so one USB port not equal to other USB port

  • Thread starter Thread starter Linea Recta
  • Start date Start date
L

Linea Recta

I have been having trouble with one of my USB hard disks.
It worked for some time, but not reliably.
In practice it randomly dismounted while copying files (and also when not
copying).
After that I had to pull the power plug and reinsert it to make the drive
mount again.

Yesterday this happened again, I got annoyed and, since the drive is still
under a few monthes warranty, I decided to call Medion support.
This guy advised to try it on another USB port.
Initially I was sceptical but nevertheles I gave it a try. Guess what? The
troublesome drive now seems to work like a charm! Problem solved.

But... how is this??? USB ports aren't equal? I changed over cables with the
other USB drive, which still seems to work fine on the former "errorous"
port.

PS both USB2 ports. No hubs.


--
regards,

|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os
 
Linea said:
I have been having trouble with one of my USB hard disks.
It worked for some time, but not reliably.
In practice it randomly dismounted while copying files (and also when not
copying).
After that I had to pull the power plug and reinsert it to make the drive
mount again.

Yesterday this happened again, I got annoyed and, since the drive is still
under a few monthes warranty, I decided to call Medion support.
This guy advised to try it on another USB port.
Initially I was sceptical but nevertheles I gave it a try. Guess what? The
troublesome drive now seems to work like a charm! Problem solved.

But... how is this??? USB ports aren't equal? I changed over cables with the
other USB drive, which still seems to work fine on the former "errorous"
port.

PS both USB2 ports. No hubs.
Click to expand...

Is this a bus powered 2.5" USB hard drive ?

The USB port has a limit of 500mA.

The power is policed in different ways.

On my Asus desktop motherboards, a single Polyfuse is used to power
two ports in a stack. The fuse is rated at slightly more than 1 amp.
If only one USB connector in the stack is being used, the peripheral
could draw current close to that level.

On some laptops, and also some hub devices, they use a silicon solution
for USB power monitoring. You can get an 8 pin chip that will measure the
power and cut off the flow at just over 500mA (the port limit).

The two implementations differ in the limit they have in hardware.
The laptop is less likely to be forgiving, on overcurrent.

If you look at the specifications of raw 2.5" USB drives now, some
give the appearance of needing less than 500mA. In many of those
cases, the "spinup current" is not specified. On some of the older
drives, it is 5V @ 1000mA. If a newer drive doesn't state that limit,
then we don't know whether it is better than the old drives, or the
same.

Some 2.5" USB enclosures, include cabling solutions to enhance current
flow. The first kind they made, has two USB connectors for the host
end, and one USB connector on the peripheral end. The intention of that
cable, is to add the current flow from two connectors. Of the two
connectors on the host end, only one connector has the D+ and D-
data pins connected.

A second cabling solution, provides two USB cables. One is an ordinary
shielded USB2 cable. The second, has a host connector on one end, and
a barrel power connector which plugs into a 5VDC hole on the drive
enclosure. This is doing something similar to the "two headed" cable,
only providing two separate cables to do it. The two separate cables
might encourage a larger separation between the two ports used
on the computer.

There are some enclosure purchases, that include an actual 5VDC adapter
in the box. These leave nothing to the imagination, and will simply work.
But if an enclosure maker is going to shave the parts list to the bare
minimum, there is no reason to be doing it right. It's more fun if
the end-users go around, with their hard drive working half the time.

Paul
 
Paul said:
Is this a bus powered 2.5" USB hard drive ?

The USB port has a limit of 500mA.

The power is policed in different ways.
Click to expand...



No, this is a 3.5" external USB 1.1 / USB 2 / SATA drive, which has its own
power adapter.
The power adaptor = 12V, 2A, (24W).
The drive case is Branded Medion MD 90087, but testing program HD Sentinel
indicates Model ID ST3500820AS, which points to Seagate.


On my Asus desktop motherboards, a single Polyfuse is used to power
two ports in a stack. The fuse is rated at slightly more than 1 amp.
If only one USB connector in the stack is being used, the peripheral
could draw current close to that level.
Click to expand...


The mainboard of concerning PC is Asus P4B266.

On some laptops, and also some hub devices, they use a silicon solution
for USB power monitoring. You can get an 8 pin chip that will measure the
power and cut off the flow at just over 500mA (the port limit).

The two implementations differ in the limit they have in hardware.
The laptop is less likely to be forgiving, on overcurrent.
Click to expand...



As opposed to using it with the PC the drive has never failed yet connected
to the laptop (also connected by USB).


If you look at the specifications of raw 2.5" USB drives now, some
give the appearance of needing less than 500mA. In many of those
cases, the "spinup current" is not specified. On some of the older
drives, it is 5V @ 1000mA. If a newer drive doesn't state that limit,
then we don't know whether it is better than the old drives, or the
same.

