVR-specific Western Digital drive (AV-GP) but is still pretty low power.


----------



## NashGuy

I noticed that NeweggFlash has the Seagate Pipeline 2TB HD (the same line as the 500GB drive that TiVo uses in the base Roamio/OTA) on sale until Tues. for $50 with free shipping:

http://www.neweggflash.com/Product/9SIA5AD2HT2468

From the specs I read, it looks like it uses slightly more power than the comparable DVR-specific Western Digital drive (AV-GP) but is still pretty low power.


----------



## Hamstring

Can you still use the extender dvr if you upgrade the drive?


----------



## ChrisFix

jmbach said:


> I bought a LiteON Laptop Charger AC Adapter Power Supply PA-1041-71 12V 3.33A 40W for my Roamio Basic. Works well. The thought in this is that there would be increased power draw from the larger drives and the units power adapter may not be able to provide additional power needed causing system instability. There is no definitive proof of this only that some people experience some problems when they upgraded that went away with a power supply that can provide more power.


Just wanted to provide a data point for those interested in upgrading their Hard Drives.
I just installed a 5TB WD Green WD50EZRX IntelliPower drive in a Roamio Basic (and disabled the idle timer with WDIDLE3), and all was great for 24 hours, after which I had all the front panel lights flashing and the TiVo was stuck at the start up screen.
I had previously purchased a Woot OTA for spare parts and swapped the power brick, which immediately fixed the issue. 
I've since ordered the LiteON power brick from Amazon as I'm certain the 2A OEM brick isn't up to the task.

Edit: Jan 31, 2016 - The 3.3 amp LiteON power brick completely fixed the issue...a $25 dollar fix that is working perfectly (and the barrel plug fit the TiVo very well)


----------



## JoeKustra

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...fSybwCUrUniq2EJsw&sig2=C44XsDoKRGgp3Nwya1uKgQ

I guess I'll find out since I just installed one in my basic Roamio. My other basic Roamio has the WD10EURX (I had it on hand already), and no issues, but thanks for the power brick information.


----------



## mickinct

JoeKustra said:


> http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...fSybwCUrUniq2EJsw&sig2=C44XsDoKRGgp3Nwya1uKgQ
> 
> I guess I'll find out since I just installed one in my basic Roamio. My other basic Roamio has the WD10EURX (I had it on hand already), and no issues, but thanks for the power brick information.


One would think the 5tb one has more platters. ie more weight on spindle motor.


----------



## ShoutingMan

Has anyone had problems with TiVo transfer feature after a hard drive upgrade? This feature was working pretty stably for the previous six months or so. After my hard drive upgrade, transfer to my iPad mostly fails. I don't know if they're related, or if this is TiVo software updates and TiVo app problems.

Currently I get a T[0x1000000] error about 100MB into a transfer.


----------



## mattack

I think it's completely unrelated. I get basically constant errors trying to download or stream shows, whether at home or away from home. once in a rare while I have had a successful download (i.e. ONE try or even a very few tries is a 'success' in my book though it should really always work unless the network literally goes away).. But usually I have lots of errors, have to wait a very long time.

The error #s used to be very predictable.. on a recent update, the #s changed, but the symptoms didn't.

Since I already download shows and watch them on my iPad with VLC (currently I do that with some shows I want to watch faster than realtime), I may end up doing that with dramas and such and watch them 'normally' in VLC, instead of trying to put up with the show downloading.

It's very very broken.


----------



## ggieseke

MFS Reformatter version 1.0.0.4 (available in the Upgrade forum) adds support for 8TB drives.


----------



## jgbrown54

Should a clean drive be partitioned and formatted before installing it in a Roamio? If so, what format?


----------



## ThAbtO

jgbrown54 said:


> Should a clean drive be partitioned and formatted before installing it in a Roamio? If so, what format?


It should not be formatted/partitioned in any way. Roamio has that ability, up to 3TB. More than that, it needs a little help, on a PC with MSFR.


----------



## robliv

I just ordered a Tivo OTA 500GB refurb for $199 w/lifetime off their current Thanksgiving sale. I am interested in upgrading the Hard Drive for about $100 and read through much of this forum. Assuming I just want to plug and play and not bother with any formatting (therefore 3TB or less) or using WIDDLE3 to disable the idle timer, are these Amazon options okay?

