Hard drives come in many flavors these days, and the AV market as I call it, that is DVR's and similar devices, have different needs from a regular computer in terms of hard drive performance. Compared to a typical hard drive, the AV drives need to be quieter, cooler, and able to be in service 24/7 for years at a time, since the DVR never really shuts down. Also, when playing back a show, error correction is less of an issue than it is with say a spreadsheet, you aren't going to mix a few pixels that came up wrong, but you will notice if the drive spends 20 seconds trying to read that bad bit, so they are set up accordingly.
I found only 3 mainstream drives out there: Western Digital AV and AV-GP in sizes up to at least 1TB and I think 2TB. I think Tivo can only deal with 1.2 TB so anything beyond it is wasted. Seagate DB35 and Pipeline HD. The DB35 is in smaller sizes, and the Pipeline seems to replace it and go larger capacity. Hitachi CinemaStar, while listed on the company website, I found no retail outlets selling it. http://www.weaknees.com/av-dvr-hard-drive.php I scanned the specs a bit, and found so little difference between them as to render the decision based mostly on size, price and availability. I'm getting a 1TB Western Digital AV-GP drive (the GP version is "green"). Amazon was the source, and it was $95 for the basic 1TB drive. I sprung for the one with 32MB of cache, though I have no idea if it makes any difference what so ever in a Tivo application, but it cost me another $15 for the unit. The preformatted drives from Weaknees are about as easy as it comes, you simply unplug and remove the old one, plug in and install the new one (4 screws typically), and it's done. Taking the unit out of the stereo rack and taking the cover off is most of the work. There is one option with redundancy, if you are willing to pay for it.... but it appears to only be for units which have the external eSATA port on the S3 and HD models. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-hd-tcd652160.php Lastly, Weaknees does offer an upgrade service, they install the new drive and copy over programs, you ship the box to them and it's under $100 for the upgrade, plus hard drive. I don't know if your programs are able to be saved, but they would likely by the ones that could do it. If not, your box gets returned to you ready to use. Glen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lori" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 2:40 PM Subject: Re: [TiVo Central] Green Screen > I'm thinking WeaKnees for a new drive. > I tried all of the Kickstarts and GSOD kept appearing. > > Is there any particular drive you would suggest? > I am a Mac person and know close to NOTHING about PC's and hard drives. > I did just buy a little ASUS Netbook though. > > I think the $348 is so high so that people won't consider going that > route. > > Thank goodness this wasn't my HDXL. > > I need to find a way to back up the HDXL as I would absolutely explode > if I lost the contents of that unit. > > Lori
