STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

I know this is not allowed, but let's say in a different world.

If you had the ability to clone the old hard drive from a STB (TiVo or V6) onto a solid state drive.

Would this make the experience of using the box better/quicker?

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

I suppose the day will come when SSD's replace all hard drives. And it should speed things up for us all.

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

I doubt it for any of the current boxes.

Recordings to disk are in real time so there is no advantage there, and playback (even with Fast Forward and Rewind) is slow enough for a spinning disk to deal with easily

The only time an SSD might help would be for startup and possibly where the box has a large recording index to deal with

Between the 1TB V6 and 1TB TiVo I'd expect the hard drives to be roughly the same spec, yet the V6 is much faster than the TiVo box. That's due to the other parts of the box, not the disk drive.

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

But my though was if you can access a SSD faster than a standard HD the the software on the box should respond quicker, I was thinking the TiVo boxes. I find the V6 quite quick as it is

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

The operating systems on electronic devices are usually loaded into RAM memory from Hard Disk (or SSD) on boot up. RAM only operates while the device has power and everything in it is wiped when power is switched off. Hard disks and Sold State Drives retain data when power is switched off.

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

Around 1990 I went to a presentation where the price per bit of hard disk and battery-backed RAM over time was shown. The charts were pretty straight and crossed at 1995, so the presenter predicted that hard drives would be obsolete by then.

But what actually happened over the next couple of years was hard drive capacities suddenly shot up. 30 years later they are still cheaper than solid-state.

So I'm pretty sceptical of any prediction of the demise of hard drives.

---------- Post added at 16:04 ---------- Previous post was at 15:58 ----------

To answer the OP, TiVo would be faster because it does a lot of paging. It probably wouldn't make a noticeable difference on the V6.

But don't do it.

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

It's unlikely SSDs will be used in PVRs as it's a bad idea to keep writing data to an SSD (the way they're handled in PCs is different to HDDs e.g. defrag is turned off to prevent too many write cycles). As the V6 STB is constantly writing to the drive (so that you can pause & rewind live TV) the lifespan of the disc would be badly impaired. See here and here

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

Let's say a friend removed and cloned the 500Gb HD to an SSD tonight and confirmed on first testing his TiVo booted a lot quicker, accessed recordings very quickly. Also menus and changing channel seemed a bit quicker.

He promised more testing soon ������

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

ALDI has a no-Hard Drive Medion laptop on sale at the moment.

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

I would be more interested if you told me your friend cloned a 1Tb V6 hard drive to a 4 Tb drive and it worked.

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

I asked and was told, would work 110% they just need at 4Tb HD and a v6 stb

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

And a set of instructions to follow to do this.

Some years ago I updated the hard drive in 2 early Sky HD boxes with no dramas including keeping all recordings - I would love it if there was a similar patch to follow with the V6 (even if only to 2Tb)


Anyone?

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

I was sent this link and told this is the big secret

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LN0GX..._gDByDbTVPR5M0

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

What's such a big secret about 2 bay HHD docking stations, they've been out for a few years. Ir is it the one click cloning they've always had?

Re: STB Updated with a solid state drive!
 

Reading the information on the page it must be.