USB Hard Drive GOTCHA !! :(

[dante]

I had a 1 TB Western Digital drive powered up permenantly and didnt realise it didnt power itself down when the laptop shutdown. Or even if disconnected from the laptop USB port.

So after a year it crashed (Ive replaced it with a SeaGate 1TB). Im assuming the WD crashed because it was powered 24/7 and the motor, or the mechanics, just wore out.

So question : Are these drives designed to be permenantly powered up ? If not, then Im wondering why the hell they dont have a on/off switch at the front (the only way to power them down is by removing the power cable ) ?

My smaller 200GB USB drives all power down when host turns off of course because they are powered by the USB bus.

But seems to me dumb that these 1 TB bricks have no on/off mechanism (auto when USB connection ceases or manual).

[valis]

My experience with external drives, especially inexpensive ones (versus paying for Glyph/Promise/Lacie etc RAID models that trend closer towards the $1k mark) is that the enclosures are the most typical part to fail. You can confirm if the internal drive still works by pulling it and sticking it inside the PC as a normal drive and see if it still works.

WD drives specifically tend to use the same exact drive as their 'Green' or 'Blue' internal models, which do aggressively power down and the enclosures also aggressively power down (spin the internal drive down) even when they remain 'available' to the OS in my experience. USB has power saving mechanisms, though your OS power profiles will have an effect here (as will putting them on a USB bus with other devices that can't enter the same power/disconnect states so be aware of what is on what bus).

[spacef]

I've bought some WD hardrives for the synology at work, it's a server that is never powered down.
The WD are specific HD approvbed by synology, and they are around 200 euros each for 2TB (twice the price of the same WD in a "regular" version). Only one of them is a standard Green that i've put there for backups and without raid, but it is also apporved by synology so i hope it will be fine. So you need server HD if you never switch them off, and these are expensive. Check the synology compatibility list because it is the type of disk you're looking for (or other servers compatibility list or advised hardware).

[dante]

Ive just tested the Seagate, it does actually power down a minute or so after the laptop powers down.

The problem may have been that with the WD, that I often left the laptop in 'sleep' mode all night so the WD was kept spun up.

But I will also try extracting the drive from enclosure to see if I can still get any 'unbacked' data off it.

Ill keep synology in mind next time I buy one thanks.

[spacef]

less expensive would be a hard drive case with a power switch. they often come with various connections (us/sata) etc...
what was your external hd exactly? i find them very noisy so i can't imagine leaving them on all the time without going mad

[jksuperstar]

WD drives specifically tend to use the same exact drive as their 'Green' or 'Blue' internal models, which do aggressively power down and the enclosures also aggressively power down (spin the internal drive down) even when they remain 'available' to the OS in my experience. USB has power saving mechanisms, though your OS power profiles will have an effect here (as will putting them on a USB bus with other devices that can't enter the same power/disconnect states so be aware of what is on what bus).

Exactly.

I can tell you the portable drives are the same as the Green or Blue drives, and have been very aggressive about saving power where possible, unless the host (which to the drive can be the enclosure) tells the drive not to. 1 year of spin time is quite normal, and you shouldn't see a failure. Definitely pull the drive and try direct connection or another enclosure.

[jksuperstar]

If it was a mechanical failure, you'd most likely hear it try to spin up, maybe some grinding noise, and if it couldn't get to speed (due to bad spindle motor or crashed head) it would still be alive enough to flag the computer via SMART
that it had problems. There are diagnostic tools available from WD...they probably came with the drive or can be downloaded.

[astroman]

I always keep my drives spinning, but I don't use any in external housings.
Imho power saving (spin up-down) wears them out faster.
The case may bear some risk of overheating, tho...

cheers, Tom

[valis]

I always keep my drives spinning, but I don't use any in external housings.
Imho power saving (spin up-down) wears them out faster.
The case may bear some risk of overheating, tho...

cheers, Tom

I agree that spin up/down seems to be the biggest wear on drives, though in my experience I've never seen a mechanical failure (they do happen), it's usually the pcb board/chipset that fails on the drive itself.

