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It doesn't really matter, which ever you feel better doing. The unit doesn't really turn off, but the hard disk does spin down after a while. If it doesn't really cause any problems, just leave it on.
| Originally posted by peebody01 Just picked up an HS2000. I love it! My question: is it OK to leave Replay powered ON all the time? Or, should I turn it OFF when I turn off my TV? |
It doesn't really matter, which ever you feel better doing. The unit doesn't really turn off, but the hard disk does spin down after a while. If it doesn't really cause any problems, just leave it on.
This has been discussed ad nauseum in the past.
Turning it off spins down the hard drives -- however, they spin up once an hour to do housekeeping, and to make scheduled recordings. People who are light sleepers with a unit in their bedroom sometimes have problems with the noise of spinup/spindown. When you turn it back on it takes several seconds to spin up before you get picture/sound -- very annoying to me.
Leaving it on is fine; the disks keep spinning and so when you turn the TV on you get instant picture. This is nice too, because the buffer is always there. If you leave it in "live tv" mode, when you turn off the TV, when you wake up at 6:35 you can rewind to 6:30 and see the start of the show. However, the A/V outputs are still active. This can cause problems if your system is more than your TV. I have mine hooked through my sound system as well as my TV. After the second or third time I woke up to hear "*MASH*" blasting through the speakers at 3:00 AM (someone turned the TV off but left the receiver on -- when a recording started BOOM! sound to the speakers), leaving it on wasn't an option.
I compromised between the two. I "disabled disk spindown" so that when I turn the unit off, I don't shut down the hard drive. The advantage is that I don't have the constant starts and stops many finf annoying, and I have "instant on". One of the ReplayTV guys explained that when you "disable disk spindown", the on/off switch just turns the A/V outputs on and off.
Do some searches on "clawfoot portal" and "disable disk spindown" for more info; or find a link to the FAQ (it is gone from the top of the page but in several people's sigs.
Joe
Turning it off spins down the hard drives -- however, they spin up once an hour to do housekeeping, and to make scheduled recordings. People who are light sleepers with a unit in their bedroom sometimes have problems with the noise of spinup/spindown. When you turn it back on it takes several seconds to spin up before you get picture/sound -- very annoying to me.
Leaving it on is fine; the disks keep spinning and so when you turn the TV on you get instant picture. This is nice too, because the buffer is always there. If you leave it in "live tv" mode, when you turn off the TV, when you wake up at 6:35 you can rewind to 6:30 and see the start of the show. However, the A/V outputs are still active. This can cause problems if your system is more than your TV. I have mine hooked through my sound system as well as my TV. After the second or third time I woke up to hear "*MASH*" blasting through the speakers at 3:00 AM (someone turned the TV off but left the receiver on -- when a recording started BOOM! sound to the speakers), leaving it on wasn't an option.
I compromised between the two. I "disabled disk spindown" so that when I turn the unit off, I don't shut down the hard drive. The advantage is that I don't have the constant starts and stops many finf annoying, and I have "instant on". One of the ReplayTV guys explained that when you "disable disk spindown", the on/off switch just turns the A/V outputs on and off.
Do some searches on "clawfoot portal" and "disable disk spindown" for more info; or find a link to the FAQ (it is gone from the top of the page but in several people's sigs.
Joe
I've had my unit about 2 months and always turn the thing off when not in use. The delay in start-up doesn't bother me, its only a few seconds.
I read a lot of posts on heat problems. I would assume by leaving it on 24/7 that you could run into this issue if the unit is not well ventilated.
As far as hard drive life, both leaving it on and alternating on/off has their drawbacks. Keep in mind that drive bearings with a 10,000 hour life will last only one year running 24/7. Remember, heat plays a big part on bearing life. On the other hand the internal drive circuits take the biggest hit when turning the unit on and off.
It will come down to what the weakest link is in the drive itself. I don't watch TV that much so leaving it on is a waste IMO. If you have kids and the TV is on 16-18 hours per day anyway then I would leave it on.
I read a lot of posts on heat problems. I would assume by leaving it on 24/7 that you could run into this issue if the unit is not well ventilated.
As far as hard drive life, both leaving it on and alternating on/off has their drawbacks. Keep in mind that drive bearings with a 10,000 hour life will last only one year running 24/7. Remember, heat plays a big part on bearing life. On the other hand the internal drive circuits take the biggest hit when turning the unit on and off.
It will come down to what the weakest link is in the drive itself. I don't watch TV that much so leaving it on is a waste IMO. If you have kids and the TV is on 16-18 hours per day anyway then I would leave it on.
