Tivo/DVRs - HDDs more prone to failure than PC Hard Drives?

Is it my imagination, or do the hard drives in DVD/HDD recorders fail
more often (more sensitive / prone to failure) than regular PC hard
drives?

PC Hardrives (esp. those in a laptop) get banged around a lot, and my
DVD Recorder has messages everywhere warning to be VEREEEE gentle with
the unit. Also, it seems more senstive to temperature changes.

How does the technology of a HDD in a DVD Recorder differ from a hard
drive in a PC or laptop? Why do the HDDs seem to fail waaaaay more
than regular hard drives do. Aren't they all the same thing?

My HDD hasn't failed (yet) but I am not very optimistic that it will
live a full life.

LB

LB wrote:
Is it my imagination, or do the hard drives in DVD/HDD recorders fail
more often (more sensitive / prone to failure) than regular PC hard
drives?

They might fail a bit more often, but I don't think it's that much greater.

PC Hardrives (esp. those in a laptop) get banged around a lot, and my
DVD Recorder has messages everywhere warning to be VEREEEE gentle with
the unit. Also, it seems more senstive to temperature changes.

That's CYA from the manufacturer.

How does the technology of a HDD in a DVD Recorder differ from a hard
drive in a PC or laptop? Why do the HDDs seem to fail waaaaay more
than regular hard drives do. Aren't they all the same thing?

Yep, they're identical.


My HDD hasn't failed (yet) but I am not very optimistic that it will
live a full life.

I think that *if* PVR harddrives have a significantly higher fail rate
(which we've only seen anecdotal evidence of so far) it's most likely
due to higher operating temperatures. PVR applications seem to be more
likely to be enclosed in poorly ventilated cases and/or cabinets and
elevated temperatures *can* cause premature failure.

Randy S

LB wrote:
Is it my imagination, or do the hard drives in DVD/HDD recorders fail
more often (more sensitive / prone to failure) than regular PC hard
drives?
How does the technology of a HDD in a DVD Recorder differ from a hard
drive in a PC or laptop?

They are identical.

Why do the HDDs seem to fail waaaaay more than regular hard drives do.

Where are you getting the numbers?

Over the years, I've had three disks fail in a regular PC.
I did not post to any newsgroups when that happened.
I had a disk fail in my TiVo. I did post about that.

The number PVR disk failures reported to the newsgroups comes from
a self-selected sample population. From a statistical standpoint,
that tends to produce notoriously inaccurate results.

-Joe

LB wrote:
Is it my imagination, or do the hard drives in DVD/HDD recorders fail
more often (more sensitive / prone to failure) than regular PC hard
drives?

I don't know that anybody has collected statistics on this. DVR hard
drives are running 24/7, which means my Tivo HD logs more hours in one
week then my desktop does for a year. A cooler drive will also live
longer, and DVRs are typically small boxes that are quiet (read as they
run hot).

In article . com,
"LB" wrote:

Is it my imagination, or do the hard drives in DVD/HDD recorders fail
more often (more sensitive / prone to failure) than regular PC hard
drives?

PC Hardrives (esp. those in a laptop) get banged around a lot, and my
DVD Recorder has messages everywhere warning to be VEREEEE gentle with
the unit. Also, it seems more senstive to temperature changes.

How does the technology of a HDD in a DVD Recorder differ from a hard
drive in a PC or laptop? Why do the HDDs seem to fail waaaaay more
than regular hard drives do. Aren't they all the same thing?

My HDD hasn't failed (yet) but I am not very optimistic that it will
live a full life.

They're the exact same hard drives, so its luck of the draw. There's
more variability between batches than brands. Having a unit tucked in
tightly in a cabinet makes it run hotter and than can shorten a HDD live.

"LB" wrote in news:1159250801.580221.13880
@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

Is it my imagination, or do the hard drives in DVD/HDD recorders fail
more often (more sensitive / prone to failure) than regular PC hard
drives?


Drives in TiVo get exercised a lot more than the average PC. Apart from
that they are the same. I had a friend that was buying cheap Maxtor drives
for his TiVo boxes a few years back and the same drives that worked fine
for an extended period in a PC were dying in the TiVo over a month or so.
Went through 4 of them before moving to Seagate, where his problems went
away.

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On 2006-09-29, Peter H. Coffin wrote:
On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:16:52 -0500, Normus Deenghis wrote:
"LB" wrote in news:1159250801.580221.13880
@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
[deletia]
I'd understand the arguement as it applies to "normal" PC users. But I'm
not a normal PC user. I've got four servers running 24x7, serving
websites and database duty for websites I run and host. Those discs DO
get used at least as hard as the one in the Tivo does. Wes has got
gawdaful amounts of disc spinning 24 hours a day as well. I've seen one,
count 'em, 1 drive failure in the past decade, and that was a Seagate
Bigfoot, a model *notorious* for being made like crap, more or less out
of spare parts. ("Nobody wants 5-inch mechanisms anymore -- what are we
going to do with all these platters?"). Based on this experience, I see
TiVo drive seeming to fail at a rate that would make any server
manufacturer issue a recall to avoid the shame of getting a reputation
for failure.

