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Offline CodeChef

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Formatting HDDs
« on: Mon, 01 November 2010, 20:44:03 »
So I got myself a nice new 250GB laptop hard drive, and an external USB enclosure for it. Well, first thing's first, this thing ain't formatted, so I went to do that. I figured it's a first format, I should do it the proper way, so of course no "quick format". It took literally 2 hours. Alright fine, gonna do some file transferring and sh- aww...well silly me, during a file transfer I unplugged one of the two USB cables, so now the files that were transferring are corrupt and I go "alright, I'll just reformat it, I don't feel like selectively deleting. I'll just quick format... wait a minute. Could there be errors on the disk now? Nah, I'm sure it's fine....



But WHAT IF??"

So now I'm waiting on the second full format of the day. 4 hours of a bright blue LED flashing rapidly in the corner of my eye. *sigh*
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Offline Rajagra

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #1 on: Mon, 01 November 2010, 20:58:03 »
The main purpose of a full format is to detect bad sectors, so only bother doing it once on a new drive. New drives will map them out of use internally anyway, so there is even less need for full formats.

I used to use xcopy to sync directories (xcopy source dest /r/i/c/h/d/y/k/e) but Microsoft's Sync Toy is a much nicer way to do this for regular copies.
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Offline Scarzy

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #2 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 05:15:33 »
I used spinrate to detect/fix errors in the past, apart from on my laptop HDD, that drive is dead completely, I miss watching TV shows in bed without turning my head to a 90 degree angle.

My drives probably need fixing too, recently got another 320GB sATA drive, but not sure what to put on it.
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Offline instantkamera

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #3 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 06:13:33 »
rsync buddy, rsync.
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Offline alec

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #4 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 07:37:13 »
uhh,  you don't format the drive if file is corrupted. You do chkdsk or fsck
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Offline keyb_gr

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #5 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 11:26:11 »
From what I remember from SR, a good procedure for a new harddrive is:
1. Overwrite completely once (random data preferred).
2. Inspect SMART data.
3. Turn off.
4. Partition, don't format more than needed, copy over data.
If SMART data shows no obvious problem and the drive does not spontaneously fail in the next few days, it's probably trustworthy.

External cases can be pretty lousy in terms of ventilation, so watch out for temperature. Harddrives are usually fine at 40..45°C, I would not recommend running them too far over 50 over extended periods of time though. Oh, and no smoking nearby - the air filter keeps off a lot, but over time stuff WILL accumulate inside the drive.
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Offline zefrer

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 11:48:44 »
I keep hearing about the smoking thing but I've been heavily smoking beside my PCs for years now and I can count the number of hard driver failures I've had on half the fingers of one hand.
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Offline zefrer

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #7 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 11:57:34 »
You shouldn't have said that. Murphy's law of failing hard drives will be with you in 3.2.1..
« Last Edit: Tue, 02 November 2010, 12:00:44 by zefrer »
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Offline CodeChef

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #8 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 15:45:07 »
I would never trust a Hitachi. Sure, the negative reputation may be baseless, but with a nickname like "Deathstar", why take the risk?
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Offline Megaweapon

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #9 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 15:53:45 »
What risk?  That nickname is from when IBM made the drives.
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Offline CodeChef

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #10 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 16:01:42 »
I didn't know that... Alright, fine, but Samsung and Western Digital drives are both just as good, and are widely more reputable. The only drives I hear about failing a lot are Hitachis and Seagates.
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Offline CodeChef

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #11 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 17:52:38 »
Rip, the format's been done. I just backed up my lappy a few minutes ago. It's amazing to me how quiet it is. Using a WD Scorpio Blue 250GB (5400RPM 2.5") with an Acomdata USB 2.0 enclosure. Total cost was 47 bucks free ship from Newegg.
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Offline CodeChef

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #12 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 17:53:42 »
Quote from: kishy;241790
Seagate externals have a good reputation...internals, not so much (mostly 7200.11 series Barracudas it would appear, thanks to the lovely firmware glitches that Seagate never did fully admit the true scope of).

Hitachi, I actually don't think I know someone who had a Hitachi/SimpleTech external and DIDN'T have it fail (in 1-2 years).