1. WD20EURX: would prefer 3TB, but it's $140 vs $64 for 2TB so not worth the $$$ to me
2. WD30EZRX: 3TB for $97 but I need to disable the idle timer, right?
3. WD30EFRX: 3TB for $109. The Red (other 2 are green) drive ... need to disable the idle timer, right?

So, given those 3 options, only option 1 is a true plug and play, right? I think 2TB gives about 300 hours of HD.

Thanks for your help!!

Cheers, robliv


----------



## ThAbtO

#3 WD Red drives is the drive of choice. No idle timer to reset.

 WD20EFRX $88.48 If you are just looking for a 2TB and Plug 'N Play.
WF30EFRX for the 3TB.

I would no longer recommend any of the WD green drives. Have to WDidle3 and perhaps HDAT2 for them to work. Also, they are going out of production.


----------



## robliv

ThAbtO said:


> #3 WD Red drives is the drive of choice. No idle timer to reset.
> 
> WD20EFRX $88.48 If you are just looking for a 2TB and Plug 'N Play.
> WF30EFRX for the 3TB.
> 
> I would no longer recommend any of the WD green drives. Have to WDidle3 and perhaps HDAT2 for them to work. Also, they are going out of production.


Excellent, thanks ThAbtO! Exactly what I was looking for. For the extra $20, I'll get the 3rd TB ... Nice to know the Red WD drives <=3TB are straight up plug and play.

Cheers, robliv


----------



## ThAbtO

Most I have heard from others on Newegg is either lack of packing or not enough of it to keep the drive from bouncing during transit.

Amazon does a box within a shipping box tightly placed so either little or no packing is needed.

I have a WD 4TB in my Roamio and its been quiet running for over a year.


----------



## robliv

ThAbtO said:


> Most I have heard from others on Newegg is either lack of packing or not enough of it to keep the drive from bouncing during transit.
> 
> Amazon does a box within a shipping box tightly placed so either little or no packing is needed.
> 
> I have a WD 4TB in my Roamio and its been quiet running for over a year.


Turns out the Newegg one was a refurb, so not apples to apples ... bought the new one from Amazon for $109 ... thanks again ThAbtO!


----------



## robliv

The new red 3TB just price dropped from $109 to $98 on Amazon ... good deal! Grabbed it!


----------



## tch65721

I'm seriously considering Roamio OTA but would have to upgrade the drive. I understand how to physically change out the HD. I really don't understand how to move the data from the replaced drive to the new drive. Could someone point me to the correct post? Thanks.


----------



## DougJohnson

tch65721 said:


> I'm seriously considering Roamio OTA but would have to upgrade the drive. I understand how to physically change out the HD. I really don't understand how to move the data from the replaced drive to the new drive. Could someone point me to the correct post? Thanks.


If you're talking about moving shows, you need to use something like TiVo Desktop or third party software to copy them from the TiVo to a PC and then back. If you are talking about operating system and stuff, you don't need to. At least on my Roamio Plus, all I had to do was pull the old drive and drop in a new drive. The Roamio formats it automatically and is ready to go through guided setup. I assume the OTA is the same. -- Doug


----------



## HerronScott

tch65721 said:


> I'm seriously considering Roamio OTA but would have to upgrade the drive. I understand how to physically change out the HD. I really don't understand how to move the data from the replaced drive to the new drive. Could someone point me to the correct post? Thanks.


Check out this thread.

MFS Tools 3.2

Scott


----------



## atmuscarella

If you are talking about saving shows you previously recorded you have to copy them to a computer and then back to the new hard drive once installed and setup. You use TiVo Desktop or KMTTG/pyTiVo

If you are talking about settings like one passes etc. You can back them up with third party software KMTTG

If you are talking about the operating system you don't need to worry about it the TiVo will reload all the software.


----------



## HerronScott

atmuscarella said:


> If you are talking about saving shows you previously recorded you have to copy them to a computer and then back to the new hard drive once installed and setup. You use TiVo Desktop or KMTTG/pyTiVo


Or use MFS Tools 3.2 to copy the shows from the old drive to the new drive and expand (up to 4TB I think).

But if it's a new Roamio OTA and he is just replacing the original drive right away, you are right he shouldn't have to do anything.

Scott


----------



## tch65721

It will be a new unit but I won't replace the drive right away. I thought it would be smart to check out the unit for a month or so just to make sure everything is working before cracking the case. Thanks for the software suggestions guys.