Some 2.5" USB enclosures, include cabling solutions to enhance current
flow. The first kind they made, has two USB connectors for the host
end, and one USB connector on the peripheral end. The intention of that
cable, is to add the current flow from two connectors. Of the two
connectors on the host end, only one connector has the D+ and D-
data pins connected.

A second cabling solution, provides two USB cables. One is an ordinary
shielded USB2 cable. The second, has a host connector on one end, and
a barrel power connector which plugs into a 5VDC hole on the drive
enclosure. This is doing something similar to the "two headed" cable,
only providing two separate cables to do it. The two separate cables
might encourage a larger separation between the two ports used
on the computer.

There are some enclosure purchases, that include an actual 5VDC adapter
in the box. These leave nothing to the imagination, and will simply work.
But if an enclosure maker is going to shave the parts list to the bare
minimum, there is no reason to be doing it right. It's more fun if
the end-users go around, with their hard drive working half the time.
Click to expand...


Below I'll paste detailed information report:
-----------------------------------------------------

Hard Disk Summary
Hard Disk Number,3
Interface,JMicron USB/ATA
Vendor Information,"VID: 152D, PID: 2336"
Hard Disk Model ID,ST3500820AS
Firmware Revision,SD45
Hard Disk Serial Number,9QM2K3L7
Total Size,476937 MB
Power State,Active

Logical Drive(s)
Logical Drive,I: [HDDRIVE2GO]

ATA Information
Hard Disk Cylinders,969021
Hard Disk Heads,16
Hard Disk Sectors,63
Total Sectors,976773168
ATA Revision,ATA8-ACS version 4
Transport Version,SATA Rev 2.6
Bytes Per Sector,512
Buffer Size,8192 KB
Multiple Sectors,16
Error Correction Bytes,4
Unformatted Capacity,476940 MB
Maximum PIO Mode,4
Maximum Multiword DMA Mode,2
Maximum UDMA Mode,300 MB/s (6)
Active UDMA Mode,300 MB/s (6)
Minimum multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Recommended Multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time Without IORDY,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time With IORDY,120 ns
ATA Control Byte,Valid
ATA Checksum Value,Valid

Acoustic Management Configuration
Acoustic Management,Not supported
Acoustic Management,Disabled
Current Acoustic Level,Default (00h)
Recommended Acoustic Level,Balanced performance and volume (D0h)

ATA Features
Read Ahead Buffer,"Supported, Enabled"
DMA,Supported
Ultra DMA,Supported
S.M.A.R.T.,Supported
Power Management,Supported
Write Cache,Supported
Host Protected Area,Supported
Advanced Power Management,Not supported
Power Up In Standby,Not supported
48-bit LBA Addressing,Supported
Device Configuration Overlay,Supported
IORDY Support,Supported
Read/Write DMA Queue,Not supported
NOP Command,Not supported
Trusted Computing,Not supported
64-bit World Wide ID,005000C5930B595C
Streaming,Not supported
Media Card Pass Through,Not supported
General Purpose Logging,Supported
Error Logging,Supported
CFA Feature Set,Not supported
CFast Device,Not supported
Long Physical Sectors (1),Not supported
Long Logical Sectors,Not supported
Write-Read-Verify,"Supported, Enabled"
NV Cache Feature,Not supported
NV Cache Power Mode,Not supported
NV Cache Size,Not supported
Free-fall Control,Not supported
Free-fall Control Sensitivity,Not supported
Nominal Media Rotation Rate,7200 RPM

SSD Features
Data Set Management,Not supported
TRIM Command,Not supported
Deterministic Read After TRIM,Not supported

S.M.A.R.T. Details
Off-line Data Collection Status,Successfully Completed
Self Test Execution Status,Successfully Completed
Total Time To Complete Off-line Data Collection,625 seconds
Execute Off-line Immediate,Supported
Abort/restart Off-line By Host,Not supported
Off-line Read Scanning,Supported
Short Self-test,Supported
Extended Self-test,Supported
Conveyance Self-test,Supported
Selective Self-Test,Supported
Save Data Before/After Power Saving Mode,Supported
Enable/Disable Attribute Autosave,Supported
Error Logging Capability,Supported
Short Self-test Estimated Time,1 minutes
Extended Self-test Estimated Time,113 minutes
Conveyance self-test estimated time,2 minutes
Last Short Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Short Self-test Date,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Date,Never Started
Last Conveyance Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Conveyance Self-test Date,Never Started

Security Mode
Security Mode,Supported
Security Erase,Supported
Security Erase Time,49 minutes
Security Enhanced Erase Feature,Supported
Security Enhanced Erase Time,49 minutes
Security Enabled,No
Security Locked,No
Security Frozen,No
Security Counter Expired,No
Security Level,High

