TiVo Heaven

Seagate DB35 "CE" drives reviewed

2006-04-06T05:48:00.001-07:00

Seagate have recently announced the availability of a new range of Consumer Electronics ("CE") drives for use in PVR and DVR applications. These are supposed to be quieter, cooler and generally better for PVR applications than standard drives, so I though I'd better check them out!

So, I've had 2x 250gb DB35 (Seagate "CE") drives on test since yesterday and can report the following:-

They appear to be based on the 7200.8 series of drives rather than 7200.9. The bigger ones, I guess, may be based on the 7200.9 - and will have to be for the 500gb - but we'll have to wait and see on that.

Seeks sound "softer" than the Seagate 7200.8 and 7200.9 drives - more of a chuckle than a chatter, but still significantly louder than a Samsung HA250JC in "quiet" mode.

Heat output appears to be less than the 7200.8 drives - these still get pretty warm, bordering on hot after a few hours use, just not as hot as the standard drives. Still a lot warmer than a HA250JC though, which never seems to get more than lukewarm.

As these are still 7200rpm drives (why?) some vibration/hum is still present. This tends to vary from drive to drive anyway, but the 2 evaluation drives I have seem pretty close to the better end of what I've seen for 7200rpm drives. Still not a patch on the HA250JC though, as those babies are almost entirely vibration free - so much so that I sometimes feel the need to double-check they're actually plugged in when I'm testing them!

Power requirements: Unfortunately, the "standard" 7200.9 series drives seem to have a higher startup power requirement than the 7200.8s and I haven't been able to get a pair of 7200.9s of > 120gb each to power up in a TiVo, whereas 2x 7200.8s of any size are absolutely fine. These "CE" drives are touted to have a lower startup power requirement than the 7200.9s, and sure enough these 250gb drives also work fine as a pair, but this is what I'd expect anyway if they're based on the 7200.8 series.

I Can't say anything about reliability based on a 24 hour test - but if they're as good as the other Seagate drives then this is where they may score best. Interestingly, the 2 evaluation drives I was supplied with have no warranty (they're OEM-only), but the retail drives should all have Seagate's industry-leading 5 year warranty, which may sway some in their favour.

So, in conclusion, if you really crave a 5 year warranty and are somewhat sensitive to noise then these are probably a better bet than Seagate's standard 7200rpm drives for TiVo use. However, they come at a price (currently around 20% extra) and still can't touch the cheaper Samsung HA250JC for quietness and cool running.

As for whether I'll be stocking them.... that depends on what price I can get them for - but unless they are at least equivalent to the HA250JC I don't currently see much point.

New features for upgrade drives

2005-12-22T17:31:00.000-08:00

Been pretty busy lately and have just released a new version of the image used to configure all our upgrade drives. This has been in the pipeline for a few months and includes a bunch of useful new features:-

Version 2.5.5 to 2.5.5a self-upgrade.
This allows our customers to self-upgrade their TiVos to version 2.5.5a if they purchase a TV that requires 2.5.5a - thus avoiding the need to re-install the LBA48 kernel.

Mode 0 Option switching
Mode 0 is great, but white flashes are not - which is why we've always given customers the choice of two options. But it's difficult to decide which to go for until you know how badly you will be affected by white flashes, if at all, so I've updated the image to allow customers to switch between options or turn Mode 0 off completely if they prefer - all via the remote!

Quick re-install of /var partition
Sometimes the TiVo system software wipes the /var partition at startup, which is very annoying as the TiVoWeb files reside on /var, along with all the TiVo binaries and joe editor. So I've added a facility to restore the /var partition to its initial (shipping) state by typing a single command at the bash prompt.

Ahh well, back to the upgrades....

Now shipping complete TiVo systems!

2005-12-04T03:53:00.000-08:00

Up to now we have offered upgrades to existing systems - eg. drives, network cards, PSUs etc. - but not complete TiVo systems, and I've resisted the pressure to do so because I wanted to concentrate on upgrades only.

However, we have been getting so many requests from potential customers who have asked us if we can supply a complete system, that I have finally cracked and taken the decision to start offering Complete UK TiVo Systems with a 3 month Warranty.

Obviously, as there are currently no new TiVo machines being produced in the UK, these will have to be used machines only, but will be fully tested and reconfigured with a new Power Supply (PSU) and any drive and networking options required.

And just in time for Christmas too! :)

Prices reduced on 400gb drives!

2005-11-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

Well, 500gb drives are staring to arrive on these shores at last (although not the all-important IDE variants we need for TiVo upgrades!) which means that prices of 400gb drives are starting to fall too.

They've been hovering around the same level for over 6 months now, but the increasing availability of 500gb drives means that distributors can no longer charge the premium prices they have been for the 'biggest' drives available - so prices are on the way down!

Of course, this means that we can now get these drives cheaper too, so we felt it was about time we started passing the savings on to our customers - hence the TiVo Heaven price cuts of £10 on a single 400gb drive and £20 on our massive 800gb upgrade.

Great stuff - all we need now are some 500gb IDE drives and we'll be able to start offering 500gb and 1TB upgrades! :)

Hardware Installation Service

2005-10-08T15:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally done it!

