I have not tested this exact model, but I have used ‘Seagate Portable 2TB (STGX2000400)’ on a Tablo Dual Lite. It is working quite well. I suspect it is a very similar drive. It is available from Amazon for $55 (https://amzn.com/B07CRG94G3).
Thanks for the input. I found a different Seagate drive that has already been tested for $59. So I went with that and will return the Costco drive. I didn’t really want to find out the hardway…
CONFIRMED: GOOD
BRAND NAME: Seagate
PRODUCT NAME:
Seagate Expansion Desktop 4TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for PC Laptop (STEB4000100)
SIZE: 4 TB
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TKFEE8K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
COMMENTS: Love it. Bought another one as an add-on for my primary desktop Windows box.
B.S. What company has their customers test HDD compatibility? After an hour+ of going through this thread I still have NO idea what internal HDD to use! Your web faq says that a Seagate Baracuda was compatable. So I paurchased a new 2TB one. It does not work! System reboots, recordings splitting up in multiple chunks. Put a 2 TB WD drive in, it has the same issue. Both drives works perfect in both a laptop. and on a desktop. No other device I have ever had was this finniky. I am starting to think the Tablo is the problem, not the HDD. I most likely will be going back to my WMC on my Win 7 box. The only reason I wanted to switch is being able to watch on multiple devices without having to switch hdmi ports.
https://www.tablotv.com/setup-networking/#harddrive
I’m not sure what Tablo unit you have (i.e. Quad, Dual, etc.) but just as an example if you have a Tablo Quad and go to the page I linked above and then select Tablo Quad it clearly has a section that says…
" For USB-connected drives, we recommend Western Digital Elements drives and Seagate Expansion drives"
and when you click on the first link for example it it takes you right to the WD Elements page…
EDIT: I just noticed you said internal and I linked for USB drives. Sorry for the confusion but I’ll leave the general link here in case it’s useful to someone in the future.
That is somewhat a valid point. Than again, some 6yrs ago, things were probably very different.
Considering many of the “confirmed” go back 6 years, attached to discontinued devices… why do they still reference this at a source?
It’s TL;DR to find useful current information.
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I use a regular 256 gb flash drive from a place in my city called Micro Center. It’s their brand and it works flawlessly! It cost me $16.99 and it has all the room I need and holds a lot of hours of shows.
I ordered a Tablo TQNS4B-01-CN Quad OTA DVR back in may and it works great. The following SSD 1TB drive works fine with it for recording:
WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB Internal PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5"/7mm, Up to 560 MB/s - WDS100T2B0A
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CONFIRMED GOOD
BRAND: Seagate
PRODUCT NAME: Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB External Hard Drive. USB 3.0
SIZE: 2,000 GB
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-External-Photography-STDR2000101/dp/B00FRHTTIA
COMMENTS: Bought it on sale from BestBuy in Oct. 2019. Works great, but it’s better to have an air circulation gap under it.
CONFIRMED BAD
BRAND: Western Digital
PRODUCT NAME: WD 1TB My Passport Portable External Hard Drive. Model WDBYVG0010BBK-WESN
SIZE: 1,000 GB
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Portable-External-Drive-Black/dp/B07VTWX8MN
COMMENTS: Bought it on sale from BestBuy in Oct. 2019. Got too hot and stopped working.
I am going to use this to jump into the conversation… See comments.
CONFIRMED: GOOD
BRAND NAME: Crucial
PRODUCT NAME: BX500 - CT2000BX500SSD1
SIZE: 2TB - internal 2.5 inch drive
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YD5F561/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
COMMENTS: No issue during setup. I have a QNAP server and this was a spare drive for that purpose so it was conveniently available. With this said, I saw in other posts that heat was an issue for Tablo. By using an SSD, less power is needed therefore less heat is generated.
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I know this is a sleepy thread at this point, but I thought I would add my own experiences after failures of drives and lost content, failed cloning efforts, etc. Most recently, I had a 2TB SSD internally mounted in my Tablo Quad. That Quad is located in an air-conditioned room, and the Tablo itself sits on a wore racks shelf with more than a foot of free space in all directions. It still ran hot, and when the SSD finally failed, it was running quite warm when I pulled it out. I don’t think an SSD is any kind of guarantee against thermal failure.
