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#61
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
On 9/13/2018 7:56 PM, Paul wrote:
Lynn McGuire wrote: On 9/12/2018 9:16 PM, Paul wrote: Lynn McGuire wrote: On 9/1/2018 8:36 PM, Ed Light wrote: On 8/15/2018 12:04 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote: However, my office pc will not address the 8 TB internal drive. It will address the 4 TB internal drive though.* So, my conclusion is that my 5 year old Gigabyte Z68XP motherboard cannot address the 8 TB drive. Maybe a bios update. Also, for some brands, tech support is helpful. For one board, Gigabyte spun me a new bios. But for another they said get a more expensive board, even though included bios settings didn't work. I updated to the last BIOS released.* The mb is old, six years now. Lynn Is this a 4Kn drive ? Get the model number off the drive label. *** Paul WD model WD80EZAZ-11TDBA0 with the white label.* I am not sure but I'll bet that it is a 4KB sector drive. Lynn OK, the good news is, you don't need a new motherboard or endless BIOS updates. Your drive has the "3.3V reset" feature. "The Pesky PWDIS Feature In Newer SATA Specs" https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hd...ure,36146.html ** "...the existence of the power disable (PWDIS) feature in HDDs *** that follow the newer SATA 3.3 (announced on February 16, 2016) *** and SATA 3.2+ specifications." ** "This means that if you combine a PSU with the older SATA connectors, *** featuring 3.3V at P3, and a new HDD that supports the power disable *** feature, the HDD won't ever start because it will see a continuous *** high-state signal on P3. It will get stuck in a hard reset condition, *** which will prevent the HDD from spinning up." Translated into English, the SATA power is like this. Note, I didn't look up the pinout, and just wanted to capture the "five by three" nature of the pinout. SATA has three power rails, and enough ground connections for the device to use any two rails if it wanted. ** 3.3V ** 3.3V ** 3.3V** === Not used on 3.5", but if 3.3V is present here, is a RESET signal ** GND ** GND ** GND ** 5.0V** 3.5" logic board power ** 5.0V** 3.5" logic board power ** 5.0V** 3.5" logic board power ** GND ** GND ** GND ** 12V*** 3.5" drive motor power ** 12V*** 3.5" drive motor power ** 12V*** 3.5" drive motor power When you look in your PC, the ATX supply has five wires feeding the 15 pin SATA power. That means your ATX is equipped to power *any* storage device with SATA interface. Or, that's what they thought years ago. They thought at the time, that putting 3.3V on there was a good idea. Hardly any storage devices use 3.3V today. There were some 1.8" SSDs with microSATA, which were powered by 3.3V, but that has died out. 2.5" SSDs (i.e. for laptops) would use 5V. OK, now consider the lowly Molex to SATA adapter cable. ************ X \ ************ X* \___ pins not connected, perfect for your drive!!! ************ X* / Molex* GND** GND ************ GND ************ GND * red* 5V*** 5.0V** 3.5" logic board power ************ 5.0V** 3.5" logic board power ************ 5.0V** 3.5" logic board power black* GND** GND ************ GND ************ GND yellow 12V** 12V*** 3.5" drive motor power ************ 12V*** 3.5" drive motor power ************ 12V*** 3.5" drive motor power Since a Molex doesn't have a 3.3V wire, there's no way for PWDIS to be triggered if you use one of these adapter wires. While you can cut the 3.3V wire with side cutters, on the feed from the ATX, that's a little bit harsh, and there's always a danger the cut end could short out to something in the PC and cause damage. Try an adapter cable and it should start right up. ** Paul Well, I tried the intertubes trick, "The Pesky PWDIS Feature In Newer SATA Specs", of trying to get my shucked 8 TB hard drive to replace my backup 4 TB hard drive last night. The 8 TB hard drive spun right up but my office PC locked up during the BIOS boot. Looks like I need a new motherboard, cpu, and ram to address that 8 TB hard drive. To be fair, when I bought my motherboard and cpu, the largest hard drive available was 3 TB. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hd...ure,36146.html "To sum up, for products supporting the optional SATA 3.3 power disable (PWDIS) function, the third pin (P3) of the SATA connector is now assigned as the Power Disable Control pin. If P3 is driven HIGH (2.1V-3.6V), the power to the drive circuitry will be cut. All drives with this optional feature will not power up if a legacy SATA connector is used. This is because P3 driven HIGH will prevent the drive from powering up. The easy, and not so elegant, solution is to use a 4-pin Molex to SATA connector or a power supply equipped with SATA connectors that follow the SATA 3.3 specification." Lynn |
