I’d like to unplug it from the Tablo every once in a while and perform a backup of my pc… it sounds like i need to purchase another harddrive however?
Yes, you’ll need another drive.
I learned by experience that once a drive has been used on Tablo, you will need manufacture disk tools to reformat it before it can be used on a PC. I had a 1 TB on Tablo and upgraded to 5 TB. The 1 TB is now on my laptop.
CONFIRMED: GOOD
BRAND: Western Digital WD
PRODUCT NAME: My Passport Ultra
SIZE: 2 TB
LINK: http://store.wdc.com/store/wdus/en_US/pd/ThemeID.8815600/productID.319142700
Got it at Best Buy for under $100
Has anyone used a LaCie Rugged USB with Tablo?
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Do you want to backup for future purposes with Tablo? Or to make sure you have the video files for offline use or use on other devices? If it is the latter, then check out this:
It works great for me to rip off of the Tablo to my Plex server. The best thing is you don’t have to disconnect it or disturb the Tablo at all. I also run it through MCEBuddy to remove commercials for movies that I keep.
I have a LaCie Rugged. The Tablo sees it as LaCie Rugged FW USB3 1081 (500 GB)
The USB cable that it came with didn’t work with the Tablo (it’s been abused a bit, so I wasn’t very surprised), but once I swapped that out, it worked perfectly.
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Thanks for the reply.
CONFIRMED: BAD
BRAND: Western Digital
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB 2.0 2.5-inch External Hard Drive Mfr P/N WDBABM0010BBK-00
1TB
did not recognize the drive. 
however…I thought I read someplace that you MUST have a HDD to watch live TV. That doesn’t seem to be the case…am watching TV perfectly fine without a hard drive. Just can’t record yet. Is this true? Once in awhile, when the lineup changes on the half hour, it will say " no HD detected", then merrily broadcast anyway. oh well…
My understanding is that to watch live TV, you only need the hard drive if you want to pause, rewind, etc. Also, if you want to watch live TV while recording another channel. Otherwise, just to watch live TV, you don’t need the hard drive.
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now I am getting some channels that say "no HD detected " but most do broadcast. quirkyy
I have the same drive (but perhaps earlier firmware) and it works fine. If you haven’t already done so, you may want to try another USB cable.
yeah, I just did. Think the HDD is DOA. Makes clicking noise. Got it second hand. Am trying a Canovia next.
Hope it all works out for you!
Thks Jim.
Turns out the used one I got was completely deleted of any i. d. info, and couldn’t format due to win XP not able to handle it. So got a new one and works fine:
Toshiba Canovio Connect II
HDTC810XK3A1
Great…enjoy your Tablo!
Been using the Canvio for several months. No problems.
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How about the WD Elements 1TB SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ???
I have tried 2 different drives and I get the poor reception error