Why I Use TWO USB Backup Drives

[BobArch2]

I don't understand the relationship between USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s and why the throughput is ratcheted back to 3 Gb/s.

The USB 3.0 enclosure I bought to house the separately purchased hard drive will accommodate SATA 1.5Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s hard drives. If one considers the speed of USB 3.0 I suspect that the SATA 3Gb/s capability is a good match. Doubt that it could sustain the 6Gb/s capability.

I had bought 3 x 1TB WDC Caviar Black SATA 6Gb/s hard drives. Two for internal use and the third for the external enclosure. I could have bought a WDC Caviar 3Gb/s SATA drive but that would have eliminated any future possibility of moving that drive to an internal function. Each of the drives was about Cdn$85 (before HST) so to me it made sense to keep them all equal. The WDC SATA 6Gb/s drives can be jumped to reduce the speed to 3Gb/s.

Hope your new equipment matches your expectations!!!

If you have to get the SATA 6Gb/s add-on PCIe card, remember to post back some timings... for Al's consideration.

[ChrisGreaves]

There's a good joke in there somewhere about a well-known North American parcel-delivery service being put into reverse and crushing a hard-drive ...

But please see also Slideshow: Total data destruction: how to wipe out your hard

I have attached a set of Batch files with an "Install.doc". Ignore the contact details. I'll be happy to answer questions here, or in a separate thread.

[BobArch2]

You've created a dilemma for me, mostly about the USB 3 cards. I don't know if they would perform as well as your "native" USB 3 computer, so I've got some digging to do.

Not sure either Al. One would hope that an add-on card would provide the same speed as a motherboard connector. Almost tempted to go buy an add-on card to test!!!

BTW, you did misunderstand my my original post in that I HATE Seagate and would NEVER buy another such labeled drive...

Hmmmm, if I had known that I would have told you to dump the !@#$%^ Seagates!!!

The times you show in your material are REALLY impressive although I have to admit I've not been concerned about times since I let my Saturday full backup run while I fix supper and my nightly incrementals take only seconds.

I never conducted any tests on the new system when I first assembled it a few months back and didn't realize how slow the external WDC EIDE drive was behaving. I only use that drive for periodic XCOPY backups of data files. Perhaps if I really get that USB 3 add-on card I'll get another SATA 6Gb/s WDC to populate a new USB 3.0 enclosure.

The "thing" for me is the short life of the USB externals and now I'm inclined to believe it MAY very well be a heat problem...

Very possibly a heat problem. The two Vantec enclosures I have do not have fans... but are purported to be heat dispelling (is that a valid word?) My external units are only powered on when backups are due. The USB 3 unit is used for monthly backups while the USB 2 unit, as stated, is only for periodic backups.

[PaulB]

Bob, thanks for clarifying your comment above for me. You've dispelled some false assumptions I had re: USB external drives. One more query: You state above that the "USB 3 unit is used for monthly backups while the USB 2 unit, as stated, is only for periodic backups." Do incremental backups form part of your backup procedures? Do you do your regular backups to only one disk or do you, like BigAl, alternate disks?

[BobArch2]

...You state above that the "USB 3 unit is used for monthly backups while the USB 2 unit, as stated, is only for periodic backups." Do incremental backups form part of your backup procedures? Do you do your regular backups to only one disk or do you, like BigAl, alternate disks?

I like pictures... Hope this explains my procedures...

BA_BackupProcs.gif

[PaulB]

The graphic certainly clarifies everything. Thanks, Bob.

[BobArch2]

The graphic certainly clarifies everything. Thanks, Bob.

A couple of years ago I bought a pair of external hard drives for archiving television shows recorded on my PVR. The enclosures were made by LaCie with Hitachi DeskStar 7K1000.B hard drives. I attached one of the units to my PVR and it has been operating exceptionally well for the last two years. I attached the second unit to my, then, main PC and used it for backups... monthly... again without any hitches.

Based on the poor timings of the WDC EIDE attached to the USB 2.0 port on my new PC, I decided to do a swap and try the LaCie unit on the new beast attached to a USB 2.0 port on the motherboard. The timings surprised me. The main difference being that the Hitachi DeskStar HD inside the LaCie enclosure is a SATA 3GB/s drive.

I tried the copying of the 97 movie files from an internal WDC SATA 6Gb/s to the LaCie box via the USB 2.0 port. Here's a snaphot of the task in progress:

CopyToLaCie.gif

The total file sizes are the same as yesterday's tests. The total time for the test was 11 minutes and 12 seconds. About 1/5 of the USB 2 test yesterday. The relative speed of this test in the modified environment is 23,767,673 bytes per second.

Needless to say, the WDC EIDE drive has been shelved and replaced by the LaCie unit.