Just wondering about hard drives in DVRs

[Ed62]

Our DVR has gotten quite a lot of use for a few years, and although there is no reason to think the hard drive is failing, I wonder if you would replace it the same way you do a computer hard drive. If you do, where do you get the software to run it, and could you use a regular hard drive for a computer, or is it a special thing in itself? Never had the cover off ours.

Ed

[offthemark]

The hard drive is the same kind as in a PC. But you can't just pop the lid off and replace. The OS for the DVR must be installed on the hard drive and most devices have some proprietary things also. You can swap hard drives using you PC. There are internet sites that give how-tos but essentially you hook up the old drive, copy to your PC drive, plug in the new drive, and copy back.

Also, they will eventually die. Depending on the unit, cheapo hard drives are common. They get a lot of churn so they tend to die.

Unless you're having trouble, I wouldn't make any switch. If you are, and are the type that would install a new hard drive in a PC, I would look into switching it myself.

[RickD1]

Ed,

Is your DVR a ReplayTV or a TIVO? If it is a ReplayTV you can go to planet ReplayTV and read about and download the required software to format a new hard drive. There are places on the net that tell you how to do this with a TiVO also.

I have replaced the hard drive in my ReplayTV a couple of times now. I put in bigger hard drives to get more record time. I have about 100 hours of record time available now.

[Kristofor]

As mentioned if it's a Tivo it's not that hard to create a new drive.

That said, it's easier if your old drive still works since you don't need to worry about downloading images/slices and going through those extra steps. As a bonus, you can increase the size and then keep the original drive as a backup to repeat the process when the larger drive dies somewhere down the line. Of course, by then you'll probably want an HD-DVR so it may simply be time to upgrade

[Ed62]

I have the older DirecTV DVR. Pretty sure it's a Tivo, and I know they don't use them any longer. Is there a way to confirm my suspicion that it's a Tivo? On the front of the unit it says RCA DirecTV DVR 40 GB. The new ones they use have a much higher learning curve. Thanks for the replies.

Ed

[Ken Massingale]

I have the older DirecTV DVR. Pretty sure it's a Tivo, and I know they don't use them any longer. Is there a way to confirm my suspicion that it's a Tivo? On the front of the unit it says RCA DirecTV DVR 40 GB. The new ones they use have a much higher learning curve. Thanks for the replies.

Ed

If it's a Tivo unit you will see the Tivo critter all over the place when the setup and menu screens are up.

[Ed62]

If it's a Tivo unit you will see the Tivo critter all over the place when the setup and menu screens are up.

Aha! Thank you.

Ed

[greencat]

Here is a good tivo site. The underground section is where they talk about drive replacement.
http://www.tivocommunity.com

[Ed62]

Thanks very much for the link. It looks like a great resource, and it earned a place in my favorites.

Ed

[Tom Miller]

Here is a good tivo site. The underground section is where they talk about drive replacement.
http://www.tivocommunity.com

I'll second that as a great resource. But, if you want to search the site for info, be sure to use the site's Google search feature -- the "normal" search is basically useless.

There are 3rd party services out there that can replace your drive with a much larger drive, etc.

My TiVo (did I spell that right? ) has a couple USB ports on it, but do you think you can plug in a USB drive? No, you can't.

Regards,
Tom

[Kristofor]

Well.... On the DirecTivo's those ports aren't enabled by default, but they can be by loading the correct drivers, which is what you have to do if you want to enable a network connection. Unfortunately they're not USB2.0 so they're really too slow to use for reliable video playback.

I have read that the newer DirecTV DVR (non-TiVo) will allow you to attach an external drive for more space. I don't have one yet, but I think I'll have to order one soon for the HD content. Sadly the HD DirecTivo doesn't support MPEG4 streams that the new sats (and hence HD content) are going to be using.

[Ed62]

Sadly the HD DirecTivo doesn't support MPEG4 streams that the new sats (and hence HD content) are going to be using.

Doesn't the "HD" in HD DirecTivo mean high def? If so, it sounds as though they're calling it a high def Tivo, but it won't actually deliver high def?

Ed

[Kristofor]

Well, yes, the HD is for High Def, and it works with some of the existing HD channels which are on the existing satellites. Those HD and standard definition channels are a goofy flavor of MPEG2. The TiVo flavor receiver can deal with those.

But the new HD channels (100 by year end if you believe the press release) are on new satellites and encoded as MPEG4 streams which the TiVo flavor receiver cannot deal with. For those you need the DirecTV homebrew DVR (which is kind of sad IMO).

[Tom Miller]

Well.... On the DirecTivo's those ports aren't enabled by default, but they can be by loading the correct drivers, which is what you have to do if you want to enable a network connection. Unfortunately they're not USB2.0 so they're really too slow to use for reliable video playback.

The USB ports are enabled; that's how they intend for you to connect a wireless network adapter. But the operating system does not allow for a USB Drive; even for off-board storage would be nice. I don't recall documentation that they're USB2.0, but I can transfer content from my computer real-time (recorded at 2Gig/hour).

Regards,
Tom

[Kristofor]

Yeah, but on the DirecTivo's they don't intend or support any official way for you to hook up ethernet connections and share. If you hack it, load the USB and NIC drivers you can also load the stand-alone tivo software and enable multi-room viewing.

The USB ports can operate at up to 12Mbit and this gives an average transfer speed that is over twice fast enough to watch the show on another device in realtime as long as it buffers a bit first. Of course it's buffering that to the local HDD, so if that was the slow link in the chain you need the slowest period to still support that minimum data rate or you may have periodic pauses, jerkiness, etc.

Of course your comment about a good design allowing this functionality is right on the money, with more RAM they could buffer to that instead of the HDD, with faster ports it's a moot point, and so forth.

But for a 4 year old device I still love mine