Author Topic: external HD question (Read 8504 times)

Mikan · « **on:** October 14, 2009, 02:50:15 PM »

I got another Hammer Morespace 1TB and today after i transferred more anime onto it my O-R folder and the new shows I added the folders where all empty. When I tried to Error check the disk it kept giving me an error saying it couldn't check anything. I tried calling hammers technical support line and it was horrible, 1 weird lady who couldn't help me.

Takeshi · « **Reply #1 on:** October 14, 2009, 06:04:45 PM »

I assume it's only been days since you bought. Try having it search for errors. Try re-formatting it the long way. Which file system are you using on it? Try changing it?

Mikan · « **Reply #2 on:** October 14, 2009, 06:12:47 PM »

A week actually, Havent cared to open it yet since I didnt need it. its in NTSF

I have 650gb of stuff on there :/ re formatting will be my last option. on phase 2 of error check it says "Windows was unable to complete check"

Takeshi · « **Reply #3 on:** October 14, 2009, 07:00:49 PM »

Being new it should work perfectly.

I say keep phoning them down, find a way to backup your stuff since it's likely to go to repair. There's three ways to check your harddrive.

Right click on it, click Properties, click functions, there's should be a tool which can search for errors. Now you can either check them all, check one of them, or check none, two will be able to do the check while the computer is on, while one of them will do it while restarting.

^Have you tried all of them?

Get a Western Digital next time, lots of people on BakaBT have been satisfied with them. I haven't had any problems with my WD Elements 1TB.

Mikan · « **Reply #4 on:** October 14, 2009, 07:06:49 PM »

I got it, Ripped out the hdd and threw it in a spare case and it works fine. Turns out hammer uses fairly, Average hdd's (Hitachi, Which is what HP uses so meh) I guess I overkilled something on the board. Seems I always do that :/ (This would be the second time) It happened to my seagate too. Its really noisy though in the new case.

*For anyone looking into hammer products, just DONT. tech support is ONE i repeat ONE person! you wont go in circles, just rather usually come to a dead end. Im sticking with Calvary. Western Digital is to expensive for me unless its on sale, and Calvary uses WD drives anyways :]

K7IA · « **Reply #5 on:** October 14, 2009, 07:15:59 PM »

You disassembled your 1 week old external hdd, that's cool

by the way, yes most HDDs are reliable, the usb-sata electronics just give up to quickly.

I did the same to my WD passport sometime ago, it was annoying me with IO errors, it runs perfect as an internal hdd

shadowmaniac · « **Reply #6 on:** October 14, 2009, 07:27:30 PM »

Newegg has 1TB WD Element for $100 (regular price + FS) and if you watch their deals, you can usually get it about $70-90 + FS.
I have 3 1TB MyBook and 1 1TB Element and have had no problem so far (newest one is 3+month old and oldest one is 13+month old) only thing I hate about those big capacity disks is the time it takes to format/reformat them and the blue neon lights from the MyBooks.

Takeshi · « **Reply #7 on:** October 14, 2009, 07:33:09 PM »

shadowmaniac, why would you re-format them? I usually just go the express way, is it much better to do the long one?

Mikan · « **Reply #8 on:** October 14, 2009, 07:48:25 PM »

I have a 3 256GB solid state but I dont know what to use them for -.-

I guess quick format will be better for a new hdd, but the longer one better for one with data?

shadowmaniac · « **Reply #9 on:** October 14, 2009, 07:49:43 PM »

I only reformat them as most of the drives I bought came with FAT32. As for quick vs full format, quote from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686:

Quote

When you choose to run a regular format on a volume, files are removed from the volume that you are formatting and the hard disk is scanned for bad sectors. The scan for bad sectors is responsible for the majority of the time that it takes to format a volume.

If you choose the Quick format option, format removes files from the partition, but does not scan the disk for bad sectors. Only use this option if your hard disk has been previously formatted and you are sure that your hard disk is not damaged.

