[gentoo-user] recommendation sought for external disk

[gentoo-user] recommendation sought for external disk

[gottlieb]

My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk for
a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.  The system gets
only modest usage.  It is powered on about 1/2 the time and the disk
often goes significant periods without activity so it spins down.

I was considering what seagate calls an "expansion hard drive".  They
are USB 3, but I will be using only USB 2.  The desktop is gentoo-only
and I don't need any backup software from seagate.

The models are STBVx000100 for x=1,2,3,4 TB.

I understand the price capacity trade-off, but wonder if anyone has any
experience with these drives.

Thanks in advance,
allan

[gentoo-user] Re: recommendation sought for external disk

[walt]

On 01/01/2014 02:07 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
> My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk for
> a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.

Maybe I'm weird or something but I've never once had a hard drive fail
gradually/gracefully.  They all just stop working, usually when I power
the machine on for the first time in the morning.

What warning is the disk giving you of early failure?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: recommendation sought for external disk

[gottlieb]

On Wed, Jan 01 2014, walt wrote:

> On 01/01/2014 02:07 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>> My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk for
>> a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.
>
> Maybe I'm weird or something but I've never once had a hard drive fail
> gradually/gracefully.  They all just stop working, usually when I power
> the machine on for the first time in the morning.
>
> What warning is the disk giving you of early failure?

First it wouldn't mount in during startup.

Then I tried switching the USB ports on the desktop and rebooted.
It mounted but fsck took forever with pauses.

Then I shut down the system and unplugged the drive.

allan

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: recommendation sought for external disk

[Dale]

gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 01 2014, walt wrote:
>
>> On 01/01/2014 02:07 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>>> My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk for
>>> a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.
>> Maybe I'm weird or something but I've never once had a hard drive fail
>> gradually/gracefully.  They all just stop working, usually when I power
>> the machine on for the first time in the morning.
>>
>> What warning is the disk giving you of early failure?
> First it wouldn't mount in during startup.
>
> Then I tried switching the USB ports on the desktop and rebooted.
> It mounted but fsck took forever with pauses.
>
> Then I shut down the system and unplugged the drive.
>
> allan
>
>


Can you check it with smartmontools?  I guess if it can't be mounted
tho, it doesn't really matter about the rest.  That sort of makes it
hard to rescue the data on it.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: recommendation sought for external disk

[gottlieb]

On Wed, Jan 01 2014, Dale wrote:

> gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 01 2014, walt wrote:
>>
>>> On 01/01/2014 02:07 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>>>> My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk for
>>>> a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.
>>> Maybe I'm weird or something but I've never once had a hard drive fail
>>> gradually/gracefully.  They all just stop working, usually when I power
>>> the machine on for the first time in the morning.
>>>
>>> What warning is the disk giving you of early failure?
>> First it wouldn't mount in during startup.
>>
>> Then I tried switching the USB ports on the desktop and rebooted.
>> It mounted but fsck took forever with pauses.
>>
>> Then I shut down the system and unplugged the drive.
>>
>> allan
>>
>>
> Can you check it with smartmontools?  I guess if it can't be mounted
> tho, it doesn't really matter about the rest.  That sort of makes it
> hard to rescue the data on it.
>
> Dale

The important data on the disk is also on another computer (or two).  I
do want to buy the replacement disk to again have redundancy.

allan

Re: [gentoo-user] recommendation sought for external disk

[Daniel Frey]

On 01/01/2014 02:07 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
> I was considering what seagate calls an "expansion hard drive".  They
> are USB 3, but I will be using only USB 2.  The desktop is gentoo-only
> and I don't need any backup software from seagate.
> 
> The models are STBVx000100 for x=1,2,3,4 TB.
> 
> I understand the price capacity trade-off, but wonder if anyone has any
> experience with these drives.
> 
> 

Hi Allan,

I am currently using 11 of these drives (1TB model; STBV1000100)
connected via USB doing daily/weekly backups of infrastructure at work.
They're specifically used on mostly Windows servers via WSB.

They're written to quite often and have been on 24x7 since last January.
I did have a problem with one drive a month in but it was replaced and
have had no issues since.

Keep in mind these have no on/off switch and are literally an expansiond
drive, meant to be on all the time.

I've performed test restores to a VM and no issues. Performance is OK
even on USB2.

I have no complaints on these particular models (other than the lack of
a power switch), although I really should have purchased the 2TB models.
Oh well.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] recommendation sought for external disk

[gottlieb]

On Wed, Jan 01 2014, Daniel Frey wrote:

> On 01/01/2014 02:07 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>> I was considering what seagate calls an "expansion hard drive".  They
>> are USB 3, but I will be using only USB 2.  The desktop is gentoo-only
>> and I don't need any backup software from seagate.
>> 
>> The models are STBVx000100 for x=1,2,3,4 TB.
>> 
>> I understand the price capacity trade-off, but wonder if anyone has any
>> experience with these drives.
>
> Hi Allan,
>
> I am currently using 11 of these drives (1TB model; STBV1000100)
> connected via USB doing daily/weekly backups of infrastructure at work.
> They're specifically used on mostly Windows servers via WSB.
>
> They're written to quite often and have been on 24x7 since last January.
> I did have a problem with one drive a month in but it was replaced and
> have had no issues since.
>
> Keep in mind these have no on/off switch and are literally an expansiond
> drive, meant to be on all the time.
>
> I've performed test restores to a VM and no issues. Performance is OK
> even on USB2.
>
> I have no complaints on these particular models (other than the lack of
> a power switch), although I really should have purchased the 2TB models.
> Oh well.
>
> Dan

Thank you dan.  I didn't realize there was no on-off switch.  But I
assume it (or the driver/controller) will spin it down after prolonged
idleness.