After resisting the pressure to do hardware installations for nearly two years, finally the number of people asking for this service has persuaded me that I should start offering it.

It's a hassle of course, as I have to deal with other people's TiVos (their pride and joy!) and lug huge boxes up to the post office - hence the £40 charge for the service.

But there seem to be plenty of people who would prefer to pay the money and let me do it - and, to be honest, I can clearly remember how I felt when I first opened my own TiVo - TERROR!! Then I upgraded a friend's TiVo, and I've never seen a grown man look so worried. It was like I was performing surgery on one of his kids!

Anyway, enough of the misty-eyed reminiscences, and back to the upgrades.... :)

Product photos - finally

2005-08-07T03:26:00.000-07:00

Finally got round to doing some proper product photos for the TiVoHeaven website yesterday!

You know, it's just one of those things you keep putting off because there's a lot of pain involved... But it had to be done - especially since the addition of remotes and PSUs to the product range, as I was using 'borrowed' photos. Don't tell :)

Anyway, collected all the stuff together - a bunch of drives from 120gb to 400gb, Cachecard, RAM, Turbonet card, PSU, a pile of remotes. Found a bit of red velvet (Ahhh! I knew that dressing up box would come in useful!) and got everything set up.

Thank God for digital cameras! I remember a few years ago, doing something similar with slide film - what a nightmare that was! No idea whether the exposure was right or what any of the photos looked like, except for the image in the viewfinder. But with a digital camera it's a snap! No worry about film or processing costs either...

So I took a load of photos, and then took some more. Tried to imagine every possible combination of stuff I might want to show on the website, then took a bunch of photos of each. Even got a bit 'artistic' with the remotes too :-

Another 500gb drive announced

2005-06-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

500gb drives are coming think and fast now, it seems. Shortly after the announcement by Hitachi, Seagate have also announced a 500gb drive. Unlike Hitachi, Seagate drives have an excellent reputation for durability and their 200, 300 and 400gb drives are superb performers in TiVos - so it looks like I will need to find a way of using these 500gb drives in a UK TiVo fairly shortly...

Hitachi shipping 500gb drive

2005-06-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

Just noticed the announcement from Hitachi of the first 500gb IDE drive. It has 5 platters and is not exactly cheap - but I guess that means I'll have to figure out how to create a 1 terrabyte UK TiVo fairly shortly!

The only reservation I have, apart from the cost and complexity, is that Hitachi/IMB drives are not exactly renowned for a) quietness, b) cool running or c) longevity. However, the specs look OK and the warranty is 3 years, so providing I can figure out how to do it, the 1tb UK TiVo is on the horizon.

800gb TiVo upgrades proving popular

2005-06-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

Slightly surprised to find that the new 800gb Upgrades are proving a bit of hit! Seems like people really do want 800gb (990 hours!) of storage and are prepared to put their hands in their pockets to have one of the biggest TiVos in the UK.

Unfortunately for me the process of creating an 800gb upgrade drive-set is considerably more complex and time-consuming than doing a simple 120gb drive. Firstly, I have to check both drives for errors with PowerMax - which takes about 2 hours per drive! - then I have to do the configuration:-

This involves restoring a good image to the "A" drive under a non-LBA48 verison of the MFSTools CD and expaning it to fill the drive up to 137gb with 2 pairs of MFS data partitions. This step is necessary because there is a bug in MFSTools 2.0 that fails to create partitions correctly if they are > 274gb. With a 300gb drive, the basic restore takes about 30gb, so the extra data partitions are less than 274gb, but with a 400gb drive the extra step is necessary. Then, because restoring to just 137gb creates a partition table that shows the drive as just 137gb, I have to manually rebuild the partition table to allow MFSTools to see the whole of the drive. Then I can expand the MFS data partitions to fill the rest of the 400gb. This works OK because 400-137 is less than 274, but I don't know what I'll do when 500gb drives start becoming popular!

Finally (for the "A" drive) I reboot again using the LBA48 CD in non-byteswapped mode and run the excellent copykern utility from PTVUpgrade (who are, sort of, the US equivalent of TiVoHeaven) to copy the LBA48 TiVo kernel and initialise the swap partition.

So that's the "A" drive done.

Then I have to do a similar thing with the "B" drive - except that, this time, there's no need to restore an image, as that's already on the "A" drive. So, reboot again, this time using the non-LBA48 CD and marry the "B" drive to the "A" drive, expanding to fill 137gb. Then reboot again in byteswapped mode using the LBA48 CD and rebuild the "B" drive's partition table before expanding the MFS partitions again to fill the remaining 263gb of the drive.

Finally, put the drives in a UK TiVo and run some tests:

Check that the LBA48 kernel is properly installed
Check that the swapfile is being correctly reported (400mb)
Trigger a GSOD to force a cleanup of the MFS partitions, as the process of restoring and expanding under different versions of the Linux kernel can cause some corruption. This is probably benign - but I'd rather be safe than sorry, especially when people are parting with hard-earned cash for these upgrades!
Check that the daily call is set to "dialup"
Install any extra software - eg. "Mode 0" recording setup or cachecard drivers.
Reboot and check that everything comes back up as expected.