Re: Time Machine and external hard drives

[Stephen Chape]

Hi Philippe

Although I have never used a Seagate drive, I tend to avoid them.
Because in the past I have periodically read and heard bad things about their 
reliability and customer support.

I have mainly used WD or Toshiba in the past (without any issues).

More recently have been using a Samsung SSD for my monthly safe backup.
Officeworks have had them at a great price for a couple of months.
My 500GB Samsung SSD cost $134.00.
From memory I think even the 1TB was a reasonable price too.

> On 13 Mar 2020, at 1:28 am, Julie Bedford  wrote:
> 
> Hi Philippe
> 
> Not really sure if this is relevant to your problem.  I purchased a 3TB time 
> capsule for my iMac a few years ago, but could never get it going and thought 
> it was in conflict with my other time capsule which backs up my old MacPro.  
> A tech had a look at it yesterday and said the hard drive was not working.  I 
> did have a spare 1TB hard drive which he used to replace the time capsule 
> one, so now that is happily working now.   The failed hard drive was a 
> Seagate.   
> 
> Personally, I never purchase Western Digital external drives, as a friend of 
> mine had two of these that failed.  I usually purchase the Toshiba or 
> Transcend ones which I’ve never had a problem with and some of these are at 
> least 4 years old.  I use these to back up and store files.
> 
> Cheers
> Jewels
> 
> 
>> On 13 Mar 2020, at 1:08 am, Philippe Chaperon > > wrote:
>> 
>> Dear WAMUG’ers, 
>> 
>> I use an external disc drive to which I get Time Machine to save its 
>> backups. I have however had troubles with different drives to mount on the 
>> desktop, and thus TM being unable to do its backups. Running Disk Utility to 
>> ‘Repair’ the disc, it reported unable to repair. I tried TechTool Pro 12 
>> which also reported being unable to repair.
>> 
>> Disk Utility did show the external drive, but due to the fsck–hfs process 
>> running in the background, I suspect trying to repair the Backup drive used 
>> by TM, the drive was ‘greyed -out’ and I could not eject the drive. 
>> 
>> This is now the 4th Western Digital Drive which encountered this problem on 
>> 2 different iMacs, used exclusively by Time Machine. Every time I tried to 
>> reformat the drives concerned, whenever DiskUtil could do it, but the 
>> problem of not mounting up occurred again. 
>> 
>> I cannot believe that WD drives could be so unreliable as to fail in 
>> sometimes less that 7 or 8 months! The last one to ‘die’ is a 6TB My Book 
>> purchased about 8 or 9 months ago. I am now wondering whether TM is the 
>> culprit? To note that I have 2 other external HD connected to my iMac used 
>> to save some of my heavy files - mostly photos and books, and they have not 
>> shown any sign of corruption or of failing (as yet!) and have been in use 
>> for a few years now. By the way, all the external drives are connected via 
>> USB. 
>> 
>> I would appreciate any views on this matter. Do I have to purchase another 
>> 6TB drive, and if so what are the reliable brands out there?
>> 
>> Many thanks. 
>> 
>> Keep safe and have a great night. 
>> 
>> Philippe C. 
>> Philippe dit la Grenouille ...
>> iMac mid 2010
>> 20GB RAM
>> High Sierra v. 10.13.6
>> 
>> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List --
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Regards,
Stephen Chape






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Re: A salutary lesson

[Philippe Chaperon]

Hi Peter H & Peter C

The idea of the rice grains is something we should all remember well for such 
an occasion. We were holidaying overseas and my son-in-law accidentally   went 
into the swimming pool with his iPhone on him!! He immediately dried the phone 
and then we put it in a jar and poured a packet of rice on it. This worked 
after about 3 days!

Great Peter H that you have been able to save your device!

Cheers,

 
Philippe dit la Grenouille ...

On 13 Mar 2020, at 8:51 am, Peter Crisp  wrote:

Thanks Peter and yes, and I have had similar experiences with garage remote 
controllers, a number of times (doh!) - my wife immediately submerges it in an 
empty bowl and covers it completely with dry rice grains. The hygroscopic 
nature of the rice will provide a drying effect to the contents of the unit 
(printed circuit board etc) and reduce/minimise corrosive effects of the 
components being wet. May still be a good idea for your item Peter but the fact 
it has come back to life means it is probably pretty dried out at a micro level.

