Making a TiVo disk using USB2 adapter?

aerialplug · 01-10-2007, 06:17 AM

Quick question: Is it possible to create a TiVo hard disk using a device such as this ? It claims to be Unix compatible but I guess there could be several complications.

The reason I ask is that in the future there will undoubteldy be PCs coming on the market whose mother boards only support SATA and, presuming we're still nursing our series 1 TiVos in 5-10 years time (perish the thought, but it could well be true) I was wondering if this was a viable solution.

I've already bought one of these for another purpose but I was just wondering...

mikerr · 01-10-2007, 07:29 AM

There are very few DVD drives that use SATA for some reason, so I doubt tthe moherbaord manufacturers are about to dump IDE ...

SATA is kind of pointless technology IMO.. its a quicker interface, but since drives are still a way off saturating existing IDE, it wasn't worth the upheaval.

The external version is nice (eSATA) and 4x faster than USB2 but rare.

PCI-express was worth it, as PCI really struggles with gigabit and raid, or even 2-3 drives...

Back to the question, yes I have one of those (an EasyIDE) at half the price:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=138544

It might work (just use /dev/sda) but would be much slower anyway (usb2=30MB/sec Drive speed = 60MB/sec)

aerialplug · 01-10-2007, 08:13 AM

Thanks for the info.

Yes, I've seen chaper ones but I deliberately wanted to get one that did both IDE and SATA. I'm hoping to use it as an external moveable drive to copy large chunks of data from laptop to main PC and to and from work. Since I already have a large hard drive going spare, I figured this would be a cheaper option than getting a standalone unit - and getting one that's SATA compatible would hopefully future proof it.

Having said that, the number of times I've bought a flash card reader thinking that I'd be future proof with all the different slots only for my next camera/phone to have an even newer card that's not supported.

I know it's slower than installing the disk in the machine, but in the laptop's case, there simply isn't room in the case for the 3.5 in drive!

blindlemon · 01-10-2007, 08:50 AM

Check out www.mfslive.org - the author claims that it works with USB adapters and although I couldn't get it to work with my el-cheapo USB1 adpter from eBuyer it would interesting to see if it will work with this.

aerialplug · 01-10-2007, 10:03 AM

Well, the interface claims to be Linux compatible but I wasn't sure if our standard linux tool disks had USB interfaces for such devices.

Pugwash · 01-11-2007, 02:53 PM

The huge advantage with S-ATA is the tidy cables! I still feel safe that my TiVo wil be long dead before P-ATA goes out of stock. You can even get cable adapters to run a S-ATA drive on a P-ATA board, because they're not that different.

sjp · 01-11-2007, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aerialplug

Having said that, the number of times I've bought a flash card reader thinking that I'd be future proof with all the different slots only for my next camera/phone to have an even newer card that's not supported.

is that the new mini mini micro SD? my phone came with an adapter that allows this wee beastie to be used as a standard SD card.

mikerr · 01-12-2007, 05:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pugwash

The huge advantage with S-ATA is the tidy cables! I still feel safe that my TiVo wil be long dead before P-ATA goes out of stock. You can even get cable adapters to run a S-ATA drive on a P-ATA board, because they're not that different.

PATA cables were often made smaller, like the rounded ones, or tivo's own "folded" ribbon

I like SATA, and wish every PC had an eSATA port instead of USB,
but since there seems to be no big drive to move DVD drives to SATA,
a single PATA interface is likely to stay...

RichardJH · 01-12-2007, 05:51 AM

Quote:

I like SATA, and wish every PC had an eSATA port instead of USB,
but since there seems to be no big drive to move DVD drives to SATA,
a single PATA interface is likely to stay...

I agree but watch out if you happen to buy a new Dell PC. Whilst very pleased with the PC performance and price I missed the fact that it had no IDE port on the motherboard so I had to dig out an old PCI/IDE card so that I could reuse a recently boughr IDE hard drive and LG dvd writer/DVDram writer.

Ian_m · 01-12-2007, 06:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardJH

I agree but watch out if you happen to buy a new Dell PC. Whilst very pleased with the PC performance and price I missed the fact that it had no IDE port on the motherboard so I had to dig out an old PCI/IDE card so that I could reuse a recently boughr IDE hard drive and LG dvd writer/DVDram writer.

We have some little PCB type things used at work that plug into the 40 pin IDE connector on DVD drives (PATA) and provide SATA. They have a Silicon Image SATA to IDE converter on board.

Like this but much cheaper direct from Taiwan.
http://www.homestead.co.uk/productca...tegoryid=51066 (wont do CD ROM)
or this even cheaper
http://www.span.com/catalog/product_...oducts_id=6867

RichardJH · 01-12-2007, 06:26 AM

I bought 2 of these from Ebay (hong Kong supplier) but wasn't impressed in its use with the DVD writer. With it fitted to the Hard drive it stopped me using the Dell HD bay so I took the easy way out and used the PCI card. I am on the look out for a PCi express/IDE card if such a thing exists so that I can free up a PCI slot for something else

aerialplug · 01-12-2007, 07:29 AM

Well, it would have been good if it did what it was supposed to. The USB side of things worked but the PSU certainly didn't - it fried the hard drive causing a component on the circuit board to smoke!!! Although I do make a regular backup, quite a lot of recent photography has been lost.

As it's an electronic problem on the drive's board, I suspect the drive's platters are still OK so I'm buying an identical drive and I'm going to swap the circuit board in an attempt to recover the data.

I'm not exactly thrilled by the whole outcome of things though.

I've confirmed that the PC doesn't have an IDE slot so I'll either have to get a replacement for the USB interface or get an IDE card, which aren't that expensive these days I suspect.