Had another WD Blue SSD go bad this morning. This is the 4th to go out with a lifespan of 2-3 years. It was a backup drive and did it loose anything important. So I am done with WD for good. Fortunately I am the kind of guy who keeps 2-3 backups. If I need to use a backup drive, I use a USB docking station. I have a Crucial SSD in my laptop that has lasted me over 4 years and it is built like a tank.
Also, I never throw away any working mechanical HDD's and have 13 of them sitting the shelf. Since I have done SSD upgrades for friends, I always ask if I can have the old mechanical drive and those I add to the collection. Those I also use for backups, especially my installed, up to date, version of BIAB and all the downloaded install files from my account.
Thoughts on Western Digital Blue SSD's?
What do you normally use and how is your success rate and longevity.
Here is my current Music Machine, almost 2 year old system. I have a two Blues (one which is SSD and one HDD) and one Black SSD
Drive C Windows 1TB WD Black SN750 SE NVMe SSD Drive D VI Libraries 2TB WDC Blue WD2003FZEX-00SRLA0 SSD Drive E Data 1TB WDC Blue WD 10EACS-00D6B1 Drive F Library 2 2 TB SK hynix Gold P31 2TB PCIe NVMe SHGP31-2000GM SSD Drive G - My book 6 TB 25ED USB Device, External Hard Drive
No recent history of problems with any of the SSDs. I have in the past lost a conventional HDD and a portable SSD. I back up yearly as needed. But yes, I worry about longevity and health of all my drives. Thanks for asking.
FYIW, I'm a Dell desktop guy and never had a hardware failure over the many years I've been with Dell. And I'm very carefull with my equipment; no large dogs or small children knocking my equipment over. However, I did have a massive software failure involving non-necessary "crapware" they installed on my latest machine.
I mention "desktop" because it's my understanding that in return for the smaller footprint of a laptop, you give something up in reliability. That said, when I was jetsetting around the country during my career, laptops were common, necessary and useful.
My current Win 11/i9 Dell has a 1TB NVMe Kioxia SSD boot drive and I use a 1TB SSD Crucial external drive for back up. Both are a little over a year old with no problems so far.
I wouldn't be happy with 4 drive failures within 3 years either.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
In the period I used Western Digital, I had their Black series. I’ve had some Toshiba SSDs fail, the portable type. I use only Samsung drives now.
Like you I have a ton of old hard drives, and one of those adapters that you can plug in any drive and connect it by USB. My caution about hard drives is that the magnetism can degrade, so I would not want my only backup to be on a spinning drive.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
No problems thus far with my WD SSDs. However all of my backups on HDs. I have at least three backups, two here and one in my bank's safe deposit. I say at least as I have added some new HDs just in case.
Unclear if the pianist is a total beginner or a professional jazz player?
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
In the period I used Western Digital, I had their Black series. I’ve had some Toshiba SSDs fail, the portable type. I use only Samsung drives now.
Like you I have a ton of old hard drives, and one of those adapters that you can plug in any drive and connect it by USB. My caution about hard drives is that the magnetism can degrade, so I would not want my only backup to be on a spinning drive.
One thing I do on a periodic basis with any spare SSD's I use for backups, are to plug them into the docking station at lest once every couple of months. SSD's, from what I understand, keeps the 0's and 1's in place because of a small charge. Without a periodic refresh charge, there is a chance you could loose some important data that makes the file readable.
There are different grades of SSDs depending on the technology, density, redundancy.
Generally it's the usual story of you get what you pay for. There are clues in the expected use (workstation or server) and in the guarantee.
So far I've used mostly Samsung EVOs and had no problems. Their PROs are, I think, their best and their QVOs are a higher density, lower life. I do have a WD USB-SSD that I use for recording on my mixer. Recent purchase, lowish cost, still too early to say.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
Like Matt Finley, I use Samsung drives. One thing not mentioned yet it the SSD interface. I don't know what brand Lenovo used for my internal 1 TB SSD on my i9 P17 laptop, but I've had zero problems with it for the 3.5 years I've owned/used it. I also have 3 external SSDs: one Samsung X5 2 TB Thunderbolt 3 drive that is my main samples drive (read speed is rated at 40x faster than a 7500 RPM spinner), and two Samsung T7 2 TB USB3.2 drives (one for project files and seldom used samples, and one for backups; the USB3.2 read speed is rated at 9x faster than a 7500 RPM spinner). They are all 3.5 years old like my laptop. I've had zero problems with any of them The X5 Thunderbolt drive is several times the size of the T7 thick credit-card sized drives, was 2-3x more expensive and it runs noticeably warm, but it screams!
