External Hard Drives

Archibald wrote in post #17594746
They go to sleep when not in use.

Not if you're a fileserver in a data center or enterprise environment - no time to sleep.

chantu wrote in post #17594753
Not if you're a fileserver in a data center or enterprise environment - no time to sleep.

That's why those drives usually have higher MTBF and are in RAID arrays

Archibald wrote in post #17594746
They go to sleep when not in use.

Yep !

chantu wrote in post #17594753
Not if you're a fileserver in a data center or enterprise environment - no time to sleep.

I do not think that the TS is in this case ... at all

What's a TS?

chantu wrote in post #17594720
Enterprise drives carry longer warranty's; hence the higher costs to guarantee the longer MTBF. If Backblaze wants to cut corners to save a few dollars, so be it. I'm not sure if one would want to keep mission-critical data on a disk drive screaming along 24/7.

That being said, the enterprise HD could fail tomorrow, and the consumer-grade could last for years on end. It's your data to "roll the dice"

Backblaze had a statement on the topic of enterprise vs. consumer drives, which ZDNet included in an article in Sept 2014

"All the drives are 'consumer grade' rather than 'enterprise' drives, because enterprise drives are more than twice the price.
Backblaze says: 'Even if there were no warranty, a 15 percent annual failure rate on the consumer 'desktop' drive and a 0 percent failure rate on the 'enterprise' drive, the breakeven would be 10 years, which is longer than we expect to even run the drives for.'"

chantu wrote in post #17595065
What's a TS?

Thread Starter as it's written in red under it's nickname here >> https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17584886

Reservoir Dog wrote in post #17596125
Thread Starter as it's written in red under its nickname here >> https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17584886

Very clever, but it is clearer when acronyms are avoided.

Archibald wrote in post #17596157
Very clever, but it is clearer when acronyms are avoided.

I agree, as a matter of fact, i started to use many acronyms on this forum (bad influence)

Thank you for all the great responses.....having computer issues so it's taken me this long to get back here!!!
Lots of information, appreciate everyone taking the time to write......off to go read up!!

I have a 500gb Toshiba portable, works fine after 2 years. I am getting a 3TB for $120 now.
I used to keep USB drives at the safe in the bank, but see no use for them as my laptop has an SD slot.
SDs are dual use in cameras, so no more CDs/DVDs, USBs for me!

Also, this M$ OneDrive keeps bugging me to sign in, so maybe I will use the Cloud as well.

Wilt wrote in post #17582398
Many times, the so-called 'external hard drives' which you buy with Western Digital, Seagate, etc. name brands on them actually contain inferior support electronics (the USB interface itself or the power supply fails) yet the actually storage unit is perfectly fine! In such cases, if you break into the enclosure and extract the harddrive, you can put the harddrive into a 'USB docking station' like these...

http://www.amazon.com …fRID=0268QKMNE5​8C8X1X1TPA

http://www.amazon.com …ds=harddrive+do​ck+station

...and get access to all the data stored in the supposedly bad external hard drive. Just because it has a recognized quality harddrive within the enclosure is no guarantee that the same manufacturer puts quality electronics into the external enclosure, which serves only the purpose of increasing their harddrive sales volume for them! I had to use a hacksaw to sufficiently break open a WD enclosure which had failed, and inserting the WD harddrive into a USB docking unit got me access to all the data.

Such docking stations are also usable in place of the permanent external enclosures associated with most 'external hard drive'. So you could insert Harddrive X to make a Windows 7 system image, insert Harddrive Y whenenever you do postprocessing on photo files, insert Harddrive Z when you wish to duplicate important files for data insurance, using one docking unit.

Hmm, after reading this I'm not sure I agree. While I don't doubt this could have happened, the post suggests that the external USB electronics is LESS reliable that the actual HD itself. The USB electronics is just a few off-the-shelf components whereas the HD has some very complex DSP electronics to eek out every last bit on the disk platter, plus the disk drive itself is screaming along at 5400 or more RPM and the drive head whizzing along like a turntable on steroids. From this perspective, I would think the HD fails before the USB electronics.

That being said I not saying NOT to get an external HD enclosure; it just probably is not giving you anymore reliability than getting the all-in-one drive.

- I love the docking hard drive stations, been using one or more for some time. My first one was E-Sata, but USB 3 is pretty fast!

- There used to be EXACTLY what the OP described (removable magnetic cartridge storage, no motor in cartridge) in the old days, It was called a Jazz Drive.
1GB, and we thought that was HUGE. SCSI only

Hard drives are generally the first things to fail, for many of the reasons you mentioned. They are one of very few mechanical parts inside of a PC. Moving parts generally fail first. The problem with a lot of portable drives is not simple circuits themselves failing, but wiring/connections becoming loose from frequent plugging/unplugging of USB (and potentially power) cords. While not mechanical per se, the forces we exert on external drives leads to failure. I've been in the same boat multiple times with external drives failing because of connectors primarily.

chantu wrote in post #17676563
Hmm, after reading this I'm not sure I agree. While I don't doubt this could have happened, the post suggests that the external USB electronics is LESS reliable that the actual HD itself. The USB electronics is just a few off-the-shelf components whereas the HD has some very complex DSP electronics to eek out every last bit on the disk platter, plus the disk drive itself is screaming along at 5400 or more RPM and the drive head whizzing along like a turntable on steroids. From this perspective, I would think the HD fails before the USB electronics.

That being said I not saying NOT to get an external HD enclosure; it just probably is not giving you anymore reliability than getting the all-in-one drive.

If you carefully re-read my post, which you replied to, that is EXACTLY what I was saying...that the USB support electronics within the external case has failed, yet the harddrive contained within that same external case is just fine!

So extraction of the still-good harddrive from the external cas, and insertion of that harddrive unit into a docking station, will often provide access to that data that is stored within that harddrive.