Stupid newbie questions

[Kythorn]

Hi. I'm getting a DSR6000, and I'm interested in expanding it's capacity. I currently have a spare WD 7200 rpm WD drive. I've heard that 5400's are preferable, but the noise won't bother me. Will the heat be a major issue? Can I compensate for this with a fan? Do I need a seperate bracket to mount a second drive in a dtivo?

I'm a little confused by some stuff I read here, one guy said he upgraded to 2.5 with extreme, and now his system tries to download 32 megs every time he starts it up? If my system comes with 2.0, should I let it upgrade itself? Or how would this work?

Additionally, most of the extreme 'benefits' don't seem that they're all that useful to me. I see why some people would love it, but I don't 'need' anything it does. Is there any huge drawback to using it that would make me want to avoid it as such? What are the more 'legitimate' benefits of this anyway? I already get local channels, and saving 10 bucks a month on tivo service isn't my #1 priority.


Now again, I'm not sure if the new units come with 2.0/2.5, or if I even want 2.5. What are the benefits of 2.5? I hear it encrypts the mpeg stream now, which is kind of yucky, although I do understand there is a fix available for this, though I'm not sure exactly how to apply it yet.

I (will) have a PC relatively close to my tivo, and the serial connection is also interesting, but is the only way to do this by making a cable yourself? I'm relatively confident when it comes to software and minor hardware tweaks, but I'm downright dangerous with a soldering iron... wouldn't mind buying one if I could, cost isn't an issue.

In the short term, if it won't outright cause heat problems, I'd really like to put my spare 120g drive in the tivo. Whats my best bet for doing this? If my unit comes with 2 small drives instead of 1, will I have to perform a full backup before I fiddle with it at all? If extreme is potentially something that can cause problems down the road, is there a better software I can use to just 'bless' (I think thats the appropiate word) the drive and put it in the tivo? What do I have to do differently if there's already 2 drives in the machine?

For further clarification: I'm not trying to get free service, I don't particularly mind the fees. I would however prefer to avoid any questions my potential modifications might raise if my unit phones home and reports on my modifications. I'm not really sure what it does report, but hey, being paranoid never hurt anyone.


For the record, I know the general response will probably 'RTFM newb, haha!' but I've spent a fairly large amount of time browsing both the newbie and general forum. I'm not trying to waste anyone's time, but these are questions that I still have after reading. I realize they may appear really stupid to some people, but a lot of the stuff I've read references other stuff like it's something everyone should know by heart. Before this morning, I'd never read anything about the inner workings of a tivo before, so please cut me some slack... I'm trying to learn, really I am!

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by Kythorn
Hi. I'm getting a DSR6000, and I'm interested in expanding it's capacity. I currently have a spare WD 7200 rpm WD drive. I've heard that 5400's are preferable, but the noise won't bother me. Will the heat be a major issue? Can I compensate for this with a fan? Do I need a seperate bracket to mount a second drive in a dtivo?

Heat is a problem with these units, so you might have to add a fan if it gets too warm. There are holes to mount two drives on the bracket already.

I'm a little confused by some stuff I read here, one guy said he upgraded to 2.5 with extreme, and now his system tries to download 32 megs every time he starts it up? If my system comes with 2.0, should I let it upgrade itself? Or how would this work?

You can let it take the update if you want to. See below for more details.

Additionally, most of the extreme 'benefits' don't seem that they're all that useful to me. I see why some people would love it, but I don't 'need' anything it does. Is there any huge drawback to using it that would make me want to avoid it as such? What are the more 'legitimate' benefits of this anyway? I already get local channels, and saving 10 bucks a month on tivo service isn't my #1 priority.

There are some significant changes made by Xtreme that may/may not cause headaches down the road. No one really knows at this point. The benefits are you can get a bash prompt to poke around in the system. The fixup is nice if you'd rather not dial-in for whatever reason.

Now again, I'm not sure if the new units come with 2.0/2.5, or if I even want 2.5. What are the benefits of 2.5? I hear it encrypts the mpeg stream now, which is kind of yucky, although I do understand there is a fix available for this, though I'm not sure exactly how to apply it yet.

The main reason to get 2.5 is so you can use dual tuners.

I (will) have a PC relatively close to my tivo, and the serial connection is also interesting, but is the only way to do this by making a cable yourself? I'm relatively confident when it comes to software and minor hardware tweaks, but I'm downright dangerous with a soldering iron... wouldn't mind buying one if I could, cost isn't an issue.

You can buy the cable from Tivo and just add a null-modem adapter if you don't want to solder. There is also someone in these forums that will make one for you. See here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=8429).

In the short term, if it won't outright cause heat problems, I'd really like to put my spare 120g drive in the tivo. Whats my best bet for doing this? If my unit comes with 2 small drives instead of 1, will I have to perform a full backup before I fiddle with it at all? If extreme is potentially something that can cause problems down the road, is there a better software I can use to just 'bless' (I think thats the appropiate word) the drive and put it in the tivo? What do I have to do differently if there's already 2 drives in the machine?

I believe you could use TivoMad to backup your original drives to a divorced version of the data. Then you could use it to restore the backup to the larger drive, expand it to use the full size, then bless your original A drive to use as your new B drive. I am not 100% positive about this, but believe it's correct.

For further clarification: I'm not trying to get free service, I don't particularly mind the fees. I would however prefer to avoid any questions my potential modifications might raise if my unit phones home and reports on my modifications. I'm not really sure what it does report, but hey, being paranoid never hurt anyone.

It reports everything. If you plan to do some "testing", then your only real choice is to use Xtreme (Unless you want to pull the drives every 30 days, mount them on your PC, then delete the log files. This would get old in a hurry).

For the record, I know the general response will probably 'RTFM newb, haha!' but I've spent a fairly large amount of time browsing both the newbie and general forum. I'm not trying to waste anyone's time, but these are questions that I still have after reading. I realize they may appear really stupid to some people, but a lot of the stuff I've read references other stuff like it's something everyone should know by heart. Before this morning, I'd never read anything about the inner workings of a tivo before, so please cut me some slack... I'm trying to learn, really I am!