Transfer speed

[MikeM]

I transferred 6 TIF files totaling 204MB from a 320 GB WD external
drive in a caddy to a WD My Book 500 GB and Seagate push Button 400
GB. The transfer to the My Book took 19 seconds and to the Seagate
took 29 seconds. Is that difference typical for the the 2 drives, or
does WD to WD make a difference?

I was planning to use the My Book for the backup drive for my photos
but as it seems faster than the Seagate I thought it might be better
to use the slower drive for storage, but the WD drive gets much hotter
and doesn't seem to hibernate whereas the Seagate stays barely warm
even on hot days like we have been having lately and seems to go into
hibernate mode. At what point does hot become too hot?

Thanks
Mike

 

[Rod Speed]

I transferred 6 TIF files totaling 204MB from a 320 GB WD external
drive in a caddy to a WD My Book 500 GB and Seagate push Button 400
GB. The transfer to the My Book took 19 seconds and to the Seagate
took 29 seconds. Is that difference typical for the the 2 drives,

or does WD to WD make a difference?
Nope.

I was planning to use the My Book for the backup drive for my photos
but as it seems faster than the Seagate I thought it might be better
to use the slower drive for storage, but the WD drive gets much hotter
and doesn't seem to hibernate whereas the Seagate stays barely warm
even on hot days like we have been having lately and seems to go into
hibernate mode. At what point does hot become too hot?

There is no nice tidy answer on that. Even the hard drive manufacturer's
max temperature recommendation for the drive is too hot for the best
life of the drive. Dell was stupid enough to run the drive in one of their
low end laptops right at the extreme end of what the hard drive
manufacturer allows and got a very high hard drive failure rate as a result.

And it isnt easy to see the drive SMART temperature in an external case anyway.

 

[Rod Speed]

I transferred 6 TIF files totaling 204MB from a 320 GB WD external
drive in a caddy to a WD My Book 500 GB and Seagate push Button 400
GB. The transfer to the My Book took 19 seconds and to the Seagate
took 29 seconds. Is that difference typical for the the 2 drives,

or does WD to WD make a difference?
Nope.

I was planning to use the My Book for the backup drive for my photos
but as it seems faster than the Seagate I thought it might be better
to use the slower drive for storage, but the WD drive gets much hotter
and doesn't seem to hibernate whereas the Seagate stays barely warm
even on hot days like we have been having lately and seems to go into
hibernate mode. At what point does hot become too hot?

There is no nice tidy answer on that. Even the hard drive manufacturer's
max temperature recommendation for the drive is too hot for the best
life of the drive. Dell was stupid enough to run the drive in one of their
low end laptops right at the extreme end of what the hard drive
manufacturer allows and got a very high hard drive failure rate as a result.

And it isnt easy to see the drive SMART temperature in an external case anyway.

 

[OSbandito]

I transferred 6 TIF files totaling 204MB from a 320 GB WD external
drive in a caddy to a WD My Book 500 GB and Seagate push Button 400
GB. The transfer to the My Book took 19 seconds and to the Seagate
took 29 seconds. Is that difference typical for the the 2 drives, or
does WD to WD make a difference?

Thanks Mike

Mike, It looks like the transfers are taking place at 7Mb/sec and
10Mb/sec. This seems slow for these drives. (Is the 320 a Caviar EIDE?)
Here's a page with that drive's specs:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=117