Also from seagate are "back plus" drives.  The documentation I found on
the seagate site was scanty, but I am guessing they are the same as the
expansion plus some windows/mac software that I won't use so I was
planing on saving the $10.  I wonder if they have power switches.

Here are the prices seagate lists for some stores (cheapest shown).

                 Backup
      Expansion   Plus

1TB     80        90
2TB    100	 110
3TB    120	 130
4TB    170	 180

I am leaning toward the 2TB.

Again thanks for the information.

allan

Re: [gentoo-user] recommendation sought for external disk

[Helmut Jarausch]

On 01/01/2014 11:07:22 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
> My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk  
> for
> a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.  The system gets
> only modest usage.  It is powered on about 1/2 the time and the disk
> often goes significant periods without activity so it spins down.
> 
> I was considering what seagate calls an "expansion hard drive".  They
> are USB 3, but I will be using only USB 2.

If you have a free expansion slot I'd install a (very cheap) USB 3  
adapter.
There is a tremendous difference in speed compared to USB 2.

Data transfer to my (quite recent) external USB 3 drives is about 130  
MB/s
(measured by iotop) which is faster than for my built in SATA 3 drives.

Helmut

Re: [gentoo-user] recommendation sought for external disk

[gottlieb]

On Thu, Jan 02 2014, Helmut Jarausch wrote:

> On 01/01/2014 11:07:22 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>> My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk  
>> for
>> a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.  The system gets
>> only modest usage.  It is powered on about 1/2 the time and the disk
>> often goes significant periods without activity so it spins down.
>> 
>> I was considering what seagate calls an "expansion hard drive".  They
>> are USB 3, but I will be using only USB 2.
>
> If you have a free expansion slot I'd install a (very cheap) USB 3  
> adapter.
> There is a tremendous difference in speed compared to USB 2.
>
> Data transfer to my (quite recent) external USB 3 drives is about 130  
> MB/s
> (measured by iotop) which is faster than for my built in SATA 3 drives.
>
> Helmut

Thanks for the advice (and numbers).  I do have a slot and may follow
your suggestion.  My only reluctance is that the disk gets such light
usage that I don't notice its slowdown compared to my internal faster
disk.  So I have pause if opening the case is justified.

But again, thanks for your helpful msg.
allan

[gentoo-user] Re: recommendation sought for external disk

[walt]

On 01/01/2014 03:28 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 01 2014, walt wrote:
> 
>> On 01/01/2014 02:07 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>>> My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk for
>>> a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.
>>
>> Maybe I'm weird or something but I've never once had a hard drive fail
>> gradually/gracefully.  They all just stop working, usually when I power
>> the machine on for the first time in the morning.
>>
>> What warning is the disk giving you of early failure?
> 
> First it wouldn't mount in during startup.
> 
> Then I tried switching the USB ports on the desktop and rebooted.
> It mounted but fsck took forever with pauses.

The open-source culture in general seems to frown upon promotion of
proprietary software (as opposed to proprietary hardware) so I usually
avoid recommending proprietary software.

But, based on reports I consider reliable (how's them for weasel words!)
I'd suggest that Spin-Rite has a chance of restoring that drive to normal
function.  ("Has a chance" == more weasel words).

Anyway, consider buying Spin-Rite here:

https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

My own hard drives usually fail catastrophically within the the first month,
so I just return them for replacement under warranty.  But if I ever have
an older drive fail I will certainly use Spin-Rite before giving up hope.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: recommendation sought for external disk

[gottlieb]

On Thu, Jan 02 2014, walt wrote:

> On 01/01/2014 03:28 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 01 2014, walt wrote:
>> 
>>> On 01/01/2014 02:07 PM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>>>> My home desktop has had a seagate external 750GB drive ST3750640cbrk for
>>>> a number of years and the disk is starting to fail.
>>>
>>> Maybe I'm weird or something but I've never once had a hard drive fail
>>> gradually/gracefully.  They all just stop working, usually when I power
>>> the machine on for the first time in the morning.
>>>
>>> What warning is the disk giving you of early failure?
>> 
>> First it wouldn't mount in during startup.
>> 
>> Then I tried switching the USB ports on the desktop and rebooted.
>> It mounted but fsck took forever with pauses.
>
> The open-source culture in general seems to frown upon promotion of
> proprietary software (as opposed to proprietary hardware) so I usually
> avoid recommending proprietary software.
>
> But, based on reports I consider reliable (how's them for weasel words!)
> I'd suggest that Spin-Rite has a chance of restoring that drive to normal
> function.  ("Has a chance" == more weasel words).
>
> Anyway, consider buying Spin-Rite here:
>
> https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
>
> My own hard drives usually fail catastrophically within the the first month,
> so I just return them for replacement under warranty.  But if I ever have
> an older drive fail I will certainly use Spin-Rite before giving up hope.

Very interesting.  I plan to buy the new disk since the old one is old,
I can use the extra space (750GB --> 2TB), and the price is right.

But I may get spin-rite anyway; the author's explanation of how it works
was good.

thanks,
allan