[Novalug] External harddrive units
Igor Birman
igor_birman@yahoo.com
Sat Mar 7 18:32:02 EST 2009
You could always get an enclosure and put your own drive in, though the reliability of the enclosures is not necessarily any better than anything else. I have a few of these:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=2020-OTB&cat=CBL&cpc=CBLbsc
The adapters work pretty well, but the power supplies they come with aren't too reliable.
We often use an old power supply from a computer to power them and jump them with a paper clip in the power adapter (connect the green and black wires to turn them on - like in this picture: http://www.dansdata.com/images/digidoc/runatx360.jpg)
I want to get one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817147065
But don't know if it will be any more reliable.
All hard drives die, and from what I understand the probability of death is more of a U shape - take a look at section 4.2 of this document:
http://usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder/schroeder_html/index.html
What it shows is that death in the first 6 months is typical, followed by several years of low probability of failure, followed by increased probability after 5-7 years.
Igor
________________________________
From: Nick Danger <nick@hackermonkey.com>
To: novalug@calypso.tux.org
Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2009 6:01:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Novalug] External harddrive units
John Franklin wrote:
> My experience with the USB powered drives has been bad. I have yet to
> find one that is stable. I suspect that part of it is they require the
> full 500mA, if the power is even a little low it'll fail to spin up.
> Another one (the WD, IIRC) had horrible heat problems. It'll run fine,
> go to sleep and not want to wake up. Let it cool down and it's fine again.
Im running two at the moment, and I have a few more at the office. RIght
now i have a SimpleTech Pinnafarina model that is USB powered and its
been working for over a year. I think its the 2.5" laptop drive inside
it. Spends long amounts of time "on", as i don't usually turn this PC
off. I only opened it for the first time today and I didn't even think
to see what brand HD was in it. The second one here at home is a
Acomdata, which has a 3.5" drive and separate power supply. The drive
started clicking about a year ago, thats why I got the smaller faster
SimpleTech one.Even with the click its still functioning fine I just
dont leave it on all the time now.
Hard drive brands are very opinionated. People love or hate certain
brands based on self experience and really I think other then a few
issues like the IBM DeskStors that had recalls, its really hit or miss
with which brands you'll swear by vs which ones you swear at.
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