Hard Disk Question

Awais Yaqub

Hello people. Raw Sucks, anyway since memory is cheap i am loving it.

I am looking to purchase separate 500GB HD that will be installed inside my PC along with my existing 250GB HD.

Question
I want to keep the NEW HD turned off when not in use. Is there anyway in windows to turn off/on HD, without opening and disconnecting wires ?

And please don't say its possible in MAC :wink

I hope you understand what i need :scratch

Scott_Quier

I don't think so - but I've been wrong before (once or twice ). I think the best you are going to do is with an external HDD, either USB, FireWire, or eSATA.

Wil Davis

Some questions:

1) Do you want it to be "powered off" (i.e. have no power going to it), or just "not accessible" by the operating system? It can be done, but it's somewhat difficult to prevent Windoze keeping its hands off hardware once it's installed and connected and powered up.

2) Have you thought of mounting your new drive in an external enclosure and then plugging it into the PC (using USB or FireWire or eSATA)? This is far easier to implement, and also provides the flexibility of easily being able to use the drive on more than one PC. (I use a couple of 1Tb drives in separate enclosures as my backups which I connect using eSATA).

HTH -

- Wil

PS: sorry Scott, almost a dupe - great minds etc… etc…

Awais Yaqub

Thank you guys for quick response

My only issue about keeping HD outside of enclosure is reliability and speed. I need to check out if my PC has esata and firewire

Yes i want to keep power turned off, but restricting accessibility will be fine too !

Sam

Aways,

What is the purpose of turning off the power to this hard drive?

If your trying to save energy take a look at Western Digital's Green Drives. They idle along at 5200 rpm until you use it, then it speeds up to 7200 rpm. There is a small performance hit, but it does save energy.

If your trying to extend the drives life, I don't think powering it on and off helps.

You do have your imaged backed up on an external dive don't you?

Sam

Awais Yaqub

Sam wrote:

Aways,

What is the purpose of turning off the power to this hard drive?

If your trying to save energy take a look at Western Digital's Green Drives. They idle along at 5200 rpm until you use it, then it speeds up to 7200 rpm. There is a small performance hit, but it does save energy.

If your trying to extend the drives life, I don't think powering it on and off helps.

You do have your imaged backed up on an external dive don't you?

Sam

Nah no i don't want to save energy. I just thought turning power off is safe . No i don't have any external drive to backup, just DVD backups.

Art Scott

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Hello people. Raw Sucks, anyway since memory is cheap i am loving it.

I am looking to purchase separate 500GB HD that will be installed inside my PC along with my existing 250GB HD.

Question
I want to keep the NEW HD turned off when not in use. Is there anyway in windows to turn off/on HD, without opening and disconnecting wires ?

And please don't say its possible in MAC

I hope you understand what i need

Not since Win 95 0r 98cry:cry.....I used to be able to stop my hdd's before turning off my computer (all but the "C" drive of course).......but since a very early change to XP that ability has been gone.........I too have bee nloking for it so Ic an keep my external Seagate FreeAgent Drives turned off and not radiating heat or just weating themselves out from the constant spinning......

Sorry Awais, Wish I had better a better answer on the sugjectdunno

cmason

Remember, USB 2.0, which your PC surely supports, is actually faster than Firewire 400. So don't feel that you must have Firewire to get acceptable external speeds. If your PC has IDE connected drives, then an internal drive can be slower than an external USB. (However, an internal SATA is much faster.) A USB drive will suffer if it is connected to a hub that must step down to USB 1.1 for another device, or if their is big demand on USB ports on PC (other USB connected devices). Otherwise, there should be no speed reason not to use an external USB drive.

An internally mounted drive can be disabled in Windows, though as others have said, it is not all that convenient. The most convenient way to achieve this is if your laptop has an accessory that replaces the internal DVD drive with a similar shaped tray for a hard drive. In this case, you can simply remove the hard drive to stop it. (via Windows Safely Remove Hardware tool in your tool tray).

Example: http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-40Y8725-Thinkpad-Serial-Adapter/dp/B000E0KGU0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1252360928&sr=8-1

To disconnect any other drive internally, click Start> then right click on My Computer, and choose "Manage". Computer Management will start. From here, go to Disk Management under Storage. Select the target disk in the list on the right, and right click choosing "Change Drive Letter", then select 'Remove Volume". You get it back, go through similar steps, but choose "Add". You may have to rescan discs in the Action menu.