I have since replaced it with a QNAP 4-disk RAID DAS. This is an exceptionally easy device to configure, and works with Linux straight out of the box, requiring just one DIP switch setting, and a three-button “instructional” sequence. I had just decommissioned a Synology NAS, which was stocked with HGST Deskstar 6TB drives [3.5-Inch/7200RPM/SATA III 128MB Cache #0S03839] from 2015. So, I pulled four of those out, and placed them in the QNAP. QNAP has dispensed with the annoying tiny screws for mounting drives, so that was also quick & easy. When I started up the drive, it sounded like the QNAP was setting up its 10 RAID volume. After a couple of minutes, it quieted down, and I plugged it into my Tablo and fired it up. The Tablo settings screen advised that the drive needed to be formatted, which I clicked. After a couple of minutes, I had almost 12TB of storage sitting in my Tablo. So far, recording has gone smoothly, and playback is excellent. Now, it’s only been a week, but the great thing about this device is that it runs cool, and while it’s still not a backup (please, Tablo!), it’s probably more robust than any one single drive. As long as I remember to inspect it occasionally to verify all 4 drives are running properly;, I think I can decrease my odds of failure and loss of content.
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CONFIRMED GOOD
BRAND NAME Toshiba
PRODUCT NAME 2.5" HDD
SIZE 250GB
LINK Toshiba MK2555GSX - HDD FAQs
COMMENTS Connect to a PC and do a standard/slow format (not quick format) of the drive first. Installed into a Orico 2.5 inch SATA USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure. Used with a Tablo DUAL 128GB OTA DVR
CONFIRMED GOOD
BRAND NAME Seagate
PRODUCT NAME ST9320325AS Momentus 5400.6 2.5" HDD
SIZE 320 GB
LINK Seagate ST9320325AS - HDD FAQs
COMMENTS Connect to a PC and do a standard/slow format (not quick format) of the drive first. Installed into a Orico 2.5 inch SATA USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure. Used with a Tablo DUAL 128GB OTA DVR
My tech friend who we did get tablo years ago, he was mentioning and I still have 2 of them, western digital. It seems to do the things. best thing to do is read reviews.
**CONFIRMED GOOD
BRAND NAME Seagate
PRODUCT NAME Seagate Portable 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD – USB 3.0 for PC, Mac, PlayStation, & Xbox
SIZE 2TB
LINK https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07CRG94G3?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
COMMENTS I am pleased with my purchase, $61.99 on Amazon. I can now pause live TV and record my football games. I replaced my loud and older Seagate Freeagent extreme. **
** CONFIRMED GOOD
BRAND NAME Western Digital
PRODUCT NAME WD Easystore 1TB External Hard Drive - USB 3.0
Comments: I have been using this for about a year and it works great! I record little and delete the recordings after I use them, so I don’t need a large capacity drive.
This can be purchased from Best Buy, Amazon or any other store selling WD products.
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CONFIRMED: GOOD
BRAND NAMES: SABRENT and Western Digital
PRODUCT NAMES: SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay-Flat Docking Station for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD (Original) with a Western Digital 2TB WD Blue PC Internal Hard Drive - 7200 RPM Class, SATA 6 Gb/s, 256 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD20EZBX
SIZE: 2TB
LINKS: Amazon.com + Amazon.com
COMMENTS: No tools are required to install the hard drive. The hard drive enclosure has a power button, make sure to turn it on. The hard drive enclosure has a very bright LED that flashes like crazy during Tablo use (recording or playback) and at night, it can reflect off of the ceiling. A small piece of black electrical tape covering the LED fixes that issue.
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CONFIRMED GOOD (for 4th Gen)
BRAND: Seagate
PRODUCT NAME: Portable External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for PC, Mac, PS4, & Xbox - 1 (STGX5000400)
SIZE: 5TB
LINK Amazon.com: Seagate Portable 5TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for PC, Mac, PS4, & Xbox - 1-Year Rescue Service (STGX5000400), Black : Electronics
I used a Seagate 2tb hard drive. It worked fine for 10 months. Then my Tablo Connect stopped working. We tried everything with tech support to no avail. I was fed up and ordered a new refurbished unit and put on a new western digital drive. My new unit worked and after swapping the hard drive to my old unit, I was able to get the Tablo Connect to work. A failing hard drive can cause all sorts of problems, drop outs, on live as well as recordings and not Tablo connect.
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