Tivo HD - Upgrade drive now or wait?

3791 Views 34 Replies 18 Participants Last post by aaronwt, Sep 22, 2007

davenull

Discussion Starter · Sep 13, 2007

The fall season is coming and I'm sure I will be very short of drive space on my new Tivo HD very soon. I did a little research on drive sizes and I feel like with a net of 500GB I'll be happy with my capacity for the lifetime of my Tivo. So I feel like I am at a decision point right now of deciding from:

1. Upgrade internal drive
2. Add-on an external eSATA
3. Wait for a firmware update making the eSATA upgrade easier then do #2
4. Wait for the official TiVo eSATA drive / support

Technically, I am competent to do the upgrade but I don't look forward to all the tinkering and the last thing I want is to end up with an unstable TiVo and deal with the hassle of having something that doesn't work well.

Does anyone have any theories on if TiVo does release the drive, how much might it cost?

If I am going to do an upgrade now, am I better off upgrading the internal drive or adding on a eSata?

What should I do?

1 - 20 of 35 Posts

mphtrilogy

· #2 · Sep 13, 2007

I'm in a similar boat. I am going to wait for a TIvo approved esata drive myself, and put it on my christmas list.

In the meantime, I am keepingf my cable dvr box as well as my Tivo to bridge the gap while I work the kinks out of the new tivo and wait for the esata external hard drive to be "officially" launched

cr33p

· #3 · Sep 13, 2007

davenull said:
The fall season is coming and I'm sure I will be very short of drive space on my new Tivo HD very soon. I did a little research on drive sizes and I feel like with a net of 500GB I'll be happy with my capacity for the lifetime of my Tivo. So I feel like I am at a decision point right now of deciding from:

1. Upgrade internal drive
2. Add-on an external eSATA
3. Wait for a firmware update making the eSATA upgrade easier then do #2
4. Wait for the official TiVo eSATA drive / support

Technically, I am competent to do the upgrade but I don't look forward to all the tinkering and the last thing I want is to end up with an unstable TiVo and deal with the hassle of having something that doesn't work well.

Does anyone have any theories on if TiVo does release the drive, how much might it cost?

If I am going to do an upgrade now, am I better off upgrading the internal drive or adding on a eSata?

What should I do?

I would just go with upgrading the internal drive, IMHO a new internal drive will be more stable and dependable than a external drive any day, esp since with an add on drive you are spanning recordings across 2 drives this ups the odds of failure just by having two drives instead of one. And with a external drive its one more thing to have sitting with all of your components and eating up more power. The only reason I see for anyone to add an external drive is if they are completely afraid of opening the case. And at this point to add an external drive to a Tivo HD unit the original drive has to be pulled anyways. I have already performed 2 internal drive upgrades on my Tivo HD units and they went flawlessly. Spik25's WinMFS program is amazing. Need any help PM me

bdlucas

· #4 · Sep 13, 2007

I've been asking myself the same question and decided to just go with upgrading the internal drive. In addition to the reasons mentioned above, an external drive is just that much more fan noise that I could do without. The TiVo HD is quiet, but not silent.

cr33p

· #5 · Sep 13, 2007

bdlucas said:
I've been asking myself the same question and decided to just go with upgrading the internal drive. In addition to the reasons mentioned above, an external drive is just that much more fan noise that I could do without. The TiVo HD is quiet, but not silent.

You got it, and an external drive enclosure no matter how neat it looks will stand out like a sore thumb next to all of your components and fits very awkwardly.

Warhawks

· #6 · Sep 13, 2007

I hope to upgrade my internal drive with a 500gb. I am waiting for weaknees to have the 500 on "special of the day", rather than the 300 which has been for almost a week now!

bdlucas

· #7 · Sep 13, 2007

Warhawks said:
I hope to upgrade my internal drive with a 500gb. I am waiting for weaknees to have the 500 on "special of the day", rather than the 300 which has been for almost a week now!

