External drive users must read

J

jay2472000

Gawd
Joined
Oct 6, 2008
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Hi guys, I just wanna pass along some info that may be helpful to those of you that are using an internal drive in an external enclosure. I bought 2 500 gig WD drives for backups and 2 Thermaltake enclosures. The enclosures will do E-SATA or USB. At the time I didnt have the back panel to run the E-SATA so I used them USB. Now I dont know if this is an isolated incident due to hardware combo but I dont believe it is. Without going into the "why" by using the drives USB none of the S.M.A.R.T. stuff worked.

Basically I had a drive with quite a bit of bad sectors, Windows never realized it was happening ( due to using them USB ) and I lost some data. As soon as I got them setup E-SATA style Windows realized they needed a scan, but it was too late, the data on those sectors was bad. Also, the drive turned out to be faulty, and was RMA'd thru WD with no hassles.

Just something to consider if youre using USB externals.
 
Hmph...thats strange: I've never had any of those problems, before, along the lines of loosing data or any corruption of sectors, but, I'll be sure to keep a watch for any of the sort.

Thanks for the warning.
 
Np man, just looking out. Also, I should note, I dont think the USB is WHY the sectors got corrupt ( I RMA'd the drive, so I believe the drive was defective, regardless of interface) , but the USB IS why I didnt notice it sooner ( the drive was in use for about a month before I went to E-Sata)
 
Good point, thanks for the warning.

The USB interface just passes the data, whereas the ESATA is just the same as plugging the drive into an internal SATA connector.

Don
 
This is what we like to call an issolated incedent. All my USB2 connected external drives work great with SMART.

Hi guys, I just wanna pass along some info that may be helpful to those of you that are using an internal drive in an external enclosure
Click to expand...

Are you under the impression that retail external drives have some kind of "special" drive in them? No, they are just regular internal drives just like if you where to do what you did. There is no difference.
 
This is what we like to call an issolated incedent. All my USB2 connected external drives work great with SMART.
Click to expand...

Actually, very few USB connected drives pass SMART data.

From Wikipedia...
Depending on the type of interface being used, some S.M.A.R.T.-enabled motherboards and related software may not communicate with certain S.M.A.R.T.-capable drives. For example, few external drives connected via USB and Firewire correctly send S.M.A.R.T. data over those interfaces
Click to expand...

None of my past or present USB drive cases ( over 10) has ever passed any SMART data and I assumed none did.

While doing a little research on the subject, I came across a few that qualified.

There may be others but what brand(s) are you using that passes the data?

Inquiring Old Hippies wanna know. :)


PS. I kinda figured, it depends upon the chipset because there's no standard. Looks like I never hit the correct chipset and you have all the right ones.

Story Of My Life! :D
 
Criccio, youre correct, if it doesnt support it for an internal drive in an external enclosure, the same would apply to something USB only ( IE my IBook) As stated, I wasnt sure if it was an isolated incident or not, but better to know that not. Honestly, once I actually gave it some thought it makes sense, BUT, I have been building my own, etc for so long that I forget the basics sometimes ;)

Cool to see some do support it, I realize S.M.A.R.T. is not the holy grail but its better than nothing. Anyway, looks like Hippy has done the legwork for us ( ty kind sir) and you have all been informed ;) Go DL some pron!!!!
 
Not all onboard SATA can pass smart to Windows either though.

For instance, Vista and NVIDIA based SATA doesn't pass smart because it uses scsi emulation drivers or whatever even when not in raid mode.
 
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