Serial ATA Features
S-ATA Compliance,Yes
S-ATA I Signaling Speed (1.5 Gps),Supported
S-ATA II Signaling Speed (3 Gps),Supported
S-ATA Gen3 Signaling Speed (6 Gps),Not supported
Receipt Of Power Management Requests From Host,Not supported
PHY Event Counters,Supported
Non-Zero Buffer Offsets In DMA Setup FIS,Not supported
DMA Setup Auto-Activate Optimization,Not supported
Device Initiating Interface Power Management,Not supported
In-Order Data Delivery,Not supported
Asynchronous Notification,Not supported
Software Settings Preservation,"Supported, Enabled"
Native Command Queuing (NCQ),Supported
Queue Length,32

Disk Information
Disk Family,Barracuda 7200.11 500820
Form Factor,"3.5"" "
Capacity,500 GB (500 x 1.000.000.000 bytes)
Number Of Disks,2
Number Of Heads,4
Rotational Speed,7200 RPM
Rotation Time,"8,33 ms"
Average Rotational Latency,"4,17 ms"
Disk Interface,Serial-ATA/300
Buffer-Host Max. Rate,300 MB/seconds
Buffer Size,8192 KB
Drive Ready Time (typical),20 seconds
Average Seek Time,"8,5 ms"
Track To Track Seek Time,"0,8 ms"
Full Stroke Seek Time,? ms
Width,"101,6 mm (4,0 inch)"
Depth,"147,0 mm (5,8 inch)"
Height,"26,1 mm (1,0 inch)"
Weight,"530 grams (1,2 pounds)"
Acoustic (Idle),"2,7 Bel"
Acoustic (Min performance and volume),"2,9 Bel"
Acoustic (Max performance and volume),"2,9 Bel"
Required power for spinup,2.800 mA
Power required (seek),"12,8 W"
Power required (idle),"7,2 W"
Power required (standby),"0,8 W"
Manufacturer,Seagate Technology
Manufacturer Website,http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products

-----------------------------------------------------




--
regards,

|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os
 
I have been trying to reply to your message, until now without success.
It is possible that multiple attempts may appear here.



--
regards,

|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os
 
Linea said:
Paul said:
Is this a bus powered 2.5" USB hard drive ?

The USB port has a limit of 500mA.

The power is policed in different ways.
Click to expand...



No, this is a 3.5" external USB 1.1 / USB 2 / SATA drive, which has its own
power adapter.
The power adaptor = 12V, 2A, (24W).
The drive case is Branded Medion MD 90087, but testing program HD Sentinel
indicates Model ID ST3500820AS, which points to Seagate.


On my Asus desktop motherboards, a single Polyfuse is used to power
two ports in a stack. The fuse is rated at slightly more than 1 amp.
If only one USB connector in the stack is being used, the peripheral
could draw current close to that level.
Click to expand...


The mainboard of concerning PC is Asus P4B266.

On some laptops, and also some hub devices, they use a silicon solution
for USB power monitoring. You can get an 8 pin chip that will measure the
power and cut off the flow at just over 500mA (the port limit).

The two implementations differ in the limit they have in hardware.
The laptop is less likely to be forgiving, on overcurrent.
Click to expand...



As opposed to using it with the PC the drive has never failed yet connected
to the laptop (also connected by USB).


If you look at the specifications of raw 2.5" USB drives now, some
give the appearance of needing less than 500mA. In many of those
cases, the "spinup current" is not specified. On some of the older
drives, it is 5V @ 1000mA. If a newer drive doesn't state that limit,
then we don't know whether it is better than the old drives, or the
same.

Some 2.5" USB enclosures, include cabling solutions to enhance current
flow. The first kind they made, has two USB connectors for the host
end, and one USB connector on the peripheral end. The intention of that
cable, is to add the current flow from two connectors. Of the two
connectors on the host end, only one connector has the D+ and D-
data pins connected.

A second cabling solution, provides two USB cables. One is an ordinary
shielded USB2 cable. The second, has a host connector on one end, and
a barrel power connector which plugs into a 5VDC hole on the drive
enclosure. This is doing something similar to the "two headed" cable,
only providing two separate cables to do it. The two separate cables
might encourage a larger separation between the two ports used
on the computer.

There are some enclosure purchases, that include an actual 5VDC adapter
in the box. These leave nothing to the imagination, and will simply work.
But if an enclosure maker is going to shave the parts list to the bare
minimum, there is no reason to be doing it right. It's more fun if
the end-users go around, with their hard drive working half the time.
Click to expand...


