Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: Rob C on March 17, 2011, 04:06:55 pm
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Hi -
I've reached a point where my C-drive is full and will do no more work for me until I offer it some form of relief!
I already have an Iomega external HD which tells me that it has a capacity of 931 GBs. I have put most of the images living within the computer's C-drive onto this external drive, over time, without doing much to affect its remaining capacity, but I'm reluctant to dump/eliminate the stuff on the C-drive without getting a second backup drive.
Can anyone recommend brands that have proven reliability? The Iomega came to me via a relative, and wasn't a personal purchase made by me on known quality standards. Any suggestions for 'safe' external hard drives?
Thanks -
Rob C
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I have two 1TB of these puppies and you can't get much safer - not really very portable tho...
NewerTech Guardian Maximus Pro (http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Popularity%7c1&Ne=5000&N=6800&Ntt=Guardian)
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Hi Rob. I think any brand can fail any time without warning. Every Seagate internal drive I've had has failed when the weather warmed up. All my external drives are Western Digital and get more than their their fair share of abuse and I've never had problems with them.
Well, that's my 2 cents worth as they say.
Cheers, David
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Can anyone recommend brands that have proven reliability? The Iomega came to me via a relative, and wasn't a personal purchase made by me on known quality standards. Any suggestions for 'safe' external hard drives?
So many possibilities. Since.. you're talking about offloading.. I take that to mean archiving to clear up room for current stuff? I'd consider something like a SATA/USB3.0 docking bay which accepts 2.5 and 3.5 inch bare drives. That way you could check industry failure rate stats and choose the drives you use by failure rate and price, ensuring the best possible choice. And the drives could be stored safely in a drawer, case, etc.
Docking stations are cheap, $30 (http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Docking-Station-LucidPort-chipset/dp/B003UI62AG/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1300401440&sr=1-2) or so. If it breaks you just replace it. Traditional external drives usually fail because their power supply or interface fails. Finding replacement parts years down the line isn't always possible, while a drive remains a drive..
If speed isn't an issue and you want a small size.. consider Western Digital's My Passport Essential SE 1tb for $94 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041OSQ9S/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER) currently on Amazon. No power supplies to fail, with USB3 they're fairly fast (works on USB2 as well), and if the interface card inside fails you'll be stuck removing the drive and putting it in a generic case (about $10).. or a docking station.
In contrast.. a 3.5 inch Western Digital Green 1tb drive which you can use in a docking station is only $54 (http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD10EARS/dp/B002U1N95K/ref=sr_1_22?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1300401234&sr=1-22)..
There are ruggedized drives, small drives, designer drives, multi-bay drives, RAID arrays, and of course NAS drives.. In fact, you might want to give a NAS (network drive) a good look because they're incredibly handy. Not only can anyone on your network back up and store data to one.. but most have FTP capability so you can access/dump files while on the road.
So many choices.. we live in great times.. :)
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Steve has good advice. I use a standard 3.5" with a USB dock for offline backup, and a second one at office (and an internal HDD and Crashplan+ online backup). Brands don't matter, although I've heard enough anecdotal horror stories with Lacie drives that I'm not touching those. Get cheap drives and add redundancy in media (HDDs, online services, does anyone use tape ors DVD anymore?) and location (offline/offsite/online).
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So many possibilities. Since.. you're talking about offloading.. I take that to mean archiving to clear up room for current stuff? I'd consider something like a SATA/USB3.0 docking bay which accepts 2.5 and 3.5 inch bare drives. That way you could check industry failure rate stats and choose the drives you use by failure rate and price, ensuring the best possible choice. And the drives could be stored safely in a drawer, case, etc.
Docking stations are cheap, $30 (http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Docking-Station-LucidPort-chipset/dp/B003UI62AG/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1300401440&sr=1-2) or so. If it breaks you just replace it. Traditional external drives usually fail because their power supply or interface fails. Finding replacement parts years down the line isn't always possible, while a drive remains a drive..