Ordered mine (500GB DB35) from thenerds.net (who sponsor mfslive.org). Will let you know if I get good service.

jfh3

· #8 · Sep 14, 2007

No reason to wait if you are comfortable with doing it yourself.
Very easy with WinMFS and better overall to have one drive rather than two.

joneSi

· #9 · Sep 14, 2007

Do it. WinMFS if you are linux-phobic (though you needn't be!) is a great way to go. I have a 750gb drive.

joneSi

jlib

· #10 · Sep 14, 2007

The only reason to wait is because all the manufacturers will have released 1TB drives by this month. That will put downward pressure on the price of the "sweet spot" 500-750GB drives. But really, it is not worth missing the season premieres just for a few bucks...

CCourtney

· #11 · Sep 14, 2007

cr33p said:
The only reason I see for anyone to add an external drive is if they are completely afraid of opening the case.

I'll have to disagree with that statement. I don't see a reason to through let 160GB of more disk space collect dust.

I personally have been flip-flopping with going the eSata route w/ a 500GB and using the 'SuperSize' option -> 20Hrs + 70Hrs (90Hrs) of HD record time. That's close to what may are doing with an 750GB internal w/o 'SuperSize' -> 96Hrs HD recording.

I still have to open the box up and image the factory drive to do this as eSata plug in play is not available yet and the TiVo HD eSata update currently still requires the internal drive to be removed and imaged (then replaced) using MFS.

CCourtney

dpfels

· #12 · Sep 14, 2007

To Bruce:

Can I ask which DB35 you ordered? From what I can tell, all of the DB35 drives on thenerds are PATA, not SATA. I think the SATA versions end in "SCE" not "ACE" like this: ST3500830SCE (the 500 GB version).

I got this from weaknees raw drive page.

Thanks,
Dan

control-z

· #13 · Sep 14, 2007

I'm living with the stock drive in my Tivo HD. So far in a week or so I haven't filled it up. The eSATA option is intriguing, but when the time comes I'll probably go for a 750GB internal drive. Even though it's some trouble to do the upgrade, it's the cheapest and cleanest upgrade.

jlib

· #14 · Sep 14, 2007

dpfels said:
...From what I can tell, all of the DB35 drives on thenerds are PATA, not SATA.

They have always had SATA DB35 drives.

jkovach

· #15 · Sep 14, 2007

jlib said:
They have always had SATA DB35 drives.

Always? That's impressive.

cr33p

· #16 · Sep 14, 2007

CCourtney said:
I'll have to disagree with that statement. I don't see a reason to through let 160GB of more disk space collect dust.

I personally have been flip-flopping with going the eSata route w/ a 500GB and using the 'SuperSize' option -> 20Hrs + 70Hrs (90Hrs) of HD record time. That's close to what may are doing with an 750GB internal w/o 'SuperSize' -> 96Hrs HD recording.

I still have to open the box up and image the factory drive to do this as eSata plug in play is not available yet and the TiVo HD eSata update currently still requires the internal drive to be removed and imaged (then replaced) using MFS.

CCourtney

I think I would agree with you there, 160 gigs is a lot to have laying around collecting dust, In the near future I will be working on seeing if I can design a internal bracket to house an addl hdd within the case. So technically using the ESATA but from within the case.

dpfels

· #17 · Sep 14, 2007

When I search DB35, I only get the drives ending in ACE which are PATA. I get the same thing when I click on the link from mfslive.

Maybe I am doing something wrong.
Dan

bdlucas

· #18 · Sep 14, 2007

Here are their DB35 drives:

http://www.thenerds.net/index.php?page=esearch&action=Query&keyword=db35&x=0&y=0

They show three SCE drives. But maybe that changes as their inventory changes? Here's the drive I ordered:

http://www.thenerds.net/SEAGATE_Seagate_DB353_Series_Hard_Drive.ST3500830SCE.html

FedEx tracking says it's been delivered. Time to head home!

Kablemodem

· #19 · Sep 14, 2007

Does replacing the internal drive in an S3 require repairing and/or reauthorizing the cable cards?

cr33p

· #20 · Sep 14, 2007

Kablemodem said:
Does replacing the internal drive in an S3 require repairing and/or reauthorizing the cable cards?

Yes and no, if you do a install via a truncated image then you will have a stock drive just as if it where new again, if you use mfscopy it will retain all settings, shows, and season passes. I would recommend using WinMFS and do a mfscopy. That way its as if nothing ever changed.

1 - 20 of 35 Posts

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