Here are some screen shots that show some of this:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5097587_unmount-volume.html

Newsy

The funny thing about USB2.0 is that in real world testing with large data transfers it does not come close to its' theoretical maximum transfer rate. For small chunks of data - a file here, a photo there - USB2.0 is preceptibly as fast as Firewire400. However, start moving large chunks of data and Firewire400 blows away USB2.0 by a substantial margin - as much as 70% faster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATA#External_SATA

My benchmarks are stored somewhere but here is a recent article.
http://laptopcom.blogspot.com/2008/06/performance-comparison-usb-20-port-vs.html

Faster still is eSATA especially if your external drive can support eSATA II with its' 3GB/s transfer rate. In real world testing with large data transfers, eSATA is substantially faster than Firewire400.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2173844,00.asp


Not knowing your hardware & OS makes suggesting a solution difficult but it is likely the following would work well for you.

A Hard Drive Dock with eSATA connectivity, something like one of these:
http://www.vantecusa.com/demo/front/product/pro_list/70

Add a PCI card for the eSATA connectivity at the PC.

Some users are reporting that the standard Windows supplied utility to disconnect usb drives does not work with external eSATA drives and data gets corrupted.

Use this software to reliably disconnect the drive:
http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/index_enu.htm


With this you have a hard drive that can be turned off, a backup system in which you can swap out drives almost as if they are flash memory cards, and it transfers data at the same speed as the internal drive.

.

Scott_Quier

eSATA and Win7
I got an eSATA enclosure with a supported drive and hooked it up to my computer under WinXP and had issues. I could not connect/disconnect the HDD in the manner advertised. I had to turn on the eSATA enclosure and wait until the HDD was up to speed before turning on the computer. Disconnect was the reverse - shut down the computer, then turn off the eSATA enclosure. Not cool.

I upgraded my computer H/W and the OS (to Windows 7 .... yes, it's pre-release software that was leaked for testing purposes) and had even more issues. The computer would not boot with the enclosure turned on if it was connected as eSATA (USB was fine). I went looking around and discovered the the manufacturer of my motherboard (which is relatively new on the market) had released not one, not two, but three BIOS upgrades since the MBO was released. I upgraded to the most recent and things are sweet.

I can start up the computer and turn on the eSATA drive enclosure at any time. A few seconds after turning on the enclosure, the drive is recongnized and ready for work. Disconnecting is just like with a USB device. And the speed ... don't get me started ... well, OK if you're going to twist my arm ... it ROCKS! It kicks butt all over the USB2 devices!

Awais Yaqub

Thanks for great detailed info guys !
I think i should stick with internal HD connected to other vacant ports on motherboard, and stop worrying about turning it OFF.

JohnBiggs

My recommendation (from 15 years experience) is to only buy western digital. The worst drives are Seagate and Hitatchi/IBM

Awais Yaqub

JohnBiggs wrote:

My recommendation (from 15 years experience) is to only buy western digital. The worst drives are Seagate and Hitatchi/IBM

Oh man i am Seagate user since i purchased PC. And no flaw yet ! but i am looking into WD drive. Seagate is tooo noisy

JohnBiggs

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Oh man i am Seagate user since i purchased PC. And no flaw yet ! but i am looking into WD drive. Seagate is tooo noisy

You are lucky. I am constantly doing recoveries from failed seagates. Infact I did one last weekend. Sadly that drive was hoplessly gone.

Scott_Quier

JohnBiggs wrote:

My recommendation (from 15 years experience) is to only buy western digital. The worst drives are Seagate and Hitatchi/IBM

I've been in the industry since 1982 (I just did the math ... 27 years ... that really makes me feel sooo old) and I've seen batches (not just individual samples) of every brand fail in a catostrophic manner .... Seagate, WD, Maxtor, Fuji, IBM, Hitatchi, and a couple of others the names of which escape me at the moment.

What I have seen, however, is that you pretty much get what you pay for. If you buy cheap consumer grade HDD, you can count on a non-recoverable crash. It's not a question of "if", but of "when". On the other hand, if you invest in the server grade product, one that is engineered for 5-9s (that's 99.999%) uptime, you are in a much better position. They cost a bit more, but that incremental increased cost is nothing to the cost of your data (cost of data == the cost to you to reproduce your images, you do the math ).

