TiVo Community Forums Archives - Upgrade A drive or Add B Drive?

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Upgrade A drive or Add B Drive?
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Posted by: DeeJayK

I'm a TiVo accolyte -- I just got my Philips HDR-212 last week. I'm hooked and I can already see that 20 hours isn't going to be enough time and am looking to upgrade with a 120GB drive.

Should I:

Use the new drive to replace the existing "A" drive or,
Add the new drive as the "B" drive

Obviously Option B will give me (slightly) more capacity, whereas Option A would leave me with a backup drive in case something goes wrong.

What I'm most curious about is which of these options puts me in the best position for future upgrades. If I go with Option A it seems that all I would need to do to add capacity in the future would be to bless and install a second drive. Is that true?

If I go with Option B and then upgrade the A drive at a later date, will that subsequent upgrade result in loss of data on the B drive?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Posted by: stormsweeper

In either case you'd essentially have to start ovr from scratch. When you expand your A drive, you need to add your B drive at the same time if you're going to do it.

Posted by: worms

I believe you are correct about your option assumptions. I say ditch that worthless 20GB drive and keep it cool and quiet.

Posted by: Ladd Morse

I just upgraded my HDR212 a few days ago by pulling the "A" drive and replacing it with a Maxtor 120GB drive purchased from NewEgg (about $163 with shipping).

Advantages over simply adding the 120GB drive as a "B" drive:

The Maxtor drive is virtually silent. Not that the Quantum drive was noisy, but its operation was audible in a quiet room.

There was a small cost savings as there was no need to purchase additional drive mounting bracket from 9thTee ($16+shipping).

Upgrading at some future time will be much easier. If you add a large drive now as "B" drive, the two drives marry and swapping either of them out at a later time becomes significantly more complicated. The six hours of "best" quality retained by keeping the stock "A" drive wasn't worth the future effort (for me). The single 120GB drive gives my TiVo a few minutes shy of 40 hours of "best" quality; it seems like a lot for now, but if at some future time it becomes limiting, I'm sure a 120GB "B" drive addition will be even less expensive in the future.

As noted, retaining the current "A" drive as a backup can be advantageous if a new drive dies or you wish to sell the unit at some time in the future. Or you can turn it into a "B" drive for another TiVo, or use it in your computer.

Regards,
Ladd

Posted by: Ken Yeh

:confused:
I have AT&Tivo Series 2, and I'm planning to add B drive to expand recording time.

I print out 20 pages of How-to, and I'm little confuse on page 16. I'm not sure where to place drives in the PC for this configuration. my guess is follow:

hda Priary Master - Windows C: drive.
hdb Primary Slave -full size of your new large upgrade drive.
hdc Secondary Master -full size of your TiVo A drive
hdd Secondary Slave - cd-rom/cd-rw drive

if I want to do a backup of my TiVo A drive, is this mean I need to buy 2 new drive? one for backup and another for B drive?

I see there are 2 method of backup TiVo drive, one is using Dolly and other is Mfs Tools, which one is easier to use?

any help will be appreciated

Posted by: Rumpy

I would use MFSTools. Make sure you get version 1.1. Your back-up file will only contain the Tivo OS and your season passes/wish lists etc. but none of your recorded shows. My back-up flie was a bit over 800 meg, and is on one of my exsisting computer hard drives, so as long as you have space available, you do not need an additional drive to back-up your Tivo drive. After your new drive is blessed and installed, all of your recorded programs will still be there, you will just have a lot more free space on your Tivo.

Posted by: Ken Yeh

Once I got my new drive, do I need to format the drive? or I can just plug in to the pc and start the upgrade?

Posted by: stormsweeper

quote:
Originally posted by Ken Yeh
Once I got my new drive, do I need to format the drive? or I can just plug in to the pc and start the upgrade?

Look in the other thread for the answers to these questions.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...&threadid=59017