Not recommended as a test but recovery from accidental washing has always been 
successful for me. 



Kind Regards


Peter Crisp


- Original Message -
From:
wamug@wamug.org.au

To:

Cc:

Sent:
Fri, 13 Mar 2020 08:35:55 +0800
Subject:
A salutary lesson


I thought the following story might offer hope to those had a s similar 
experience, or are about to…

A couple of years ago I saw, in the Booragoon Apple Store, what looked a great 
idea: a 64Gb SanDisk Connect USB drive. The label on the box calls it a 
“Wireless Stick”, so called because it has a built-in wireless transmitter 
which creates a wireless network to which other devices can connect. It’s ideal 
for extending the storage space of my iPad and iPhone. I measn I can keep the 
device in my pocket or bag and never have worry about dropping or forgetting 
it. It’s the perfect solution for accessing portable music, for example. Great 
for the gym.

Last year, shortly before Christmas, I found it in the pocket of my gym shorts 
after taking it out of the washing machine. It was dead. No response of any 
kind. Not even the wireless was working. I wasn’t prepared to consign it to the 
bin just yet, so I kept it to one side, asnd I’ve been testing it every couple 
of weeks ever since. Slowly, changes stated happening. Eventually I started 
getting messages that I has ejected a drive without warning, similar signs of 
activity.

A couple of days ago I gave it yet another try (it had been a couple of weeks 
since the previous go) and all of a sudden everything was back! the drive 
mounted happily, all the files were there, and even the wireless network was 
working.

I guess the lesson from all this is that if you give your USB drive a dunking, 
don’t give up. Just give it about three months to dry out.


Kind regards,

Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services
FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer
Perth, Western Australia
Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 046 948

Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to.

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Re: A salutary lesson

[Stephen Chape]

What a great story Peter.
Perhaps worthy of a Readers Digest entry !



> On 13 Mar 2020, at 8:51 am, Peter Crisp  wrote:
> 
> Thanks Peter and yes, and I have had similar experiences with garage remote 
> controllers, a number of times (doh!) - my wife immediately submerges it in 
> an empty bowl and covers it completely with dry rice grains. The hygroscopic 
> nature of the rice will provide a drying effect to the contents of the unit 
> (printed circuit board etc) and reduce/minimise corrosive effects of the 
> components being wet. May still be a good idea for your item Peter but the 
> fact it has come back to life means it is probably pretty dried out at a 
> micro level.
> 
> Not recommended as a test but recovery from accidental washing has always 
> been successful for me. 
> 
> 
> 
> Kind Regards
> 
> 
> Peter Crisp
> 
> 
> - Original Message -
> From:
> wamug@wamug.org.au
> 
> To:
> 
> Cc:
> 
> Sent:
> Fri, 13 Mar 2020 08:35:55 +0800
> Subject:
> A salutary lesson
> 
> 
> I thought the following story might offer hope to those had a s similar 
> experience, or are about to…
> 
> A couple of years ago I saw, in the Booragoon Apple Store, what looked a 
> great idea: a 64Gb SanDisk Connect USB drive. The label on the box calls it a 
> “Wireless Stick”, so called because it has a built-in wireless transmitter 
> which creates a wireless network to which other devices can connect. It’s 
> ideal for extending the storage space of my iPad and iPhone. I measn I can 
> keep the device in my pocket or bag and never have worry about dropping or 
> forgetting it. It’s the perfect solution for accessing portable music, for 
> example. Great for the gym.
> 
> Last year, shortly before Christmas, I found it in the pocket of my gym 
> shorts after taking it out of the washing machine. It was dead. No response 
> of any kind. Not even the wireless was working. I wasn’t prepared to consign 
> it to the bin just yet, so I kept it to one side, asnd I’ve been testing it 
> every couple of weeks ever since. Slowly, changes stated happening. 
> Eventually I started getting messages that I has ejected a drive without 
> warning, similar signs of activity.
> 
> A couple of days ago I gave it yet another try (it had been a couple of weeks 
> since the previous go) and all of a sudden everything was back! the drive 
> mounted happily, all the files were there, and even the wireless network was 
> working.
> 
> I guess the lesson from all this is that if you give your USB drive a 
> dunking, don’t give up. Just give it about three months to dry out.
> 
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services
> FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer
> Perth, Western Australia
> Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 046 948
> 
> Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to.
> 
> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List --
> Archives - 
> Guidelines - 
> Settings & Unsubscribe - 
> 
> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List --
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> 


Regards,
Stephen Chape






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Time Machine and external hard drives

[Philippe Chaperon]

Hi Jewels and Daniel, 

Many thanks for the information you both have provided. 

