just brew it! wrote:Waco wrote:Given the fact that WD external drives tend to have the USB controller integrated into the actual drive itself...I'd have a backup of it and/or not trust it anywhere near as much as before it behaved poorly.
It is not clear to me from this thread whether the problem developed over time, or existed from day 1
That's because it's not clear to me, either.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I'm more inclined to think that there is nothing wrong with the drive per se, but, as you suggested previously, it's just that the signal integrity isn't always perfect if the drive and cable are not from the same manufacturer. I say that because I remember another such previous situation, when another USB 3.0 cable was functioning at USB 2.0 speeds: the cable was a Seagate and there is a good chance (75% I would say) that drive I've tested it on was also a WD. At that time, I though the cable was bad and I threw it away without looking into the matter, but if there are multiple occurrences which manifest themselves exactly the same, it might be a case of a mismatch from fabrication.
But it's not due to the length, because I've tested the WD in question with a longer (1.8 meters, Hama) cable which I use with my desktop and it functions at USB 3.0 (so the score is 2 - 2; 2 cables which work at USB 2.0, two which function normally at USB 3.0).
To the OP, why are you using different cables with your WD drive? The drives usually come with a pretty high quality cable.
Well, I can't use the exact cable a drive came with because I can't tell which those are. I can distinguish only between brands (Seagate, WD, Adata, etc) because the shape is different, but I can't tell which WD cable came with which WD drive, because they all look the same.
As to why I used a cable from a different manufacturer than the drive itself, it was just a happenstance.