Replacing external drive(s)

One of my external drives are getting on a bit, it's >7 years old, the others are > 4 years so should be ok a while yet. The oldest was bought as an external drive, the others are internal drives that I mounted into external enclosures.

There's nothing to suggest that any of them are actually dying but...

Assuming I do decide to buy new, is it better to buy an external drive complete, or to buy an internal drive and put it into an enclosure myself. The latter has the advantage that I know exactly what drive it is, not necessarily clear when buying an external drive.

Given the various mergers and takeovers in the market in recent months, I've lost track of how many truly separate companies there are making HDDs now.

My drives are Maxtor 250GB, as well as a 750GB Samsung 2.5" and 500GB Buffalo 2.5" external drives on another system. I'd tend to steer clear of 'green' drives, apart from that I have no real views on the good, bad and ugly.

Thoughts and comments appreciated.

For some reason external drives seems to be cheaper than internal at the moment. Only two makes mechanical drives now I think, seagate who got Samsung drives and Western Digital who now got Hitachi drives.


i need to get a new internal drive, but I need to wait for the prices to come down a bit more, problem is I have no idea which one to get, Seagate is certainly out, but I have never been a fan of WD either,

I too need 2TB of additional space and the decision seems to be between Seagate and WD. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Ditto... I'll probably go for WD, purely because I've already got several and at least they'll match each other.

There doesn't really seem much to choose between them, if you're unlucky and get a bad one, such is life

In reply to a post by billford:

Ditto... I'll probably go for WD, purely because I've already got several and at least they'll match each other.

Mine are Maxtor , which is now Seagate. Hmm.

In reply to a post by billford:

There doesn't really seem much to choose between them, if you're unlucky and get a bad one, such is life

I think that just about sums it up.

My 3.5" drives are only switched on once or twice a week so they don't clock up as many powered-on hours as might be expected.

I'd always go with Seagate in the future.

I have a 500GB WD and a 500GB Seagate SATA II drive and when copying files or casually using the system on the WD drive, it seems to die very quickly. Doesn't seem to like multitasking, whereas the Seagate just copes with everything I throw at it with hardly any difference in performance.

Have never really liked WD drives either. Have had 3 fail on me in the past. Never had a Seagate Drive die on me yet (Touch wood).

Edited by chris6273 (Fri 09-Nov-12 18:45:59)

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

My 3.5" drives are only switched on once or twice a week so they don't clock up as many powered-on hours as might be expected.

My WDs are on pretty much 24/7 unless the computer decides to "sleep" them so they certainly rack up the hours but then, they don't get the cold starts... you pays you money and take your chances

@Chris- I've had a couple of Seagates fail on me out of four or five, tho' that was back in the days when 250MB was a large drive. I've had one WD failure out of about 6 or 7, and I think that's probably the interface (it's an external 500GB), it's still on the shelf waiting to be checked

So I think my opinion that it's the luck of the draw is still valid

Mentioning the old drives made me think... the first HDD I bought as a separate unit was 200MB and cost me over £200, now I can get 10,000 times the storage for a third of the price (and that's ignoring inflation!). It's hard to complain about modern HDDs...

If you are pre-empting HDD failure by replacing a working HDD you could do worse than pay more for a solid state drive. You could use this to replace your main internal drive thus releasing it for pure storage.

Solid state drives (£140 for 250Gb) are so much quicker, quieter and energy efficient. Most commentators say they are more reliable too. They are ideal for speeding up your system, especially if you just use them for applications. My boot up speed and application opening rate has been transformed even without a clean install. I cloned my existing main drive. I keep current working files on it too, just a handful. These open in a blink of an eye.
............................................................................................................................................................................
I tried western digital 1TB Network MyBookWorld with WD 1Tb saddled through USB. Not very satisfactory. The Twonkie media server couldn't read media through its own USB. I have since added 2Tb Iomega. The media server can serve files from my WD USB even though it isn't directly attached!

This all gives me 4Tb external; stored securely in my attic. Never-the-less I never trust hardware, so I store everything via Livedrive too, which gives me the added advantage of being able to access files from anywhere including by ftp using XBMC.

