Looking at 2TB External Hard drive purchase

I’m looking at purchasing a 2 TB external hard drive (3.5") … possibly to purchase this weekend (ie possibly as soon as tomorrow).

The drive (made in China) I am looking at is not a well known brand, but I have one of their more portable 2.5" drives already, and I am happy with it. On their web site, they also claim this external 3.5" drive is Linux compatible, and indeed that is indeed my experience with the 2.5" drive, so I don’t anticipate a problem with the 3.5" drive.

The drive is a Fantec Fanbox FB-35U3 3.5", which is a USB-3.0 drive, but it is also purportedly backward compatible with USB-2.0 and 1.1. It comes with a 24-month warantee. I only have the older USB-2.0 on my PCs, however I am rationalizing obtaining a drive with USB-3.0 for use in the future, when some day I procure a PC with USB-3.0 support.

I did a search to see if I could find any reported problems with the drive and Linux, and I did not.

I’ve never owned such a large capacity (a 2TB) external drive before, and I hope there is nothing special I need to be aware of wrt such an large capacity external drive.

I don’t know… 2TB is a lot of data to loose to hardware failure… I know there isn’t a guarantee that any HDD won’t just go belly-up on you, but I would be very picky before I went ahead and made a purchase (in other words, I won’t be buying soon I guess :D)

Hope it works out well for you…

Regards
Neil

I have the same view. I’ve had external hard drives (maxtor) fail in the past.

Hence I typically keep 2 copies of a backup … on separate external hard drives. And I’m running out of room, and hence the need for more backup space.

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:36:02 +0000, oldcpu wrote:

> I’ve never owned such a large capacity (a 2TB) external drive before,
> and I hope there is nothing special I need to be aware of wrt such an
> large capacity external drive.

Something that was suggested to me (after losing two 1 TB drives that
served on my systems for more than a couple years) is to periodically
just read all the data - piping to null is OK, but that is supposed to
help with making sure the magnetic domains stay strong.

Don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what I’ve heard.

Jim


Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator

You’ll find that the casing may be Fantec but the SATA HD inside will be one of the large manufacturers. So there shouldn’t be any issues other than the usual ones with 2TB drives. Check also if the HD offers 4kB blocks which will improve performance.

I picked up the external hard drive from our local PC shop today. It was about 5 euros more expensive from them, but for that small price difference I prefer to give them the business.

Some pix:

The basic packaging while still boxed:
http://thumbnails32.imagebam.com/11042/2b762e110416907.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/2b762e110416907)

the various parts:
http://thumbnails32.imagebam.com/11042/20b9b8110416915.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/20b9b8110416915)

The USB-3.0 cable:
http://thumbnails24.imagebam.com/11042/c02e1f110416925.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/c02e1f110416925)

My computer with the drive plugged in my openSUSE-11.2 PC:
http://thumbnails24.imagebam.com/11042/8f94e5110416937.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/8f94e5110416937)

and some information on the drive:

From “lususb”

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 152d:0539 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. 

With hard drive mounted (it shows up as ‘sdb’ ) :

Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0ef37641

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1      243202  1953512448    7  HPFS/NTFS

… and the appropriate section from ‘df -Th’ :

Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1  fuseblk    1.9T  144M  1.9T   1% /media/Volume 

I copied a few test files to it and it worked. But I could not test more due to other commitments.

Last night I copied (as a backup) about 360 GBytes of home videos (originally from my Canon HF S10 video camera) that were on my Core i7 920’s hard drive, to the external drive, over a USB-2.0 interface (I do not have a USB-3.0 on my computer). As near as I can determine the copy went well (although I have not conducted a quality check to ensure all files correct - there are many).

Even though the copy operation appeared a bit faster than that of a nominal USB-2.0 (possibly due to the higer quality USB-3.0 cable in conjuction with the superior USB-3.0 electonics on the USB-3.0 external hard drive), the backup operation (using KDE-4.4.4’s dolphin) still took about a couple of hours.

