External USB3 backup nightmare

L

Lebowsky

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 21, 2013
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A while ago I decided to backup lots of personal data. Pictures, music, what have you. For this I purchased a 2TB WD Caviar Black and an external enclosure, namely the Silverstone TS07 (http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=310). I suppose this was not quite an intelligent choice, because it would seem most of the files are corrupted. Pictures f***ed up, files not passing crc checks, etc. :mad:

I did some reading and researching other enclosures. I see two possible reasons. Either the controller/chipset in the Silverstone is crap, or I just did a stupid choice getting an enclosure without active cooling. I doubt it was a cable or slightly badly connected drive inside the enclosure, because I never had any issue with connectivity.

Note that the drive has almost got no use - couple hours here and there to copy/paste a few gb's to it.

As soon as I found out I unplugged the drive, put it back in the case on a SATA connector. Luckily I still have most of the data on my work drives. I'll just copy the data to it that way. But the idea is still to keep an external backup in case of power/sata/whatever failure of my pc.

I am now looking at this external enclosure with active cooling by Icy Dock: http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=147 - reviewed seemed good and it's basically the only one with active cooling that I can get in my country. Buying international will kill me with import taxes.

Is this a smart choice or do I risk the same issues?
 
Note that the drive has almost got no use - couple hours here and there to copy/paste a few gb's to it.
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It may be that the WDC Black was DOA. This happens. Did you do a full format before writing any data?
 
Run crystal diskinfo and post a screen cap.. Should give a lot more informatuion than what you are saying.
 
drescherjm said:
It may be that the WDC Black was DOA. This happens. Did you do a full format before writing any data?
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yup!

AlienTech said:
Run crystal diskinfo and post a screen cap.. Should give a lot more informatuion than what you are saying.
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here you go. doesn't seem too bad from what I understand. Not the drive is now connected on the mobo's internal SATA controller... I'm not plugging it in that enclosure any more!

faex.JPG
 
Just from my personal and anecdotal experience, those external enclosures have caused me the same pain.

While I don't think it will be a good option for you, I use the hot swap capability on my server. Plopped in a 5 tray norco bay and install my drives as I need to do backups. Quick and easy and allows me to safely add/remove drives.
 
From my past experience as a developer dealing with content duplication on hundreds of external disks I can say that USB is not a trustworthy interface. For input devices, sure. For anything with non-trivial bandwidth and integrity/reliability/latency requirements: Nope!

Go eSATA/hotswap bays.
 
smart info says that drive is in great shape and hardly used.

It has a lot of ultraDMA crc errors which means the cable used to connect to the drive is faulty. The USB3 case and circuit might be okay but the cable or connector is not set properly.. Is it a cable or do you connect the bridge circuit directly to the drive? IF so the connector might have come lose or a bad soldier joint, can you visually check the connector to the circuit board of the bridge controller?

In fact for external enclosures, the connector to the drive or the USB cable are the main reasons for the external drive failure, the drive would still be good once connected to the motherboard SATA..

Also the drive wont get that hot unless you copy files for hours.. Place a fan to the vents of the enclosure, it wont work for heavy use but for a few hours it will work.. You could also run crystal diskinfo to check the temperature when it is working.. Its been a while since I seen a fan in an enclosure.. It dont even cost them a buck and the drive lasts twice as long, maybe they want the drives to fail faster hence dont put it in. I have not found a single one that stays under 40C and in fact the best drive that runs cold stays around 52C.. It stays under 40C with heavy use inside the computer case with the room being 30C..
 
zrav said:
From my past experience as a developer dealing with content duplication on hundreds of external disks I can say that USB is not a trustworthy interface. For input devices, sure. For anything with non-trivial bandwidth and integrity/reliability/latency requirements: Nope!

Go eSATA/hotswap bays.
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My mobo (Intel DZ87KLT-75k) doesn't have built-in eSata, but I could get a PCI card. Highpoint any good?

AlienTech said:
smart info says that drive is in great shape and hardly used.

It has a lot of ultraDMA crc errors which means the cable used to connect to the drive is faulty. The USB3 case and circuit might be okay but the cable or connector is not set properly.. Is it a cable or do you connect the bridge circuit directly to the drive? IF so the connector might have come lose or a bad soldier joint, can you visually check the connector to the circuit board of the bridge controller?

In fact for external enclosures, the connector to the drive or the USB cable are the main reasons for the external drive failure, the drive would still be good once connected to the motherboard SATA..

Also the drive wont get that hot unless you copy files for hours.. Place a fan to the vents of the enclosure, it wont work for heavy use but for a few hours it will work.. You could also run crystal diskinfo to check the temperature when it is working.. Its been a while since I seen a fan in an enclosure.. It dont even cost them a buck and the drive lasts twice as long, maybe they want the drives to fail faster hence dont put it in. I have not found a single one that stays under 40C and in fact the best drive that runs cold stays around 52C.. It stays under 40C with heavy use inside the computer case with the room being 30C..
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Well that's reassuring. Is 5534 (159E) the error count?

The drive is "plugged" directly into the controller inside the case. It's impossible to see it without tearing the case apart though. Then there's an USB cable from the case to the USB host on the computer. Shouldn't the drive/Windows have reported a copy error when copy/pasting the data?

I also just finished an extended 4h+ Test using the Western Digital utilities to check for bad sectors, and it didn't find anything.

faex2.JPG
 
I usually buy the factory units, and expect them to fail in a few years. They don't have fans, and slowly die from heat--I just had two die.

I've had excellent luck with external 2.5" drives though (knock on wood). They don't get so hot, and the drives themselves seem to be a little more reliable.

I would agree USB3 is a little finicky. I've had them occasionally freak out and drop out.
 
Lebowsky said:
My mobo (Intel DZ87KLT-75k) doesn't have built-in eSata, but I could get a PCI card. Highpoint any good?
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It doesn't matter, eSATA is literally just SATA with a slightly different connector. You just need something like this and then just plug it into your internal SATA connectors. You can probably find an even cheaper one that only has eSATA connectors.
 
GotNoRice said:
It doesn't matter, eSATA is literally just SATA with a slightly different connector. You just need something like this and then just plug it into your internal SATA connectors. You can probably find an even cheaper one that only has eSATA connectors.
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too late I already ordered a Highpoint Rocket 622 PCIe card hehe
 
how is that going to work as far as giving your drive power? Never used one of those so I'm not very familiar.

I use this for a very similar application. I simply dock my 3tb hdd in the bay once a month. From there i back up all my family pictures and videos. Then I unplug the HDD and put it in a fire-proof safe until next month.
 
I have a few Black drives and they get very hot when they are reading and writing.
that enclosure probably allowed the drive to get roasting hot in there.

I have these drivebay things to plug in bare hard drives. The ones I have came from Cooler Master cases I believe,
HAF-XB-Dock-Bay-icydock.jpg
 
doug_7506 said:
how is that going to work as far as giving your drive power? Never used one of those so I'm not very familiar.

I use this for a very similar application. I simply dock my 3tb hdd in the bay once a month. From there i back up all my family pictures and videos. Then I unplug the HDD and put it in a fire-proof safe until next month.
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It's just to use eSata instead of USB along with the new Icy Dock enclosure I ordered (see first post - I also pulled the trigger today)
 
I just wanted to give props to Icy Dock as a vendor. I recently RMA'ed one of their USB 3 fanless external drive enclosures because I was having intermittent connectivity issues on my PCs. They couldn't reproduce the problem I was having, but put a new PCB in the device anyway, and sent it back to me at no charge. They worked quickly and communicated well throughout the RMA process. The refreshed unit has been working great. I'd happily buy from them again, both for the products, and for the service.

This is what I have, and I bought it originally because of the fanless design, and because of its looks and construction. A bit of an upgrade over cheaper options.
 
I put CRC codes on all my files so I can track their integrity, with their final storage destination (along with a backup) always being ZFS, that has its own integrity check, and repair capabilities (RAIDZ3).

I've had pretty poor experience with eSATA (mostly random BSOD when turning enclosures on), never with USB2/3, so since uptime is important to me I keep using USB, with the "trust, but verify" mentality.

My USB3 enclosures are the cheapest I could find, fanless, and I drilled a big hole in them.
 
Lebowsky said:
Well that's reassuring. Is 5534 (159E) the error count?

The drive is "plugged" directly into the controller inside the case. It's impossible to see it without tearing the case apart though. Then there's an USB cable from the case to the USB host on the computer. Shouldn't the drive/Windows have reported a copy error when copy/pasting the data?

I also just finished an extended 4h+ Test using the Western Digital utilities to check for bad sectors, and it didn't find anything.

faex2.JPG
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Yes but each of those errors makes windows think there is a data transfer error and causes problems. If the WD util says the drive is good after a surface scan then it most likely is fine. But it does look like the USB is definetely bad or have compatability problems. Only way to know is to try a different one and see if its the cable of USB bridge circuit or your USB3 port// You could also try it on a USB2 port or a different port. Things like this are a debugging scenerio where you waste hours trying to narrow it down to which part is not working properly. It could also be your USB plug was lose or not inserted properly all the way and any movement causes it to shake lose and cause errors.
 
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