Last edited by TheMaartian; 08/11/2410:19 PM.
ThinkPad i9 32GB RAM 7TB SSD; Win11 Pro; RME Fireface UCX II; BiaB 2025 Ultra Bitwig Studio 5; Studio One Pro 7; Melodyne Studio 5; Acoustica Premium 7 Gig Performer 5; NI S61 MK3; Focal Shape 65; Beyerdynamic DT 880 & 770
All hard drives will fail. It's just a matter of when. And that's usually when you need something from that drive in a hurry.
In military and search... there's an expression... One is none and two is one. Simply put, always have a backup and preferrably, have a back up to your backup.
For my business needs.... I have 2 programs.... Billing and banking. Both backup automatically. Those are backed up to 2 additional locations. Both backup locations are "off" the computer on a removable drive and a USB stick.
I've used a number of brands. I don't really keep records on how long they run till fail.... but I have several in a box collecting dust.
I've seen a few gizmos that claim to be able to access "dead" drives to reclaim the data on the drive. I've not used those things but I did take a C drive that would not boot and configured it as a data drive and successfully got the data I needed copied to a good drive.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Your experienced rate of hard drive failure is absurdly high.
Beyond reasonable expectations. Even spinning drives don’t fail like that. Especially multiple drives.
I believe you may have another problem.
Power perhaps?
Power is OK. I checked it out. I even looked at the electrical sine wave on an oscilloscope I have and it looked clean. Nice clean 60hz sine wave. The SSD's in my laptop and desktop all have been working just fine. If they were different brands, I would suspect power problems. They were all WD Blue drives. That is the common denominator.
The SSD's in my laptop and desktop all have been working just fine. If they were different brands, I would suspect power problems. They were all WD Blue drives
That confuses me, or is unclear on what you are trying to say. Is it that other brands in the same computer(s) are fine? If not it doesn't make a point.
FWIW it sounds like your 60hZ experiment checked the power to the computer. What about the power to the actual drives after running through the Internal Power Supply .. how steady and correct is that? I think that may be what the previous poster meant to question.
/many times going into the BIOS will reveal a basic test.
Last edited by rharv; 08/12/2402:12 PM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
I was also confused by the statement about the mains power. It's what is being delivered by the switch-mode power supply inside the computer that matters. Disk Drives don't run on AC
BIAB & RB2025 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
I was also confused by the statement about the mains power. It's what is being delivered by the switch-mode power supply inside the computer that matters. Disk Drives don't run on AC
That's true and I think I might have just had a run of bad luck. The last one that failed 3 days ago was one I put in a Inateck docking station which is powered off the mains and data connected via USB. Went into Windows DiskManagement and it would not even show up as a drive. Did not loose anything as I keep multiple backups. I could try the old freezer trick from days gone where they say the cold temp can sometimes bring a flash drive back. Never seen it happen and probably not worth the time to do it unless I get bored.
I just had my second lightning strike at the house in ten years. This one fried two APC uninterruptible power supplies (and my dishwasher) but caused no harm to my computers and audio equipment.
Even if it had, my data is backed up elsewhere, including one copy off-site.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
I personally have 5 or 6 WD Blue SSD's, plus a ton of Blue HDD's. No issues. Actually the only SSD I've ever had die on me was a Corsair, but that was a VERY old 180gb drive that I think I picked up 13-14 years ago.
Originally Posted by Joseph Land
I even looked at the electrical sine wave on an oscilloscope I have and it looked clean
Oscilloscopes aren't the correct tool to determine how clean a sine wave is, you'd need to use some sort of FFT analyzer - not to mention that SSD's are powered by DC, meaning that noise on the mains shouldn't be reaching them anyway. What you can do with it is scope the DC output rails to look for ripple.
... I could try the old freezer trick from days gone where they say the cold temp can sometimes bring a flash drive back. Never seen it happen and probably not worth the time to do it unless I get bored.