Most ppl use SSD drives to "host" their OS and any other applications that they use often and/or online games as it provides *MUCH* faster read/write times than "ordinary" HDDs.
I suggest you keep one of those drives and sell the other 2. With that money, you can go and buy 3-5 external 1TB HDDs.

Takeshi · « **Reply #10 on:** October 14, 2009, 08:37:44 PM »

Some time ago I tried re-formatting using the regular one when I was installing XP. The installation stopped because my HDD either got too warm or because the formatting hit a bad sector.

It's just.. it takes sooo looong with regular re-format, especially if you've got a 1TB.

SomeoneElse · « **Reply #11 on:** October 14, 2009, 10:03:55 PM »

Quote from: shadowmaniac on October 14, 2009, 07:49:43 PM

Most ppl use SSD drives to "host" their OS and any other applications that they use often and/or online games as it provides *MUCH* faster read/write times than "ordinary" HDDs.
I suggest you keep one of those drives and sell the other 2. With that money, you can go and buy 3-5 external 1TB HDDs.

Wat??? nono... you want to do a RAID 5 array.... trust me, this is especially true since SSD drives are more prone to data loss due to limited write cycles of about 1000-10000 per memory unit.

Windows7's SSD optimization, and exFAT will help, but it is still better to be safe than sorry... and you can have a whole disk fail on a Raid5 array and still survive it...

Mikan · « **Reply #12 on:** October 15, 2009, 11:59:11 PM »

I'm aware a RAID 5 array keeps backups of the hdd's on every disk, But I dont think a Raid 5 is best for that im trying to do, even though SSD's are more prone to dataloss the speed is what I need for running multiple tasking programs (Such as Animation Master, Autodesk programs, etc).

Xtras · « **Reply #13 on:** October 16, 2009, 12:51:24 AM »

General rule of thumb: Limit purchases to WD, Seagate and Samsung. If one of those fails on you, you probably moved or used it too much; or you were just unlucky.

SomeoneElse · « **Reply #14 on:** October 16, 2009, 01:48:21 AM »

Quote from: Mikan on October 15, 2009, 11:59:11 PM

I'm aware a RAID 5 array keeps backups of the hdd's on every disk, But I dont think a Raid 5 is best for that im trying to do, even though SSD's are more prone to dataloss the speed is what I need for running multiple tasking programs (Such as Animation Master, Autodesk programs, etc).

Well, Which is more important to you reading or writing? Because there are RAID arrays to maximize speed for one or the other... think of it this way... you want to write fast, you can stripe the data across two discs with no backup, that way the writing is half on one, half on the other, and done twice as fast... or with three drives, thrice as fast... You want to read quick, then you want to have the data written in tandem to two or more drives the same idea you read a bit from here a bit from there, done twice as fast...

in a high volume rendering environment, you would be reading and writing to arrays setup specially to handle fast reading or fast writing, with the data then moved to storage on a RAID6

mgz · « **Reply #15 on:** October 16, 2009, 04:07:26 AM »

Quote from: Xtras on October 16, 2009, 12:51:24 AM

General rule of thumb: Limit purchases to WD, Seagate and Samsung. If one of those fails on you, you probably moved or used it too much; or you were just unlucky.

yea ive only had 2 HDDs fail on me, 1 was a maxtor that came with an old computer the other a hitachi in a laptop.
Have never had any of my WD or Seagate drives failme

And i personally prefer to use a external dock with seperate power supply and my own internal drives.
Allows me to have hot swappable external storage and i just save my nice antistatic bags and put my HDDs im not using away nicely.

Fortunately ive got 6 HDDs stuff inside my case so its not to big of an issue anyway

kenshin-dono · « **Reply #16 on:** October 18, 2009, 05:10:59 PM »

heya guys. Ive almost filled my 500gig external HD (a maxtor) with anime now and am going to need to pick up another one.

couple of quick questions

1. are the 1tb and 2tb sizes stable these days? i remember years ago the higher sized HD's were more prone to failures, im wondering if thats still the case these days

2. what are good brands/stuff to stay away from? Ive personally had a couple hardrives fail me in the past. One was a seagate, the other i cant remember.. i *THINK* it was a western digital but not sure. I remember hearing seagates ass these days. What other brands suck, what are good ones?

