Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Mass
Posts: 54

1 Seagate 120 and 1 Maxtor 120 seem to be good drives but both have their share of critics and with all that is involved with losing a drive in a Tivo, I would suggest you read up on what people thought of their drives once they owned and installed them... The writings on Samsung are pretty hard to deny and while yesterday I would not have said it, the Samsung has all that the Maxtor has with just that bit extra of many happy users... Just look over the writing at a place like newegg and read through the customer reviews... More than a few Maxtor's did not make it in the first 12 months and that is just what I don't want on my end... Many did so it is a good drive too but with both having the FDB to stay quiet and cool, the rest seems clear that the Samsung is the better risk...

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Mass
Posts: 54

To be perfectly clear on the DiamondMax 16 and Quick View issue, the response I got was from one tech on a simple question of what is the difference... It may be right and it may not be right... Weakness has said it is not correct and given that they have a corporate business connection and all I have is one blurb from one tech, I would say the best info is that Weakness is the better source... I don't want to even imply that Weakness is incorrect because IMO, they know what they are talking about and they seem pretty informed on just this sort of thing... Just wanted to make sure people did not go buying up the DiamondMax 16 drives in the hopes of getting what Weakness offers for less... Weakness knows far more about it than me so if you want the better details write them and I am sure they will explain it better than I ever could... I am one click above a dope and there is no question about that...

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: San Francisco CA
Posts: 15

I have a couple of questions regarding the Samsung drive.

Anyone know the exact capacity of the 120GB drive in bytes? I currently have Maxtor 4G120J6's and want to replace them, but want to do a disk to disk copy so that I don't have to loose anything. I know that all 120GB drives are not created equal in size

I notice some people have recommened the SP1213N with a 8mb cache, but wants I'm tempted to go with the cheaper SP1203N which loose identical but comes with only 2mb of cache.

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 3155

We think the Samsung is 111 GB and the Maxtor is 114 GB (don't have the exact numbers) - this is good for Maxtor users (works out to about 3 extra hours per drive) but you can't move to Samsung 120s and save your recordings.

Michael

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: San Francisco CA
Posts: 15

Thanks.

That's what I was worried about.

Any suggestions for replacement drives that are (a) as big or bigger than the 4G120J6, (b) very quiet, (c) reliable and (d) have a good warranty?

One of my Maxtors started having errors, so I had tried the IBM Deskstar (IC35L120AVV207) sometime last year. It has a a quoted capacity of 123GB, but it proved unreliable and failed. I ended up getting another Maxtor, but wished I could find something a lot quieter. The constant noise is getting louder and I suspect the drive is going to fail again. I'd also like to move the Series 1 to the bedroom but I cant do it with the noise it produces.

I guess there no way to backup the data on the fly and pipe it thru some tool to write it to the smaller disks, rather than doing a image copy using 'dd'? I know I can create a backup with or w/o the data but I seem to remember the tool I used to make the inital copies 3 years ago cant strip out unused data.

Chris

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 3155

Right - you can't move the data to a smaller drive and keep the recordings, but you can move the OS and settings only.

Our obvious choice for reliability and noise-reduction is our Maxtor QuickView drives. They have the same 1 year warranty as standard desktop PC Maxtor drives.

Michael

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chicago, IL USA
Posts: 851

Any of the 160GB Samsung Spinpoint drives are great (SP1604N for example). They are cool and quiet (even the 7200RPM drives) and have a 3-year manufacturer's warranty on them. You can copy your existing 120's to them with no problem; not sure if you have a Series1 or Series2, but if you have a Series1 and do the kernel replacement trick, you can use ALL of the extra space, as well.

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: San Francisco CA
Posts: 15

So I can do a image copy to the QuickView and I should be all set?

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: San Francisco CA
Posts: 15

That's a good point, I guess I could go with 160's

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chicago, IL USA
Posts: 851

quote:

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Originally posted by Bothan Jedi
That's a good point, I guess I could go with 160's

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 3155

quote:

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Originally posted by Bothan Jedi
So I can do a image copy to the QuickView and I should be all set?

---

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Mass
Posts: 54

Please say this is not so...

[QUOTE]you can't move to Samsung 120s and save your recordings[QUOTE]

I have done everything I could to compare these drives and ask about any good or bad and the second I order mine, I find out that I have to send back the drives I have not even gotten yet?? That seems a pretty noteworthy mention if you ask me... That is not unlike the 137mb limit to the drive size I knew nothing about after reading through the Hinsdale paperwork... Maybe it is there but I never saw it so I sent my 250mb drive back 2 days ago... Now it seems I will have to send these Samsungs back too...

I would ask if there were any more tid bits of info out there but I think I am done ordering drives so its probably pointless...

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 3155

Wait - you *can* use the Samsungs, but you'll just lose your recordings, assuming you are going 120 Maxtor to 120 Samsung. If you can part with your recordings, then you'll be fine.

