Just copy how? What did you use? Attached to what - a WIndows computer?
This worked 100% as described. Thanks so much for the info and step by step instructions!!
March of 2018 and still the feature is a wish.
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I have a straight Linux machine. Why couldn’t I simply format the new drive (picking a long wait time between scheduled series recordings, of course), plug both drives into the Linux machine, mount them both, then use a file-management program (or a command-line cp -rf command) to accomplish the same thing?
Temlakos
That’s the easy answer. Linux is intimidating to some though.
What you’re suggesting should totally work. My post was for Windows users who don’t have access to a Linux computer.
On Windows 10, it has been possible to run Bash on Ubuntu (search for Run Bash on Ubuntu on Windows 10 for setup instructions). I’ve not tried to copy a Tablo disk to another disk using Ubuntu on Windows 10, but in theory, it aught to work.
If someone on this forum tries this method (copying Tablo disk contents using Bash on Ubuntu on Windows 10 subsystem), please post your results here.
Thanks.
Roy
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Roy: good news. I just completed a migration, and I can pronounce it successful.
I had recordings on a 2 TB Western Digital “My Passport” HDD. I recently bought a 4 TB HDD and decided to migrate my recordings.
I did as you suggested at first: unplug the 2 TB HDD, plug in the 4 TB HDD, and format it. (Why does my Tablo have two USB slots? Is that for using more than one HDD?)
Then I turned the Tablo OFF, and plugged both HDDs into my Linux machine.
I navigated to the “rec” folder on the larger HDD, then issued a command that went roughly like:
cp -rf [pathway-to-the-smaller-HDD-rec-directory]/* .
Typing in that pathway was a bear. All those randomly selected alphamerics!
It took maybe twenty minutes on the formatting job–and then twenty-four hours (well, maybe an hour or two less) to copy the recordings. (1.66 TB of recordings is quite a lot!)
I have just plugged in the new HDD and reactivated the Tablo. I also updated the guide.
My recordings are all present, just as I left them.
The schedule is behaving just as before–suppressing the recording of duplicates. How about that–the Tablo didn’t forget my settings.
And now I have another 1.8 TB of space that I didn’t have before.
I Used Ubuntu to copy all my programs (I didn’t have that many on this drive, since it’s my 2nd drive). I did it using the terminal window and sudo commands to cp -rf all the files. I just copied the long drive name and it all worked.
Now what I would like to try is to copy all my old programs from the original drive. Looking at the format of the original drive has folders not on my lastest drive. Since I’m currently on windows, I can’t give a list but I know it has a SQL database. Interesting, may someone from Tablo will comment, if I can just copy all the files in the ~/rec to my new drive and will tablo find them?
Thanks for the tip… HT Morgan
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Just want to emphasize something on step 3. Use the web browser to do the format. I was fumbling around trying to figure out how to FORMAT the drive because I was trying to do it from the app. During the process i did a factory reset on my TABLO. Now the TABLO won’t recognize any recordings. I’m searching for a way to recover. But I think I’m toast
Thank you @BabbleBits!!!
This worked perfectly for me on a Windows 10 pc.
First time i tried I missed step 12 (flush cached data) and it didn’t work. Because your instructions are so detailed and great i was able to figure out what I missed very quickly. Had to re-transfer the rec folder, but worked perfect when I didn’t miss any steps.
Thanks again!
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Great idea, this would not have occurred to me. Tried this on Mint Linux (Cinnamon) distro as an experiment, worked!
New Tablo user here - so … if I picked up on this correctly … if I resurrect an old Ubuntu PC, I can ‘read’ the recorded files on my Tablo Dual Lite Hard drive?
Tell me more 
Dennis
Yes and no. As islands without metadata, might be difficult to make sense of it all.
Wow … thanks
If you aren’t afraid of messing with hardware and not afraid of voiding any warranties. . You may be able to pull the harddrive out of the enclosure and attach it directly. I made one copy via USB 3.0 and one copy for experimentation with both disks attached via SATA, It was at least 4x faster for me.
I would definitely leave this one for people that know what they are doing.
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The DUAL LITE actually has EMMC memory that is onboard, not a traditional spinning drive so this will indeed void the warranty and result only in frustration 
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I was referring to the USB connected drives that often contain a regular SATA drive but there are people skilled enough to handle onboard EMMC as well. There is actually a thriving business replacing the internal Iphone memory. That process is quite difficult and requires special equipment. I’d love to see a hardware hacker upgrade the Tablo Duals internal memory. That person won’t likely be me.
EDIT: For those interested here is the Iphone hardware mod I referred to.
ok, how about this way, can it be done. remove old hd, format the new harddrive then put both into you desktop and just transfer the old content to the new harddrive, then put the new drive back into the tablo? can it work this way???
yes, there are topics and postings about this - I urge you to do a bit of research.
Since this topic is discussed so often Tablo should invest some R&D into implementing a utility to do this for its customers.
Many people have neither the time, tools or technical expertise to perform some of the suggested work arounds.
So @Tablo, come on, built a tool that lets people with minimal technical knowledge upgrade their drives!
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