Question about External HD
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From: Nick Naym on 25 Jan 2010 14:53 In article jollyroger-D98938.19310324012010(a)news.individual.net, Jolly Roger at jollyroger(a)pobox.com wrote on 1/24/10 8:31 PM: > In article > <nospam.m-m-2929A4.11364324012010(a)cpe-76-190-186-198.neo.res.rr.com>, > M-M <nospam.m-m(a)ny.more> wrote: > >> In article <jollyroger-65A1E0.10053024012010(a)news.individual.net>, >> Jolly Roger <jollyroger(a)pobox.com> wrote: >> >>> In my book it's Seagate > all others. Of course that's just my opinion, >>> and you know what they say about opinions. : ) >> >> I have been reading that the Seagate 7200 2.5" drives have some serious >> reliability issues that may or not have been fixed with a firmware >> update: >> >> http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-ST3320613AS-Bare-Frustration-Free >> -Packaging/product-reviews/B001VKYA5Y/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showVie >> wpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar > > You can find similar reports about just about every hard drive > manufacturer in existence. All manufacturers make mistakes, and all of > them have bad batches or drives from time to time. It's the nature of > the business. Seagate drives are certainly among the most reliable in my > experience. Seagate has had a slew of problems these past few years, as evidenced by posts in its forums as well as user reports on retailer sites like Newegg. Though not alone in this regard -- overall, drive quality has, IMO, plummeted because of Industry cost-cutting measures that have resulted in increasing reliance on economically distressed offshore suppliers -- I have the sense that Seagate has suffered the most. (As you know, JR, the company recently slashed its 5-year product warranty to 3 years, using the transparently lame excuse that it was doing so simply to be "more in line with the rest of the industry.") The other thing that might be worth mentioning is that Seagate's support for Mac is (IMO) not as good as it is for PCs, as evidenced by its lack of a Mac version of its HD diagnostic/utility software (I forgot the name). Additionally, when I got my Barracuda (September, 2008), I was told by a Seagate tech that they won't deal with any problems that occur if the drive is used in an external enclosure (which, of course, is how I'm using it) -- they don't want to get caught up in a finger-pointing contest between themselves and the enclosure vendor should a drive problem arise. -- iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) � OS X (10.5.8)
From: Erik Richard Sørensen on 25 Jan 2010 14:57 nospam wrote: > Erik Richard Sørensen <NOSPAM(a)NOSPAM.dk> wrote: >>>> each time you move the mouse, >>>> type on the keyboard, using your printer, etc., the transfer speed will >>>> be affected, >>> only if you have they keyboard/mouse on the *same* usb bus as the >>> drive. that's normally not the case. the keyboard is usually plugged >>> into the mac itself, with the mouse plugged into the keyboard. a usb >>> hard drive is then plugged into another usb port on the mac. they're >>> separate. >> Nope, it aught to be so, but it isn't. > > it is. No matter what you say, it still isn't so! - The upcoming USB 3 - when/if it comes - should be more like Firewire in the construction, but until now we haven't seen much of it... >> The USB is still running through >> both CPU and mobo and depending on the mobo+CPU calls. > > a modern cpu can handle multiple hard drives. this isn't an 8mhz 68000 > with polled scsi anymore. You can't compare an ATA/SATA controller with an UsB controller, - they are totally different in buildings. >> There are a few - >> very few - computers that have independant and fully balanced USB >> connections, but Mac is not one of them. > > ever since the ibook dual usb back in 2001, macs have had independent > usb ports. Yes, the _ports_ are independant, but the chipset isnot. And it is here that USB gets it problems. >> You can 'fool' an USB port to >> believe that it is balanced by using an external fully balanced USB hub >> with separate PSU. >> >> - Imaging said you could also say it so that USB is a 'serial >> construction', while Firewire is a 'parallel construction'... > > maybe you can. OK, the word 'imaging' is maybe not the best English expression, but what I mean is that 'parallel' and 'serial' here is 'figuratively', - but even though not that far from real truth.:-) Cheers, Erik Richard -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Erik Richard Sørensen, Member of ADC, <mac-manNOSP(a)Mstofanet.dk> NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Text Processing - www.nisus.com OpenOffice.org - The Modern Productivity Solution - www.openoffice.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: nospam on 25 Jan 2010 15:28 In article <4b5df7a1$0$4812$ba624c82(a)nntp02.dk.telia.net>, Erik Richard S�rensen <NOSPAM(a)NOSPAM.dk> wrote: > >>> only if you have they keyboard/mouse on the *same* usb bus as the > >>> drive. that's normally not the case. the keyboard is usually plugged > >>> into the mac itself, with the mouse plugged into the keyboard. a usb > >>> hard drive is then plugged into another usb port on the mac. they're > >>> separate. > >> Nope, it aught to be so, but it isn't. > > > > it is. > > No matter what you say, it still isn't so! - The upcoming USB 3 - > when/if it comes - should be more like Firewire in the construction, but > until now we haven't seen much of it... i'm not talking about usb 3 > > >> The USB is still running through > >> both CPU and mobo and depending on the mobo+CPU calls. > > > > a modern cpu can handle multiple hard drives. this isn't an 8mhz 68000 > > with polled scsi anymore. > > You can't compare an ATA/SATA controller with an UsB controller, - they > are totally different in buildings. who said anything about ata/sata? > >> There are a few - > >> very few - computers that have independant and fully balanced USB > >> connections, but Mac is not one of them. > > > > ever since the ibook dual usb back in 2001, macs have had independent > > usb ports. > > Yes, the _ports_ are independant, but the chipset isnot. And it is here > that USB gets it problems. and what problems are those? did it not occur to you that one chip can have multiple independent ports? > >> You can 'fool' an USB port to > >> believe that it is balanced by using an external fully balanced USB hub > >> with separate PSU. > >> > >> - Imaging said you could also say it so that USB is a 'serial > >> construction', while Firewire is a 'parallel construction'... > > > > maybe you can. > > OK, the word 'imaging' is maybe not the best English expression, but > what I mean is that 'parallel' and 'serial' here is 'figuratively', - > but even though not that far from real truth.:-) it's far enough. they're both serial as far as the cabling goes, but you could say that firewire is more 'serial' since it is daisy chained, whereas usb is more 'parallel' since there are multiple devices off one hub.
