I took my drives out of the enclosures and use SATA. It was way faster for me but I had a lot of recordings.
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Appreciate you taking the time to put together such a useful detailed explanation.
Hey, I did everything BabbleBits said, but when I went to open up the drives in file Explorer, after signing them new drive letter names, my PC wanted to format the drives before it would open the drives in a window, for me to look at the contents.
I’m not sure what I’m missing…
For those who don’t know, windows doesn’t understand the “ext4” which is used by Linux (that is what Tablo uses), that’s why Windows want to format the disk.
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There are addons (free, 3rd party) for Windows that you can use to navigate ext4 filesystems.
Tablo is a Linux based system 
@djk44883 You’re quite right, but I didn’t think I needed to say that. You’re just trying to correct me instead of helping in the topic. But I appreciate you didn’t mean harm, and I thank you for your lovely emoticon.Have a nice day.
Not correcting, just clarifying. Helping the topic, so users can understand the bigger picture. Don’t relate “computer” like systems to Windows. If someone knows tablo is a Linux bases system, “Oh, that’s why it uses ext4”.
Not being a native Windows filesystem is brought up throughout the topic, noting the need for third-party software to accesses it.
Not correcting, just clarifying. Helping the topic, so users can understand the bigger picture.
I get it. My original post was for “AndyC” (but applying to anyone who would have the same question) and I told him according to what he asked, now if I misunderstood his question, you would have been welcomed to clarify it to me. If the info I gave was wrong, you could have clarified or corrected me and it would have been well accepted. Otherwise, if you really wanted to help the topic, you would have created your post answering to “AndyC”, just like “cjkox” did, “cjkox” added in his own post what I missed. But you replied to me, that’s why I said you were trying to correct me. It is exactly what it looked like, more when you wrote what is next.
Don’t relate “computer” like systems to Windows.
If “AndyC” had a computer with Linux installed in it, he wouldn’t have asked that question, so it was obvious he uses Windows, more so that he mentioned the explanation from “BabbleBits”, which is to do with Windows system. A computer is a computer; an operating system is an operating system, two different things, and almost everybody knows that except some who are absolutely not technical.
If someone knows tablo is a Linux bases system, “Oh, that’s why it uses ext4”.
And that’s your way of thinking. As for me, if someone doesn’t know about Linux and that it uses “ext4” format and that Windows doesn’t understand it, then my answer was perfect though not complete, your point was irrelevant to “AndyC”'s question.
Not being a native Windows filesystem is brought up throughout the topic, noting the need for third-party software to accesses it.
Exactly, and despite that, there was still a question about it, and I answered it and “cjkox” added the important part for what to do, which was also mentioned throughout the topic, so what?
By the way, all over the net you can find “PC” meaning Windows system, you find software or accessories described with the note: “compatibility: PC, Apple, Linux.” Which is wrong to me as PC stands for Personal Computer, not necessarily Windows based computer, they seem to use it like “Kleenex” for paper tissue. But I don’t try to correct or clarify them.
Today, if you use Windows, you don’t have to install anything in Windows to read “ext4” format. You don’t have to install Linux in dual boot, not even within Windows itself.
Instead, download an ISO file from “Foxclone” write it on a USB stick. If you prefer, download “Rescuezilla” and write the ISO file on a USB stick. Rescuezilla is the “Clonezilla GUI” (graphical user interface), any of the two is better for newbies than “Clonezilla”. Less danger to make a mistake.
These two are equipped with all the tools needed. A file manager, tools to analyze disks, GParted, etc. It is its own system and it even includes a browser. You can make a backup of a disk, or of files, simply copy files. You can clone a disk. You can also resize a partition.
Both of them understand more format type than you need. So you can rescue your system whether it is Windows or Linux. One USB stick for any system, no need of anything else.
So you can copy your videos from a disk to another with no problem without touching your computer system. Just boot with the USB stick. If I remember, “Foxclone” has more tools than “Rescuezilla”, but both have enough.
