Opinions/Experience re: Maxtor Onetough II external drive?

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Do you have statistics to support that statement?

Good enough numbers, anyway.

What technology?

The bridge chips.

The Diamondmax inside or an external case with it's own ventilation

Most dont have that, and those that do have rather
unreliable fans due to the very small enclosures too.

without a very hot processor or
graphics card in the same enclosure?

Easy to monitor the hard drive temp with an internal drive.

MUCH harder with an external USB or firewire drive.

Never seen a toasted drive because
a ribbon cable blocked the airflow?

Doesnt happen. And see above on monitoring the temp anyway.

"Whatever happens" is to broad.

No it isnt. That's what you need to design for.

When the WTC was still standing it would have been
a good solution to have a system in tower 1, a hot
backup in tower 2 and safety backups in a vault in the cellar.

Useless, if only because they are on the same
power grid and if that goes down, you're ****ed.

If you need completely bulletproof backup,
you need to have it out of town at least.

The problem often exists, even in professional environments.

Not often at all in real professional environments.

Many more dont even bother to back up at all with
the personal desktop systems being discussed.

I have seen statistics on system failure shortly
after or during preventive maintenance.

No one does PM on the personal desktop
system being discussed anymore.

Those are the worst engeneers, overestimating
themselfes and making the wrong assumptions.

Wrong again. I'm not estimating anything at all, I KNOW
I havent ****ed a system in the FOUR decades I've been
doing it thanks. No assumption what so ever either.

My backups will survive anything, even full nuclear war.

And I'll likely be able to continue to use the
systems even in the event of full nuclear war too.

Katrina or 9/11 scale events would just be a nuisance.

 

[Chel van Gennip]

Good enough numbers, anyway.
So?



The bridge chips.

If I am well informed there is an ARM processor with some memory, an USB
and firewire interface, and an IDE interface inside. Technology with a lot
of maturity.

Most dont have that, and those that do have rather unreliable fans due
to the very small enclosures too.

Why too small? First the case is designed by a company with a lot of
experience with reliable disks. Let's just look at the box. Inside is a
Diamondmax with an expected lifetime >5years, 50.000 start stop cycles and
a component failure of less than 1%/year. The disk has a power consumption
of about 10W operating, 2W standby. The processor/interface power
consumption is negligible. The drive is designed to operate up to 60 deg.
centigrade. The housing is an all aluminium case with perfect heat
conduction. How much ventilation do you need? I think a small, reliable
low speed ventilator, as is in this case, is more than enough to keep the
drive temperature well below 60 deg even under extreme conditions, given
the low heat production of 10W.

You must understand computertechnology has changed since the IBM360's and
IBM1130's. I don't recognize anything from that time in modern hardware.

 

[Mike Redrobe]

My backups will survive anything, even full nuclear war.

Off planet storage, the only way to be sure.

Stick a web server on a satellite and rent "space"

 

[Odie Ferrous]

Why too small? First the case is designed by a company with a lot of
experience with reliable disks. Let's just look at the box. Inside is a
Diamondmax with an expected lifetime >5years, 50.000 start stop cycles and
a component failure of less than 1%/year.

Sorry - I simply cannot believe this figure.

I get more Maxtor drives in for recovery than all other brands put
together. OneTouch drives a speciality.

Many Maxtor drives I have worked with have worked up sufficient heat so
as to be too hot to handle - and that's lying open on the desktop.

Place this drive in an enclosure without active cooling, and you are
bound to have a problem.

Blown chips and fused spindles are common. You need an awful lot of
heat for that.


The disk has a power consumption

of about 10W operating, 2W standby. The processor/interface power
consumption is negligible. The drive is designed to operate up to 60 deg.
centigrade.

I can tell you now that many Maxtor drives I have had have operated well
above this temperature - again, lying bare on the desktop. The question
is, which *part* of the drive is "designed to operate up to 60 deg"?

The housing is an all aluminium case with perfect heat conduction.

Nonsense. If it had "perfect heat conduction" it would operate at the
same temperature were it inside the housing or lying barebones outside
the housing.

How much ventilation do you need? I think a small, reliable
low speed ventilator, as is in this case, is more than enough to keep the
drive temperature well below 60 deg even under extreme conditions, given
the low heat production of 10W.

Again, this is fallacy. The typical "cooling" fan used in these
housings is so grossly ineffective that you cannot feel airflow with
your hands; you need to put your face right up against the fan outlet to
feel a slight movement of air.

