I wonder....

.... if the USB3 to SATA PCB from a Seagate external HDD can be used with
other brands / sizes of HDD?

There are plenty of 'how to' vids on youtube about opening them and using
the HDD internally (as they're around 15% cheaper than an internal HDD
everywhere it seems). However there's no mention of using the adapter part
with other drives.

I have a couple USB 2 'docks' for SATA drives and over 7TB of internal
drives that I use externally. However it's so slow and, rather than buy a
USB 3 dock (~$75) which is just going to be obsoleted like the USB 2 dock I
was thinking about getting a Seagate 2TB USB 3 external for $120 and using
the small PCB from that to access my other drives via USB 3.....

(Yeah, I have an eSATA dock too but I find that it's not so reliable - Same
as the one it replaced... This just seems like a bargain, a 2TB HDD *and* a
USB 3 to SATA interface for $120! Not that I have the $$ to spend but I'm
due some luck, it seems that a whole bunch of things have been *not* going
my way recently - hence needing a replacement mobo for a T60 amongst other
things.)

Any thoughts? Or should I just suck it and see? I guess I could always just
use it as designed (sans warranty and a bit chipped) if it doesn't work. :-/

Cheers folks, hope you have a good weekend.

 

Leaving aside the USB3 side of things. I had an external seagate external
HD which went dead. So I thought I would take some of my frustration out by
pulling it apart, carefully. It was basically a plastic case around a metal
chasis to hold the HD and the USB2 to SATA interface.

All HDs I have plugged in have worked. Threw away the plastic case as it was
damaged.

This is for the 3.5" version. Some of the 2.5" ones do very "clever" things
which make the drive attached ti the USB to SATA interface.

SATA is a standard is it not? So any SATA male and female should work just
fine together.

 

I understand that some external USB hard drives have firmware that is
modified for better performance under USB. That sometimes affects the
performance for the worse if they are plugged directly to a SATA
connection on a PC.

I would expect a foreign drive would work in the adapter, but if the
adapter is optimised to use the original firmware then maybe
performance would be adversely affected. Or maybe not... it probably
wouldn't be a major performance hit in any case. I've swapped out
drives in USB adapters in the past without problems, but that was back
before they had things like custom firmware or USB 3.

So, the answer is a definite maybe. But I would be fairly confident.

Incidentally as far as the warranty goes, I had a couple of dead
drives at work for which I had no record of where I bought them. I
discovered that both Seagate and WD's website have a page where you
can make a warranty claim. I had to send the drives to Singapore I
think it was, but for the cost of the courier - about $20 - I got 2
new drives. So if you did have a drive die on you after you'd
dismantled the case you might still be able to make a claim if you
jump through the required hoops.

You too.

 

Sounds good Gordon, thanks for the feedback.
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
[Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.]

 

Yep. However I'm wanting to go the otherway. Incidently I thought the same
thing but, according to all accounts I read on teh webz, nobody who

Yeah, I'm thinking so too. Might go get one tomorrow. There's five paydays
for me in October (which, as a rule means I get a small surplus for the
month - which I usually pay off a card) so, if I can somehow wangle the
money until then...

Also good to know. Thanks.

Cheers. I shall indeed try to. ;-)
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
[Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.]

 

These drives no longer have SATA ports..

 

I tried that with a 1TB WD, the serial flagged it as a usb so no go

 

Good to know, but - bugger...

 

OK. I rather foolishly (from a financial PoV) bought a Seagate 2TB USB3
"Expansion" external HDD yesterday from DSE. They had a Father's Day special
and were putting them out the door at $119 each.

For a start that's a crazy price! I normally use Ascent but I know others
don't, they're slightly dearer but often goods are here in less than 24
hours and they have *excellent* after-sales service. Also their prices
include delivery so there are no nasty purprises. The other most commonly
referred to supplier seems to be PB tech hereabouts so I'll use those two;

Ascent have the same drive for $146, PB Tech have it for $113.85. (Shit!
That surprised me!)

As for a Seagate 2TB 7,200 internal:

Ascent $155 and PB Tech $136.85. (I have no idea how much PB would charge
for shipping as I don't have an account with them and it seems I need one to
find out.)

Anyway, externals are much cheaper than internals and others (both here and
on teh webz) have said they've used them internally with no problems. (Not
the same story for WD apparently...)

So I opened my new external HDD up (and likely voided the three-year
warranty) to find a Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001, apparently the same drive
as the bare drives quoted above. The firmware is version CC45 and I can't
find much on Google about that. However I see that Seagate *do* supply
downloadable firmware for these (in case it needs updating for desktop use)
and other drives, you just need the cable. However I don't intend to use it
as a desktop drive.

(LOL, ironically I recently threw away a Nokia USB - serial cable that
apparently can be used for this purpose. I always have at least a couple
'Damn!' moments when I have a clear-out of stuff that's either obsolete or
hasn't been used for years.)

