Tivo Hard Disk Life

The hard disk drive in my Philips DirectTv Tivo (40GB Series 2) is
starting to fail. Two weeks ago, we noticed minor freezing and digital
effects when watching a recorded program. Since then it just got
worse.

I was going to just replace the hard drive, but since this is our
primary box I decided to just get another Tivo. Besides, the new 80 GB
Tivo is only $99. If I count the price of the hard drive and add in my
time to format and install and the aggravation factor, I feel like I'm
ahead of the game.

My question is, how long should a Tivo drive last? My first one lasted
two years.

I know from computers that it's a crapshoot. Sometimes you get a bad
drive.

Knowing what I know about drives, I was cautious not to overwork my
Tivo. I didn't want it constantly recording it's recommendations, and
I was sure to delete things whenever I was finished with them so as not
to have the always have a full disk. Am I wrong to think this way?
Should I just leave it full of kid's shows and let it delete when it
needs space?

Anyway I turned off the recommendations on the new unit simply because
I don't want the Tivo to record "Bunny Ranch" and leave it there for
the kids to watch.

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 08:23:07 -0700, brad_pitstain wrote:

My question is, how long should a Tivo drive last? My first one lasted
two years. I know from computers that it's a crapshoot. Sometimes you
get a bad drive.

Tivo is a computer. I've had one drive running 10+ years on a Novell
server. I've had other drives fail within a few days. I replacedthe 30gig
drive with a 120gig right after I got it a few years back. It's still
going.

Knowing what I know about drives, I was cautious not to overwork my
Tivo. I didn't want it constantly recording it's recommendations, and I
was sure to delete things whenever I was finished with them so as not to
have the always have a full disk. Am I wrong to think this way? Should
I just leave it full of kid's shows and let it delete when it needs
space?

You can do whatever you want, and it won't matter since the tivo drive is
always recording anyway. How else can you pause and rewind live tv?

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wrote in message
ups.com...

My question is, how long should a Tivo drive last? My first one lasted
two years.

Knowing what I know about drives, I was cautious not to overwork my
Tivo. I didn't want it constantly recording it's recommendations, and
I was sure to delete things whenever I was finished with them so as not
to have the always have a full disk. Am I wrong to think this way?
Should I just leave it full of kid's shows and let it delete when it
needs space?

I think "longer than two years" is the best answer I could give. I'm not
sure exactly how long I've run mine, I think I upgraded after a few months,
and then again after 4 years or so. One of the ones I took out after four
years sat in a closet for 6 months or a year, and then I put it in another
Tivo, where it lasted a few weeks - but to be fair, the bearing noise was
loud as hell from the moment I put it in the second box, I should've pulled
it right away. Don't know what happened there, as it wasn't doing that in
the old Tivo.

Ed

wrote in message
ups.com...

Knowing what I know about drives, I was cautious not to overwork my
Tivo. I didn't want it constantly recording it's recommendations, and
I was sure to delete things whenever I was finished with them so as not
to have the always have a full disk. Am I wrong to think this way?
Should I just leave it full of kid's shows and let it delete when it
needs space?

Anyway I turned off the recommendations on the new unit simply because
I don't want the Tivo to record "Bunny Ranch" and leave it there for
the kids to watch.


Oh, and it shouldn't matter whether it's recording suggestions or not - it's
always recording the live buffer anyway. Similarly, I don't think fullness
matters - if that was a concern, then the OS should have built in some
reserve space. "Bunny Ranch", however, is a different story ;-) I don't
run suggestions myself, simply because I want the digital cable box to be
available as much as possible.

Ed

On 2005-08-02, machinehead wrote:

I don't
run suggestions myself, simply because I want the digital cable box to be
available as much as possible.

How is the digital cable box unavailable when TiVo is recording
suggestions?

--
This is my .sig

Thanks for the replies.

After posting this I googled and learned that this is an old topic.
Thank you for not flaming.

Regarding the two years, I think the problem is heat. I'm going to cut
the back off my TV stand this weekend.

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machinehead wrote:
| wrote in message
| ups.com...
|
|Knowing what I know about drives, I was cautious not to overwork my
|Tivo. I didn't want it constantly recording it's recommendations, and
|I was sure to delete things whenever I was finished with them so as not
|to have the always have a full disk. Am I wrong to think this way?
|Should I just leave it full of kid's shows and let it delete when it
|needs space?
|
|Anyway I turned off the recommendations on the new unit simply because
|I don't want the Tivo to record "Bunny Ranch" and leave it there for
|the kids to watch.
|
|
|
| Oh, and it shouldn't matter whether it's recording suggestions or not
- - it's
| always recording the live buffer anyway. Similarly, I don't think
fullness
| matters - if that was a concern, then the OS should have built in some
| reserve space. "Bunny Ranch", however, is a different story ;-) I don't
| run suggestions myself, simply because I want the digital cable box to be
| available as much as possible.
|
| Ed
|
|

If you put the Tivo into Standby mode, live recording is suspended. The
hard drive will, however, continue to spin, and Tivo background
maintenance (retrieve/update program listing, garbaged collection, etc)
will be performed as usual. This will probably have no effect on drive
life, but may make the unit slightly quieter, especially with older
drives with noisy seek.

Ed
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If you put the Tivo into Standby mode, live recording is suspended. The
hard drive will, however, continue to spin, and Tivo background
maintenance (retrieve/update program listing, garbaged collection, etc)
will be performed as usual. This will probably have no effect on drive
life, but may make the unit slightly quieter, especially with older
drives with noisy seek.

Ed

That's true for the Directivo models, but the SA models record the live
buffer even in standby mode, I believe.

Randy S.

"Mike Hunt" wrote in message
...
On 2005-08-02, machinehead wrote:

I don't
run suggestions myself, simply because I want the digital cable box to
be
available as much as possible.

How is the digital cable box unavailable when TiVo is recording
suggestions?

It's tuning through the digital box, so I have to switch over to the analog
feed, or cancel the recording. Not a huge problem, but who can find
anything to watch with only 100 channels to choose from? ;-) Then if I want
to use the Tivo guide, I have to switch back and forth. Just not worth it,
as I generally don't run out of stuff to watch anyway.

Ed

wrote:

Regarding the two years, I think the problem is heat. I'm going to cut
the back off my TV stand this weekend.

That may help some, but not as much as you'd think because the fan at
the back is an exhaust fan. If your TV stand is open to the front, go
to an electronics store and get a 2 or 3 inch cooling fan, whatever
will fit on the same shelf as the Tivo. Check the specs to make sure
it's a fairly quiet one and moves as much air as possible. The store I
was in had about 10 choices depending on sleeve or ball bearing, cfm
rating and noise.

Put it on the left side of the Tivo as you're facing it. Assuming
yours is the same as mine this is where the Series 2 sucks in air.
Getting cool air in there will help more than anything. I had one
Tivo running almost 50C and adding that fan dropped it to 40C.

Scott Peterson

--
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skydiving is not for you.

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