Native Support for External Storage

[UaVaj]

native support as in. able to remove the sata drive from the external casing and install it direct internally without messing up the file system.

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with a seagate external usb3 hard drive.
SATA -> seagate USB3 adapter -> USB3

this drive will not work internally. somehow the seagate usb3 adapter encrypt the drive that when connected directly internal. window is unable to read the file system and will request a format.

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how about these other options.

SATA -> USB2 Dongle -> USB2

SATA -> USB3 Dongle -> USB3

SATA -> eSATA Dongle -> eSATA

 

[Cerb]

You can format it and use it like a regular drive, once it's out of the enclosure. They do not "encrypt" it. They are using it as a 4K sector drive, so that they can get >2TB without using GPT, nor 48-bit addressing, but Windows uses it as 512B, so none of the geometry or pointers make sense, and it thinks it needs a formatting.

The best solution, if you want to read the data without the USB bridge, is to buy an enclosure, buy a drive, and assemble it yourself. As a bonus, you can get 3-5 year warranty drives that way, too.

 

[UaVaj]

encrypt was just the term used for describing the files system being not being native.
thanks for explaining why.

so are you saying that if the drive is less than 2TB, it will work both external and internal regardless of the bridge? please confirm.

 

[Cerb]

so are you saying that if the drive is less than 2TB, it will work both external and internal regardless of the bridge? please confirm.

Yes, the drive will, but you have no guarantee, with any size, whether or not the partition table or file system will.

Backups > emergency recovery.

 

[UaVaj]

so what partition table? what file system? what size drive? and what bridge? - is necessary to have full native support for both internal and external? willing to conform to these parameters.

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the point is. like to do backup just like anyone else.

history is. the working drive failed. attempting to restore. then the bridge failed too. unable to mount the external drive internally to restore. does not want history to repeat itself.

so in short of every time opening up the pc and installing the backup drive internally to do backup. is there any external option where it is native and transparent?

thanks.

 

[Cerb]

Unless it's a drive with a USB connector on it directly, the drive is the same whether in the enclosure or not. The USB bridge in the enclosure is what creates the incompatibility, by using 4K sectors.

What's different is the data on the drive.

The drive is considered, with any modern storage standard, to be one big chain of sectors. Today, these are either 512B, or 4KiB (4096B) in size.

If Windows sees a 512e drive, with MBR partitioning, even if it is a version supporting native 4K sectors, it will treat it like like 512B, I'm pretty sure. So then, it reads the MBR (the first 512B of the disk), if the drive is formatted that way, and that has the [primary] partition table in it. It looks to the indicated positions, and tries to make sense of a file system there. But, it can't, because that's not the right place to be looking, because the sector size isn't 512B, but 4096B.

USB mass storage, however, has been 4K standard for some time (maybe since its inception, but I'm not sure), so it will see that correctly, with the bridge chip telling it it's a generic 4K USB MSC device, rather than a SATA HDD. That allows XP to use a bigger HDD than internal, and also allows Seagate or WD to use a bridge chip and/or firmware that can't do all 48 bits for modern ATA LBA 🙂.

 

[UaVaj]

thanks for the info. that sucks for usb2/usb3.

how about SATA -> eSATA? that should be native correct?

 

[Cerb]

thanks for the info. that sucks for usb2/usb3.

No, only for those specific external drives. It's not a universal USB thing, but a trick they are using so they don't have to get complaint after complaint after complaint from folks still using Windows XP.

how about SATA -> eSATA? that should be native correct?

Yes, it's just like an internal drive.