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External HD Enclosure Help!

W

wuya

n00b
Joined
May 27, 2005
Messages
24
Is it safe to turn the external HD enclosure off *while* my computer is still running?
 
I don't see why not...it would be the same as pulling the USB cable out...shouldn't cause harm either way.
 
Don't drop it.

Back it up on DVDs so when you do drop it it isn't fatal to your data.
 
This thing gets really hot. Is it suppose to be really hot?

I would probably warm a beef patty on this thing.
 
What drive do you have inside it?

If it's an older Western Digital, there's an outside chance it doesn't have FDB motors, and that may be the cause of the heat.

The enclosure is probably metallic. Humans are very poor judges of temperature, but ok judges of heat. The metallic case rapidly conducts heat into your hand, giving the perception that it's very hot, and you probably think it's hotter than it really is.

Nevertheless, heat build up is very bad for a hard drive. The upper limit of typical safe operating temperatures is about 40C/102F, and every degree above that pretty dramatically increases the chance of failure, and most drives become totally non-operational (or fail) between 50 and 55C.

If you can easily, pop the enclosure open and see what's inside. If it's an older silver topped Western Digital, see about replacing it with a cooler running FDB drive. It will be quieter and use less power to boot.
 
I am not sure if it has a FDB motor.

The HD inside the enclosure is a 120 GB WD Caviar series. The HD itself is black, but has a silver plate on top of it.

I have a bytecc 3.5" external enclosure. Aluminum case.

So what does this say?
 
wuya said:
...but has a silver plate on top of it.

I have a bytecc 3.5" external enclosure. Aluminum case.

So what does this say?
Click to expand...
You like small shiny things? ;)

As far as unconnecting them, you should be fine as long as it's not in the middle of a write operation. Wait until the drive activity light on the drive goes dark before pulling the USB cord out.
 
So what do I do about the heat? I can literally keep my cup of coffee warm on top of it.
 
i got a 200gb wd in a bytecc too.
mine gets hot.
mine has the pretty lights.
dont worry about it, mines been goin strong all the time.
and i turn if off whenever.
 
How long have you been using your external HD enclosure?

Ever had a problem with it? Even the slightest?

With all the heat trapped inside, I figure it would go wrong in no time.
 
you probably should go to the taskbar and click the little "disconnect device" icon thing.. then turn it off. but i turned off mine before and turned it on hours later and it was fine...
 
scottatwittenberg said:
you probably should go to the taskbar and click the little "disconnect device" icon thing.. then turn it off. but i turned off mine before and turned it on hours later and it was fine...
Click to expand...

That simply makes sure there are no waiting writes or reads before "disconnecting" the drivers. If the activity light is dark and has been for a few seconds, you can turn it off without worries. Win 2K ME and 98 were the only ones that griped about a device being unplugged before you clicked disconnect device.
 
The_Mage18 said:
That simply makes sure there are no waiting writes or reads before "disconnecting" the drivers. If the activity light is dark and has been for a few seconds, you can turn it off without worries. Win 2K ME and 98 were the only ones that griped about a device being unplugged before you clicked disconnect device.
Click to expand...

Win XP can actualy delay writes to the MFT of the HD for more than 30min
disconnecting the drive after having written or changed files on it without going trough the safely disconnect drive steps can easily lead to data loss or a corupted HD :(

That said, folowing what BudLight :p said. if your concearned about the drives temp, put an old style thermometer onto the case and leave it for 10min and see what it reads afterwards.
 
Write caching _should_ be disabled on external drives, by default, in Windows XP. If you decide to turn on write caching, and turn the drive off while a write is still in the buffer, that can be very bad news. However, if you're using the NTFS on the disk, chkdsk should be able to use the journal to recover the version of the file that existed before the cached write was lost. Yet another reason why NTFS > FAT32.
 
The thermometer didn't work. The temp a few millimeter from the case is actually quite cool. I had to press my palm into the case to feel the heat. It almost feels like the same temp as the glass in a beef patty oven at the corner stores.

By only tipping the thermometer onto the case, I am getting a 37C/99F. Even though I got a reading. I am sure it is a few degrees more higher than the head inside the case is more intense than outside of it.

What is the 'safe range' for my HD?

Also, the package label says it transfers data at the rate of 12 MB/S and 480 MB/S via USB2. But I am only getting 0.8 MB/S! How come!?
 
DougLite said:
Write caching _should_ be disabled on external drives, by default, in Windows XP. If you decide to turn on write caching, and turn the drive off while a write is still in the buffer, that can be very bad news. However, if you're using the NTFS on the disk, chkdsk should be able to use the journal to recover the version of the file that existed before the cached write was lost. Yet another reason why NTFS > FAT32.
Click to expand...

By "Should be" do you mean we should go and disable it, or windows has already disabled it?
I just checked on both of my local XP Pro machines and its enabled (as stock) for all drives (external and internal). Interestingly enough it appears i could enable it with some hacking for a network drive :rolleyes:

For the Temp question I refer back to Doug
DougLite said:
The upper limit of typical safe operating temperatures is about 40C/102F, and every degree above that pretty dramatically increases the chance of failure, and most drives become totally non-operational (or fail) between 50 and 55C.
Click to expand...
 
