About external Hard Disks

[Raghav]

Hi Guys,

I am planning to buy an external hard disk, to be used with my Dell
Inspiron 5100 (2003 purchase)

The current thought is to go for a 500GB from Western Digital

1. Western digitally MyBook pro 500GB, tripolarizes interfaces
2. Max gate OneTouch III, 500GB, 16MB, USB 2,0, FireWire 400/800

Both are almost equally priced and have same speed (7200 rpm), and
have been selected based on the following paramters :

1. Having firewire 400 and 800 support in addition to USB 2.0 support
2. Having 16MB Buffer Size

About the intended usage :

1. General storage, photographs (archive kind of)
2. To be used with both windows xp home edition and Linux (Ubuntu for
the moment, unless I move to some other distribution).

I request you to opine upon the selections. Are they good/bad/... ?
Are there any experiences with this vendor ? any known issues ?
heating ? speed etc... Are there any better alternatives... please
feel free to criticize if u feel like.

Looking forward to suggestions/opinions..

regards
raghav..

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi Guys,

I am planning to buy an external hard disk, to be used with my Dell
Inspiron 5100 (2003 purchase)

The current thought is to go for a 500GB from Western Digital

1. Western digitally MyBook pro 500GB, tripolarizes interfaces

I don't like WD. They did not manage tp give their disks decent
error handling (the RAID-Edition thing) and they were last
with fuid-bearingd.

2. Max gate OneTouch III, 500GB, 16MB, USB 2,0, FireWire 400/800

THis thing is a suicide candidate, since Maxtors a) run hot
b) die eraly when hot c) come in badly cooled enclosures.

Both are almost equally priced and have same speed (7200 rpm), and
have been selected based on the following paramters :

1. Having firewire 400 and 800 support in addition to USB 2.0 support
2. Having 16MB Buffer Size

The buffer is irrelevant in practice.

About the intended usage :

1. General storage, photographs (archive kind of)

For Archival you need at least two independent copies on
independent media.

2. To be used with both windows xp home edition and Linux (Ubuntu for
the moment, unless I move to some other distribution).

Should be unproblematoc. For Linux use either FAT32 (shared with
XP) or use separate partitions.

I request you to opine upon the selections. Are they good/bad/... ?
Are there any experiences with this vendor ? any known issues ?
heating ? speed etc... Are there any better alternatives... please
feel free to criticize if u feel like.

Looking forward to suggestions/opinions..

I would recommend getting a Samsung drice. They run very cool and
quiet. Put them in an enclosure thet has some cooling and you are
fine. If you need FireWire, Agrosy has a metal enclosure for IDE
diries with USB and Firewire and it cools enough for Samsung
drives (Maxtors will fail after an hour or so from overheating,
with an ambient temperature pf 25C).

Arno

 

[Raghav]

I don't like WD. They did not manage tp give their disks decent
error handling (the RAID-Edition thing) and they were last
with fuid-bearingd.

Well, besides liking, what other negative things there are about
them ?
they seem to sell a lot of their hard disks anyway. Are there any
known issues with their current shipping models ?

THis thing is a suicide candidate, since Maxtors a) run hot
b) die eraly when hot c) come in badly cooled enclosures.


The buffer is irrelevant in practice.

What is the real consequence of a higher or lower buffer size ?

For Archival you need at least two independent copies on
independent media.

Yeah, my second media is DVDs. This disk will become my first media.

Should be unproblematoc. For Linux use either FAT32 (shared with
XP) or use separate partitions.


I would recommend getting a Samsung drice. They run very cool and
quiet. Put them in an enclosure thet has some cooling and you are
fine. If you need FireWire, Agrosy has a metal enclosure for IDE
diries with USB and Firewire and it cools enough for Samsung
drives (Maxtors will fail after an hour or so from overheating,
with an ambient temperature pf 25C).

I checked the local market online stores (I am in Switzerland, near
Zurich) , and I dont seem to find any references to any available
Samsung or Agrosy hard disks. Among the brands that I see, Seagate,
Lacie, Toshiba, Western digital figure prominently...

suggestions...

 

[Arno Wagner]

Well, besides liking, what other negative things there are about
them ?
they seem to sell a lot of their hard disks anyway. Are there any
known issues with their current shipping models ?

What is the real consequence of a higher or lower buffer size ?

Close to unmeasurable. The thing is that any decent
OS will keep a significantly larger buffer anyways.

Yeah, my second media is DVDs. This disk will become my first media.
Good.

I checked the local market online stores (I am in Switzerland, near
Zurich) , and I dont seem to find any references to any available
Samsung or Agrosy hard disks. Among the brands that I see, Seagate,
Lacie, Toshiba, Western digital figure prominently...

suggestions...