I am pretty sure that the freezer trick is for hard disk drives only. The head(s) are parked against a rubber buffer and they can sometimes stick in place. Freezing hardens the rubber and allows the head to become 'unstuck'.
BIAB & RB2025 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
... What you can do with it is scope the DC output rails to look for ripple.
Set the scope to AC with the lowest voltage resolution, then adjust the vertical position so that the trace is visible. That way, you will only be seeing the ripple voltages, less the DC offset.
Bear in mind that most drive supplies provide a +5V and a +12V supply rail, and also that the computer PSU will have multiple DC outputs.
BIAB & RB2025 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
Power is OK. I checked it out. I even looked at the electrical sine wave on an oscilloscope I have and it looked clean. Nice clean 60hz sine wave.
This appears be a misunderstanding as the power that's most important is the 5Vdc and possibly the 12Vdc inside the PC, rather that the mains power. I suspect few, if any, SSDs use the 12V. The DC should be stable and pretty clean, possibly with a few mV of a high-frequency ripple from the switcher.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
Having replaced hundreds of HDDs and SSDs over the last 40 years...
Reliability issues have come and gone with the worst being after the big factory in Thailand blew up 25 years ago.
I have always focused on who gave the best support when there were issues. WD/SanDisk and Crucial stand head and shoulders above all others. Both have USA warranty centers and, once you have an RMA, you're good. Turnaround times are excellent. Worst has always been Seagate.
Crucial is the retail/consumer brand of Micron, an OEM supplier of RAM and SSDs to everyone including Apple and HP.
You will often find Micron on eBay and other sites saying that they're the same as Crucial—these should be avoided. Although the same RAM and SSDs, the Micron brand is only sold as OEM to VARs and manufacturers with no warranty ever. The discount is large enough so that these customers are expected to eat the occasional defect. Micron makes this quite clear on their web site.
They're made with "flash memory" chips, which, unusually for semiconductors, do actually wear out. They're usually rated in 100k erase-write cycles. On a busy SSD drive, one can do quite a lot of writes over time.
What the makers do with both the chips and the SSD devices is incorporate a percentage of spare capacity that they can switch in to replace blocks of cells that have failed or are getting tired. In practice they have to do that simply because even new devices can have faults and they need a way to work around those of they'd be binning an awful lot of product. They also try to spread the work evenly over the devices so that they don't wear out one area.
The chips also tend to be more robust if the cells are low-density and less robust if they're high density, e.g., cells per square inch.
Pick your trade-off, but remember that low density and high spare capacity cost both chip area and money.
There are clues from the various manufacturers about how much trade-off they're doing. High cost server-grade parts should(!) be significantly better that cheap high capacity. The usual story in fact, but perhaps more so with SSDs.
FWIW I think I haven't yet had an SSD fail, though I was probably also later than many to the party because I already understood what I write above.
I've long used WD "spinning rust" drives and found them very reliable. I would expect their SSDs also to be good, but I have, I think, only the one WD SSD and it's almost new.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
I hope that I'm not tempting fate, but I have only ever used Crucial in my systems, and never encountered any issues.
Micron is very good about their Crucial brand. I bought a hundred of the 2TB MX300 for a school district a number of years ago. After they were discontinued, I had two showing signs of imminent failure within the 3 yr warranty period (I routinely tested every drive during the summer break) and they were replaced right away. I then contacted them about my concern that it would be another year before I tested the rest. They sent me 98 of the 5 yr MX500 drives and recommended that I replace them all—which I did—and provided a shipping label for return to their Nampa, Idaho service center. Although the remainder of that 3 yr warranty was all that would have applied, not one of those MX500s ever failed to my knowledge. I still have a pair of MX500s in my laptops.
That was a nice part-time gig for me but I gave it up as part of my retirement 3 years ago. All of those machines have since been sold but I do hear from many of the teachers who bought them. Still haven't seen an MX500 fail.
I now recommend the Crucial P3+ m.2 NVMe blade over the WD/SanDisk but only because they are less expensive here. A current generation 4TB NVMe4 x4 Blue is $279 while the P3 Plus is $236. There is no difference in performance or warranty.
I am pretty sure that the freezer trick is for hard disk drives only.
Far as I know that's correct. Flash memory actually works in part due to heat, so it'll get warm quickly anyway.
