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External HDD Suggestions/Tips

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lapa321:
You'll have to decide if you're in it for speed, portability or storage. It could save you a lot of dough if you only get what you need.

In my case i have several TBs worth of DVD's (I had to put my anime's somewhere). DVD's are cheap, but rummaging through a closet full of pudding cases everytime i needed something was a bit much (tho i do have a DVD tracking software). So i decided on getting a docking station.

Something like this. Minus the extra ports.



Mine's only USB 2.0 which means a transfer speed of 26MBps. It means copying a few hundred gigabytes can take several hours. But for archiving purposes, it's enough.

The dock is about $10, and a 2TB harddrive is a little over $100 (before the flood, it's now $130).

Having the harddrive exposed like that does have risks, i have it at the very back to avoid it getting knocked around. It's also only turned on when i actually need something off it, most of the time it's powered down.


--- Quote ---#1 USB 3, mind you I don't know what eSATA is.
#2 I was thinking around 4TBish. My budget is around $200. The dimensions for your Rosewill seemed okay.
#3 If I'm watching videos from the HDD, do I need speed? I'd probably like speed though so I can move things to and from my computer.
#4 How does a UPS protect data? Does discontinuing power to a HDD harm it or something?
#5 What's an external brick? I tried Google-ing it, didn't help.
#6 I have no familiarity with brands here whatsoever. :s

--- End quote ---

#1 eSata is the Serial connector of your desktops harddrive being treated like a USB port. Essentially, your external harddrive is connected directly to your motherboard just like an internal harddrive. Speed is limited only by your chipset and the external drive. So you could theoretically do 200MBps on eSata if you've got an SSD external drive. Compared to 26MBps for a USB2.0.

You don't actually need it to go that fast tho. I got a WD 2TB Green harddrive, it's not the fastest harddrive, i'm in it for storage capacity and it's cheap. You only need a 10,000 rpm drive for primary software, not archiving.

#2 You can probably go for dual bays if you can find it.

#3 My NAS is pathetically slow (USB1.0) so its transfer speed is stuck at 8-10MBps. But it's still fast enough to playback 1080p no problem. I don't think there's a video out there that's encoded at over 80mbps. Any video that needs over 10MBps would be 13Gigs for a single 22 minute episode. Not even CoalGirls go that high.

#4 Modern harddrives automatically parks the drive head when the power cuts off so there's little fear of damage to the hardware. NTFS protects it on the software side.

It's not the unit suddenly getting turned off that's the problem, it's the quality of the power while it's running that matters. The harddrives in your PC are protectd behind several layers of protection to ensure that nothing surprises the drive heads (It's delicate equipment moving at high speeds in distances measured by the nanoscale). External harddrives aren't guaranteed to have that level of protection. You wouldn't want powerspikes constantly hitting the circuitry.

#5 Do you see the large black rectangle attached to your laptop? You may also refer to it as a 'power transformer' or 'AC-DC converter'. 'Power Brick' is another one of its nicknames.

#6 I suggest you start by looking into "Western Diginal Green 2TB" and start comparing price per MB from there. The 'Green' series are considerably lower performance compared to the high performance 'Black' ones but they're also cheaper.


These are just my thoughts on making do with what's available (We don't have Amazon). Final decision still depends on your needs.

kitamesume:

--- Quote from: EmptyMemory on May 20, 2012, 05:34:53 AM ---
--- Quote from: kitamesume on May 20, 2012, 05:33:54 AM ---buy one without an external brick, the advantages would be less hassle and more power efficient since they use 2.5" drives inside them.
What's an external brick? I tried Google-ing it, didn't help.

find out which capacity has the best price per gb ratio, on my case 1TB drives have the best price per capacity since it goes under 1$ per GB. also decide which brand you trust.
I have no familiarity with brands here whatsoever. :s

--- End quote ---

--- End quote ---

external brick, also known as powerbricks, are what you see being plugged on laptops. they're mostly used to power stuffs like external 3.5" harddisks, laptops, ODDs and mini-nettops.

me neither, i just pick whichever has the least price per capacity since im pretty lucky with harddrive durability =o

datora:
.
If you don't know what eSATA is, you don't need it.  USB 3.0 is plenty fast.  If your computer has a USB 3.0 port you'll be able to transfer 10-15 GB in under a minute for practical circumstances, and possibly 20-30 seconds under best conditions.  The spec is for 5 gigabits/second.

5 x 1024 = 5120 Mbits/sec ÷ 8 = 640 MBytes/sec ... so, 6,400 MB/s = 6.25 gigabytes every ten seconds.  Some differences depending on if you are writing to the drive or reading from it, and transferring large single files is far more efficient than thousands of very small files.

