Problems with new external drive

[beatle]

I've had a 5TB Toshiba USB 3.0 external drive as my backup for about a year. I recently picked up an 8TB Seagate to expand: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178682

The first drive appeared to die within a couple hours. During the first backup it started to drop connection, and after a couple tries, I could no longer access the drive even through disk management. Newegg took it back and sent me a new one. The second drive seems to be having similar problems, dropping off after a bit. Transferring large files seems to be nearly impossible with this drive, initially copying quickly, then basically stopping for as much as a minute or two before starting up again and copying slowly. Occasionally I will lose all USB devices during a transfer, including my mouse and keyboard. After a minute or so, all will come back.

I get none of these oddities when using my Toshiba drive. Before sending back my second Seagate, I'm curious as to whether I have an issue with my motherboard or some kind of incompatibility. Motherboard is an Asus Z170-AR with the latest drivers.

 

[LTC8K6]

Several reviewers on Newegg have had problems.

You could run the Seatools diagnostics on it.

 

[ronbo613]

Are you running it in an enclosure or dock? Is the device capable of handling a 5TB drive?

 

[beatle]

This is the native enclosure, not a universal one.

SeaTools took forever to start, and crashed once when attempting to launch, but it finally ran. It passed the two short tests (the original Seagate drive did not) and is now doing a long generic test. That won't finish until sometime overnight. This looks like the drive works properly, but my experience accessing it via Explorer or via backup software is poor.

 

[myocardia]

Whether or not it fails the test, if you aren't happy with it, send it back. Even if Newegg charges you their restocking fee, that's an awesome deal, compared to having a non-functional drive that you paid a fortune to buy. BTW, if you are needing USB drives that large, you should stop buying 2.5" 5,000 RPM drives in native enclosures. Buy yourself a $40 USB 3.0 hard drive docking station with the ability to access two 3.5"/2.5" drives at a time.

Buy two of these, so you'll have a spare, and then buy yourself a few good 3.5" 7,200 RPM drives of 4-5GB (5 GB is the max size it can access). You'll spend no more money, and will have a much more reliable, usable setup. I have this exact dock, and I'd recommend it to anyone. I've ran two 3.5" 7,200 RPM drives in it for more than a week straight, 24 hours a day, and it didn't even flinch. I get better than 90MB/second writes to the drives, from the computer in my signature below. http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual-...ds=Inateck+USB+3.0+hard+drive+docking+station

edit: The week straight, I was reading from and writing to the drives the entire time, they weren't just idling.

 

[beatle]

Well, I've already sent one back. The likelihood of having two bad drives in a row seemed unlikely so I figured there may be something to check on my setup. I guess there aren't any.

This is a 3.5" drive. Already have a dock, but never use it as internal drives are significantly more expensive than drives already in an enclosure. I shuck the externals and add them to my pool when it gets too full.

My last Seagate drive, a 5TB, was garbage as well (died in a few hours) and went back to Newegg. I don't like to think of myself as a brand snob, but these Seagate externals really are awful.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Are the drives plugged into a powered USB 3.0 hub or directly to a USB port?

 

[beatle]

Directly in, no hub.

 

[Cerb]

Ditch it, and use a Toshiba or WD. I have had some clients that got those drives, 2TB to 4TB, though, and they all crap out if left on for a long time, or copying too much data. If you can return it, do so. The 3.5" WD externals aren't the most durable, anymore, but they consistently work, IME.

 

[beatle]

Thanks all for the help. This one is going back. Newegg has been pretty nice with the returns. I could use another one in the 7-8TB range. My pool will end up with ~7TB of usable capacity after I add this 5TB drive to it. Toshiba has been pretty good to me, though it seems they only go up to 6TB.

 

[greenhawk]

I am pretty sure the 8TB drives from seagate, currently, all use the SMR storage approach and so have crappy constant write speeds. Even worse if you are editing data on the drive.

As to the drive locking up / stopping, that sounds like a different issue and one best to RMA the drive for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingled_magnetic_recording

 

[beatle]

Yes, it's enough for some people to shy away from them, but it wasn't that important to me. I wouldn't mind a slow copy of ~60MB/sec or so for large files since these backups always run overnight anyway, but the halting is a killer.