#62
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
"Lynn McGuire" wrote in message
news On 9/13/2018 7:56 PM, Paul wrote: Lynn McGuire wrote: On 9/12/2018 9:16 PM, Paul wrote: Lynn McGuire wrote: On 9/1/2018 8:36 PM, Ed Light wrote: On 8/15/2018 12:04 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote: However, my office pc will not address the 8 TB internal drive. It will address the 4 TB internal drive though. So, my conclusion is that my 5 year old Gigabyte Z68XP motherboard cannot address the 8 TB drive. Maybe a bios update. Also, for some brands, tech support is helpful. For one board, Gigabyte spun me a new bios. But for another they said get a more expensive board, even though included bios settings didn't work. I updated to the last BIOS released. The mb is old, six years now. Lynn Is this a 4Kn drive ? Get the model number off the drive label. Paul WD model WD80EZAZ-11TDBA0 with the white label. I am not sure but I'll bet that it is a 4KB sector drive. Lynn OK, the good news is, you don't need a new motherboard or endless BIOS updates. Your drive has the "3.3V reset" feature. "The Pesky PWDIS Feature In Newer SATA Specs" https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hd...ure,36146.html "...the existence of the power disable (PWDIS) feature in HDDs that follow the newer SATA 3.3 (announced on February 16, 2016) and SATA 3.2+ specifications." "This means that if you combine a PSU with the older SATA connectors, featuring 3.3V at P3, and a new HDD that supports the power disable feature, the HDD won't ever start because it will see a continuous high-state signal on P3. It will get stuck in a hard reset condition, which will prevent the HDD from spinning up." Translated into English, the SATA power is like this. Note, I didn't look up the pinout, and just wanted to capture the "five by three" nature of the pinout. SATA has three power rails, and enough ground connections for the device to use any two rails if it wanted. 3.3V 3.3V 3.3V === Not used on 3.5", but if 3.3V is present here, is a RESET signal GND GND GND 5.0V 3.5" logic board power 5.0V 3.5" logic board power 5.0V 3.5" logic board power GND GND GND 12V 3.5" drive motor power 12V 3.5" drive motor power 12V 3.5" drive motor power When you look in your PC, the ATX supply has five wires feeding the 15 pin SATA power. That means your ATX is equipped to power *any* storage device with SATA interface. Or, that's what they thought years ago. They thought at the time, that putting 3.3V on there was a good idea. Hardly any storage devices use 3.3V today. There were some 1.8" SSDs with microSATA, which were powered by 3.3V, but that has died out. 2.5" SSDs (i.e. for laptops) would use 5V. OK, now consider the lowly Molex to SATA adapter cable. X \ X \___ pins not connected, perfect for your drive!!! X / Molex GND GND GND GND red 5V 5.0V 3.5" logic board power 5.0V 3.5" logic board power 5.0V 3.5" logic board power black GND GND GND GND yellow 12V 12V 3.5" drive motor power 12V 3.5" drive motor power 12V 3.5" drive motor power Since a Molex doesn't have a 3.3V wire, there's no way for PWDIS to be triggered if you use one of these adapter wires. While you can cut the 3.3V wire with side cutters, on the feed from the ATX, that's a little bit harsh, and there's always a danger the cut end could short out to something in the PC and cause damage. Try an adapter cable and it should start right up. Paul Well, I tried the intertubes trick, "The Pesky PWDIS Feature In Newer SATA Specs", of trying to get my shucked 8 TB hard drive to replace my backup 4 TB hard drive last night. The 8 TB hard drive spun right up but my office PC locked up during the BIOS boot. Looks like I need a new motherboard, cpu, and ram to address that 8 TB hard drive. To be fair, when I bought my motherboard and cpu, the largest hard drive available was 3 TB. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hd...ure,36146.html "To sum up, for products supporting the optional SATA 3.3 power disable (PWDIS) function, the third pin (P3) of the SATA connector is now assigned as the Power Disable Control pin. If P3 is driven HIGH (2.1V-3.6V), the power to the drive circuitry will be cut. All drives with this optional feature will not power up if a legacy SATA connector is used. This is because P3 driven HIGH will prevent the drive from powering up. The easy, and not so elegant, solution is to use a 4-pin Molex to SATA connector or a power supply equipped with SATA connectors that follow the SATA 3.3 specification." Thanks for keeping us updated. -- Regards wasbit |
#63
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