If speed isn't an issue and you want a small size.. consider Western Digital's My Passport Essential SE 1tb for $94 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041OSQ9S/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER) currently on Amazon. No power supplies to fail, with USB3 they're fairly fast (works on USB2 as well), and if the interface card inside fails you'll be stuck removing the drive and putting it in a generic case (about $10).. or a docking station.
In contrast.. a 3.5 inch Western Digital Green 1tb drive which you can use in a docking station is only $54 (http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD10EARS/dp/B002U1N95K/ref=sr_1_22?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1300401234&sr=1-22)..
There are ruggedized drives, small drives, designer drives, multi-bay drives, RAID arrays, and of course NAS drives.. In fact, you might want to give a NAS (network drive) a good look because they're incredibly handy. Not only can anyone on your network back up and store data to one.. but most have FTP capability so you can access/dump files while on the road.
So many choices.. we live in great times.. :)
Don't know if the smaller passport wd's do it bu the larger MyBook drives create "drive" that contains the backup software on your computer. It shows up as an actual drive...and its hard as heck to get rid of. Lots of articles about this if you google. I used to use the Mybook drives but they are now off my list. Too bad, I've had good luck with them.
+1 on the docking stations...I have the Thermaltake and its a nice piece.
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I agree about the docking stations. They're cheap and easy to replace when they go bad.
My suggestion is to buy two docking stations (Thermaltake is good, and so are many others), and then buy two internal drives by different manufacturers.
I have a flock of external drives (mostly in docks), including Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Hitachi, and Maxtor (and probably a couple of others). None of these brands have failed significantly more than others in my experience, but if a particular drive has a design defect, then a similar one by a different maker is not likely to have the same design defect.
Eric
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Don't know if the smaller passport wd's do it bu the larger MyBook drives create "drive" that contains the backup software on your computer. It shows up as an actual drive...and its hard as heck to get rid of. Lots of articles about this if you google. I used to use the Mybook drives but they are now off my list. Too bad, I've had good luck with them.
+1 on the docking stations...I have the Thermaltake and its a nice piece.
Yes, the small WD Passport Essential SE contains backup and encryption software which is pretty cool. I don't use the backup software myself, but I tested it when I wrote this short review (http://www.bangkokimages.com/Articles/Equipment/entryid/830/Western-Digital-My-Passport-Essential-SE-A-Review.aspx). It's involves one of my only complaints with the drive. The drive installs and operates as an external drive flawlessly just by connecting it. But to install the special driver/utility software, you need to navigate to a folder WD puts on the drive and install a second driver there. The documentation didn't say where to get the second driver or that it was on the drive.. so I spent a few minutes on their site tracking it down. Once installed it automatically keeps track of the entire drive or just designated folders and backs up automatically. A nice feature if you need it.
What issues did you have with the Mybook? Personally I think all powered external drives are in the same boat.. they require external power supplies and SATA/USB/FW interface cards and how well they operate depends on the firmware, and how long they operate depends on the quality of components.. power supplies especially need to be well made but are often made cheaply to lower costs. You get batches of good ones made by one supplier with one set of firmware, and the next one you get by another supplier with another version of firmware.. All of them use industry standard 3.5 inch drives which have average failure rates and usually aren't a problem. I've learned to hate this type (external powered) of drive for this reason, and I don't like the eventual collection of big cases and power bricks. Though I think multi-bay higher end drives like the Drobo are in another class entirely.
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A docking station for plain hard drives workes fine: http://www.sharkoon.com/?q=en/node/1277
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Thanks for the generous replies!
I'd never even heard of a docking station beyond the space kind... sometimes not knowing these things are around can be beneficial: you are not aware of how endless the chain of expense really is. Why do boats come to mind?
But, now that innocence has fled and I know where babies come from, it's time to actually get something to do the job.
Thanks again, folks, some valuable resource we have in LuLa!
Rob C
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…Brands don't matter, although I've heard enough anecdotal horror stories with Lacie drives that I'm not touching those.…
I've personally seen so many defective Lacie drives that I would not use one even if it was free.
