S2DT: WD Caviar Blue vs WD Pata AV drive?

bgc said:

Is there any real benefit going with the so called AV drive vs. the standard caviar blue?

I will most likely go with the native pata drive instead of messing with one of the pata-sata adapters since they seem to be hit and miss.

Thanks,
BGC

Click to expand...

Not sure exactly which brands and models you mean by "so called AV drive", so I can't address that directly.

The Caviar Blue drives don't seem to work in Series 1 Tivos, but Series 2 units seem to like them just fine.

I used to use a 500GB IDE(PATA) Caviar Blue in an S2 DT 'til I replaced it with 2 1TB Caviar Blacks.

You get more GB for your dollar these days with a SATA drive, even with the price of an adapter added.

If you read the adapter thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=416883

you'll find the hit and miss has been taken out by other users pooling their experiences.

Short version for S2 DT, use a JM 20330 chipset adapter or one of the Marvell chipset adapters recommended for S1s.

Referring to WD Pata Caviar Blue WD5000AAKB :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136111

WD Pata AV WD5000AVJB :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136142

Newegg just went out of stock on the AV.

I've seen alot of posts at Anandtech about the Caviar Black drives being noisy, how are they in the Tivo?

BGC

bgc said:

Would it be better to ask these questions in the help forum? This one doesn't seem to get alot of traffic.

BGC

Click to expand...

There's a drive expansion and upgrade thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784

which got started in the Series 3 forum, which has grown beyond S3 questions. Way beyond.

It's only about 250 pages, but you should read it anyway. Seriously.

You'll absorb a lot of information about drives and Tivos.

Then you can post your question there, and get it answered by someone like richsadams.

I'm using that 500AAKB in the computer on which I'm writing this.

The S2 DT it was in is to my right, about at ear height and within an arm's length. The 1TB Caviar Black in there isn't any more noisy than the Blue was when it was in it.

However, in addition to 3 computer power supplies I've also got a regular "move air around a room" type fan running, so there's bound to be some masking effect occurring.

The S2 DT in the family room has 2 of those 1TB Blacks, and, if the sound on the TV is all the way down, and I'm physically close enough, I can hear them if the TiVo is especially busy, but for the most part it's unobtrusive, and no louder than other drives in that and previous Tivos sitting in that room. If the TV volume is turned up loud enough to hear I never notice the hard drives.