Question about theoretical limits

[mumpower]

I still have a couple of dual unit series 2 devices as well as a Series 3 and a TiVo HD. I have been reading up on the upgrade process for the HD units, surprised to discover that there are storage limits on these devices. I have not seen such criteria explicitly stated for the series 2 units, though. Do they have the same storage issues or could I throw a pair of 2TB drives into the older non-HD units to get 4TB worth of storage per drive? Is that 1.26TB limit being discussed for the HD units actually for all TiVos or is that quirk specific to them?

[bengalfreak]

I still have a couple of dual unit series 2 devices as well as a Series 3 and a TiVo HD. I have been reading up on the upgrade process for the HD units, surprised to discover that there are storage limits on these devices. I have not seen such criteria explicitly stated for the series 2 units, though. Do they have the same storage issues or could I throw a pair of 2TB drives into the older non-HD units to get 4TB worth of storage per drive? Is that 1.26TB limit being discussed for the HD units actually for all TiVos or is that quirk specific to them?


Same limits.

[robomeister]

As bengalfreak states, the Series2s have the same limits as the Series3s.

It is an addressing problem. In the code, there are a couple places where they use 32bit variables for addressing, therefore the 1GiB (not 1GB) limit. The maximum size of any partition is 1GiB. When you expand a drive, you can add only one additional partition, and you cannot change the size of existing partitions.

So, throwing in the 2TB drives would be a huge waste of space and money. On a Series2, the maximum usage would only be about 1.35TB on the A drive, depending on the model. On the B drive, you would only get 1TB.

The only Series2 that would get to use 1.35TB would be the Humax T2500, because it came standard with a 250GB drive. All other Series2s would use less space.

robomeister

[mumpower]

Thanks to both of you for the replies/explanation.

Is there any word on when TiVo plans to be a bit more forward thinking about their upgrades? I have to admit that this annoys me a little bit. I realize I'm more of a power user, we've got 12 TBs of movies and TV shows on external drives here. It's aggravating that I can't add a couple of 2TB drives at the moment. This is the first time since the early series one days that I recall units being tapped out under the theoretical maximum.

[classicsat]

I would never expect TiVo to change that, since they officially aren't supposed to be expanded, and it might be a bit of work to make sure it works.

[Jonathan_S]

I would never expect TiVo to change that, since they officially aren't supposed to be expanded, and it might be a bit of work to make sure it works.I'd expect that, like for many of the previous size limitations, TiVo will fix it when they being planning a new unit that would run into the limitation.

In this case, if/when TiVo starts planning a 1.5 or 2 TB unit, or DVR expander, I assume that'll motivate them to patch the remaining kernel issues for large drives.

[mumpower]

Right, I'd have to think so. I understand the point made about upgrades being discouraged historically, but the eSata port changes that. Currently, there is an artificial limitation on storage. That's not a positive moving forward. It's like the old 128MB limit per drive. It will be addressed. I'm just surprised it hasn't yet. I guess that the fact that there are 32bit variables utilized means it's not the simplest of fixes.

[Karmavore]

pyTivo FTW :)

Even though my TiVo has a measley 1.35TB of space on it, it's wired right into my network where the storage restrictions are enforced by budget, and not by any 32-bit address. Use pyTivo to seamlessly bind the TiVo's local drive to the rest of your network, and *all* of your TiVos have access to *all* of your movies *all* of the time. That sounds like a forward-thinking solution to me. And the whole thing is free! It would be a bargain at twice the price!