You must understand computertechnology has changed since the IBM360's and
IBM1130's. I don't recognize anything from that time in modern hardware.

Cooling was probably a lot better in those days. Nowadays, everyone
wants a "totally silent" PC. (Even though their MP3 players tend to be
blasting out toons or they're playing games with 5.1 surround sound) and
silence doesn't generally equate to efficient cooling.



Odie

 

[Chel van Gennip]

Sorry - I simply cannot believe this figure.
http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/data_sheets/diamondmax_11_datasheet.pdf

....

Nonsense. If it had "perfect heat conduction" it would operate at the
same temperature were it inside the housing or lying barebones outside
the housing.

Drives are designed to have some airflow around them, lying barebone
outside the housing, is not a perfect cooling condition.

Again, this is fallacy. The typical "cooling" fan used in these
housings is so grossly ineffective that you cannot feel airflow with
your hands; you need to put your face right up against the fan outlet to
feel a slight movement of air.

That is suffcient to transfer heat from the drive to the heat conducting
case. You should NOT block the outside of the case by stacking drives etc.
You are warned not to do so in the manual. Obviously the fan is not
designed to transport heat by blowing hot air out, (and collecting dust
inside) it is designed to create sufficient airflow inside to transfer
heat to the external heat conducting case. The temperature of the air
around the case should not exceed 35 deg. A fast airflow inside always
will need a lot of maintenance to remove dust. This is a well known
problem e.g. with CPU fans after 1 or 2 years of operation.

Nowadays, everyone wants a "totally silent" PC. ....

That design indeed helps to keep the noise down a lot. You should enable
the aluminium case to let the heat go. Best way is to put them on their
side on the stands. If two or more dives are used the stands will keep a
propper distance between the drives for propper cooling.

 

[Peter]

Externals fail at a significantly higher rate, mainly because the

If I am well informed there is an ARM processor with some memory, an USB
and firewire interface, and an IDE interface inside. Technology with a lot
of maturity.


Why too small? First the case is designed by a company with a lot of
experience with reliable disks. Let's just look at the box. Inside is a
Diamondmax with an expected lifetime >5years, 50.000 start stop cycles and
a component failure of less than 1%/year. The disk has a power consumption
of about 10W operating, 2W standby. The processor/interface power
consumption is negligible. The drive is designed to operate up to 60 deg.
centigrade. The housing is an all aluminium case with perfect heat
conduction. How much ventilation do you need? I think a small, reliable
low speed ventilator, as is in this case, is more than enough to keep the
drive temperature well below 60 deg even under extreme conditions, given
the low heat production of 10W.

Fan in Maxtor OneTouch II enclosure ?
There is no fan.
35 deg C as a maximum external temperature might be not sufficient in some
situations.
There is no published number for design life of Maxtor OneTouch product.

 

[Curious George]

Why too small? First the case is designed by a company with a lot of
experience with reliable disks. Let's just look at the box. Inside is a
Diamondmax with an expected lifetime >5years, 50.000 start stop cycles and
a component failure of less than 1%/year. The disk has a power consumption
of about 10W operating, 2W standby. The processor/interface power
consumption is negligible. The drive is designed to operate up to 60 deg.
centigrade. The housing is an all aluminium case with perfect heat
conduction. How much ventilation do you need? I think a small, reliable
low speed ventilator, as is in this case, is more than enough to keep the
drive temperature well below 60 deg even under extreme conditions, given
the low heat production of 10W.

Fantasy & marketing drivel.

Clearing confusing "actual" reliability of an "external" with
reliability projections (used as marketing ploy) of "internal" drives.
"Perfect heat conduction"?? Nothing is perfect. 60 deg? even 40 deg
is _way_ to hot over the long term for disks. And what about the ATA
bridge's tolerance of that temp? (That's why Usenet is filled with
bitch & moans about data corruption with external drives). Maxtor,
top notch reliability _without_exception_? I think not. How much did
Maxtor pay you for this ad?

 

[Chel van Gennip]

Fantasy & marketing drivel.

Clearing confusing "actual" reliability of an "external" with
reliability projections (used as marketing ploy) of "internal" drives.

I have good experiences (over thousends of drives) with the accuracy of
vendor specifications. As far as I know, Maxtor (before that Quantum,
before that DEC, now Seagate) specifications were correct. In the
industry it can be quite expensive to publish wrong spec's or to not
deliver according to spec's.