Originally Posted by AudioTrack
DC offset
If the scope can be set to AC coupled, that'll avoid any DC offset. If not, put a capacitor of a few tens of nanofarads in series between the probe and voltage rail.
Originally Posted by AudioTrack
I hope that I'm not tempting fate, but I have only ever used Crucial in my systems, and never encountered any issues.
Both Crucial and Micron stuff are good quality. I don't think I've had any of it fail on me.
Originally Posted by Gordon Scott
The chips also tend to be more robust if the cells are low-density and less robust if they're high density, e.g., cells per square inch.
Yup. SLC vs MLC vs TLC vs QLC. The lower the amount of layers per cell the faster and more reliable the drive will be. Most drives are TLC or QLC these days though, so pick a TLC over QLC whenever possible.
Originally Posted by Gordon Scott
They're made with "flash memory" chips, which, unusually for semiconductors, do actually wear out. They're usually rated in 100k erase-write cycles. On a busy SSD drive, one can do quite a lot of writes over time.
What the makers do with both the chips and the SSD devices is incorporate a percentage of spare capacity that they can switch in to replace blocks of cells that have failed or are getting tired. In practice they have to do that simply because even new devices can have faults and they need a way to work around those of they'd be binning an awful lot of product. They also try to spread the work evenly over the devices so that they don't wear out one area.
For this reason I suggest getting the biggest SSD you can afford. More space means more space to spread writes over. This is especially important in computers where it's soldered to the motherboard and can't be replaced or upgraded (looking at you Apple).
Also take a look at the TBW spec when looking for an SSD - this is "Terabyte writes" and is an indication of how many terabytes can be written to the disk before potential failure. There can be huge differences - in the 5 cheapest 2tb SSD's at my local store, they range between 640TBW and 1300TBW, meaning the 1300 will probably last more than twice as long.
Originally Posted by Gordon Scott
I've long used WD "spinning rust" drives and found them very reliable. I would expect their SSDs also to be good, but I have, I think, only the one WD SSD and it's almost new.
I've had a lot of WD stuff over the years with very few issues. All the drives in my NAS are WD Red, and I've got a bunch of Blue and Green drives as backups.
Originally Posted by Mike Halloran
not one of those MX500s ever failed to my knowledge
I have an MX100 in my 2012 Macbook that I think I've had since 2014 (in multiple computers over the years). Zero problems.
Originally Posted by Mike Halloran
I now recommend the Crucial P3+ m.2 NVMe blade over the WD/SanDisk but only because they are less expensive here. A current generation 4TB NVMe4 x4 Blue is $279 while the P3 Plus is $236. There is no difference in performance or warranty.
Except that the Blue is spec'd for between 600-900TBW while the Crucial is 440TBW.
[For this reason I suggest getting the biggest SSD you can afford. More space means more space to spread writes over. This is especially important in computers where it's soldered to the motherboard and can't be replaced or upgraded (looking at you Apple).
My only issue with that statement is that I'm not sure that twice as much space on a high density drive is necessarily better than once the space on a lower density drive.
It's not something I've looked at ... does anyone have any useful data on it? There may just be too many imponderables
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
[For this reason I suggest getting the biggest SSD you can afford. More space means more space to spread writes over. This is especially important in computers where it's soldered to the motherboard and can't be replaced or upgraded (looking at you Apple).
My only issue with that statement is that I'm not sure that twice as much space on a high density drive is necessarily better than once the space on a lower density drive.
It's not something I've looked at ... does anyone have any useful data on it? There may just be too many imponderables
That's why I mentioned TBW. It's possible to have a 2tb and 1tb drive with the same TBW, which is pretty much what you're talking about. In general though, drives with more space have more TBW than comparable drives with less space - for example a WD Blue 1tb has half the TBW of a WD Blue 2tb.
So this is marked resolved? What was the solution? Last I saw he was still testing
Not sure. His last message he was thinking it might've just been bad luck.
Originally Posted by Joseph Land
Originally Posted by Matt Finley
In the period I used Western Digital, I had their Black series. I’ve had some Toshiba SSDs fail, the portable type. I use only Samsung drives now.
Like you I have a ton of old hard drives, and one of those adapters that you can plug in any drive and connect it by USB. My caution about hard drives is that the magnetism can degrade, so I would not want my only backup to be on a spinning drive.
