I’ve had enough trying to coax some old hardware to work. It’s time to upgrade and be done with the problems.
Canon Office Products LiDE220 Document Scanner
HooToo 7 Port USB 3.0 Hub with 2 Smart Charging Ports
Wow, that USB 3.0 hub is originally priced at $180?!?!
Instead I used the difference in costs between the basic and Plus models to buy a larger hard drive. The basic comes with a 500 GB drive that can record up to 500 hours. I got a highly rated WD Red 2 TB drive to replace the stock drive. I was thinking of getting the AV-tuned, Green line of WD drives, but the cost was more, and Amazon reviews said the Red line works just as well in a Tivo. Again because of costs, I didn’t go all the way with a 4 TB drive. As is, this 500 GB to 2 TB increase quadruples recording time which is good enough for my recording habits.
Anyways, upgrading the internal drive in the Roamio is very easy now. No special software utilities needed. Just swap out the physical hardware, and the Tivo firmware takes care of the rest upon startup. For more details about the hard drive upgrade, check out this Tivo Community thread.
Getting the side clips unclasped was the hardest part of the upgrade in my opinion. Unmounting the original drive just takes time and patience to remove the screens and mounting brackets.
If you’re installing a CableCard (multi-stream only), look on the underside of the Roamio for the CableCard slot.
After putting the Tivo back together and hooking it up, the Roamio initializes the new drive and doesn’t skip a beat.
What can I say? The Roamio is way faster than the Tivo HD. The interface is better but sometimes the old school, low resolution screens show up. The peanut shaped remote is smaller with some different button placement but is more responsive relying on RF signals rather than strictly line of sight IR.
I connected the Roamio to my Tivo HD to transfer existing recorded shows. For speed, I connected the two units with an Ethernet cable (straight through, not a crossover). The Roamio saw the HD unit whereupon I could transfer its content to the Roamio. After several hours, this process was done (truthfully I thought this would take much longer).
So far so good with the Roamio although I went through the settings to stop the auto-recording of suggested content. At times, I noticed the red light was illuminated indicating shows were recording. I didn’t have any applicable Season Passes scheduled so I wondered what was going on. After disabling this auto-record feature, the red light no longer goes on randomly.
Definitely a worthwhile investment for sure.
Here are more pictures of my Tivo Roamio drive upgrade.
Next up, taking a look at my Late-2008 MacBook Pro to help figure out which Mac to get.
The latest MacBook Air can have a 13-in screen running at 1440×900 so only loss is in screen real estate. With a 256 GB SSD, I’d still have room to grow, especially if I want to throw a virtual machine or two on the Air.
The single Thunderbolt port would be used up by the Mini Display Port adapter to my external display. Both my current MBP and the Air has two USB ports. Since I’m not using my FW800 port, the lack of FW and a single Thunderbolt port on the Air isn’t a factor (or is it?).
If I want to run some Windows VMs on a limited basis, I’d want to bump up the processor to the dual i7 and the max out the RAM at 8 GB. I may need a USB SuperDrive just because burning discs is still a viable method.
Aw dang, now this could be a problem. I’d want a wired Ethernet connection, but the Air uses a Thunderbolt adapter for this. But the Air has a single Thunderbolt port which I’d use for the secondary monitor. Could I live off of Wifi? I’m happy with my external display and don’t really want a Thunderbolt Display just to break out additional ports.
Or there’s this fluctuating option – the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock. The updated (and unreleased) version includes these ports:
But the cost of this well designed device is an eye-popping $399 and is not yet available (expected September 2012). There is another option, the Matrox DS1 Thunderbolt Docking Station. There are fewer ports, but it costs fewer dollars as well ($250).
No extra Thunderbolt, no Firewire, no eSATA compared against Belkin’s product. Seems like one of these Thunderbolt-based docks/hubs would be needed to alleviate the paucity of ports. While the Belkin dock is cool, the Matrox product is good and cheap enough for me.
Just taking stock of my iMac to help figure out which Mac to get.
Looking at the new MBP with Retina… the stock 256 GB SSD might be an issue. What can I get rid of to fit the stock drive? Do I want my photos or music on another drive, potentially unavailable when I’m mobile?
Might need to buy an external SuperDrive (comes in handy to burn a bunch of pictures to DVD to give to relatives). Wired Ethernet is doable with an adapter taking up a Thunderbolt port but Wifi at N speeds should be good enough.
What to do with the FW400 and 800 drives? Fortunately, these external drives also have (slower) USB ports so that’s an option. Get a Thunderbolt to FW adapter (and use up yet another port)? There are only 2 USB ports on the MBP but then again, I might not be needing my keyboard and trackball with a laptop setup.
How would a Thunderbolt Display affect things? The “umbilical” cords are the Thunderbolt and MagSafe cables, tethering the MBP to the display. Note: a MagSafe 2 adapter would be needed. The Display features another Thunderbolt port, 3 USB ports, a single FW800 port, and a GigEther port. The FW and GigE ports would alleviate those extra adapters. The 3 USB ports mimics my current iMac setup. That still leaves one FW400 port needed (but convertible to USB). At $999, the Thunderbolt Display is an expensive (but gorgeous) dock for a MBP.
