Reliability of External Drives

[malam]

I have been reading a few posts from people with dead or dying drives
lately. I have a Maxtor 300G drive that I installed into a Dynex
external drive enclosure. I am wondering if this method of building a
USB external drive is as reliable as buying an Expernal Drive that is
built from the manufacturer ? Are these external drives more
reinforced or more robust ?

 

[Rod Speed]

malam wrote

I have been reading a few posts from people with dead
or dying drives lately. I have a Maxtor 300G drive

Uh oh, they dont like running too hot.

that I installed into a Dynex external drive enclosure.

Which one exactly ?

I am wondering if this method of building a USB external drive is as
reliable as buying an Expernal Drive that is built from the manufacturer ?

Depends on whether the design is better than the hard drive manufacturer's.

The Maxtor external drive enclosures are steaming turds that
dont cool the drives properly and which see lousy reliability.

Are these external drives more reinforced or more robust ?

Nope, worse than with an internal drive actually.

And you can only monitor the drive temp with the eSATA external drive enclosures.

 

[malam]

malam wrote


Uh oh, they dont like running too hot.


Which one exactly ?

Its the DX-HDEN10 model

Depends on whether the design is better than the hard drive manufacturer's.

The Maxtor external drive enclosures are steaming turds that
dont cool the drives properly and which see lousy reliability.


Nope, worse than with an internal drive actually.

And you can only monitor the drive temp with the eSATA external drive enclosures.

This unit sits on my desk and I can feel the temperature with my palm.
I only turn it 'ON' to do a backup or restore. Its normally off.

 

[John Weiss]

I have been reading a few posts from people with dead or dying drives
lately. I have a Maxtor 300G drive that I installed into a Dynex
external drive enclosure. I am wondering if this method of building a
USB external drive is as reliable as buying an Expernal Drive that is
built from the manufacturer ? Are these external drives more
reinforced or more robust ?

There are MANY variables, including the actual HD unit, whether the external
HD is for constant or intermittent use, and the relative temps in the
respective enclosures.

Maxtor does not have as good a reliability reputation as WD or Seagate. For
constant use, you will need a ventilated enclosure with good airflow.

You may be able to build X that is better than Y but not as good as Z...

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

I have been reading a few posts from people with dead or dying drives
lately. I have a Maxtor 300G drive that I installed into a Dynex
external drive enclosure. I am wondering if this method of building a
USB external drive is as reliable as buying an Expernal Drive that is
built from the manufacturer ? Are these external drives more
reinforced or more robust ?

You may want to check FatWallet.com's "The official external ENCLOSURE
thread" for information and reviews of lots of drive enclosures:

www.fatwallet.com/t/28/496281

I don't think that commercial external HDs are any better than those
made from internal HDs and enclosurs bought separately, provided you
avoid the worst enlosures, that is, those that are too small, poorly
ventilated, or have power supplies that aren't UL approved for safety.
Almost all external power packs are UL approved, but internal PSUs may
not be, this Neo brand shows:

http://static.flickr.com/92/232555031_7768d6e20e_b.jpg

There's normally only a thin sheet of plastic separating the high
voltage power supply from the low voltage USB-IDE logic board that
mounts above it, and one person reported PSU and drive failure with
this enclosure. A hole burned through the case, under the HD, leading
me to believe it was made of rather flammable acrylic, not fairly fire
resistant polycarbonate as claimed by Neo. And ammonia didn't affect
the plastic, as would be expected for polycarbonate but not acrylic.

In comparison, here's a Bytecc enclosure (by Welland) that seems to be
better, and its PSU (inside the metal cage) is UL approved:

http://static.flickr.com/49/170756085_2d0fb1c01f_o.jpg

Some metal enclosures are claimed to cool through heatsinking, but I'd
be skeptical of this because that would require thick aluminum bolted
against the sides of the internal HD (and probably some gooey material
to fill the air gaps). I have a Buffalo external drive that supposedly
cools by conduction, but the contact area with the drive is small, and
the metal is thin steel, which conducts 10x worse than aluminum does.
So I would rather have good ventilation for the internal HD.

You may notice that there's little distance between the bottom of your
HD and your enclosure, which can't be good for the electronics. So
consider increasing this by mounting the HD on some plastic spacers
(electronic parts supplies, real hardware stores, may requrie longer
screws), provided it doesn't crowd the HD on the other side.