One thing I do on a periodic basis with any spare SSD's I use for backups, are to plug them into the docking station at lest once every couple of months. SSD's, from what I understand, keeps the 0's and 1's in place because of a small charge. Without a periodic refresh charge, there is a chance you could loose some important data that makes the file readable.
I missed this before. "Periodic refresh" is not necessary with SSD's - NAND memory has data retention on the scale of decades. Similarly with hard drive magnetism, I have recently used hard drives that are a quarter of a century old that haven't been used for 20+ years, and all the data was intact. In general it is good advice to periodically replace your backup medium though.
If the scope can be set to AC coupled, that'll avoid any DC offset. If not, put a capacitor of a few tens of nanofarads in series between the probe and voltage rail.
I never used an oscilloscope yet that didn't have both DC and AC coupling. Is such a model produced?
BIAB & RB2025 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
If the scope can be set to AC coupled, that'll avoid any DC offset. If not, put a capacitor of a few tens of nanofarads in series between the probe and voltage rail.
I never used an oscilloscope yet that didn't have both DC and AC coupling. Is such a model produced?
not one of those MX500s ever failed to my knowledge … I have an MX100 in my 2012 Macbook that I think I've had since 2014 (in multiple computers over the years). Zero problems.
That's nice for a ten year old drive. Both of my 2012 MacBook Pros have 2TB MX500, probably 6 years old. One still has its original battery and WiFi/BT card which is a miracle IMO.
Originally Posted by Mike Halloran
I now recommend the Crucial P3+ m.2 NVMe blade over the WD/SanDisk but only because they are less expensive here. A current generation 4TB NVMe4 x4 Blue is $279 while the P3 Plus is $236. There is no difference in performance or warranty.
Quote
Except that the Blue is spec'd for between 600-900TBW while the Crucial is 440TBW.
No. You're quoting the 2TB. I specifically mentioned the P3+ 4TB, rated 800TBW. From the Product Data Sheet:
That's why I mentioned TBW. It's possible to have a 2tb and 1tb drive with the same TBW, which is pretty much what you're talking about. In general though, drives with more space have more TBW than comparable drives with less space - for example a WD Blue 1tb has half the TBW of a WD Blue 2tb.
Oh, right, yes. That makes sense. I didn't register the significance. Thanks.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
just throwing this out there cos i'm no ssd internals tech.
riddle me this.
could it be that the reason ive never ever had even one drive..old or new tech go on the blink is i always go for small drives eg 256 or 512 ?
in my dim memory i seem to remember talking to a drive tech at a comdex show who said best to use small drives. even old drives ive got here...no probs when i load them up. weird huh ?
Mike...same here...nary an issue with crucial ssd.
happiness.
om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 08/16/2402:43 AM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs (90 songs created useing bb/rb.)
ive never ever had even one drive..old or new tech go on the blink is i always go for small drives eg 256 or 512 ?
It's often said people can be divided into two groups: those who haven't had a drive fail and those who haven't had one fail yet!
I think smaller drives might be more forgiving of wear and tear, but I've certainly had drives of all sizes fail, right back from some 10MB drives in the early 80s.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
My experience would not support that hypothesis, not that it's wrong.
I recall having several drives of all capacities fail. However, my house has been struck by lightning several times and I think that's the underlying cause. Without that, some of those drives might still work fine but there is no way to know.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
To make a long story short, I have narrowed it down to 1 of 2 things.
The docking station I am using is an Inateck FD2002 USB Docking Station.
This morning I plugged in 2 mechanical drives to backup some data and the thing disconnected itself and then reconnected itself 2 times in a 5 min period when copying data over. I had noticed something fishy going on for the past couple of months even with nothing plugged into the DS. The USB disconnect and connect sound would come in for no reason at all. All the power settings in Win10 are set to never sleep including the USB ports. The laptop is an old HP Envy 7 that I purchased back in 2013. I am wondering if the power output of the USB port is being taxed too high with mechanical drives plugged in along with an SSD. I have tried it in multiple ports, both 2.0 and 3.0 with the same results.
Since I plan on purchasing a new Desktop system in a couple of months, rather risk loosing data due to the DS acting strange, I am done sending backup data for now and will retest when I get the new Desktop up and running. I am really beginning to think it is a power draw problem.