----------



## Mr Tony

so dumb question here
Got the OTA Roamio with Lifetime during the "White Sale" and have been testing it out for a week now to make sure it works fine (I have a Roamio Basic on monthly for another month and a Series 3 on lifetime too). I obtained a WD Red Drive 3TB (WD30EFRX). I guess they made both 7200 and 5400 speed drive? Should I be worried about the rpm speed? (I picked it up from a buddy who had had never used it but doesn't have any box or anything). I know all I have to do is open the box and drop the new drive in (The basic has a green 2TB drive in it).


----------



## atmuscarella

The slower drive would be a better option. There is no noticeable performance difference in a TiVo and the faster one may draw more power (or too much for the power supply and cause reboots or other problems) and run hotter causing heat issues.


----------



## Mr Tony

Is is there a way to know what the speed is? (5400 vs 7200). I don't see anything written on the drive or when I try to Google it


----------



## atmuscarella

unclehonkey said:


> Is is there a way to know what the speed is? (5400 vs 7200). I don't see anything written on the drive or when I try to Google it


According to the Western Digital web sit a WD30EFRX is the Red 3TB 5400 RPM drive. The 3TB Red Pro 7200 PPM drive is model WD3001FFSX


----------



## alex_h

unclehonkey said:


> Is is there a way to know what the speed is? (5400 vs 7200). I don't see anything written on the drive or when I try to Google it


Yeah, Google knows a lot, but companies know more. I punched model number in on Western Digital's site and pulled up the 
spec sheet.

More accurate than sales copy found by Google.


----------



## Mr Tony

atmuscarella said:


> According to the Western Digital web sit a WD30EFRX is the Red 3TB 5400 RPM drive. The 3TB Red Pro 7200 PPM drive is model WD3001FFSX


OK good to know. The model number on the drive says WD30EFRX-68UEZN0



alex_h said:


> Yeah, Google knows a lot, but companies know more. I punched model number in on Western Digital's site and pulled up the
> spec sheet.
> 
> More accurate than sales copy found by Google.


The spec sheet says March 2016 in the corner. On this drive I have it says 11 NOV 2014 so hopefully the specs are the same

I guess I dont want to put the drive in and then have issues once I start recording things on the drive that I want to keep


----------



## alex_h

@unclehonkey -- I would guess that the spec sheet was updated when they added a new size of the same item (or corporate redid logos, etc).

I've never seen a company re-use a model number when the underlying specs change, they usually slightly increment the model number so they can keep it accurate.

Doesn't mean it can't happen, just that I haven't seen it.


----------



## leswar

After receiving my Series 1 Bolt upgrade I looked into replacing the 500 gb drive with either a Seagate 2 tb or 4 tb external portable "pull".
Picked up both portable drives from Staples at great prices on black friday week.
Around that time the group consensus became that the newer firmwares introduce a hybrid shingled technology to these drives that makes them
bad for TiVo upgrades. So I won't be using either for that upgrade.

Both drives still remain unopened in original retail packaging.

However I'm thinking about keeping one or both to use with my desktop pc and router - general use to transfer videos and maybe backup Windows et.al.
Currently I have two WD external portables - 1 tb and 2 tb drives for transferring videos to a family member's tivo and such.

The 4 tb was probably the better of the two deals at $104. But I'm wondering if these Seagates are any good considering the company's track record
I don't want to spend the money on something I really didn't set out to spend it on just for the sake of a deal. But more storage is always good.
Soliciting opinions. Thanks.


----------



## Mr Tony

alex_h said:


> @unclehonkey -- I would guess that the spec sheet was updated when they added a new size of the same item (or corporate redid logos, etc).
> 
> I've never seen a company re-use a model number when the underlying specs change, they usually slightly increment the model number so they can keep it accurate.
> 
> Doesn't mean it can't happen, just that I haven't seen it.


Oh I know they would have to use a different model number if there was a big change

So I did some looking on the "wayback machine" and back in 2014 (according to the specs) it says they were "Intellipower" for the rpms which someone mentioned elsewhere that its "What I was able to find out is that the IntelliPower drives are variable speed from 5200 to 7200"
https://web.archive.org/web/2014102...roducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800002.pdf


----------



## aaronwt

unclehonkey said:


> Oh I know they would have to use a different model number if there was a big change
> 
> So I did some looking on the "wayback machine" and back in 2014 (according to the specs) it says they were "Intellipower" for the rpms which someone mentioned elsewhere that its "What I was able to find out is that the IntelliPower drives are variable speed from 5200 to 7200"
> https://web.archive.org/web/2014102...roducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800002.pdf


The drive speed itself doesn't vary with each individual drive. But the fixed speed between two drives could be different.