Lately, even the customer service has been beyond appalling. A customer of mine had his Lacie drive sent in for repair. After more than two months he finally received a replacement drive. The exterior was duty and scratched, the drive itself was also defective.
So the message is clear, stay away from Lacie!
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What issues did you have with the Mybook? Personally I think all powered external drives are in the same boat.. they require external power supplies and SATA/USB/FW interface cards and how well they operate depends on the firmware, and how long they operate depends on the quality of components.. power supplies especially need to be well made but are often made cheaply to lower costs. You get batches of good ones made by one supplier with one set of firmware, and the next one you get by another supplier with another version of firmware.. All of them use industry standard 3.5 inch drives which have average failure rates and usually aren't a problem. I've learned to hate this type (external powered) of drive for this reason, and I don't like the eventual collection of big cases and power bricks. Though I think multi-bay higher end drives like the Drobo are in another class entirely.
My only issue is the install of the "smartdrive" by the mybook. It shows up as an additional "drive", a virtual cd, on my system and you can't make it go away as long as the MyBook is attached to your system. Even if you format the MyBook the smartdrive remains. You simply can't get the storage space it takes up on the drive back without a hardware hack.
I've got a bunch of these drives, older versions, with backups and backups of backups. I agree that the enclosures and power bricks are a mess when you have a bunch.
The dock greatly reduces the problem and the extra cost and is a great solution.
But I'm considering a NAS now that we are cross platform here. Considering Freenas on an unused workstation box or perhaps a commercial solution. I need to do more research.
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My only issue is the install of the "smartdrive" by the mybook. It shows up as an additional "drive", a virtual cd, on my system and you can't make it go away as long as the MyBook is attached to your system. Even if you format the MyBook the smartdrive remains. You simply can't get the storage space it takes up on the drive back without a hardware hack.
I've got a bunch of these drives, older versions, with backups and backups of backups. I agree that the enclosures and power bricks are a mess when you have a bunch.
The dock greatly reduces the problem and the extra cost and is a great solution.
But I'm considering a NAS now that we are cross platform here. Considering Freenas on an unused workstation box or perhaps a commercial solution. I need to do more research.
Interesting.. Did it allow you to do a low level format? Many have forgot how to do this since Fdisk went the way of the Dodo.. or so people think. It's still there and there are some Fdisk utilities available too. Let me know if you can't find one..
NAS's are incredibly useful. You forget they're there. I have two 4tb NAS's which also provide FTP function sitting in my office next to my router/modem/switch.. and (at least with Windows) once you map the network drive and name it.. it appears in Windows Explorer like any other drive in your system and is handled the same way re: file transfers. Starting with Vista it even remembers the passwords, starting with Win7 it remembers individual passwords if you have more than one NAS.
Mine weren't expensive.. they started out as 500gb (2x250gb) way back when.. but I bought them because the power supplies were huge bricks and by my estimate were providing 5x more power than the unit needed.. and they were small with their own internal fan. Since I've upgraded the drives several times. You can RAID them, but I just JOB them since everything on them is redundant anyway. The only thing that sucks it the 20mbps transfer speed even with a giganetwork..
WD had a 4tb model with 50mbps+ speeds which seemed a bargain..
When my current NAS's need to be replaced I'll shell out for a Drobo NAS.. and use them more for permanent storage.
I use Norton Ghost 15 for all my PC's and laptops.. and they're all set up to back up to the NAS's automatically. You never have to think about it.. it just gets done.
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FDISK was never really a tool to low-level format drives. Just a partitioning tool. But that's true that people who partitioned drives were often aware of the differences between standard format and "low-level format" (which, since IDE/ATA drives came up with embedded servo information, isn't a "low level format" anyway, just zero - or special character - rewrites)
On today's Windows systems, you can find DISKPART. DISKPART can actually do an awful number of useful things, although I wouldn' recommend its use to a normal user.
DISKPART> ?
Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7600
ACTIVE - Mark the selected partition as active.
ADD - Add a mirror to a simple volume.
