# Why no 3TB option?



## bearcat2000 (Aug 13, 2005)

Kinda strange that all my Bolts are 3TB but the max you can get with the Edge is 2TB. Dumb.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

It's the market: it's hard to find 2.5" hard drives that have more than 2TB storage. And apparently, TiVo wanted a smaller box, and so a 3.5" hard drive was not possible. Me, I would have made the box slightly taller and gone with 3.5" drives (and it would have cost TiVo less in the end, as well).


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

^^^ What @Mikeguy said. See also this additional background from @gary.buhrmaster regarding 2.5" 3TB drives (originally in reply to me on one of the original endless Edge threads):



gary.buhrmaster said:


> None are in new production(*). 2TB is the current max for 2.5" constant use A/V drives. And that is due to the reality that the majority of the buyers of those types of drives are surveillance systems where 2TB is considered the sweet spot for capacity and thermals and pricing, so that is what the HD manufacturers design/build.
> 
> (*) And TiVo is going to want to choose drives they can get new/replacement ones of. That is perhaps why the 3TB Bolt left the building earlier than others.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

bearcat2000 said:


> Kinda strange that all my Bolts are 3TB but the max you can get with the Edge is 2TB. Dumb.


2TB per box so you will buy more boxes.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

> Why no 3TB option?


I don't know. More importantly for my purchase decision, why no 13 days of accurate guide data option?


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## dahacker (Jan 14, 2004)

bearcat2000 said:


> Kinda strange that all my Bolts are 3TB but the max you can get with the Edge is 2TB. Dumb.


I agree, 2TB is a show stopper for me. I'm not even one to keep shows or movies around. I know a lot of people are obsessive compulsive about watching every show they record and then deleting the show once they watch it. I'm not sure I understand why you would ever do that since the Tivo automatically deletes old shows. Anyway, my use scenario is I record way to many shows than I could ever watch, but like to pick and chose what I watch of the recorded shows. For example, I record ALL of the late night shows, but only watch the parts of ones that have actors on that I am interested in. I also record a ton of college and NFL football and then skip through each game that I feel like watching in about an hour and then leave many games unwatched to be automatically deleted. Plus we've got three different people in the house with their particular programming likes. 2TB isn't going to cut it and I'm not running two DVRs in one house.


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

dahacker said:


> Plus we've got three different people in the house with their particular programming likes. 2TB isn't going to cut it and I'm not running two DVRs in one house.


LOL. There is one person in my house, me, and I'm running a pair of 3TB TiVos (Bolt and Roamio Plus).


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## KevTech (Apr 15, 2014)

dahacker said:


> I'm not sure I understand why you would ever do that since the Tivo automatically deletes old shows.


Just like a SSD transfer rate will slow when it starts getting too full so will a HDD.
Reason is HDD have the highest transfer rates on the outer area of the platter. As you fill up the drive you move progressively toward the inner area so the transfer rate decreases.
If your HDD is 80-90% full the transfer rate will slow down.


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## dahacker (Jan 14, 2004)

KevTech said:


> Just like a SSD transfer rate will slow when it starts getting too full so will a HDD.
> Reason is HDD have the highest transfer rates on the outer area of the platter. As you fill up the drive you move progressively toward the inner area so the transfer rate decreases.
> If your HDD is 80-90% full the transfer rate will slow down.


This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. I'll set aside the SSD transfer rate statement since it has nothing to do with this. You actually have no clue where the data is being written on the drive physically. The linux filesystem doesn't give too much of a crap and would think nothing of splattering the files all over the partition, which likely spans multiple platters. The linux file system also has no problem dealing with these large files on a nearly full hard drive too. Fragmentation would be minimal. Plus, you might be continually deleting and writing to the slowest part of the platter too. The linux filesystem isn't going to defrag and optimize the data to move it to the fastest parts of the physical drives. Anyway, I've got six records and at the same time three reads going on regularly on a 99% full drive and haven't had any problems for six years on the series 5's and another decade on prior Tivo models.

If deleting the programs manually makes you feel good, then have at it, but there is no need on Tivos.


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## TiVo_Ted (Oct 3, 2000)

A couple of points of clarification here. First, we chose 2.5" drives for BOLT and EDGE because they tend to be quieter, use less power and in the 1TB-2TB range are about the same cost/GB as 3.5" drives. HDD vendors have now moved almost exclusively to SMR drives, and the max capacity for 2.5" drives is now 2TB.

