'Tested' Hard Drives

CONFIRMED GOOD
BRAND NAME Other World Computing
PRODUCT NAME Mercury On-The-Go USB 3.0/2.0
SIZE 1 TB
LINK http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSU37T1.0T16/
COMMENTS This hard drive is a little pricier than most but very robust. I’ve been using OWC products for work (video production) for years and they have been the most reliable drives over any other manufacturer I’ve tried.

Hello, I’ve got my new Tablo shipping now. Very excited!
I had an old WD hard drive sitting around that I plan to use with the Tablo:

750 GB WD7500BPVT

I’ve got it paired with a Sentey 2.5 USB 3.0 enclosure. The drive works great on a PC.

Anybody have any experience with this drive or enclosure with tablo? Thanks!

ETA: I would link the drive from Amazon, but I get a message that I can only post 1 link for some reason.

@stanleywinthrop

According to this link below, the drive you want to use with the Tablo uses 4K sector size. This is currently not compatible with the Tablo (this is how it has been since day 1).

Once Tablo releases the current beta firmware v2.2.2 you will be able to use said drive. The firmware should be released any day now, but it’s been delayed from its expected end of July date.

Thanks for your reply. Interestingly, the review you posted states the drive was tested in both 4k format and 512. Which would indicate it could be switched somehow. Looks like I’ll be doing some research assuming the update doesn’t hit before my tablo gets here.

As it turns out the sector size is a physical limitation and not a software limitation so no dice for me.
Also as it turns out, it is difficult to find 2.5 inch internal hard drives that still use 512 sectors. I have found one brand that purports to use 512e sectors. Will that work with tablo?

@stanleywinthrop

Yes, but why not just wait? The firmware should be out very soon. You can setup the Tablo and watch Live TV without a hard drive.

Or honestly, beg Tablo to let you on the beta firmware which will support your HDD.

To be honest, I’m going to use the 30 day return period to convince my wife to make the switch. I’d hate for half of that time to slide by waiting on the firmware. I need the DVR functions. Already ahead of you on your other idea.

Took a while to convince my wife because she was so used to Tivo, but now she uses Tablo quite a bit. Just takes some getting used to, so I agree waiting is probably not a good idea :wink:

Didn’t get this one. Got the 5 TB Seagate that was used in house for testing. Swapping drives this Friday since I’m running the beta Tablo Firmware… I think it is VERY VERY VERY close to being released.

If anyone wants to go ‘whole hog’ on the larger hard drive thing, we’ve tested this Seagate Backup Plus 8TB Desktop External Hard Drive drive and it works great on the new firmware!

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Talk about Show Pack Rat :stuck_out_tongue:

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Or you could go full hoarder and get a 24TB array.*

(We haven’t tested this.)

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So when is the firmware to support these drives being released to everyone?

Well, surprisingly, the hard drive works fine on 2.1 firmware 4k sectors or no 4k sectors. Based off your comment, I was worried enough to ask for the 2.2 beta and the good folks at tablo happily accommodated me, but for some unknown reason, the update won’t download. I’m working with support on that issue, but this hard drive works fine on 2.1 in the meantime:

CONFIRMED GOOD
BRAND NAME: Western Digital
PRODUCT NAME: Scorpio Blue WD7500BPVT
SIZE: 750 GB
LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Scorpio-Cache-Notebook/dp/B003D18DM0/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1439905182&sr=1-1&keywords=WD7500BPVT
USB adapter: Sentey 2.5 USB 3.0 Hard drive enclosure
LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Sentey-Drive-External-Enclosure-9-5mm/dp/B00OKOG1GO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1439905222&sr=1-1&keywords=sentey+hard+drive+enclosure

Is there a use for this thread anymore? Now that 2.2.2 is here, every drive should just work, right?

@Brettface - Key word is ‘should’. There are lots of great USB hard drives, but not all of them are suited to be used for DVR applications. There are still going to be some drives that exhibit a lot of disconnects or have flaky cables but many of the drives that had issues with 4K sector sizes will be A-OK now.

CONFIRMED: GOOD
BRAND NAME: Leef USB
PRODUCT NAME: Leef Surge USB 2.0
SIZE: 16 GB
LINK: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F0EZ5AG
COMMENTS: Work nicely with Tablo … no issue during playback.

Note from Tablo: FYI - Tablo does not recommend the use of USB sticks for storage.

Just why? lol so you can record like 4-12 shows? lol

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I didn’t have any Portable Hard Drive. This Leef USB was my best bet :wink:

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@ppeou - Please beware using USB stick style storage. This is NOT recommended for use with Tablo.

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