Re: External hard drive failing?

Jeffrey Taylor <[email protected]> Sun, 12 Jun 2022 10:23:34 -0500
Newsgroups gmane.linux.hardware.thinkpad
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On 6/12/22 10:03, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> I have a Verbatim external USB 3.0 hard drive.
> [...]
>> The ports are USB 2.0.
> If this is really a "hard drive" (with actual rotating disks inside
> rather than, say, flash memory), then a common problem is that those
> disks can occasionally (often during spin-up) require an amount of power
> that's beyond the max power delivered by USB-2.0 (~2.5W).
>
> For this reason, many USB-2.0 enclosures provided 2 USB connectors (one
> for data and one for extra power) or some other way to provide
> additional power.
>
> USB-3.0 pushed that limit to 4.5W which largely solved the problem, so
> your enclosure probably expects all the power to come from the one port.
>
> Of course, a USB-2.0 port is allowed to provide more than 2.5W, and
> disks don't always eat up more than that, so in practice a single
> USB-2.0 port often works fine, tho it might depend on luck (and it
> might work unreliably, and depend on factors such as the current
> machine load, ambient temperature, the age of the captain, ...).
>
>> This is a USB only hard drive.  Not an SATA in an enclosure.  I will try
>> cleaning the contacts.
> I've never heard of any USB-only HDDs.  AFAIK they are always some kind
> of SATA drive inside some SATA<->USB enclosure.  Some of those
> enclosures are not designed to be easily opened, admittedly, but I've
> never heard of ones where you can't get the underlying SATA drive out
> with a bit of determination.
>
>
>          Stefan
>
Yes this is a spinning rust drive.  Should have mentioned the hard drive 
has its own power supply.  Yes, I suppose I could dismantle it and pull 
the drive and put it in a enclosure I don't have.  Replacement while it 
is still working, even if not all the time, seems the best solution.  
This is my on-site backup drive with a couple years of rsnapshot 
history.  The off-site backup to Amazon Web Services S3 has only current 
files, no history.

Jeffrey

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    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/12/22 10:03, Stefan Monnier wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite"
      cite="mid:[email protected]">
      <blockquote type="cite">
        <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I have a Verbatim external USB 3.0 hard drive.
</pre>
      </blockquote>
      <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">[...]
</pre>
      <blockquote type="cite">
        <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">The ports are USB 2.0.
</pre>
      </blockquote>
      <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
If this is really a "hard drive" (with actual rotating disks inside
rather than, say, flash memory), then a common problem is that those
disks can occasionally (often during spin-up) require an amount of power
that's beyond the max power delivered by USB-2.0 (~2.5W).

For this reason, many USB-2.0 enclosures provided 2 USB connectors (one
for data and one for extra power) or some other way to provide
additional power.

USB-3.0 pushed that limit to 4.5W which largely solved the problem, so
your enclosure probably expects all the power to come from the one port.

Of course, a USB-2.0 port is allowed to provide more than 2.5W, and
disks don't always eat up more than that, so in practice a single
USB-2.0 port often works fine, tho it might depend on luck (and it
might work unreliably, and depend on factors such as the current
machine load, ambient temperature, the age of the captain, ...).

</pre>
      <blockquote type="cite">
        <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">This is a USB only hard drive.  Not an SATA in an enclosure.  I will try
cleaning the contacts.
</pre>
      </blockquote>
      <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
I've never heard of any USB-only HDDs.  AFAIK they are always some kind
of SATA drive inside some SATA&lt;-&gt;USB enclosure.  Some of those
enclosures are not designed to be easily opened, admittedly, but I've
never heard of ones where you can't get the underlying SATA drive out
with a bit of determination.


        Stefan

</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <p>Yes this is a spinning rust drive.  Should have mentioned the
      hard drive has its own power supply.  Yes, I suppose I could
      dismantle it and pull the drive and put it in a enclosure I don't
      have.  Replacement while it is still working, even if not all the
      time, seems the best solution.  This is my on-site backup drive
      with a couple years of rsnapshot history.  The off-site backup to
      Amazon Web Services S3 has only current files, no history.</p>
    <p>Jeffrey<br>
    </p>
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