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View Full Version : Constant Drive Activity After Upgrade?

BrianA
04-16-2008, 11:33 PM
I've upgraded the drive in my Series 2 Tivo with a 300GB Seagate, and now the drive is almost constantly being accessed. I can hear the heads moving even when the Tivo is in Standby. This drive did not have this problem when it was in my PC.

Has anyone experienced this before? Any ideas on how to make it stop?
ciper
04-16-2008, 11:43 PM
The drive has always been constantly accessed on every Tivo ever made (when the unit is running properly).

The difference now is that you used a loud Seagate drive. Should have done your homework before using that drive!
ttodd1
04-17-2008, 11:58 AM
OR it could also be doing a reindex of the data if you just did this.. Give it about 72 hours and see if it "calms down" then.
BrianA
04-17-2008, 03:28 PM
The drive has always been constantly accessed on every Tivo ever made (when the unit is running properly).

The difference now is that you used a loud Seagate drive. Should have done your homework before using that drive!

The drive was nowhere near this loud when it was in the old PC is was in prior to becoming a Tivo drive.

OR it could also be doing a reindex of the data if you just did this.. Give it about 72 hours and see if it "calms down" then.

It's been a couple of weeks, and I didn't retain any shows when I did the swap. :(

Assuming what ciper says is true, does anyone know why a normally functioning Tivo would be constantly seeking on the drive? That makes no sense.
ilh
04-17-2008, 04:44 PM
It is constantly buffering live TV to the disk. I believe it separates the audio and video streams, so it will be constantly seeking between the two while writing. It will also be seeking between the writing locations and the reading locations for playback, even when displaying live TV. If you have dual tuners, there is double the buffering.

I'm not sure of other models, but a TiVo HD is constantly buffering both tuners to the disk, even when in standby.

A PC is generally quite a bit noisier in terms of fans. Take an apparently quiet drive out of a PC and into a quiet living room in a TiVo and it will almost certainly be more noticeable.

Most Seagates are noisy as they don't have AAM. The WD GP drives are generally considered the quietest available today.