Check digitec at digitec.ch. I get most of my hardware there. They
have practically the complete Samsung drive selection at reasonable
prices. It seems however, that the Agrosy HDD cases (no HDD included
with these) with FireWire are not sold by Digitec. You can find some
sources on toppreise.ch at
(Computer > Gehduse > Laufwerksgehduse, extern > ARGOSY).

If you are in Zurich occasionally, you can pick your stuff up at their
store and save on shipping.

BTW, stay away from LaChie. They put the cheapest disks into
their cases and care much more abiut design than reliability.

A Seagate 2.5" external HDD could also be a good choice, but I doubt
they are available with FireWire.

Arno

 

[Odie Ferrous]

I checked the local market online stores (I am in Switzerland, near
Zurich) , and I dont seem to find any references to any available
Samsung or Agrosy hard disks. Among the brands that I see, Seagate,
Lacie, Toshiba, Western digital figure prominently...

Avoid branded units.

Get yourself, as recommended, a Samsung drive (quiet, cool) and a
generic external housing with at *least* an 80mm cooling fan.

On the whole, branded units come with what they term "passive cooling"
which is plainspeak for "this drive will overheat and probably fail."


Odie

 

[Raghav]

Raghav wrote:



Avoid branded units.

Get yourself, as recommended, a Samsung drive (quiet, cool) and a
generic external housing with at *least* an 80mm cooling fan.

On the whole, branded units come with what they term "passive cooling"
which is plainspeak for "this drive will overheat and probably fail."

Odie

So, If I get you correctly, what you guys are suggesting is to buy an
internal disk (from Samsung - seems to be the preferred one) and buy
an external housing for the hard disk... something like building an
external hard disk assembly by buying the two integral parts.. the
disk and the housing...

If I get you correctly... here are some numbers...

A Samsung HD501LJ, T166, 7200rpm, 16MB, 500GB, SATA-II HDD costs 154
CHF (http://www.digitec.ch/Startseite.aspx?param=details&wert=126579)
An external housing costs less than 100 CHF and btw, I cant seem to
find any housing with cooling fitted in.. or at least apparantly not
mentioned. I dont understand German so well yet, so may be its there
but I dont see it as clearly. Could you suggest a nice housing with
cooling...

The number comes back to 154+100 :=> 254 CHF about 30 CHF lesser than
the Western Digital Ext HDD I mentioned earlier.

If its such a better choice, its like a win-win. Cheaper and yet
better... wow...

thanks for ur ideas...

regards,
raghav..

 

[Arno Wagner]

Avoid branded units.

I agree completely.

Get yourself, as recommended, a Samsung drive (quiet, cool) and a
generic external housing with at *least* an 80mm cooling fan.

For Samsung drives I found that a metal enclosure can be enough.
I posted temperature measurements for one enclosure here some time ago.
Link: http://tinyurl.com/255u9n

However I found that almost ll other disks draw more power than
Samsung ones and the save way is therefore to go with a fan, just
like Odie says.

On the whole, branded units come with what they term "passive cooling"
which is plainspeak for "this drive will overheat and probably fail."

... and will require that you buy a new one, increasing our profits...

The engineering is so bad that it has to be intentional on many
of the branded ones.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

So, If I get you correctly, what you guys are suggesting is to buy an
internal disk (from Samsung - seems to be the preferred one) and buy
an external housing for the hard disk... something like building an
external hard disk assembly by buying the two integral parts.. the
disk and the housing...
Exactly.

If I get you correctly... here are some numbers...

A Samsung HD501LJ, T166, 7200rpm, 16MB, 500GB, SATA-II HDD costs 154
CHF (http://www.digitec.ch/Startseite.aspx?param=details&wert=126579)

A good disk. I have one.

An external housing costs less than 100 CHF and btw, I cant seem to
find any housing with cooling fitted in.. or at least apparantly not
mentioned. I dont understand German so well yet, so may be its there
but I dont see it as clearly. Could you suggest a nice housing with
cooling...

I use these: Revoltec Alu Book Edition 2 Schwarz 3.5" SATA, USB/e SATA.
The temperature measurements I posted here some time ago were
for exactly this combination (http://tinyurl.com/255u9n). You win eSATA,
but loose firewire (which is not that relevant anymore anyways).
Cooling is acceptable for the 500GB Samsung disk, even under load.

The number comes back to 154+100 :=> 254 CHF about 30 CHF lesser than
the Western Digital Ext HDD I mentioned earlier.

Interesting, isn't it?

If its such a better choice, its like a win-win. Cheaper and yet
better... wow...

thanks for ur ideas...

No problem.

Arno