Nobody is trying to prevent you from doing what you are doing. Imposing your behavioral patterns on others is however a bit extreme.
Maybe the devs could implement an option for ordering a new disk/nas from Amazon when the DVR runs out of space to reduce the amount of babysitting you have to do. I am perfectly fine with losing some recordings in that case.
That's almost a 20 years old post. 
That thread's discussion continued on actively for 17 years (no spoilers but it's quite the saga) and for what it's worth, in this context, nothing significant ever changed with TiVo's DVR software, anyway. It's still pretty easy to get a TiVo to run out of space. In the early days, one of the biggest complaints TiVo users had was that there was no "free space indicator." We had to just fill up the extra space with "suggestions" even if we had no intention of watching them, and then, use the amount of hours of suggestions (which were auto-purged when space was needed) as a means to gauge how much space we had left.
At least with Channels DVR, the the DVR server always makes it very clear how much space is available. And adding a bigger hard drive when necessary is quite trivial. Not so much with TiVo.
Besides, using a big hard drive with a great DVR isn't "compulsive hoarding," anyway. The hard drive on my desk is the smaller than half a breadbox and will last me many years. There's zero stress or distress associated with the media collection.
Instead, what this thread sounds like to me is "compulsive babysitting." Is that the best usage of your time? Just get a bigger hard drive and move on.
I do not understand how anyone can think that running out of space with no warning/alert and no new recordings is a great feature.
Hard drive company sales rep 
And I don’t understand how anyone can use Channels for more than a day and not see the very clear and obvious storage indicator in the client Settings, as well as the one front and center on the DVR’s webUI.
You just do not get it ... I support a lot of Seniors and they are not technical ... and me personally I am very technical and do not care the way Channels DVR handles space at the moment ... I do not want to keep checking the UI for space or have my Senior clients do this. The way Channels DVR handles space is just not working ... if you have the time to babysit fine for you but do not critic those that do not want to babysit.
BTW I have plenty of space 11.39 TB available but if I see a potential problem with Channels DVR I am going to speak on it ... Because there are many users out there that are none technical and cannot afford to buy more space. I put myself in their shoes.
As I’ve already explained though, I also have no time nor interest in babysitting the DVR, so I don’t babysit the DVR. I’m not criticizing those who choose to, I’m explaining that instituting auto-deletions of any kind without explicit consent from the user, is a Bad Idea™.
Based on your replies here I’m thinking it is you who “just doesn’t get it.”
Is that all you got to offer at least I provided input to address the problem.
As did I.
Clearly, there are two user categories:
- Watch everything the DVR records and ready to die iif they miss anything
- Meh, just a TV broadcast
A mock of user interface, under advanced options, default nothing:
When there is no space, the DVR should:
[x] Do nothing
[o] Delete one of the old recordings
-- [o] even if unseen (OMG, are you sure????) Please confirm [o] last 4 social [---- ]
[o] order a drive from AMZN size [10TB-10PB] U/P [-----/------]
- Do not Alert user of no space miss recordings and have them manually delete old stuff or buy hard drive....
or
1a empty trash
1b.Delete oldest watched unmarked keep forever. - delete oldest unwatched unmarked keep forever. (optional)
3, Notify of low space no new recordings lost.
Yeah, I think this is where there is some confusion. We have settings to accommodate a lot of different use cases, including the ones mentioned here.
We have a recording option that is geared just towards that:
When you pick the option "Keep All" or "Keep Unwatched", it means you think it's important for you to keep them around. Having the system go and delete things you asked the system to keep is not something we're ever going to do.
I can see a theoretical benefit of emptying the trash early if we are very low on disk space, but for many instances, it could be easier to just set the option for auto-deleting the trash to 1 Day.
When a single show recorded off of cable could be 5GB or a sports game could be 30GB, as people have discussed, you're just going to have a better experience if you over-provision the amount of disk space you need. Trying to ride right on the limit of disk space is going to run into all sorts of terrible cases.
Good info, thanks.
It would take a rocket scientist to set many passes to never run out of space.... using this type of space management. It does not address running out of space and no Alerts plus no new recordings when no space ...
This is the same issue. It is hard to record when out of space
I give up everyone including the developers beat around the bush ... I just want to know if we have to live with no space no new recordings.