Tivo.com is having a 48 hour Flash Sale on the Roamio 1TB OTA. It is $299 with free shipping. Ends June 25. or while supplies last. Just picked one up.
Well, I want to take advantage of this and get a second Roamio OTA. I have it in my cart, but can not find the external hard drive I also need on the site.
I started a chat with the Tivo help on the web site and they said:
I want to purchase another Tivo Roamio OTA, plus the 1TB external hard drive.
10:32:03 AM
I can not find the external hard drive on the web site to add to my cart.
10:32:14 AM
Rochel
We no longer support external hard drives.
10:33:49 AM
Me
But there is an esata on the Roamio OTA designed to plug in a 1TB drive. I purchased one from you for this same product less than a year ago. So do you not sell them or has the designe of the Roamio changed such that they do not work with one?
10:35:12 AM
That is, can I purhase one off of Amazon and use it if I were to purchase the Tivo Roamio OTA 1 TB such that I will havfe 2 TB total for storage
10:36:01 AM
Rochel
We do not sell them anymore. We stopped supporting hard drives just earlier this year.
10:36:59 AM
You can try, but we can't guarantee you that it'll work.
10:37:24 AM
Me
Ok. Well can you give feedback to managemant that this is disappointing. 1TB does not go very far with HD programming. Thank you for the information.
Well, I want to take advantage of this and get a second Roamio OTA. I have it in my cart, but can not find the external hard drive I also need on the site.
I started a chat with the Tivo help on the web site and they said:
I want to purchase another Tivo Roamio OTA, plus the 1TB external hard drive.
10:32:03 AM
I can not find the external hard drive on the web site to add to my cart.
10:32:14 AM
Rochel
We no longer support external hard drives.
10:33:49 AM
Me
But there is an esata on the Roamio OTA designed to plug in a 1TB drive. I purchased one from you for this same product less than a year ago. So do you not sell them or has the designe of the Roamio changed such that they do not work with one?
10:35:12 AM
That is, can I purhase one off of Amazon and use it if I were to purchase the Tivo Roamio OTA 1 TB such that I will havfe 2 TB total for storage
10:36:01 AM
Rochel
We do not sell them anymore. We stopped supporting hard drives just earlier this year.
10:36:59 AM
You can try, but we can't guarantee you that it'll work.
10:37:24 AM
Me
Ok. Well can you give feedback to managemant that this is disappointing. 1TB does not go very far with HD programming. Thank you for the information.
Echoing the other comments above, take this as Providence interceding on your behalf. External expander - not really the best way to go, absent some circumstances: costlier than it should be; another appliance, including which can get bumped; limited space addition; and, if there is an issue with the expander, you lose all your recordings on your box, as the TiVo splits each recording between the box and the expander.
As mentioned above, get the Western Digital red drive (recommended without knowing more about your needs: the 3TB version, as a good price/capacity trade-off, requiring no formatting by you--but other capacities are available as well, both bigger and smaller). You'll get 3 times the amount of space for well less than the price of the the expander, and it's proven itself to be fairly reliable. The replacement process is 1 step more complicated than plug-and-play: unplug the TiVo box, remove 1 or 2 Torx screws from the lid, pry the lid off, remove a few screws to remove the hard drive assembly, replace the old drive with the new, and reverse; and then plug the TiVo box in (you did unplug it to begin with, right? ) and let the box do all that it needs to prepare the new hard drive for use (for 3TB and under drives; for over 3TB drives, you need to remove the drive mid-way through the process and use freeware MFS Reformatter to re-format the drive, an easy process itself MFS Reformatter (mfsr)). Voila, and you're done--go fer it!
(And to separately assist you, there's a separate thread here dedicated to the replacement process, and Youtube videos are around which show the process, for comfort and familiarity.)
It's very simple to pop the top off the Roamio and add a larger hard drive. up to 3Tb internal hard drive can be swapped in without doing anything else. Just plug it in and redo guided setup.
IMO extender is dumb. Just buy the drive Series5orpremier just posted. You literally can install the new internal drive in just a few mins with little skill or knowledge required.
Thanks for your advice folks. I am now considering taking advantage of the flash sale and adding the 3TB drive suggested. Looking for the separate thread for the replacement for the Romio OTA.
From my reading of other threads (which may have been old) I thought the Tivo could only support up to 2TB, without more work, but perhaps that is old news.
Current Roamio has lots of old shows on it. We'd have to transfer it to our desktop or laptop computer first before installing the WD Red drive, right?!
Does that process take ages? Hours, days? (We have a 500GB Roamio, about 60% filled.)
How much degradation will there be if we then transfer the shows back to the newly installed WD? (Most all of these are old SD sitcoms.)
-----
Oh, one other question. I'm leery of doing the self-install because of concerns over shocks (e.g., from the power supply) or inadvertently shorting something. What's the risk?
Current Roamio has lots of old shows on it. We'd have to transfer it to our desktop or laptop computer first before installing the WD Red drive, right?!
Does that process take ages? Hours, days? (We have a 500GB Roamio, about 60% filled.)
A better alternative for your case (upgrading existing drive to 4TB or less) would be to use MFS Tools 3.2 to migrate from your 500GB drive to the new WD Red, retaining all existing programs and settings.
Gee! A homework assignment! So, I can't ask any more questions UNTIL I spend a bunch of time reading through a long thread and watching videos about the upgrade first!
I know you didn't mean it that way, and simply want to encourage people to do research before posting (which I had), but this comment sounded a tad snarky and patronizing:
"Please read through the MFS Tools 3.2 thread... *AND* watch...
*BEFORE* asking any further questions."
Note: I have read a bunch of threads on it and the general advice was transfer to desktop. I've also watched one video. Watching videos is a good idea to get a feel for what's involved and especially to actually do it, but for overviews and general information, I'm among those who read rather than watch! And, engage with others than sit through videos.
Cannot stand watching YouTube video reviews of products-- or embedded video links on news or tech sites. Give me the info and text, please, with a picture or two as needed. But videos? With irritating sound tracks? Forget it.
BEFORE replying to my post, please read Emily Post's books on etiquette and a host of Miss Manners columns! THEN, we can continue to converse about Tivo transfers and HD upgrades!
In any event, thanks to you and, particularly, krkaufman for the responses and information!
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