TiVo Community Forums Archives - Use this hard drive, or throw it back

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Use this hard drive, or throw it back
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Posted by: dorktivo

I asked for a Samsung 120 gig drive for xmas for my series 2 60 hour. I plan on just swapping out the drive, not running with two. The goal is to make it quieter (the old drive is getting load as is the fan, for which I also have a replacement).

Santa brought me a Western Digital 7200 8 meg cache drive with 160 gigs. I know I can't use the full thing, the question is should I use it anyhow? Is this drive going to be insanely noisey? I can't hear my current system with the tv on, but if your're reading a book, you can tell something is running in the cabinet it's in.

Will a new drive make any difference in operating temp? I'm currently running around 45C.

Posted by: Robert S

Just follow Hinsdale and you'll get 137 out of your 160Gb, which isn't too bad.

Posted by: dorktivo

Yeah, I know I can get to 137, which is much better than the 60 I have now. The question is whether this is a suitable (temp/noise) replacement, or should I go through the trouble of sending it back to get the Samsung. How are western digital drives in terms of reliability?

Posted by: jconway1968

WD's are excellent drives, fast and quiet.

Posted by: dorktivo

So if Tivo releases a kernel that can handle > 137 gigs, will I have to re-bless the drive, or will it automagically be reported as 160 gig?

Posted by: Robert S

I don't think you'll have a problem with a WD drive.

If a new kernel is released, unfortunately, the only way to reclaim the extra space is to lose your recordings and start over from a backup file. (You don't have enough spare entries in the A drive's partition table for 2 expansions).

Posted by: dorktivo

Well, I got the drive installed last night. I used the method whereby all my recordings are preserved...took about 2 hours from a 60-hour drive that was full. Upon boot-up, tivo is reporting that I have 165-hours available at basic. I replaced the 60-hour with a 160-gig drive and have the 60-hour laying around as a backup.

I was under the assumption that tivo was only going to see 137 gigs of the drive, and therefore report around 130-140 hours max. Did something magical happen for me or am I confused?

I also replaced the fan with one from weaknees in an attempt to quiet the little bugger down. It's noticably noisier now. I'm going to try to put back the stock fan and see if it's the drive that's adding to the noise. It sure sounds like the fan, however.

Posted by: Robert S

1Gb is about 1.2 hours of Basic (Nihilator recently made a very pedantic post giving a more detailed estimate, but 137x1.2=164.4, which is close enough for me...)

Posted by: dorktivo

That's what I suspected was happening.

Merci, danke, muchos gracias.

Posted by: rbenotti

Strange how some report different times. You have got 165 Hours, I have 155 Hours. Still better than the standard drive capacity. :-)

Posted by: Robert S

Seeing as they both have Series 2 TiVoes, that link is of academic interest to them at best.