ASSIGN - Assign a drive letter or mount point to the selected volume.
ATTRIBUTES - Manipulate volume or disk attributes.
ATTACH - Attaches a virtual disk file.
AUTOMOUNT - Enable and disable automatic mounting of basic volumes.
BREAK - Break a mirror set.
CLEAN - Clear the configuration information, or all information, off the
disk.
COMPACT - Attempts to reduce the physical size of the file.
CONVERT - Convert between different disk formats.
CREATE - Create a volume, partition or virtual disk.
DELETE - Delete an object.
DETAIL - Provide details about an object.
DETACH - Detaches a virtual disk file.
EXIT - Exit DiskPart.
EXTEND - Extend a volume.
EXPAND - Expands the maximum size available on a virtual disk.
FILESYSTEMS - Display current and supported file systems on the volume.
FORMAT - Format the volume or partition.
GPT - Assign attributes to the selected GPT partition.
HELP - Display a list of commands.
IMPORT - Import a disk group.
INACTIVE - Mark the selected partition as inactive.
LIST - Display a list of objects.
MERGE - Merges a child disk with its parents.
ONLINE - Online an object that is currently marked as offline.
OFFLINE - Offline an object that is currently marked as online.
RECOVER - Refreshes the state of all disks in the selected pack.
Attempts recovery on disks in the invalid pack, and
resynchronizes mirrored volumes and RAID5 volumes
that have stale plex or parity data.
REM - Does nothing. This is used to comment scripts.
REMOVE - Remove a drive letter or mount point assignment.
REPAIR - Repair a RAID-5 volume with a failed member.
RESCAN - Rescan the computer looking for disks and volumes.
RETAIN - Place a retained partition under a simple volume.
SAN - Display or set the SAN policy for the currently booted OS.
SELECT - Shift the focus to an object.
SETID - Change the partition type.
SHRINK - Reduce the size of the selected volume.
UNIQUEID - Displays or sets the GUID partition table (GPT) identifier or
master boot record (MBR) signature of a disk.
DISKPART>
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FDISK was never really a tool to low-level format drives.
Good information. Thanks!
I don't use it much, but I found that when certain disk enclosures, NAS enclosures, etc.. won't recognize anything but a brand new unactivated drive.. that Fdisk allows you to reset a used disk to a 'new' state that they'll then recognize.
I'm sure this would get rid of Craig's unwanted driver.. but I'm not sure his enclosure interface would then recognize the drive. I suspect it would.. but perhaps it won't.. :)
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For Windows, diskmgmt.msc puts a warm fuzzy gui on diskpart.
On the WD MyBooks, that nasty virtual CD-ROM driver (WD calls it "smartware") is in the firmware, the best you can do is hide the CD, - so much for WD MyBooks.....
http://wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/
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diskmgmt.msc - yes, to some extent. But it can't do everything - for example, some types of "exotic" partitioning scheme will be resistant in the GUI and will surrender to Diskpart. I have seen many cases of people stuck with EFI partitions they couldn't delete with the GUI but cleaned with Diskpart itself. The same is valid for some diagnostic/hidden partitions.
There are a dozen of catches, specific system restrictions, etc. The official hierarchy is as follows
Diskpart.efi Disk Partition Tool -> access to ESP MSR Data
Diskpart.exe Disk Partition Tool -> access to ESP MSR Data
Diskmgmt.msc Logical Disk Manager -> access to ESP Data
Explorer.exe File Explorer -> access to Data
As far as the WD "smartware" is concerned, I had no problems getting rid of mine to create "clean" disks. It may have changed though, but when I last looked at it (mid 2010 I think)it was simply a "hidden" partition.
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As far as the WD "smartware" is concerned, I had no problems getting rid of mine to create "clean" disks. It may have changed though, but when I last looked at it (mid 2010 I think)it was simply a "hidden" partition.
I'm not sure how diskpart's advanced abilities are relevant here, but ok....