Final note - Like John, I too have a, possibly irrational, preference for WD drives. But, HDD brand preference can be, just like computer and camera brand preferences, a religious question.

JohnBiggs

Scott_Quier wrote:

I've been in the industry since 1982 (I just did the math ... 27 years ... that really makes me feel sooo old) and I've seen batches (not just individual samples) of every brand fail in a catostrophic manner .... Seagate, WD, Maxtor, Fuji, IBM, Hitatchi, and a couple of others the names of which escape me at the moment.

What I have seen, however, is that you pretty much get what you pay for. If you buy cheap consumer grade HDD, you can count on a non-recoverable crash. It's not a question of "if", but of "when". On the other hand, if you invest in the server grade product, one that is engineered for 5-9s (that's 99.999%) uptime, you are in a much better position. They cost a bit more, but that incremental increased cost is nothing to the cost of your data (cost of data == the cost to you to reproduce your images, you do the math <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/deal.gif&quot; border="0" alt="" >).

Final note - Like John, I too have a, possibly irrational, preference for WD drives. But, HDD brand preference can be, just like computer and camera brand preferences, a religious question.

Yes, I was going to go into all that in my last post then I deleted it. I have some old <40GB Western Digitals/Maxtors in a pile of dead drives. Then I have IBMs above that, then on top is about 6 Seagates.

Don't ask me why I still have them all. But in any case I feel the leading manufacturer changes over time, right now IMHO it's western digital.

Art Scott

rofl

JohnBiggs wrote:

My recommendation (from 15 years experience) is to only buy western digital. The worst drives are Seagate and Hitatchi/IBM

roflroflroflroflroflroflrofl

Coming from the computer building industry and having seen literally thousands of drives come in by literally the semi load and leave in small tin containers (PC's, I watch the PC go from a 2500 lb, 6'4" behemouth to what it is now, quite a history working for a company that invented SCSI as well as many other compuer innovations).....I have a completely different opinon.........and from my personal experience is different also.......Maxtor,Fujitsu & western digital were the all time worst for failures while I was in th manufactureing industry.......the company I worked for had fewer failures with Hitachi and Seagate....I looked for years for a distributor for Hitachi when locally all I caould find were Maxtor and WD drives that kept hard crashing on me.....in one year I went thru 27 hard drives the 28th was a Seagate and it is still running and it is 4.5 yrs old and has been shut down only when there is a power failure.......so it has been turned on and spinning for over 4 yrsbow.....all my drives are now either Seagate or Hitachi........

Also Segate and Hitachi are the quietest drives I have ever seen or been around.....I cannot hear them run when I sleep and the computer is 2 feet ftom my bed.....WD and maxtors kept me awake all night......

I am also certain that other people can say the same for the Maxtor and WD and Fujitsu drives they sign praises of also......they all make good products and junk.....I just have never run into the Seagate or Hitachi junk (yet)...roflrofl

JohnBiggs

Well I made no claims on maxtor and I've had failures with those too. However no where near the level of failures with seagate.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-barracudas-7200-11-failing

All I know is of the 24+ hard drives powered on at home right this second, none are seagate, simply because every seagate I've ever bought are sitting in a 'dead' pile.

Yes there was a time in the 90's where I wouldn't touch a western digital.

Newsy

JohnBiggs wrote:

Well I made no claims on maxtor and I've had failures with those too. However no where near the level of failures with seagate.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-barracudas-7200-11-failing

Ah yes... was wondering when that series of drives would be referenced. I've never bought them and so have no issue. The problem was identified and rectified if I recall correctly.

Seagate also had an issue 2 or 3 years ago with their FreeAgent PRO external drives in that the firmware was not optimized for the eSATA connectivity. That was less an issue with the drive and more with the onboard controller having flawed firmware. Seagate did not handle that customer service opportunity very well at all. Apparently, users who squawked loud enough received a silent update - nothing was ever made available from the website for download. Knowing that, I'd guess that they had an issue with the supplier of the controllers and could not confirm which units had shipped with a drive, or something like that.

I also recall years ago when IBM had a bad spell before they sold the line to Hitachi.

The only drive I've ever had fail in 20 years of PC use has been a Maxtor. Most techs I deal with don't think much of them either. They're part of Seagate now, right?

That said.... I have 3 operating drives in the houshold and they are all Seagate and 5 backup drives and they are all Seagate.

.