[Cyrl]

ok I tried reading as much as I could about expanding drives and saving files etc but I'm still kinda confused.

The situation I'm looking at is replacinig my internal drive with a 750gb drive while keeping recordings so that is the one expansion it can take, at that point i can't grow that drive again from what I understand.

Can I then add an external SATA drive later when the port is more stable without losing any recordings on the primary drive? I basically don't want to make any changes to the original drive at least for a while (and hooking up a 160gb drive externally seems... silly) and would like to put the 750 I have now in as the primary and later add a TB drive or something for more room.. I'd like to eventually be able to keep my favorite shows archived until the dvd releases if at all possible.

Thanks for the help, if this was asked before and answered sorry in advance. I did read the faq's at the mfs tools pages but am still a bit confused.

[*edit* fixed spelling error in title]

 

[richsadams]

ok I tried reading as much as I could about expanding drives and saving files etc but I'm still kinda confused.

The situation I'm looking at is replacinig my internal drive with a 750gb drive while keeping recordings so that is the one expansion it can take, at that point i can't grow that drive again from what I understand.

Can I then add an external SATA drive later when the port is more stable without losing any recordings on the primary drive? I basically don't want to make any changes to the original drive at least for a while (and hooking up a 160gb drive externally seems... silly) and would like to put the 750 I have now in as the primary and later add a TB drive or something for more room.. I'd like to eventually be able to keep my favorite shows archived until the dvd releases if at all possible.

Thanks for the help, if this was asked before and answered sorry in advance. I did read the faq's at the mfs tools pages but am still a bit confused.

Assuming you're talking about a TiVo HD or S3? If so you can upgrade the internal drive and later add an external SATA drive w/o losing any recordings (based on current technology/software). Right now there is a 2TB limit between both drives.

Looks like you've already found the MFSLive website for upgrading internal drives.

Here's the thread for adding an eSATA drive to an S3:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=350510

Here's the link for adding an eSATA drive to a THD:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=365215

Best of luck!

 

[Cyrl]

Thanks Rich, I just got an email that my 750gb drive was backordered and in a rush I ordered a seagate external already enclosed drive, it appears to be a 750gb sata II drive on the inside. Hopefully it's not some funky form factor. I'm thinking I should try just yanking it out of the enclosure seagate has and later putting a different drive inside that enclosure, overall it was cheaper that way than what I was buying before anyway.

 

[sfhub]

Right now there is a 2TB limit between both drives.

I thought that was a bug in earlier tools and spike2k5 addressed it in the current release. Did I read wrong? Maybe the limit spike2k5 was on a single drive?

 

[richsadams]

Thanks Rich, I just got an email that my 750gb drive was backordered and in a rush I ordered a seagate external already enclosed drive, it appears to be a 750gb sata II drive on the inside. Hopefully it's not some funky form factor. I'm thinking I should try just yanking it out of the enclosure seagate has and later putting a different drive inside that enclosure, overall it was cheaper that way than what I was buying before anyway.

Glad to help. Seagate drives are very good but I'd think twice about pulling the drive from the enclosure as it will likely void the warranty. Better to seek out a bare drive for an internal upgrade.

 

[richsadams]

I thought that was a bug in earlier tools and spike2k5 addressed it in the current release. Did I read wrong? Maybe the limit spike2k5 was on a single drive?

Anything's possible, but I thought that the only way past the 2TB limit was a RAID setup? I've been wrong before...ask my wife!

 

[sfhub]

Anything's possible, but I thought that the only way past the 2TB limit was a RAID setup? I've been wrong before...ask my wife!

Oh, you mean 2TB limit because of the current drive sizes? I thought you meant 2TB limit because of the TiVo OS.

 

[jtown]

1tb per drive (More like 1.1) is a limit of the filesystem, not a limit of available drive sizes. Do some searching if you want the technical details about why the filesystem is limited to 1tb per drive. It's been thoroughly tested and explained in older threads.