Below I'll paste detailed information report:
-----------------------------------------------------

Hard Disk Summary
Hard Disk Number,3
Interface,JMicron USB/ATA
Vendor Information,"VID: 152D, PID: 2336"
Hard Disk Model ID,ST3500820AS
Firmware Revision,SD45
Hard Disk Serial Number,9QM2K3L7
Total Size,476937 MB
Power State,Active

Logical Drive(s)
Logical Drive,I: [HDDRIVE2GO]

ATA Information
Hard Disk Cylinders,969021
Hard Disk Heads,16
Hard Disk Sectors,63
Total Sectors,976773168
ATA Revision,ATA8-ACS version 4
Transport Version,SATA Rev 2.6
Bytes Per Sector,512
Buffer Size,8192 KB
Multiple Sectors,16
Error Correction Bytes,4
Unformatted Capacity,476940 MB
Maximum PIO Mode,4
Maximum Multiword DMA Mode,2
Maximum UDMA Mode,300 MB/s (6)
Active UDMA Mode,300 MB/s (6)
Minimum multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Recommended Multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time Without IORDY,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time With IORDY,120 ns
ATA Control Byte,Valid
ATA Checksum Value,Valid

Acoustic Management Configuration
Acoustic Management,Not supported
Acoustic Management,Disabled
Current Acoustic Level,Default (00h)
Recommended Acoustic Level,Balanced performance and volume (D0h)

ATA Features
Read Ahead Buffer,"Supported, Enabled"
DMA,Supported
Ultra DMA,Supported
S.M.A.R.T.,Supported
Power Management,Supported
Write Cache,Supported
Host Protected Area,Supported
Advanced Power Management,Not supported
Power Up In Standby,Not supported
48-bit LBA Addressing,Supported
Device Configuration Overlay,Supported
IORDY Support,Supported
Read/Write DMA Queue,Not supported
NOP Command,Not supported
Trusted Computing,Not supported
64-bit World Wide ID,005000C5930B595C
Streaming,Not supported
Media Card Pass Through,Not supported
General Purpose Logging,Supported
Error Logging,Supported
CFA Feature Set,Not supported
CFast Device,Not supported
Long Physical Sectors (1),Not supported
Long Logical Sectors,Not supported
Write-Read-Verify,"Supported, Enabled"
NV Cache Feature,Not supported
NV Cache Power Mode,Not supported
NV Cache Size,Not supported
Free-fall Control,Not supported
Free-fall Control Sensitivity,Not supported
Nominal Media Rotation Rate,7200 RPM

SSD Features
Data Set Management,Not supported
TRIM Command,Not supported
Deterministic Read After TRIM,Not supported

S.M.A.R.T. Details
Off-line Data Collection Status,Successfully Completed
Self Test Execution Status,Successfully Completed
Total Time To Complete Off-line Data Collection,625 seconds
Execute Off-line Immediate,Supported
Abort/restart Off-line By Host,Not supported
Off-line Read Scanning,Supported
Short Self-test,Supported
Extended Self-test,Supported
Conveyance Self-test,Supported
Selective Self-Test,Supported
Save Data Before/After Power Saving Mode,Supported
Enable/Disable Attribute Autosave,Supported
Error Logging Capability,Supported
Short Self-test Estimated Time,1 minutes
Extended Self-test Estimated Time,113 minutes
Conveyance self-test estimated time,2 minutes
Last Short Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Short Self-test Date,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Date,Never Started
Last Conveyance Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Conveyance Self-test Date,Never Started

Security Mode
Security Mode,Supported
Security Erase,Supported
Security Erase Time,49 minutes
Security Enhanced Erase Feature,Supported
Security Enhanced Erase Time,49 minutes
Security Enabled,No
Security Locked,No
Security Frozen,No
Security Counter Expired,No
Security Level,High

Serial ATA Features
S-ATA Compliance,Yes
S-ATA I Signaling Speed (1.5 Gps),Supported
S-ATA II Signaling Speed (3 Gps),Supported
S-ATA Gen3 Signaling Speed (6 Gps),Not supported
Receipt Of Power Management Requests From Host,Not supported
PHY Event Counters,Supported
Non-Zero Buffer Offsets In DMA Setup FIS,Not supported
DMA Setup Auto-Activate Optimization,Not supported
Device Initiating Interface Power Management,Not supported
In-Order Data Delivery,Not supported
Asynchronous Notification,Not supported
Software Settings Preservation,"Supported, Enabled"
Native Command Queuing (NCQ),Supported
Queue Length,32

Disk Information
Disk Family,Barracuda 7200.11 500820
Form Factor,"3.5"" "
Capacity,500 GB (500 x 1.000.000.000 bytes)
Number Of Disks,2
Number Of Heads,4
Rotational Speed,7200 RPM
Rotation Time,"8,33 ms"
Average Rotational Latency,"4,17 ms"
Disk Interface,Serial-ATA/300
Buffer-Host Max. Rate,300 MB/seconds
Buffer Size,8192 KB
Drive Ready Time (typical),20 seconds
Average Seek Time,"8,5 ms"
Track To Track Seek Time,"0,8 ms"
Full Stroke Seek Time,? ms
Width,"101,6 mm (4,0 inch)"
Depth,"147,0 mm (5,8 inch)"
Height,"26,1 mm (1,0 inch)"
Weight,"530 grams (1,2 pounds)"
Acoustic (Idle),"2,7 Bel"
Acoustic (Min performance and volume),"2,9 Bel"
Acoustic (Max performance and volume),"2,9 Bel"
Required power for spinup,2.800 mA
Power required (seek),"12,8 W"
Power required (idle),"7,2 W"
Power required (standby),"0,8 W"
Manufacturer,Seagate Technology
Manufacturer Website,http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products
Click to expand...