I've been very impressed with the performance of the drive in my laptop, but 5 years, even with abuse, is simply too short. I think the heat from it being a 7200RPM drive was a major contributor. Mind, it's still going, but I get occasional quasi-failures so the end is near.


7200RPM drive in a lappy? What were they thinking??
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Offline timw4mail

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #13 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 18:01:45 »
Quote from: kishy;241790
Seagate externals have a good reputation...internals, not so much (mostly 7200.11 series Barracudas it would appear, thanks to the lovely firmware glitches that Seagate never did fully admit the true scope of).
.

Avoiding the 1.5TB drives, I've found Seagate to be the most reliable of all the brands of drives I've used.
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Offline J888www

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #14 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 18:19:06 »
I vote for Intel hard drives without disks but the problem is that I cannot hear it for want of knowing it's working.
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Offline D-EJ915

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #15 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 18:35:19 »
The Deathstar name only applied to disks with glass platters, they haven't used those in a loooong time.  Do some research.
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Offline timw4mail

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #16 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 19:07:54 »
Quote from: ripster;241806
WD wins the polls at Xtreme and OCN.

Never liked them myself.

Conversely, I've had the worst luck with Western Digital.
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Offline Rajagra

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #17 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 19:39:19 »
Quote from: D-EJ915;241816
The Deathstar name only applied to disks with glass platters, they haven't used those in a loooong time.  Do some research.


Glass platters are clearly superior...



... once the recording material has been scraped off by the read head! :smile:

This recent (August 2010) industry analysis only mentions aluminium (older) and glass (newer) substrate materials. I would hope it is well researched for the price they are asking for the report.
« Last Edit: Tue, 02 November 2010, 19:47:50 by Rajagra »
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Offline microsoft windows

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #18 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 19:45:33 »
I've found Windows NT Setup (and Windows Setup for Windows 2000, XP, etc.) can do a good job formatting hard disks. I've gotten some bad ones to work again after doing a slow format in Windows Setup.
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Offline didjamatic

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #19 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 19:45:45 »
I had no idea some HD platters were clear under their coating.  I assumed they were metal discs.
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Offline instantkamera

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #20 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 20:06:31 »
yeah I don't let my experience really come into play when buying **** like disks. Things change. WD Caviar black are the 7200RPM drive to beat right now, afaik.
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Offline wap32

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #21 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 20:29:10 »
Quote from: kishy;241790
Seagate externals have a good reputation...internals, not so much (mostly 7200.11 series Barracudas it would appear, thanks to the lovely firmware glitches that Seagate never did fully admit the true scope of).
[...]


Quote from: timw4mail;241804
Avoiding the 1.5TB drives, I've found Seagate to be the most reliable of all the brands of drives I've used.


Nooooooo...I have three 7200.11 1.5TB Barracudas... :eek:

kishy, timw4mail, what problems actually appeared on those drives?
Bad sectors, data corruption?

Thankfully I have the drives on a raid5 array, but this is frightening news.
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Offline Rajagra

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #22 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 21:00:01 »
Quote from: ripster;241847
Current ones are metal.


Citation required, as they say.

I can find plenty of references saying glass is still in use and one of the two major players. I can find articles saying they *want* to replace glass with something better. I can't find anything saying glass has been replaced by something else or is being abandoned in a return to aluminium.

=======================

Tokyo (March 11, 2010) -- Konica Minolta Opto, Inc. today announced that it has decided to enhance the production capacity of glass substrates of hard disk drives (HDDs) by adding production line in response to a rapid growth in demand and the accelerated increase in storage density.

Quote
While there are two types of substrate: aluminum and glass, glass substrate has higher heat-resistance and shock-resistance and is more suitable for high-density storage media than aluminum substrate. For these reasons, glass substrate is rapidly gaining popularity, being employed in notebook computers and various digital home appliances.
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Offline D-EJ915

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #23 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 23:12:32 »
My seagate 500GB that I took apart had metal disks in it.
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Offline Rajagra

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #24 on: Tue, 02 November 2010, 23:13:35 »
Need bigger hammer.
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Offline timw4mail

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #25 on: Wed, 03 November 2010, 06:26:30 »
Quote from: wap32;241857
Nooooooo...I have three 7200.11 1.5TB Barracudas... :eek:

kishy, timw4mail, what problems actually appeared on those drives?
Bad sectors, data corruption?

