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A PC in my bedroom held most of my music. My CD's in the living room were all ripped to hard drives. The Roku soundbridge was feeding my Behringer DAC. All was well.....until my internal media drive (running as slave) crashed. I replaced it with a 300 gig.
...My 250gig USB LaCie drive started to hang up and cause whatever software was accessing it to hang. Several months later, it crashed.
Now I'm just about done. It takes a long time to RIP all my CD's and I'm getting tired of having to do it over and over again.
I'm sending my Rotel 1070 cd player out to be repaired - maybe sold afterwards for something better.
I'm not going to rip any more CD's until they make more reliable hard drives or other storage solutions. If anyone knows of such a drive already, I'm all ears.
Follow Ups:
I had 2 Seagate USB Hard Drives fail. I could not believe both drives would just go bad. Did some research on the net, and found a recommendation to remove the hard drives from the original external enclosure and install them in a new enclosure. I had to destroy the original external enclosures in order to remove the 3.5" hard drives inside, but what difference did it make since as far as I was concerned, the drives were broken anyway.I put the "extracted" 3.5" hard drives in new USB external enclosures ($45ish Adaptec models from best buy) and they started right up, and have been working perfect for 4+ months now. Most importantly, I did not loose any info, both hard drives were fully intact.
It seems you have chosen langlauf skis for downhill :-)USB drives are inteded as portable storage not permanent 24/7 workhorse. The failure rate of USB drives is around 50% because of the excessive heat.
Especially failure prone are solutions where ordinary 3.5in drives are used in DIY enclosures. It works for transporting documents but does not work as music storage.
Anyone using external USB drives without off site backup is looking for trouble.
Solution? Get enterprise-class internal Seagate drives (one with 5 years warranty) put them into workstation and you'll be fine.
If your PC can not handle addition drives, buy any P3 or P4 PC and use it as a file server, place it in the basement or somewhere elese and hook up to home network.
I guess there is no looking back once you got spoiled with thousands of CDs three mouseclicks away.
I have a combo of 5 firewire external HD music and 5 Vantec removable SATA drives as back up (see link) and these SATA HD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140
Heat is a huge problem in unventilated external USB enclosures, but you can get them that are ventilated. Some of the Western Digital drives have fans, maybe others.
"Especially failure prone are solutions where ordinary 3.5in drives are used in DIY enclosures. It works for transporting documents but does not work as music storage.Anyone using external USB drives without off site backup is looking for trouble.
Solution? Get enterprise-class internal Seagate drives (one with 5 years warranty) put them into workstation and you'll be fine."
Bob,
Can you explain further? I just bought a 250 GB Seagate, and was planning on using it in an external enclosure (Ultra USB/firewire - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?Sku=ULT31310 ). It does have a built in fan, so will this help save it from the excessive heat that you mentioned?
I wanted to use the external enclosure for portability's sake. The thought of being able to take my music collection with me anywhere I go is enticing.
Does anybody else have an opinion on using an external enclosure w/ a hard drive?
Traut, I have read a white paper on external drives reliability. It was created by the company selling backup solutions but their findings were valid nevertheless.3'5 drive dissipates heat through heavy cast metal frame, not through the thin cover at the top. Touch one in your PC and you can feel it.
Most but not all external drives made of aluminum are in direct contact with the drive's lid, not with the cast metal frame. Frame is usually in contact with the sliding rail and rail has limited contact surface with the aluminum body of the enclosure.
As a result, many external drives warm up like toaster. Many enclosures are even made of plastic, not metal. I do not want to think if there are some noxious evaporation from the hot plastics, having in mind it was made in China with no environmental control (lead was found in plastic the toys are made of).
I have had a bad experience with an external drive made by well known accessory manufacturer. The external power supply started heating so much that the external plastic got melted. Drive crashed before I noticed foul smell of burnt PS. Think about it - $30 drive enclosure uses $1 power supply and both your data and your house relies on it operating well.
