Tivo HD (TCD652160) eSATA Port is enabled now

[spike2k5]

Looks like eSATA port is enabled for Tivo HD w/ the latest software update (8.1.7c2-01-2-652)

There is no easy kickstart method or easy plug and play method found as of yet.

So you will have to use mfstools (Mfslive Linux Boot CD) or WinMFS.

Screenshot is here.

Connect both internal and eSATA drive to your computer:

For WinMFS, use mfscopy (answer "yes" at the end), restore(answer "yes" at the end) or mfsadd and will take care of it.

For mfstools, mfsadd -x -r 4 /dev/sda /dev/sdb (notice there is no "e" that was required for Tivo S3)
/dev/sda is your internal drive, dev/sdb is your eSATA drive.

If you don't have a Tivo HD (TCD652160), go out and get one ASAP b/c you are missing out.

[MickeS]

I think I speak for all of us here, even as a non TiVoHD owner, when I say that you rock.

[CCourtney]

Great News - Got it working with a RAID 0 yet ;-) (Thinking about 2 750Gb's)

CCourtney

PS: I posted some questions about your 2.5Gb RAID 0 setup on your 'TiVo HD Finally Upgraded' thread if you get a chance.

[MirclMax]

Well that's wonderful.. great find! But of course.. now I have more choices and continue to be confused by them.

As someone who was about to do a 750 or 500 GB internal drive swap on a THD .. can you come up with any advantages do doing it via the eSATA port instead other than the extra storage space that keeping the original drive inside would provide?

If the kickstart worked I'd probably jump right on it .. but if I have to yank drives out anyhow .. I'm thinking internal drive upgrade now ... maybe eSATA later? (As needed) .. that make sense? Am I missing anything in my thought process?


-MirclMax

[bkdtv]

Originally Posted by MirclMax

If the kickstart worked I'd probably jump right on it .. but if I have to yank drives out anyhow .. I'm thinking internal drive upgrade now ... maybe eSATA later? (As needed) .. that make sense? Am I missing anything in my thought process?

Remember, Tivo told some reviewers that it planned to officially support eSATA expansion by the end of the year.

Upgrading the internal drive now should make it easier to upgrade storage further using eSATA later this year.

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by bkdtv

Remember, Tivo told some reviewers that it planned to officially support eSATA expansion by the end of the year.

Upgrading the internal drive now should make it easier to upgrade storage further using eSATA later this year.

I'm not sure if you can add eSATA using Plug & play if you upgrade internal drive now. Maybe Tivo Inc will change things around to make it work but up to now, Tivo never had this ability. (BlessTivo or Kickstart)

I will poke around some more and see if plug & play can be enabled somehow.

[sergiu]

i got my tivo hd 2 days ago and the external drive last night. g still need the esata cable. i'll wait for the kickstart....for a few more days....i hate to void the warranty...

[rcamille]

I just upgraded my internal drive to a 500gb. (Thanks Spike). I now have 64 HD hours. I am thinking that this is sufficient for my needs, but if it turns out to be inadequate. I will put the OEM drive back into the TiVo HD and put the 500gb drive into an enclosure and connnect via eSATA once it is oficially enabled.

I think the benefit of upgrading the internal drive is that the unit remains self contained.

[sergiu]

Originally Posted by rcamille

I just upgraded my internal drive to a 500gb. (Thanks Spike). I now have 64 HD hours. I am thinking that this is sufficient for my needs, but if it turns out to be inadequate. I will put the OEM drive back into the TiVo HD and put the 500gb drive into an enclosure and connnect via eSATA once it is oficially enabled.

I think the benefit of upgrading the internal drive is that the unit remains self contained.

if you got it in ....just leave it you can add even more om esata later ....even the original drive

[richsadams]

Thanks Spike, good stuff as usual.

It'll be interesting to see if the glitches some are seeing w/eSATA expansion on the S3's appear with THD boxes. (Ours has been flawless since May 12th, but not so with others.)