----------



## HoosontheTeevo

crystal disk info will tell you what drive is inside the enclosure - and what its specs are.

crystaldiskinfo - Google Search
Software - Crystal Dew World


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## Mr Tony

I ended up trying the 3TB in my old deactivated OTA Roamio (the one I bought when they first came out in 2014) and it just seemed noisy. So with some Amazon gift cards I got at X-Mas bought one of the 3TB red drives and put that in the OTA w/lifetime and its very quiet (alot quieter than the other 3TB drive I had...supposedly same model)


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## IceBear

Folks, 

I am new to Tivo. Please bear with me. I recently purchased a OTA Roamio with 500G HD. Since I have a Seagate Barracuda 3T in a Windows 7 PC that I am not using, I was hoping that I can re-use it in the Roamio. This HD is good, it has no bad sectors.

When I first swap in the Seagate Barracuda 3T and powers up, it kept looping on "Starting Up ..."! 

After, I read many useful postings that folks shared, I proceeded with cleaning up the Seagate Barracuda 3T first: I used Seagate DriveCleanser to delete all the information on the Seagate Barracuda 3T HD, using DiskEditor 6.0 I see that the entire drive is now fill with seemingly random data, I then use DiskEditor 6.0 to zero out the first 512 bytes of the drive, then I installed the 3T drive into the Tivo, it behaved exactly as before: it still kept looping on "Starting Up ..."! 

Then I re-install the original 500G HD on the Tivo. When it powers up, the Tivo behaved like like many folks described: it reinstall the software and deleted the recordings. This indicates my Tivo is still working properly with the original HD.

I am puzzle at this point. What do need to do to my Seagate Barracuda 3T so that the Tivo will think that it's a new HD and proceed with installing the Tivo software?

thanks!


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## ThAbtO

Possible causes: 
7200 RPM
drive uses too much power
drive is not in pristine shape
Roamio does not need to install software on the drive as its stored internally.

What is the exact model of the drive?


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## IceBear

The model is Seagate Barracuda 3T ST3000DM001. Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com.

thanks


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## DougJohnson

IceBear said:


> The model is Seagate Barracuda 3T ST3000DM001. Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com.
> 
> thanks


I'm betting that drive uses too much power. It needs 2 amps at startup and 8 watts running. That is about twice the power needed by the OEM drive. The Roamio OTA has a marginal power supply.
-- Doug


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## lessd

IceBear said:


> Folks,
> 
> I am new to Tivo. Please bear with me. I recently purchased a OTA Roamio with 500G HD. Since I have a Seagate Barracuda 3T in a Windows 7 PC that I am not using, I was hoping that I can re-use it in the Roamio. This HD is good, it has no bad sectors.
> 
> When I first swap in the Seagate Barracuda 3T and powers up, it kept looping on "Starting Up ..."!
> 
> After, I read many useful postings that folks shared, I proceeded with cleaning up the Seagate Barracuda 3T first: I used Seagate DriveCleanser to delete all the information on the Seagate Barracuda 3T HD, using DiskEditor 6.0 I see that the entire drive is now fill with seemingly random data, I then use DiskEditor 6.0 to zero out the first 512 bytes of the drive, then I installed the 3T drive into the Tivo, it behaved exactly as before: it still kept looping on "Starting Up ..."!
> 
> Then I re-install the original 500G HD on the Tivo. When it powers up, the Tivo behaved like like many folks described: it reinstall the software and deleted the recordings. This indicates my Tivo is still working properly with the original HD.
> 
> I am puzzle at this point. What do need to do to my Seagate Barracuda 3T so that the Tivo will think that it's a new HD and proceed with installing the Tivo software?
> 
> thanks!


I use *WD Lifeguard Diagnostic* (free program) to write zeros on the total drive, never had any problems after that, but I never tried the drive you are using.


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## mickinct

Did you format in pc to ntfs before install in tivo??