Yes Daniel, I understand that the brand is a subjective choice. However, you 
have in your lengthy exposé given me an explanation of what I may have 
encountered - the back-up drive is being accessed more often than not and hence 
may explain the failures and/or the power supply could be faulty. 

Your mention of NAS is prompting me to look seriously into it and which I 
should consider before I replace the 6TB WD drive. I will contact you 
separately on this matter. 

I am glad that I am paranoid with back-ups and have two drives, safely stored 
away, containing copies of my integral Macintosh HD made with SuperDuper! Must 
add that my iMac is often left working for many days non stop analysing data 
for a few projects managed by BOINC Manager from Berkeley Uni. The only time I 
turn the iMac is when the room temperature is reaching the 30º C and above.

Many thanks again dear WAMUG’ers. 

Keep well and enjoy our beautiful weather, 

Cheers from 
  
Philippe dit la Grenouille ...

Begin forwarded message:

From: Daniel Kerr 
Subject: Re: Time Machine and external hard drives
Date: 13 March 2020 at 2:32:53 am AWST
To: WAMUG 
Reply-To: wamug@wamug.org.au

Hi Philippe

Unfortunately, there’s no “definitive” answer on this.
Everyone will have a different story or opinion on brands of drives and their 
experiences. For myself, I run probably around a total of 20 Western Digital 
drives in various forms - some in an NAS (using western digital red NAS 
drives), external Elements, Passports, etc. Out of all these 20 Western Digital 
drives, I’ve never had a failure. And overall for the last 19 years of doing 
Macwizardry, I’ve personally found Western Digital very reliable, plus their 
warranty and support is fantastic. On the other hand, I had a client whose son 
recommend he only buy Seagate. Out of the 12 drives I sold him over a period of 
4 years,…8 of them failed. And Seagate were absolutely horrific to deal with. 
So much so, I now avoid Seagate drives as much as possible, and would rather 
turn down a sale then sell a Seagate. Again, this is my personal experience 
with it. (As a side note, Lacie drives also use Seagate inside them).
A tech I know that runs a data recovery centre that I know quite well said the 
same thing. Data recovery from a WD drive is less often, and much easier to 
recover from (even at a part level as they “Swap out” very easily. (This is 
from a point of view of actually pulling the physical drive apart and replacing 
parts.) Seagate on the other hand it said he sees more often, and they’re a lot 
more difficult to work with, as the model, plus revision plus “year of 
manufacturer” sometimes all have to match to replace parts. So harder to work 
with.
Again,…these are just the experiences I’ve come across.

Others will say,..brand x is better. So it all comes down to experience. Drives 
fail unfortunately, but from what you’ve said, it does sound like “something” 
isn’t quite right with it all. Be a connection issue, a drive issue, a “power 
spike”, issue,…”overload” issue,…or “just bad luck”. ….
With the latest drive that you’ve said failed,..if it’s only 8-9 months 
old,…then it should be covered by warranty. So you should be able to get it 
replaced by Western Digital.

With some of the “MyBook” drives, that used power supply…I did find sometimes 
the power packs would fail,..but replacing them with a better one, they worked 
perfectly fine.
But unfortunately, advising, go with “brand x” as it’s the best,…well,…that 
depends on how you ask. :) You’ll be hard to find one exact brand that works 
"perfectly every single time.”

Drives change over time,…and each company at some point (unfortunately), will 
have a run of “drives that fail”. It happens to all of them. (Years back, 
Seagate had a whole batch of iMac drives that failed,…to the point Apple were 
replacing them “in advance” based on information given to them via 
Seagate,…worldwide!). 
I know Seagate got better with their drives (and some reviews will still rate 
them quite highly,….but you tend to be swayed by personal preference a lot 
sometimes).

