wrote:

I bought a Toshiba hdtc710xr3a1 external drive for backing up my new
computer running professional windows-7 64 bit operating system.. I
also bought Acronis True Image 2015. This a home-built desktop.
computer.

Repeated attempts to back up using Acronis failed, apparently blocked
by the external drive.

Failing with Acronis, I attempted to backup using windows' program,
which also failed.

During all this, pop-ups asking how I wanted to use the drive
repeatedly appeared. Also, I kept getting pop-ups saying I needed to
format the drive before I could use it. It is already formatted.

To insure the drive could accept files, using explorer I copied
several files to it from other hard drives. And then deleted them.

So, to make sure the backup programs were functioning correctly, I
successfully backed up, using both programs, to a empty/spare internal
hard rive. At lest I have a backup now, but not where I wanted
it/them!

The drive had backup software installed on it, which I didn't want to
use.

So, it appears that there is something unique about the drive that
windows doesn't like. I am about ready to return it. I hate to,
because I like to solve problems...not skirt them. This is a new
experience for me.

I have successfully used a Toshiba external drive (different model) on
my laptop.

Before I ship it back, I would like some comments on this problem.

Ben

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

The problem that I've seen when saving backups on USB-attached HDDs is
that some makers, especially the prebuilt boxes (versus you installing
an HDD into a USB enclosure), deliberately have their devices go to
sleep. Supposedly this is to save power but I also suspect it is
because the enclosure does not have sufficient cooling capacity so they
cycle it down to keep it from overheating. You didn't mention SSD so
I'll assume it's a mechanical HDD inside and those create heat. Some
enclosures have a fan to cool the drive or provide larger cooling vents
and use the case as a heatsink. Most prebuilts just provide a cutsy
case and almost no ventilation or conduction of heat. So they define
algorithms within their firmware to cycle down the HDD.

The problem is the backup program may end up crunching a huge string of
characters and doing a lot of work without writing anything to the drive
for quite awhile. That means the drive cycles down (by itself, not part
of Windows powering mode) but the backup program expects immediate
access when it does decide to start writing to the device again.

What I've seen is that the backup job begins just fine. The backup
program starts writing to the USB-attached HDD but sometime after 1 to 4
hours the backup job has hung. The drive wasn't responsive. The drive
is not broke. It just keeps cycling down when it has been idle for too
long. Not only do the makers put in slower spinning HDDs (because they
generate less heat) but they also stick in "green" drives that
themselves will cycle down under whatever conditions the maker has
decided, like being idle because there haven't been any writes for some
number of minutes so they suspect the drive. The problem is a program
may not expect the delay to resume from suspend, like the time to spin
up the platters.

In fact, this used to be a problem under Windows 8 where USB-attached
(external) drives would disappear. Before the Win8 fix, some users
found NoSleepHD (http://nosleephd.codeplex.com/) or KeepAlive
(http://keepalivehd.codeplex.com/) which kept the drive awake so long
backup jobs to finish okay. See:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/...ost-title.aspx

That was Windows 8 ****ing up its users. USB drive makers do the same
when they have their logic suspend a drive because there have been no
writes for too long (i.e., suspend on idle). Not all programs are going
to wait until the platters get spun up again and for the drive to
finally become ready. Other than getting a USB drive that resume much
more quickly or doesn't suspect at all (because you connect it to a
desktop instead of to a laptop or notebook so power consumption is not
an issue), you might want to check your power options to disable USB
selective mode. See:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...-turn-off.html

Obviously if you are running a backup job, you should not be running a
laptop on batteries during the backup. Plug the laptop into its A/C
power adapter and run off of line power. That should switch you into a
different power profile (where USB select suspend is disabled). This
setting won't help if it's the firmware in the USB drive that is
performing its own suspend mode.

When I had someone ask me why the backups were erroring or stalling
after several hours during a backup job, the cure was to get a better
prebuilt USB drive that matched you use of it (or I'd build one for them
using a non-green HDD).