Tivo clearly uses consumer grade drives and always has. Those of
us that build our own PVRs and spec out our own servers are likely far
more picky about what goes into our machines. I specifically stay away
from stuff that has had a bad reputation or has bitten me personally.

It seems there's been a general decline in consumer drives lately
as most vendors have scaled back on their standard warranties. I bought
my last batch of disks specifically with this in mind. It will be interesting
to see how it bears out.

...something else to consider is the possibility that our non-Tivo
systems actually exercise the drives less despite using them about the same.
Linux will aggressively cache disk IO modern PC's commonly come with 256M or
1G of RAM. Most of that remains empty on a MythTV systesm (and thus available
for caching). That might alter the disk access patterns in some relevant way.

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attempt to distort reality to do so. This is what separates |||
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events not in their control.

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On 2006-09-29, Peter H. Coffin wrote:

I'd understand the arguement as it applies to "normal" PC users. But I'm
not a normal PC user. I've got four servers running 24x7, serving
websites and database duty for websites I run and host. Those discs DO
get used at least as hard as the one in the Tivo does. Wes has got
gawdaful amounts of disc spinning 24 hours a day as well. I've seen one,
count 'em, 1 drive failure in the past decade, and that was a Seagate
Bigfoot, a model *notorious* for being made like crap, more or less out
of spare parts. ("Nobody wants 5-inch mechanisms anymore -- what are we
going to do with all these platters?"). Based on this experience, I see
TiVo drive seeming to fail at a rate that would make any server
manufacturer issue a recall to avoid the shame of getting a reputation
for failure.

My anecdotal evidence is the opposite of yours.

Since 2000 (a convenient year because that's when I started with
TiVo, and that's when my house was broken into with all my PCs
stolen and thus replaced), I've had 3 PC disk failures and 1
TiVo disk failure.

I currently have 5 TiVos and am responsible for 4 others among
friends and family. I just counted 22 PC disks running currently
at home; all except one are on 24x7 (I work at home). All the PC
disks are on UPS's, none of my TiVos are on a UPS. My
stepfather's TiVo is a 20 hour TiVo that's been running solidly
since 2001. Most of the other TiVo's have been upgraded to a
reasonable size, but only 1 of the 9 in the past year and a half.
So that's lots of TiVo disk experience.

Given the numbers, I would have expected the TiVos to have more
failures, because of the UPS situation and heating problems
(though all the TiVo's were located with heating issues in mind.)

I think I've been lucky with the TiVo disks, but probability says
some people will have more failures than others, and some less.
But only the people with more failures will complain about it, so
those are the postings we see.

Chris

I'd understand the arguement as it applies to "normal" PC users. But I'm
not a normal PC user. I've got four servers running 24x7, serving
websites and database duty for websites I run and host. Those discs DO
get used at least as hard as the one in the Tivo does. Wes has got
gawdaful amounts of disc spinning 24 hours a day as well. I've seen one,
count 'em, 1 drive failure in the past decade, and that was a Seagate
Bigfoot, a model *notorious* for being made like crap, more or less out
of spare parts. ("Nobody wants 5-inch mechanisms anymore -- what are we
going to do with all these platters?"). Based on this experience, I see
TiVo drive seeming to fail at a rate that would make any server
manufacturer issue a recall to avoid the shame of getting a reputation
for failure.


Your anecdotal sample is far too small to be statistically meaningful,
and it's somewhat irresponsible to try drawing conclusions from that.

That said, I'd still say the major driver is *heat*. Disk operation
really isn't very stressful to a drive, and people constantly argue
whether it's better to leave a drive on, or turn it off when not in use
(i.e. is operation more wearing or the thermal cycling from on/off
cycles?). But everyone agrees that heat and vibration shorten drive
life. I would bet that CE devices like Tivo run at higher than normal
average temps due to being stored in smaller cases and poorly ventilated
cabinets. Higher average operating temp = higher average failure rate I
would think is a defensible argument.

Randy S.

This is a great question.

I have two Series 2 Tivos. One was purchased in Dec 2003, one in Dec 2004.

The hard drive in the Dec 03 Tivo failed in October 2005. (22 months)
The hard drive in the Dec 04 Tivo failed in September 2006 (20 months).

I am currently operating computers with a total of 6 internal (IDE) hard
drives and 2 external hard drives. The oldest of these is 55 months.
Zero failures among any of them.

Both Tivos are in well ventilated areas, but I suspect an internal
temperature cause rather than ambient cooling.

From my data set: Tivo hard drives are much more failure prone than the
ones in PCs.