With Foxclone, I decided to simply clone my 2T disk in my new 4T disk, I thought it can’t be it only took 10 minutes, my old 2T is full. It was showing “complete” but “filesystem error”. I used the “analyse and repair filesystem” tool and done with success. I was happy. I installed my new disk on Tablo and bang everything was there, but, with files having problem of decoding. 
I checked the filesystem of my old disk but without repairing as I didn’t want to lose anything, and it also indicated “filesystem error”.
Not to mention the amount of time I had wasted because of a bad new drive just before. I had also created an image of the disk and an image of the files only as well. But I decided to go the longer way, which I knew it would work: I copied the files instead, after letting Tablo reformatting the disk. Now everything works perfectly, but it took about 10 hours.
One hiccup though, to start with, it wouldn’t accept to copy, telling me I didn’t own the rights (permission) to write on this disk. I had the same issue with my Linux system, before using Foxclone live. I had to start the file manager in administration mode. I don’t know why when formatted by Tablo I would need administration level to write on it. That’s it. Long live Foxclone and Rescuezilla. I do have a dual boot of Linux and Windows 10 though.
Dude, you replies to a post from 3 months ago… as though “Hey, I bet they are still trying to figure this out”. Following random logic, I tried to cut down on time and add, so moths later they may not have other concerns.
Attempting to provide lessons for posting, if it was meant as a joke - yes very funny. Otherwise, “oh, OK”
As for migrating/cloning/copying to a new,bigger,different drive - there are a number of topics out there, very detailed dating back to the beginning. Including a backup/restore scrip which is most painless, just prepare new drive… restore from backup. No nothing extra, even knowing anything.
TabloTV has even explained why they can’t/won’t create an utility.
I've been off work for months due to an injury. I have too much time and seem I'm too easily entertained. I believe this has run it's course for me :neutral_face:
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Wow!
I followed ultramookie’s guide “Tablo Disk Migration” and did get it to work using an Ubuntu VM with USB 3.0. CAUTION: Simply copying and pasting the rsync command has some long dashes that the CLI does not see as a regular short dash and errors resulted. Also, I needed to run as “sudo”. I started it at 8PM and at 6AM it was finished (could have been much less than 10 hours for 750 GB). Also, after the copying finished, there were some “read errors mapping” messages related to six files (from two episode folders) that could not be copied. I re-ran the rsync command adding “-q” (this reports ONLY errors) which took about a minute to identify the missing files. I gave up trying to get those files copied and plugged the new drive into Tablo and all seems well, though I have not tried watching those two suspect episodes.
I think using the dd command would be quicker than rsync.
You wouldn’t have to worry about dashes or missing files.
Then just expand the partition(s) on the new drive.
Linux wise, in most cases (like 99.999%), cp across block devices works. Been this way for decades (?). That rare case would be for block remapping, but at that point, you’ve got bigger issues. But, you can still use dd for block copying in the 99.999% cases as well.
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I’m sure someone has already asked, but I missed it. Will BabbleBit’s method work for 4th Gen Tablos as well? I thought I’d save some money by using a 1TB hard drive I wasn’t using, but a year later I’m needing room to grow.
Thanks
It seems like it should work. FYI…Support stated in a recent ticket that the Tablo will format a drive with an EXT4 partition when you first install it.
This is something that Tablo techs should test and write a HowTo about for users. I would imagine this is something that would be helpful.
A utility for this was thought of in the past… like… July 2015.
In another thread @Barrabing stated.
"Unfortunately, the Tablo 4th gen doesn’t have the migrate or backup/recovery feature yet. Support has said they have that on their to-do list but no eta.
If i remember correctly and you disconnect the 2TB and install the 5TB, you will lose access to all the recordings that you have on the 2TB and won’t be able to reattach the drive and get them back to watch so only do it if you are done with what you had wanted to watch on the 2TB and are willing to start from scratch on new recordings on the new drive."
From what he has stated I don’t believe that the process used to move to a larger drive on the Legacy Tablos will work with the 4th Gen Tablos.
Thanks for your responses. I may give it a try over Christmas if I have time based on @wysiwyggin but maybe I should hold until Tablo gets the housekeeping software up to speed.