The VCD is built into the firmware of the drive and can not be eliminated, only hidden - this has nothing to do with partitions on the drive itself. WD has an update that allows you to hide (but not eliminate) the VCD. You'll need to run this on a windows machine, afterwords the drive can be used and prepared for any platform.
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Diskpart definitely allows you to get rid of it, and regain the (small) space allocated to it. At least, as I said, in the models I purchased in 2010. WD may have moved it into the firmware now, after all, the boundaries are disappearing. The "patch" I have seen (again, that was about a year ago) simply allowed the system to "ignore" that partition.
Which exact model do you have?
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Please provide details on how you accomplish this
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It's fairly easy, but can be dangerous if you mistype a command, select the wrong drive or partition. I would have been glad to provided more specific instructions, had you told me the exact type of drive/enclosure you have been using. Here's an example, using the WD "book" is used for the backup of one of my Macbooks. As I have said above and as a quick googling session has shown, all the WD drives I have encountered with smartware had a hidden "unerasable" partition. At this point, I am not claiming it is the case with recent drives as I don't have one at hand. Conceivably, the new ones could contain 1GB of flash, mount that as a partition or restore the partition on the hard drive automatically from that backup. But I have seen no proof of that either, as most of the feedback on the topic on the net is from people who are definitely not familiar with low level disk stuff. You could start by looking at what diskpart tells you about your drive and its partitions. SEVERE WARNING: changing anything you aren't 100% comfortable with can definitely lead to significant data loss for the average user.
Step 1: there is an invisible partition I want to get rid of - as you can see, the management interface won't do anything with it.
(http://www.datarescue.com/diskpart/step1.jpg)
step 2: using diskpart, I list the disks, select the one I need to work with, then select the partition and delete it using diskpart. The interface refreshes itself and at that point I could play around a bit more, doing more complex stuff. You'd use a similar process to get rid of any other unwanted partition.
(http://www.datarescue.com/diskpart/step2.jpg)
step 3: still using dispart, I clean _all_ data from the drive - just for fun ;-0. Again, the interface immediately reflects the change.
(http://www.datarescue.com/diskpart/step3.jpg)
And, of course, one can easily check, using a disk editor that, among other things, the first sector of the drive is indeed as virgin as can be.
(http://www.datarescue.com/diskpart/step4.jpg)
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Thats what I would expect to see in older WD MyBook Models. As I've stated the current models VCD is in firmware, here is a 1TB model puchased Feb 2010:
(http://imagesbymurray.com/images/stories/upload/lula/diskmgmt.png)
(http://imagesbymurray.com/images/stories/upload/lula/diskpart.png)
My problem is not so much the lost disk space, as you've demonstrated with the older models, it is more the addition of an uneeded / wanted "device" in my environment. The controllers use an off the shelf Oxford Controller (http://www.plxtech.com/products/consumer/oxuf934dsa), with an 256kx8 Flash Chip. I suspect the device code is here, as I've substituted a different drive and still saw the VCD. All 6 MyBook drives that I purchased are relegated (as shown above) to backup duties.....
Finally, if you do choose to use diskpart as you've shown, you need to be carefull to set the proper offset to correctly match the underlying sectors:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa995867(EXCHG.65).aspx
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I have been extremely happy with Lacie hard drives. Their warranty is superb. All hard drives will fail, sooner or later. A Lacie failed after 4 years (with a 3 year warranty) and they replaced it. Service is impeccable!
Alan
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Thanks. Interesting - I think I found the one I cleaned of its 600mb smartware partition. Obviously, it isn't there since it is clean :-0 - I'll purchase one of the recent ones just to check.
WD My Book USB Device
Disk ID: A8A024F7
Type : USB
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : UNAVAILABLE
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No
Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 4 E RAW Partition 931 GB Healthy
I wouldn't advise to use Diskpart to align partitions, at least to the normal users, as the needs differ for different OSes and different physical sector sizes.
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Well, amazing the thread that springs from an innocent question!
