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 <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Time Machine and external hard drives Date: 13 March 2020 at 2:32:53 am AWST To: WAMUG <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] 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 reasonable reviews. HGST seems to always get good reviews mostly,…but I don’t think they make external type drives. With anything though,..the more backups the better obviously. As you’re trying to cover your bases if something does fail. :) (which as you’ve noted, you do have quite a few backups,…). But I think “failure” sometimes, can come down to “access amounts”. Bearing in mind an average hard drive can spin at 7200rpm, running “all day every day”…generally 2 little “cd type discs” read by a tiny sliver of metal moving back and forwards between them,..accessing data. So of course, if a drive is doing a lot more usage all the time, then it may not last as long as a drive accessed “fairly often” versus “always”…..if that makes sense :) But yes, if a drive is “Failing” fairly regularly, then there could be some other factors contributing to it perhaps. (As an example,…we have a 4 drive NAS type set up that runs all our media in the house. It’s on all day, every day almost 24/7/365…and it just keeps going). For the last 5+ years or more,…and (touch wood), it’s never missed a beat. But when I created it, I went with using Western Digital NAS Red (or Pro) drives,…as I knew it was better then “Western Digital Green” drives at the time. It’s a bit of the “using the right tool for the job” type scenario I think sometimes. Sorry for the long rant,…..but hopefully there’s something in there that is helpful. (There was a couple of other points I was going to make,…but I think I rambled on enough,..and my brain is too sleepy to remember the rest of them at the moment,…lol) Kind regards Daniel --- Daniel Kerr MacWizardry Phone: 0414 795 960 Email: <daniel AT macwizardry.com.au> Web: <http://www.macwizardry.com.au> **For everything Apple** NOTE: Any information provided in this email may be my personal opinion and as such should be taken accordingly, and may not be the views of MacWizardry. Any information provided does not offer or warrant any form of warranty or accept liability. It would be appreciated that if any information in this email is to be disseminated, distributed or copied, that permission by the author be requested. > On 13 Mar 2020, at 1:08 am, Philippe Chaperon <[email protected]> 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 - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> Begin forwarded message: From: Julie Bedford <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Time Machine and external hard drives Date: 13 March 2020 at 1:28:20 am AWST To: WAMUG List <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] 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 <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> 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 - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml > <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml>> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml > <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml>> > Settings & Unsubscribe - > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> Begin forwarded message: From: Philippe Chaperon <[email protected]> Subject: Time Machine and external hard drives Date: 13 March 2020 at 1:08:15 am AWST To: WAMUG - List <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] 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 - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
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