Can you hook up a External Hard Drive to Tivo? (1 Viewer)

[Beau B]

Hello,

I was wondering if you could hook up a external hard drive to a Tivo to be able to record more than the 35 hrs mine has?

Beau

 

[Robert_J]

No, but you can upgrade to dual 120GB drives internally. What model do you have? This will determine if you need extra parts. Are you comfortable upgrading a computer hard drive? If not, then you may want to look at drop-in upgrades from companies like Weaknees or 9th Tee.

-Robert

 

[Michael*K]

Try Weaknees. I bought my additional drive from them and they provide ridiculously simple instructions on how to install it. Took me less than 15 minutes to increase my capacity from 40 hours to over 200 hours.

 

[Beau B]

I have the Hughes DVR2.

How much did the upgrade cost? Is this something I would have to open the box and mod?

Thanks, Beau

 

[Mike_P]

Check the Tivo area on the AVScience forum. You can find instructions there to do it yourself, or several places that will do it for you.

Mike P

 

[Michael*K]

I believe the prices range from $150 to $200 and will add between 70-120 hours depending on what size hard drive you get. The modding involves opening the box, mounting the old and new drive onto a new bracket and plugging in the power and data connectors for each drive. There's places that will install it for you, but it's pretty simple even for folks that aren't tech savvy.

 

[BenS]

Can I upgrade my DirecTivo I think the model# is SAT-T60

 

[Robert_J]

All DirecTivos are upgradeable. The companies I mention above will sell you a hard drive that you can just drop in or you can find the instructions to upgrade it yourself. I think that one of the companies above (they are blocked here at work) may have the instructions and utilities for a DIY upgrade.

-Robert

 

[DonRoeber]

You can actually use disks larger than 120gb. The TiVo OS can only recognize 137 GB of the disk, but that's still more than 120GB. I'm probably going to upgrade my Series 2 TiVo this spring to two 160GB hard drives. That should just about cover it

 

[StephenL]

How to upgrade TiVo hard drive:
http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hins...to/index9.html

 

[David Norman]

I have the Phillips 6000 DirecTIVO that originally had 35-36 hours of capacity (single Quantum 40GB Hard drive that was loud). A year or so ago I added through the site StephenL listed to a second Hard Drive (40GB+ new 120GB) which increased my recording time to about 140 Hours which was relatively simple and painless.

This week I replaced the originally Quantum with a second 120GB drive really more for the noise factor than the recording cap. and now have 225+ hour max capacity. I think I have about 40 Farscape episodes so far -- maybe I can hold off on buying the DVD sets.

This replacement was a royal pain for some reason and took me more than a couple days of working and reworking various solutions and beating my head on the keyboard. I'm not sure exactly why I couldn't get things to work correctly until I figured out a workaround that finally allowed me to boot up the new system. I seemed to following the instructions to the letter, but I never could get things working properly until I tried an end run which seems to have accomplished the same thing, but in a little different way. The new 240GB system seems 10dB quieter it seems and the internal temp isn't much higher than it was with the single 40GB drive -- I can actually hear the HD seeks now which was previously obscured over the 'roar.'

These were just regular WD HDD from Office Max and not the one's from Weaknees. Got to love those $50-60 HDD after rebate prices though the number of hours I worked to get them running properly could easily have been put to better use, but that's part of the fun isn't it.

 

[Neil_S]

Be careful when doing this... True, it will only see the 137gb of the disk but once it reaches the 137gb level it will begin to write over data. There have been many crashes due to this fact. You need to either restrict the bios of the hard drive to only permit 137gb or patch the TiVo kernel to see the entire drive. The problem with the second option is a software upgrade may wipe out this patch.

I've upgraded many DirecTiVos... Feel free to PM me if anyone would like some help. I do upgrades for a small fee but I offer free advice also! I'd be happy to point people in the right direction and give some tips if anyone wants to do it themselves.

Neil

 

[Jeff Bamberger]

Possibly due to being an A+B configuration, which does "complicate" things, especially since you later replaced your A drive. Single drive replacements are usually a lot easier.

 

[David Norman]

Jeff, no doubt about it. Adding a B drive was simple and was a follow the outline 2-3 hour procedure at most even if you're savind recordings.
I suspect if I had just replaced the original A-Drive the first time and then added the second 120 later it would have been cake.

My dual WD's are pretty quiet though I can hear them a little in a very quiet room, but I think if I was doing it again, I'd got with the Barracuda's and go for Stealth Bomber TIVO. The original Quantum was horrible from a noise standard (constant noise from the disk spinning rather than the seek noise I get with the WD's). I can't imagine how anyone would be able to run a regular computer with that thing 2 feet away unless your one of though Delta Fan people.

 

[Neil_S]

I went through the noise quest myself. I tried a 120gig WD drive and using the AMSET utility I was able to get the seek noise to pretty much silent. The big problem was the whine of the 7200rpm spin. Drove me nuts in a silent room. I then tried Barracuda and while the spin noise was very quiet the seek noise drove me nuts. Due to patent issues Seagate was (is?) not able to use software acoustic managment with their drives (some of the older Barracuda's can use it though). This drive sounded like someone was dropping marbles on a glass plate whenever it would seek.

I finally went with a Samsung 120gig Spinpoint drive. Perfection!!!! Both seek and spin are silent. The most noise comes from the fan (which I also replaced with a silent model).

If you're looking for silent, go with a Samsung.

Neil

 

[David Norman]

I hadn't heard about the Samsung, but with the dual 120's, I don't forsee upgrading this unit anytime soon. Maybe when the HDDirecTivo's come out I may consider something like that eventually.

The WD (Cavier Special Edition) spinning is pretty quiet to me and the only thing I hear up close in the disk seek.

I also repositioned the D-TIVO to where it's somewhat contained in a cabinet and I can barely hear it now even when I'm listening in a dead silent room. I guess if it was in the bedroom, I'd go for the totally silent mode.