One thing I did find, that sometimes these “cheaper” drives will use a lower 
class drive in the boxes. (To try make the most profit out of a boxed drive 
obviously). I found “making my own”, and using a NAS drive in it, which is 
designed to be on constantly, all the time, that these worked better.
Whereas a “lighter type drive” is on constantly and constantly being used. So 
for example, a drive being used for Time machine, is going to be accessed every 
hour, every day for months. So it’s “usage” can vary as well. Whereas a NAS 
drive is specifically designed to be “on longer and more often accessed”.
This is why drive manufacturers will make different types of drives (eg Western 
Digital have a Blue Series, a Black Series, a Gaming Series, a NAS Red, a NAS 
Red Pro and so on…oh, and a 

Re: A salutary lesson

[Peter Crisp]

Thanks Peter and yes, and I have had similar experiences with garage
remote controllers, a number of times (doh!) - my wife immediately
submerges it in an empty bowl and covers it completely with dry rice
grains. The hygroscopic nature of the rice will provide a drying
effect to the contents of the unit (printed circuit board etc) and
reduce/minimise corrosive effects of the components being wet. May
still be a good idea for your item Peter but the fact it has come back
to life means it is probably pretty dried out at a micro level.
Not recommended as a test but recovery from accidental washing has
always been successful for me. 

Kind Regards

Peter Crisp

- Original Message -
From: wamug@wamug.org.au
To:
Cc:
Sent:Fri, 13 Mar 2020 08:35:55 +0800
Subject:A salutary lesson

 I thought the following story might offer hope to those had a s
similar experience, or are about to…

 A couple of years ago I saw, in the Booragoon Apple Store, what
looked a great idea: a 64Gb SanDisk Connect USB drive. The label on
the box calls it a “Wireless Stick”, so called because it has a
built-in wireless transmitter which creates a wireless network to
which other devices can connect. It’s ideal for extending the
storage space of my iPad and iPhone. I measn I can keep the device in
my pocket or bag and never have worry about dropping or forgetting it.
It’s the perfect solution for accessing portable music, for example.
Great for the gym.

 Last year, shortly before Christmas, I found it in the pocket of my
gym shorts after taking it out of the washing machine. It was dead. No
response of any kind. Not even the wireless was working. I wasn’t
prepared to consign it to the bin just yet, so I kept it to one side,
asnd I’ve been testing it every couple of weeks ever since. Slowly,
changes stated happening. Eventually I started getting messages that I
has ejected a drive without warning, similar signs of activity.

 A couple of days ago I gave it yet another try (it had been a couple
of weeks since the previous go) and all of a sudden everything was
back! the drive mounted happily, all the files were there, and even
the wireless network was working.

 I guess the lesson from all this is that if you give your USB drive a
dunking, don’t give up. Just give it about three months to dry out.

 Kind regards,

 Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services
 FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer
 Perth, Western Australia
 Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 046 948
 
 Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to.

 -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List --
 Archives - 
 Guidelines - 
 Settings & Unsubscribe -
-- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List --
Archives - 
Guidelines - 
Settings & Unsubscribe - 

A salutary lesson

[Peter Hinchliffe]

I thought the following story might offer hope to those had a s similar 
experience, or are about to…

A couple of years ago I saw, in the Booragoon Apple Store, what looked a great 
idea: a 64Gb SanDisk Connect USB drive. The label on the box calls it a 
“Wireless Stick”, so called because it has a built-in wireless transmitter 
which creates a wireless network to which other devices can connect. It’s ideal 
for extending the storage space of my iPad and iPhone. I measn I can keep the 
device in my pocket or bag and never have worry about dropping or forgetting 
it. It’s the perfect solution for accessing portable music, for example. Great 
for the gym.

Last year, shortly before Christmas, I found it in the pocket of my gym shorts 
after taking it out of the washing machine. It was dead. No response of any 
kind. Not even the wireless was working. I wasn’t prepared to consign it to the 
bin just yet, so I kept it to one side, asnd I’ve been testing it every couple 
of weeks ever since. Slowly, changes stated happening. Eventually I started 
getting messages that I has ejected a drive without warning, similar signs of 
activity.

A couple of days ago I gave it yet another try (it had been a couple of weeks 
since the previous go) and all of a sudden everything was back! the drive 
mounted happily, all the files were there, and even the wireless network was 
working.

I guess the lesson from all this is that if you give your USB drive a dunking, 
don’t give up. Just give it about three months to dry out.


Kind regards,

Peter HinchliffeApwin Computer Services
FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer
Perth, Western Australia
Phone (618) 9332 6482Mob 0403 046 948

Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to.

