External hard drives--how good?

[CRAZY K]

Spoke to PCDJ on a separate matter and they say that the failure rate for external HD is 80 per cent in 2 years:eek:

Internal HDs can last many years as we know.

Apparently the possible short life is because of usage and lack of protection which is normally given to internal hard drives.

Bit like most Disco equipment--will blow up normally on start up when switched on--so theres a possible bonus you know at the start of the gig and grab the spare:D

Ah well--must buy another spare--they are cheap enough!

CRAZY K

[BeerFunk]

If you break it down a bit further, what is the failure rate for external drives made by Western Digital or Seagate, for example? Probably a lot less, and it will depend on how they are treated too. I am a bit wary of using anything USB that I will have to rely on, I've seen so many instances of dead USB ports and connectivity problems :(

[spin mobile disco]

Laptop type external drives are far better suited for mobile disco use as they are protected to shocks of 300g's compared to 25 gs on a desktop drive. Reason being that the laptop drives were designed for a bumpy life the desktops werent.

[spin mobile disco]

Forgot to say I have 3 laptop type I use with my cortex and numark with no issues (touch wood) all three already over 6 months old one of them is over a year old.

[Nathan Fleming]

Shouldn't really be an issue as long as you look after the thing, agreed it is worth going for a reputable make and I always go for either Lacie or Seagate.

However Lacie drives do have some quirks if they are powered down incorrectly as they have a specific procedure to powering down or the drive won't be recognised.

Bit of a how long is a peice of string question really, I would stongly advice against using an internal drive anyway, for one thing you will have limited capacity as the maximum 2.5" drive available at the present time is 160GB and that will soon be filled with high bitrate files.

Also if you use the internal drive you will have problems as the hard drive will be working twice as hard as it has to run windows your DJ application and load music.

[GrahamH]

I've used an external drive for the last 15 months and touch wood ( taps self on head ) i've had no problems with the drive. I will say though that the fuller it gets the more chance you have of stuttering when loading another track. I actually keep my drives at 75% used and have had no problems. I found the nearer 80% used they got thats when i started to get a stutter. Plus i regularly defrag the external as well

[CRAZY K]

I've used an external drive for the last 15 months and touch wood ( taps self on head ) i've had no problems with the drive. I will say though that the fuller it gets the more chance you have of stuttering when loading another track. I actually keep my drives at 75% used and have had no problems. I found the nearer 80% used they got thats when i started to get a stutter. Plus i regularly defrag the external as well

Interesting comments and as we all go digital Hard Drive failure rates will be talked about more and more.

Im only using about 60gb out of 300gb so im not expecting any stuttering:D

So does the "stuttering" affect the track thats being played through the Sound system to the dancers?:eek:

CRAZY K

[spin mobile disco]

So does the "stuttering" affect the track thats being played through the Sound system to the dancers?:eek:

CRAZY K

Sometimes when loading a track it can cause a stutter on the currently playing track. Worth mentioning I had this problem for a while but when new updates became available on the cortex it fixed itself (or the uodate did)

[CRAZY K]

Sometimes when loading a track it can cause a stutter on the currently playing track. Worth mentioning I had this problem for a while but when new updates became available on the cortex it fixed itself (or the uodate did)

Matt, was the "stuttering" on the Cortex due to the Hard Drive being at 75 per cent capacity as suggested by Graham or due to "Cortex problem"

I havent used any Cortex updates since I bought mine in December( leave it alone if its going ok principle) and mine appears to be running perfectly after understanding the tagging issues--- but im only using about 20 per cent of the external hard drive capacity.

CRAZY K

[spin mobile disco]

I think it was caused by drive speed and buffer problems. Drive was about 50% at the time, this problem doesnt seem to happen on usb sticks though.

[Marc J]

The cache size of the drive will help towards "stuttering", so go for a 16Mb cache if you can. Keeping it defragged would help, as long as it's defragged it could be 90% + full and still be OK.

Depending on what you're hooking it up to, I'd recommend an e-SATA enclosure. If you hook this up to a laptop with an e-SATA port, it's VERY fast (6 times faster than USB2). Most e-SATA enclosures also have a USB2 port as well so are backward compatible. I've got an AKASA e-SATA enclosure which was £29 at www.komplett.co.uk (and I'm sure I saw one in Maplins last time I was in). Obviously you've got the cost of a drive to add to that...personally I always go for Western Digital. Don't worry too much about the spin speed, in an external enclosure the higher spin speeds are more likely to overheat anyway - 7,200 will be fine.

