power supply effects on Hard Drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Brooks
  • Start date Start date
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Michael Brooks

I'm considering getting an external enclosure to use an internal drive
externally, or maybe even just an IDE to USB cable + power adapter.



I'm wondering about the effect on the drive's longevity of plugging the
thing directly into a surge protector.



At home, I have a good UPS which I think conditions the power. But I may be
traveling overseas for an extended period and would prefer not to carry a 10
or 20 pound voltage stabilizer...but maybe I should?

thanks for any insights
 
Previously Michael Brooks said:
I'm considering getting an external enclosure to use an internal drive
externally, or maybe even just an IDE to USB cable + power adapter.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering about the effect on the drive's longevity of plugging the
thing directly into a surge protector.
Click to expand...
At home, I have a good UPS which I think conditions the power. But I may be
traveling overseas for an extended period and would prefer not to carry a 10
or 20 pound voltage stabilizer...but maybe I should?
Click to expand...
thanks for any insights
Click to expand...

Should not be a problem is the "brick" type external PSU is good quality
and wide-input range. If you are willing to carry around and operate
a bare drive it hardly matters anyways, since it will very likely die
from heat and mechanical shock long before anything else happens to it.

Arno
 
Michael Brooks said:
I'm considering getting an external enclosure to use an internal drive
externally, or maybe even just an IDE to USB cable + power adapter.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering about the effect on the drive's longevity
of plugging the thing directly into a surge protector.
Click to expand...
At home, I have a good UPS which I think conditions the power. But
I may be traveling overseas for an extended period and would prefer
not to carry a 10 or 20 pound voltage stabilizer...but maybe I should?
Click to expand...

No real need, no worth the weight basically.

I wouldnt bother even in the worst of the third world personally,
the most I might do it take a spare power adapter.
 
Michael said:
I'm considering getting an external enclosure to use an internal drive
externally, or maybe even just an IDE to USB cable + power adapter.



I'm wondering about the effect on the drive's longevity of plugging the
thing directly into a surge protector.



At home, I have a good UPS which I think conditions the power. But I may be
traveling overseas for an extended period and would prefer not to carry a 10
or 20 pound voltage stabilizer...but maybe I should?

thanks for any insights
Click to expand...
If it were me, I'd probably go with a flash drive instead, or a stack of
DVDs. There's hardware almost everywhere of interest now, so I'd rather
not carry much that's potentially delicate.
 
The UPS does no such power conditioning. The typically
plug-in UPS connects appliance directly to AC mains when not
in battery backup mode. 'Directly' as in no power
conditioning. A power strip protector does even less.

Any 'power conditioning' must be performed by the power
supply. If buying power supplies on price rather than first
reviewing a long list of specification, then that power
supply's 'power conditioning' is, at best, questionable. You
want 'power conditioning'? Then spend but a little bit more
to get a supply that actually does proper power conditioning.
 
w_tom said:
The UPS does no such power conditioning. The typically
plug-in UPS connects appliance directly to AC mains when not
in battery backup mode. 'Directly' as in no power
conditioning. A power strip protector does even less.

Any 'power conditioning' must be performed by the power
supply. If buying power supplies on price rather than first
reviewing a long list of specification, then that power
supply's 'power conditioning' is, at best, questionable. You
want 'power conditioning'? Then spend but a little bit more
to get a supply that actually does proper power conditioning.
Click to expand...

There are UPSs that run continuously, and thus have the effect
of conditioning the power. I assume that's why you qualified
your statement with the word "typical," but a casual reader
might miss the nuance. As one might expect, the continuous ones
are more expensive than the cheapies. There are also some power
strips that give reasonable "better than nothing first line of
defense" protection against bad power. But the marketing that
suggests they'll withstand a direct lightning hit is to be taken
with a grain of salt.
 
Rod Speed said:
No real need, no worth the weight basically.

I wouldnt bother even in the worst of the third world personally,
Click to expand...

Isn't that where he's coming from?
 
The typical plug-in UPS does not cost $500. Computer grade
UPSes connect appliance directly to AC mains when not in
battery backup mode. Where is the power conditioning? Does a
relay 'clean' electricity? Of course not.

Without the 'less than 10 foot' connection to earth ground,
then power strip also provides no effective protection.
Worse, a power strip protector located adjacent to the
computer can provide a transient with more destructive paths
through computer. Yes, the adjacent power strip may even
contribute to damage of a powered off computer.

High reliability facilities (ie telephone switching
computer) use protectors distant from the electronics AND near
zero feet from earth ground. That same protection is also
called 'whole house' protection.

Effective transient protection also costs less money. Any
protection at the appliance must already be inside a power
supply. Protection that can be overwhelmed if the building
does not have properly earthed 'whole house' protectors.
Effective protectors have responsible names such as Square D,
Cutler Hammer, Polyphaser, Leviton, Intermatic, GE, and
Siemens. Specifically not on that list is APC, Belkin,
Powermax, and Tripplite - whose products are recommend without
electrical facts. Effective 'whole house' protectors are sold
in Home Depot, Lowes, and electrical supply houses.
Ineffective protectors are sold at excessive cost in Sears,
Kmart, Staples, Circuit City, and Radio Shack.

How to protect that disk drive? A power supply must contain
functions that were standard even 30 years ago. And properly
installed 'whole house' protector where utility wires enter
the building so that protection inside that power supply is
not overwhelmed.