Then forget my suggestion. Since this is a 3.5" enclosure, with its
own power supply, there would be no significant power draw by the
enclosure, from the USB cable.

*******

The one thing that stuck out in your data dump above was "HDDRIVE2GO",
so I tried that term plus Medion and ended up here.

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Intern...ATA-drive-via-USB-enclosure-Seagate/m-p/22202

The comments there, are with respect to some of their larger capacity
disks.

"I can't even use this drive to backup things, since it will just
stop working after a few minutes."

Seagate did have an issue with firmware on their drives a while back.
There was a short stink about it. Seagate doesn't typically offer firmware
updates directly on the web site, but vets them via their tech support.

I see your raw drive model number ST3500820AS here, but perhaps your
firmware has already been updated (i.e. not an affected version).
Your firmware version of SD45 isn't in the table.
It is something you might discuss with Seagate technical support.
And I see they do offer downloads here, which is unusual.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207951&Hilite=

*******

I don't want to send you off chasing a red herring. The thing is,
you say the drive works fine when plugged into another USB port.
Which suggests the drive mechanism isn't at fault. The power
for the drive is coming from the enclosure side of things.

On a computer, there is a difference between the front USB ports
and the rear USB ports. The USB connector on a rear port, is soldered
directly to the motherboard PCB. The tracks leading up to the connector,
can have controlled impedance. Which means, electrically speaking, the
"wiring" is ideal.

The front panel, on the other hand, has a cable assembly leading from a
pin header on the motherboard. On assemblies Asus makes, they're careful
to shield the wire bundle, and do so very close to the end connectors. That
is similar to USB2 external cabling, where there is shielding, and they're
pretty careful about the construction details.

Some computer cases have had less than ideal front port assemblies. Antec,
a company that makes computer cases, issued a large number of cases that
only support USB 1.1 transmission rates on the front connector. So a customer
might expect some problems with the front connector, versus the rear one.
Sometimes, it isn't the wiring itself, but a few analog components on the
USB connector PCB mounted in the front of the computer case (filtering
which is not consistent with usage at USB2 rates). The rear port design
is done by a motherboard designer, and they seem to have more clues
than whoever makes the little PCB glued into the front of a computer
case.

In Windows, the registry is used to keep track of devices. Sometimes,
a USB behavior is a result of something stored in the registry. Moving
a USB peripheral to another connector, may benefit from some level of
"starting from scratch", in terms of the information recorded in the
registry. Again, I don't see a reason to suspect this, but something
an entire clearing of the USB stack, changes the symptoms a person sees.

So there are a few ideas, but none of them so far exactly correlates with
yours. Since you do have a USB port that works, you're not really in much
trouble at all. If none of the ports worked, and the symptoms were
consistent, it might point to a more serious problem.

In terms of design concepts, Seagate, in their own external enclosure designs,
had a few thermal problems. They like to design enclosures without fans. To
counter potential heat issues (high drive fallout, perhaps thermally induced),
their next generation of enclosures caused the drive to spin down after a
short interval of inactivity. Perhaps the behavior correlates with spindown,
but I don't really know what I'd be looking for there. Certainly, if you
were in the middle of transferring files, there is no reason for spindown
to take place. It should require a period of inactivity, if that is actually
implemented in the design. If Medion designed their own housing, and this
isn't just some rebadged Seagate design, then that might not be it either.

The chip in the enclosure is a Jmicron, and I don't know if we could
find any "dirt" on that end of things or not. I took a quick look, but
don't see anything of note.

http://www.jmicron.com/Product_JM20336.htm

Paul
 
Paul said:
Linea said:
Paul said:
Linea Recta wrote:
I have been having trouble with one of my USB hard disks.
It worked for some time, but not reliably.
In practice it randomly dismounted while copying files (and also when
not copying).
After that I had to pull the power plug and reinsert it to make the
drive mount again.

Yesterday this happened again, I got annoyed and, since the drive is
still under a few monthes warranty, I decided to call Medion support.
This guy advised to try it on another USB port.
Initially I was sceptical but nevertheles I gave it a try. Guess what?
The troublesome drive now seems to work like a charm! Problem solved.

But... how is this??? USB ports aren't equal? I changed over cables
with the other USB drive, which still seems to work fine on the former
"errorous" port.

PS both USB2 ports. No hubs.


Is this a bus powered 2.5" USB hard drive ?

The USB port has a limit of 500mA.

The power is policed in different ways.
Click to expand...



