• To shuck or not to shuck...

    From Digital Man@VERT to All on Sunday, December 03, 2023 15:14:58
    I was looking to add some terabytes to my workstation's "cold" storage. I already have 8 terabytes of very fast NVMe-SSD and a slow (SMR) internal 8TB hard disk, as well as some USB external drives and network attached drives. Why the need for so much storage? 4K video editing and all kinds of video hoarding.

    During Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals, I found a good deal on an external Seagate 14TB USB drive at Costco: $149. Dollars per terabyte, hard to beat that price.

    The disk inside this external drive enclosure is just a standard Seagate Exos or IronWolf Pro NAS class-drive CMR hard drive (which separately, sell for more than, sometimes double, the external drive). Reportedly, this price difference is because the warranty on the bare drive is longer than when sold as part of the external drive.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41JwxULVdAs

    My first instinct/plan was to "shuck" the drive and install it inside my workstation (there's room and cabling and power to support it), but now I'm having second thoughts: USB 3.0 is 5Gbps while SATA 3 is 6Gbps. Is that potential 20% gain in performance something I need for this drive? Not especially. Some say that removing the drive, which usually damages the USB enclosure, may void its warranty. Others say it does not. Shucking cheaper external drives as replacement drives in a NAS (where USB isn't an option) is a fairly popular thing to do, but I'm not really sure about the advantage for workstation use. It is another box on the flower, another USB cable and port used, and its own power adapter. But what is one more in mess under and beside my desk?

    What are you experiences with external USB drives? Have you shucked them and used the bare drive in SATA NAS or workstations?
    --
    digital man (rob)

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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Digital Man on Sunday, December 03, 2023 19:33:38
    Re: To shuck or not to shuck...
    By: Digital Man to All on Sun Dec 03 2023 03:14 pm


    What are you experiences with external USB drives? Have you shucked them and > --
    digital man (rob)

    Main reason to extract the drive from the case is reliability instead of performance gains, IMO.

    Many cheap cases or encased drives have cheap USB controlers that will die on you, or their USB connectors will give in, at the worst possible time.

    If you don't want the drive to be portable (so that files can be moved from a place to another without the need of a network) and you have a drive bay in thecomputer which is free, then extracting the drive from the case is the obvious
    choice, specially if you can extract it without damaging the case, IMO.

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  • From Gamgee@VERT/PALANTIR to Arelor on Sunday, December 03, 2023 21:36:00
    Arelor wrote to Digital Man <=-

    Re: To shuck or not to shuck...
    By: Digital Man to All on Sun Dec 03 2023 03:14 pm

    What are you experiences with external USB drives? Have you shucked them and

    Main reason to extract the drive from the case is reliability
    instead of performance gains, IMO.

    Many cheap cases or encased drives have cheap USB controlers that
    will die on you, or their USB connectors will give in, at the
    worst possible time.

    If you don't want the drive to be portable (so that files can be
    moved from a place to another without the need of a network) and
    you have a drive bay in thecomputer which is free, then
    extracting the drive from the case is the obvious choice,
    specially if you can extract it without damaging the case, IMO.

    I agree with this post.

    Another point, that I have observed personally, is that I've had "too
    many" external devices connected to USB ports, which has caused intermittent/flaky operation on some devices. I firmly believe that was
    cause by over-taxing the power-handling (supply) ability of the USB controller(s) to provide. In other words, just because you have 4-6 USB
    ports doesn't mean the system can adequately power that many external
    devices all at the same time, in a reliable manner.



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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Digital Man on Monday, December 04, 2023 07:16:24
    Re: To shuck or not to shuck...
    By: Digital Man to All on Sun Dec 03 2023 03:14 pm

    During Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals, I found a good deal on an external Seagate 14TB USB drive at Costco: $149. Dollars per terabyte, hard to beat that price.

    The disk inside this external drive enclosure is just a standard Seagate Exos or IronWolf Pro NAS class-drive CMR hard drive (which separately, sell for more than, sometimes double, the external drive). Reportedly, this price difference is because the warranty on the bare drive is longer than when sold as part of the external drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41JwxULVdAs

    My first instinct/plan was to "shuck" the drive and install it inside my workstation (there's room and cabling and power to support it), but now I'm having second thoughts: USB 3.0 is 5Gbps while SATA 3 is 6Gbps. Is that potential 20% gain in performance something I need for this drive? Not especially. Some say that removing the drive, which usually damages the USB enclosure, may void its warranty. Others say it does not. Shucking cheaper external drives as replacement drives in a NAS (where USB isn't an option) is a fairly popular thing to do, but I'm not really sure about the advantage for workstation use. It is another box on the flower, another USB cable and port used, and its own power adapter. But what is one more in mess under and beside my desk?


    you should get a drobo clone like i have. i don't have to crack my computer open anymore to add drives. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mediasonic+probox&crid=H46NK3BF99JS&sprefix=mediasonic+probo%2Caps%2C101&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
    look up mediasonic probox or look at their other products.


    What are you experiences with external USB drives? Have you shucked them and used the bare drive in SATA NAS or workstations?

    yeah i've done that. i've actually done that years back when an external seagate was cheaper than an internal drive.

    But look up the failure rates for current drives. get the most reliable one. ---
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  • From Nopants@VERT/CITBBS to Digital Man on Monday, December 04, 2023 12:10:00
    Re: To shuck or not to shuck.
    By: Digital Man to All on Sun Dec 03 2023 03:14 pm

    What are you experiences with external USB drives?

    I've had luck with hanging off alot of external SSD drives but not so much spinning disks. I think you get alot more reliability sticking a spinning disk in a sturdy chasis.


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