I have Seagate 4 TB portable hard drive connected to my Gen 4 Tablo. It is working fine, however the disk activity light blinks continuously at ~1 sec intervals while no recording or guide activity is in progress. I’m concerned about hard disk wear.
Any info on this would be appreciated. Thxs!
Welcome to the community. Were you watching the Tablo when this was occurring? I’ll bet that if your Tablo app is open and you’re watching a show, it’s recording. You don’t have to be recording a scheduled show, but I would think that the Tablo records whether you’re watching or recording, so you can rewind or fast forward.
Thanks for the response, but no … I wasn’t watching and there were no apps open
Believe that indicates the drive is in standby mode. I have a 2t WD drive connected to my TV (not Tablo) that does the same thing.
My 1TB Western Digital Elements drive activity light blinks fast when recording, and blinks very slowly when in standby. It never totally stops blinking.
One note, your external drive is not a Windows PC, so it may not follow the same behavior. Newer devices don’t always work like things used to. It’s an adjustment for some.
May possibly be an “on” indicator. Although there are no recordings nor apps accessing the device, you don’t know exactly what it may or may not be doing. I agree, it shouldn’t be doing something non-stop forever.
Thanks for the response.
As it turns out, after many (~12) hours the light did turn solid. After that initial period the light does turn solid about an hour after I stop recording or viewing.
I’m thinking that after the quick formatting, formatting of the full drive took place which would account for the many hours of blinking.
I have a WD drive on my Legacy Tablo. As noted, when the drive has gone to sleep, it blinks roughly 1-2 sec on, 1-2 sec off, etc… It may occasionally wake up with no recording, as I sometimes see it solid on. Possibly some background maintenance checking by the Tablo. Seems to be around 10-11pm Central time.