So anyway, it took me a while to test things out. I want to be able to
access my collection of desktop drives via USB 3 rather than the USB2 dock
I've been using. (Ironically, when I set up my external storage system bare
desktop drives were considerably cheaper than enclosed external drives - the
opposite situation to how things are now.) I priced a USB3 dock and they're
~$70 so I was looking for another option.

My biggest concern was if the interface card would work for my 2TB WD green
drives that are 'Advanced Format' as most Seagate drives, while internally
AF, present to the computer as backward compatible. As the WDs were all full
it took me the better part of a day to empty one - just in case the
interface card destroyed the partition or something. I'd already tested with
older Seagate drives and it worked just fine. After emptying a WD HDD it
also worked well.

So, not a bad deal really. A 2TB HDD much cheaper than you'd pay for it bare
but also not only the interface card but a USB3 cable (you'll be lucky to
pick one up for under $10) *and* a 12v / 1.5 amp SMPS plug-pack. (I find 12v
ones always handy.)

So, I decided to test speeds. I have an add-in USB3 PCIe card in my desktop
so was plugging into a port on that. I copied the same 21GB folder each time
from the fixed HDD to the empty 2TB WD Green drive to get an idea of how
fast it was. Here's the results:

Using Seagate USB3 interface card:

5:15 averaging 63.5MB/sec

Using a WD USB2 interface card:

10:55 averaging 29.5MB/sec

Just for the heck of it I tried the WD USB2 plugged into a (ICH9) USB2
motherboard port:

15:50 averaging 22.0MB/sec!

So not only was using the USB3 interface card a big improvement but using a
USB2 device in a USB3 port was quite a bit faster (something I'd read
elsewhere but hadn't tested - cutting a third off the time is pretty damn
convincing - I know which ports I'll be plugging into!).

Anyway, just FYI in case anyone wanted to know how it went after my
questions. ;-)
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
[Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.]

 

I have a good paperweight now though

 

Good score, that's a nice price all right.

I wasn't aware you needed a special cable to update firmware, I
thought the SATA cable would be all that was required. Live and
learn...

Been there, done that, every time I have a clean out too.

That's something else I wasn't aware of, it's good to know.

USB3 is a big improvement, I'm going to have to get a USB3 card for
the Thinkpad.

Thanks for the followup. It's always interesting to know how these
things work out.

 

If you dismantle it you'll have a really good fridge magnet

 

For sure, I have a cluster of hard drive magnets.
I cover them with heatshrink for fridge use though.

 

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Ray Greene wrote:
[big snip]

Ok, another FYI then. ;-)

I bought this one from DX:
http://dx.com/p/pcmcia-usb3-0-card-for-laptop-93716

It works OK (for the most part) but it sticks out a bit and is annoying. I
just thought it was bad Chinese design. Then I read:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=110163

In the first post dr_st points out that the T60 Expresscard slot is a few mm
shallower than standard and that an AKE 54mm Expresscard - which is also a
bit short - sits perfectly flush in the T60. That card can be got for only
~$1.50 more than the one I got here:

http://dx.com/p/ake-54mm-express-card-to-2-port-usb-3-0-card-adapter-for-laptop-notebook-113152

I wish I'd got that one now. I figured I'd save a dollar or two and I
wouldn't need two USB 3 ports. Now I'll order one when I get a few dollars
spare. Having the card stick out - albeit by only a couple mm - annoys me.
;-)

You're more than welcome.
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
[Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.]

 

Ray, it would pay to read that forum post right through. It seems there
might be an issue with the controller in the AKE card and the Gen. 1 PCIe
used in the T60 meaning you have to remove and re-insert it to get full
speed. (Something to do with ASPM power management slowing it down after a
while?)

I have question in to the OP in that thread about it, just to double-check.
The card I have (the first link to DX above) has a Fresco Logic FL1000
controller.

Cheers,
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
[Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.]

 

OK thanks for the helpful info, I'll read that a couple more times
before I whip out the credit card. I think I'll need to read up on
pciutils too. The AKE card looks good if that power issue could be
solved.

 

I never thought of that! I'm going to try it at work tomorrow.

 

Use the thinnest shrink you have as they lose a bit of grip.

 

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Ray Greene wrote:
[snip]

Cool. Let me know if you manage to sort the power issue out. That's a bit
beyond me and I need to use most of my 'low pain' time to sort out essential
things about the house etc. so would rather not have to learn it from
scratch. ;-)
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
[Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.]

 

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Ray Greene wrote:
[snip]

The latest from the OP in that thread (in another thread):

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopi...d3067fe13250a3524bc15777ffaa&p=716126#p716126

Or:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=105968

(The last few posts.)

Best,
--
/Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
[Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.]