From: Tom Stiller on 25 Jan 2010 16:07 In article <250120101528212498%nospam(a)nospam.invalid>, nospam <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote: > they're both serial as far as the cabling goes, but you could say that > firewire is more 'serial' since it is daisy chained, whereas usb is > more 'parallel' since there are multiple devices off one hub. FireWire hubs exist also. -- Tom Stiller PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3 7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF
From: Erik Richard Sørensen on 25 Jan 2010 16:30
nospam wrote: > Erik Richard Sørensen <NOSPAM(a)NOSPAM.dk> wrote: >>>>> only if you have they keyboard/mouse on the *same* usb bus as the >>>>> drive. that's normally not the case. the keyboard is usually plugged >>>>> into the mac itself, with the mouse plugged into the keyboard. a usb >>>>> hard drive is then plugged into another usb port on the mac. they're >>>>> separate. >>>> Nope, it aught to be so, but it isn't. >>> it is. >> No matter what you say, it still isn't so! - The upcoming USB 3 - >> when/if it comes - should be more like Firewire in the construction, but >> until now we haven't seen much of it... > > i'm not talking about usb 3 Nope, but you're talking about something that isnot included in neiteher USB 1.1 nor 2.0 on any Mac - not even the MacPro! - And then I'm telling you that USB 3 is the only USB connection system that has totally independant USB curcuits exactly as the Firewire has it. >>>> The USB is still running through >>>> both CPU and mobo and depending on the mobo+CPU calls. >>> a modern cpu can handle multiple hard drives. this isn't an 8mhz 68000 >>> with polled scsi anymore. >> You can't compare an ATA/SATA controller with an UsB controller, - they >> are totally different in buildings. > > who said anything about ata/sata? It is you who began talking about harddisks and SCSI - not me. I just pointed it out to you that you can't compare anything like that with USB. >>>> There are a few - >>>> very few - computers that have independant and fully balanced USB >>>> connections, but Mac is not one of them. >>> ever since the ibook dual usb back in 2001, macs have had independent >>> usb ports. >> Yes, the _ports_ are independant, but the chipset isnot. And it is here >> that USB gets it problems. > > and what problems are those? did it not occur to you that one chip can > have multiple independent ports? The 'problem' is that the USB still is a sort of serial construction where each port is depending on the other ports. There are simply no Mac computer with built-in independant USB circuitry. The only method you can get independant USB circuitry on a Mac is to add an USB PCIe card - and that you can only do to stationery Macs - not portables! - OK, you can do it to the larger models with the ExpressCard slot - but else no possibility of independant USB on a Mac. >>>> You can 'fool' an USB port to >>>> believe that it is balanced by using an external fully balanced USB hub >>>> with separate PSU. >>>> >>>> - Imaging said you could also say it so that USB is a 'serial >>>> construction', while Firewire is a 'parallel construction'... >>> maybe you can. >> OK, the word 'imaging' is maybe not the best English expression, but >> what I mean is that 'parallel' and 'serial' here is 'figuratively', - >> but even though not that far from real truth.:-) > > it's far enough. > > they're both serial as far as the cabling goes, but you could say that > firewire is more 'serial' since it is daisy chained, whereas usb is > more 'parallel' since there are multiple devices off one hub. For that manner you can also 'daisy-chain' USB devices, but that doesn't change anything since the transferred signal still is routed through the cabling, which the FW signal isn't. FW here is more like a cabled 'radio transmitter', where you send multiple signals with slightly shifted carrying signal frequencies to/from each FW device. Cheers, Erik Richard -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Erik Richard Sørensen, Member of ADC, <mac-manNOSP(a)Mstofanet.dk> NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Text Processing - www.nisus.com OpenOffice.org - The Modern Productivity Solution - www.openoffice.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |