Using external HD full-time

[Ebuntor]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering, can I use an external HD full-time just as an internal one or would I run the risk of overheating it or wearing it down from overuse?

My laptop's screen is broken so it will be away for a few weeks for repairs. I can borrow a friend's company laptop but the problem is I (of course) can't use the OS.

It doesn't have a cd or dvd drive so I installed Ubuntu on my external HD and I'm running it on his laptop, I have to say it's working great but I am a little worried about my HD since it running all the time.
I normally use it for backups so all my files or on this thing.

Anyway what are the risks (if any) of my disk crashing. Should I start burning DVD's just in case?

I have this (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=329) HD from Western Digital, which makes pretty good HD's as I understand.
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=329

[Arkaniad]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering, can I use an external HD full-time just as an internal one or would I run the risk of overheating it or wearing it down from overuse?

My laptop's screen is broken so it will be away for a few weeks for repairs. I can borrow a friend's company laptop but the problem is I (of course) can't use the OS.

It doesn't have a cd or dvd drive so I installed Ubuntu on my external HD and I'm running it on his laptop, I have to say it's working great but I am a little worried about my HD since it running all the time.
I normally use it for backups so all my files or on this thing.

Anyway what are the risks (if any) of my disk crashing. Should I start burning DVD's just in case?

I have this (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=329) HD from Western Digital, which makes pretty good HD's as I understand.
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=329
Looks like it would probably be fine, but dont use it too intensively. Eg, 10 copies of gimp and 5 copies of open office XD you know what i mean

[Ebuntor]

Looks like it would probably be fine, but dont use it too intensively. Eg, 10 copies of gimp and 5 copies of open office XD you know what i mean

Yeah ok, but running apps like those would be more memory intensive rather than needing to do a lot of reading and writing to the HD.

I understand that for example non-stop downloading GB's and moving lot's of files isn't a good idea but even as I'm typing this my HD is still constantly running and periodically stopping for a few seconds while my browser is the only app actively running.

That's what I am worried about.

EDIT: Looks like you're new here, welcome to the forums! :)

[maniacmusician]

The hard drive inside your external enclosure is probably just a normal drive, like one that you would put inside a desktop computer, so it shouldn't be a problem. I'd be more worried about wearing out the enclosure...I've never regularly used an external, so I don't know how flimsy they are. You might wear out the connector by plugging it in and taking it out a lot, and I don't know how reliable the chip in the enclosure is either.

I mean, I work on external drives quite often (at college; a lot of students have them), and I get a lot of enclosures that just stopped working; I can't say if it's just cheap parts or if most enclosures are like that. I haven't noticed a trend of it being the same group of brands that keep failing, either. But I don't think that's a huge concern. If your enclosure dies on you, you can always buy a new one and move the hard drive to it.

[metalpancake]

I've done it before too and I think it should be fine becausse the hard disks in those things are basically just ordinary ide or SATA drives

[Ebuntor]

I'd be more worried about wearing out the enclosure...I've never regularly used an external, so I don't know how flimsy they are. You might wear out the connector by plugging it in and taking it out a lot, and I don't know how reliable the chip in the enclosure is either.

I mean, I work on external drives quite often (at college; a lot of students have them), and I get a lot of enclosures that just stopped working; I can't say if it's just cheap parts or if most enclosures are like that. I haven't noticed a trend of it being the same group of brands that keep failing, either. But I don't think that's a huge concern. If your enclosure dies on you, you can always buy a new one and move the hard drive to it.

Forgive my ignorance but what do you mean by "enclosure" in this case? The actual casing of the whole drive or the internal parts which "surround" the disk itself?

The casing seems very sturdy and the connector seems of a lot better quality than I have seen on similar devices.

Thanks for the info though, I'll be careful.


I've done it before too and I think it should be fine becausse the hard disks in those things are basically just ordinary ide or SATA drives

Really? I had no idea, since it can be so easily mounted via a simply usb connection I always assumed external disks were some special tech.

Thanks to both of you for putting my mind at ease. :)

[metalpancake]

have you seen those enclosures you can buy? You just put an ordinary HDD into it and it will waork as an ext hard disk.

[maniacmusician]

Forgive my ignorance but what do you mean by "enclosure" in this case? The actual casing of the whole drive or the internal parts which "surround" the disk itself?

The casing seems very sturdy and the connector seems of a lot better quality than I have seen on similar devices.

Thanks for the info though, I'll be careful.
The term "enclosure" refers to everything except for the actual hard drive itself. This means the case, the chip inside that converts IDE to SATA or USB, the cable, etc.


Really? I had no idea, since it can be so easily mounted via a simply usb connection I always assumed external disks were some special tech.


An external enclosure consists of a normal hard drive (or in this day and age, possibly a laptop hard drive or an SSD, mostly to cut down on size), a chip to convert the connection of the hard drive (IDE, SATA) to the protocol you're using to connect it to the computer (USB, Firewire, eSATA), a cable to connect to the hard drive, and screw mounts to secure the hard drive. Some external enclosure even have multiple connection ports on the outside so that you can use it with USB, FIrewire, and eSATA, depending on what kind of ports your computer has available.

[Ebuntor]

The term "enclosure" refers to everything except for the actual hard drive itself. This means the case, the chip inside that converts IDE to SATA or USB, the cable, etc.



An external enclosure consists of a normal hard drive (or in this day and age, possibly a laptop hard drive or an SSD, mostly to cut down on size), a chip to convert the connection of the hard drive (IDE, SATA) to the protocol you're using to connect it to the computer (USB, Firewire, eSATA), a cable to connect to the hard drive, and screw mounts to secure the hard drive. Some external enclosure even have multiple connection ports on the outside so that you can use it with USB, FIrewire, and eSATA, depending on what kind of ports your computer has available.

I see, very interesting, thanks for explaining. :)

[smartboyathome]

I run Ubuntu on a Maxtor Personal Basics 3200 320GB hard drive. I haven't had any problems yet. I would say if you want to run it full time on it, it would be the best for it since it cost me only $100.

[maniacmusician]

I run Ubuntu on a Maxtor Personal Basics 3200 320GB hard drive. I haven't had any problems yet. I would say if you want to run it full time on it, it would be the best for it since it cost me only $100.
I despise Maxtor with every fiber of my being. I bought 3 hard drives from them a couple of years ago, all of which failed within the first six months. Now I swear by Western Digital (still have their old 10GB hard drives, which are still working fine) and Samsung, which sometimes has better pricing and in my experience, similar quality, although I haven't used them a lot. I have a 500GB hard drive from them right now, and it runs really cool and fast, so no complaints so far. It's about a year old.

I used to use Seagate a lot too, but considering their recent fiasco with the Mac laptops, I'm a little wary of them.

[gn2]

I swear by Western Digital

There was a story in this weeks MicroMart magazine (UK) about a Western Digital network drive that prevents certain file types from being shared on the network.

Pretty useless and very intrusive. http://tinyurl.com/2u32d3

Samsung are excellent hard drives as are Hitachi.

[Ebuntor]

There was a story in this weeks MicroMart magazine (UK) about a Western Digital network drive that prevents certain file types from being shared on the network.

Pretty useless and very intrusive. http://tinyurl.com/2u32d3

Samsung are excellent hard drives as are Hitachi.

In other words DRM? That's really annoying, I try to avoid it as much as possible.

[Cannaregio]

For what it is worth, I am extensively using since more than one year four USB Lacie external drives (2*160 gb + 2*500 gb).
They all have their own electricity plugs.
Ubuntu boots from my internal drive, but two harddisks (respectively one 160 and one 500 giga external harddisk) are always on (the couple just depending on a session dedicated to "work" or "experimenting/playing").

I never had any problem whatsoever.

[metalpancake]

For a little while I was running Ubuntu off an old 40gb IDE hdd inside an external hdd enclosure. It worked well until the drive suddenly started restarting itself (turned on and off again rapidly) randomly, so I assumed the disk was dead and installed Gutsy on my rather puny 60gb laptop drive along with xp.

That means that I only have about 30gb each partition, but I think I will kill windows before long:) (don't use it much).

I'm now thinking of dual booting Ubuntu with fedora 8.:guitar: