I want to replace my existing hard drive with a new larger one.
I would like the recording schedule saved, not the shows.
It the recording schedule stored on the HD or within the Tablo’s memory?
Note: I have the 4 Tuner model.
I believe the schedule is in the Tablo. To verify, reboot the Tablo with no HD attached (when no recordings are scheduled to start), then see if you can view your upcoming schedule.
I can verify eariler Tablo firmware versions stored recording schedules internally, not on the attached hard drive.
Easy to check to see if it’s still true.
Power off Tablo.
Disconnect currently attached hard drive.
Connect new hard drive.
Power on Tablo.
I haven’t tried this myself, but believe the scheduled recordings might not display, cuz there isn’t an attached hard drive to record to.
It could be a false negative.
There is no easy way or officially supported way to do this at this point in time (that I know of).
Hey there, this isn’t currently possible at the moment - sorry! I’ve passed this along to our product team as a feature request.
So if I upgrade my drive I have to make note of every scheduled show and create a new schedule.
That is not really a great feature!
So yes, please add the ability to backup the recording schedule for installation on a new drive. I cannot imagine why this is not yet available.
Why - cause very few users upgrade their HDD. Tablo is a set it and forget it device, it just works.
But I agree, it would be a handy feature.
Why?
- Hard drives fail.
- Larger faster drives are available every year. People may want larger drives to store more video.
- It is a basic feature of data processing - the ability to backup your data.
I’m not in disagreement with your reasons for wanting such a feature.
But which other DVR on the market has this feature you claim is basic and absurd it doesn’t exist yesterday?
Not a big time saver, but I screen print my scheduled recordings before any operation that could erase my schedules.
Obviously it takes some time to re-enter the schedules but at least I have a record of what was scheduled.
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Hey guys, I totally misinterpreted @Lysander’s original post. I thought you were looking to transfer the recordings along with the schedule (even though your explicitly stated this wasn’t necessary). My bad!
So to correct myself, this is possible; all you need to do is remove the existing drive, attach the new one, and you’ll receive a prompt to format. The schedules are stored on the Tablo itself, not the drive. Hope this helps.
So, your upcoming shows will simply be sent to the new drive. The only thing that may cause confusion is the recordings stored on the original drive will still appear in the Recordings menu, but will not be accessible as the original drive isn’t attached.
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THANKS. That is all I was asking for.
@theuser86. I guess Tablo has the feature I was asking for!
@TabloSupport - next logical step would be to have a way to back that up off the Table so when I Upgrade to my next new Tablo I could have my schedule restored on the new one!
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This is supported, too 
if you reboot the Tablo with the reset button, it will back up the database to the externally attached drive. If you attach that drive to a new Tablo on the same firmware, it will restore that copy fo the database to the new Tablo.
The full process is available here
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Great, thanks for that. Makes life a little more easy!
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Will the original recordings stored on the original drive ever be cleaned up aka deleted as the new drive doesn’t have such recordings on them?
I upgraded my drive three weeks ago from 2 TB to 5 TB and the recordings schedule was retained. However I had to go through my old “recordings” (which actually were not on the new drive) and delete them one by one using the recordings panel. The delete worked despite the fact there was really no recording there. Tablo must have just deleted the index entry. That cleaned things up.
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How do you know that very few users upgrade their HDD? And if your claim is true, then perhaps the reason why is because it’s not a simple streamlined process. I’ve been waiting years for a simple solution, I’m still searching and that’s how I came upon this dead thread again. I’m eager to upgrade my old Tablo Quad to the new model with an internal SATA bay and much larger HDD, but I’m holding off until Tablo supports easy migration of my schedule and recordings to a new device and new HDD.
So not only would it be a handy feature, but it would also promote customer retention.
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Just one more plug for having a media server. I know that temporal unreliable streaming is “the new thing”… but there is another “thing”. That’s having a place for media you want to keep long term.
My recommendation is Plex.
Many 3rd party programs, including my own SurLaTablo, are designed to extract recordings off your Tablo and put them into a named format that goes easily into Plex (or whatever).
My two cents.
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