I tried all the usual fixes but nothing worked. Finally I removed the Seagate Barracuda 1T hard drive and the system came back. I replaced the old drive and now everything is working again.
The HD was only 10 months old but when looking for a replacement I considered a Western Digital until I read the terrible Amazon reviews. I bought another Seagate, hoping my experience with my first one was a fluke.
I was wondering if there are other hard drive brands that users recommend?
For what it’s worth, I’ve been using a Western Digital Elements 10B8 1012 (2000 GB) drive since 2016 without any problems (knock on wood)
Some people swear by Western Digital, others won’t touch them.
Thanks for the suggestion but I really had no recordings that I needed to keep. Also doesn’t the fact that replacing the hard drive fixed the problem, suggest that the power supply was not the issue?
I’ve kept the old hard drive and plan to check it on a computer with a USB adapter.
I suppose it’s possible that the other drive started pulling more power than the AC adapter could provide.
I had an OG Tablo that I used a Seagate external USB drive with, one day the unit stopped working and I thought it was the hard drive so I replaced it with a small SSD. Later on I began using that Seagate hard drive on my PC, and it’s been working fine ever since.
For mechanical drives, Western Digital is my first choice.
I personally avoid Seagate Barracuda drives only because of personal experiences with them. In 2005-2011 I worked for a company that used 100’s of Seagate Barracuda 250GB & 500GB drives. These drives ran 24/7 in our products. At that time, we were seeing a 6-9% failure rate within the 2 year warranty period. Seagate replaced those drives with “refurbished” drives. Even those had a 0.4-0.6% failure rate.
That was 10 years ago now. HD technology, density and reliability is constantly evolving. I don’t know how good or bad Seagate HD’s are these days.
I’m sure others have their own horror stories with other HD manufactures.
SSD’s are the future of system storage. But at this time, Tablo doesn’t officially support them. Though many users report success using SSD’s with their Tablos.
My take of manufacturing, most “name brands” get raw from similar vendors/supplies. Every one make something to last just long enough so you believe it’s time to get a new one. But not so long as to not make a new sale for another decade and a half.
From what I’ve seen and read, it’s kind of hit 'n miss. You’ll find just as may denouncing one as recommending the other and vice versa.
For no specific, most all my devices have various WD Blue drives (spinning). Tablos, USB and internal as well and 2.5" PCs, then I have 3.5" WD Green. I got them used from Ebay, so they’ve been spinning for may several years by now. (yes, redundancy)
The only hard drive brands that ever failed on me was a Seagate and a Toshiba (in a Toshiba laptop). I’ve always used WD otherwise with excellent luck. Yes luck. My current Tablo is using the original 1TB Fantom Drives external using a WD hard drive. It was several years old when I moved it to Tablo 6 years and 4 months ago. Has never given me any trouble. And it records and plays recordings every day. It also sleeps when not in use.
I have used both Seagate and Wester Digital drives for many years in both my home computers and “work” computers (including 8 servers). Failure rates are about the same in both manufacturers. Theoretically, a hard drive should last for 10+ years without issues (going by MTBF (mean time between failures) ratings).
The single biggest reason for a hard drive failure is a power failure - mostly when the power goes on/off quickly several times, and the drive is in a read/write cycle. Using a battery backup system (UPS) will help some, but failures still happen.
Currently I have around 130 hard drives spinning in the house - and in the last 8 years, I have experienced a total of 7 hard drive failures. On the servers (where 6 of the 7 drives failed), they were in a RAID setup, and had backups done, so no data was lost. On the one computer, I had backups, so minimal data loss occured.
On my two tablo DVRs - no drive failures in the last 4 years. They are on a UPS and are external drives (to reduce heat and reliance on the AC adapter for the Tablo - they have their own power supply).
It is a crap shoot. I have seen drives fail in months, others last “forever”…
I should add my Tablo as well as other electronics are all on a rather large UPS (for what it’s backing up) so maybe that has attributed to the hard drives relatively long life.
Update: I attached my “failed” hard drive to a computer and found it wasn’t dead and I could re-format it. Then I removed my new working drive from the internal slot in the Tablo and attached the old drive to the Tablo via USB. Tablo is working and recognizing the old drive again in USB. I now have no idea why the old drive failed while installed in the unit and wouldn’t allow the Tablo to connect. I’m suspecting power unit issues. My Tablo seems to run very hot. Is that normal?
yea, it’s not always as easy as it seems - BTDT. Just because it seems obvious, doesn’t make it right.
You’ll find a whole lot about this if you just search …what’s “very hot” to you may be warm to me. My normal could be peculiar from your perspective.
We can actually check to see if your Tablo is running within safe operating temperatures, so if you have a concern please touch base with our support team: www.tablotv.com/ask-tablo
when not in use.