Edited by deleted (Fri 09-Nov-12 21:48:27)

I remain to be convinced that in the "more GB for your £" ofover the past few years that reliability hasn't suffered in the process.

I hope I can be proved wrong, except that proof can be tricky given the variability of usage and environmental conditions.

Ultimately I think it means that don't rely on a single back-up.Either have two back-ups separately created or use RAID to give increased resilience.

Well, I bought one of these... cheap as chips, seems OK, just needed a quick re-format for the Mac and partitioning the way I wanted it. It doesn't have USB-3, but then neither does my iMac

A nice change was no useless software included with it... and installation instructions that brought a whole new shade of meaning to "minimal"

I've been looking at those too.

A couple of questions about them which I cannot find an answer to:

1. They come with a mains adapter, but can they run with power from the USB connection?

2. When the Mac is turned off and the USB effectively inactive, do the drives power down or go to an idle state?

I can't give an authoritative answer to either of those, but I'm pretty sure the answer to 1) is no- it's a 12v 1.5A PSU for one thing, and the most a USB port is spec'ed to provide is 500mA. I'd think the start-up surge would kill a USB port supply, and I've never yet seen a decent-sized HDD that would run from USB power only.

As for 2), I never turn my Mac off, so hard to say . Not sure what you mean by "power down" and "idle", if it were completely powered down it wouldn't restart when the USB became active again afaics.

It's set to "sleep" (in sysprefs) after a period of non-use and appears to spin down, though obviously the interface electronics have to stay "live".

HTH

I have a 1TB WD MyBook. When I put my PC into standby (suspend to RAM), the MyBook powers off. Ditto shutdown.

Point 1. Best guess is no they can't run power from USB.

From WD's site:

Plug-and-play simplicity.
Just connect the power and plug it into a USB port to instantly add more storage to your computer.

I guess they're more marketed for mobile users (meaning people with laptops, as opposed to roaming profile folk with a drive in their pocket). The draw on these bigger drives can mess with laptop mobo/USB power capacity apparently.

I don't quite see the point of them in that sense. Might as well have a NAS solution if it's a static drive, and cloud solution otherwise.

I've got one of those on the PVR. If I put it into standby the actual drive spins down (ie powers off) but the unit as a whole remains on, ie the indicator lights on the front are still active.

I think there may be some confusion here between the external unit and the actual disc drive itself?

Western Digital Passport drives run from USB only and they are available in 1TB and 2TB versions.

A drive should be able to fully power down provided there is a control circuit to bring it back to life when the USB port becomes active again.

I want to use the drive for the PVR function on my television which is powered down for around 18-20 hours/day.

The WD Passport drives in 1TB & 2TB are USB only and those are ideal for laptop users.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Western Digital Passport drives run from USB only and they are available in 1TB and 2TB versions.

Fair enough... presumably if this one could run from USB-only it would be a Western Digital Passport and not a Western Digital Elements

In reply to a post by MHC:

I want to use the drive for the PVR function on my television which is powered down for around 18-20 hours/day.

Ah, here we have the difficulty again... I doubt you want to use the PVR function of your TV while it is powered down. In standby, yes, powered down, no. Powered down means OFF, mains (or whatever) not connected to any of the innards, not even the sensor for the remote. It's effectively dead- and safe to take the back off

Same goes for external drives- if it's powered down, it's OFF. If it's in standby (or "idle", maybe), the platters aren't spinning but the electronics is still (mostly) running.

Using the PVR function of your TV, can you record direct to an external drive? My Humax will only record to its internal drive, I have to copy it to the external MyBook later.

Edited by billford (Fri 16-Nov-12 00:26:04)

The TV requires an external drive on one of the USB ports.

If the TV is in full standby then the USB appears to be totally OFF, when in operational/record mode the USB is active. So, when the TV goes into standby - effectively off, I'd like the drives to go into an "OFF" or standby mode which needs to be auto.

In reply to a post by MHC:

The TV requires an external drive on one of the USB ports.

Ah, right, I haven't come across that mode of operation before. It sounds like a good idea (I'm forever copying stuff off to the external drive just to make room!), what set is it?

