2TB External HD / Any recommendations?

[BungyBang]

Guys is external SSD now better solution than ex. HDD ?

I know they are a bit pricy and less storage volume, but HDD are fragile because moving parts.

[jgaston]

Originally Posted by BungyBang

Guys is external SSD now better solution than ex. HDD ?

I know they are a bit pricy and less storage volume, but HDD are fragile because moving parts.

Ok so pros and cons

HDD will let you know when it's going to fail (loud clicking noises)

An SSD will just stop working

A HDD can potentially last longer (also depends on drive care (don't drop them etc)

SSD read write speeds are much much faster so transferring content is so much quicker

SSD no moving parts

SSDs are smaller in form factor

SSDs take less power to operate, example, a 500GB HDD is usually the maximum a PC or TV can see when powered by a USB to SaTa cable anything over 500GB can be powered but won't be seen, I have no issues with SSDs as they use a lot less power to show up

SSD manufacturers are wankers as they always lie as to how much is on an SSD, I have bought SSDs that are meant to be 2TB but show up as 1.7TB and this is how they rip you off.

In saying any of the above I always use SSDs because the transfer speeds are lightning fast especially if you but a top brand like a Samsung Evo.

[DarkRaven671]

You're incredibly wrong on several of your pros and cons:

Originally Posted by jgaston

HDD will let you know when it's going to fail (loud clicking noises)

An SSD will just stop working

Not true as there are many different reasons for a device failure. Clicking noises from a HDD come from mechanical damage. HDDs can also die from non-mechanical damage, like excessive amounts of bad sectors or a dead controller, and this can occur gradually over time or instantaneous and without any noise.

A SSD will never make any mechanical noises, obviously, but can also die slowly over time or in an instant.

Originally Posted by jgaston

SSDs take less power to operate, example, a 500GB HDD is usually the maximum a PC or TV can see when powered by a USB to SaTa cable anything over 500GB can be powered but won't be seen, I have no issues with SSDs as they use a lot less power to show up

No, power consumption doesn't directly scale with capacity. 2.5" HDDs are usually fine on USB ports, 3.5" HDDs usually aren't.

USB-C ports are potentially a game changer here, some of them are able to provide more power.

I can also show you SSDs that will not work on many USB ports without an external power supply.

Originally Posted by jgaston

SSD manufacturers are wankers as they always lie as to how much is on an SSD, I have bought SSDs that are meant to be 2TB but show up as 1.7TB and this is how they rip you off.

No, you're just confused. 2 TB is 1.81TiB and 1.92TB (also a common size for SSDs and advertised as such) is 1.74TiB. There is nothing wrong with that.
This is the difference between calculating capacity based on powers of 2 rather than powers of 10. Drive manufacturers (HDD and SSD alike) calculate with powers of 10 (TB) while operating systems usually calculate with powers of 2 (TiB).

Windows shows TB but actually means TiB. This doesn't mean anything though, you don't lose capacity. The number of stored bits is the same.

[SynchroDub]

Since we're talking HDDs, here, anyone care to explain to me why a couple of Seagate Barracuda drives I bought a couple years ago (brand new, manufactured in 2022) show some UltraDMA CRC errors/warnings with HDTune?

I know these are mostly caused by a bad SATA cable.
But i've been using the same SATA-USB 3.0 cable for a couple of years, now, with no problems whatsoever (both with 2.5 as well 3.5 drives).

I have no problems writing/accessing data on these HDDs. And they don't make any weird noises.
But, still.
If these errors might cause other problems, over the years, I think it would be best to replace them than to keep on rely on them.

Any advice is appreciated.

[jgaston]

Originally Posted by SynchroDub

Since we're talking HDDs, here, anyone care to explain to me why a couple of Seagate Barracuda drives I bought a couple years ago (brand new, manufactured in 2022) show some UltraDMA CRC errors/warnings with HDTune?

I know these are mostly caused by a bad SATA cable.
But i've been using the same SATA-USB 3.0 cable for a couple of years, now, with no problems whatsoever (both with 2.5 as well 3.5 drives).

I have no problems writing/accessing data on these HDDs. And they don't make any weird noises.
But, still.
If these errors might cause other problems, over the years, I think it would be best to replace them than to keep on rely on them.

Any advice is appreciated.

Drive cables near power outlets or power supplies can cause packet loss, you may see this if you have a power cord cable tied to a data cable because of electrical field interference.

The drive may have bad sectors stopping a proper read write and to be honest Data Tuners give more problems than they are worth, also the IDE may be giving an issue that is high level electronics diagnostic so not worth sorting

And as you say a data cable maybe the culprit, personally I use a caddy.

[DarkRaven671]

Originally Posted by SynchroDub

Since we're talking HDDs, here, anyone care to explain to me why a couple of Seagate Barracuda drives I bought a couple years ago (brand new, manufactured in 2022) show some UltraDMA CRC errors/warnings with HDTune?

I know these are mostly caused by a bad SATA cable.
But i've been using the same SATA-USB 3.0 cable for a couple of years, now, with no problems whatsoever (both with 2.5 as well 3.5 drives).

I have no problems writing/accessing data on these HDDs. And they don't make any weird noises.
But, still.
If these errors might cause other problems, over the years, I think it would be best to replace them than to keep on rely on them.

Any advice is appreciated.

That's correct, UltraDMA CRC errors are usually the result of a bad cable or connection. It could be a defect, but also just wear and/or bad quality parts. The USB to SATA bridge is another point of failure that could introduce these errors.

However, this is a counter. It counts the amount of times data had to be resend because of CRC errors. This will never disappear again and software that analyzes SMART data will point this out as a possible problem. But the important thing is, is this counter still going up? The relative change of this value is much more important than the absolute value, you might want to look out for that.

Also, it's important to review SMART data as a whole, other SMART values might be related.

[SynchroDub]

Originally Posted by DarkRaven671

That's correct, UltraDMA CMC errors are usually the result of a bad cable or connection. It could be a defect, but also just wear and/or bad quality parts. The USB to SATA bridge is another point of failure that could introduce these errors.

However, this is a counter. It counts the amount of times data had to be resend because of CRC errors. This will never disappear again and software that analyzes SMART data will point this out as a possible problem. But the important thing is, is this counter still going up? The relative change of this value is much more important than the absolute value, you might want to look out for that.

Also, it's important to review SMART data as a whole, other SMART values might be related.

Thanks.

Yes, that's exactly what I expected.
No, the counter is always at the same value.
The Ugreen SATA-USB cable I have probably has some power problems with 3.5 HDDs requiring the 12v adapter, or my laptop's USB 3.0 port has problems pumping power to the HDDs.
I might probably install those 3.5 drives on the Icy Box SATA-USB 5.25 box I have and see If I still get errors.

For the rest, G-Sense, Reallocated Sectors and whatnot all show fine, both on CrystalDisk as well HDTune.