Shared Knowledge
"Tivo: How to Upgrade to a SATA Hard Drive"
10 October 2009
Summary: older Tivo's use the older EIDE or PATA interface between the motherboard and the installed hard disk drive(s). Although EIDE\PATA hard drives are still available, they are being replaced with the newer SATA interface type. Replacement of an old EIDE\PATA with a newer SATA interface hard drive is possible with a special adapter.
Background:
Older Tivo's have an EIDE or PATA (EIDE and PATA are the same thing) interface between the Tivo motherboard and hard drive. I.E., not the newer SATA type hard drive interface.
EIDE\PATA drives are still available but beginning to disappear.
There are several SATA-to-IDE interface adapters in the market.
Using the correct SATA-to-IDE interface adapter, it is possible to use a SATA hard drive in an older Tivo.
EIDE\PATA- to-SATA Drive Adapters:
There are several SATA-to-IDE adapters in the market. These adapters connect a SATA hard drive to the motherboard's EIDE\PATA connector.
There is limited room between the top of the hard drive installed in a Tivo and the Tivo's top cover.
After trial and error, the only SATA-to-IDE adpater I have found that will properly fit on an Tivo installed SATA hard drive and allow the Tivo top cover to install properly is the SIIG IDE-to-SATA interface adapter.
Note: the SIIG IDE-to-SATA interface board has one jumper on it that you can change to make the SATA drive appear as an IDE drive 0 or 1, where 0 would be a master and 1 would be a slave. In my case, the jumper had to be set to master or drive 1. Additionally, I do not much care for the fact that the SIIG interface "board" simply sets on the end of the SATA drive with nothing holding it in place except for the pressure of the SATA connector pins. In my case, I used a cable tie around the connector and hard disk to secure the interface board in place.