Okay, that just leaves this unanswered:
Also, the package label says it transfers data at the rate of 12 MB/S and 480 MB/S via USB2. But I am only getting 0.8 MB/S! How come!?
Click to expand...
 
When reading transfer rates, Capital "B" != lower case "b." There are eight "b" (bits) in one "B" (byte). Using "b" gets you a more marketable, bigger number.

However, .8MB/sec is abyssmal. Make sure you have the latest chipset drivers installed on your system, remove hubs between your system and the drive, and try testing again. I wouldn't worry about synthetic transfer measurements if the drive seems fast with its normal workload.
 
Most any external drive if running on USB2 or firewire will transfer a large file (think like a set of 5 cd ISO's ziped together) at a rate of 1GB per minute. If its running at a speed anywhere around this your running a good speed
With the 8 externals I have using both interfaces and running everywhere from 10GB to 400GB drives, My data transfers will basicly always run at the 1GB/Min speed on almost any computer (p3 550 and up)
 
DougLite said:
When reading transfer rates, Capital "B" != lower case "b." There are eight "b" (bits) in one "B" (byte). Using "b" gets you a more marketable, bigger number.

However, .8MB/sec is abyssmal. Make sure you have the latest chipset drivers installed on your system, remove hubs between your system and the drive, and try testing again. I wouldn't worry about synthetic transfer measurements if the drive seems fast with its normal workload.
Click to expand...

What!? I am not understanding. How is 'B = b' and 8 'b' is 1 'B' and 'b' gets me a bigger number!!!? :confused:

I'll just quote the spec on the box:
BYTECC 3.5" Aluminum Mobile Enclosure

USB 2.0
Supports USB 2.0 transfer rates of 12Mbps and 480 Mbps
Click to expand...

I have been transfering files from my external HD enclosure to the HD in my computer. Here is what the transfer window reads:
Code: 
92%
30.4 GB of 33.0 GB complete   56/59 folders  201/848 files
800.0 KB/s (00:54:00 remaining)
Note that the transfer rate is averaged and the time is estimated because it is not fixed.

The transfer has been transfering for more or less 12 hours.

What do you mean by hub between? My external HD enclosure is connected directly to the computer.
 
the expression "!=" means "not equal" The exclamation point means "not." It's like saying something weighs 320 ounces instead of 20 pounds - the bigger number carries more weight psychologically. Nothing more than a marketer's mind trick.

Still, it should be going faster than that.
 
Okay, so practially or in reality, how fast should my transfer be going in KB?

Does the transfer vary if I am transfering a certain type of file?
 
I bought an Adaptec USB 2.0 Enclosure and put my WD 160gig drive in there. Drive was made in Jan 2004.
I had the drive attached to the computer and powered on for about 3 hours sitting idle when I got a pop-up saying "Delayed Write Failure on Drive E" and the drive was not in my drives list when I opened up My Computer.
I touched the external case and it was burning hot, not warm to the touch, but burning hot.
 
wuya said:
Code: 
92%
30.4 GB of 33.0 GB complete   56/59 folders  201/848 files
800.0 KB/s (00:54:00 remaining)
.
Click to expand...

That would be about the right speed (maybe a little slow) for a USB 1 connection

Sounds like either the port you pluged the drive into is a USB1 port as found on most any computer built more than 1.5years ago or the drivers for the port have gone funny

WS6 said:
bought an Adaptec USB 2.0 Enclosure and put my WD 160gig drive in there. Drive was made in Jan 2004.
I had the drive attached to the computer and powered on for about 3 hours sitting idle when I got a pop-up saying "Delayed Write Failure on Drive E" and the drive was not in my drives list when I opened up My Computer.
I touched the external case and it was burning hot, not warm to the touch, but burning hot.
Click to expand...
Something similer happened to me, I had a 200 in a brand new firewire enclosure and about 20min after transfering some files to the drive one of the resistors on the system board for the enclosure blew and the enclosure went dead. then got the same "delayed write to MFT failed." Pulled the drive which was cool (enclosure had very good cooling) and put it in another enclosure and found that because of this the MFT was corrupt and Checkdisk refused to touch it since the drive was now in windows mind to be unformated

this was still probobly a recoverable event because there are some very nice NTFS tools present in the system recovery console for just this sort of thing
however since i still had the data on the other drive i just reformated and recopied the drive using a different enclosure
 
That would be about the right speed (maybe a little slow) for a USB 1 connection

Sounds like either the port you pluged the drive into is a USB1 port as found on most any computer built more than 1.5years ago or the drivers for the port have gone funny
Click to expand...
It's USB2. My MOBO Is a KM400-M2 ver3. I thought all USB1 has stopped a long time ago.

How does the drivers for the port go funny?

Also, for those who had their external enclosure gone wrong. Did it do any damage to the HD itself? If so, how far did the damage go?
 
wuya said:
It's USB2. My MOBO Is a KM400-M2 ver3. I thought all USB1 has stopped a long time ago.

How does the drivers for the port go funny?

Also, for those who had their external enclosure gone wrong. Did it do any damage to the HD itself? If so, how far did the damage go?
Click to expand...

no damage done physicly to the HD just a fuxored MFT

I would uninstall the drivers for the usb ports and restart the machine and have it auto reinstall everything it needs to
the drivers are built into windows so you wont need a disc or anything
 
My drive still works, tested it today, but I don't keep it on unless I am using it.
 
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