External hard drive failures..

G

Godmachine

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 7, 2003
Messages
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Ok so I don't have dirty power , allow me to squish that notion. I have power being fed through a quality UPS with active line conditioning (sine wave approved as well) so I know that's not what is killing my external drives lately.

I did have a power line blow off a transformer recently but all my externals where connected to the UPS and didn't even power down until I manually did so.

I've had to do 3 RMA's recently (2 Seagate 3TB , 1 WD 4TB) and it just seems like running external hard drive solutions are just risky for the amount of data I wish to keep actively running. I run them because its easy to move them around this way and right now building a NAS to transport isn't doable.

I'm guessing after monitoring the temp of these drives (1 Seagate at 48C , 1 Seagate at 49C and 1 WD at 42C) under load conditions that compared to my internal drives (which none of which get above around 29C) is what's sending them to an early grave? Could I simply be that unlucky?
 
The externals are usually powered by a power brick, which is mainly responsible for the power quality. Often these are very cheap.
Other reasons for failed drives can be heat and vibrations. 49° is a bit high, but should not cause such quick failures, as long as you not not heat them up and cool them down very quickly. You should not take a HDD from your cold car in winter and directly put it to use.
 
The cheap generic cases that come with external HDDs usually have only a couple of pinholes on the bottom for air circulation, and almost nonexistent feet that put the bottom of the case within millimeters of the surface it's resting on. Putting such cases on something as minimal as a sheet of paper can cause a disastrous overheating that can kill the drive. You can mitigate this danger (and sometimes reduce the operating temperature by a few degrees) by increasing the height of the case's feet somehow; an excellent way is silicone door bumpers like these at Home Depot.
 
I think you've just had bad luck because temperatures like those shouldn't cause problems, and I still use a 200GB IBM/Hitachi internal from 2005 that typically runs around 40C - 45C. Mounting a drive vertically will cool it 1C - 3C, but I don't like vertical externals because most are easy to tip over. But the external with the best ventilation is probably the vertical WD MyBook, while the old WD Elements had no holes at all. The horizontal Seagate Expansions have a few hundred vent holes.

How much do you move around drives when they're running? Desks that sit on a couple of pedestals are very solid, but those with legs that go almost all the way up to the top wiggle around a lot more.

The AC adapters included with major brand external drives tend to be pretty good, unlike those provided with empty drive enclosures, which are usually have no safety certifications, no overvoltage protection, no AC line filter to block lower voltage surges that are missed by MOV crowbars, and a lot fewer parts than those included with Seagate and WD external drives.
 
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I only run bare drives in e-SATA/USB3.0 dockers. Much cooler.
 
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