TomCat
08-20-09, 12:23 PM
Is this where we wind our tales of woe regarding eSATA experiences? If not, mods can move it. But it is a cautionary tale just the same (and don't worry, there is a happy ending).
I seem to find myself fixing stuff at work all day, so I don't like to have to "go back to work" when I'm at home, so to speak. Rather than fight the eSATA wars myself, I enlisted Weaknees, a terrific company, to fight them for me. I have a 1TB I have had for about a year and a half (29 % reserve capacity), and a 1.5 TB that I have had for about 6 months (73% reserve capacity). I paid the premium, too ($399 for the 1.5, which of course dropped to $299 about a week later :rolleyes: -- as they say, the most important element of comedy is timing). It has both an internal fan, and a 9" external fan pointed at it (maybe I "blew" it to death :)).
I had always been curious what drives they used, and the eclosures changed between my first and second purchase. Since I've already buried the lead, rather than keep you in suspense I will jump ahead -- the 1.5 is a Seagate, with a similar number to the 1 TB or 500 GB listed at the top of this forum. I've had stuttering with it, though, which has necessitated reboots for steady playback (this never affected recordings) about once a week.
So, long story short (too late?), I came home to wildly-red flashing on the drive's activity light. Uh-oh. Turning on the TV revealed that the HR20-700 had defaulted to the internal drive. After fixing myself a large vodka and soda, I ripped the X drive enclosure apart. Nothing burned, no bad smells.
The fan would not come up. I removed the drive and repowered. Still no fan. My diagnosis was a failed host bus adapter card, so I went to Fry's (the next day -- no drinking and driving, kids) and bought the Antec enclosure on sale and slapped the drive into that.
FIngers crossed (this time boot-up seemed to take about a week in my imagination), the X drive came up with all programs intact. Whew!
The moral of the story? As great as Weaknees is, now I know what drives they use, so I will bypass them from here on out. Stuff breaks, whether they sell it to you or Fry's does. And probably more importantly, if your X drive takes a crap, it may only be the HBA or power section of the enclosure that is at fault.
I'll update if the stuttering problem changes. Thanks to forum denizens for pointing me toward the Antec (which came with a better cable than the Weaknees unit).
In my research, what surprised me (and what no one seemed to ever mention on this forum) is that there really is no such thing as an eSATA drive. eSATA is a protocol for external drives only, not a designation for a type of drive. The drives are SATA. Maybe that was obvious to some, but I needed it pointed out to me. All of the eSATA enclosures referenced use with SATA or PATA drives. I was earnestly looking for one that worked with an eSATA drive (no such animal, apparently). Boy was my face red :blush:.
I seem to find myself fixing stuff at work all day, so I don't like to have to "go back to work" when I'm at home, so to speak. Rather than fight the eSATA wars myself, I enlisted Weaknees, a terrific company, to fight them for me. I have a 1TB I have had for about a year and a half (29 % reserve capacity), and a 1.5 TB that I have had for about 6 months (73% reserve capacity). I paid the premium, too ($399 for the 1.5, which of course dropped to $299 about a week later :rolleyes: -- as they say, the most important element of comedy is timing). It has both an internal fan, and a 9" external fan pointed at it (maybe I "blew" it to death :)).
I had always been curious what drives they used, and the eclosures changed between my first and second purchase. Since I've already buried the lead, rather than keep you in suspense I will jump ahead -- the 1.5 is a Seagate, with a similar number to the 1 TB or 500 GB listed at the top of this forum. I've had stuttering with it, though, which has necessitated reboots for steady playback (this never affected recordings) about once a week.
So, long story short (too late?), I came home to wildly-red flashing on the drive's activity light. Uh-oh. Turning on the TV revealed that the HR20-700 had defaulted to the internal drive. After fixing myself a large vodka and soda, I ripped the X drive enclosure apart. Nothing burned, no bad smells.
The fan would not come up. I removed the drive and repowered. Still no fan. My diagnosis was a failed host bus adapter card, so I went to Fry's (the next day -- no drinking and driving, kids) and bought the Antec enclosure on sale and slapped the drive into that.
FIngers crossed (this time boot-up seemed to take about a week in my imagination), the X drive came up with all programs intact. Whew!
The moral of the story? As great as Weaknees is, now I know what drives they use, so I will bypass them from here on out. Stuff breaks, whether they sell it to you or Fry's does. And probably more importantly, if your X drive takes a crap, it may only be the HBA or power section of the enclosure that is at fault.
I'll update if the stuttering problem changes. Thanks to forum denizens for pointing me toward the Antec (which came with a better cable than the Weaknees unit).
In my research, what surprised me (and what no one seemed to ever mention on this forum) is that there really is no such thing as an eSATA drive. eSATA is a protocol for external drives only, not a designation for a type of drive. The drives are SATA. Maybe that was obvious to some, but I needed it pointed out to me. All of the eSATA enclosures referenced use with SATA or PATA drives. I was earnestly looking for one that worked with an eSATA drive (no such animal, apparently). Boy was my face red :blush:.