One final point - this UPS is called computer grade. When
in battery backup, its 120V 'sine wave' is two 200 volt square
waves with a spike of up to 270 volts between those square
waves. Yes, that UPS is outputting a sine wave ... and more.
Why is that voltage not destructive to computers? Why is that
a computer grade UPS? Because protection already inside a
computer's power supply makes 200 and 270 volts irrelevant.
Protection for that disk drive means a power supply that
claims to have essential functions - in writing. Functions
often missing in 'dumped' and discounted power supplies.
 
w_tom said:
The typical plug-in UPS does not cost $500. Computer grade
UPSes connect appliance directly to AC mains when not in
battery backup mode.
Click to expand...

I suppose that depends on what you consider "computer grade."

Where is the power conditioning? Does a
relay 'clean' electricity? Of course not.

Without the 'less than 10 foot'
Click to expand...

Heaven help you if you're on the 29th floor, I guess.

connection to earth ground,
then power strip also provides no effective protection.
Worse, a power strip protector located adjacent to the
computer can provide a transient with more destructive paths
through computer. Yes, the adjacent power strip may even
contribute to damage of a powered off computer.

High reliability facilities (ie telephone switching
computer) use protectors distant from the electronics AND near
zero feet from earth ground.
Click to expand...

There's no such thing as "near zero feet from earth ground,"
because "earth ground" isn't a single point.

That same protection is also
called 'whole house' protection.

Effective transient protection also costs less money. Any
protection at the appliance must already be inside a power
supply. Protection that can be overwhelmed if the building
does not have properly earthed 'whole house' protectors.
Effective protectors have responsible names such as Square D,
Cutler Hammer, Polyphaser, Leviton, Intermatic, GE, and
Siemens. Specifically not on that list is APC, Belkin,
Powermax, and Tripplite - whose products are recommend without
electrical facts. Effective 'whole house' protectors are sold
in Home Depot, Lowes, and electrical supply houses.
Ineffective protectors are sold at excessive cost in Sears,
Kmart, Staples, Circuit City, and Radio Shack.

How to protect that disk drive? A power supply must contain
functions that were standard even 30 years ago. And properly
installed 'whole house' protector where utility wires enter
the building so that protection inside that power supply is
not overwhelmed.

One final point - this UPS is called computer grade. When
in battery backup, its 120V 'sine wave' is two 200 volt square
waves with a spike of up to 270 volts between those square
waves. Yes, that UPS is outputting a sine wave ... and more.
Why is that voltage not destructive to computers? Why is that
a computer grade UPS? Because protection already inside a
computer's power supply makes 200 and 270 volts irrelevant.
Protection for that disk drive means a power supply that
claims to have essential functions - in writing. Functions
often missing in 'dumped' and discounted power supplies.
Click to expand...

I think you're getting overly worked up.
 
CJT said:
I suppose that depends on what you consider "computer grade."


Heaven help you if you're on the 29th floor, I guess.


There's no such thing as "near zero feet from earth ground,"
because "earth ground" isn't a single point.


I think you're getting overly worked up.
Click to expand...

I think you are overly nice.

Oh, and given your bad quoting, you might be a bit worked up yourself.
 
w_tom said:
The typical plug-in UPS does not cost $500.
Computer grade UPSes connect appliance directly
to AC mains when not in battery backup mode.
Click to expand...

Wrong, as always. Some do, some dont.
Where is the power conditioning?
Click to expand...

When it aint directly connected, ****wit.
Does a relay 'clean' electricity? Of course not.
Click to expand...

Wota terminal ****wit.

Reams of even sillier shit flushed where it belongs.
 
Top posted for effect....

All the talk on power strips is not really related. Too bad it was brought
up. IRC requires a copper clad grounding rod have 25 ohms or less
resistance. If in excess, two are required. So if there's a short
somewhere, the majority of the current will go through the device, not earth
ground. Such was meant to to somewhat protect people from electrocution
type death, not equipment. Be patient, no response yet, read on.

Typically, from an outlet, following the hot/neutral/ground cable, goes to a
subpanel box in the home. Further goes to primary panel outside where the
ground bus and neutral are tied together in some fashion. A copper wire
from the grounding side bus connects to a copper clad pipe inserted in the
ground, and possibly metal piping in addition. Some locales are allowing
grounding to a cable in a concrete slab. This in effect describes to some
degree the length of wire from an AC outlet to its actual grounding point.
Waaaaaaaaaayyy more than ten feet in any situation.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
 
Typically, three things occur. The "surface ripple" is filtered out
substantially for one. The other, the voltage level is maintained with less
tolerance to fluctuation than source AC. And the other, steep current
fluctuation control. What those figure tolerances may be depends on the mfr
of the conditioning equipment.

A simpler definition here:
http://www.upsi.com/glossary.html
Thanks, Google.
 
Five power problems exist. Blackouts, brownouts, noise,
transients, and harmonics.

Blackouts and brownouts threaten data which is why we use a
computer grade UPS.

Noise is made totally irrelevant to a properly designed
power supply. Unfortunately too many buy some Asian power
supplies that are dumped into the market using low prices and
inaccurate watts numbers - so that the naive 'bean counter'
will recommend them. Functions such as noise protection may
be missing in these power supplies sold on low price - and
this is important - without a long list of numerical specs.
Noise should not be a problem to any properly constructed
computer power supply.

Transients are solved by internal appliance protection AND
the properly earthed 'whole house' protectors. The latter so
that the former (internal appliance protection) is not
overwhelmed.

When discussing 'power conditioning', well, which parameter
is problematic? 'Power conditioning' can be a terms to 'lie
by telling half truths'. An informed layman first asks which
problem rather than let the term 'power conditioner' have any
significance. The term 'dirty electricity' is also as
ambiguous - often used to promote products on myths and
propaganda.
 
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