USB hard drives failure rate

[bruce56]

I have 9 USB hard drives, used for storing videos and backup of PCs.
All of them were rarely used more than twice a week.
Recently 2 have failed. A Verbatim showed SMART errors. Fortunately,
I was able to copy the data and scrap it. Worse is a WD My Pisspot:
the USB interface is kaput, so I can't copy it.
Have these things become another built-down-to-a-price throwaway consumer item?

 

[Lynn McGuire]

I have 9 USB hard drives, used for storing videos and backup of PCs.
All of them were rarely used more than twice a week.
Recently 2 have failed. A Verbatim showed SMART errors. Fortunately,
I was able to copy the data and scrap it. Worse is a WD My Pisspot:
the USB interface is kaput, so I can't copy it.
Have these things become another built-down-to-a-price throwaway consumer item?

I assume that these are all USB external hard
drives?

Yes, I have had several of them fail also. I
think that the cases do not allow much heat
exchange and with no fan, they can get rather
warm if used extensively.

I note that the newest WD external cases are
about double the width of the old cases and
have more ventilation holes.
http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Security-Local-Backup-WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN/dp/B00E3RH61W/

Lynn

 

[Rod Speed]

I have 9 USB hard drives, used for storing videos and backup of PCs.
All of them were rarely used more than twice a week.
Recently 2 have failed. A Verbatim showed SMART errors. Fortunately,
I was able to copy the data and scrap it. Worse is a WD My Pisspot:
the USB interface is kaput, so I can't copy it.

You should be able to physically remove the drive itself and
either put it directly into a PC or into a docking station.

Have these things become another built-down-to-a-price throwaway consumer
item?

They have a pretty hard life and the power supplys
arent exactly the most bullet proof technology.

 

[Rod Speed]

Do tinier ones, with better air flows, exist?

No, because the 2.5" drives don’t get
hot enough to need better air flows.

Or maybe we should have naked
2.5" HDDs with connectors instead?

I don’t personally do it that way with 2.5" drives
because they aren't very good value $/GB wise.

I do have most of my 3.5" drives used as bare drives
in a docking station or inside the system in drive trays
or fixed. I do have a couple of 3.5" drives in external
cases which I got because they were actually cheaper
than bare drives at the time. They have all lasted fine
and I have never had any of them die at all. I don’t
use them that extensively tho, they basically get
used as overflow drives for the PVR and the usual
use pattern is periodically editing the files to remove
the material I have watched and copying other files
from the main drive they are recorded to onto the
overflow drives. That usually happens roughly
once a week or so with about 15 mins of drive
activity at most. I do leave one of the external
drives powered on and plugged in all the time.
It only gets barely warm to the touch. Those
are in very solid housings with no real airflow
but they do have green samsung drives in
them which don’t get that warm even when
used inside the PVR with no airflow at all
and when used as the main system drive.

 

[Ed Light]

By directing a small, slow fan at my 3.5" external that was at 44C while
formatting for 3 hours, it went down to 35C.

The WD in the bad enclosure could presumably be removed and put in
another or a SATA tiny to normal adapter.

Enclosures getting hot could have holes drilled in them.

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[Arno]

I assume that these are all USB external hard
drives?

Yes, I have had several of them fail also. I
think that the cases do not allow much heat
exchange and with no fan, they can get rather
warm if used extensively.

I note that the newest WD external cases are
about double the width of the old cases and
have more ventilation holes.
http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Security-Local-Backup-WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN/dp/B00E3RH61W/

The "MyBook" types are pretty decently cooled and the
conectors in the two I opened where fine.

What are really bad is the current Seagate ones. They overheat,
and the USB connectors are shoddily made and hence they put
mechanical stress on the solder-joints. I had to re-solder
one after maybe 50 times cable insertion & removal. To make
matters worse, these are 4K sector drives, but the USB interface
remaps that to 512B, i.e. you cannot simply read data off
the bare drive to recover it, as partition sizes still
get specified in number of sectors.

Arno

 

[Lynn McGuire]

The "MyBook" types are pretty decently cooled and the
conectors in the two I opened where fine.

What are really bad is the current Seagate ones. They overheat,
and the USB connectors are shoddily made and hence they put
mechanical stress on the solder-joints. I had to re-solder
one after maybe 50 times cable insertion & removal. To make
matters worse, these are 4K sector drives, but the USB interface
remaps that to 512B, i.e. you cannot simply read data off
the bare drive to recover it, as partition sizes still
get specified in number of sectors.

Arno

Yes, the newest MyBook enclosures have many cooling
holes on the top and bottom. They are about two
inches thick. Here is the good one:

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Security-Local-Backup-WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN/dp/B00E3RH61W/

The old MyBook enclosures were about 1.5 inches
thick with zero ventilation holes. I have lost
three of those over the last couple of years.
Here is the bad one:

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Desktop-External-Hard-Drive/dp/B002QEBMCI/

Lynn

 

[Arno]

Yes, the newest MyBook enclosures have many cooling
holes on the top and bottom. They are about two
inches thick. Here is the good one:

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Security-Local-Backup-WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN/dp/B00E3RH61W/

They even run cool when used horizontally (which I do, far too
much risk of them falling over otherwise).

The old MyBook enclosures were about 1.5 inches
thick with zero ventilation holes. I have lost
three of those over the last couple of years.
Here is the bad one:

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Desktop-External-Hard-Drive/dp/B002QEBMCI/

Lynn

Ah, yes, _those_. I have some of them, but I only use them for
backups, so the do only run rarely. They do really get hot.

It is a pity, but it seems many, many designers of computer
hardware either do not understand thermal management or design
things to fail from heat prematurely.

Arno

 

[Jerry Peters]

They even run cool when used horizontally (which I do, far too
much risk of them falling over otherwise).



Ah, yes, _those_. I have some of them, but I only use them for
backups, so the do only run rarely. They do really get hot.

It is a pity, but it seems many, many designers of computer
hardware either do not understand thermal management or design
things to fail from heat prematurely.

Arno

I suspect that they don't care. I use 5 1/4 drive enclosures for 3.5
drives. The larger enclosure allows better heat dissipation and also
normally iclude a small fan..