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Upgrading 60 hr TIVO one drive at a time
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Posted by: Indyracing

I want to upgrade my 60hr TIVO with two 120 GB drives, one drive at time. Can I keep my original 60GB drive, install a 2nd 120GB drive and later replace the 60GB with another 120GB? Is it okay to do it in this order or is it a lot less painless in the long run to initially replace the 60GB drive and install the 2nd 120GB drive later as planned?

Indy

Posted by: BrandonSi

quote:
Originally posted by Indyracing
I want to upgrade my 60hr TIVO with two 120 GB drives, one drive at time. Can I keep my original 60GB drive, install a 2nd 120GB drive and later replace the 60GB with another 120GB? Is it okay to do it in this order or is it a lot less painless in the long run to initially replace the 60GB drive and install the 2nd 120GB drive later as planned?

Indy

I wondered the same thing recently, and I came to the conclusion that I'd install a 80 GB A drive in place of the original, and then when I have more money put in a 120 GB later. From what I've read (I'm no expert) that once the drives are married, they can be a pain to work with. Plus I didn't want to chance any of my recordings getting lost.

Posted by: Indyracing

I may just replace the original 60GB with a new 120GB, add a 2nd 120GB later and keep the 60GB for recovery purposes should I ever need it.

Posted by: Robert S

If you're even vaguely thinking you might go to 2x120Gb later, /definitely/ replace the A drive now. To run two 120's you'll need more swap and the easiest way to increase way is to use MFS Tools 2.0 to create an A drive (you can copy your recordings across if desired).

I'd give it a few weeks to allow the new drive to run in, but after that you can add the old A drive as a B drive if you want the extra space. Going from 120+60 to 2x120 is straight-forward, just use dd to clone the B drive and then use mfsadd to expand.

Posted by: Indyracing

Thanks, that's what I thought.

Is it worth keeping the original 60GB for recovery purposes or shouldn't I worry about that. Or maybe it's just a personal choice. And then how long do you keep it around doing nothing but gathering dust!

Posted by: Robert S

Well, a compressed backup is good enough for recovery purposes. I would give the new drive a few week's running to make sure it's not a DOA - it would certainly be sensible to let it fill up with recordings to be certain there are no bad blocks (if there are, return it /immediately/ - new drives with bad blocks are in much worse shape than you might think).

After that I would be quite happy to reuse the original drive either in a PC or the TiVo.

Posted by: Indyracing

good point. Thanks for the info and the reasoning.

BTW: Is www.thenerds.net a good place to buy drives? I'm looking at the Maxtor 120GB 5400RPM for $114. Is there an alternative good cheaper source?

Posted by: Indyracing

Do I need a mounting bracket for the 2nd drive in this particular model TIVO?

Posted by: cable man

if you have the series 2 60hr model #140060) the bracket inside already has space for the second drive.

Posted by: Indyracing

that's what I thought, thanks for confirming that. I'm going to get the torx tools from Home Depot so I can open the box.

Cheers

Posted by: ADent

160GB for $100 here (Its $180 - $80 rebate and maybe coupong for $20 more off).
http://dealmac.com/articles/52084.html .

It is a 7200MB drive with 8MB cache.

Posted by: Indyracing

Wonder how quiet the drive is!? And how would the temperature be affected with two of those puppies!?

Posted by: cable man

I bought a samsung 120gb 5400 rpm from www.comp4us.com for $95. The Samsung also has a 3 year warranty. Here is another thread that talks about hard drives http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=118528

Posted by: Indyracing

Wow! The 160GB is only $116. What a deal.

Posted by: cable man

just keep in mind that the tivo will only recognize 137 gb.

Posted by: Indyracing

Understood. I read this in previous threads. I don't want to start hacking the O/S and/or file system, just yet! But great price when I want to upgrade my PC.

Posted by: Robert S

I'm assuming it's a Series 2 TiVo, in which case there aren't currently any hacks to let you use large drives on those.

Posted by: Indyracing

It is. Thanks for the reminder. So I made the right decision ordering two Samsung 120GB 5200RPM drives!

Posted by: rtype

quote:
Originally posted by Indyracing
Wonder how quiet the drive is!? And how would the temperature be affected with two of those puppies!?

expired :(

Posted by: Indyracing

Why the sad face!? I ordered mine from www.comp4usa.com, they're still $95 a piece with free shipping.

Posted by: PrimeRisk

quote:
Originally posted by cable man
just keep in mind that the tivo will only recognize 137 gb.

I have a question. If you use the MFSTools to setup a 160GB drive in a computer that recognizes the full 160GB, will TiVo correctly recognize the 137GB on the drive? I don't have huge heartburn passing up 23GB considering that the 160GB drive is cheaper than I can find a 120GB drive, I just want to make sure it will work without problems.

Posted by: Robert S

What you want is for the drive to be recognised as 137Gb by Linux (the BIOS will probably say 160Gb, but that's OK), then MFS Tools will set the drive up correctly for the TiVo.

Plenty of people have done exactly this, it's not a problem.

Posted by: PrimeRisk

Robert, thanks for the answering that question directly. I kept searching for that verification and could only find people who successfully used 160G drives, not how they did it.

For anyone that is interested, www.globalcomputer.com has Maxtor 5400 RPM 160GB 2MB Cache (4R160L0) drives for $99.00 plus shipping. No need to mess around with rebates on this one. Free shipping on $400+ orders. Search for stock #C45984 if you don't see it on the front page.