No, this is a 3.5" external USB 1.1 / USB 2 / SATA drive, which has its
own power adapter.
The power adaptor = 12V, 2A, (24W).
The drive case is Branded Medion MD 90087, but testing program HD
Sentinel indicates Model ID ST3500820AS, which points to Seagate.


On my Asus desktop motherboards, a single Polyfuse is used to power
two ports in a stack. The fuse is rated at slightly more than 1 amp.
If only one USB connector in the stack is being used, the peripheral
could draw current close to that level.
Click to expand...


The mainboard of concerning PC is Asus P4B266.

On some laptops, and also some hub devices, they use a silicon solution
for USB power monitoring. You can get an 8 pin chip that will measure
the
power and cut off the flow at just over 500mA (the port limit).

The two implementations differ in the limit they have in hardware.
The laptop is less likely to be forgiving, on overcurrent.
Click to expand...



As opposed to using it with the PC the drive has never failed yet
connected to the laptop (also connected by USB).


If you look at the specifications of raw 2.5" USB drives now, some
give the appearance of needing less than 500mA. In many of those
cases, the "spinup current" is not specified. On some of the older
drives, it is 5V @ 1000mA. If a newer drive doesn't state that limit,
then we don't know whether it is better than the old drives, or the
same.

Some 2.5" USB enclosures, include cabling solutions to enhance current
flow. The first kind they made, has two USB connectors for the host
end, and one USB connector on the peripheral end. The intention of that
cable, is to add the current flow from two connectors. Of the two
connectors on the host end, only one connector has the D+ and D-
data pins connected.

A second cabling solution, provides two USB cables. One is an ordinary
shielded USB2 cable. The second, has a host connector on one end, and
a barrel power connector which plugs into a 5VDC hole on the drive
enclosure. This is doing something similar to the "two headed" cable,
only providing two separate cables to do it. The two separate cables
might encourage a larger separation between the two ports used
on the computer.

There are some enclosure purchases, that include an actual 5VDC adapter
in the box. These leave nothing to the imagination, and will simply
work.
But if an enclosure maker is going to shave the parts list to the bare
minimum, there is no reason to be doing it right. It's more fun if
the end-users go around, with their hard drive working half the time.
Click to expand...


Below I'll paste detailed information report:
-----------------------------------------------------

Hard Disk Summary
Hard Disk Number,3
Interface,JMicron USB/ATA
Vendor Information,"VID: 152D, PID: 2336"
Hard Disk Model ID,ST3500820AS
Firmware Revision,SD45
Hard Disk Serial Number,9QM2K3L7
Total Size,476937 MB
Power State,Active

Logical Drive(s)
Logical Drive,I: [HDDRIVE2GO]

ATA Information
Hard Disk Cylinders,969021
Hard Disk Heads,16
Hard Disk Sectors,63
Total Sectors,976773168
ATA Revision,ATA8-ACS version 4
Transport Version,SATA Rev 2.6
Bytes Per Sector,512
Buffer Size,8192 KB
Multiple Sectors,16
Error Correction Bytes,4
Unformatted Capacity,476940 MB
Maximum PIO Mode,4
Maximum Multiword DMA Mode,2
Maximum UDMA Mode,300 MB/s (6)
Active UDMA Mode,300 MB/s (6)
Minimum multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Recommended Multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time Without IORDY,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time With IORDY,120 ns
ATA Control Byte,Valid
ATA Checksum Value,Valid

Acoustic Management Configuration
Acoustic Management,Not supported
Acoustic Management,Disabled
Current Acoustic Level,Default (00h)
Recommended Acoustic Level,Balanced performance and volume (D0h)

ATA Features
Read Ahead Buffer,"Supported, Enabled"
DMA,Supported
Ultra DMA,Supported
S.M.A.R.T.,Supported
Power Management,Supported
Write Cache,Supported
Host Protected Area,Supported
Advanced Power Management,Not supported
Power Up In Standby,Not supported
48-bit LBA Addressing,Supported
Device Configuration Overlay,Supported
IORDY Support,Supported
Read/Write DMA Queue,Not supported
NOP Command,Not supported
Trusted Computing,Not supported
64-bit World Wide ID,005000C5930B595C
Streaming,Not supported
Media Card Pass Through,Not supported
General Purpose Logging,Supported
Error Logging,Supported
CFA Feature Set,Not supported
CFast Device,Not supported
Long Physical Sectors (1),Not supported
Long Logical Sectors,Not supported
Write-Read-Verify,"Supported, Enabled"
NV Cache Feature,Not supported
NV Cache Power Mode,Not supported
NV Cache Size,Not supported
Free-fall Control,Not supported
Free-fall Control Sensitivity,Not supported
Nominal Media Rotation Rate,7200 RPM

SSD Features
Data Set Management,Not supported
TRIM Command,Not supported
Deterministic Read After TRIM,Not supported

