If my HD drives, I know I will lose the recordings but will all the schedules remain active, meaning, once I replace the drive, will everything just start again or do I need to reprogram all shows?
And conversely, if my Tablo dies, and I buy a new one, can I connect my still working drive with all the shows on them, and have it pickup where the dead Tablo left off.
Just wanting to know how to best deal with either eventuality when it happens.
The actual recordings are stored on the drive. The DB with the guide data and scheduling info is stored internally in the tablo device.
If the drives dies, recordings are gone, replace drive (format etc) and show schedule stays intact. If you have a newer 2nd generation (at least) you can still watch live TV without a drive attached… so the tablo does function - you can see the show schedule data without a drive.
If your tablo die or you buy a new one - different things here. If you want to replace it, tablo has a migration process “Moving your Recording to a new Tablo” over simplified …it backs up the DB from the old tablo to drive, then “restores” it to new tablo.
If your tablo dies but not your drive - officially your SOL 
There are painstakingly ways to recover recordings depending how much it matters. tablo, unsupported - Recovering Show from good drive/dead tablo
Great info. One followup:
Is there a way to backup your DB file before your unit dies, so when it does, you can migrate from the DB backup?
before it dies?? wow. I know everything has a lifespan but. Mine will have been running 2yrs Oct, this guy just hit 6yr anniversary. and yes, you’ll find several post from users with early death.
I do know it does have a copy, how often it’s [re]created is unclear beyond reboot. Just wild speculation, maybe during maintenance mode. I do know Backup-tablo.sh - Backup all recorded shows from a Tablo backs it up as well - but it does everything. It’s just kind of by chance, it backs it.
The first one I bought was a 4-tuner for my son sometime around Aug 2014. I bought 3 2-tuners for myself: November 2014, March 2015, and I think July of 2017. All hardwired.
And I even tried to give my oldest unit to one of my children and she was hesitant. So I ended up with 3.
They are all still running. I think it helps if you don’t go messing around the coax and ethernet jacks. Maybe doing a lot of switching cables can put some torque of those type of components.
Not messing around too much probably helps, like I never how hot mine is since I seldom bother touching it. 
If you have a good HD but a failed Tablo, this process WILL work if the drive was in the proper state when your old Tablo died. It’s certainly worth a try anyway. This was published by “David at Tablo” earlier this year. I know it works because I’ve done it troubleshooting a problem David WAS helping with. If your Tablo has failed, you’ll probably start at step 2. When you’re done with this process, EVERYTHING is there and working, schedules and all.
If you replace your Tablo DVR the process below will allow you to migrate your existing recordings stored on an external disk (devices using internal storage, SATA storage or Cloud storage are not supported) and schedule data to your new unit. This process will work for ALL Tablo models (including 2-tuner migrations to 4-tuners, etc.).
Note : For this process to work, your NEW Tablo must be taken directly out of the box. If you’ve already run a channel scan on your new Tablo, you will need to factory reset it for these instructions to work.
If you have connected to your new Tablo already, note its firmware version: you can find this at the bottom of the Tablo Settings screen. The new Tablo must be on the same firmware version as your original unit. Our support team can also check this for you, so don’t hesitate to send us a ticket.
Step 1: Reboot your original Tablo with the USB drive attached using the blue reset button on the back of the Tablo. Wait for the Tablo’s blue LED to go solid. This can take up to ~2 minutes.
Step 2: Remove the USB drive from your original Tablo and set it aside.
Step 3: Attach Ethernet and power (in that order) to your new Tablo.
Step 4: After your new Tablo’s LED is solid, attach your USB drive to your new Tablo.
Step 5: After a few seconds your Tablo’s LED will begin pulsing.
At this point, it is transferring your original Tablo’s database to your new Tablo. This can take several minutes.
Once your new Tablo is finished downloading the database it will reboot. The process is complete once the Tablo’s LED is solid.
That’s great! fyi, David has many articles in Tablo Knowledge Base for users to get quick and easy access to all the help they send to users including Moving your recordings to a new Tablo