Yep, stupid hot is the best way to describe the internal drive, and I wasn’t about to leave my awesome sammy 860 SSD in that oven without some air. I remain very happy with the quiet bottom fan pictured in my earlier post…
And I continue to love the Tablo’s picture quality and all the ways of accessing it.
Yah, I have no problem at all with the device overall. The picture quality is great and the overall functionality is good.
I assume the situation went something like this:
Engineers: We’re going to have to add a fan in the Quad to keep it cool.
Marketing: How much is that going to cost?
Engineers: Not very much but it’s going to be a bit noisy.
Marketing: How noisy?
Engineers: Well it’s going to sound like a little dentist drill to get enough airflow.
Marketing: No way can we have that people will complain about the noise, will it survive without it?
Engineers: We’ll I guess so, but it’s going to run the hard drive stupid hot.
Marketing: Well we’re not including a hard drive, so not our problem really.
Just my guess, not saying that’s what really happen.
That about sums it up Codebest !!! I have a laptop cooler under mine. Keeps it cool. I run the fan from the USB plug on the unit.
Actually it was more like…
ENGINEERS: We don’t think we’ll need a fan and moving parts = bad news, but just in case we do need it let’s put a spot in the plastic mould to include one.
WEEKS OF TESTING LATER
ENGINEERS: Turns out we don’t need a fan. Everything is well within spec even with an internal drive. We even put in a thermal sensor just in case someone covers their Tablo with a sweater so there’s no risk at all to the parts or the drive.
MARKETING: Cool. When can we sell this thing? Now? How about now? Now?
Let’s say the unit itself runs on the hot side but within spec if you say so. Pop out an internal drive that’s been sitting in the unit however, and you’re talking third degree burn. That can’t be good.
They also added the traces on the circuit board to populate a header to plug in said fan as well as some other support components. Like I said, I like the device, but it does in fact run the hard drive way too hot. Hotter then anything else I’ve seen that made it to market. Oh well, it is what it is, and honestly running an external drive has no negative effects. I would be interested to see what peer review had to say, perhaps the EEVBlog forum. This is all just my opinion of course.
An external drive is not as clean looking and requires two devices saddled near each other; a lot like my Quad with the S3 Quiet 120mm USB Fan underneath 
You almost knew what your were doing…
You forgot the label.
If people stopped touching it, they wouldn’t know how hot it may/not be.
maybe include the NAMI support number.
In my case I could actually smell the glue gassing off the label on the hard drive. Yes no joke, it gets that hot. I guess one shouldn’t put ones head near equipment. I wonder if I should have went with a different brand of hard drive for a different fragrance.
They could have molded that caution warning into the plastic hollow area on the bottom where the fan should be 
I’m going to give up on this topic, I’ve now personally ripped all the aluminum plates out of my Quad, installed high density normal looking heatsinks on the CPU and what looks to be the Kignston flash memory chip, installed a higher volume 40mm fan and now my hard drive is running around 41C. Recorded 4 shows, no overheat. etc. It’s not silent, but not all that bad. It sits in my office where it’s not that big of an issue.
In any event, done with this topic. Thanks
In lieu of those mods this would work if one has shelf space behind the unit:
I want to order an OTA DVR for my daughter and the Quad looked good but as an engineer I am concerned about all the HEAT on the HDD or SSD drive. That can’t be good and it poses a potential fire risk. Does anyone know if all of the Tablo tuners/dvr’s run that hot. We were looking for a 4-tuner model rather that the less expensive 2-tuner model. It appears that they may not be making the 4-tuner Tablo OTA DVR anymore as only refurbished ones are available. I wonder if those ran hot also?
I have two of the original 4 tuner models and yes they both run hot. I have both units sitting on a laptop cooling pad and that keeps the units at a comfortable temperature. The units temperature is dependent on the number of tuners in operation. With all 4 tuners in operation, my original unit would get uncomfortably hot and I experienced recording problems. Since adding the cooling pad, I haven’t had any heat related problems. My original unit is now over 4 and one half years old and working as well now as it did when it was new.
Thanks: do you know why the old unit they say 4 tuners and the new Quad they say can record 4 stations. Are there NOT 4-tuners in the Quad?
Actually, safer to say 4 tuners, as there are scenarios where multiple tuners are occupied and not really apparent that they should be.
I was just wondering what the difference was since the newer quad doesn’t say 4-tuners. Wondering if they do something different than the older unit.
Nope. Same # of tuners. Just a newer ‘fancier’ name.
The internal SSD in my Quad got uncomfortably hot even when the unit was idle forever and it made the unit that much hotter. My concern was the effect heat might have on the lifespan of the Quad and the expensive SSD rather potential fire, especially given the internal heat sensor it’s reputed to contain. Again, I find the AC Infinity MULTIFAN S3 pictured in my earlier post, placed below the unit and on the lowest speed, to be a good solution.
I should stay out of this thread. However as to the 4 tuners my Quad came with two heat-sinks glued to the bottom of the board under the tuners to draw heat away. Also one tuner had a sil pad going from the chip to the RF shield top lib. I’ve since added sil pads going to all 4 tuners. Not sure it mattered much. I’m done with debate, however I’m happy to give some technical observations. My quad with no external fans now runs the internal drive barely warm after 24 hours use.