Also, while the comment about drive performance decreasing with capacity can sometimes be true, these drives deliver *far* more bandwidth than we need, even at our 11-stream maximum usage profile. The EDGE motherboard was designed to support 3.5" drives as well, and we have not ruled out the idea of a larger size unit at some point in the product lifecycle.


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## TiVo_Ted (Oct 3, 2000)

Also, in case it isn't obvious to everyone, an SSD would not be appropriate in a 24/7 DVR environment. In a 6-tuner box, the average SSD wouldn't even last a year under our workloads.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

TiVo_Ted said:


> The EDGE motherboard was designed to support 3.5" drives as well, and we have not ruled out the idea of a larger size unit at some point in the product lifecycle.


Something tells me you're going to regret ringing that bell around here @TiVo_Ted. Get ready for the, "When is the larger size unit coming?!" pestering.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

TiVo_Ted said:


> The EDGE motherboard was designed to support 3.5" drives as well, and we have not ruled out the idea of a larger size unit at some point in the product lifecycle.





sangs said:


> Something tells me you're going to regret ringing that bell around here @TiVo_Ted. Get ready for the, "When is the larger size unit coming?!" pestering.


Ooh, finally, a 10TB TiVo box!


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Mikeguy said:


> Ooh, finally, a 10TB TiVo box!


Not until they fox the bug(s) in the code that currently limit them to 3TB.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

sangs said:


> Something tells me you're going to regret ringing that bell around here @TiVo_Ted. Get ready for the, "When is the larger size unit coming?!" pestering.


Yes that's dangerous. TCF is like the elephant that never forgets. A whole herd of them, stampeding towards TE3 right now.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

ggieseke said:


> Not until they fox the bug(s) in the code that currently limit them to 3TB.


That's not really a bug, that's done by design, since 3TB is the largest hard drive they have ever sold units with, that's the most they will officially support.


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## jlin (Nov 20, 1999)

Mikeguy said:


> Ooh, finally, a 10TB TiVo box!


Already have it. It's called Roamio Plus at my house!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Mikeguy said:


> It's the market: it's hard to find 2.5" hard drives that have more than 2TB storage. And apparently, TiVo wanted a smaller box, and so a 3.5" hard drive was not possible. Me, I would have made the box slightly taller and gone with 3.5" drives (and it would have cost TiVo less in the end, as well).


 It's very easy to find 2.5" hard drives up to 5TB.
What's hard is finding larger capacity 2.5" hard drives that use PMR. Most use SMR now.


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## mrsean (May 15, 2006)

TiVo_Ted said:


> The EDGE motherboard was designed to support 3.5" drives as well, and we have not ruled out the idea of a larger size unit at some point in the product lifecycle.


Thank you Ted for the insight and all that you do on our behalf. That said, an Edge containing a 3.5" hard drive should have been a launch product.

Overall, we Tivo loyalists are tired of feeling like we are not important enough to be listened to. The demand for larger capacity drives has gone ignored (along with several other requests) for like a decade now. SMH


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

mrsean said:


> Thank you Ted for the insight and all that you do on our behalf. That said, an Edge containing a 3.5" hard drive should have been a launch product.
> 
> Overall, we Tivo loyalists are tired of feeling like we are not important enough to be listened to. The demand for larger capacity drives has gone ignored (along with several other requests) for like a decade now. SMH


If Ted means the board _and the current case_ can hold a 3.5" drive, then I expect we'll see modded EDGE units from WeaKnees and DIYers real soon!


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> If Ted means the board _and the current case_ can hold a 3.5" drive, then I expect we'll see modded EDGE units from WeaKnees and DIYers real soon!


I doubt that's what he meant. If the current case could hold a 3.5" drive, they would have just used 3.5" drives. The only reason to use a 2.5" drive is a smaller case.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

tarheelblue32 said:


> I doubt that's what he meant. If the current case could hold a 3.5" drive, they would have just used 3.5" drives. The only reason to use a 2.5" drive is a smaller case.


He gave reasons other than that, so I'm still wondering if a 3.5" would fit in there without modifying the case. No way a TiVo employee could legally recommend we open cases and do anything like that, but I do hope it's possible to fit one in there without whipping out the Dremel.

