I have noticed my overall recording and live TV quality deteriorate slowly over the past 8 months or so. Finally to the point where 95% of everything I try to record or watch fails.
I thought it was something to do with the antenna/cables, etc. and started troubleshooting a month ago and nothing made it better. Then I read a post here and decided to try unplugging the storage. Immediately went from not getting more than a few minutes of live TV before receiving an error, to watching hours of live TV with zero reception issues.
So, I need some advice here. Do I need a new drive for storage? This one I have is in the approved list I believe, and I already replaced the USB cable last month. Or should I just reformat the drive? If I should try reformatting, is there some function within Tablo for this? I seem to recall issues when connecting a previous drive to Windows.
Tablo: 4 tuner from 2017
Storage: WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive HDD, USB 3.0 - 2 years old
I have replaced 3 drives in this thing. All were Tablo recommended drives. They last about two months and start giving problems again. Replace it with one of the drives I took out and it works fine for about 2 months. I don’t think this is a drive problem but a problem with the unit. Don’t really want to spend more money on anything Tablo because I have had problems from day 1. Looking for an alternative.
If you have Plex Server and Plex Pass, just add a tuner card or HDhomerun and you get EPG, commercial skip and commercial elimination. Plus the ability to log in and use anywhere.
If you have a windows pc install the western digital dash board, connect the drive to windows, and run the diagnostics. These drives have a 2 years limited warranty.
I had a WD Elements drive connected to Tablo go bad and after I replaced it I tried to get the “bad” drive working again. I tried formatting and tried some WD admin tools to no avail. I put it on a shelf for a couple months and tried again and lo and behold I got it working again. In fact, it is now my primary PLEX drive and has been working flawlessly for a couple years now. When I replaced the drive on the Tablo I did two things. I used a drive with a separate power supply and I replaced the Tablo power supply. My suspicion was that powering the drive from the Tablo was not ideal and not doing the drive any favors if the need for power was too great at times. I have had zero problems since. Perhaps you could consider a new power supply and/or powering your drive externally.