Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, morphine, Steel

 
ludi
Lord High Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 8646
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2002 10:47 pm
Location: Sunny Colorado front range

Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 1:40 am

I assume this is actually common now, but it was new to me. Tried plugging in the USB WD-Passport drive to backup some files, and after a few random USB disconnects, I heard the click of death. Oh well, I've got a couple spare SSDs lying around; maybe I could repurpose the USB-to-SATA converter. Or not:

Image

Image

Yup...they integrated the USB host right into the controller PCB. This entire device is junk.
Abacus Model 2.5 | Quad-Row FX with 256 Cherry Red Slider Beads | Applewood Frame | Water Cooling by Brita Filtration
 
LostCat
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2107
Joined: Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:18 am
Location: Earth

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:15 am

Just going by my experiences, I expect larger externals to use a normal drive. I've taken apart a few, but I don't know that I ever got to doing a small drive.
Meow.
 
Chrispy_
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4670
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:49 pm
Location: Europe, most frequently London.

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:43 am

I've seen this plenty of times, and yes it's annoying.

I guess they do it to reduce assembly costs, but it's infuriating when the USB port gets damaged by clumsy owners and you shuck the drive saying "no problem, we can just put it in this USB caddy and save your data for y....

"Or not. That'll be a costly board resolder, or data recovery lab job. You do have backups, right? RIGHT?"

The sad news is that a lot of people use this sort of drive specifically for backups. They're trying to access the damn thing because it has their backup data on it in the first place :\
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
The Swamp
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 874
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2002 7:11 am
Location: Louisiana

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 7:12 am

Yikes, that's the first time I've seen that. Seems it would be cheaper for the manufacturer to use a standard drive than to have one custom-made like that for the purpose of making sure you can't re-use the enclosure and USB interface.
I wish I had gone to med school.
 
meerkt
Gerbil Jedi
Posts: 1754
Joined: Sun Aug 25, 2013 2:55 am

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:01 am

Another reason for this integration might be to make 2.5" drives shorter in length.

And they probably do save costs this way. PCB manufacture isn't expensive. They save at least a chip and 2 connectors per unit, and they produce millions.
 
chuckula
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2109
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:18 pm
Location: Probably where I don't belong.

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:25 am

I have used a USB to SATA adapter that came with a Samsung ssd a few years back to hook an SSD into my PC in a similar setup.

It's not a full case for the SSD though so it doesn't really provide physical protection for what you would consider to be a portable SSD.
4770K @ 4.7 GHz; 32GB DDR3-2133; Officially RX-560... that's right AMD you shills!; 512GB 840 Pro (2x); Fractal Define XL-R2; NZXT Kraken-X60
--Many thanks to the TR Forum for advice in getting it built.
 
blahsaysblah
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 581
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2015 7:35 pm

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:19 am

It's been this way for long time for 2.5" drives.

Most WD portable drives are always with direct USB interface on the drive.
Most Seagate portable drives are always regular SATA interface drives inside.

Just read the comments to see which is which.
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:20 am

Given the volume of external drives sold, I was always surprised they didn't do this more (and sooner) to save a few cents on manufacturing costs. I've heard of it happening going back a few years, but I've never seen one personally since I generally buy bare drives and separate enclosures; and the times I've been asked to attempt data recovery for family/friends/co-workers it has always been a standard SATA (or PATA) drive.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Village
Gerbil
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2003 5:48 pm

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:45 am

Tried to rescue a dead USB drive of my brother in law a few years back. Opened the case to find it all integrated and no luck.
 
DrDominodog51
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 716
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:23 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:52 am

Eh. I try to avoid using hard drives of any sort with USB connector on the bottom for this very reason.

A couple years back, I bought some Seagate (?) external hard drives that have a SATA and SATA power connector on the bottom of plastic case.

The cable used is a USB to SATA cable. The cable works with regular low power hard drives quite well.

If I were to need anymore external drives, I would buy more of those.
A10-7850K; GA-F2A88XN-WIFI, 16 GB of 2400MHz DDR3, 500 GB Team Group L5 SSD
 
BIF
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2458
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 7:41 pm

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 11:13 am

I didn't know the manufacturers were doing this, but I too am not surprised. It's funny too, because the cheaper manufacturing costs of doing it this way are not reflected in the price to the consumer. I've been shopping for drives this weekend, and I see that external drives with their included enclosures are often as much as $100 more than their bare counterparts.

Like others here, I only buy internal bare drives (probably for the last 8-10 years), and either install them internally (*) or I put them into a USB enclosure. About a year ago, I bought several enclosures of the "Inatek" brand (I think they might be Amazon's "house brand"), and they've been just fine. The small enclousures are tool-less for 2.5" drives, and the big enclosures require a screwdriver, but they're metal and can accept either a 3.5" or 2.5" drive.

(*) I'm not ready to go to "drive sticks", as I call them (the laptop is too old and on the new desktop motherboard, I didn't want to give up the PCI performance on those slots), but I have mostly transitioned to using 2.5" SSDs; even in my full tower, and will probably remove the last 3.5" data drive sometime in the next year. Once that happens, my use of 3.5" drives will be relegated to use for Macrium backups or my NAS cloud, and all my OS, application, and data on any of my machines will be served by laptop SSDs.

Another issue is that with the size of my audio VST sample files, and the quantity of data I back up, I don't accept HDDs with spindle speeds lower than 7200 RPM. And manufacturers are not making those as much anymore. So if I'm buying a 2.5" drive, it pretty much must be an SSD.
 
yeeeeman
Gerbil In Training
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2013 2:00 pm

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 11:44 am

Manufacturers do these cost saving measures not to lower final cost of the product, but to increase profits...
 