I've resolved my problem and bought myself an Iomega eGo Portable hard Drive of only 500GB insted of the larger unit I'd been thinking about. The reason? I discovered that my entire C-Drive would fit twice within the 500GB, so safety in mumbers, I guess; I've now got everything on two separate external drives. Unlike the bigger Iomega I have, it takes its power from the USB 2 port without need for an external power source.
Hope I sleep better. No, Fate, definitely not tempting you!
;-)
Thanks again, guys.
Rob C
PS The computer shop man insists that there are few actual makers of the internals, that much is just different brand packaging of the same internal product within different bodies.
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Haven't bought any external drives for a while now. Try and keep them internal where possible as SATA is so much faster. But I've bought a lot over the years.
Recommended:
G-Tech (super fast super well made super reliable)
Western Digital Mybook (I've owned 12 of these and not had one fail)
Drives I would never go near again:
Lacie (really bad)
Seagate
Maxtor
Iomega
I do use an eSata Dock now for backing up. It's cheap effective and simple.
http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/External-Hard-Drives/Hard-Drive-Docks/sc883/p864.aspx
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Haven't bought any external drives for a while now. Try and keep them internal where possible as SATA is so much faster. But I've bought a lot over the years.
Recommended:
G-Tech (super fast super well made super reliable)
Western Digital Mybook (I've owned 12 of these and not had one fail)
Drives I would never go near again:
Lacie (really bad)
Seagate
Maxtor
Iomega
I do use an eSata Dock now for backing up. It's cheap effective and simple.
http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/External-Hard-Drives/Hard-Drive-Docks/sc883/p864.aspx
Speed is not really an issue for overnight backups unless we're talking several terabytes.
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Ok cool. Just any standard connections will do fine. But those Sata drive docks are really cheap and mine has a quad interface so it's just a case of using what's available. Bare sata drives themselves in 1tb or 2tb are so cheap too these days.
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Ok cool. Just any standard connections will do fine. But those Sata drive docks are really cheap and mine has a quad interface so it's just a case of using what's available. Bare sata drives themselves in 1tb or 2tb are so cheap too these days.
Is that the Newertech dock? I've been using one for two pairs of drives that I swap between the computer and a safe deposit box. It can take both 3.5" and 2.5" SATA drives.
To give you an idea of my level of paranoia, I have five copies of everything, bootable backups and image files being on separate drives. There's an internal backup for each drive, as well as a two drive firewire enclosure, and the bare drive archives. The firewire drive and dock are only powered up for copying. In "Where's my #&*# Pictures", Seth Resnick describes an incident he experienced where a motherboard failure took down every drive in his LAN. If not for an off line drive, he would have lost everything. Years ago I had a failure that wiped out only a few files, but they can never be duplicated. Never again. I also have an external drive with my image library on it for use with my laptop.
Personally. I'm not a big fan of proprietary backup/raid/NAS solutions and prefer to build my own boxes and use software backup solutions(SuperDuper in my case). Most proprietary devices put files on the drives that render the drives useless if the board in the box goes south. In my system I can take any backup/archive drive and install it in any machine, and be up and running in minutes.
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To give you an idea of my level of paranoia, I have five copies of everything, bootable backups and image files being on separate drives.
You're not backed up until you have at least one off-site backup. All it takes is theft, fire or water damage to ruin even the most elaborate on-site backup system. It's not mentioned whether you're doing it, just stoking that paranoia fire :)
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You're not backed up until you have at least one off-site backup. All it takes is theft, fire or water damage to ruin even the most elaborate on-site backup system. It's not mentioned whether you're doing it, just stoking that paranoia fire :)
Hens the two drives rotated to the safe deposit box, and the portable that is always with me when away.
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Does anyone here use an external drive other than Sata?
I have a Sata drive connected over eSata cable, so my connection is quite fast; but looking at my other needs, I am trying to get a drive that is large(larger) in capacity--yet enterprise in quality. Enterprise 2TB Sata drives are ~300 on Newegg. Is anyone here using a single SCSI drive or so? SCSI as I understand it is more reliable then even enterprise Sata...