S.M.A.R.T. Details
Off-line Data Collection Status,Successfully Completed
Self Test Execution Status,Successfully Completed
Total Time To Complete Off-line Data Collection,625 seconds
Execute Off-line Immediate,Supported
Abort/restart Off-line By Host,Not supported
Off-line Read Scanning,Supported
Short Self-test,Supported
Extended Self-test,Supported
Conveyance Self-test,Supported
Selective Self-Test,Supported
Save Data Before/After Power Saving Mode,Supported
Enable/Disable Attribute Autosave,Supported
Error Logging Capability,Supported
Short Self-test Estimated Time,1 minutes
Extended Self-test Estimated Time,113 minutes
Conveyance self-test estimated time,2 minutes
Last Short Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Short Self-test Date,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Date,Never Started
Last Conveyance Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Conveyance Self-test Date,Never Started

Security Mode
Security Mode,Supported
Security Erase,Supported
Security Erase Time,49 minutes
Security Enhanced Erase Feature,Supported
Security Enhanced Erase Time,49 minutes
Security Enabled,No
Security Locked,No
Security Frozen,No
Security Counter Expired,No
Security Level,High

Serial ATA Features
S-ATA Compliance,Yes
S-ATA I Signaling Speed (1.5 Gps),Supported
S-ATA II Signaling Speed (3 Gps),Supported
S-ATA Gen3 Signaling Speed (6 Gps),Not supported
Receipt Of Power Management Requests From Host,Not supported
PHY Event Counters,Supported
Non-Zero Buffer Offsets In DMA Setup FIS,Not supported
DMA Setup Auto-Activate Optimization,Not supported
Device Initiating Interface Power Management,Not supported
In-Order Data Delivery,Not supported
Asynchronous Notification,Not supported
Software Settings Preservation,"Supported, Enabled"
Native Command Queuing (NCQ),Supported
Queue Length,32

Disk Information
Disk Family,Barracuda 7200.11 500820
Form Factor,"3.5"" "
Capacity,500 GB (500 x 1.000.000.000 bytes)
Number Of Disks,2
Number Of Heads,4
Rotational Speed,7200 RPM
Rotation Time,"8,33 ms"
Average Rotational Latency,"4,17 ms"
Disk Interface,Serial-ATA/300
Buffer-Host Max. Rate,300 MB/seconds
Buffer Size,8192 KB
Drive Ready Time (typical),20 seconds
Average Seek Time,"8,5 ms"
Track To Track Seek Time,"0,8 ms"
Full Stroke Seek Time,? ms
Width,"101,6 mm (4,0 inch)"
Depth,"147,0 mm (5,8 inch)"
Height,"26,1 mm (1,0 inch)"
Weight,"530 grams (1,2 pounds)"
Acoustic (Idle),"2,7 Bel"
Acoustic (Min performance and volume),"2,9 Bel"
Acoustic (Max performance and volume),"2,9 Bel"
Required power for spinup,2.800 mA
Power required (seek),"12,8 W"
Power required (idle),"7,2 W"
Power required (standby),"0,8 W"
Manufacturer,Seagate Technology
Manufacturer Website,http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products
Click to expand...

Then forget my suggestion. Since this is a 3.5" enclosure, with its
own power supply, there would be no significant power draw by the
enclosure, from the USB cable.

*******

The one thing that stuck out in your data dump above was "HDDRIVE2GO",
so I tried that term plus Medion and ended up here.

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Intern...ATA-drive-via-USB-enclosure-Seagate/m-p/22202

The comments there, are with respect to some of their larger capacity
disks.

"I can't even use this drive to backup things, since it will just
stop working after a few minutes."

Seagate did have an issue with firmware on their drives a while back.
There was a short stink about it. Seagate doesn't typically offer firmware
updates directly on the web site, but vets them via their tech support.

I see your raw drive model number ST3500820AS here, but perhaps your
firmware has already been updated (i.e. not an affected version).
Your firmware version of SD45 isn't in the table.
Click to expand...


I see... but I'm not sure about the implimentation, i.e. how can I know for
sure which firmware is the latest? These codes don't ring a bell and I don't
see any release dates...
Furthermore I tried their Drive Detect software: it seems to detect all my
maxtor(!) drives, even the external one, but it does NOT detect the
Medion/Seagate in question!


It is something you might discuss with Seagate technical support.
And I see they do offer downloads here, which is unusual.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207951&Hilite=

*******

I don't want to send you off chasing a red herring. The thing is,
you say the drive works fine when plugged into another USB port.
Which suggests the drive mechanism isn't at fault. The power
for the drive is coming from the enclosure side of things.

On a computer, there is a difference between the front USB ports
and the rear USB ports. The USB connector on a rear port, is soldered
directly to the motherboard PCB. The tracks leading up to the connector,
can have controlled impedance. Which means, electrically speaking, the
"wiring" is ideal.