From Ted:

_A couple of points of clarification here. First, we chose 2.5" drives for BOLT and EDGE because they tend to be quieter, use less power and in the 1TB-2TB range are about the same cost/GB as 3.5" drives. HDD vendors have now moved almost exclusively to SMR drives, and the max capacity for 2.5" drives is now 2TB.

Also, while the comment about drive performance decreasing with capacity can sometimes be true, these drives deliver *far* more bandwidth than we need, even at our 11-stream maximum usage profile. The EDGE motherboard was designed to support 3.5" drives as well, and we have not ruled out the idea of a larger size unit at some point in the product lifecycle._


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> He gave reasons other than that, so I'm still wondering if a 3.5" would fit in there without modifying the case. No way a TiVo employee could legally recommend we open cases and do anything like that, but I do hope it's possible to fit one in there without whipping out the Dremel.
> 
> From Ted:
> 
> ...


Fair enough, but if we're going by his words he says "_The EDGE motherboard was designed to support 3.5" drives as well, and we have not ruled out the idea of a larger size unit at some point in the product lifecycle." _If all he meant by that was that TiVo might shove a 3.5" drive into the current Edge chassis, that was a very strange way to word it. He specifically says that the "motherboard was designed to support" it, and then references producing a "larger size unit". That implies to me that the internal electronics of the Edge will support a 3.5" drive, but they will have to use a larger external box to accommodate it.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Fair enough, but if we're going by his words he says "_The EDGE motherboard was designed to support 3.5" drives as well, and we have not ruled out the idea of a larger size unit at some point in the product lifecycle." _If all he meant by that was that TiVo might shove a 3.5" drive into the current Edge chassis, that was a very strange way to word it. He specifically says that the "motherboard was designed to support" it, and then references producing a "larger size unit". That implies to me that the internal electronics of the Edge will support a 3.5" drive, but they will have to use a larger external box to accommodate it.


OK I think you're right. Larger-size unit, not large-sized drive. I missed that. OK, time to break out the Dremel. Or not. Jk, I'd rather stay with TE3 for now, and anyway am still waiting on reviews from EDGE owners. After the Bolt, I'm no longer a TiVo early adopter.


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## TiVo_Ted (Oct 3, 2000)

aaronwt said:


> It's very easy to find 2.5" hard drives up to 5TB.
> What's hard is finding larger capacity 2.5" hard drives that use PMR. Most use SMR now.


Sorry, but not that are rated for 24/7 AV usage.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

TiVo_Ted said:


> Sorry, but not that are rated for 24/7 AV usage.


Sounds like an opening there.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

TiVo_Ted said:


> Sorry, but not that are rated for 24/7 AV usage.


No, but my 4TB, 2.5" Seagate has now been running for over 35,000 hours in Bolts, after four years of use.

Historically, I've never seen any difference(from a user perspective), in the several dozen TiVos I've owned. With both AV rated and non AV rated drives. Both 2.5" and 3.5" drives.
I've had both AV and non AV rated drives last for many, many years, running 24/7/365 in TiVos.

But then I've typically had great results with hard drives. With the several hundred drives I've used in PCs, servers, and DVRs over the last twenty four years at home. It's been rare for me to have a issue.

The other 4TB, 2.5" drive I got in October 2015 was one of the few drives I did have an issue with. Since it had an issue after 2.5 years. And then I dropped it hard, carrying it on my way to check it out, on the corner of a hard piece of metal. So there was no way I was going to be able to do anything with it after that. Since after that it was toast.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> No, but my 4TB, 2.5" Seagate has now been running for over 35,000 hours in Bolts, after four years of use.
> 
> Historically, I've never seen any difference(from a user perspective), in the several dozen TiVos I've owned. With both AV rated and non AV rated drives. Both 2.5" and 3.5" drives.
> I've had both AV and non AV rated drives last for many, many years, running 24/7/365 in TiVos.
> ...


Presumably (yes, I know: that can be dangerous), there is a reason for/benefit of a 24/7 A/V rating.


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## JLV03 (Feb 12, 2018)

Companies are starting to make SSDs that can go in a NAS. Would it be possible to go down that path in the future?

IronWolf 110 Network Attached Storage (NAS) SSD | Seagate US


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

JLV03 said:


> Companies are starting to make SSDs that can go in a NAS. Would it be possible to go down that path in the future?
> 
> IronWolf 110 Network Attached Storage (NAS) SSD | Seagate US


That's good to see, though at the moment they're about four times the price of spinning HDDs so maybe I won't be the first to experiment with those.


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