NOTE:  you will need a SATA III (6.0 Gbit/sec) drive to make use of your USB 3.0 maximum potential.  A SATA II (3.0 Gbit/sec) drive will not perform at the top USB 3.0 performance levels.


Compare to USB 2.0 which is 480 Mbits/sec (60 MB/s), and it's rare and difficult to come very close to that maximum.  Practically, when I write a 10-12 GB directory of 15 or 24 video files to my external USB 2 drive it takes about 15-18 minutes.  So, if you do that about twice per day, it's really fast enough.  And, USB 2 is more than a dozen times fast enough to play music and video files direct from the external storage to the computer.  Effectively that's a Read operation, which is faster by about 20%-30% than a Write operation.

What will screw you a bit is if you need to do a 1/2 or full terabyte transfer.  Under USB 2.0, start the transfer, go to bed and it's usually done when you wake up.  Under USB 3.0 you can go get a cup of coffee and it'll be done by the time you drink about half of it.  So, decide how often you will make transfers in those size ranges, and try to estimate for the next three to five years that you'll have the drive.


Next, your real factor is budget.  Hard drives got pretty expensive last fall when most of the industry manufacturing got wiped out by flooding in Thailand.  Prices should have dropped around Christmas when most of that got fixed, but some interesting things happened in the industry because of that event.  There has been quite some consolidation, so competition dropped.  The result is that prices are still stupid high ... for no other reason than price gouging. 

» Technology » WD HDD Industry Will Be Supply Constrained Due to Thailand Flooding

It has become better a little, but here's an example:

 - SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s

The standard price was about $80 last August.  Then it went up to about $180 last September.  Now they're "only" $120.  Unfortunately, today is the last day for a $20 discount, where it would "only" be $100.  But, last summer I bought two for $70 each, and even picked one up for $60.  This is an example of a drive that will not perform to top USB 3.0 specification ... but it will still be pretty bloody fast compared to USB 2.0.

Samsung isn't even owned by Samsung anymore ... it's now a division of Seagate.  And Seagate was THE worst hard drive manufacturer for the two to three years prior to last August.  They've become better ... but their reliability and quality control still scare the crap out of me.


All this is the long way of saying that your chances of getting 4 TB storage for under $200 are pretty close to zero at this time.

I still recommend this external enclosure:

 - Rosewill R2-JBOD Aluminum 3.5" USB 2.0 DUAL-BAY

Watch for it on sale and you can get it as low as $30 or $35.  However, it is USB 2.0 ... they never started making it in USB 3.0.  A real shame.  You can run it with only one hard drive in it and then get a second one later to pace your budget.  From the description, it doesn't take drives larger than 2 TB, which could be a con if you're looking at 3 TB drives, for example.

It comes with two essential features, in my mind: it has an internal fan (which can be turned on and off separately) and it has it's own power switch .. which gives me great comfort when trying to isolate my storage drive from unanticipated power on/off events.  Further, the thing is built strong enough to park a car on out of solid aluminum, which only helps to act as a heat sink and dissipate heat.

So, that's a large storage brick.  It's slow, but about as low a price as you'll get away with for the amount of storage.  You can look at other dual-drive enclosures, but they're more expensive and not really any better ... unless you can find one with USB 3.0, and/or support 3 & 4 TB drives for future use.  You could put one 2 TB drive in it immediately and spend about $150-$160 right now.  Shop around and maybe you could do that for ~$130.  A second 2 TB drive will run you $100 to $140 (depending on the model you select) ... so a full 4 TB solution looks like about $250 right now.


An alternate:

 - Rosewill RX-358 U3C SLV Aluminum / Plastic 3.5" Silver USB 3.0 & eSATA

I have a slightly older model of this one that has only USB 3.0 and not an eSATA (which I don't need anyway).  Picked it up for $20 on sale.  Love it.  I haven't used it on a USB 3.0 port yet, but it performs at the bleeding edge of the USB 2.0 specification.  It's also supposed to support 3 TB drives ... so you could consider it as a single-drive external, well-cooled solution.  I run a 750 MB Western Digital Caviar Black SATA 6.0 Gb/s out of it and it is SOLID.  The 750 MB drives are off the market now, but here is the slightly larger equivalent:

 - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s


In my previous post I suggested the following:

 - Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 750GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Hybrid

Currently ~$155, but I've seen them go for ~$135 - $140 on sale.  This is a hell of a performance drive.  Look to this if you REALLY feel the need for speed.  You will want a USB 3.0 enclosure for it, otherwise you're throwing your money away.

