My external hard drive failed, so I connected an older Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 2TB external drive (9ZQ2P5-500) that I was not using. It works fine, except that it never goes into standby mode, even after sitting all night with the Tablo not recording anything. I can feel the vibration of the drive spinning all the time.
I really never paid attention before, so I don’t know if my failed Western Digital Elements external drive ever stopped spinning. So here is my question: Does your external drive ever stop spinning and go into standby mode?
Edit: in the original post, I should not have said ‘power down’, I changed it to ‘standby mode’.
I don’t have an external drive on my gen 4. But I do have one on my legacy Tablo. It is a 12+ year old self powered Fantom Drives 1tb drive. It stops spinning after a determined time of no use. Not sure what that time is, maybe 15 minutes? When I was using it as a backup for a PC over 10 years ago (before Tablo) I think I remember seeing a WD in the name of the drive in windows explorer.
Scandy,
I guess you would have to define “old” as far as you Seagate drive. Newer HDD’s are much quieter and may not run as much. SSD’s have come a long way since their introduction. What’s the trade off? Noisy spindle running all the time? Or quiet? I have SSD’s that have been back up for PC lasting 10+ years.
I think that Seagate drive was purchased around 2010-2012, however it was only used for backups, so it hasn’t had much use. It is extremely quiet, no noise at all, but it never stops spinning. It works really well with the Tablo and it is actually noticeably faster than my really old WD elements drive that failed (The WD elements drive was purchased in 2009 and has been used continuously for video recording with Dish Network receivers before using it with the Tablo - the drive lasted 16 years)!
I am concerned that the constant spinning will shorten the life of the drive, but I read some info on the internet saying that it was normal for this drive to spin continuously. (However, I read other info that said it would shorten the life). Who knows?
I thought that Tablo specifically does not recommend SSDs, flash drives, or USB keys because there are too many read/write cycles for SSDs to be reliable for long term video recording.
I don’t know for sure about the Tablo, but I know that the original TiVo DVRs were always recording on whatever channel the tuners happened to be set to. That is why you could turn on your TV, and rewind about 90 minutes. It wasn’t saving the program, just giving you the ability to rewind live TV.
I wonder if the Tablo does something similar, or does it just go idle if no one is watching live via the app. Perhaps the official Tablo folks could clarify that here.
Yes, that is what I was wondering, and the reason I started this thread. Does the Tablo keep the drive alive continuously, or does the Tablo allow the drive to spin down when not in use?
Fanboy71 said that his external drive does spin down, so that means that the Tablo is most likely not the problem, …but it would be nice if the Tablo folks could give us the definitive answer.
Is your old drive (HDD not SSD) 3.5 (PC) inch or 2.5 inch (laptop)? I have used both and I think the smaller drives tend not to not spin as much as the 3.5. I have 2.5 external HDD on my Mac for back up and it is normal idle unload I make a change to files.
I guess I would say keep using the Seagate until it dies completely. Then replace it with a new 2.5 in SATA drive like this one at Amazon.com. This is on Tablo"s list of recommended drives and is fairly inexpensive.