I'd agree...if you need to pop the case, just upgrade to the largest drive you can afford and wait for TiVo to support eSATA for even more real estate. (Has anyone installed a 1TB drive in the THD yet?)

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by richsadams

Thanks Spike, good stuff as usual.

It'll be interesting to see if the glitches some are seeing w/eSATA expansion on the S3's appear with THD boxes. (Ours has been flawless since May 12th, but not so with others.)

I'd agree...if you need to pop the case, just upgrade to the largest drive you can afford and wait for TiVo to support eSATA for even more real estate. (Has anyone installed a 1TB drive in the THD yet?)

Many people told me they have upgraded to 1TB.

I looked around some more yesterday did not see any easy plug and play way to add an eSATA drive. Looks like Tivo Inc. has to do yet another software update to support their Plug & Play eSATA drives. Also, it may not work on already upgraded internal drive.

[TXTivoUser]

I just got my 500 installed on Wednesday, and I don't really forsee any need for more space anytime soon. I'll just keep the OEM drive and firmware in place and use my 500g drive for now. If/when the need arises, I'll probably slap the OEM drive in, update its firmware and use this 500g as eSATA, or maybe even just slap a 1TB drive internally if the 500 isn't enough. I, however, doubt that'll ever be the case for me.

Now - if somehow THD starts supporting 2 multi stream cards for a toal of 4 tuners....then we might have a space issue.

[normychas]

Originally Posted by TXTivoUser

Now - if somehow THD starts supporting 2 multi stream cards for a toal of 4 tuners....then we might have a space issue.

this is not possible. This is a hardware issue. First of all the TivoHD has two slots, one supports multistream and one supports single stream. My tech tried to install a multi stream card into the second slot so i know for a fact that it wont even recognize the card. Second of all the TivoHD only has two tuners so while it has the ability to split the signal internally for the two cable cards there would be no way to tune even a third signal which would be possible with a multi and single stream cable card. Now this is a message board so I'm sure if i am incorrect somebody will harshly correct me but this is my understanding of the TivoHD

[BlackBetty]

Originally Posted by TXTivoUser

Now - if somehow THD starts supporting 2 multi stream cards for a toal of 4 tuners....then we might have a space issue.

is the TiVo fairy going to magically fly into your box and add an additional 2 tuners in order to make this possible?

[SullyND]

Originally Posted by TXTivoUser

Now - if somehow THD starts supporting 2 multi stream cards for a toal of 4 tuners....then we might have a space issue.

1 M-CARD supports more than two tuners. As noted, the THD hardware is what is limited to two tuners.

[GoldenTiger]

Awesome, I may add more space now that I can use two drives like this !

[cr33p]

So this also means that we could install an addl internal drive that technically speaking is an external drive but just happens to be inside the machine? Providing we have a bracket manufactured.

[jfh3]

Originally Posted by richsadams

(Has anyone installed a 1TB drive in the THD yet?)

Yes, thanks to Spike's tool. Quick and easy.

[jfh3]

Originally Posted by TXTivoUser

I just got my 500 installed on Wednesday, and I don't really forsee any need for more space anytime soon.

By soon, do you mean next week?

500GB is not as much as you think ...

[richsadams]

Originally Posted by jfh3

Yes, thanks to Spike's tool. Quick and easy.

[sfhub]

Originally Posted by TXTivoUser

Now - if somehow THD starts supporting 2 multi stream cards for a toal of 4 tuners....then we might have a space issue.

What's the point? A single multi-stream card can already support 200Mbps or around 5 QAM256 6MHz bands.

[MickeS]

What is this, the "pile on TXTivoUser for not knowing the ins and outs of TiVo tuning" thread?

[Evilmonkee]

Forgive me for being a bit confused. Hopefully someone can clarify this for me with a straight answer.

First of all, I just picked up my new TivoHD today. I'm getting my new HDTV tomorrow but I'm setting up the Tivo tonight so it will be ready for the cable card install tomorrow.

So I noticed the SATA port on the back and I thought, "Cool, I can get an external drive if I need space." Then I come here and it seems that this port is not yet enabled. Is this true?