I will do 1 more test with a blank mechanical drive. I am going to send some data over the USB connection and watch the Device Manger to see if I can catch any USB drives disconnecting or not.
First, check for a bad USB cable. Just swap it out and see.
Second, about the power draw: besides Dan’s question, you might consider getting a tester. Klein Tools makes a tester, about $40 I think for the better of the two models, that checks the available current from the port and the draw of the device, plus of course the voltage (5).
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Does this 'dock' have its own power supply or does it run off the computer?
Either way, it's probably a cheaper fix than a new computer. Not that I want to talk you out of a newer computer ..
rharv: It has it's own internal power supply and an older style USB cable.
A new one only costs $38 from Amazon, if I decide to replace it.
On the newer computer, I am currently using my old Laptop because my old desktop bit the dust 6 months ago when the MB went bad. And I do mean it was old, bought back in 2006 and it used an AMD Phenom 6 core processor. Not a big loss as it did not even have all the instruction sets to run many of today's programs and was incompatible with the newer version of Windows 11.
Just tried to copy some data over to a spare Toshiba 500gb mechanical laptop drive and it failed after 3gb of data 3 times.
See the attachment.
I then used a single USB to SATA cable and it copied 350 GB of data over flawlessly using the same USB port, 2 separate AOEMI backup images were transferred without a hitch.
So this gets replaced, right? Or at least the power side of it .. the rest of it may work fine, considering USB to SATA worked, all signs (so far) seem to point to power supply at the Inatek more than the unit itself. I've had wall warts fail more times than I care to count, when the unit itself was fine
Last edited by rharv; 08/17/2410:56 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
So this gets replaced, right? Or at least the power side of it .. the rest of it may work fine, considering USB to SATA worked, all signs (so far) seem to point to power supply at the Inatek more than the unit itself. I've had wall warts fail more times than I care to count, when the unit itself was fine
Just copied another bunch of files over via the SATA to USB device and had zero problems.
Good idea about the power supply. I have a bunch of them and even have an old Radio Shack universal power supply with different voltage and polarity settings. Will probably try that tomorrow.
The laptop is an old HP Envy 7 that I purchased back in 2013. I am wondering if the power output of the USB port is being taxed too high with mechanical drives plugged in along with an SSD.
When powering external devices from a laptop, try to connect to the USB port that is as close as possible to the laptop power connection. This minimizes risk of voltage drops that can occur using longer circuit-board tracks on the internal motherboard.
BIAB & RB2025 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
The laptop is an old HP Envy 7 that I purchased back in 2013. I am wondering if the power output of the USB port is being taxed too high with mechanical drives plugged in along with an SSD.
When powering external devices from a laptop, try to connect to the USB port that is as close as possible to the laptop power connection. This minimizes risk of voltage drops that can occur using longer circuit-board tracks on the internal motherboard.
Older USB 2 ports are normally limited to to 0.5A and (usually?) will disconnect if that is exceeded A lot of external drive now expect USB 3 (blue) ports that can supply 3A.
Some older drives had two USB connections to get over the 0.5A limit. Often they'll work OK on just one connection, but it's pushing luck a bit.
Trace length certainly can be an issue and there's also a small current sense resistance in the the circuit so that an over-current can be detected, so the nominal 3V can drop a little.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
[quote=Gordon Scott.................................... A lot of external drive now expect USB 3 (blue) ports that can supply 3A. ................................................... [/quote]
This unit comes with its own power supply. For years I have the same unit plugged into an USB 3 powered hub and I have never had a problem. In fact the specs for this unit calls for USB 3, this from their website:
" RGB Effect Available: The RGB LED flashes quickly when there is a hard drive working in the docking station. It enters breathing mode when the hard drive is under sleep status or gets removed. Offline Clone: The docking station can operate offline cloning independent from a computer. Fast Transfer Speed: Besides USB 3.0 super speed, the docking station supports UASP, which provides even faster data transfer. Wide Compatibility: Support up to 2 x 10TB hard drives. The product is compatible with almost all kinds of 2.5" and 3.5" HDDs and SSDs on the market. Package List: 1 x Inateck SA02003 docking station, 1 x instruction manual, 1 x 12V/3A Power Adapter, 1 x USB 3.0 Data Cable."
Unclear if the pianist is a total beginner or a professional jazz player?