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## jmbach

IceBear said:


> Folks,
> 
> I am new to Tivo. Please bear with me. I recently purchased a OTA Roamio with 500G HD. Since I have a Seagate Barracuda 3T in a Windows 7 PC that I am not using, I was hoping that I can re-use it in the Roamio. This HD is good, it has no bad sectors.
> 
> When I first swap in the Seagate Barracuda 3T and powers up, it kept looping on "Starting Up ..."!
> 
> After, I read many useful postings that folks shared, I proceeded with cleaning up the Seagate Barracuda 3T first: I used Seagate DriveCleanser to delete all the information on the Seagate Barracuda 3T HD, using DiskEditor 6.0 I see that the entire drive is now fill with seemingly random data, I then use DiskEditor 6.0 to zero out the first 512 bytes of the drive, then I installed the 3T drive into the Tivo, it behaved exactly as before: it still kept looping on "Starting Up ..."!
> 
> Then I re-install the original 500G HD on the Tivo. When it powers up, the Tivo behaved like like many folks described: it reinstall the software and deleted the recordings. This indicates my Tivo is still working properly with the original HD.
> 
> I am puzzle at this point. What do need to do to my Seagate Barracuda 3T so that the Tivo will think that it's a new HD and proceed with installing the Tivo software?
> 
> thanks!


Sounds like to me that you need a beefier power brick for your Roamio. It does not have to be much beefier. Maybe 1/2 to 1 amp more than the one you currently have.

I find it interesting that your Roamio reformatted your original drive and deleted the recordings. I have heard of this behavior in Bolts but have not experienced this in the Roamio line.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Mikeguy

mickinct said:


> Did you format in pc to ntfs before install in tivo??





lessd said:


> I use *WD Lifeguard Diagnostic* (free program) to write zeros on the total drive, never had any problems after that, but I never tried the drive you are using.


Could I ask, what is the purpose for doing either of the above? Is there an appreciable benefit to doing so over simply putting a 3TB and under hard drive into a Roamio and having the box handle matters alone (one of the attractive aspects of a 3TB and under drive for the box)?


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## jmbach

Normally you can just plop a drive in a Roamio or Bolt and off you go. Rarely it appears if the drive has data on it the process gets a hiccup and by zeroing out the beginning of the drive with a diagnostic utility solves the problem.


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## Mikeguy

Cool, thanks. I just like seeing the simple win out in the end, if possible.


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## IceBear

DougJohnson said:


> I'm betting that drive uses too much power. It needs 2 amps at startup and 8 watts running. That is about twice the power needed by the OEM drive. The Roamio OTA has a marginal power supply.
> -- Doug


Thanks a lot Doug. That's it. I swap in a WD Green 2T that read/write @ 6 watt, then it booted up wo any problem!


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## bareyb

Hi. My TiVo Roamio Pro seems to have deleted about half my shows and now it won't fill up past 60%. I'm assuming the hard drive is not using a bunch of sectors or it's failing in some other way. Is it true you can just plop in a new HD and it will format itself? I've done HD swaps in the past and it was way more complicated... so I hope it's true because I can't remember how I did it now. 

Anyway, assuming it's really that easy now, can you guys recommend the best and biggest Hard Drive one can safely fit in a 1 TB equipped Roamio Pro? Any additional advice on how to install it (beyond the excellent first post in this thread) would be much appreciated too.


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## bareyb

Is this still the preferred HD for Roamios?


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## ThAbtO

bareyb said:


> Is this still the preferred HD for Roamios?


WD30EFRX, cheaper and better warranty. No fuss or muss. However, it may be too soon to do that yet, (according to your other thread.) Unless, you like to expand space. It would be starting over like a new Tivo.


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## bareyb

ThAbtO said:


> WD30EFRX, cheaper and better warranty. No fuss or muss. However, it may be too soon to do that yet, (according to your other thread.) Unless, you like to expand space. It would be starting over like a new Tivo.


Wow. You DO get around ThAbtO. Thanks for the help. Hoping it won't be necessary to replace the drive, but it's nice to know it's so inexpensive and easy to do. I honestly think I'd be fine with a 2 Tb drive and those are only about 65 bucks.


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## ThAbtO

bareyb said:


> Wow. You DO get around ThAbtO. Thanks for the help. Hoping it won't be necessary to replace the drive, but it's nice to know it's so inexpensive and easy to do. I honestly think I'd be fine with a 2 Tb drive and those are only about 65 bucks.


The Green AV (WD30EURX) are not being made anymore and what's left may be old stock.

For comparison:


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## bareyb

Do the red drives have the same low power consumption as the Green ones?


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## ThAbtO

bareyb said:


> Do the red drives have the same low power consumption as the Green ones?