Fwiw we use a ton of the newer model Lacie Rugged drives at work and they seem to be up to the name they're given, and are high performance to boot (I use FW800 with them not USB). You're probably not stateside but the better drives you can purchase from OWC seem up to snuff too.

[spacef]

Lacie is a good brand, but mine finally died after 5/6 years (it did not boot the last time i plugged it in). It is a seagate inside.
My other best drive is a Freecom firewire+usb: the firewire is not useable after 2 / 3 years (in fact it is the power supply that died, not the firewire connection) , and i now use the powered USB connection for a year and i'm impressed this little thing still works as if it was new.
External cases are not all the same. I am happy with my icibox and the cooler master one, eventhough as i plug/unplug them often, one of the cooler master died (there was usb going to 1 pc, and e-sata going to another pc, switching the connection type switched the pc it is plugged in... but after a few months, the case was not working anymore, the disk works perfect, it is in the icybox case). at work they have a mac X-serve server, the drives are still working fine after all those years (10 years may be more? not too sure when those x-servers were still made)... not exactly a portable device, but some hard drives are very solid indeed.
well, anyway, any hard drives will die even of natural death, that's something that cannot not happen. when it is not the mechanical parts, it is the cells (ssd)... are the consumer models really meant to last a long time anyway? . the only protection against that is to make backups and backups of backups for when of one of the backup drive dies

[Mr Arkadin]

Working with Avids a lot these days I have found that Lacies do some odd things like power down when you haven't told them to and this is with the environment options switched off. The Avid recommended Avastor drives seem very robust for video, so should be great for audio.

Hey, and they do a beer bottle opener that's also a USB stick.

[dawman]

I was going to save the Planet by going external USB, but having sample streaming was a higher priority.
So my kids can pay down the DC elites bills again for them, and save the Planet.
I plan on hanging with whoever runs Hell, becasue I hear some mighty fine trim ends up there.

[dante]

Its is indeed a WD Caviar Green, as I took it out of enclusre and used SATA Adapter Kit to power it up and connect to laptop, so I can hear the motor spinning and laptop recognises it, then I installed the diag and it says SMART Status is 'Not Available' :

wd_test

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The QUICK TEST passed, but the EXTENDED TEST will take 9 hours, so Ill run it over the weekend.

I dont give much hope though due to the 'Not Available' status, even if the test passes, cant see that it will bring it back online.

[valis]

SATA Adapter Kit means a usb adapter of some kind? I would guess that's why you're not getting the SMART Status, the adapter probably isn't reporting it (able to poll the smart via whatever chipset it uses). Are you able to access the drive or see anything in Disk Management under Computer Management (in Administrative Tools)?

[dante]

On the kit its says IDE / SATA / to USB 2.0 ADAPTOR.

Computer Management => Disk Management lists its status as 'Healthy' - but the 'My Computer' window with the F: drive listed in it is frozen.

usb-drive

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[YISH313z]

Your file system type does not show as well...hmm.

[dante]

Yeah, I did a 'quick format' and now I can access it. Must have been screwed up sectors

Im not gonna use it again though as I dont trust it. Ill continue w/ the replacement Seagate.

[valis]

Screwed up sectors is unlikely as that's lower level than the file system, it was probably just a screwed up file system/NTFS MFT (master file table) corruption. Honestly this is almost surely the result of the USB enclosure's failure again, what I would do is use the drive for nonessential data (movies that you will watch & delete, large downloads, temporary files etc) and just monitor its health over time. If it doesn't crap out in a few months it's probably fine.

[dante]

Well, in retrospect I probably should have used a disk doctor to fix the file system.

[Neutron]

WD and Seagate both have "server" level drives which are much more reliable. they usually cost a little more.

the external box might be a bit crap though, they should be shut downable if not used after a certain amount of time, just like an internal one.