The front panel, on the other hand, has a cable assembly leading from a
pin header on the motherboard. On assemblies Asus makes, they're careful
to shield the wire bundle, and do so very close to the end connectors.
That
is similar to USB2 external cabling, where there is shielding, and they're
pretty careful about the construction details.

Some computer cases have had less than ideal front port assemblies. Antec,
a company that makes computer cases, issued a large number of cases that
only support USB 1.1 transmission rates on the front connector. So a
customer
might expect some problems with the front connector, versus the rear one.
Sometimes, it isn't the wiring itself, but a few analog components on the
USB connector PCB mounted in the front of the computer case (filtering
which is not consistent with usage at USB2 rates). The rear port design
is done by a motherboard designer, and they seem to have more clues
than whoever makes the little PCB glued into the front of a computer
case.
Click to expand...


I have 2 USB1 connections and 4 USB2 connections, all of them located at the
rear end of the comuter (and btw diastrously out of reach...)

In Windows, the registry is used to keep track of devices. Sometimes,
a USB behavior is a result of something stored in the registry. Moving
a USB peripheral to another connector, may benefit from some level of
"starting from scratch", in terms of the information recorded in the
registry. Again, I don't see a reason to suspect this, but something
an entire clearing of the USB stack, changes the symptoms a person sees.

So there are a few ideas, but none of them so far exactly correlates with
yours. Since you do have a USB port that works, you're not really in much
trouble at all. If none of the ports worked, and the symptoms were
consistent, it might point to a more serious problem.

In terms of design concepts, Seagate, in their own external enclosure
designs,
had a few thermal problems. They like to design enclosures without fans.
To
Click to expand...


The Medion enclosure has no fan, but it does have air slots. Temperature is
never becomming exeedingly high on the outside.

counter potential heat issues (high drive fallout, perhaps thermally
induced),
their next generation of enclosures caused the drive to spin down after a
short interval of inactivity. Perhaps the behavior correlates with
spindown,
but I don't really know what I'd be looking for there. Certainly, if you
Click to expand...


For my external Maxtror I have a utility to set the spindown time or to
disable it.
For the Medion I have no such thing, nor could find any on the internet.
Later on I discovered that it spins down anyway after some time, by a built
in parameter I suppose.


were in the middle of transferring files, there is no reason for spindown
to take place. It should require a period of inactivity, if that is
actually
implemented in the design. If Medion designed their own housing, and this
isn't just some rebadged Seagate design, then that might not be it either.

The chip in the enclosure is a Jmicron, and I don't know if we could
find any "dirt" on that end of things or not. I took a quick look, but
don't see anything of note.

http://www.jmicron.com/Product_JM20336.htm
Click to expand...


Thanks for all your input,


--
regards,

|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os
 
Linea said:
I see... but I'm not sure about the implimentation, i.e. how can I know for
sure which firmware is the latest? These codes don't ring a bell and I don't
see any release dates...
Furthermore I tried their Drive Detect software: it seems to detect all my
maxtor(!) drives, even the external one, but it does NOT detect the
Medion/Seagate in question!
Click to expand...

If the software doesn't work, perhaps you can take the info you pasted
in your "detailed information report" above, and contact Seagate tech
support. It is possible their Drive Detect software is designed for
directly connected drives, rather than USB ones. Similarly, if
they have a firmware updater, a question would be whether that runs
on a directly connected port, or can work through USB. My experience
(with flashing optical drives), is they should be directly connected.
I have 2 USB1 connections and 4 USB2 connections, all of them located at the
rear end of the comuter (and btw diastrously out of reach...)


The Medion enclosure has no fan, but it does have air slots. Temperature is
never becomming exeedingly high on the outside.


For my external Maxtror I have a utility to set the spindown time or to
disable it.
For the Medion I have no such thing, nor could find any on the internet.
Later on I discovered that it spins down anyway after some time, by a built
in parameter I suppose.

Thanks for all your input,
Click to expand...

For the USB ports which are out of reach, you could always plug a
cable into them, and leave the cable end located in a convenient location.

That is one of the reasons, that I keep my computers on the desktop. I can reach
all sides of the computers. My computer table is 4' x 4', so there is room
for plenty of junk.

If you want to browse through the ATA/ATAPI spec, there is an example here
of one. Section 7.18.3 has a "Table 40" with Standby Timer value settings.
In the case of your drive housed in a USB enclosure, it could be the
enclosure chip that sets the value. It isn't clear whether that value is
preserved across power cycles or not, by the drive, or whether it has
to be programmed at each power up. (And at 500 pages in length for the
spec, if would likely take a few minutes to figure that out.)

http://www.t13.org/Documents/UploadedDocuments/docs2008/D1699r6a-ATA8-ACS.pdf

Paul
 
I had problems with using front USB ports as opposed to the rear ones in my
computer. Seems the front ones were low power or something. One manufacturer
makes a keyboard I used to own, which has two USB ports on them, but they're
worthless since they were low powered. It wasn't useful in that my devices
needed more.
 
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