Tablo's auto-delete feature ensures the minimum required amount of recording storage space is always free on your hard drive.
Because recording storage is also used to create a buffer for live TV playback, maxing out your recording storage won't just prevent new programs from being recorded, but will also prevent you from playing live TV.
The auto-delete feature is enabled by default on Tablo models with internal storage, including the 4th Generation Tablo, Tablo DUAL 64GB, and Tablo DUAL 128GB.
How Auto-Delete Is Tuned
The auto-delete feature is tuned based on the storage size of your Tablo's hard drive or onboard memory, as well as the number of tuners it has.
- Drives of 750 GB or less will maintain 2 hours of free storage per tuner (based on your recording quality).
- Drives of 1 TB or less will maintain 3 hours of free storage per tuner (based on your recording quality).
- Drives of 4 TB or less will maintain 4 hours of free storage per tuner (based on your recording quality).
- Drives larger than 4 TB will maintain 6 hours of free storage per tuner (based on your recording quality).
An additional hour of space is also reserved for each active live playback session.
It's worth noting that the amount of recording storage space reserved when auto-delete is enabled is not reflected in the available storage reported within the SETTINGS and LIBRARY screens of the Tablo app. So even if your Tablo app reports that you have several GBs of storage remaining, the total available amount could be much smaller.
How Auto-Delete Works
The auto-delete feature will be triggered when Tablo detects that there is not enough reserved recording storage space for:
- A scheduled recording that is about to start
- A new recording schedule is set for a program currently airing
- A request to play a live TV channel
At that point, Tablo will automatically delete as many recordings as necessary on your drive to free up the required space, starting with the oldest unprotected recordings.
Along with protected recordings, recordings within a series where a keep limit has been set through advanced recording settings will also not be eligible for auto-delete.
For this reason, users relying on onboard storage should use these features only when necessary, as they risk having newer recordings deleted prematurely.
If you frequently run out of recording storage space, or auto-delete is removing recordings before they can be viewed, try adding a compatible USB hard drive to your Tablo.
For an estimate on how much drive space each recording can take, based on its respective quality, visit this article.