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
Ah ok, I was comparing the 2tb Blue vs the 2tb P3+. The 4tb Blue is 1200TBW, still better than 800TBW for the P3+.
Originally Posted by justanoldmuso
could it be that the reason ive never ever had even one drive..old or new tech go on the blink is i always go for small drives eg 256 or 512 ?
I'd expect the opposite, given that smaller drives have less space available to round-robin. Example - if you wrote 1tb to a 1tb drive it only writes each bit once, where if you wrote 1tb worth of data to a 256gb drive that would overwrite every bit 4 times. This doesn't account for the flash controller failing, only the actual NAND flash.
Originally Posted by Matt Finley
First, check for a bad USB cable. Just swap it out and see.
Always the first thing to try. I recently bought a pair of USB-C M.2 enclosures, and both disconnect under any amount of load - but only when using the included USB cables. Using other cables I had laying around, no issues at all.
Originally Posted by Gordon Scott
A lot of external drive now expect USB 3 (blue) ports that can supply 3A.
The blue USB-A ports can deliver up to 900ma. USB C can deliver 1.5A on a single lane or 3A with multi-lane, or higher if using "power delivery" standards.
Originally Posted by Joseph Land
It is definitely pointing to the Inateck DS.
Just tried to copy some data over to a spare Toshiba 500gb mechanical laptop drive and it failed after 3gb of data 3 times.
See the attachment.
I then used a single USB to SATA cable and it copied 350 GB of data over flawlessly using the same USB port, 2 separate AOEMI backup images were transferred without a hitch.
A lot of external drive now expect USB 3 (blue) ports that can supply 3A.
The blue USB-A ports can deliver up to 900ma. USB C can deliver 1.5A on a single lane or 3A with multi-lane, or higher if using "power delivery" standards.
Hmm ... I'll explore that. The USB-A ports I've done have all used the TI power-distribution chips that set the limit at 500mA continuous, with current trip from750mA.
I have a couple of USB-C power supplies that will deliver 3A at 5V or(?) 12V.
The USB 3 Power Delivery spec. says 3A, but if "power delivery" is special, that may explain that. USB has become a bit convoluted and I haven't designed with it in the last few years.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
The blue USB-A ports can deliver up to 900ma. USB C can deliver 1.5A on a single lane or 3A with multi-lane, or higher if using "power delivery" standards.
Simon's quite correct about 900mA for blue ports, I inadvertently checked the "power delivery" specification for power capability, not the main specification, without realising it was a special case. In my defence, at 631 pages the USB-3.1 specification is 1.5 times the size of the BIAB manual and the power delivery specification is a further 381 pages. The base USB-2 spec is another 650 pages, then there are the protocol specs and the connector specs and ....
Where I last worked, when I reported a delay because something on USB wasn't yet working properly (A Windows 7 bug as it turned out) our sales director's response was "It's USB, you just plug it in and it works! What's the problem?". Idiot!
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
"It's USB, you just plug it in and it works! What's the problem?".
I do remember the slogan 'Plug and Play' often being referred to as 'Shrug and Pray"
Microsoft in particular were infamous for doing half-baked implementations of the host end. That's why people like FTDI gave up and wrote their own alternative drivers.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
I watched a little of both, but they're really a very low level view of things. The PS/2 interface over USB is almost a kludge just to maintain some compatibility. It's very, very simple.
The device discovery video covers a little more, but stays almost entirely within the basic "Hi, who are you" section of the protocol.
The HMI protocol page which he's showing is about as low in the protocol as one can get and still function, apart from that PS/2 interface over USB.
There's lots more.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
Oh yes, it's low level, no question about that. Ben Eater works at bit level, always.
Oh, I see. No, I meant basic rather than bit-level.
Yes, one one very often does have to get right down to bit-level to manage much of USB, often for stuff that's not really relevant.
I wrote a long-ish explanation, but it's now seriously off-topic, so I binned it.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2024 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Windows® Today!
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Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Windows®: Boot Camp: The AI Lyrics Generator
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In this video, Tobin provides a crash course on using the new BB Stem Splitter feature included in Band-in-a-Box 2025® for Windows®. During this process he also uses the Audio Chord Wizard (ACW) and the new Equalize Tempo feature.
Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Windows®: Using the BB Stem Splitter
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