I think they are lower than the green. I have the 4TB Red in mine, very quiet. Compared to the Green.


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## bareyb

ThAbtO said:


> I think they are lower than the green. I have the 4TB Red in mine, very quiet. Compared to the Green.


Nice... Thanks for the recommendation.


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## Sptrader

bareyb said:


> Nice... Thanks for the recommendation.


In case anyone wonders if an SSD drive will work in a Roamio. I tried it a few months back, while I was waiting for my new WD 2tb NAS drive to arrive. I put a spare 250gb Samsung SSD in my Roamio OTA and it worked great. Probably not recommended for long-term video use though.


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## mikey1273

SSD drives arent really good for storage drives that are written to, deleted and over written over and over. Putiing one in a dvr many not be the best idea for reason that all the over writing wears them out. I bet it had fast read and write times though. 
In the WD line the gree drives are supposed to be low power drives for desktops and storage. The red drives are for Network attached Storage devices, they have some of the low power properties and are made for more constant read and write cycles. Either are good for the good if they come in under the tivo's power limits.


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## ggieseke

TiVos only use SATA I (150MBps), so speed really isn't an issue with any drive made in the last 15 years or so. On Roamios & Bolts the OS is already in flash memory, so the only place that you might see a microscopic improvement in performance with an SSD is when it accesses the MFS application partitions.

The Reds and Greens are basically identical in terms of RPMs, noise, heat and power consumption. That's what you need to look for in a TiVo drive.


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## mikey1273

ggieseke said:


> TiVos only use SATA I (150MBps), so speed really isn't an issue with any drive made in the last 15 years or so. On Roamios & Bolts the OS is already in flash memory, so the only place that you might see a microscopic improvement in performance with an SSD is when it accesses the MFS application partitions.
> 
> The Reds and Greens are basically identical in terms of RPMs, noise, heat and power consumption. That's what you need to look for in a TiVo drive.


Im new to Tivo. Not ready to update my new Roamio's 1tb drive yet. It actually may be enough for me since I only subscribe to limited basic cable and HBO we only record network shows most of the time. I will keep those drives in mind when Is time to update.


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## jeffw_00

Hi - I want to upgrade my 500GB Roamio to 2TB. I get that I need to buy a WD RED drive. I get that one method is simply to copy off all my stored shows, swap the drive and rerun guided setup, re-select channels, re-program 30+ onePasses, and copy back my stored shows. But the last 2 times I did this (HRD312, HDTivo), I simply took out the drive, and ran something (MFSTools?) to copy to a new drive expanding the space, and put the new drive in. Seems much simpler, but I'm having trouble finding good step-by-step instructions, has this method fallen out of favor? Doesn't work anymore? Thanks!

(also - do I need anything smaller than a T10 Torx?)


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## JoeKustra

Three Torx Screwdrivers T8 T10 T15 - TiVo Part - WeaKnees - the DVR Superstore

Hard to believe this thread has been inactive for a year.

Are you aware of TE4? A new hard drive may cause it to be loaded.


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## jeffw_00

Oh - good point - I don't want that - so how do I best clone my existing drive?


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## jmbach

jeffw_00 said:


> Oh - good point - I don't want that - so how do I best clone my existing drive?


MFSTools 3.2


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## jeffw_00

jmbach said:


> MFSTools 3.2


Yes- I'm sure. But the ReadMe that comes with it is a little general. I was hoping that somewhere, someone wrote out a step-by-step.


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## jmbach

jeffw_00 said:


> Yes- I'm sure. But the ReadMe that comes with it is a little general. I was hoping that somewhere, someone wrote out a step-by-step.


Have you read the post where you can download the ISO?

If you have what questions do you have?


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## jeffw_00

The post I found was more of a feature list than a step-by-step - is there a step-by-step buried later in that thread? Sorry - I had just figured (based on past experience) there would be a step-by-stop pinned to the top of the forum....


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## jeffw_00

some good info here

Plz point me to good step-by-step to upgrade drive in Roamio


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## jmbach

jeffw_00 said:


> some good info here
> 
> Plz point me to good step-by-step to upgrade drive in Roamio


Did you read everything here as well?


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## jeffw_00

Iwill now - thx!


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## MarkSTA

ggieseke said:


> MFS Reformatter version 1.0.0.4 (available in the Upgrade forum) adds support for 8TB drives.


Hi, quick question; does MFS 1.0.0.4 support or benefit from a native 4kn drive vs 512e?