"Perfect heat conduction"?? Nothing is perfect.

OK, not perfect, aluminium with airflow is considered to be good.

And what about the ATA bridge's tolerance of that temp? (That's why
Usenet is filled with bitch & moans about data corruption with external
drives).

Isn't that an OS problem? Maybe some OS-es have USB or firewire handling
problems? An ARM chip at less than 60 deg. is no problem as is serial
communication with 32bit CRC's. Could be like the old joke: "..ndo.s is
..erfec. fo. .ackgr.un. .ommu.ica.io.". Anyhow, I have seen no data
corruption problems yet with external drives. Not with external SCSI
drives over the last 19 years, not with FC drives, not with firewire
drives and even with USB drives not.

 

[Rod Speed]

Sorry - I simply cannot believe this figure.

I get more Maxtor drives in for recovery than all other brands put
together. OneTouch drives a speciality.

Many Maxtor drives I have worked with have worked up sufficient heat
so as to be too hot to handle - and that's lying open on the desktop.

Place this drive in an enclosure without active cooling, and you are
bound to have a problem.

Blown chips and fused spindles are common. You need an awful lot of
heat for that.


The disk has a power consumption

I can tell you now that many Maxtor drives I have had have operated
well above this temperature - again, lying bare on the desktop. The
question is, which *part* of the drive is "designed to operate up to
60 deg"?




Nonsense. If it had "perfect heat conduction" it would operate at the
same temperature were it inside the housing or lying barebones outside
the housing.



Again, this is fallacy. The typical "cooling" fan used in these
housings is so grossly ineffective that you cannot feel airflow with
your hands; you need to put your face right up against the fan outlet
to feel a slight movement of air.

Cooling was probably a lot better in those days.

It was indeed, including full refrigeration plants in the case of the CDCs.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

So?

So the available numbers are quite adequate to demonstrate that fact.

You can also consider the fact that an operation like Seagate
which does carefully analyse what warrantys make sense chooses
to offer 5 years on their internals and 1 year on their externals.

There's a reason they do that.

If I am well informed there is an ARM processor with
some memory, an USB and firewire interface, and an
IDE interface inside. Technology with a lot of maturity.

Pity about the bridge chips themselves which dont have that.

Why too small?

Basically because the cases are much smaller.

First the case is designed by a company
with a lot of experience with reliable disks.

Pity about the result Maxtor has been getting with their externals.

Let's just look at the box. Inside is a Diamondmax
with an expected lifetime >5years, 50.000 start stop
cycles and a component failure of less than 1%/year.

Pity about the result Maxtor has been getting
with their externals with ACTUAL field life.

That has basically sent Maxtor bust and they have
sunk beneath the waves now, gobbled up by Seagate.

The disk has a power consumption of about 10W operating, 2W
standby. The processor/interface power consumption is negligible.
The drive is designed to operate up to 60 deg. centigrade.

Dell ran that line with their cheapest craptops too. And discovered
the downsides with running drives like that, they die like flys.

The housing is an all aluminium case with perfect heat conduction.

Nothing has perfect heat conduction.

How much ventilation do you need?

Clearly more than its got.

I think a small, reliable low speed ventilator, as is in this case,

Thats just plain wrong with the reliable.

is more than enough to keep the drive temperature
well below 60 deg even under extreme conditions,
given the low heat production of 10W.

Have fun explaining the result Maxtor and Dell have got.

You must understand computertechnology has
changed since the IBM360's and IBM1130's.

Corse it has.

I don't recognize anything from that time in modern hardware.

Duh. That was just a comment on your stupid pig ignorant claim

You're an absolutely classic example of niave fools that
concentrate on the theoretical numbers and are so stupid that
they cant actually work out what happens in the real world.

The sort of mindset that has just sent Maxtor bust.

 

[Rod Speed]

Odie Ferrous wrote

http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/data_sheets/diamondmax_11_datasheet.pdf

He wasnt saying that Maxtor doesnt claim those number, he was
saying that the real world doesnt match those number which are
clearly plucked out of someone's arse with the Maxtor external drives.

Drives are designed to have some airflow around them,

Pity they dont get that in the Maxtor external cases.

lying barebone outside the housing, is not a perfect cooling condition.

Neither is the Maxtor external cases.

That is suffcient to transfer heat from
the drive to the heat conducting case.