In truth, I initiated the backup/copy before I went to bed, and it was still copying when it was time to go to bed. So I just left the operation run and when I got up this morning (over 7 hours later) I note the backup was complete, and the external hard drive was no longer accessible from KDE-4.4.4 as it appeared to have gone into a low power sleep mode ? … anyway, I disconnected the USB cable, and then reconnected the USB cable, and the external drive woke up. I did a random check of some of the movie files and they were complete. I then unmounted the external drive properly.

Thus far, all appears well with this new hardware.

Thats a mistake in my post. This PC is using openSUSE-11.2 with KDE-4.3.5’s dophin.

I’m puzzling over this a bit. I don’t think JMicron produce external drives! They do produce interface controllers, and I’m wondering now if the 152d:0539 corresponds to this SuperSpeed USB to SATA II 3.0G Bridge: Product JMS539

I was too hasty there. I note “152d” corresponds to Quanta, reference PCI Vendor and Device Lists

Quanta Computer Inc

Vendor Id: 0x152D
Short Name:
Contact:
Web Site: Quanta Computer
Notes:

The USB ID will be that of the USB to SATA converter chip, not the HD. So it will probably be a chip mfr’s ID.

@oldcpu: Use

# smartctl --all /dev/sdb

to find out what type of HD is inside the case. Then a bit of googling would turn up whether this drive has 4K physical sectors.

Also check how the partition is aligned:

# parted /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 2.2
Using /dev/sdb
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) unit s                                                           
(parted) print                                                            
Model: ATA WDC WD10EARS-00Y (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1953525168s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start  End          Size         Type     File system  Flags
 1      64s    1953523711s  1953523648s  primary  ext4         type=83

(parted) unit chs                                                         
(parted) print                                                            
Model: ATA WDC WD10EARS-00Y (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 121601,80,62
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
BIOS cylinder,head,sector geometry: 121601,255,63.  Each cylinder is 8225kB.
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start  End           Type     File system  Flags
 1      0,1,1  121601,57,55  primary  ext4         type=83

(parted) quit

This is an example of my box. Your values will be different.

Your external drive appears to be rather slow. The bottleneck could be USB2.0 or the drive itself. Play a bit with hdparm.

# hdparm -i /dev/sdb
# hdparm -t /dev/sdb

-i displays some capabilities and settings, -t gets a speed timing.

I’ll check those out tonight .

I don’t know why you believe it slow. The drive ‘may’ indeed be slow, but I did not observe that on my tests. Just the contrary. It appeared FAST (given the constraints under which it was operating).

Now given I only had a USB2.0 interface, from my recollection it was signficantly faster than any previous USB2.0 transfer that I have done before with an external hard drive.

I have something like 6 or 7 different external hard drives. I’ll compare them, … and my suspicion (about to be disproved or proven) is that this Fantec is the fastest yet.

I don’t know why you believe it slow.

Because you said:

the backup operation … still took about a couple of hours.

At the maximum possible speed of USB-2.0 (480 Mbit/sec) you could transfer 360GB in 1 hour and 42 minutes. It all depends how long “a couple of hours” is; less that 7 hours for sure. Well, I may be completely wrong.

oldcpu wrote:

>
> vodoo;2265376 Wrote:
>> @oldcpu: Use …
>
> I’ll check those out tonight .
>
> vodoo;2265376 Wrote:
>> Your external drive appears to be rather slow. The bottleneck could be
>> USB2.0 or the drive itself. Play a bit with hdparm.
>
> I don’t know why you believe it slow. The drive ‘may’ indeed be slow,
> but I did not observe that on my tests. Just the contrary. It appeared
> FAST (given the constraints under which it was operating).
>
> Now given I only had a USB2.0 interface, from my recollection it was
> signficantly faster than any previous USB2.0 transfer that I have done
> before with an external hard drive.
>
> I have something like 6 or 7 different external hard drives. I’ll
> compare them, … and my suspicion (about to be disproved or proven) is
> that this Fantec is the fastest yet.
>
>
I had some grief with USB connections to 1TB HDDs I was using for backup.

For some reason they just started getting slower and slower and I never
found the reason. Fortunately the Akasa enclosures I use (and the mobo of my
server at the time) had eSATA interfaces and I switched to that and
connections went like a rocket :slight_smile: In fact, so much so, that when the server
mobo died I bought an eSATA card for the new mobo and I’ve run with eSATA
ever since.


