Yes, but it misses the point. A hard drive is not low profile – it doesn’t hide within the Tablo.
FWIW, I have a $18 Seagate external HD from AliExpress, yeah, it works but it’s not what I want. To my surprise, the $18 drive was shipped to me FROM Kentucky and it was new in box with factory seals. Seems some are still available
I haven’t tried it, and as you’ve said, we may have a wait some time before sports programming is available. Also, at least for now, I’m watching live and recorded programs at 3Mbps (720p) which is less than Tablo’s 5 Mbps “best resolution” (1080)
Now if they could only make the Tablo to hide in my TV’s HDMI port, we’d be set 
Granted, it doesn’t “hide” in the tablo, but how is this not “low profile”?
I understand you’re supposedly looking for something unseen? I could supposedly sit my tablo on top and not pay attention. (I set it on top to get perspective, usually it just sets beside each other… but that’s me)
djk44883: Correct. Unseen.
Just want to chime in and say that you probably shouldn’t stack your Tablo with other heat-generating things like the hard drive.
Three weeks ago, MarkKindle asked how live sports did when recorded. I cannot be sure but I have checked several hockey games and basketball games airing in HD. So far, things look good to me.
Most recently I set my recording and live TV to 1080, 8Mbps, and recorded a hockey game being broadcast in 1280 and a basketball game being broadcast in 1080 (replays, obviously). After about 45 minutes I stopped recording, started through them and saw no obvious flaws (lot of distracting photo flashes that tricked me at first.) I monitored both recordings, one on a TV the other on my iPad. I may have missed something as I looked back and forth but noticed nothing bad.
I then began watching the rest of one game live while playing back the other, then switched to live for both games to check simultaneous reading and writing. Again, no flaws caught my eye. I wouldn’t say this test is conclusive but it should be encouraging.
I set things back to 1280, 3Mbps, that is fine for my boomer eyes.
6-month check-in: Since I installed it (Feb 2020) The Samsung FIT Plus USB 3.1 Flash Drive has performed flawlessly in my Tablo DUO in place of a physical hard drive. While my testing hasn’t been scientific, i use it for recording two channels at a time for news programs and two channels at once for late night programs.
The 128GB Samsung Fit USB is about $22, I just wanted to point this out in light of the new TABLO models having onboard storage.
BTW, I’m also trying the Samsung Fit USB Flash drive in an AirTV box and will report back in a few weeks.
Thanks for the update!!
FWIW, same experience here. So far, all is good with my Samsung FIT flash drive.
I’ve been successfully using a Samsung 64gb Evo microSD card plugged into a USB adaptor on my Tablo Dual lite for 4 months now with not one glitch.
In direct contradiction to the newsletter published today by Tablo (7/20/21), I’ve been successfully using a Samsung FIT 128GB Flash drive in a Tablo Quad (mine) and a Tablo Dual (my moms) and it has worked reliably in both Tablos without error for 1 full year so far.
Yes, blah, blah, blah. “not recommended”, blah, blah, blah, “not fast enough.” I’ve been using two high speed Samsung Fit flash drives for more than a year with zero problems.
The Samsung Fit Flash drive has specs that are suitable for reading and writing video and it has a five year warranty. There are others here using the same flash drive for more than a year.
New to Tablo discussions, I’m a 20+ years a Tivo user. Thanks for this thread and your updates. I am another who thinks a USB drives is more asthetically appealing than a stacked storage device. Plus downstairs generate as much hear. I’ve had 3 storage devices (Maxtor and LaCie) fail since 2012 with data loss so they arent fool proof over time either.
The only thing I record OTA now is news, Jeopardy and PBS. Everything else is streaming apps. I prefer PBS OTA as the streaming ones have time limits. There is no “cloud”. When my last Tivo dies, I have no plans to replace it. Will likely move to Tablo.
I may never need the extra storage but if I did, good to know the USB option is visible within the limitations mentioned by others.
My viewing habits are similar to yours: Jeopardy, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS programming. One copy at a time of the national evening news.
I bought my first TIVO in 1999, and sold my last remaining Tivo earlier this year. I switched because Tablo is a wireless solution and Tablo does a better job of removing more commercials from more content.
Thanks Chuck, very helpful. I like some of the Tampa area PBS programing for yoga and fitness. I am still doing their Power Yoga series from a decade ago recorded on Tivo. Nice to know Tablo will work as my “back up plan”.
Another FIT 128 user, here (we few, we happy few…) No problems for over a year. True, this is the slow season but PBS still has several shows I record and watch weekly. The setup is compact and completely silent. Again, though, I won’t be getting service calls as Tablo will if someone has problems with a flash drive. In Samsung I trust. Also, with Tablo Ripper I have backups.
Two year update. You may recall that we are using the Samsung FIT 128GB Flash drive as a storage device for my Tablo Quad and my mom’s Tablo Duo. My mom uses her Tablo Recording heavily (she’s older and has the TV on for 14 hours a day. We watch TV only perhaps a dozen hours per week.
After two years, the Samsung FIT 128GB Flash Drive has continued to operate flawlessly as a TABLO storage device. The FIT is specially made for video reading and writing and has a 5 year warranty, so I’m hoping for a 5 year life or more.
Yes, bumping this topic simply to say my Tablo with 128gb Samsung flash drive continues to perform well. No problems so far but I still backup certain shows with Tablo Ripper.
Glad you’ve had luck with it but in a similar use case the thumb drive wasn’t a great buy for me. I have a TV that uses a USB thumb drive to cache the TV show currently playing. It allowed pause and rewind functions. I used a Samsung Cruzer Fit. That thing crapped out in a few months. I think it was 32GB IIRC. A larger drive might have lasted longer but even if I had used 128GB assuming load leveling that would have only gave me 4 times the life. I prefer spinning rust for the Tablo because I want a big drive but if I wanted to use solid state media an SSD is still a no brainer for me. Consider how comparable SSD and USB thumb drive prices are and the extra reliability of an SSD wins.
Sorry it didn’t work for you but glad you posted. Scanning the thread showed only success and good to hear the other side. I liked Flash Drive as it barely added any bulk to the Tablo Convenience and aesthetics. But I have a Recast and a TiVo which lets me experiment.
