Flash drive working better than Hard drive on Amazon FireTV

General Discussion
1

So I was having issues with Tablo and FireTV stuttering and “buffering”. I bought a cheap USB 3.0 flash drive off amazon and plugged it in.
WOW!
the recordings start almost instantly. I can seek with less than a second of buffering (previously this would take 5 seconds or more and sometimes hang up the application). Ihave been using the flash drive for 7 days now and the performance is rock solid.

Just curious, why does Tablo deter us against using flash drives when it appears to work so much better and faster than an external hard drive?

2

I’m curious as to exactly what model hd you were using and also what flash drive you are currently using.

3

WD elements 500gb. I also tried an older seagate drive in an external enclosure I had and didn;'t notice any difference between the drives.

The flash drive is a cheapo from amazon:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H7PBWK8?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

4

Tablo doesn’t recommend them because they are too slow to support the Tablo. Have you tried recording multiple shows at the same time with this drive?

Also, this thread shows what happens when one user tried a flash drive: For Tablo Support: Weak Signal Solution

5

Yes. I record two shows at the same time everyday Monday through Friday and have no issues. I don’t understand why they claim a flash drive is too slow when it seems to be outperforming the wd elements I previously had connected.

6

Your WD Elements 500 GB drive should work fine.

  1. Have you tried updating the firmware on the WD drive? This has helped many folks with issues.
  2. Yes, a USB flash drive is generally too slow for the Tablo. But it works for you so that’s good. But I wouldn’t expect it to be a long term solution. Flash drives are designed for intermittent use, constant use and it will likely fail before a USB HDD. A USB SSD would be a different story, but these are pricey.
7

I considered a USB SSD at one point, but I do not think the drive is much of a performance bottleneck for this application.