Have fun explaining how the drive gets stinking hot.

You should NOT block the outside of the case by stacking
drives etc. You are warned not to do so in the manual.

He aint talking about stacked drives.

Obviously the fan is not designed to transport heat
by blowing hot air out, (and collecting dust inside)
it is designed to create sufficient airflow inside to
transfer heat to the external heat conducting case.

Have fun explaining how the drive gets stinking hot.

The temperature of the air around
the case should not exceed 35 deg.

Nice theory, pity about the reality.

A fast airflow inside always will need
a lot of maintenance to remove dust.
Bullshit.

This is a well known problem e.g. with
CPU fans after 1 or 2 years of operation.

CPU fans are an entirely different situation to case fans.

That design indeed helps to keep the noise down a lot. You should
enable the aluminium case to let the heat go. Best way is to put them
on their side on the stands. If two or more dives are used the stands
will keep a propper distance between the drives for propper cooling.

Pity about them still dying like flys. So bad its sent Maxtor bust.

 

[Rod Speed]

Curious George wrote

I have good experiences (over thousends of drives)
with the accuracy of vendor specifications.

You cant even manage to work out the difference between
numbers like design life and actual achieve reliability in the field.

As far as I know, Maxtor (before that Quantum, before
that DEC, now Seagate) specifications were correct.
In the industry it can be quite expensive to publish
wrong spec's or to not deliver according to spec's.

Yep, you can go bust. Maxtor has just done that. Funny that.

OK, not perfect, aluminium with airflow is considered to be good.

Not as good as an internal drive with airflow.

You cant even monitor the drive temp using
SMART with an external USB2/firewire drive.

Isn't that an OS problem?
Nope.

Maybe some OS-es have USB or firewire handling problems?

Or maybe problem is actually the bridges.

An ARM chip at less than 60 deg. is no problem
as is serial communication with 32bit CRC's.

Nice theory, pity about the field experience.

Could be like the old joke: "..ndo.s is .erfec. fo. .ackgr.un. .ommu.ica.io.".

Nope. That clearly works fine with SATA drives.

Anyhow, I have seen no data corruption problems yet with external drives.

Irrelevant. If everyone saw a problem, it wouldnt be a viable product.

Not with external SCSI drives over the last 19 years, not with
FC drives, not with firewire drives and even with USB drives not.

Irrelevant. If everyone saw a problem, it wouldnt be a viable product.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Off planet storage, the only way to be sure.

Nope, just keep the offsite backups underground, silly.

Stick a web server on a satellite and rent "space"

Those will be the first to go in a full nuke war.

 

[Chel van Gennip]

Have fun explaining how the drive gets stinking hot.
....

Bullshit.

Some drives get stinking hot because of all of the hot air coming out of
their owners. That could be the reason your drive died.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Some drives get stinking hot because of all of the hot air coming
out of their owners. That could be the reason your drive died.

Pity none of mine have died, ****wit.

Try again.

 

[Martin Heffels]

Pity none of mine have died, ****wit.

For some reason every thread seems to end in calling names lately.
What's wrong people? Come on, it's nearly Christmas. Let's have some
peace in here for a change!

A toast to all of you out there!

cheers

-martin-

 

[Odie Ferrous]

http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/data_sheets/diamondmax_11_datasheet.pdf

...

Do you believe everything some marketing department tells you?

Drives are designed to have some airflow around them, lying barebone
outside the housing, is not a perfect cooling condition.

No - but at least in most rooms there is some air current and heat build
up from the drive is going to dissipate into the ambience more easily
than it will within an enclosure.

That is suffcient to transfer heat from the drive to the heat conducting
case. You should NOT block the outside of the case by stacking drives etc.
You are warned not to do so in the manual. Obviously the fan is not
designed to transport heat by blowing hot air out, (and collecting dust
inside) it is designed to create sufficient airflow inside to transfer
heat to the external heat conducting case. The temperature of the air
around the case should not exceed 35 deg. A fast airflow inside always
will need a lot of maintenance to remove dust. This is a well known
problem e.g. with CPU fans after 1 or 2 years of operation.

I still do not believe that the average "cooling" fan built into the
average housing is adequate.

I have four external drives sitting on just one of my workbenches
awaiting recovery. Each one of them has a slot for said fan - but not
one, single housing actually contains a fan. LaCie, Iomega, HP Media
(sealed unit all round - no ventilation) and some generic brand.

