[mcf57]

I have 2 lifetime Roamios with Comcast cable cards. They are ONLY used to record local cable access channels about 2-3 times per month for a special project. I currently have the setting so it goes into standby mode after 2hrs of no use. My understanding is the hard drive still spins, but the rest of the unit is in a much lower consumption state. is this about true?

It can also sometimes be 4-5 weeks between recordings so depending on when I need to record these local access channels, I sometimes also fully unplug the units as well. then fire them up about 2 days before a recording is needed so they can connect for the guide & subscription status. Not always & I know on/off is more wear on a hard drive, but I also figured since weeks between recordings, unplugging will definitely shut the hard drive down & make it last longer .

When they are in standby, is the hard drive truly shut off and stops spinning (until a recording is needed) or does it constantly spin as long as its plugged in & no matter what mode the TiVO is in?

 

[ThAbtO]

Standby only cuts the video feeding to the TV.
The highest setting in the power saving will shut down the hard drive, but it will not record either, until its woken up from its deep slumber.

There has been a bug where it cannot be revived from this slumber except by pulling the plug.

More wear and tear on the hard drive is when its powered on and off rather than it be running 24/7hrs.

 

[JoeKustra]

I have 2 lifetime Roamios with Comcast cable cards. They are ONLY used to record local cable access channels about 2-3 times per month for a special project. I currently have the setting so it goes into standby mode after 2hrs of no use. My understanding is the hard drive still spins, but the rest of the unit is in a much lower consumption state. is this about true?
It can also sometimes be 4-5 weeks between recordings so depending on when I need to record these local access channels, I sometimes also fully unplug the units as well. then fire them up about 2 days before a recording is needed so they can connect for the guide & subscription status. Not always & I know on/off is more wear on a hard drive, but I also figured since weeks between recordings, unplugging will definitely shut the hard drive down & make it last longer .
When they are in standby, is the hard drive truly shut off and stops spinning (until a recording is needed) or does it constantly spin as long as its plugged in & no matter what mode the TiVO is in?

I recently measured the power consumption and it was 2 to 4 watts less in Standby. But if you only use the unit monthly, I would pull the plug until the day before the unit is needed. I power off my spare basic Roamio. It gets powered on every Saturday & Sunday, along with a Premiere. I never use power saving on anything, which includes 3 Roamio and 3 Mini units. All running Roamio units have external fans, as do two Mini.

 

[krkaufman]

The highest setting in the power saving will shut down the hard drive, but it will not record either, until its woken up from its deep slumber.

Barring software bugs, Standby mode doesn't affect manual or OnePass scheduled recordings, just Suggestions recordings, if enabled.

 

[B Mann]

Pulling the plug is the harshest way of disconnecting and reconnecting power. The power is connected and disconnected multiple times as the plug is inserted, creating power surges. The best way is to use a switch. Power strip or switch in a cord. Most switches are made to have a "snap" in them so the power is connected solidly when turned on.

As far as how long to have a unit unplugged to extend its life?? A couple weeks?? When a device is running it gets warm. Multiple warm up cool down cycles can be hard on components/connections.

 

[videobruce]

Standby only cuts the video feeding to the TV.
More wear and tear on the hard drive is when its powered on and off rather than it be running 24/7hrs.

That contradicts each other.

That "were & tear" is a old wives tale, especially if you record seldomly. How about all those new vehicles that shut the engine off at a traffic light for 30-45 seconds, then restart??
Now that is "wear & tear", not stopping a HDD for hours and hours on end when it recorder is only use s few hours a day, then starting it up for a brief period to do (probably) defragging, deletion of old programs and/or updating the Guide data.Now, if you use the recorder to record a lot of programming and/or use it to actually 'watch' TV w/o recording separately, then that would be valid.

 

[ThAbtO]

In standby, the hard drive is still running, therefore, the heads are still floating, writing, etc. On shutdown, the heads would hit the surfaces of the disk. Western Digital has a feature called IntelliPark, which parks the heads in a location that would not cause damage.

 

[videobruce]

It does spin down, I have heard it and heard it 'spin up' more than once. Not necessary immediately, depending on what it's doing at the time.
AFA power saving, that drop Joe reported is around 20% of it's 'running' draw. That any any other device that has a similar option times a few million across the country, goes well past just 'adding up' to the big picture.

 

[ThAbtO]

It spins down is due to the power management set to high.

 

[slowbiscuit]

The power save/standby bugs that were never fixed on TE3 with Roamio and Minis make it a non-starter. Only way I'd consider it is if I was getting too many EAS alerts, otherwise it's pointless.

 

[lew]

The power save/standby bugs that were never fixed on TE3 with Roamio and Minis make it a non-starter. Only way I'd consider it is if I was getting too many EAS alerts, otherwise it's pointless.

Are the bugs present in TE4?

 

[Greg Hi]

I'm just new to this forum. I have a Roamio OTA and now two Mini VOX's with it. I really never use the Roamio itself to watch TV from, just the two Mini VOX's. I used to have the older "Minis", until one of them completely stopped working one day. But I've always had the Roamio in the highest power save mode with no issues recording every day, or even during long periods of no recording. I'd say since the beginning of this year, I started having issues where I could not get the Mini VOX's to work. Sometimes I could watch recordings already on the Roamio, but no Live TV. And it had not recorded scheduled programs either. Disconnecting the power and reconnecting to the Roamio fixed the issue each time, but only for maybe a day or so. I called Tivo support and they were no help. But what I realized was that my Roamio was not "waking up". So I went to the "medium" (from highest) power save mode. That seems to have fixed the issue so far. Is this what some of you are describing as a software issue?

 

[krkaufman]

The power save/standby bugs that were never fixed on TE3 with Roamio and Minis make it a non-starter.

Good news...

A major fix in this release is that you can now correctly connect to a TE3 box that is in standby from another Tivo. I also noticed that the Tivo App also connects again to a Tivo that is in standby.

I tested this connecting to a Roamio Plus and a Roamio Pro from both my Bolt and Android App.

We've been waiting for this fix since 2018! I hope it sticks around for a while.

Our TE3 Mini v1 can again quickly pull-up My Shows on our in-Standby DVR and start playback.

 

[johnbrown44]

Good to hear. I've been hard on Tivo lately for some issues, good to see they are still trying to improve things.