TiVo Community Forums Archives - Add a B: drive or replace A: ?

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Add a B: drive or replace A: ?
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Posted by: dachshund1

I have a single drive 30-gig unit and want to add a 120 gig drive.
What is the benefit to using the new drive as the A: drive? Will I see performance improvements? Is it worth the extra steps of copying the A: drive and putting in the old drive as B: at a later date? I understand the principle of increasing swap, but I don't care about this unless it will make a noticeable improvement.
Thanks.

Posted by: AmblerTech

"B" Drive upgrades have several disadvantages which can cause real problems down the road. By installing a second drive in your system, you increase both noise and heat generation. While the noise is at worst annoying, the additional heat increases the likelihood of component failure within your unit. Additionally, because data is striped across both drives, "B" drive upgrades are twice as likely to fail from hard drive failures as "A" drive upgrades. Furthermore, "B" drive upgrades require the purchase of additional mounting hardware for secure seating in your TiVo. By replacing your existing "A" drive, you retain a backup drive that can be swapped back into your unit if your upgrade drive fails. This cannot be done with a "B" drive upgrade. The moral: while the "B" drive upgrade is simpler, it leaves you exposed to higher risks.

You will not see performance improvements with the 120GB drive installed as the A drive. It's prudent to set the swap to 127 MB under these circumstances.

Putting in the old drive as a B drive at a later date is not a simple task. Once you have upgraded, the mechanism invoked during the add-blessed-drive-process is broken. It's probably not worth your effort to try to install a 30 GB drive on top of a 120 GB system.

You'll probably be satisfied with 120GB -> 140 hrs.

AmblerTech

Posted by: Rcrew

$.01... thoughtful post from ATech. Personally, I would disagree with a couple of points, but I don't know exactly which model of TiVo you're planning on upgrading...

However, IMHO, I would have to agree that going with the 120 as a single A drive upgrade does have a lot going for it. You really won't miss the extra recording time having the current 30g in the mix as an a or b 2nd drive.

Having it sit on the shelf gathering dust does seem like a waste, but perhaps the secure feeling of an almost instant recovery point is worth that. If it were any bigger, I feel like the waste would be bigger than the warm fuzzy.

YMMV

Posted by: dachshund1

The tivo is 2 1/2 years old,
Model #HDR31201 Phillips Single 30GB A drive

This is interesting about the striping - then that's what is refered to as the "marriage" ? :) In that case it would be best to have both drives the same capacity I imagine.

Of course I ordered the 120GB drive after reading the instructions that said "adding a B: drive is the simplest method" ... But after living with this unit and being used to the 30gig capacity, it's probably true that 120gig will be enough.

Thanks again.

Posted by: weaknees

Actually, installing a new A drive can very likely also increase your speed, as opposed to what others have posted. Robert S is really the guru on this subject, but our tests have shown an increase in speed, attributable to both the newer, faster drives (even at 5400 RPM) with larger caches, and also to the way MFSTools 2.0 writes to the drives.

Michael

Posted by: Robert S

Unlike Michael I don't deal with lots of different TiVoes, so don't think I speak from quantitative measurements, but there are clear patterns in the experiences people report as a reault of the various upgrade options.

People who've upgraded to 120Gb and beyond with BlessTiVo and TiVoMad complain bitterly about how slow their TiVoes are.

People who've upgraded to at least 120Gb with MFS Tools 2.0 report their TiVoes are no slower than they were before the upgrade.

I'm a strong advocate of replacing A drives - mostly on safety grounds.

120Gb is a /lot/ of space and you shouldn't assume you need more without trying it.

Posted by: gunrunnerjohn

I did the swapout of my 30gig for a 120gig, and I do like the fact that I have an instant backup in my closet. :)

Posted by: Rcrew

Just a note on 120GB, my 80GB B drive took me to 120GB total. That's been plenty... until this past 4 days of HBO/Skinamax Freeview. I picked up 20 movies to watch.

Since I already had 12 saved that I didn't want to delete, it was a little tight over all. There are also several active SPs on that DTiVo.

I think I'm going to have to finally bite the bullet and delete some or dump them to VHS. But you may find that 32 movies and 7 or 8 weekly SPs are all you need.