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How To Upgrade a Sony SVR-3000
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Posted by: weaknees

Good news for those looking to purchase and upgrade an SVR-3000... unlike the TiVo-branded 80-Hour Series2 TiVo, the SVR-3000 DOES have a bracket that will hold a second drive.

We'll try to get pictures posted soon, but in the meantime, here's a quick guide on how to upgrade an SVR-3000. This is not meant to be a substitute for Hinsdale's guide, but will carry you over until the guide is updated. Note: These are preliminary findings. If you have any trouble with these commands, please post them.

The old method of blessing a drive will work... just do it in "noswap" (same as blessing a drive in a 60-hour Series2 or a 40-hour AT&T Series 2).

To backup the SVR-3000 image, the safest bet is to issue this command:

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt
mfsbackup -f 3333 -6so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdX

X is the location of your SVR 80gb drive.
-6 is optional
(The 3333 could actually be 3330, but I'm using 3333 for ease. A lower number *might* work, but 3330 is the smallest number that will get all necessary files. Without the -f 3333, you'll have a backup size of 772, which I don't think will work [didn't try it, but I'm speculating based on the results with the TiVo 80-hour].)

To restore the backup and run mfsadd with ONE REPLACEMENT drive, issue this command:

mfsrestore -s 127 -xzbpi /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdX

To restore the backup and run mfsadd with TWO REPLACEMENT drives, issue this command:

mfsrestore -s 127 -xzbpi /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdX /dev/hdY

To backup and restore in one command (and to save recordings), issue this command:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzbpi - /dev/hdY

To add a second drive, issue this command:

mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY (where Y is the location of the new drive and X is the location of the 80gb factory drive)

Michael

[Edited to correct late-night typos which were pointed out in the posts below.]

Posted by: stormsweeper

Damnit, guess I may have to reevaluate a new TiVo now. :) And here I thought I could resist buying one.

Posted by: DaveLessnau

weaknees: I'm pretty clueless about MFSTools, so just to make sure...

When you talk about the original backup, you specify an FSID ("f" paramter) of POSITIVE 3333. But, when you explain that number, you talk about a NEGATIVE number (or perhaps just a leading dash?). I assume the positive number is correct.

Near the bottom, in the piped command, you have what appear to be leading dashes preceding the location of the backup in both sides of the pipe. Are those dashes supposed to be there?

Posted by: weaknees

Dave--You are absolutely right. A typo on my part, which I just fixed. Should have been "3330" in the explanation, rather than -3330.

Michael

Posted by: stormsweeper

quote:
Originally posted by DaveLessnau

Near the bottom, in the piped command, you have what appear to be leading dashes preceding the location of the backup in both sides of the pipe. Are those dashes supposed to be there?

Hmm, it should be like this:

code:
mfsbackup -Tao -  /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzbpi - /dev/hdY

No actual backup file is made with this method.

Posted by: hinsdale

Will this same command

mfsbackup -f 3330 -6so

yield a working backup on a Series 2 80hr Unit? Looking for ease of instruction.

Also you say the 80hr has an 80GB drive... seems like this would provide more hours.. what are the drive sizes in the Series 2 80hr and the SVR3000?

Hoping to get the How-To updated today.

Posted by: weaknees

Thanks to all for pointing out the typos... I have fixed them in the first post. Serves me right for trying to post while hordes of kids intermittently ring the doorbell looking for candy.

Hinsdale--
To be safe, I have given the numbers that will yield the largest backup of a virgin image, to insure that all files are copied over from the drive. In the SVR, the max backup size is 843mb. In the TiVo 80, the max backup size is about 1gb. Maybe the easiest thing to do is to recommend -f 4444 for all....easy to remember and it will capture the streams that are necessary. I suppose it could pull some other files when the drive is full, but not incrementally more than -f 3333 would pull.

If I played around some more, I'm guessing that I'd find that a size of 816mb in the SVR and/or the 80hr TiVo Series2 would work, but I just haven't had the time.

Michael

Posted by: hinsdale

I am assuming those are uncompressed backup file sizes you are quoting?

Also did you see my question about the actual drive sizes in the units?

Thanks

Posted by: weaknees

Yes--uncompressed backup sizes (i.e., the sized reported by MFS at the time of a backup/restore). The file sizes obviously depend on the level of compression, but are significantly less, of course.

The 80hr TiVo Series 2 has a Western Digital Performer drive, which is 80gb.

The SVR-3000 has a Diamondmax 4d080 model drive, which is 81.9gb. In both cases, as I think has been posted elsewhere, the actual max # of reported hours is higher than 80.

We'll try to post exact hour numbers later today or this weekend.

Michael

Posted by: weaknees

We've posted a bunch of info about the SVR-3000 and we've posted two pictures - one of the open unit, and one of the drive bracket removed from the unit.

We are in the process of getting screen shots of the amount of recording hours, and we'll have those posted also.

Weaknees.com SVR-3000 Information

Michael

Posted by: stormsweeper

Is the IDE header directly underneath the "A" drive?

I also like the divider between the mobo and the power supply. Nice to be able to plug in cables and such w/o getting too close to the capacitors. :)

Posted by: weaknees

Yes, the IDE connector is directly underneath the front of the drive (faces toward the front of the TiVo) and the included IDE cable is about 2 inches long - it makes it a little tricky to remove the bracket then the cable, since there is little slack, but it's not a problem.

Michael

Posted by: 2lovtivo

I just got a new SVR-3000. I also got a 120gb drive... So to add this drive all I do is pull the a drive and set it to master, the new drive to slave. Then boot up with MFS Tools 2.0 and issue the command below?

mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY (where Y is the location of the new drive and
X is the location of the 80gb factory drive)

Is that all? I read in the how to, if you are going ove like 140 gig that you need to increase the swap, but I don't want to do a backup and would really like to skip it (I don't have a spare hard drive, and I only run on a laptop, my desktop is just to tivo stuff and only have a 500 meg hard drive).... Will skipping this get me into trouble later? I tried to search, but did not find a direct answer to this question. I am out of luck until tomorrow anyways, I got to get a power cable splitter.

Posted by: stormsweeper

If you're under the hood, take a backup. You can use your new drive as temporary storage space. The final backup will likely be @ 200 MB.

Posted by: 2lovtivo

I went ahead and added the drive with out doing the backup and all seems to be working well. I now have 225 hours at Basic and 62 at best. :D

Posted by: svr3kowner

I've added a 120gb to my SVR-3000, but I followed the directions from the Hinsdale how-to. Everything seemed to work up until the point where I connected both drives and plugged the Tivo back in. It got stuck on "Powering Up". I am a newbie at this -- which position should the A drive be in? Closest to the fan? Aren't master drives supposed to be on the end of the cable? Should I redo the drives using the commands in this newsgroup?

Thanks

Posted by: Davin

I successfully did this upgrade.

One note/gotcha though: The IDE cable that came with my new drive (Maxtor 120GB 7200rpm) did not work - the amount of cable between the middle and end connectors was not long enough to reach between 2 side-by-side drives. Fortunately, I had another spare IDE cable in my box-of-stuff (spares from other PC upgrades) so I was OK. If not, it would have been very very unhappy.

Davin.

Posted by: weaknees

FYI, you can reverse a standard 18" IDE cable, so long as your master drive is at the end of the chain.

Michael