Alan

I checked using the commands vodoo suggested. Frankly, the speed of all drives is very very similar. Speed differences are mostly minor, except I note the Firewire-400 is slower than the USB2.0 and the Firewire-800 faster than the USB2.0.

Of note I performed the copy operation last night with dolphin, where dolphin is NOT known for fast copy operations, so conclusions of a drive being slow based on the speed of a dolphin file manager transfer would IMHO be highly misleading, unless one compares copy operations of all drives under identical conditions. My experience is the new Fantec WAS faster than dolphin with other drives I have at home.

Now reference a summary from the suggested commands:

Most of the time that command did not work, and gave an error about controller not known.

I think there is a syntax error there. That “-i” option always gives an error, against 6 different external hard drives.

I ran some of those tests suggested against various external hard drives that I own, starting with the oldest (with a summary of results):

**Maxtor One Touch III - 500 GB drive ** (ID 0d49:7200 Maxtor) - I have 2 of these 500GB drives. They support both Firewire and USB. The Firewire implementation on these drives was slow (Firewire-400 I think).

  • USB2.0 => Timing buffered disk reads: 96 MB in 3.02 seconds = 31.83 MB/sec
  • Firewire => Timing buffered disk reads: 74 MB in 3.01 seconds = 24.59 MB/sec
    About the same for both drives. “hdparm -t /dev/sdb” run multiple times.

Seagate Free Agent Desktop - 500 MB (ID 0bc2:3000 Seagate RSS LLC) - I have 1 of these 500 GB drives. It only has USB.

  • USB2.0 => Timing buffered disk reads: 98 MB in 3.05 seconds = 32.11 MB/sec
    I ran “hdparm -t /dev/sdb” run multiple times.

**Seagate Free Agent Xtreme - 1TB **(ID 0bc2:3101 Seagate RSS LLC) - I have 1 of these 1TB drives. It has both USB and Firewire where the Firewire is faster (Firewire-800 I think):

  • USB2.0 => Timing buffered disk reads: 102 MB in 3.04 seconds = 33.57 MB/sec
  • Firewire => Timing buffered disk reads: 120 MB in 3.03 seconds = 39.55 MB/sec
    I ran “hdparm -t /dev/sdb” run multiple times.

old Fantec 2.5 inch drive - 500GB (ID 04fc:0c15 Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd) (FUJITSU MJA2500BH G2) - I have 1 of these 2.5" 500GB drives. It has only USB.

  • USB2.0 => Timing buffered disk reads: 92 MB in 3.00 seconds = 30.64 MB/sec
    I ran “hdparm -t /dev/sdb” run multiple times.

old Seagate 2.5 inch drive - 80 GB (ID 0bc2:0501 Seagate RSS LLC) - I have 1 of these very old 2.5" 80GB drives. It has only USB.

  • USB2.0 => Timing buffered disk reads: 96 MB in 3.05 seconds = 31.52 MB/sec
    I ran “hdparm -t /dev/sdb” run multiple times.

new Fantec Fanbox drive - 2TB (ID 152d:0539 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp) (SAMSUNG HD204UI)- This is the new 2TB drive I just purchased. It comes with USB3.0 that is backward compatible with USB2.0 and USB1.1.

  • using its USB2.0 compat mode => Timing buffered disk reads: 102 MB in 3.02 seconds = 33.82 MB/sec
    I ran “hdparm -t /dev/sdb” run multiple times.

Note I learned the new Fantec Fanbox drive is a SAMSUNG HD204UI by modifying one of the commands you suggested, running:

smartctl -d usbjmicron -i /dev/sdb

which gave information on the drive inside the Fantec Fanbox.

Conclusions ?

The conclusion I come up with is the USB2.0 compatibility mode of the new ‘Fantec’ is NOT slower than the USB2.0 in the other external drives I use. It may be imperceptibly faster in real life use in USB2.0 compatibility mode (except the Firewire-800 is clearly faster than the USB2.0 compatibility mode).