If the TV is in full standby then the USB appears to be totally OFF, when in operational/record mode the USB is active. So, when the TV goes into standby - effectively off, I'd like the drives to go into an "OFF" or standby mode which needs to be auto.

I'd risk a medium-sized bet that the drive I bought would do that quite happily... otherwise, get a Passport drive and be sure.

TBH, does it matter? I'd guess the power consumption of the drive when running would be no more than 10W, not worth bothering about (fingers crossed that Sarah isn't reading this ).

TV is a Samsung 8000 series.

The Passport would work but is small enough to get knocked off where I want it and wont look right - so I have been told!. The Elements are a little larger and will sit there just fine.

In reply to a post by MHC:

and wont look right - so I have been told!.

Ah, force majeure... fair enough

In reply to a post by billford:

A nice change was no useless software included with it

Agree totally.

In reply to a post by billford:

and installation instructions that brought a whole new shade of meaning to "minimal"

"Plug in, switch on" ?

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

"Plug in, switch on" ?

With a few pictures, that pretty much covers it. For Mac users there was a separate text box:

Macintosh^®

http://support.wdc.com -> Knowledge Base ID# 287

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

"Plug in, switch on" ?

With a few pictures, that pretty much covers it. For Mac users there was a separate text box:

Macintosh^®

http://support.wdc.com -> Knowledge Base ID# 287

Or... "Call your local Apple Store and ask to speak to a Genius."

I make fun of it, but in all fairness the instructions were probably adequate- "plug in, switch on" is really about all you can do with it.

But in line with MHC's post, some degree of technical/performance specification would have been nice

Even on the WD site there is very little information about their Elements and Passport drives.

I don't quite see the point of them in that sense. Might as well have a NAS solution if it's a static drive, and cloud solution otherwise.

If you are talking about a Mac then there is a big difference (and not only the obvious one of the speed differential). Time Machine tends not to play well with NAS drives; unless you use Apple hardware it works much better (which may mean "it works") with physical drives.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

I don't quite see the point of them in that sense. Might as well have a NAS solution if it's a static drive, and cloud solution otherwise.

But if you only have 1 computer then what's the point of NAS? The drive might just as well be directly connected to the computer.

And, like for like, NAS drives are more expensive than USB connected ones.

No, I was referring to the alternative to carrying around a separate drive which requires its own AC power source. What next for laptop users? A separate screen that requires its own power source?

The mobile world is getting less mobile if users are having to resort to these methods.

If a person only has the one computer (and mobile at that), the odds are the NAS would be a backup / file server solution, and would not be part of the mobile equation. The user takes the needed files, goes mobile, then returns and etc.

Does anybody buy a large 3 1/2 drive like that for use on the move? Surely you would go for a smaller, portable drive (which could run off USB without a power adapter).

I bought a smaller version of that to back up files etc onto when getting a new computer, and as you say, super easy to use!

For my weekly backup etc I like to use them with an on/off switch, and if only that 2TB version had one, I'd get one right away!

In reply to a post by TrishaH:

For my weekly backup etc I like to use them with an on/off switch, and if only that 2TB version had one, I'd get one right away!

As mentioned in this thread I use a remote controlled extension for external drives and other devices that are only wanted occasionally.

For some reason, the link doesn't take me to the thread - any chance you can copy the info please.

How strange, it does for me. No matter the thread referred to me buying and mentioning this device. I continue to use it regularly. It's tucked away round the back of the computer 'hideaway' but as the remote is wireless, not infra-red, that doesn't matter.

The price varies depending on retailer, I got it from Homebase on one of their 15% off everything weekends.

Thank you
When I click the link it tells me 'access denied' and that it may be to do with my computer not accepting cookies ...never had that before, and it does accept cookies - still, thank you for the link to that product.
It looks very useful and will enable me to use any decent external drive! Happy!
I have two drives: LaCie Poulton and Samsung Story (both have Samsung drives I think) - both are working fine and not too old just yet, but I like to replace them every 2-3 years.
Your solution means that once I decide on a new one it doesn't have to have a switch.
Is it OK to plug one of these into a socket on an extension or does it need to be in a wall socket ?

