5400 vs 7200 hard drive

Newbie here - probably gonna go with the quad network model. After reading some of these posts, I will probably go with an external hard drive as opposed to an internal one due to the possible heat situation (appreciate any comments on that thought). Also, is there any benefit to using a hard drive with 7200 rpm vs 5400 rpm?

It’s all about throughput and disk quality. If you could record 4 streams at 1080i and play 6 streams at 1080i would you ever saturate the throughput of a 5400 RPM USB disk. I’ll always take a disk with a 3 years warranty over one that has a 1 year warranty. I have 2 OG tablo units both with 1TB USB drives that have been running since late 2014. I just make sure my disks don’t sit close to the tablo unit - heat

So the speed really doesn’t matter? (I’m looking at the Western Digital Elements 2TB USB)

I’ve never had any issue with my (very old) 1TB Hitachi Touro drives (low rpm). I have two Tablo units with that drive type attached.

My 2 8 year old disks are 1TB WD elements. Originally there were only 1 and 2 TB units. Obviously over the years there are various versions of the same disks with modified components. So I can only hope the newer versions are also good. Mileage varies.

Another note: externally it’s limited to USB 2.0 specs, internally it’s only SATA II - Tablo QUAD OTA DVR | Over The Air (OTA) DVR | Tablo. So it’s unlikely any super spec drive can push past these limitations.

Some user post they perceive a noticeable improvement with UI response -varies by device and network topology- with different drives, they find no difference with playback.

Thanks for all the replies. The WD Elements HD (4TB) is USB 3.0. I’m assuming the Tablo Quad will still be able to use this as it’s external storage device?

Yes, USB 3.0 drives are backwards compatible.

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Thanks all