aldi-500GB hard drive 109€

BostonB

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I've heard of two drives failing in a RAID 5 array - cant remember if was posted here on boards or not, rare but not unheard of

I know you don't agree but for me thats a bit like saying a VW engine blew in the Le Mans 24 hr race so don't let your granny buy a Polo because they are unreliable. A drive you buy rated for use in 24/7 server application, in a RAID 5 is very different from a drive you buy for backing up your MP3's.

Besides any place that needs a RAID 5, would have a backup of it. Replace drives, restore backup. But we're not talking about RAID 1 never mind RAID 5.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

And this is how drive manufacturers operate, they have no problem swapping out failed drives. They wash their hands completely of lost data, because they'd rather sell you extra drives than go to the expense of making reliable drives and data recovery.

If it doesn't make economic sense to do it. Then why do it? if its cheaper to buy consumer drives and replace them, than expensive low capacity SCSI drives why not do it?

RAID = Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks

If people buying drives were serious about reliability they'd be asking about Warranty, Service life, operational MTBF and theoretical MTBF etc.

BostonB

ch750536 wrote: »

^ like he says.

The photos & vids are on google via picasa.

All my code is there via gmail (you get 1 few gig for free)

All my docs & stuff is there on google apps.

Depending on direction, each friday I sync the 3 locations. To be honest, I dont bother with the pics etc as if google lost them it would probably make headline news, so I trust them not to.

I have the originals, just not the edited versions.

Careful who you trust...

http://www.news.com/Hotmail-incinerates-customer-files/2100-1038_3-5226090.html

BostonB

bk wrote: »

Then buy the Seagate and one Aldi.

Here is the point, if a HDD has a manufacturing defect, then there is a much greater risk that more or all of the same HDD in the same batch have the same risk. It makes logical sense, if one of the machines used in the manufacture of HDD was slightly wrong, maybe a little bit of dust got where it shouldn't be, then it is likely to impart the same defect to all drives in the same batch. Or maybe some of the raw materials supplied by a subcontractor where below their usual quality which would effect all drives of the same batch.

This isn't some unusual occurrence, it is a very real and regular occurrence in the manufacture of almost anything, but it is particularly true in electronics manufacturing.

You can take my advice or leave it.

My point was simply that two drives was better than one, for people to whom it wouldn't think of buying two drives. (Most people).

I don't disagree that mixing models is a good idea, as yes you can have failures in a batch. But I think that losing your data because of simultaneous failures is highly unlikely. More likely that you'll get burgled and someone will steal the lot, or a fire, or an electrical spike, or you spill your coffee over the whole lot. You can keep adding layers of redundancy for ever. Data should be across different media and at least one off site.

ch750536

BostonB wrote: »

Careful who you trust...

http://www.news.com/Hotmail-incinerates-customer-files/2100-1038_3-5226090.html

Really wouldn;t trust them, just got a mail through about skydrive, took a look. Bit clumsy. May use that as a backup of google though.

mickoneill30

It's happened before with Gmail too. Gmail seems to be the longest running Beta ever. You really shouldn't be trusting important docs to any web based email service unless you have a guarantee that they're backing it up and they have an agreement with you to restore those backups. You won't get something like that for free. Backups / Restores are expensive and time consuming.
And even then I wouldn't be trusting anything confidential with them.

ch750536

Confidential bit I don't have an issue with, have gone through the T's & C's and am fine with that.

Them not losing the data, I expect that compared to me they are very good, remember they are a third backup.

im...LOST

I got one of these this morning. It's alot smaller than I thought, look nice and it's quiet enough too. Like, you'd know that it was on but it's not noisy either.

Happy enough with it so far.

On a side note, I asked about the 4gb USB pens and the woman just nodded no. So, I'm not sure if they don't have them in yet or something but whateverz, I got what I wanted.

This is the Dundalk Branch btw.

ch750536

Be aware that self powered USB is flawed, static causes them not to work. SO if ever you cant get a drive or anything else to work, unplug everything, switch everything off, go make a coffee.

When done plug back in and all will work fine.

Happens a couple of times a week to me but I do hotswap a lot.

im...LOST

It doesn't say anywhere that it's self powered, does it?!

Capt'n Midnight

im...LOST wrote:

On a side note, I asked about the 4gb USB pens and the woman just nodded no

they were gone at quarter past nine,

ch750536

take a look at this, though prices have changed service was good for a good product.

BostonB

im...LOST wrote: »

It doesn't say anywhere that it's self powered, does it?!

