Dual Removable Drives as a Backup Solution(?)

[Ken Blake, MVP]

And Ken, if you have "never heard of a USB enclosure failing", boy,
is your experience different from ours!

Clearly our experience has been different. I have no more to add, so I
suppose we'll each go our separate ways on this.

 

[Mike Fields]

Clearly our experience has been different. I have no more to add, so I
suppose we'll each go our separate ways on this.

I too have seen a number of them fail -- all the ones
I have seen fail (or heard of) have been ones that tend
to run hot (with poor cooling in the enclosure -- it is
"cuter" to have this slim, sexy enclosure instead of one
that is properly cooled.). That is one of the faster ways
to kill a hard drive -- run it hot (although my last failure
was different -- the power supply in my daughters
system went and took most of the stuff with it - controller
chip on the hard drive has a hole in the top where it
exploded ... )

mikey

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Clearly our experience has been different. I have no more to add, so I
suppose we'll each go our separate ways on this.

There have been many complaints in [comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage]
about failed external USB hard drives. Most of them have been about the
Maxtor One-Touch, but that may be because most of the external USB
drives are Maxtors. And *all* the complaints that I've seen involve the
standing convection-cooled USB drives, perhaps again because most of
the one sold are of that design. I strongly suspect that the rate of failure
is due to overheating - a problem which could be solved by going to a
fan-cooled design with a dedicated power supply so as not depend on
USB power. Kingwin and a number of other manufacturers make such
external enclosures for IDE hard drives which have a USB adapter and
a cooling fan and a "wall wart" power module, and if I were to want an
external USB hard drive, I would brew my own by using such an enclosure.

But if the backup desired is an immediately bootable clone, the only
way to go is with an IDE hard drive - mounted either as another internal
HD or in a removable tray. I have both: A recently made clone resides
on the 2nd internal HD at all times, and what usually amounts to 5 clones
(each made at 1- or 2-week intervals) resides on the HD in the remov-
able tray. With a clone, there is no need to first "restore" an image file
from some other medium to a hard drive - it's already there ready for
booting.

As for failures or file corruptions on a HD in a removable drive, I have
had no problems at all in what is almost 3 years of use. I have not tried
it, but since I sometimes have to shut down my PC due to "frozen"
software by cutting the power, I assume that cutting the power to the
removable hard drive by accident would not cause any harm, either.

*TimDaniels*

 

[David]

But if the backup desired is an immediately bootable clone, the only
way to go is with an IDE hard drive - mounted either as another internal
HD or in a removable tray. I have both: A recently made clone resides
on the 2nd internal HD at all times, and what usually amounts to 5 clones
(each made at 1- or 2-week intervals) resides on the HD in the remov-
able tray. With a clone, there is no need to first "restore" an image file
from some other medium to a hard drive - it's already there ready for
booting.

Tim,
Could you please elaborate a bit for me on your process for creating
and maintaining these six clones continuously? Also, are you using
incrementals and/or differentials?
Thank you,
David

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Clearly our experience has been different. I have no more to add, so
I suppose we'll each go our separate ways on this.

There have been many complaints in [comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage]
about failed external USB hard drives. Most of them have been about
the Maxtor One-Touch, but that may be because most of the external USB
drives are Maxtors

If you say so, I believe you (and Anna). I've never run into such a problem,
perhaps because most of my experience is not with Maxtors, but with
do-it-yourself USB enclosures.

But if the backup desired is an immediately bootable clone, the only
way to go is with an IDE hard drive - mounted either as another
internal HD or in a removable tray.

Why? If you're going to mount it as another internal, it's just as easy to
take it out of the USB enclosure as it as of the slide-in caddy.

 

[Anna]

There have been many complaints in [comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage]
about failed external USB hard drives. Most of them have been about
the Maxtor One-Touch, but that may be because most of the external USB
drives are Maxtors

If you say so, I believe you (and Anna). I've never run into such a
problem, perhaps because most of my experience is not with Maxtors, but
with do-it-yourself USB enclosures.

Ken, believe me when I tell you that many, if not most, of the defective USB
drives we encountered were indeed with the USB enclosure itself, i.e., the
enclosure that the user had purchased to install a HD.
Anna

Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User writes...
Why? If you're going to mount it as another internal, it's just as easy to
take it out of the USB enclosure as it as of the slide-in caddy.

Ken:
I know Tim should respond himself to your comment, but since I'm composing
another response to you...

Tim is obviously referring to the situation where the user has cloned the
contents of his or her boot HD to a USB external HD. As we both know, that
USBEHD is not bootable (we'll pass on the latest reports of various hacks to
make a USBEHD bootable), so should the user need that drive to function as a
boot drive it would be necessary for him or her to uninstall the HD from its
enclosure and install it as an internal HD. On the other hand, had the user
employed removable HDs as we've been discussing, the cloned HD would be
immediately bootable in its mobile rack. There would be no need to undertake
any physical uninstall/install operations with the cloned HD. A simple turn
of the mobile rack's keylock to the ON position would be all that's
necessary. I realize you're aware of this but I wanted to make this clear to
anyone coming upon this thread.
Anna

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Anna wrote:
And Ken, if you have "never heard of a USB enclosure failing",
boy, is your experience different from ours!

:
Clearly our experience has been different. I have no more to add,
so I suppose we'll each go our separate ways on this.