Lynn McGuire wrote:
Well, I tried the intertubes trick, "The Pesky PWDIS Feature In Newer SATA Specs", of trying to get my shucked 8 TB hard drive to replace my backup 4 TB hard drive last night. The 8 TB hard drive spun right up but my office PC locked up during the BIOS boot. Looks like I need a new motherboard, cpu, and ram to address that 8 TB hard drive. To be fair, when I bought my motherboard and cpu, the largest hard drive available was 3 TB. Lynn I hope you've had a chance to verify the drive isn't defective at this point. Sometimes the store 30 day return option is a better option than the WDC or Seagate "here, have a refurb" warranty option. My computer store had an awesome return policy, but our current austere days (that computer store is empty now), means they cannot afford to be quite as generous on 30 day returns. I don't think you can return an SSD any more. The store no longer carries stock, which shows it isn't "good times" in the computer business. You could try disabling the SATA port in the BIOS, and see if the BIOS will "ignore" the drive enough to boot from the OS drive. Or, to boot from a DVD. If you boot up a Linux LiveDVD, it promptly disregards the BIOS "disable SATA port" setting and re-enables the port, rendering the drive visible! You could try testing from Linux, while the BIOS has the port turned off. This is one reason you can't use the port disable in the BIOS, to "protect" drives like when doing OS installs. At least in Linux, they "cheat" by re-enabling it. You also have the option of enabling "Hot Plug" in the BIOS. Mine has "AHCI" as an option, with "Hot Plug" as a sub-option. This also causes a hard drive (in Windows) to appear in the "Safely Remove" list. You cannot "Safely Remove" the drive with C: on it, because the drive is "Busy". If a data drive is not removable, you go to Disk Management and put the drive in the "Offline" state, then go back to the "Safely Remove" and it will be removable. That particular situation is caused by NTFS TXF (transaction support) - it's used by some backup programs, even after the backup is finished. So this is how we'd test with your existing motherboard. 1) Do shut down. +5VSB is still running but this is not an issue for hard drive change-outs. 2) Put the 8TB drive in a tray, if you can afford to keep the side off the PC while it runs. I sometimes rest a drive on some wooden sticks on the table next to the drive, so I can play with it. My PC doesn't get hot, if all I'm doing is some quick tests with the desktop in an idle state. There are sufficient fans inside, that only the drive itself is in danger of getting warm. 3) Plug in the 4 wire SATA power plug (the plug that *doesn't* have 3.3V wired to it). 4) Don't plug in the data cable just yet. 5) Push the power button on the PC. +5V, +12V are applied to the drive. It can now spin up. Don't shake it or give it a mechanical shock, until the test is well over. 6) OS boots on the regular C: drive, as always. Since Hot Plug is enabled, you can check the "Safely Remove" icon in the lower right tray area, for a (bogus) entry for removal of C: . Seeing the C: drive listed, helps prove Hot Plug is working now. 7) Now, *gently* plug in the SATA data cable to the 8TB. Don't rock the drive. A first generation, straight insert cable (the ones that had no retention features) are best. 8) There should be a "ding" as Windows discovers a Hot Plug item has been plugged in. (This option is available when BIOS AHCI is turned on.) 9) A driver will be installed for the Hot Plug drive. No, you don't need to reboot, when it says to reboot. 10) Device Manager should have an entry for the new drive. If you care about such things. devmgmt.msc 11) Disk Management has an entry for the new 8TB drive. diskmgmt.msc. Partition, quick format, do a quick copy test. Don't try to do a Safely Remove with the drive powered hot. Just do a regular shutdown command, then disassemble the test setup. You've just verified the drive is not defective etc., and can consider your next option, such as the usage of an external USB3 enclosure. Note that the enclosure advertising must mention the size of tested drive. The one I own, has posthumously been tested with 8TB drives by the manufacturer. The company making the product, will update the spec, as new drives are available and have been tested to confirm there are no surprises. Most modern fanless enclosures don't have proper cooling for hard drives. You'll have to use your best judgment, as to what to do about that. What I do is just take the USB3 enclosure apart, and manually plug the adapter board and wires, into the drive directly. And lay it on my "drive bench" that sits next to the PC on the table. Paul |
#64