I almost got my house on fire because PS was sitting on the carpet. This experience made me think twice before purchasing any device that will be connected to AC for a long periods of time.
Can you explain further? I just bought a 250 GB Seagate, and was planning on using it in an external enclosure (Ultra USB/firewire - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?Sku=ULT31310 ). It does have a built in fan, so will this help save it from the excessive heat that you mentioned?I wanted to use the external enclosure for portability's sake. The thought of being able to take my music collection with me anywhere I go is enticing.
Does anybody else have an opinion on using an external enclosure w/ a hard drive?
External enclosures aren't all equal - some are better at cooling the drive they contain than others. Sounds like the fan you have may be a good idea, particularly if it's a 3.5" hard drive.
3.5" drives tend to run a bit hotter than the smaller 2.5" and 1.8" drives due to the greater mass of the platters and (usually) higher rpm. Moreover, they're not designed to withstand the rigors of being carried around to quite the degree that the smaller drives, which are designed to be used in laptop computers and portable devices like iPods.
If I were looking for an external drive to be used mostly for transporting files I'd probably go with a 2.5" or 1.8" drive. If it was to be used with a laptop in particular, I'd go with a 1.8", since the 1.8" drives are pretty much guaranteed to be powered by the USB port on the laptop and not require additional power. The 2.5" drives are often borderline and some will need external power. The main downside to the small drives are smaller capacities, slower speeds, and higher prices.
With all that said, I think 3.5" drives can be safely used in external enclosures, just as long as they're well cooled and you're careful not to handle them too roughly.
All of these are great suggestions. I don't have a problem with internal heat. My first internal media drive started getting corrupted files out of nowhere that would hang the whole system, though. The replacement internal drive is fine.
I don't have room in the case for any more.The biggest problem I have is with USB. I had to get a dedicated 2.0 controller card (in addition to the dedicated one for my M-Audio 24/96 USB). However, I still wonder if USB is a flaky sort of connection. I never shut off a drive without properly "putting it away," but pretty often the computer just loses it.. like it ceases to exist and when I go to manage my computer it can't find it there to re-mount. Eventually, the data on the drive gets bad and it goes.
I'm a teacher with another part time job just to pay student loans. I can't afford a fancy RAID box, which is what I would do if I could. I'm afraid of my computer not being able to handle two USB drives since it always loses the one - but that's a more realistic backup option. I can not afford to replace the computer - another possible fix.
That's why I think it would be cheaper to repair and upgrade the Rotel for now. The Rotel has a simple mechanical problem where the transport is not lifting the disc into the proper position.
I had similar problems--buncha USB/firewire drives started blowing up on me. I did end up going RAID5--terastation 1TB--and haven't had any problems, even tho' its on 24/7.I keep seeing sales on the Terastations... Don't know what your limit is, but the last one I bought I picked up for $600, shipped. Think it was Tigerdirect.
There does sound like something is amiss in your system. It almost sounds like a virus. Try running Bitdefender online virus scan (it catches more viruses that any of the standard better known softwares).If it's not that I wonder if there is a problem with a controller or something, though I have never heard of this happening with USB. Are you using an older system that does not support USB (or 2.0), so you are using PCI cards for USB?
I would also contact LaCie Support to see if they have a suggestion about their drives.
Here is a short list of what could be wrong, sorry it's so long!
- Failing disks (a symptom?)
- Failing disk controllers (why would it be both USB and internal?)
- Loose cards/connections (make sure all cards and connections are tight - you'd be suprised how many times this is the culprit)
- Virus
- A Driver/s in Windows is wrong or corrupt (reinstall Windows).
- Problem with memory or memory controllers (causes corrupt files that get written to hard disks, hard to diagnose or fix short of replacing memory and motherboard).
If it were my computer, I would check out the virus, then check the cards, then run a hard disk analysis utiliity, then try reinstalling Windows, then replace motherboard and memory (drastic).