You'll be maxed out with a 1tb drive on each port. No mas. No point in messing around with RAID boxes unless you want protection against drive failures. I suppose you could put 3x500 gig drives in a RAID5 on each SATA port. $600 for 6 drives plus whatever the RAID boxes cost. Seems like it'd be pretty noisy, tho.

 

[Cyrl]

I basically picked up a seagate free agent pro external, the 750's were 194 at BB this week. I actaully grabbed 2, but second one is for my desktop. I may just try doing what I read in another thread somewhere about swapping the internal cabling to put the external port as the primary drive and just use it in the housing, only one small problem so far, best buy didn't have any external sata cables, I have to go find one on my own =P Drive didn't come with any.

 

[sfhub]

1tb per drive (More like 1.1) is a limit of the filesystem, not a limit of available drive sizes. Do some searching if you want the technical details about why the filesystem is limited to 1tb per drive.

You probably should do some searching too, but I saved you the trouble. As mentioned earlier, spike2k5 fixed the bug in earlier tools that gave the appearance of 1tb filesystem limit.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5441203#post5441203

Looks like 1TB per drive limit has been lifted on Tivo HD.

[edit] I ran some more test and I don't think there is a 1TB limit per drive for either S3 or TivoHD.

I was able to do 2TB on S3 as well with raid.

Here is a screenshot of 2TB Tivo HD.

 

[richsadams]

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5441203#post5441203

Thanks for that...missed it. Good news for whenever I need 3 or 4TB's I suppose.

 

[Cyrl]

I ripped the drive apart when I got home from work, turns out it's a seagate 7200.10 750gb drive, identical model number to the retail drive version, just says it's an OEM drive. Was fun taking it apart, and actually somewhat difficult. No damage to any of the parts though, i think I'll be able to use the case for something else later.

 

[Cyrl]

Well it worked so far, tivo is booting up right now with the drive I yanked from the enclosure I bought at BB today. Not the best priced 750gb drive ever but I was able to break the enclosure down without destroying it so I can basically salvage that part I however did basically trash my garage looking for the torx screwdriver I knew I had lying around somwhere. It's giving me 107 hours of HD, 1015 SD now, will be nice when I think i can trust the eSata on the Tivo HD enough to link up the other 750.

 

[AbMagFab]

2TB limit is *still there* on the S3.

2TB limit is *not there* on the THD.

I believe the difference is with the SATA chips/driver on the THD being newer/different.

 

[spike2k5]

For S3,

there is no 1.1 TB Limit per drive. (mfstools had a bug and it's fixed in MFSLive Linux Boot CD 1.3 or later)

but has 2.2 TB limit due to 32bit MFS.

For TivoHD,
there is no more 2.2 TB limit (64 bit Tivo file sysytem)

You can setup a Hardware RAID or since it's got SIL SATA PM controller chip, you can attach up to 3 drives I think with a little mod on the MB or external SIL SATA PM controller.
(Up to 3 drives because I think TivoHD software can only do 3)

 

[richsadams]

For S3,

there is no 1.1 TB Limit per drive. (mfstools had a bug and it's fixed in MFSLive Linux Boot CD 1.3 or later)

but has 2.2 TB limit due to 32bit MFS.

For TivoHD,
there is no more 2.2 TB limit (64 bit Tivo file sysytem)

You can setup a Hardware RAID or since it's got SIL SATA PM controller chip, you can attach up to 3 drives I think with a little mod on the MB or external SIL SATA PM controller.
(Up to 3 drives because I think TivoHD software can only do 3)

Thanks for your continued excellent work Spike! :up: :up:

 

[crabbon]

spike2k5,

Do you think that the 2.2TB for the S3 will ever be broken? Or is it a 32 bit limitation that will always be there?

Maybe I should have waited for the TivoHD. Oh well. But, if I would have done that, I wouldn't have lifetime on my two S3s.

 

[Cyrl]

The 2.2tb on the S3 limit was the 32bit filesystem limitation, I would imagine that is non-negotiable until they upgrade it to a 64bit filesystem (if that ever does happen)