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
On 11/16/2018 7:02 AM, Paul wrote:
Lynn McGuire wrote: Well, I tried the intertubes trick, "The Pesky PWDIS Feature In Newer SATA Specs", of trying to get my shucked 8 TB hard drive to replace my backup 4 TB hard drive last night.* The 8 TB hard drive spun right up but my office PC locked up during the BIOS boot.* Looks like I need a new motherboard, cpu, and ram to address that 8 TB hard drive.* To be fair, when I bought my motherboard and cpu, the largest hard drive available was 3 TB. Lynn I hope you've had a chance to verify the drive isn't defective at this point. Sometimes the store 30 day return option is a better option than the WDC or Seagate "here, have a refurb" warranty option. My computer store had an awesome return policy, but our current austere days (that computer store is empty now), means they cannot afford to be quite as generous on 30 day returns. I don't think you can return an SSD any more. The store no longer carries stock, which shows it isn't "good times" in the computer business. You could try disabling the SATA port in the BIOS, and see if the BIOS will "ignore" the drive enough to boot from the OS drive. Or, to boot from a DVD. If you boot up a Linux LiveDVD, it promptly disregards the BIOS "disable SATA port" setting and re-enables the port, rendering the drive visible! You could try testing from Linux, while the BIOS has the port turned off. This is one reason you can't use the port disable in the BIOS, to "protect" drives like when doing OS installs. At least in Linux, they "cheat" by re-enabling it. You also have the option of enabling "Hot Plug" in the BIOS. Mine has "AHCI" as an option, with "Hot Plug" as a sub-option. This also causes a hard drive (in Windows) to appear in the "Safely Remove" list. You cannot "Safely Remove" the drive with C: on it, because the drive is "Busy". If a data drive is not removable, you go to Disk Management and put the drive in the "Offline" state, then go back to the "Safely Remove" and it will be removable. That particular situation is caused by NTFS TXF (transaction support) - it's used by some backup programs, even after the backup is finished. So this is how we'd test with your existing motherboard. 1) Do shut down. +5VSB is still running but this ** is not an issue for hard drive change-outs. 2) Put the 8TB drive in a tray, if you can afford ** to keep the side off the PC while it runs. I ** sometimes rest a drive on some wooden sticks on ** the table next to the drive, so I can play with ** it. My PC doesn't get hot, if all I'm doing is ** some quick tests with the desktop in an idle state. ** There are sufficient fans inside, that only the ** drive itself is in danger of getting warm. 3) Plug in the 4 wire SATA power plug (the plug that ** *doesn't* have 3.3V wired to it). 4) Don't plug in the data cable just yet. 5) Push the power button on the PC. ** +5V, +12V are applied to the drive. ** It can now spin up. Don't shake it or give ** it a mechanical shock, until the test is well over. 6) OS boots on the regular C: drive, as always. ** Since Hot Plug is enabled, you can check the ** "Safely Remove" icon in the lower right tray ** area, for a (bogus) entry for removal of C: . ** Seeing the C: drive listed, helps prove Hot Plug ** is working now. 7) Now, *gently* plug in the SATA data cable to the 8TB. ** Don't rock the drive. A first generation, straight ** insert cable (the ones that had no retention features) ** are best. 8) There should be a "ding" as Windows discovers ** a Hot Plug item has been plugged in. (This option ** is available when BIOS AHCI is turned on.) 9) A driver will be installed for the Hot Plug drive. ** No, you don't need to reboot, when it says to reboot. 10) Device Manager should have an entry for the new drive. *** If you care about such things. devmgmt.msc 11) Disk Management has an entry for the new 8TB drive. *** diskmgmt.msc. Partition, quick format, *** do a quick copy test. Don't try to do a Safely Remove with the drive powered hot. Just do a regular shutdown command, then disassemble the test setup. You've just verified the drive is not defective etc., and can consider your next option, such as the usage of an external USB3 enclosure. Note that the enclosure advertising must mention the size of tested drive. The one I own, has posthumously been tested with 8TB drives by the manufacturer. The company making the product, will update the spec, as new drives are available and have been tested to confirm there are no surprises. Most modern fanless enclosures don't have proper cooling for hard drives. You'll have to use your best judgment, as to what to do about that. What I do is just take the USB3 enclosure apart, and manually plug the adapter board and wires, into the drive directly. And lay it on my "drive bench" that sits next to the PC on the table. ** Paul I previously tested the drive on one of our file servers with a newer motherboard. The drive worked fine. I am 99.9% sure that the problem is my older motherboard. I do have a SATA board that I need to try with the 8 TB drive. Thanks, Lynn |
