[AccessD] A real puzzler

[John W. Colby]

I built my system long before ever reading this article.  I used WD 
black because all of the user feedback put that drive in the high 
reliability segment, Seagates always had miserable reliability, just in 
the things like newegg and amazon where I could get actual user feedback.

As for this article, they were buying drives in cases back when the big 
floods in Thailand caused shortages.  I don't think that is a practice 
that they follow in normal times.

 >>Most of the clients I currently support (I'm supposedly retired) and 
advise have 1TB or 2TB USB backup drives - advice is have 2 and use them 
alternately

LOL my drives are formed into raid arrays of some huge size then volumes 
carved out of that for various purposes.    I could and should  pull 
database backups out onto normal usb drives, however trying to backup 
over usb for 3 tb of data is pretty painful all by itself.

Your DVD story is too funny!  A nice pleasant way to make a days wages I 
guess.  Very expensive movie.

John W. Colby

On 8/8/2015 11:38 AM, James Button wrote:
> Thanks for the link -
>
> Interesting - also noted the 4TB drives are less prone to fail - matching the WD
> ones.
> Most of the clients I currently support (I'm supposedly retired) and advise have
> 1TB or 2TB USB backup drives - advice is have 2 and use them alternately
> They are a mix of WD and Seagate drives Retail mostly from local superstores (
> It's a 'managing agent structure, so dearer drives mean they charge more as
> their 10% oncost, but they have to absorb the manager's time costs themselves).
>
> So I don't know what actual spec drives are inside their black boxes.
> The duff drives I have been notified about - 2 Seagates and 5 WD's
> 2 of the WD's within the warrantee period. (Plus another WD one that wouldn't
> work at all from new.)
>
> Interesting (painfull?) that you have opted for the 3 TB drives.
> Also as they seem to be extracting the drives from USB cases, While I've noted
> that USB cased drives are frequently cheaper than the 'Internal versions, see my
> comment re time costs, and not knowing what is inside the black box till you get
> it open, so I wonder about the quality of the actual drives they are using.
> Then again, I note their comment re reliability of 'enterprise' vs 'desktop'
> drives.
> I'm also a bit confused with the average age of the Seagate 3TB ST3000DM001
> 7200.14's being 1.9 years - unless that was a really bulky (baulky?) buy.
>
> The comments also put interesting slants on the data, and others experiences.
> Maybe SMART stats are relevant on the basis - any non-nominal stat, means
> replace the drive NOW!
>   
> Re spare bits for another system - Major problem, as I see it, is that you ain't
> got immediate access to the parts in the problematic one, although getting a
> test system that don't fall over could be a good idea - except for the money,
> although if it's to be kept with a light load perhaps you wouldn't need all that
> storage on it.
>    
> And - as you say "And would doing this transfer the problem to the new system?"
>
> Then again, if it did, TRANSFER as opposed to replicate - you'd probably be
> happier
>
> Re. why has the frequency of the reboots gradually increased, from once a month
> to several a day?
> If it is memory, then
> It could be that there is a minor fault in manufacturing of a module - a
> constriction in a circuit path that is, because of heating due to use -
> gradually becoming further reduced due to erosion.
> You'll almost certainly never see that, just a weird effect until it burns out
> completely, or you remove that module from the system.
> So if setting up a test system - just move 1 bank at a time - assuming the bank
> is 2 modules
> I would also recommend cleaning the contacts - if that attempt wasn't likely to
> introduce lots of problems in itself.
> It could be that there is a very small amount of corrosion on contacts -
> although I'd expect that to have more effect with additional loading.
>
>
> Basically, It's been nice chatting, and I'm glad my problems go along the lines
> of -
> Do you want your pet dustbuggy back,
> Why does your case appear to be lined with magnetic cement dust.
> Wot - no SATA power connections.
> You realise upgrading this old system will cost more than a new PC!
>
>
> Yes -
> The whole thing is just strange.
>
>
>
> Oh! - yes one of better callouts I got -
> "The MD's DVD  isn't working"
> - 2 hour drive through London, and - yes the DVD wasn't working, so he couldn't
> watch the films on his TV.
> £30 at local shop for a cheap DVD player - 3 hours to get home (rush-hour(s))
> and bill for the whole day+ travel and part with markup.
>
>
> JimB
>
>