Thanks


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## ggieseke

MarkSTA said:


> Hi, quick question; does MFS 1.0.0.4 support or benefit from a native 4kn drive vs 512e?


Some header fields are only read once during the boot phase and I didn't worry about them, but MFSR is designed to align all of the typically-accessed "zones" for a 4K drive.


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## jmbach

I am not sure if TiVo supports a 4Kn drive that does not does not do 512e.


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## ggieseke

jmbach said:


> I am not sure if TiVo supports a 4Kn drive that does not does not do 512e.


Sorry, I misunderstood what MarkSTA was asking. TiVos always assume that a sector is 512 bytes and even if it did manage to work at all it would waste 7/8 of the drive.


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## steff3

so as of today, 12/2021, what is the recommended HD for 2 or 3 TB? Hard to find the WDxxEFRX.


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## ThAbtO

EFZX
Red Plus.


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## steff3

ThAbtO said:


> EFZX
> Red Plus.


Thanks!

Sent from my SM-G986U1 using Tapatalk


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## dishrich

JoeKustra said:


> Are you aware of TE4? A new hard drive may cause it to be loaded.


I know this is a really old thread...but just wanted to let people know I just now did a HDD upgrade in a spare, lifetimed Roamio Plus w/TE3, to a brand new 3TB WD30EURS AV-GP - it did NOT attempt to go to TE4 & went thru guided setup without a hitch. Got a new Comcast cablecard paired to it with no problems, either.


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## austinsho

Did you simply replace the drive and start over or did you clone it?


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## ThAbtO

Only Roamio, Bolt and edge can self-format a blank drives. You could clone it but if the target drive is larger, it would only recognize the original size.


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## austinsho

ThAbtO said:


> Only Roamio, Bolt and edge can self-format a blank drives. You could clone it but if the target drive is larger, it would only recognize the original size.


Right. I'm struggling right now with whether to just drop in a blank drive into my Roamio Pro and struggle with cablecard pairing, or try to clone the old one and struggle with any issues on that old hard drive being transferred to the new one.


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## dishrich

austinsho said:


> Did you simply replace the drive and start over or did you clone it?


Replaced it, as I actually had not put the Plus into full service yet, so it had nothing on it & I wanted it to be 3TB like my Pro is...as it's purpose is for a backup to the Pro. When Comcast stopped charging for CC's, I decided to grab another one for this spare unit, (I lucked out with our local store having one in stock) in case they get really scarce & it will already be paired to this DVR when I'm ready to use it.


> Right. I'm struggling right now with whether to just drop in a blank drive into my Roamio Pro and struggle with cablecard pairing


Honestly unless you have recordings you MUST save, you're better off just dropping the new one in & starting over. Also IS it 100% fact the CC must be (re)paired to the Tivo??? (sorry, I paired my CC AFTER I did the swap, so I can't tell you from personal experience) But even if it is, I would still think the extra work of CC pairing 1-time, would be better than the risks of cloning another HDD w/issues...just sayin'


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## austinsho

It's just that I've had such misery with Time Warner/Spectrum getting these cards paired, it's really something I'd like to not do again! But I too understand the advantages of getting a fresh start. I may just decide to go that way and roll the Spectrum dice.


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## dishrich

austinsho said:


> I may just decide to go that way and roll the Spectrum dice.


In looking at other posts re: this, most I saw said that as long as you stick with the same size HDD, re-pairing wasn't & won't be necessary - but PLEASE do let us know what happens in your case.


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## JoeKustra

dishrich said:


> In looking at other posts re: this, most I saw said that as long as you stick with the same size HDD, re-pairing wasn't & won't be necessary - but PLEASE do let us know what happens in your case.


If you change the hard drive pairing will be needed if you have premium channels, like HBO, and your cable company cares.

The channel list is not affected by changing the card. I have two Roamio with 3TB drives. Both show unpaired and, since I don't subscribe to premium channels, I don't care. During the periodic "free weekend" of HBO/MAX, encryption is removed and the channels can be received, saved, and moved.


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## austinsho

Oh yea, we've got lots of HBO and Showtime here and you can't BREATHE wrong on a Spectrum cablecard of tuning adapter without upsetting a TiVo. It's going to be next week before I can get to this, but will be glad to report back on what happens. I think I'm going to just drop in a new drive, hook up the cablecard and TA and hope it works. If we can't get the authorizations straight, that'll be my cue to go with a different receiver.


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