[spin mobile disco]

Unfortunatley you cant use e-sata on a cortex or a numark d2 which is what K was after. The only interface is usb 1.1 or usb 2.0 . Which gives us a choice of external 3.5 inch drivers or laptop type 2.5 inch drives. As the speed of the interface is slower than the spin of the drive anyway the difference between the drives when used in a usb enclosure is very small. The only real differences are the laptop type only go up to 160gb in size and the desktop type are much bigger in size and weight.
Mind you laptop are much dearer in price than alternatives but if weight is an issue they are the best choice.

[Marc J]

Thought that might be the case....ah well!

[BeerFunk]

Any 'stuttering' is unacceptable, and bad design. The data transfer rate, when you're dealing with MP3s, is very low, and shouldnt cause any problems.

[sleah]

Actually, hard drives have 100% failure rate. Every single drive will die at some point, sadly many sooner than later. Although a disk that is never or rarely powered off, such as a server, will last years.
I refuse to use external as I've had no end of trouble with them. A mate who has recently gone digital is on his 3rd in 9months or so.
It's worth sacrificing a few bit rates for reliability.
Internal drives don't work significantly harder, as the data is read in bursts. Video files would be a bigger strain.
Reading music off an internal drive isn't making it work much harder than it's doing anyway with page files and other system activity.
If you have to go external, if possible try to use firewire instead of USB, as even firewire 400 is faster for transfers than USB2. Firewire is rated for continuous transfer, not peak bursts like USB.
The main problem with external drives is powering up and down, as the disk heads are not often parked properly before power is removed.

[spin mobile disco]

Sleah sorry but as we said in previous post the units only use usb 2 and there is no way to change that. We are stuck with external drives and have to decide what type of external drive to use. Laptop type 2.5 inch or desktop type 3.5 inch.

[TonyB]

Sleah sorry but as we said in previous post the units only use usb 2 and there is no way to change that. We are stuck with external drives and have to decide what type of external drive to use. Laptop type 2.5 inch or desktop type 3.5 inch.

One of the original problems with external drives was overheating. When buying one it is best to get one with a case made of good heat conducting material such as aluminum and also with a cooling fan built in. Unfortunately, the fans are very small and can fail so its better to pay a bit extra to get a quality case.

As mentioned before, 3.5inch drives are not designed to take the knocks and bumps that a laptop drive are designed for. Keeping them in a foam lined case helps to protect them when not in use.

Defragging an external drive can also cause problems. I have come across several where defragging has totally corrupted the drive. It is always best to make sure you have a backup copy before attempting a defrag. A pretty failsafe way to defrag a drive is to copy the contents to a second drive. When files are copied, they are placed on the second drive in order and effectively defragged.

[Harrison's Discos]

Was actually thinking of purchasing an external hard drive as my computer has a wopping great memory of........ wate for it!!........ 40GB :rolleyes:

Could anyone advise me on the best/reasonable priced one to buy? A name springs to mind... Will :D

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Was actually thinking of purchasing an external hard drive as my computer has a wopping great memory of........ wate for it!!........ 40GB :rolleyes:



You sure about that? ;) :rolleyes:

[sleah]

Sleah sorry but as we said in previous post the units only use usb 2 and there is no way to change that. We are stuck with external drives and have to decide what type of external drive to use. Laptop type 2.5 inch or desktop type 3.5 inch.

Ahh, yes, sorry I was just talking about laptops!:D
In that case I'd go for 2.5inch drives and a quality case.
Part of my issues have been cheapo cases, you'd have thought they'd be much the same but it seems not:(
I'm guessing that a unit like the cortex may give an instruction to park the disk heads before cutting power, which will help considerably extend the disk life.

And as everyone says, always make a complete back up!!!!!

Disk errors have trashed my entire collection twice in the last 5 years (at home, not on the lappy:eek: ), but having a backup meant I lost nothing:D
Just a few more hairs ripped out:D :D

[DAZLIN01]

I've recently bought an external hard drive.
Had a fatal error on my PC which meant I lost all my files!!! :bang:

Just spent the last three weeks, ripping my CD's back on (I forgot how long relabelling took!)

And re-downloads (you'd think, they'd let you have 'x' amounts of 'redownloads', wouldn't you?)

Ah well, nearly there - Just wish I'd bought one before!!!!!