TiVo Community Forums Archives - newbie question: HD upper limit

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newbie question: HD upper limit
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Posted by: ojopaj

I've read through the faq(s) and posts and have been unable to find this basic bit of information:

Is there an upper limit to how big of an HD that a Tivo unit can use? I'm wondering about future upgradeability of the unit. As HD's get cheaper and cheaper, will I be able to keep buying bigger and faster HD's for my Tivo unit as time goes by? Or is there some kind of maximum addressable disk space that is set somewhere in the hardware or software of the unit?

Also, does anyone know if Tivo units work with any drives faster than 7200rpm? (I was thinking about gettin a 9600rpm drive).

thanks for any info.
ojo

Posted by: ybrew

80 gig is the limit now (largest IDE drive you can buy (far as I know))

as far as using a faster harddrive - if you don't mind your TiVo overheating and getting zero benefit from a faster hard drive, go for it.

TiVo prefers slower, cooler quantum drives that run at 4500 RPM (so do I).

Transferring to the underground forum.

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ybrew,
Colonel, USS TiVo
Moderator Extraordinaire
& Former Replay Owner

Posted by: Randy Given

It has been mentioned several times -- it appears that the limitation would be 128G, which should give something like 180 hours on a 30 hour unit. Now, if BOTH drives were 128G, something like 300 hours?

Posted by: CoosCoos

quote:
Originally posted by ybrew:
80 gig is the limit now (largest IDE drive you can buy (far as I know))

Is that 80GB limit proven, or just speculation on what's available to purchase? There are larger IDE drives -- maybe not by Maxtor or Quantum, which are popular in upgrades. For instance, IBM has 60GB, 80GB, 120GB, and 160GB IDE drives. Obviously they'd have to be tested in a TiVo to see if they're even compatible, but is 80GB an OS limitation, or just what people are doing?

quote:
Originally posted by Randy Given:
It has been mentioned several times -- it appears that the limitation would be 128G

But that limit is simply what the EIDE specs say. These 160GB drives from IBM may not strictly adhere to the EIDE specs, and may actually be two 80GB drives combined with special adapters required. Who knows.

If I had the money, and had a spare TiVo, I'd fool around with it. Imagine two 160GB drives. That would almost be enough room! http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/smile.gif

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Cous cous is the food.
CoosCoos is your online hero.

Posted by: Worf

80 GB is the current limit for hard drives using the (E)IDE standard. There are larger drives out there, yes, but they are using SCSI.

No word on if SCSI drives can be used instead. However, a substantial hack amounting to Tridge's Ethernet hack would have to be done.

But using the current ATA33 interface on the TiVo, the absolute largest hard drive available to TiVo would be 128GB/drive, thus maxing TiVo out at 256GB for both drives, when we find a way to expand the A drive. This limit is built into the ATA33 spec, the ATA33 controller, and ATA33 compliant hard drives.

Posted by: HTH

quote:
Originally posted by Worf:
80 GB is the current limit for hard drives using the (E)IDE standard. There are larger drives out there, yes, but they are using SCSI.

I wouldn't call that a limit. It's just the largest you can get right now. There can be larger drives, they just don't make them yet. (They're actually over a gigabyte bigger than 80 GB.)

quote:
But using the current ATA33 interface on the TiVo, the absolute largest hard drive available to TiVo would be 128GB/drive, thus maxing TiVo out at 256GB for both drives, when we find a way to expand the A drive. This limit is built into the ATA33 spec, the ATA33 controller, and ATA33 compliant hard drives.

That's 128 GiB (1 GiB == 2^30 bytes), which translates to roughly 137.44 GB in metric units (1 GB == 10^9 bytes).

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http://www.war-of-the-worlds.org/tivo/HTHb.gif

Posted by: Otto

Tivo has memory issues when you put more than 120 gig or so in it. Tiger's said as much before about his dual 60 gig unit. Something about 16 meg not being enough memory to run fsfix on the system.

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Otto, Supreme TiVoWarrior - Moderator - AVS Forum - Tivo Underground
"If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will!" -- Yoda

Posted by: JohnF

One thing I was wondering about regarding HD capacity is if a future Tivo software release could limit support to the original HD capacity in the purchased unit (or to an upgrade authorized by Sony or Philips)?

Conceivably the software could read the Serial Number or some other parameter burned in the ROM, deduce the model number, and write to the HD as though the HD had a capacity limited by the model's spec.

I just purchased a Philips 60 hour unit because I felt that this capacity would be enough for me without any upgrade concerns such as voiding warranty or the possibility of a future problem. But the idea of saving money on a single drive 30 hour unit and putting in a huge second drive gives me second thoughts on what I purchased.

Posted by: Otto

quote:
Originally posted by JohnF:
One thing I was wondering about regarding HD capacity is if a future Tivo software release could limit support to the original HD capacity in the purchased unit (or to an upgrade authorized by Sony or Philips)?
Conceivably the software could read the Serial Number or some other parameter burned in the ROM, deduce the model number, and write to the HD as though the HD had a capacity limited by the model's spec.

Yes, they could do this, no doubt about it. The unit knows when it's been hacked, and Tivo can tell when a unit has been hacked (assuming they take the time to look it up).

However, I wouldn't worry about it too much, as Tivo has many, many reasons to not do this.

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Otto, Supreme TiVoWarrior - Moderator - AVS Forum - Tivo Underground
"If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will!" -- Yoda