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In an earlier post I asked about a Seagate pushbutton drive that was
faulty from new. When I got the replacement, 6 weeks later, and after
reading user reviews, many of whom had problems with these drives, I
decided to use my Seagates for work drives for the photos and got a
couple of WD MyBooks to archive the originals of my photos. After
taking a few days to load my original photos on to one of the WDs I
put it away for emergencies.

A few weeks later I got it out to get some photos off it and when I
switched it on there was a series of fairly loud clunking noises that
seemed to come from it, a few seconds apart. I switched it off and
back on and it was still clunking. I switched it off for a few hours
and when I switched it back on the clunks had stopped.

When I next used it about a week later there were no clunks but
sections of the circle around the on/off button don't light up when I
switch it on. Obviously, this doesn'y affect the operation of the
drive, but I am now wondering if it safer to used bare HDDs in caddys
for archiving digital photos.

I have not had problems with WDs or other brands that weren't at least
a couple of years old. 2 out of 4 of these HDDs that come in cases
have had problems from new. I have a couple of older HDDs in caddys
that have been used as internal drives for some time before being put
into the caddys. They are still working without problems.

Thanks
Mike

Clunking could just mean that the drive is not well secured in the housing
or could mean the dreaded click of death.
Despite things like SMART drive monitoring the click of death can be hard to
identify until it is too late. I have had drives that were about to die pass
software tests so I tend to doubt those also.
Personally, I would not trust those drives with any irreplaceable files.
I have had excellent results buying USB 2 housings for older hard drives I
had no other use for. However these are also reasonably large drives, 80 gbs
and up.

In message news:, MikeM sprach
forth the following:

> When I next used it about a week later there were no clunks but
> sections of the circle around the on/off button don't light up when I
> switch it on. Obviously, this doesn'y affect the operation of the
> drive, but I am now wondering if it safer to used bare HDDs in caddys
> for archiving digital photos.

Well, a "pushbutton" drive is nothing but a bare HD mounted in an external
case. There's nothing inherently good or bad about one versus the other.

I wouldn't store any essential files in any non-redundant HD configuration.
Do RAID 1 (mirroring) or RAID 5 or above.

I realise the HDD is the same whether it comes in an enclosure or is
bought and put in on. 2 of the 4 externals had enclosure-related
problems. That is why I was wondering if the enclosures bought
saeparately are more reliable.

I have a copy of the original JPGs on a HDD in a caddy and a TIF copy
on the MyBook, and a copy on another external that I use for working
on the files and viewing them. When I first got my digital camera I
backed the files up on CDs and DVDs but found that some shots were
lost because of bad patches developing on the disks. So I started
using HDDs as well.

Mike

On 10 Mar 2007 04:51:46 GMT, "Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute"
<> wrote:

>In message news:, MikeM sprach
>forth the following:
>
>> When I next used it about a week later there were no clunks but
>> sections of the circle around the on/off button don't light up when I
>> switch it on. Obviously, this doesn'y affect the operation of the
>> drive, but I am now wondering if it safer to used bare HDDs in caddys
>> for archiving digital photos.
>
>Well, a "pushbutton" drive is nothing but a bare HD mounted in an external
>case. There's nothing inherently good or bad about one versus the other.
>
>I wouldn't store any essential files in any non-redundant HD configuration.
>Do RAID 1 (mirroring) or RAID 5 or above.

On 3ÔÂ10ÈÕ, ÏÂÎç6ʱ32·Ö, MikeM <mmo45...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> I realise the HDD is the same whether it comes in an enclosure or is
> bought and put in on. 2 of the 4 externals had enclosure-related
> problems. That is why I was wondering if the enclosures bought
> saeparately are more reliable.
>
> I have a copy of the original JPGs on a HDD in a caddy and a TIF copy
> on the MyBook, and a copy on another external that I use for working
> on the files and viewing them. When I first got my digital camera I
> backed the files up on CDs and DVDs but found that some shots were
> lost because of bad patches developing on the disks. So I started
> using HDDs as well.
>
> Mike
>
> On 10 Mar 2007 04:51:46 GMT, "Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute"
>
> <nos...@whitehouse.gov> wrote:
> >In messagenews:if34v2pggk24pnnisvj4hg6aj252refe6f@4ax .com, MikeM sprach
> >forth the following:
>
> >> When I next used it about a week later there were no clunks but
> >> sections of the circle around the on/off button don't light up when I
> >> switch it on. Obviously, this doesn'y affect the operation of the
> >> drive, but I am now wondering if it safer to used bare HDDs in caddys
> >> for archiving digital photos.
>
> >Well, a "pushbutton" drive is nothing but a bare HD mounted in an external
> >case. There's nothing inherently good or bad about one versus the other.
>
> >I wouldn't store any essential files in any non-redundant HD configuration.
> >Do RAID 1 (mirroring) or RAID 5 or abov

Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute wrote:

> I wouldn't store any essential files in any non-redundant HD configuration.
> Do RAID 1 (mirroring) or RAID 5 or above.

RAID only protects against HD hardware failures. RAID does not protect
against software faults, malware, environmental faults, faults in any
piece of hardware other than HD, or fumble fingers; yet many of those
unprotected faults are more common than HD failures and can cause data
corruption.

If you have files that contain essential data, then you must have a set
of backup/restore procedures that you have tested and that you use
religiously.
--
Cheers, Bob

Per nsag:
>the click of death can be hard to

Does 'Click of Death' happen with drives other than Iomega Zip drives?

If so, maybe that's what's going on with one of mine - a Maxtor pushbutton type.
Periodic episodes of clicking when the backup utility tries to write to it. A
bunch of lost files - restored via ChkDsk...


>I have had excellent results buying USB 2 housings for older hard drives I
>had no other use for. However these are also reasonably large drives, 80 gbs
>and up.

That's all I do anymore. Been through a couple of off-the-shelf/ready-made
housing/drive combos (including the Maxtor above) and it seems like they
actually cost more than a bare drive plus an empty wrapper. Also, every one is
different - so they don't stack all that well and each power supply is
different.

I've settled on MadDog Multimedia wrappers and whatever drives are the cheapest.
The MadDogs have a nice clean form factor, they stack well, and they all use the
same power supply.
--
PeteCresswell

In article <->,
Bob Willard <> wrote:

> Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute wrote:
>
> > I wouldn't store any essential files in any non-redundant HD configuration.
> >
> > Do RAID 1 (mirroring) or RAID 5 or above.
>
> RAID only protects against HD hardware failures. RAID does not protect
> against software faults, malware, environmental faults, faults in any
> piece of hardware other than HD, or fumble fingers; yet many of those
> unprotected faults are more common than HD failures and can cause data
> corruption.
>
> If you have files that contain essential data, then you must have a set
> of backup/restore procedures that you have tested and that you use
> religiously.

I agree. Anyone who thinks RAID offers a substitute for backups will
learn the lesson the hard ware that a RAID will do a great job of
replicating corrupt data or deleting a file from both sides of the RAID
if it owner mistakenly tells it to do so.