I think there is a syntax error there. That “-i” option always gives an error, against 6 different external hard drives.

At least it works fine for internal SATA drives:

# hdparm -i /dev/sdf

/dev/sdf:

 Model=WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1, FwRev=80.00A80, SerialNo=WD-WCAV5H111631
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=1953525168
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio3 pio4 
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 
 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: Unspecified:  ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

 * signifies the current active mode

Note I learned the new Fantec Fanbox drive is a SAMSUNG HD204UI

Oops … this HD has a very nasty firmaware bug which can lead to data loss:

Wie der smartmontools-Entwickler Christian Franke herausgefunden hat, reagierte die alte Firmware der betroffenen Festplatte in manchen Betriebszuständen fehlerhaft auf den ATA-Standardbefehl “IDENTIFY DEVICE”. Diesen verwenden Utilities wie die smartmontools unter Linux und Windows oder auch die Seatools unter Windows, um Informationen vom Laufwerk abzufragen

heise online - Firmware-Patch für Samsung-Festplatte EcoGreen F4 HD204UI

heise online - SMART-Tool beschädigt Daten auf Samsung-Festplatte (Update)

SamsungF4EGBadBlocks

And - as I expected because of it’s 2TB capacity - it has a physical 4K sector size:

Der smartmontools-Entwickler weist auch auf einen anderen, für die Datensicherheit aber unwesentlichen Fehler der Firmware hin: Anders als von der ATA-Spezifikation vorgesehen, liefert der IDENTIFY-DEVICE-Befehl keinen Hinweis darauf, dass die Platte mit physischen 4-KByte-Sektoren arbeitet und 512-Byte-Sektoren emuliert. Das ist aber auch bei anderen Festplatten mit physischen 4-KByte-Sektoren der Fall, etwa solchen von Western Digital (WD).

As it appears you have to fix the firmware bug first and then use parted to properly align the partition on the 4K sectors. Or exchange the drive for another one that works :frowning:

Unfortunately I don’t speak German, so I need to rely on google (or other) computer translator to attempt to get the entire picture.

From what I have read the bug only impacts if one uses smart tools (or hdparm other other tools to get disk information) ? (which unfortunately I just did while trying to learn about the drive).

Is having smart tools running the default config for openSUSE or does it need to be enabled?

I don’t ever recall starting smart tools (but maybe it is default). And if default, does smart tools only access drives in one’s fstab, or does it also access external drives that are mounted only occasionally via an adhoc mount.

For what I saw in skimming this, is one can NOT tell if the firmware has been updated, as after the update, the firmware version does not change ! :open_mouth:

So presumeably then I would need to apply the firmware update under the assumption it has not been applied (even IF it has been applied).

After one applies a firware update, from where do you come by the requirement to “then use parted to properly align the partition on the 4K sectors.” ?? I don’t see that in the English language URL article.

I sent our local PC shop an email (from where I purchased the Fantek Fanbox 2TB external hard drive) advising them of the firmware problem with the Samsung HD204UI 2TB Hard drive. I also noted the Samsung HD204 UI is the drive inside their Fantek Fanbox 2TB. I notice now they have annotated on their web site that the Samsung HD204UI requires 1-2 days before its in stock. I don’t know if that was the case from before, but it does give them time to apply the firmware update before they sell the drive to customers (if they do so a firmware update … I don’t know if they do). I note they still have the Fantek Fanbox 2TB drive for sale with no such waiting time, so I can not tell if they have reacted to my email on that.

In the email I advised them of the firmware update being needed (with the links Vodoo provided) and also advised them I would

  1. try the firmware update myself, or if not comfortable doing that
  2. return the drive for them to do the firmware update

May not be such a bad idea to combine a local backup (the 2TB disk) with an online backup site (like CrashPlan or the Amazon sites?) so the local drive is available for quick restores and the online storage is good for catastrophic loss (house fire, flood, theft, etc.).

The downside to online, though, is that it takes a long time to download things to a new system. Somebody in our computer club had 160 GB backed up online, and he decided to test it. So he deleted his data (or was it his system) and tried to restore it from the online backup. It took him 15 days (~10GB/day) to download everything, but it worked!