Quote:
Modern drives are designed to survive for many years running 24/7 and, although there is a healthy debate on this point, I think the more common view among the engineer types is that, if there is adequate ventillation, you will get better HD life by leaving a modern HD spinning 24/7 than you will by powering it up and down from time to time (powering up a HD puts it under high stress). I think the fairly broad (but not unanimous) consensus of posters in this forum seems to be that you are best off leaving the HD spinning 24/7 (either by leaving the unit on or by disabling spindown) so long as (a) the noise doesn't bother you too much and (b) you've got the heat situation under control (adequate ventillation or a fan).
But, as someone said earlier in this thread, this has been discussed extensively, so you can do a search in this forum if you want to revisit the long-winded debate.
By the way, Dr. Joe, nice to see you posting here agian -- you've been away a while. Everything ok?
| Originally posted by SirFelix ...Keep in mind that drive bearings with a 10,000 hour life will last only one year running 24/7.... |
But, as someone said earlier in this thread, this has been discussed extensively, so you can do a search in this forum if you want to revisit the long-winded debate.
By the way, Dr. Joe, nice to see you posting here agian -- you've been away a while. Everything ok?
Hi, Asinshesq...
Been busy at work so I haven't been "goofing off" as much...
Things are going fine; mostly there hasn't been too much to talk about lately...
Haven't been any debates on spin disk down -vs- always on, no "replayTV is going away" questions, no Panasonic is the devil Macrovision threads to poke at, not many questions about hooking up digital cable boxes, the drive upgrades have been done, with the 4000 series announcements it doesn't make sense to talk about new features...
I haven't had problems with Replay service lately (had a burp and lost the channel guide when I fixed the "you have new local numbers" message, but recovered it without any problem) and wouldn't be to helpful with the upgrade deaths people are reporting.
I'm one of the disappointed ones on the 4000 series -- it does a lot I don't care about and it costs SO much.... about the only feature that jumps at me is the commercial skip -- if it was on a 3000 series platform I would pay out a few extra $100 for it. So I haven't had anything to say about it.
Is it just me or does it seem there are less "newbies" than there used to be who re-raise all the above issues? It may be that since ReplayTV stopped advertising 3000 series units and since Showstoppers started to become less visible in electronic stores, there are less people buying. Maybe this is another thread, but, I wonder how much of the market they can afford to lose to TiVo/UltimateTV/DishPlayer before they disappear from PVR view?
ciao
Joe
Been busy at work so I haven't been "goofing off" as much...
Things are going fine; mostly there hasn't been too much to talk about lately...
Haven't been any debates on spin disk down -vs- always on, no "replayTV is going away" questions, no Panasonic is the devil Macrovision threads to poke at, not many questions about hooking up digital cable boxes, the drive upgrades have been done, with the 4000 series announcements it doesn't make sense to talk about new features...
I haven't had problems with Replay service lately (had a burp and lost the channel guide when I fixed the "you have new local numbers" message, but recovered it without any problem) and wouldn't be to helpful with the upgrade deaths people are reporting.
I'm one of the disappointed ones on the 4000 series -- it does a lot I don't care about and it costs SO much.... about the only feature that jumps at me is the commercial skip -- if it was on a 3000 series platform I would pay out a few extra $100 for it. So I haven't had anything to say about it.
Is it just me or does it seem there are less "newbies" than there used to be who re-raise all the above issues? It may be that since ReplayTV stopped advertising 3000 series units and since Showstoppers started to become less visible in electronic stores, there are less people buying. Maybe this is another thread, but, I wonder how much of the market they can afford to lose to TiVo/UltimateTV/DishPlayer before they disappear from PVR view?
ciao
Joe
If SonicBlue was smart they would throw money into their guide software and support. I still refuse to buy a machine that I have to pay a fee every month for as TIVO does.
Some of us can only afford a basic cable hookup and only want the guide features. I could care less who, what or how the hardware records the video, hard drive or DVD. How many people do you really think will need the portablility of a DVD? Unless a DVD holds more than a 6-hour VHS tape then its useless.
SonicBlue, supported hard drive upgrades/add-ons, user friendly guides, and low unit prices
Some of us can only afford a basic cable hookup and only want the guide features. I could care less who, what or how the hardware records the video, hard drive or DVD. How many people do you really think will need the portablility of a DVD? Unless a DVD holds more than a 6-hour VHS tape then its useless.
SonicBlue, supported hard drive upgrades/add-ons, user friendly guides, and low unit prices
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