Reliable external hard drives with ESata interface

R

Rod Speed

GMAN wrote
Yes.

Dust ,

Nope. That doesnt damage a drive.
Tipping over etc...

Nope, docking stations are a lot harder to tip over than vertical external drives.
Also the SATA conenctors are only good for so many insertions before they too will fail.

Wrong. Whats on the drive is the usual edge connector.
 
E

Edward Diener

In message<[email protected]> Edward Diener


This does seem to be the case, yes.

For an external drive it sounds like a 2.5" drive and an appropriate
case will be a better choice for me.
Fans are active cooling. Active means something moves or uses power to
cool. Passive typically means using a heatsink or convection currents
to cool.

Now I understand. Thanks !
 
E

Edward Diener

Is this similarly true of external hard drives by manufacturers whose
internal hard drives have a long record of reliability?

I see very few external hard drives listed at New Egg from companies
whose names I recognize. I think this is because the sellers of external
hard drive systems emphasize their enclosure and do not specify what
hard drive they are actually using. It is all the more reason for me to
buy the enclosure and the hard drive separately.
 
R

Rod Speed

Edward Diener wrote
DevilsPGD wrote
There is no enclosure protecting the hard drive
Correct.

and its mechanics.

The mechanics are mostly protected fine.
Perhaps with modern SATA hard drives no enclosure is needed and I am just behind the times.

Nope, bare drives do need more careful handling than drives in an external enclosure.

Even just putting them down on the table top needs to be done more carefully with a bare drive.
 
R

Rod Speed

Edward Diener wrote
DevilsPGD wrote
For an external drive it sounds like a 2.5" drive and an appropriate
case will be a better choice for me.

Yes, but you do pay considerably more and dont see the largest sized like 2TB yet.

They dont need an external power supply either.
 
D

DevilsPGD

In message <[email protected]> "Rod Speed"
DevilsPGD wrote


That you wouldnt want to have little kids around when using it etc. Or cats.

I've got cats, but it hasn't been an issue at all here. I got one that
is reasonably heavy, heavy enough that it's still bottom-heavy with the
drive in the dock.

Mine is located away from the edge of a large desk just to be safe. It's
a risk, but in years of practice here it's not been an issue.
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

What does "actively cooled case" mean ? If I go to New Egg to search for
a external enclosures I do not see anything which says that an enclosure
is "actively cooled" or not.

Simply put, it means that it's got a fan on it.

Yousuf Khan
 
D

Daniel Prince

Rod Speed said:
Yes, but you do pay considerably more and dont see the largest sized like 2TB yet.

Drives with a capacity of 3TB are now available. Pricewatch lists
Hitachi and SEAGATE models. The price per gig is considerably
higher than the price per gig for the 2TB drives.
 
R

Rod Speed

Daniel Prince wrote
Drives with a capacity of 3TB are now available.

I used the word LIKE for a reason.
Pricewatch lists Hitachi and SEAGATE models. The price per gig
is considerably higher than the price per gig for the 2TB drives.

Yes, the 2TBs are rather better value.

I wouldnt touch a seagate regardless of the size anyway.
 
R

Rod Speed

Timothy Daniels wrote
Daniel Prince wrote

Or just that it prefers to lie there.

Bullshit. They dont sit on each other.
Cats will sit/lie on anything stationary and warm.

Not in our summers which can have 10 days over 100F they dont.
 
J

John Turco

DevilsPGD said:
In message <[email protected]> Edward Diener


This does seem to be the case, yes.

Is that an unintentional pun, perhaps?
Fans are active cooling. Active means something moves or uses power to
cool. Passive typically means using a heatsink or convection currents
to cool.

There's something called a "heat pipe," also. It's an active cooling
technique, employing a heat sink (without a fan).
 
D

DevilsPGD

In message <[email protected]> John Turco
Is that an unintentional pun, perhaps?


There's something called a "heat pipe," also. It's an active cooling
technique, employing a heat sink (without a fan).

Heat pipes are a transport method and are neither active nor passive on
their own, although they're closer to passive in that they rely on
nothing but the heat itself to function (they don't require external
energy)

Heat pipes tend to use a large passive radiator, but may also use an
active cooling system to cool the radiator (although I doubt you'll see
anything this complicated in an external drive)
 
J

John Turco

DevilsPGD said:
In message <[email protected]> John Turco


Heat pipes are a transport method and are neither active nor passive on
their own, although they're closer to passive in that they rely on
nothing but the heat itself to function (they don't require external
energy)

Yes, I sort of assumed the same thing.
Heat pipes tend to use a large passive radiator, but may also use an
active cooling system to cool the radiator (although I doubt you'll see
anything this complicated in an external drive)

I happen to own one heat pipe-cooled device (Micro-Star "NX8600GT-TD1GEZ"
video card). It's for my next computer build, and remains uninstalled.
 

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