Seagate ST3200823A-RK

  • Thread starter Thread starter Howard Kaikow
  • Start date Start date
Howard said:
http://www.seagate.com/products/retail/external/usbfirewire
Click to expand...

Oh dear. (Thanks for the link, by the way.)

It would appear that these drives have no cooling.

What's more, Seagate state in the above link:

"Never worry about losing important files. These drives will safeguard
your
valuable data for years to come.

Sleek and elegant structure actually dissipates heat, so they run much
cooler
than any other external drives."

External drives with no heating are most certainly not a case of "Never
worry about losing important files. ".... safeguard your data for years
to come" - they just cause drive failures.

"Sleek and elegant structure" - I think not. It's pig ugly.

"actually dissipates heat, so they run much cooler
than any other external drives." - bollox. This means they don't
incorporate cooling fans. Most manufacturers quote "dissipates heat"
yet the drives fail through overheating.

I wonder if some of the Maxtor crap has rubbed off on Seagate since the
latter bought out the former? All very worrying for the future and the
reliability of Seagate drives in general.


Odie
 
Previously Odie Ferrous said:
Oh dear. (Thanks for the link, by the way.)
Click to expand...
It would appear that these drives have no cooling.
Click to expand...

No active cooling. Passive cooling can be enough for drives
that do not generate a log of heat (i.e. _not_ Maxtor).
What's more, Seagate state in the above link:
Click to expand...
"Never worry about losing important files. These drives will safeguard
your valuable data for years to come.
Click to expand...

That is a dangerous statement for any HDD.
Sleek and elegant structure actually dissipates heat, so they run
much cooler than any other external drives."
Click to expand...

Well, the claim is surely false, since I doubt very much they
are better than _every_ other external drive. In addition my
Samsung in Agrosy external runs at ambient+10C, so unless they
have a hat-punp in there they _cannot_ get much cooler than this,
no matter what they do.

Obviously a marketing lie, so the whole claim becomes suspect.
External drives with no heating are most certainly not a case of "Never
worry about losing important files. ".... safeguard your data for years
to come" - they just cause drive failures.
Click to expand...
"Sleek and elegant structure" - I think not. It's pig ugly.
Click to expand...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder....
"actually dissipates heat, so they run much cooler
than any other external drives." - bollox. This means they don't
incorporate cooling fans. Most manufacturers quote "dissipates heat"
yet the drives fail through overheating.
Click to expand...

Most manufacturers have the claims in ther marketing material not
made by enginners (that actually understand what they are saying)
Marketing people are usually a) technologically incompetent
b) will lie to make a produyct look better c) do not understand
what negative impact taking their claims literally could have.

There is a way to spot this: "much cooler" has no meaning from
an engineering point-of-view. "At or below ambient temperature + 15C"
would be a statement you can trust to some reasonable degree, because
it can be verified and if untrue the manufacturer may be liable.
A professional description will havbe the second form.
I wonder if some of the Maxtor crap has rubbed off on Seagate since
the latter bought out the former? All very worrying for the future
and the reliability of Seagate drives in general.
Click to expand...

Maybe these are the Maxtor external drives in a new case? These
really were engineering atrocities! Put them into a sleek case and
make some inflated claims and you can continue selling them. Since
most people still seem to be unaware that they were unreliable in te
first place, that seems to have been a successful product. Second
advantage: You can decrease you stock of older models this way, since
nobody sees what drive is actually in the enclosure. Pretty neat from
a business POV.

Arno
 
The Maxtor 5000LE drives do not get hot, unless you stacj them, in which
case (pun intended), the drive on the bottom does get hot.
 
The Maxtor 5000LE drives do not get hot, unless you stacj them, in which
case (pun intended), the drive on the bottom does get hot.
Click to expand...

stacj ?

You mean the case doesn't feel very hot to the touch or you _know_ the
drive _inside_ is always little over ambient temp?
 
Arno Wagner said:
No active cooling. Passive cooling can be enough for drives
that do not generate a log of heat (i.e. _not_ Maxtor).
Click to expand...


While I agree that Maxtor is trash (I no longer use them, since I had 6
failed drives in 5 years time...), I do use Acomdata external drive
enclosures, which are passively cooled. This is not an issue when one uses
the drive for back ups only (i.e., the drive isn't powered up for extended
periods, just when backups are performed). These particular enclosures have
an off/on switch, making it simple to turn them off when finished. Also, the
bright blue light on the front is a reminder that they are on. IOW, they are
not run long enough to generate a significant amount of heat.

Of course, the feasibility of this relies on the user to remember to turn
the drives off after use.
 
While I agree that Maxtor is trash (I no longer use them, since I had 6
failed drives in 5 years time...), I do use Acomdata external drive
enclosures, which are passively cooled. This is not an issue when one uses
the drive for back ups only (i.e., the drive isn't powered up for extended
periods, just when backups are performed). These particular enclosures have
an off/on switch, making it simple to turn them off when finished. Also, the
bright blue light on the front is a reminder that they are on. IOW, they are
not run long enough to generate a significant amount of heat.

Of course, the feasibility of this relies on the user to remember to turn
the drives off after use.
Click to expand...

Whether or not it's a problem depends on the size & type of the backup
& whether or not the user finds it acceptable that "you have to turn
it off promptly or else!" Some will agree that they can "get by."
Others clearly not.
 
Harkhof said:
While I agree that Maxtor is trash (I no longer use them, since I had 6
failed drives in 5 years time...), I do use Acomdata external drive
enclosures, which are passively cooled. This is not an issue when one uses
the drive for back ups only (i.e., the drive isn't powered up for extended
periods, just when backups are performed). These particular enclosures have
an off/on switch, making it simple to turn them off when finished. Also, the
bright blue light on the front is a reminder that they are on. IOW, they are
not run long enough to generate a significant amount of heat.

Of course, the feasibility of this relies on the user to remember to turn
the drives off after use.
Click to expand...

I only disconnect the Maxtor drives when I swap them.
Each might be connected for several days. They do not get hot.
 
I only disconnect the Maxtor drives when I swap them.
Each might be connected for several days. They do not get hot.
Click to expand...

Again if you are making that determination simply by touching the case
of a primarily idle drive it is a flawed assessment. The drive inside
will be warmer than the external case. The is especially true with
plastic cases - but includes metal ones as well. While it may be an
appropriate heat level to function it is also likely warm enough to
shorten it's life & the life of the bridge circuitry. Furthermore,
many ppl with these kinds of devices use them to copy over all their
files in a primitive type backup - or other similar operation. So if
you have even only tens of gigs of mostly small or medium sized files
a full backup of this type will take quite a while over USB and will
warm the drive significantly - perhaps even deceptively so. And
frankly that's not even terribly aggressive use - pretty basic
actually...
 
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