There have been many complaints in
[comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage] about failed external USB hard
drives. Most of them have been about the Maxtor One-Touch, but
that may be because most of the external USB drives are Maxtors

If you say so, I believe you (and Anna). I've never run into such a
problem, perhaps because most of my experience is not with Maxtors,
but with do-it-yourself USB enclosures.

Ken, believe me when I tell you that many, if not most, of the
defective USB drives we encountered were indeed with the USB
enclosure itself, i.e., the enclosure that the user had purchased to
install a HD.

Anna, I believe everything you've said. You've related your experience, and
I certainly don't suggest that you are lying. All I say, once again, is that
we have had different experiences.

 

[David]

I would guess that over the past five years or so we have installed, or
helped to install, removable HD systems in desktop PCs for more than 100
small to medium-sized businesses. And hundreds more for home users.

I can't recall a *single* failure of the backup system using these removable
HDs that was attributable to some basic failure of the removable HD backup
system and because the user failed to employ an additional external backup
device such as a USB external HD. While we have experienced instances where
a mobile rack containing the HD became defective, I can't think of a single
instance where the data on the drive was adversely affected or the HD itself
became damaged as a consequence of a defective rack. I might add that given
the number of removable HDs we have installed or helped to install over the
years, the frequency of these mobile racks becoming defective has been
relatively negligible. And we have worked with a fairly wide variety of
these mobile racks, including all-plastic and plastic-aluminum models as
well as all-alluminum ones. Based on my experience, the fear of a removable
HD rack becoming defective and jepordizing one's data should not be a major
consideration for any user contemplating using these devices. They are no
more prone to becoming defective than any other PC component.

And Ken, if you have "never heard of a USB enclosure failing", boy, is your
experience different from ours! Over the past three years or so the failure
of USB external HD enclosures has practically reached endemic proportions in
our experience. Hardly a week had gone by in the computer repair shop where
I worked last year where we didn't encounter at least one or two such
defective devices. And we've received many reports from our colleagues over
the alarming defective rate of these USBEHD enclosures.

Simply stated, assuming the user routinely & systematically backs up his or
her system using a disk imaging program to clone the contents of one
removable HD to another removable HD, there is, in my opinion, no need for
additional backup devices such as USB or Firewire external hard drives. As I
previously stated, should the user determine multiple clones are necessary
or desirable for supplemental backup safety's sake, then he or she is
certainly encouraged to create such using additional removable HDs.
Anna

Anna,

Thank you, (and everyone else!), for your most insightful perspectives on my question.
(I'm the OP).

Anna, with all the many of these that you have installed, would you be able to give recommendations
re rack and caddy brands and model numbers? In fact, on HDs as well? (I really don't know whether
my question is appropriate or not.)

As a side issue, do you (or anyone) know whether Dell permits one to specify brands and model
numbers? I suspect that is probably a dumb question...

Thanks again!
David

 

[Anna]

Anna,

Thank you, (and everyone else!), for your most insightful perspectives on
my question. (I'm the OP).

Anna, with all the many of these that you have installed, would you be
able to give recommendations re rack and caddy brands and model numbers?
In fact, on HDs as well? (I really don't know whether my question is
appropriate or not.)

As a side issue, do you (or anyone) know whether Dell permits one to
specify brands and model numbers? I suspect that is probably a dumb
question...

Thanks again!
David

David:
As I previously mentioned, over the years we've worked with a wide variety
of these mobile racks (removable hard drive enclosures) including
all-aluminum, plastic/aluminum, and all-plastic models - representing a
fairly wide range of prices - from about $10 to $80. Truth to tell, we would
be hard-pressed to tell the difference among them, in terms of performance
or durability. By & large they all seem to work.

Many users feel more comfortable using all-aluminum models. While they're
generally somewhat more expensive than the plastic models, the additional
cost is not particularly onerous.

Do a Google search for "mobile racks" and "removable hard drives" and you'll
be pointed to many online vendors carrying various makes & models, e.g.,
Kingwin, Vantec, Lian-Li, etc.

In many cases additional removable trays can be purchased for the mobile
rack, however, frequently the cost of these trays (if they are available)
are such that it's more economical in the long run to purchase the mobile
rack including its removable tray rather than to purchase only the removable
tray itself.

Some of these mobile racks come equipped with LCD temperature displays.
Frankly, we never look for models with those devices. The limited experience
we had with them was negative in the sense that they were prone to give
false readings
and frequently failed. In general, we never found them particularly useful
and of course they add to the cost of the rack.

Virtually all of the mobile racks include a fan and some sort of on-off
keylock switch. Lately we've been working with the Athena Power MR-125
mobile rack for our SATA hard drives - see
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817123301. It's an
all-plastic device with an unusually large fan (for a mobile rack) and costs
only about $24 incl. shipping from newegg. I believe Athena also makes
mobile racks for PATA HDs as well - see http://www.athenapower.com/.

As far as HDs, I don't have any particular recommendation of one brand over
another one. I have noticed a lot of negative comments in various newsgroups
over the past few months re Maxtor drives, but I really can't say that I've
found those drives more defect prone than any other HD.

I'm not sure I understand your question re Dell. Are you planning to order
mobile racks from Dell? I wasn't aware Dell carried them as an accessory
although I do recall some months ago Dell announced they would be producing
some desktop PCs with removable HDs.
Anna