I have mine on one socket of a 10 year old Belkin under monitor SurgeMaster. The Belkin is then plugged into a wall socket.

I have a total of 4 devices on the Energenie so I can pick and choose which one or ones are powered up regardless of whether they have a power switch on the device. Indeed many such devices, even if they have a power switch, are fed by a power 'brick' which is before the switch so always on and drawing current.

Thanks.
I have a Belkin Surgemaster 8 socket, and a couple of those sockets will be freed up if I get one of those Energenie's.
I like how each socket is independently controlled too.

Very helpful

Got a call on Friday afternoon from Dell Customer Service - he had been after me several times during the week but I was always on another call!

As a long term customer who had a problem with a PC repair they wanted to "apologise" and are sending me a 500GB USB3 compatible external drive! A small outline one, but still useful.

For anyone still interested, this Seagate 2TB external drive is coming up as one of Amazon's Black Friday deals at 8:45pm tonight.


edit- 2TB, not 3TB

Edited by billford (Wed 21-Nov-12 11:06:55)

Also this Kingston 240GB SSD, same time.

In reply to a post by billford:

Amazon's Black Friday deals at 8:45pm tonight.

I take it 'Black Friday' refers to the time we all got conned?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Comfort-Cu...

Can get that for about £25 elsewhere.

They seemed relevant to the thread so i posted the links... caveat emptor

I may well be going for one...

My FREE 500GB USB3 drive arrived this morning - Seagate not an unbranded one.

I may do, depends on the price.

In the reviews, someone is asking whether it's Mac-compatible, a (comment) reply says "no"- re-formatting it would invalidate the warranty. Seems a bit odd...


eta- a check on the Seagate site indicated that, as expected, someone didn't know what "re-formatting" meant...

Edited by billford (Wed 21-Nov-12 13:36:51)

Got it

Only 19% off, hoped for more but I'm not complaining.

You have to be fast on some of those deals, several were 100% claimed within 20 seconds of the clock starting.... my long practice at snipe bidding on eBay came in handy

Here it went to 00 seconds and the <Add to Basket> did not appear for about 10 seconds! Clicked immediately but it came back with <Join Waitlist> and every time I do that it says <Checking Deal> before returning <Waitlist Full>

An interesting thread: http://www.amazon.co.uk/forum/deals/ref=cm_cd_ecf_tf...

In reply to a post by MHC:

Here it went to 00 seconds and the <Add to Basket> did not appear for about 10 seconds!

I only had to wait a couple of seconds, I guess it's the luck of the draw as to when the page joins the queue for updating.

Not as much fun as sniping on eBay though

There's quite a lot of graphics on that page too- a slow or congested line, slow computer, lazy browser... there's a lot that can introduce a fatal delay

I use decent but cheap USB2 2.5" caddies and plonk spare drives that I have here in them. Get the aluminium or some other metallic caddie and you can slip it in your back pocket and not worry about damaging it.

My advice is to avoid proprietary boxes from the likes of WD etc.

Does the drive come with a stand so that the drive can be stood on its side? (i.e. the long side)

My external drives all have simple stands that allow them to stand on their sides. I think this is better for more than 1 drive as it allows more ventilation, vertical stacking may give less ventilation.

No, there's no stand, it just lays flat on the desk like the WD, though I think it would be stable enough on its side. I've got them both at the rear of the desk laying flat under the iMac display, they fit there quite conveniently

The Seagate isn't as quiet as the WD, it's far from obtrusive but you can hear when it's spinning.

They've both got their activity LED in a stupid position- on the Seagate it's on top but right at the back, on the WD it's on the rear face next to the connectors, exactly where you can't see it

Edited by billford (Sat 01-Dec-12 22:32:13)

Thanks. Have you stacked them or are they side by side?

I could let you have a small mirror to let you see the WD activity LED

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

Thanks. Have you stacked them or are they side by side?

They're side by side, there isn't quite enough height to stack them, but as it's a 27" display there's plenty of width available.

I could let you have a small mirror to let you see the WD activity LED

I thought about doing a Blue Peter job- knocking up a sort of periscope out of kitchen foil, cardboard and (of course) double sided sticky tape