If it is, it seems odd to me that they included a SATA port that doesn't even work. If it is not enabled then tell me this, can I expect a software update sometime in the future that will enable the port and simple allow you to plug in an external SATA drive and increase storage capacity?

TIA,
Keith

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by Evilmonkee

Forgive me for being a bit confused. Hopefully someone can clarify this for me with a straight answer.

First of all, I just picked up my new TivoHD today. I'm getting my new HDTV tomorrow but I'm setting up the Tivo tonight so it will be ready for the cable card install tomorrow.

So I noticed the SATA port on the back and I thought, "Cool, I can get an external drive if I need space." Then I come here and it seems that this port is not yet enabled. Is this true?

If it is, it seems odd to me that they included a SATA port that doesn't even work. If it is not enabled then tell me this, can I expect a software update sometime in the future that will enable the port and simple allow you to plug in an external SATA drive and increase storage capacity?

TIA,
Keith

It only works if you pull the internal drive and married an eSATA drive using a PC and WinMFS software or MFSLive Linux Boot Cd.

I have not been able to figure out how to add a plug and play eSATA drive and I doubt you can do that with the current software.

I read some place that Tivo is planning on releasing Tivo branded eSATA drives that are plug and play.

[richsadams]

Originally Posted by Evilmonkee

Forgive me for being a bit confused. Hopefully someone can clarify this for me with a straight answer.

First of all, I just picked up my new TivoHD today. I'm getting my new HDTV tomorrow but I'm setting up the Tivo tonight so it will be ready for the cable card install tomorrow.

So I noticed the SATA port on the back and I thought, "Cool, I can get an external drive if I need space." Then I come here and it seems that this port is not yet enabled. Is this true?

If it is, it seems odd to me that they included a SATA port that doesn't even work. If it is not enabled then tell me this, can I expect a software update sometime in the future that will enable the port and simple allow you to plug in an external SATA drive and increase storage capacity?

TIA,
Keith

Welcome and congrats on your new TiVo HD!

As Spike mentioned the external eSATA port, multi-room viewing and TiVoToGo features are not currently active on the TiVo HD. Disclaimers to that effect can be found at the retailers and on TiVo's website. MRV and TTG are slated for November and word has it that the eSATA feature may be supported by year-end, but no guarantees. Everything needed is in your new TiVo; an eventual software upgrade (automatically delivered from TiVo when it's ready) is all that is required for each feature to work.

There are other threads on these subjects if you’d up for in-depth discussions.

[TXTivoUser]

Originally Posted by MickeS

What is this, the "pile on TXTivoUser for not knowing the ins and outs of TiVo tuning" thread?

It's cool - I can take it, but I appreciate you sticking up for me.

I appreciate the comments, and have now learned something from it.

After having read the comments, I realized that I knew all of this before and had the proverbial brain fart.

Hey - we all get 'em sometime....just some of us admit it more than others.

Anyway - to the poster who asked...

Originally Posted by jfh3

By soon, do you mean next week?

500GB is not as much as you think ...

By the reports on my TiVo, 65 HD hours is more recording than I've ever needed for my family's watching habits.

I had a FIOS HD DVR that only supported 30 hours of HD content (or up to something like 60-80 hrs of SD) and we never got over 75% used on that drive.

However, that may change and 500 may not be enough as I'm starting to try to let TiVo manage space and keep the drive relatively full at all times. Who knows...but the fall season starts soon, so this is a prime opportunity to test it out.

[robomeister]

Not to jump on the 'bash TXTiVoUser bandwagon,' but in the specification for the Multi Stream Cable Cards, they can handle up to six (6) streams of data, to feed 6 different tuners. Now we need a six tuner TiVo.

robomeister

[Mephisto]

Just added a Seagate DB35 500 GB drive (in an Antec MX-1 enclosure) to a Hitachi 1 TB internal drive. 218 HD hours. Thanks, Spike!

[sergiu]

even at microcenter

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by sergiu

even at microcenter

Try the following post: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=350510

First post #31 has links for eSATA II cables