I can see why you’re looking at this. Not something I’d use, personally. We record and then watch usually the next day or even just shortly after it’s done recording. We don’t archive anything.
However I can also see where this would be a support boondoggle for the Tablo Team. I mean look… even now with a list of tested hard drives AND warnings not to use USB sticks or SSD drives, people still do it. And then they need support because “Tablo doesn’t work”. Can you imagine now throwing in a bunch of NAS devices?
For what you’re trying to do I’d almost have to believe it’d be easier for you to get one of the third party apps running to poll and pull from the Tablo, process the recording, and put it on your media server. The stuff is already available to do this and while not officially supported by Tablo, the folks here that write the code seem pretty responsive.
Agreeing with yardbird’s post and elaborating. I suspect vendors misuse names for the “benefit” of the general public …who don’t know any different. Pathetically, ethernet is misunderstood as cable/wiring. Monoprice sold me hdmi over ethernet… it’s not, actually just uses CAT5e.
A few posts back you mentioned RJ45. A removable network connection! How often do you see someone telling you they have a hard wired network? You know they don’t have a punch down block. It’s a shame there are even articles explaing hard wired networking with RJ45s. Any connection physical connection secured, is hard wired, a plug is NOT, but overlooked - and/or misunderstood because it’s not worth it.
Here’s a post explaining the aptly misunderstood difference between static IP and a DHCP lease reservation. Nightmare to an actual tech, annoying to the technically inclined, irrelevant to the one “who just wants it to work” (or the guy who thinks he knows what he’s talking about) …as dynamically static IP ??
Sadly is often appears marketing often appeals to the least common denominator.
Looking at the product page, it appears that one actually does work over Ethernet (as it shows going through Ethernet switches).
Well, ok, these do say proprietary IP-based network topology – they’re not the same as the ones I had… and I didn’t actually read, sorry. I don’t believe most are this sophisticated. I needed 2 CAT5e cables (to match the HDMI cabling I think).
There’s also composite video (red, green,blue) with audio over ethernet/CAT5… that was a long time ago. Saved on paying for a second DirecTV receiver (it was cool they had RF remotes).
Yes, the trick would be that it would have to flow with the Ethernet protocol and work through a switch. This is a project that I would do “just because”, to see other possibilities, and not something that I would depend on Tablo support. Although I could understand why they wouldn’t implement something similar. I’ve seen computer programs that allow you to share one USB port with another computer, over the network. Now, if this could work with small devices connected to the network, and you had control over the hard drive, to extract Tablo recorded programs with a python app, then next question would be: why wouldn’t it operate backwards as well? In other words, you take a movie, record it digitally, add it to the hard drive, and then play it on the Tablo app. I understand that Tablo must have a database of recordings. Is it on the Tablo box, or is this database built on the fly, when it searches for recordings on the hard drive? Of course it would be easier if Tablo provided an option for NAS integration, but I understand the ramifications with service calls, in implementing a wide network item.
Referring to the “Typical Application” you previously posted, none of those devices shared over the USB are a storage device. But that’s hardware sharing a port.
From what little that’s know, tablo need direct access to hardware storage device ie) /dev/sda /dev/sda1, not just access to a shared storage device. Ok, some of this is just based on my fundamental understanding of basic system basic function.
Even “drive sharing”… isn’t actually “drive” sharing. It would be amazing to have to different system have physical - virtually - control to read/write controller of a mounted storage. I do realize there are technologies beyond my understandings.
If you could telnet in and install some CIFS sharing and configurations… that might be easier. Well if you could. Someday there may be an OpenTablo org 
Found a USBGEAR “USB Over IP Network 4 Port Hub - Share any USB Device Over TCP/IP” that should link the USB on the network. This should work. Cool Gear is another provider for this type of equipment. However, the reviews on these items are not good.
Tablo should allow for a way to feed it an nfs or SMB share for storage. If they are using a standard linux kernel, this is easy. For support, simply say “best effort”. Anyone using that would likely not need Tablo technical support to troubleshoot issues.
It would be amazing if there were a screen full of advanced options!
TabloSupport mentioned some similar in a different topic
That being said, we acknowledge that there are ways we can improve the product for advanced users, including providing alternatives to the current network discovery process.
Kind of sums it up with (from the same post)
Our focus is also on developing the product to be easy-to-use for the average non-technical user.
My take on it - features need to fit a marketable business model. We don’t have to like it, but accept - for the development investment, the payout is unlikely.
Still, that doesn’t have to end the discussion.