#65
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
On Thursday, August 9, 2018 at 3:37:06 AM UTC+2, Lynn McGuire wrote:
"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again" https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ch...ves,37563.html "It’s been years since I was willing to work on any PC that boots from a mechanical hard drive. Once you get used to the snappy response times and speedier gameload times of an SSD, going back to a hard drive feels like computing through a thick layer of molasses." Lynn I have experienced the speed of such an SSD based PC somewhere and it was amazingly fast. Since then using my own PC has just increased my frustration everytime I am waiting for the harddisk, knowing that if I only had an SSD it would be much faster, or if windows 7 would prioritize differently or if I could prioritize what I am busy with, or if services wouldn't misbehave and so forth. However I have also experienced other much bigger frustrations: 1. Running out of disk space is a very frustrating experience. and 2. Losing data/information/harddisk crashes/reinstalling software. I will be honest though, I have never truely experienced a harddisk crash except the ones I caused directly to experience it to see what would happen or slighty indirectly but noticed it on time. So I can honestly say I have not yet loosed an entire harddisk of content which actually mattered to me. So I will take this relaxation/somewhat garantuee that my data is save on my harddisk, over the joy of an SSD and then losing all data, which could wipe away all the frustration relief in a second, with a new/pure form of frustration that might last for years or many months to come, depending on how good the data backup or system backup was and how recent and how much data or work and thus time was lost if having to re-create it. Plus SSDs seem to be going down in reliability because of multi-voltage/level storage, linus on youtube had a video about that in think it was about SSD and TLC, MLC or something like that... multi level something... So the moral of the story is basically: Wait till your SSD dies ? Or in any other words: The real frustration of SSDs might still be coming ! =D Bye, Skybuck =D |
#66
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
Also there are repair services for harddisks, let's suppose the head drills into the platters, there might still be some recoverable data.
Can the same be said for SSDs ? Repair companies ? Possibility to recover data ? Bye, Skybuck. |
#67
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
Running out of disk/ssd/storage space will cause more stress/wear on the storage medium because of increased delete operations to make room for new files.
From my 25 years of IBM-clone PC computing experience I have learned about storage devices: BIGGER IS BETTER ! =D space/price wise I think harddisks are still winning in this metric Though I do want to have some decent bandwidth and access times, so I did avoid tapes and such yeah experienced that on a borrow tape drive for a C64 once... not too pleasent... I liked my 1548 II c64 drive or whatever it was much better... the floppy was superior... though much less space Though I also kinda liked the seeking but more storage on the tapes... that was kinda amazing. The biggest problem/risk with tapes was damaged to the tape... I think this actually happened a few times where the tape got messed up... scary... Imagine when SSDs start to mess up... woops... These might become known as "ghost drives"... now you see your data... now you dont Bye, Skybuck =D |
#69
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
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#70
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
On Mon, 19 Nov 2018 22:31:35 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:
| In my experience, an SSD isn't automatically amazingly faster than a | HDD. SSDs, before the m.2 form factor came along, had the advantage of | nearly zero seek time, which is nice, but by itself isn't | groundbreaking. I moved from SATA 3 HDDS for the system drive to SATA 3 SSD's on 3 desktops and a laptop, and an M.2 on my main desktop. All are noticeably much faster than the HDDS, especially when booting and shutting down. Larc |
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