That design indeed helps to keep the noise down a lot. You should enable
the aluminium case to let the heat go. Best way is to put them on their
side on the stands. If two or more dives are used the stands will keep a
propper distance between the drives for propper cooling.

I fully agree that standing a drive on its side is more efficient within
certain parameters.

However, the gist of the subject is that external drives do not (in the
overwhelming majority of cases) do not come with sufficient cooling.


Odie

 

[Odie Ferrous]

I have good experiences (over thousends of drives) with the accuracy of
vendor specifications. As far as I know, Maxtor (before that Quantum,
before that DEC, now Seagate) specifications were correct. In the
industry it can be quite expensive to publish wrong spec's or to not
deliver according to spec's.


OK, not perfect, aluminium with airflow is considered to be good.


Isn't that an OS problem? Maybe some OS-es have USB or firewire handling
problems? An ARM chip at less than 60 deg. is no problem as is serial
communication with 32bit CRC's. Could be like the old joke: "..ndo.s is
.erfec. fo. .ackgr.un. .ommu.ica.io.". Anyhow, I have seen no data
corruption problems yet with external drives. Not with external SCSI
drives over the last 19 years, not with FC drives, not with firewire
drives and even with USB drives not.

Chel, I mean no disrespect here - but I can only conclude that you don't
ever "get to the right scenario" to have problems with external drives.

There are an enormous amount of bugs with the firmware used in external
drive bridges; Prolific springs to mind as being one of the main
culprits.

However, heat remains a major factor.


Odie

 

[Curious George]

I have good experiences (over thousends of drives) with the accuracy of
vendor specifications.

over a thousand units spread across who knows how many different
models (probably mostly if not all internal drives not the external
packages we're talking about) over who knows how long. Likely not as
representative a sample as you think.

As far as I know, Maxtor (before that Quantum,
before that DEC, now Seagate) specifications were correct.

No. There are theoretically extrapolated numbers they tell the public
in advance of any track record and actual numbers that develop over
time they hold private. Unless you worked for all these companies you
don't really know that. It's a well known secret that the actual
track records are different than the advertizing specs.

In the
industry it can be quite expensive to publish wrong spec's or to not
deliver according to spec's.

No it isn't. The numbers are misleading (MTBF for example) in the
first place and few have access to a representative sample to
corroborate their claims. Even if you can prove their numbers are
wrong it's after the fact and there are new models to choose from; the
damage is done and the old assessment is irrelevant for the new
models.

Furthermore a manufacturer could only loose if it makes significantly
lower quality than the competition over many models; they won't loose
a dime if the quality is similar to the competition and everyone skews
the numbers similarly. Fact is everyone sells a bum drive now & then
but posts basically the same reliability specs regardless. Nobody
ever alters the advertized specs to reflect higher than expected
warranty claims.

OK, not perfect, aluminium with airflow is considered to be good.

Aluminum is good but grossly overrated for heat dissipation via
chassis. There's little to no metal to metal contact and air is an
excellent insulator. Airflow in these cases are also generally very
poor. So basically they're toasters with few exceptions.

Isn't that an OS problem?

Are you kidding?

Maybe some OS-es have USB or firewire handling
problems? An ARM chip at less than 60 deg. is no problem as is serial
communication with 32bit CRC's. Could be like the old joke: "..ndo.s is
.erfec. fo. .ackgr.un. .ommu.ica.io.".

Then how come the ppl who complain usual have it previously working
without a hitch for months.

Anyhow, I have seen no data
corruption problems yet with external drives. Not with external SCSI
drives over the last 19 years, not with FC drives, not with firewire
drives and even with USB drives not.

Then you're a liar. It's simply not possible to have the intimate
contact you claim with the sample size you boast of and NEVER see ANY
corruption of ANY kind on ANY model at ANY point in ANY of their
lives.

 

[Chel van Gennip]

No it isn't. The numbers are misleading (MTBF for example) in the first
place and few have access to a representative sample to corroborate
their claims. Even if you can prove their numbers are wrong it's after
the fact and there are new models to choose from; the damage is done and
the old assessment is irrelevant for the new models.

It is. There are many clients (e.g. OEM's) that are using thouthands of
units of the same model. Wrong specifications, e.g. <1% failure/year
while failure rate is much higher, will cost them monney, enough monney
to get it back. I have seen wrong specifications of components and or
company has made serious claims because of wrong specifications.