Thankfully I have the drives on a raid5 array, but this is frightening news.

They had firmware issues. If they are working fine for you now, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
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Offline CodeChef

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #26 on: Wed, 03 November 2010, 13:36:06 »
Quote from: Rajagra;241911
Need bigger hammer.
Show Image


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Offline wap32

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #27 on: Wed, 03 November 2010, 21:40:25 »
Quote from: timw4mail;242010
They had firmware issues. If they are working fine for you now, I wouldn't worry too much about it.


Quote from: kishy;242179
Seconding timw, the issues were not mechanical in nature. They were firmware glitches that usually showed up within the first few times using the drive (but exceptions existed...which is what Seagate never admitted, and in fact clearly denied).


Well, the drives have about 6 months of uptime and so far no problems appeared.
Let's hope they stay that way...

I've always though Seagate and WD were pretty reliable drives, but I guess every brand has its problems.
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Offline D-EJ915

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #28 on: Wed, 03 November 2010, 22:59:07 »
Quote from: wap32;242353
Well, the drives have about 6 months of uptime and so far no problems appeared.
Let's hope they stay that way...

I've always though Seagate and WD were pretty reliable drives, but I guess every brand has its problems.
I've had a drive fail from just about every brand so just remember to keep a backup.
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Offline CodeChef

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #29 on: Thu, 04 November 2010, 10:28:21 »
Quote from: ripster;242379
BlacX Thermaltake Esata.  Pop em in like frozen waffles.
IMG]http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/public/oQ_V-ZlHiIBU_IQZRmUIEqM-3_fBFcN_ix-2_bZgRPwo4CnzPQeL3PL2LsTZH5Hs2_fOcN54iYGOsrCeipM2fh1g-0x7jVfqlMLzYXkNigTy555g5prGjf8Xaqmc5X1SGkMUZ1S1C-2rF5rmI6r6oYyGRsWRqeXx3CozqMohCg-bOVObOPmJU-bcBT_hbmR6_fRB[/IMG]


? What's up with it. Is it good? I never felt comfortable putting hard drives vertical like that (I know, illogical fear)
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Offline keyb_gr

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #30 on: Thu, 04 November 2010, 14:46:26 »
If in doubt, ask the drive's spec sheet / manual. Yes, they exist.

Generally, however, operating PC harddrives in any orientation horizontal or vertical has not been a problem in 10+ years.
Back in the olden days, some were not permitted, and you were advised not to change orientation once the drive had been running for a few years (for the bearings might not be that fond of it).

Harddrives are fascinating stuff - especially if you remember the incredibly noisy clunkers that were around in the olden days. A 1997 vintage 7k2 SCSI drive makes quite a racket, and I wouldn't want to have a first-gen 10k screamer.
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Offline mike

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #31 on: Thu, 04 November 2010, 18:56:29 »
Quote from: keyb_gr;242620
Harddrives are fascinating stuff - especially if you remember the incredibly noisy clunkers that were around in the olden days. A 1997 vintage 7k2 SCSI drive makes quite a racket, and I wouldn't want to have a first-gen 10k screamer.


Not a patch on a first generation 15k drive; I once put together a 'cluster' of four machines each with 6 15Krpm drives for a webcache. First time I fired them up, I felt like going to hunt down some ear defenders.

Earlier drives could be even weirder. Some of the first drives I started using at work could sometimes stick when the lubricant become a little too viscous after a power down. Numerous Sun and DEC engineers were trained to drop certain systems about 10cm to unstick them.
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Offline D-EJ915

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Formatting HDDs
« Reply #32 on: Fri, 05 November 2010, 18:49:46 »
Quote from: ripster;242379
BlacX Thermaltake Esata.  Pop em in like frozen waffles.
Show Image
just get some good temps in your room to keep the drive happy
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