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Am looking for opinions on whether or not I should consider replacing the drive in my single-drive TiVo BEFORE it fails, on the grounds that my drive is probably nearing the statistically-probable end of its life and I’m thinking that copying a working drive is easier (and cheaper) than recovering a failed drive.
I bought a single-drive Series 3 HD TiVo from WK in June 2007 and paid for an upgrade to a 750GB drive at the time of purchase. The TiVo is functioning completely normally as of now and always has, and I have no indication that a failure may be imminent. I’m just thinking that 2.5 years of 24/7 operation may mean that the drive is likely wearing out. It stays fairly close to full most of the time (75-95% full). I occasionally check the temperature and that has always tracked okay. I occasionally pop open the case and blow the dust out. It sits in a spot where it gets adequate air flow. It sits behind an UPS and a surge protector.
I want to consider getting a new drive, either same size or larger, and have the contents of my current drive fully copied to the new drive. It’s important to retain all my recorded programs, thumb ratings, season passes, etc. In other words, when I plug the “updated” (not necessarily “upgraded”) machine back in, I want the work to be transparent. It’s not really important that I have a capacity upgrade, although I would consider buying a bigger drive if the deal was attractive. I don’t really want a two-drive system (had that before on an old series-1 box) since that gives me two points of failure.
I have Tivo Desktop installed on a home PC and have moved some low priority shows there, onto a bigger drive. I suppose I could just move all of my recorded programs to my PC and transfer them back when the new drive arrived to reduce the cost of some outfit (probably WK) setting up my new drive; haven’t explored that option which I presume requires the upgraded/paid version of Desktop.
Am fishing for general comments about this idea. Is it unheard of? Not cost effective? How long can I reasonably expect my existing drive to keep working? An external backup (DVR Expander) connected to my TiVo only stores my programs and couldn’t function as a true replacement drive if my original fails, correct? If I do this pre-emptive strike and copy my old to a new before the old fails, I don’t really want to do the work myself - don’t have a Linux box and don’t have the time to plow thru Hinsdale and figure it out from scratch.
And of course, what’s this new drive going to cost me?
I bought a single-drive Series 3 HD TiVo from WK in June 2007 and paid for an upgrade to a 750GB drive at the time of purchase. The TiVo is functioning completely normally as of now and always has, and I have no indication that a failure may be imminent. I’m just thinking that 2.5 years of 24/7 operation may mean that the drive is likely wearing out. It stays fairly close to full most of the time (75-95% full). I occasionally check the temperature and that has always tracked okay. I occasionally pop open the case and blow the dust out. It sits in a spot where it gets adequate air flow. It sits behind an UPS and a surge protector.
I want to consider getting a new drive, either same size or larger, and have the contents of my current drive fully copied to the new drive. It’s important to retain all my recorded programs, thumb ratings, season passes, etc. In other words, when I plug the “updated” (not necessarily “upgraded”) machine back in, I want the work to be transparent. It’s not really important that I have a capacity upgrade, although I would consider buying a bigger drive if the deal was attractive. I don’t really want a two-drive system (had that before on an old series-1 box) since that gives me two points of failure.
I have Tivo Desktop installed on a home PC and have moved some low priority shows there, onto a bigger drive. I suppose I could just move all of my recorded programs to my PC and transfer them back when the new drive arrived to reduce the cost of some outfit (probably WK) setting up my new drive; haven’t explored that option which I presume requires the upgraded/paid version of Desktop.
Am fishing for general comments about this idea. Is it unheard of? Not cost effective? How long can I reasonably expect my existing drive to keep working? An external backup (DVR Expander) connected to my TiVo only stores my programs and couldn’t function as a true replacement drive if my original fails, correct? If I do this pre-emptive strike and copy my old to a new before the old fails, I don’t really want to do the work myself - don’t have a Linux box and don’t have the time to plow thru Hinsdale and figure it out from scratch.
And of course, what’s this new drive going to cost me?
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