Michael

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Mass
Posts: 54

That was really the only question I was asking with this thread and it is terrible that I find my answer long after I needed it... No, it is not ok that I lose my recordings so I am right back where I started... I am certainly not the expert in any of this but that seems a huge downside and therefore a huge point of why not to get the Samsung drive... All it seems I can do now however is to reask the question at hand in a different way...

I have a single 160 drive and what to move to a pair of whatever will work best while keeping my recordings... I would guess that I have about 40 hours worth on there now (not sure if that matters)... Anyone have any info (besides the Samsung thing) that will help me decide?? This is for a Hughes GXCEBOT...

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: San Francisco CA
Posts: 15

i'm no expert either, but have migrated several Tivo's to larger drives. I think you maybe in luck in moving a single 160GB to two 120GB disks if you dont do an disk image copy. It may take longer than a straight 'dd' + add the 2nd disk.

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 3155

OK - if you have a 160 and you want to move to another 160, without the kernel hack, any drive should work. When Linux formats them (the Linux that TiVo needs) it'll only see 137 GB of any 160, so any one can take the recordings from any other.

Michael

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chicago, IL USA
Posts: 851

quote:

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Originally posted by ahhfoo
That was really the only question I was asking with this thread and it is terrible that I find my answer long after I needed it... No, it is not ok that I lose my recordings so I am right back where I started... I am certainly not the expert in any of this but that seems a huge downside and therefore a huge point of why not to get the Samsung drive... All it seems I can do now however is to reask the question at hand in a different way...

I have a single 160 drive and what to move to a pair of whatever will work best while keeping my recordings... I would guess that I have about 40 hours worth on there now (not sure if that matters)... Anyone have any info (besides the Samsung thing) that will help me decide?? This is for a Hughes GXCEBOT...

---

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Mass
Posts: 54

Apparently, given that this is an upgrade of a HD I used to upgrade from the original Tivo drive, I can't do anything other than DD copy it... Not quite sure what difference it makes but if you look over this thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=164007

You will probably understand more than I about it all... With that said, there is no chance I can move directly from the 160 to 2 120's... I have to do an A drive only swap and then add the B as a second operation... That is if the advise I am getting is all correct...

On the drives themselves, I have no interest in a Samsung 160... For the same reasons I liked the looks of the 120's (buyer reviews) I do not like the looks of the 160... The Maxtor 160's had a much better reputation so if I am stuck with 2 160's then I will have to buy the Maxtors...

Either way this is all very confusing and somewhere along the line I think I have gotten some bad advice... Every other day I find I am completely lost and the ironic thing is that after sorting through command line after command line last time I did all of this, it ended up being 1 simple command line that worked perfectly... I read through all of the documentation in earnest last time and as a result had to have tried a dozen that did nothing at all... Hours and hours of running and testing and nothing... The one that worked was a single line and took all of 10 minutes and that was that... This being my second time reading it all, you would think I would know about things like the 137mb limit and the larger drive issue but as you will see in that thread, until the past week I had no idea at all...

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chicago, IL USA
Posts: 851

quote:

---

Originally posted by ahhfoo
Apparently, given that this is an upgrade of a HD I used to upgrade from the original Tivo drive, I can't do anything other than DD copy it... Not quite sure what difference it makes but if you look over this thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=164007

You will probably understand more than I about it all... With that said, there is no chance I can move directly from the 160 to 2 120's... I have to do an A drive only swap and then add the B as a second operation... That is if the advise I am getting is all correct...

On the drives themselves, I have no interest in a Samsung 160... For the same reasons I liked the looks of the 120's (buyer reviews) I do not like the looks of the 160... The Maxtor 160's had a much better reputation so if I am stuck with 2 160's then I will have to buy the Maxtors...

Either way this is all very confusing and somewhere along the line I think I have gotten some bad advice... Every other day I find I am completely lost and the ironic thing is that after sorting through command line after command line last time I did all of this, it ended up being 1 simple command line that worked perfectly... I read through all of the documentation in earnest last time and as a result had to have tried a dozen that did nothing at all... Hours and hours of running and testing and nothing... The one that worked was a single line and took all of 10 minutes and that was that... This being my second time reading it all, you would think I would know about things like the 137mb limit and the larger drive issue but as you will see in that thread, until the past week I had no idea at all...

---

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Mass
Posts: 54

With the way this is all going I should agree to trade with you but the unfortunate fact is that I am a long way from the Samsung 160's... I just sent back my Maxtor Ultra 250mb drive I originally bought for this upgrade and my 120 Samsungs that I said I was ordering a couple days ago just shipped today... I assume I will get my credit for the 250mb drive back about the same time I get the 120's in the mail which now have to go back too... All in all it is really not a great experience and I think for the next couple days I am gonna refrain from ordering anything and read around some sites on the web... I thought this was the place to get the details but given that I had the same difficulties last time and how easy the correct answer was then, I have to assume this is a about the same thing... Obviously, some of the info here is very good and probably right but seems as obvious that some people are guessing and guessing wrong... In the end, people less versed on all of this (like me) get lost in the details and are worse off for having asked... Here and now I am more confused than ever and about as discouraged as I could be...

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