BIF
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2458
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 7:41 pm

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 12:39 pm

yeeeeman wrote:
Manufacturers do these cost saving measures not to lower final cost of the product, but to increase profits...


Of course they do. Increasing efficiencies when all else stays the same; well that's the name of the game. But at times, they can lower prices somewhat. That can increase purchases. We see this happening all the time with hard drives, CPUs, monitors, food, cars, and even kewpie dolls.
 
End User
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2977
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 6:47 pm
Location: Upper Canada

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 1:17 pm

If you really cared in the first place you would have purchase both a 2.5" enclosure and standalone 2.5" HDD.
 
derFunkenstein
Gerbil God
Posts: 25427
Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2003 9:13 pm
Location: Comin' to you directly from the Mothership

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 2:24 pm

End User wrote:
If you really cared in the first place you would have purchase both a 2.5" enclosure and standalone 2.5" HDD.

This is a dumb statement, and saying it makes you look dumb. These drives may be purchased and used as external drives, but when the USB crap hits the fan, it'd be nice to try to rescue some data if need be. Saying "if you really cared you'd do X" is cold, callous, and frankly not very End User-friendly.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Twittering away the day at @TVsBen
 
BIF
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2458
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 7:41 pm

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:14 pm

Ooooh, burn! :) :P
 
jihadjoe
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 835
Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 11:34 am

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:56 pm

The Swamp wrote:
Yikes, that's the first time I've seen that. Seems it would be cheaper for the manufacturer to use a standard drive than to have one custom-made like that for the purpose of making sure you can't re-use the enclosure and USB interface.


If they sell enough of those USB drives it should actually be saving them money to have the USB host controller directly on the drive PCB. Majority of regular non-techie folk I know don't even have a single SATA drive anymore, but have several USB HDDs.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Mon Aug 21, 2017 9:57 am

I've only seen WD drives like this. I avoid them, now, purely because of this BS.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
Bauxite
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 788
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2006 12:10 pm
Location: electrolytic redox smelting plant

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:59 am

Go ahead and avoid more of those HGST factory helium 8TB reds inside a usb case for $160 just for the irrational reason of being covered by the label of 1 of 2 manufacturers left. I could use more. Right now ignoring that half of the market means you are more likely to get stuck with an abomination known as a shingled drive.

Meanwhile those who do their research know there are plenty of good usb externals sold right next to the steaming turds, you cannot buy blindly on brand or even price.
TR RIP 7/7/2019
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Mon Aug 21, 2017 11:16 am

Bauxite wrote:
Right now ignoring that half of the market means you are more likely to get stuck with an abomination known as a shingled drive.

Yeah, tell me about it. :roll:

My current line of work means I've become intimately familiar with how those things operate. I am literally writing code to utilize "host managed SMR" drives (where the drive itself does not manage the SMR zones for you and explicitly exposes them to the host). Think "HDD with some of the drawbacks of tape".
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
End User
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2977
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 6:47 pm
Location: Upper Canada

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Mon Aug 21, 2017 11:50 am

derFunkenstein wrote:
End User wrote:
If you really cared in the first place you would have purchase both a 2.5" enclosure and standalone 2.5" HDD.

This is a dumb statement, and saying it makes you look dumb. These drives may be purchased and used as external drives, but when the USB crap hits the fan, it'd be nice to try to rescue some data if need be. Saying "if you really cared you'd do X" is cold, callous, and frankly not very End User-friendly.

I stand by my original post. If you buy crap then expect the worst and don't winge about it.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Mon Aug 21, 2017 12:03 pm

Bauxite wrote:
Go ahead and avoid more of those HGST factory helium 8TB reds inside a usb case for $160 just for the irrational reason of being covered by the label of 1 of 2 manufacturers left.

WD only does this on 2.5" drives, though. Call me irrational if you want. :lol:

Bauxite wrote:
Meanwhile those who do their research know there are plenty of good usb externals sold right next to the steaming turds, you cannot buy blindly on brand or even price.

I guess I don't know anything then. :) I disagree that SMR drives are junk, too.

just brew it! wrote:
Bauxite wrote:
Right now ignoring that half of the market means you are more likely to get stuck with an abomination known as a shingled drive.

Yeah, tell me about it. :roll:

My current line of work means I've become intimately familiar with how those things operate. I am literally writing code to utilize "host managed SMR" drives (where the drive itself does not manage the SMR zones for you and explicitly exposes them to the host). Think "HDD with some of the drawbacks of tape".

I love shingled drives for many uses. The newer host managed drives are interesting and I hope we can optimize our workloads to match them nicely. With any luck, filesystems will become SMR aware so we can stop playing tricks to store data quickly in large bursts.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
ludi
Lord High Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 8646
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2002 10:47 pm
Location: Sunny Colorado front range

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Mon Aug 21, 2017 2:54 pm

End User wrote:
I stand by my original post. If you buy crap then expect the worst and don't winge about it.

Have you tried booze, or perhaps the love of a good woman?
Abacus Model 2.5 | Quad-Row FX with 256 Cherry Red Slider Beads | Applewood Frame | Water Cooling by Brita Filtration
 
Kougar
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2306
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:12 am
Location: Texas

Re: Think you're going to repurpose that USB HDD? Think again

Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:50 pm

Yep, 3.5" drives are generally fine. WD USB drive I bought two years ago had a serious problem with the USB 3.0 ports on my Z97 motherboard, but USB 2.0 was fine. Using the 3.0 ports sporadically caused disconnection/reconnection events, but they'd happen so fast that file transfers would just corrupt files instead of erroring out. Shucked the drive and just installed it into the system and it's been fine since.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On