By self powered you actually mean bus powered. As in the USB bus.

3.5" drives need AC. This is a 3.5" drive otherwise it would be more expensive.

Laptop drives, 2.5" are bus powered.

sillysod1234

can someone please help. i bought the 500 gb hard drive in aldi thursday. brought it home worked fine. planned on using it to back up my data so i can reinstall xp. went to use it on friday. connected it. worked fine. was recognised in my computer. sorted out my docs and programs etc for a few hours next thing a bubble popped up telling me the drive had malfunctioned. i hadnt even put anything on it yet. now the drive is no longer recognised by the computer. tried all the usual like reconnecting, changing cable (usb), disconnected power cable from pc overnight and nothing. still cant get it going.

has this happened to anyone else.

is there a cure for this.

please help cause i really need to reinstall OS as my computer has been really slow over the past few months.

thanks
al

masterwriter

sillysod1234 wrote: »

can someone please help. i bought the 500 gb hard drive in aldi thursday. brought it home worked fine. planned on using it to back up my data so i can reinstall xp. went to use it on friday. connected it. worked fine. was recognised in my computer. sorted out my docs and programs etc for a few hours next thing a bubble popped up telling me the drive had malfunctioned. i hadnt even put anything on it yet. now the drive is no longer recognised by the computer. tried all the usual like reconnecting, changing cable (usb), disconnected power cable from pc overnight and nothing. still cant get it going.

has this happened to anyone else.

is there a cure for this.

please help cause i really need to reinstall OS as my computer has been really slow over the past few months.

thanks
al

I got one today and have not opened it yet. But there is a guarantee card with a helpline number you can call with it

sillysod1234

masterwriter wrote: »

I got one today and have not opened it yet. But there is a guarantee card with a helpline number you can call with it

ya i saw that but i would like to solve this quickly. plus ive just read that their customer service aint great. plis im really peed off.

masterwriter

sillysod1234 wrote: »

ya i saw that but i would like to solve this quickly. plus ive just read that their customer service aint great. plis im really peed off.

Well all i can say is if it does not work bring it back to the shop. i have no idea what caused your problem,sorry

sillysod1234

masterwriter wrote: »

Well all i can say is if it does not work bring it back to the shop. i have no idea what caused your problem,sorry

cheers anyway

masterwriter

Problem ejecting USB Mass storage device
i cannot stop this! I used it to backup my pc using disk image 2, closed everything but still it tells me that some p[rogram is using ii so windows cannot stop it and i cannot remove it till it stops

ch750536

BostonB wrote: »

By self powered you actually mean bus powered. As in the USB bus.

3.5" drives need AC. This is a 3.5" drive otherwise it would be more expensive.

Laptop drives, 2.5" are bus powered.

No, I mean the exact opposite. The power for the unit is in the unit & not supplied by the bus.

BostonB

ch750536 wrote: »

Be aware that self powered USB is flawed, static causes them not to work. SO if ever you cant get a drive or anything else to work, unplug everything, switch everything off, go make a coffee.

When done plug back in and all will work fine.

Happens a couple of times a week to me but I do hotswap a lot.

I've never heard of that before and never experienced it. Perhaps you have a short somewhere thats causing a problem?

BostonB

ch750536 wrote: »

No, I mean the exact opposite. The power for the unit is in the unit & not supplied by the bus.

I would have thought self powered would mean battery powered but anyway.

You mean internal power supply (PSU). Generally 3.5 enclosures are too small for this. Some 5.25 encosures have internal power supplies though. Much neater. Though some 3.5 enclosures have the PSU's on the plug itself. Which is a good compromise.

ch750536

Its to do with the phasing of the current (out of my bounds of knowledge now, apologies if wrong)

Whenever you transform x current into y current, there are lots of things that change.

One of these is the phasing (may be the wrong word).

So, when you have a connection between 2 independently powered items, like you do here, this difference in the phasing can causes a static build up, causing USB to fail. <when not earthed>

Not my area of expertise as I say, got this from my brother who is a hardware geek with a very point hat. Works for me both on the USB drive and a scanner I have.

Has also worked for a number of other people too.

Is often the cause of 'then it worked when I took it to the shop' syndrome.

BostonB

The only thing I can find on it is the link below. If you any other links I'd like to see them. I guess I'd unplug and replug things on instinct anyway. But I've never seen it, thats not to say it doesn't happen, just that IMO it can't be that common. I could be wrong. I think we'd hear more about it if it was though.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/236934