3. I saw an HP simplesave 1tb on sale for 100 bucks at target. Is that a decent brand/price?

4. I noticed a lot of these HDs have auto backup features, and all these bells and whistles. Thats just BS i dont need that takes up HD space. All i want is a regular external HD, 1-2tb (if those are stable) to store my anime on. Im not backing anything up, i just need to keep it on the hd. Im asuming these are all usb 2.0 btw for fast transfer speeds?

tnx guys. I just wanna get something thats not gonna die on me and cause me to lose tons of info, and that has a good transfer speed since i usually torrent from these things

Takeshi · « **Reply #17 on:** October 18, 2009, 06:27:49 PM »

1. IMO the 1TB I have is performing flawlessly. Just don't use it to seed, it'll kill it. But that goes for any harddrive and not just 1-2TB. Also, try to avoid moving it too much, transporting it in a sports bag several times isn't a good idea imo. Especially if there's much space.

2. I have a WD Elements 1TB and a WD Passport 320GB, and they've yet to fail on me or performance bad. The Passport one does show some ageing in the case of disconnecting if I touch the USB cable, though I can't say I've been too good to it. Sometimes you forget it's connected because it's so small and you move your laptop. Bad stuff happens..

3. IMO that's a very good price, though quality can vary of course, my 1TB costed around $160-180 and it's very good quality.

EDIT: Have you tried looking through the Technology forum? There's several threads concerning this subject. Also, you should probably have posted this in that forum.

kenshin-dono · « **Reply #18 on:** October 19, 2009, 08:22:42 AM »

Quote from: Takeshi on October 18, 2009, 06:27:49 PM

1. IMO the 1TB I have is performing flawlessly. Just don't use it to seed, it'll kill it. But that goes for any harddrive and not just 1-2TB. Also, try to avoid moving it too much, transporting it in a sports bag several times isn't a good idea imo. Especially if there's much space.

2. I have a WD Elements 1TB and a WD Passport 320GB, and they've yet to fail on me or performance bad. The Passport one does show some ageing in the case of disconnecting if I touch the USB cable, though I can't say I've been too good to it. Sometimes you forget it's connected because it's so small and you move your laptop. Bad stuff happens..

3. IMO that's a very good price, though quality can vary of course, my 1TB costed around $160-180 and it's very good quality.

EDIT: Have you tried looking through the Technology forum? There's several threads concerning this subject. Also, you should probably have posted this in that forum.

errr.. why is it bad to seed? Because thats what ive been doing for quite a while now, lol. All my animes on the external HD and i leave it on a lot to seed here. It doesn't get moved much, usually stays on the desk plugged into the laptop. I really need to know this because thats pretty much what its used for. Storing and d.loading/torrenting anime. So if that hurts it thats a problem o_O

i may look up that WD one. Are there any brands i should just stay away from? anyone know how HP is? One thing i definatly dont want are stupid autobackup programs.

hmm i didn't see the tech forum at all. It probably would be better over there. Can a mod move it over there? If not i guess maybe just lock this and i can repost there?

kenshin-dono · « **Reply #19 on:** October 19, 2009, 08:48:39 AM »

hmm bit confused about something you mention earlier in the thread Calvary, which had a WD hd in it and a hammer that had something else inside

whats that all about? Are there brands out there that just use other manufacturers HDs? how does that even work? seems odd to me. Im curious because im looking for an external HD, had made a thread with some questinos over on the general board because i didn't see this one. Waiting for a mod to either move it here or lock it, but in the meantime i noticed this and figured id ask about that. I always asumed an external HDs manufacturer actually made the HD. Whats it actually do if its a different brands?