If you're a teacher buy an Apple computer with your educator's discount. Macs have used USB for a long time and do it well. No need for USB cards etc. Just get the Mac and two externald hard drives (one for music storage and one (or two) for backups) and you'll be in fine shape. You could even use the Mac as a CD transport (might be a bit noisy though as it spins).
Even with discount, that's a little pricy for me. Anyway, I use flat panel iMacs at the school for video editing and they sound like jets about to take off when their fan gets spinning. I'd have to spring for the tower version.I have an earlier generation Gateway P4 with USB built in, but the built-in USB wasn't even able to handle a USB 1.1 compatible external sound processor. That's the first thing I had to buy a PCI USB 2 controller card for. When I got the USB hard drive and tried to use the same PCI USB controller, the devices weren't so happy. I had to buy another PCI card! Someone explained to me that USB is bad with bandwidth sharing or something like that. Anyway, my PCI slots are full now! Crazy!
If anything, I'd get a Mac for the firewire support. I think firewire is more stable?
iBooks do have fans, but they rarely if ever come on. My iBook is pretty much silent except when reading a new disc. You can get a used iBook (G3) with a warranty for about $289. Use the firewire for your drives (notebook drives are almost silent) and the usb for your dac or your usb to spdif converter.I've been using an iBook (G4) this way for 2 years and haven't had any issues. it will take about 5 minutes to set up and you are done.
Steve
PS Please note that the G3 iBooks support USB 1 and not 2 ( I think) if that makes a difference to you.
I doesn't sound like this is you problem, but one of the main reason hard drives fail inside PCs is heat. The hard drives overheat.If you have lost several drives in a case, this is usually the culprit.
I have two seperate backups of my ripped music. I've been ripping for years now (off and on) and I'm still not done. I cannot accept losing all of that music (and time). So I have two seperate backups, one stored in a totally seperate building. Hard drives will inevitably fail so you need a way to dump your music files back onto the main storage hard drive. I even back up my iTunes playlist XML files if it needs to be reimported.
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- http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost10 (Open in New Window)
This is why I have two separate backups. Reripping discs is not an option.
My music server is also my main PC. Its case is an Antec P180, which can hold a total of six hard drives. I use all six in the following way.The lower chamber of the case has a basket which holds four hard drives. I have these four hard drives configured as a RAID 5 array. The basket has good sized gaps between the four drives for airflow. In that lower chamber is a fan that pulls air across the hard drives, keeping them cool. The RAID controller is a separate third-party controller, not something built in to the motherboard. If one drive of the array fails, the controller will warn me and I can replace the failed drive and rebuild the array. Of course, RAID 5 does not protect you when more than one drive fails at once, or some other catastrophic failure.
Then I have two IDE hard drives. The first one holds the OS and all the apps. However, I store no application data on the IDE drive. That all goes on the RAID array. The second hard drive holds an image of the first, created with Acronis True Image. That backup takes 12 minutes, and I do it every day. If the OS backup drive fails, it can just be replaced with no ill effects. If the OS drive fails, it can be replaced, then the image restored from the OS backup drive using a bootable CD created by Acronis True Image.
For "ultra critical" data such as taxes, I just back that up to CD or DVD from the RAID array in case of a catastrophic failure of the array.
I don't claim that this approach is perfect by any means. But it gives ma a lot of protection for very little work. One key I've found to a good backup strategy is that it should be easy and quick enough that you will actually do it regularly.
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All one really needs to do is pop a second USB drive and back up the music that has been "added" since the last backup.This is easy enough to do. I keep each album in a subfolder, and do not use subfolders for artists. This way I can "see" at a glance the difference between the backup drive and the main drive - all I need to do is sort each by date, and voila - any folders not backed up are intuitively obvious. Copy them over, and job is done.
You don't even need fancy "set-it-and-forget-it" backup software! :D
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