If you still want the small form factor + portability of a 2.5" external but the bleeding edge speed of the Momentus is more than you require, look to something like a Western Digital Scorpio Black:

 - Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s

A couple things here.  The Black edition is preferable to the Blue edition.  Not for performance, but for reliability.  The same goes for the 3.5" Caviar drives.  There is also a 1 TB version, but watch carefully for the exact dimensions ... the 1 TB drives fit into laptops, but are sometimes too thick to fit into an external case.  Definitely pay attention to that detail.


Final thought:  the forum link in my previous post about battery back-ups & surge protection.  Read it if you wish to understand why that's an important factor.  The electricity coming out of your wall has a lot of fluctuation in it and can play hell on sensitive electronics.  Hard drives, especially magnetic, mechanical ones, are just about as sensitive as they get.  If you care for your data, look at quality surge & battery protection.

There was some more discussion here:

» Technology » Just lost another HD. are docking stations to blame?

Also, that topic gives an idea of why I do not trust docking stations, very especially cheap ones.  They are cheap for a reason: they are missing essential, quality electronics that protect your hard drive.


[ EDIT: added some stuff & fixed some typos ]

EmptyMemory:
Ah, lame. That's too bad. USB 2.0 it is then.

So, this Rosewill R2-JBOD Aluminum 3.5" USB 2.0 DUAL-BAY sounds good.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, I shouldn't be going for SATA III (6.0 Gbit/sec) with USB 2.0, so does that mean I should be looking at SATA II?

i.e.: SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s?

If your answer is yes, I think I'm going to suck it up and just get 2TB for now the time being, even though its more expensive than it should be. I'm pretty desperate for space atm, and then I'll keep an eye out for sales where I can pick up my second 2TB HDD to fit in the second slot.

Again, I can't thank you enough for your help datora! I'd be so helpless w/o you, lol.

datora:
.
Yah, correct.  If you get a USB 2.0 enclosure, a SATA III drive will not help you.  A SATA II drive will be just fine.

If you're ready to do it right now AND you're comfortable with USB 2.0 ... then you really want to grab that Samsung F4 Spinpoint Right NAO.  That promotion code will bring the price down to $100, including delivery ... for about another four or six hours, then it goes back up to $120.  That deal might come around again within about six weeks or so ... but you never know.

You take a risk with any large drive.  However, this particular model is about as reliable as any of the "Eco" drives.  I've had three of these in continuous service for over a year.  I took the time to sector-align them and format them very carefully using the free tools available from the Samsung website.

The recommendations for proper surge protection and running off a battery back-up are specifically to greatly increase the safety of your hard drive ... you might be OKay without it.  Many people are.  I've learned some hard lessons over the last 30 years ... so, I try to buy insurance whenever I can afford it.


As far as the enclosure goes ... if you get a USB 3.0 one like I linked to above, you will get much better data throughput using USB 3.0 ports on any computer than you would with a USB 2.0 enclosure ... you just won't be using the USB 3.0 to its maximum potential with a SATA II drive in it.  You don't need it for media playback, but you could always use the enclosure in the future with a different (SATA III) drive, and then get a USB 2.0 enclosure (such as the dual-bay in those links) as a massive, slower back-up solution.

I'm very happy with that Rosewill dual-bay enclosure.  It's on my desktop as I type this, about 18" from my right hand.  I can hear the fan running, just barely, and it's torrenting up a storm like a boss over its USB 2.0 connection at about 650 KB/sec.  It's been doing that 24/7 for most of a year now off a Western Digital Caviar Black 750 MB SATA II drive .. which is designed for that sort of constant access/performance.  The second drive in the enclosure is one of those Samsung F4s, which formatted to 1.8 terabytes usable space ... about 200 GB free right now.

Make sure to check the fan & interior of the enclosure and brush out the dust once every six weeks or so, make sure it doesn't get all clogged up.  Should run cool & reliable for years.

As per that topic on surge protection & UPS ... I have my external drive running off an APC BE750G 750 VA / 450 Watts unit, along with my main computer, to keep it as safe as I can.

So, y'know ... Good Luck with that.  I hope you have at least the satisfaction out of that configuration that I do.  :) 8)


[ EDIT: I bought a $3, fine camel-hair art paintbrush at an art-supply store, one without a metal crimp, all wood & plastic.  I use this to gently brush dust off my electronics when they get dirty, it's a critical part of my IT toolkit.  That's how I clean off my CPU / cooling blocks, motherboard, drives, etc. when compressed air leaves anything behind. ]

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