Geek and Gadgets

Harddrive Smart Tips

Well, as more technology gets bigger and bolder, there are a few primary basics that we must adhere to. This one is from experience.

I have a WD 1 TB external harddrive, that uses FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 and is really great! However, a few days ago, the fans sounded loud and lo-and-be-hold, it died. Now, with 1 TB drives, this may be an issue if it is really composed of 2 x 500 GB drives. The data is essentially split onto both drives, not neatly, some files on one, and some files on another either. In fact, some of the same file may be on both, therefore, you need to put it into an enclosure that can fir 2 x 500 GB drives and hope for the best.

That is where I am now. It has al of my iTunes music on it and some other important stuff, not work files of course or software. Just stuff I realy want. It is the only drive I did not have a copy of yet, of course.

So, I will buy an enclosure for them, start it up, and hopefully it was not the drives themselves but the chip that moderates the external hardrive. Fan still works, and it is clean inside.

Anyone else out there fallen into the same very large external harddrive syndrome?

Stay tuned. I will post the result when I have a moment to see what I can do. Thoughts, suggestions, would love to hear them.

The lesson: if using a very large external drive that is really composed of 2 or more harddrives, make sure you have a RAID copy of them or a complete clone on anoter set of drives exactly like the main one.

You can never be too careful with your backup methods.

Lesson learned.