Swap hard drives to use as more storage

Can you swap hard drives in order to have more storage space. Or use multiple drives on the same hdmi tablo as storage? Since it uses mpeg 2 im thinking more space might be needed to store all the old shows I would like to keep.

Unfortunately no.

Fortunately no.

I can imagine all the questions posted on the forum when users find out just removing the disk doesn’t mean you can mount it any where and play the recordings with any old player.

Or the amount of time it could take to unlink all the files from the internal database when the disk is removed. And then when the disk is imported all the time it could take to jam those recordings into the database.

Of course if users want to fund the R&D or start a kickstarter anything is possible.

Do I detect sarcasm from a simple question? No is apparently the answer. Sarcasm is not needed especially to a potential customer.

Both I believe.

Drive swapping is not supported [period]

Snarky responses are open to interpretation sometimes :neutral_face: , other times it’s, unavoidable.:slightly_frowning_face:

Feature enhancements can have some unexpected side affects.

Since the internal HLS file structure would need to be mapped backed to actual shows and episodes removing disks is not as simple as people think.

And of course there are those who want to put the disk on the shelf for a few years and then re-import it back into a much newer tablo release.

Thus what might seem like a small R&D effort could balloon out of control. So why shouldn’t various users bond together to fund the features they want. This has been going on in the commercial side of development for decades.

Putting into perspective, if you want to use your tablo as the source for your lifetime video library, the cost of multiple drives vs a single gigantic drive seems to make the overhead cost inefficient.

Keeping track which shows are on which drives and swapping and making sure you get it just right so you don’t loose anything. Concern about long term archiving on idle drives, probably not a big issue, but they do need to be “taken care of”.

Very true. Thats why I also asked about anyone’s experiences with an 8 t hard drive. Im considering buying the hdmi version. It says it uses mpeg 2 so the files being much larger I would only get about 130 hours of programing on a terabyte hd. So Im looking at buying the largest hd that would be feasible for it. I also dont want to use a lot of bandwidth just watching tv play back on one tv.

On the one TV… connected via HDMI, I’d suspect uses no bandwidth.

You want to depend on a semi-proprietary device to store your video library for life? That is, if it’s only playable via tablo… you’ll always need a functioning tablo - forever. If it’s all stored on a single drive connected to a tablo… which has no (supported) backup ability, it’s fragile.

Streaming locally within your house does not use your internet data limit which is what people call bandwidth. It does not contribute to your internet usage per month.

1 Like

That would be true of any dvr.

Not entirely. I refereed to tablo as semi-proprietary. Virtually any/most other DVRs are completely closed and have absolutely no options or methods to retrieve your recordings.

With your tablo, you have the option to export shows. Saving shows on a more robust system, depending on how much you spend and importance.

If your device does fail, you can (with few limitations) move the drive to a new tablo and be up and running.

If your drive fails, there is at least the possibility of data recovery as the conventional filesystem is not encrypted.

More perks to owning a tablo :wink:

note: you kind of can swap drives using the method for moving your drive to a new tablo – but that’s not what it’s intended for nor is drive swapping even considered an option! I’m not even suggesting anyone give it a try!

I thought maybe they were referring to bandwidth more generalized and any “network bandwidth” as suggested in - Choosing the Right Live TV & Recording Quality Settings for your Tablo OTA DVR

1 Like

It’s possible that’s what they meant, who knows until they clarify.

Thats what they were referring to. It refers to bandwidth used on the network.

Well why would you care about home much bandwidth you’re using on your local network through your router? The speed is pretty much limitless, you’d have to stream like 20 things to bottleneck the router. I’m confused by the concern, that’s all.

To me “bandwidth “ refers to internet. If that is not what they are talking about then I have no problem with it. That answers that question. And i believe it refers to bandwidth usage when it does commercial skip which was a much higher figure.

The Tablo article referenced above uses the word bandwidth only to describe local streaming over your internal network, not over the internet. Streaming locally with a network based DVR uses zero “internet bandwidth”.

Yes com skip uses some data for processing but it is not much. “ Depending on the recording quality and audio settings of your Tablo, this process will use between 100-200 MB/hour of recording in external internet bandwidth.” If you’re concerned, just turn off com skip. See link.

Bandwidth is a networking not specific to one “type”.

I find it funny when people use wik as a factual source but I appreciate the info. Thanks I get it now.