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Re: Time Machine and external hard drives

[Daniel Kerr]

Hi Philippe

Unfortunately, there’s no “definitive” answer on this.
Everyone will have a different story or opinion on brands of drives and their 
experiences. For myself, I run probably around a total of 20 Western Digital 
drives in various forms - some in an NAS (using western digital red NAS 
drives), external Elements, Passports, etc. Out of all these 20 Western Digital 
drives, I’ve never had a failure. And overall for the last 19 years of doing 
Macwizardry, I’ve personally found Western Digital very reliable, plus their 
warranty and support is fantastic. On the other hand, I had a client whose son 
recommend he only buy Seagate. Out of the 12 drives I sold him over a period of 
4 years,…8 of them failed. And Seagate were absolutely horrific to deal with. 
So much so, I now avoid Seagate drives as much as possible, and would rather 
turn down a sale then sell a Seagate. Again, this is my personal experience 
with it. (As a side note, Lacie drives also use Seagate inside them).
A tech I know that runs a data recovery centre that I know quite well said the 
same thing. Data recovery from a WD drive is less often, and much easier to 
recover from (even at a part level as they “Swap out” very easily. (This is 
from a point of view of actually pulling the physical drive apart and replacing 
parts.) Seagate on the other hand it said he sees more often, and they’re a lot 
more difficult to work with, as the model, plus revision plus “year of 
manufacturer” sometimes all have to match to replace parts. So harder to work 
with.
Again,…these are just the experiences I’ve come across.

Others will say,..brand x is better. So it all comes down to experience. Drives 
fail unfortunately, but from what you’ve said, it does sound like “something” 
isn’t quite right with it all. Be a connection issue, a drive issue, a “power 
spike”, issue,…”overload” issue,…or “just bad luck”. ….
With the latest drive that you’ve said failed,..if it’s only 8-9 months 
old,…then it should be covered by warranty. So you should be able to get it 
replaced by Western Digital.

With some of the “MyBook” drives, that used power supply…I did find sometimes 
the power packs would fail,..but replacing them with a better one, they worked 
perfectly fine.
But unfortunately, advising, go with “brand x” as it’s the best,…well,…that 
depends on how you ask. :) You’ll be hard to find one exact brand that works 
"perfectly every single time.”

Drives change over time,…and each company at some point (unfortunately), will 
have a run of “drives that fail”. It happens to all of them. (Years back, 
Seagate had a whole batch of iMac drives that failed,…to the point Apple were 
replacing them “in advance” based on information given to them via 
Seagate,…worldwide!). 
I know Seagate got better with their drives (and some reviews will still rate 
them quite highly,….but you tend to be swayed by personal preference a lot 
sometimes).

One thing I did find, that sometimes these “cheaper” drives will use a lower 
class drive in the boxes. (To try make the most profit out of a boxed drive 
obviously). I found “making my own”, and using a NAS drive in it, which is 
designed to be on constantly, all the time, that these worked better.
Whereas a “lighter type drive” is on constantly and constantly being used. So 
for example, a drive being used for Time machine, is going to be accessed every 
hour, every day for months. So it’s “usage” can vary as well. Whereas a NAS 
drive is specifically designed to be “on longer and more often accessed”.
This is why drive manufacturers will make different types of drives (eg Western 
Digital have a Blue Series, a Black Series, a Gaming Series, a NAS Red, a NAS 
Red Pro and so on…oh, and a “purple Surveillance drive” So each designed to do 
different things.
Even a Solid State Drive, which is (generally) more reliable, as a certain 
lifespan it can be “written to”. So although they’re a lot more reliable, the 
more times they’re written to or erased, they will shorten their life.

As an interesting read on drives,….the following has some interesting “Stats”
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-2018/
As they run a data farm basically, they do drive storage comparisons,…and as at 
December 31st 2018 they had 106,919 spinning hard drives. So,..just a few.
They look at drives failures and other things,..so can be quite a good read. 
(Even if they do like Seagate,…but hey,…I’ll stick with my personal preference 
for now,…lol).

