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Tivo with DirecTV Upgrades...
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Posted by: stark_rayvyn

Please forgive me if this has been asked and answered... I am new and am here due to some confusion with potentially upgrading my Tivo unit... I Have one of the newer Hughes DirecTV receivers with Tivo and am a bit confused with what I will need to do the upgrade... I know there are lots of sources on the general upgrade and that seems pretty strait forward... My problem is that I need a bit of info before I crack the case and am hoping I can find it here...

Specifically, my receiver uses dual tuners and can record on 2 channels at once... Given that, I am concerned that there might be either dual drives or a special drive needed that can write 2 different tracks at once... That and the additional concerns that might go with upgrading a Tivo unit with the DirecTV receiver has me a bit confused... Any info on that will be really helpful...

Additionally, I see tons of people using Maxtor drives for their upgrades and in having built every one of my own computers (since the first), I have come to only trust IBM DMA 100 and Western Digital drives... Can they also be used or is it limited to just the Maxtors?? Again, please forgive me if this is asked and answered... I did some searches and found no specific answers to these questions...

Thanks up front...

Posted by: kdmorse

Instructions and answers can be found in the following FAQ:

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hin...-to/index2.html

To answer some of your specific questions...

There is nothing special about the drives that allow them to accommodate dual tuners. Your current standard 5400RPM ide hard drive has more than enough bandwidth to handle the I/O's generated by two incoming streams, and one outgoing stream all at the same time.

Above all else, people use maxtors because they're cheaper. Some people feel they are above average reliability, and like them all the more. Some people believe they are below average quality, but use them because they're cheap and easy to find. Western Digitals are commonly used as well, now that the prices on their larger drives has fallen a bit. IBM's are a bit pricier, and imho, create more heat - which can be a problem in a Tivo.

As is true in most cases, the brand of drive is a personal preference - go with what you feel happiest with.

But - stick to 5400RPM drives. There is no added benefit to higher spindle speed drives, they produce more heat, more noise, and consume more power. Some have indicated that two 7200rpm drives in one tivo is more than the poor little power supply can manage. 5400RPM is just right.

Beyond that, read Hinsdales FAQ, and happy hunting...

-Ken

Posted by: stark_rayvyn

Thanks, that is very helpful and I will take your advice... One additional question however, wil I need an internal mount for this new drive or is there a mount for it already?? I think I will be adding a B drive instead of a larger A drive... That will offer the most space, I would expect it will work as well as the larger, single A setup... Then again, I am not real sure about that either so feel free to correct that if it is wrong as well...

Posted by: stark_rayvyn

P.S. On the Western Digital drives, what effect if any does the "Data Lifeguard" feature have?? It says it does some things kinda automatically and I am wondering if that is chip burned in or a software program that can be circumvented??? Any word on that??

Posted by: dwight

While I am unsure if you need an additional drive mounting bracket for a DitecTiVo upgrade (my TiVo's are Philips Stand-alones), I would suggest that you strongly consider replacing your existing A-drive with a large (120 - 160 GB) hard drive rather than adding a large B-drive. There are a couple of reasons for considering this option:

1) A single drive unit produces less heat than a 2 drive unit - and with DirecTiVo's, heat is a larger issue than with a SA TiVo.

2) A dual drive TiVo has twice the opportunity for a drive failure that will leave you without a working TiVo until you repair it. Note that the failure of either drive in a 2 drive TiVo leaves you dead in the water because TiVo treats the 2 drives as if thay are one large drive.

3) In the event that you do experience a drive failure, by replacing your original A-drive with a single large drive, you have left your original A-drive unchanged. So, you have an immediate backup unit that you can swap into a "sick" TiVo and be up and running again in moments while you work out getting you failed drive(s) RMA'ed under the manufacturer's warantee.

If you simply add an additional drive to your existing A-drive, you will have to alter the orginal A-drive via the act of blessing the new B-drive and having Tivo recognize them as a "married" pair. So, a failure of either drive will require that you restore a saved backup image (which you really should make if you're going to affect your original A-drive).

In my case, I chose not to save a copy of a backup because I replaced my original A-drive with 2 120GB drives. So, I still have the original, unchanged, A-drive to use as a fall-back. (Yeah, who knows when I'll ever get around to watching 84-306 hours of saved TV shows, but that's not the point really! :^) )

Just my 2 cents' worth (Ok, more like 5 cents in this long post!)

Posted by: charles_d

No additional drive bracket is needed for a DTivo -- the factory bracket has a space for a second drive. Be sure to follow Hinsdale's howto _to_the_letter_. Make and verify a backup -- only takes a few minutes with MFSTools.

Posted by: stark_rayvyn

I read somewhere that larger drives suffer from anomolies due to access limitations... Also, how do you calculate record time with MB size?? A 60 MB drive for instance, what will that offer for record time if it is used alone as the A drive??

Posted by: kdmorse

The only 'access limitations' come into play when you start using *huge*drives, above 128 real GBs. There's no problem with any drive 120GB or smaller. With 160's there can be issues, but nothing serious. You just need to make sure that the drive is only plessed out to 128GB (not the full 160), and you will only be able to use the drive up to the 128GB line. So - don't buy a 160 - doubly so because they're also still absurdly expensive.

60GB, not a problem, no matter where you hang it (A or B). If you add it as a B drive, you'll still also have the capacity of the A drive, leaving you with more record space than if you had used it as simply an A drive.

-Ken

Posted by: MikeekiM

Dwight,

Did you notice a substantial slow down in your machine going from the 40GB single drive to the two 120GB drives?

I read in another thread that this is what happens...

Thx.

Posted by: dwight

mshiu,

I noticed quite a slow down in the display of the "Now Playing" list after upgrading from my orginal configuration (2 drive, 30 hour TiVo) to the 2x120 GB configuration I now have.

To me, this isn't a huge deal, as the display comes up after only about 4 or 5 seconds on average - and it doesn't take any longer to scroll through the list than it used to.

I figure that this is a small price to pay for having 84(best)/306(basic) hours worth of recording capacity.

Dwight

Posted by: MikeekiM

Thanks Dwight...

I assume that the lucky ones with the Series II will be able to go from screen to screen with lightning speed... I guess we will just have to make do with what we have...

I agree that it is a small price to pay for the expanded capacity. I have a DirecTivo, and based on the posts on this message board, I believe that I should go from 35 hours to 230 hours (with "best" like quality since DirecTivo does not have the MPEG conversion overhead)...

Thanks again!

Posted by: stevel

There have been several reports in this forum of IBM Deskstar drives failing in TiVos, and IBM's response that these drives are not designed for "24x7" continuous access, as a TiVo would do.