I suddenly received this message when trying to access Live TV despite there being many GBs of available space on the SD card. I’ve successfully used a USB card reader with a 16GB SD card with my Tablo Dual Lite for nearly 2 years. This was the first time seeing this message. For the record, my unit reports device version 2.2.28 and HTML app of build 1.8.8.
I power-cycled the unit to no avail so I switched the SD card even though I could see the indexed contents on the card. For some reason I didn’t try playing a recording. Wish I had done that for the record.
Next, I replaced the card reader with a USB flash drive and that seemed to solve the problem. The card reader may have failed in some way the Tablo didn’t like but the reader still works fine on my PC.
The flash drive is a bit small (only 8GB) so I was about to order a new larger capacity flash drive but decided to first see what Tablo recommends. If you’ve checked this for yourself you know they only officially support USB hard drives and only report testing certain Western Digital and Seagate units.
So my question to this community is what forms of storage do you successfully use and have you ever encountered this error message for a condition other than running out of storage space?
I believe you’ll find information the Dual Lite should be able to play live TV without attached storage, so even if it’s full, or “thinks” it full - well that might be different. Does live TV play with NO storage? Just as a trouble shooting tactic.
Did the failure coincide with the upgrade to 2.2.28?
It has an unformatted capacity of 16GB and you claim “there being many GBs of available space” may be a bit subjective.
Inexpensive models of 120gb solid state drives run about $20, USB external case $10 or less. Their performance and longevity are superior to flash drives, and also compared to spinning external hard drives should be less troublesome, even if a performance overkill.
Not to totally poo poo on SSD (I like SSD), just remember that apart from seeks (IO’s), the performance in most situations, especially via the Tablo, isn’t going to get you anything, and in some cases, especially cheaper drives, the performance can be worse, in some cases a lot worse. In other words, while you might get longer than 5 years (more on that in a bit) out of them, it does come at a price and might not deliver.
Now, on to “lifespan”. while it is very true that an SSD in use (in general) will last longer than a spinning disk, the data on an SSD needs to be refreshed. So idle data sitting on a shelf (SSD on a shelf, unpowered) will lose its data. Usually takes about 2 years or more. Just something to think about.
My point is that there are differences. There are pro’s and con’s regardless of the hoopla surrounding SSD. Just want people to go in with eyes open.
If somebody connected a 2TB SSD to their Tablo, I’d probably think they are very very wealthy (to the point of excess).
Thanks for sharing thoughts about no storage, SSD, and traditional hard drives.
I believe Tablo is supposed to work without external storage but in that case you forego the pause/resume function for Live TV - assuming, that is, you exceed the internal memory of the unit. I haven’t tried that configuration, but it should work.
If I can avoid problems using a flash drive I would favor that over HDD for reasons of a smaller footprint and less heat generation. Beside, I don’t do that much recording.
It was mentioned that prices are down these days and a 1TB HDD, USB-powered, wouldn’t be much to shell-out but pending other stories here, I’m leaning towards a 128GB flash drive for ~$20 assuming it can handle full HD write times. If that fails, onward to a small 1TB Seagate (or similar).