There 2019 info here - 
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2019/

So,…not really an answer I’m afraid,…but hopefully gives you something to go on.
You could try mixing in some brands perhaps. This would give you at least an 
idea of how the other brands work. So you might look at getting your WD drive 
replaced under warranty (which I’d say should be covered), and then add in to 
the mix another brand. Toshiba isn’t too bad,..”some” Seagate do seem to get 

Re: Time Machine and external hard drives

[Julie Bedford]

Hi Philippe

Not really sure if this is relevant to your problem.  I purchased a 3TB time 
capsule for my iMac a few years ago, but could never get it going and thought 
it was in conflict with my other time capsule which backs up my old MacPro.  A 
tech had a look at it yesterday and said the hard drive was not working.  I did 
have a spare 1TB hard drive which he used to replace the time capsule one, so 
now that is happily working now.   The failed hard drive was a Seagate.   

Personally, I never purchase Western Digital external drives, as a friend of 
mine had two of these that failed.  I usually purchase the Toshiba or Transcend 
ones which I’ve never had a problem with and some of these are at least 4 years 
old.  I use these to back up and store files.

Cheers
Jewels


> On 13 Mar 2020, at 1:08 am, Philippe Chaperon  wrote:
> 
> Dear WAMUG’ers, 
> 
> I use an external disc drive to which I get Time Machine to save its backups. 
> I have however had troubles with different drives to mount on the desktop, 
> and thus TM being unable to do its backups. Running Disk Utility to ‘Repair’ 
> the disc, it reported unable to repair. I tried TechTool Pro 12 which also 
> reported being unable to repair.
> 
> Disk Utility did show the external drive, but due to the fsck–hfs process 
> running in the background, I suspect trying to repair the Backup drive used 
> by TM, the drive was ‘greyed -out’ and I could not eject the drive. 
> 
> This is now the 4th Western Digital Drive which encountered this problem on 2 
> different iMacs, used exclusively by Time Machine. Every time I tried to 
> reformat the drives concerned, whenever DiskUtil could do it, but the problem 
> of not mounting up occurred again. 
> 
> I cannot believe that WD drives could be so unreliable as to fail in 
> sometimes less that 7 or 8 months! The last one to ‘die’ is a 6TB My Book 
> purchased about 8 or 9 months ago. I am now wondering whether TM is the 
> culprit? To note that I have 2 other external HD connected to my iMac used to 
> save some of my heavy files - mostly photos and books, and they have not 
> shown any sign of corruption or of failing (as yet!) and have been in use for 
> a few years now. By the way, all the external drives are connected via USB. 
> 
> I would appreciate any views on this matter. Do I have to purchase another 
> 6TB drive, and if so what are the reliable brands out there?
> 
> Many thanks. 
> 
> Keep safe and have a great night. 
> 
> Philippe C. 
> Philippe dit la Grenouille ...
> iMac mid 2010
> 20GB RAM
> High Sierra v. 10.13.6
> 
> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List --
> Archives - 
> Guidelines - 
> Settings & Unsubscribe - 
> 

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Time Machine and external hard drives

[Philippe Chaperon]

Dear WAMUG’ers, 

I use an external disc drive to which I get Time Machine to save its backups. I 
have however had troubles with different drives to mount on the desktop, and 
thus TM being unable to do its backups. Running Disk Utility to ‘Repair’ the 
disc, it reported unable to repair. I tried TechTool Pro 12 which also reported 
being unable to repair.

Disk Utility did show the external drive, but due to the fsck–hfs process 
running in the background, I suspect trying to repair the Backup drive used by 
TM, the drive was ‘greyed -out’ and I could not eject the drive. 

This is now the 4th Western Digital Drive which encountered this problem on 2 
different iMacs, used exclusively by Time Machine. Every time I tried to 
reformat the drives concerned, whenever DiskUtil could do it, but the problem 
of not mounting up occurred again. 

I cannot believe that WD drives could be so unreliable as to fail in sometimes 
less that 7 or 8 months! The last one to ‘die’ is a 6TB My Book purchased about 
8 or 9 months ago. I am now wondering whether TM is the culprit? To note that I 
have 2 other external HD connected to my iMac used to save some of my heavy 
files - mostly photos and books, and they have not shown any sign of corruption 
or of failing (as yet!) and have been in use for a few years now. By the way, 
all the external drives are connected via USB. 

I would appreciate any views on this matter. Do I have to purchase another 6TB 
drive, and if so what are the reliable brands out there?

Many thanks. 

Keep safe and have a great night. 

Philippe C. 
Philippe dit la Grenouille ...
iMac mid 2010
20GB RAM
High Sierra v. 10.13.6

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