Putting a WD2500JB IDE on my XP PC

My PC has both SATA and IDE (EIDE?) drives. One IDE drive is removable.
I decided to beef up the capacity of my PC, so bought a new WD2500JB
IDE(?) for the removable drive slot. Something is not working right.

I have a SATA WD3200AAJS-01 HD set up for my C: drive, NTFS, master,
~300GB. Further, there's an IDE WD800BB-75 HD set as a master,
NTFS/FAT32. The FAT32 partition is ~280MB for the F: drive, and ~75GB
for the NTFS E: drive. Apparently, the D: drive is for a removable HD.
For that I'd like to use the 250GB WD2500JB HD.

Here's my problem. It appears I have the jumper set up is incorrect on
the WD2500JB. When I use it, I do not see the E: and F: drives. The
jumper instructions on the top of the HD provide some guidance. To
start, I used the 7-8 pins as a jumper. That's where the jumper was when
I opened the box. What is correct in my case?

1-2 Select
3-4 Slave
5-6 Master or Slave
7-8 Single or Master
9-10 None

W. eWatson wrote:
My PC has both SATA and IDE (EIDE?) drives. One IDE drive is removable.
I decided to beef up the capacity of my PC, so bought a new WD2500JB
IDE(?) for the removable drive slot. Something is not working right.

I have a SATA WD3200AAJS-01 HD set up for my C: drive, NTFS, master,
~300GB. Further, there's an IDE WD800BB-75 HD set as a master,
NTFS/FAT32. The FAT32 partition is ~280MB for the F: drive, and ~75GB
for the NTFS E: drive. Apparently, the D: drive is for a removable HD.
For that I'd like to use the 250GB WD2500JB HD.

Here's my problem. It appears I have the jumper set up is incorrect on
the WD2500JB. When I use it, I do not see the E: and F: drives. The
jumper instructions on the top of the HD provide some guidance. To
start, I used the 7-8 pins as a jumper. That's where the jumper was when
I opened the box. What is correct in my case?

1-2 Select
3-4 Slave
5-6 Master or Slave
7-8 Single or Master
9-10 None

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/...el-wd2500jb%2C

It sounds like you have a ten pin drive.

In the jumper block picture, the top two on the
upper left, do the same thing. The top one, shows how
to *store* two jumpers, without triggering anything.
Drives come with a variable number of jumpers - there
is no guarantee you get a jumper. It's the luck of
the draw at the factory.

http://support.wdc.com/images/drives...rs/jumpers.gif

The second from the top, is for a *single* drive. We
would also call that "Master only", as another method
of labeling the option.

The third one down, is "Master with Slave". It's for
a situation, where the Slave is already connected to
the cable, you're adding your new drive as a Master.
So there will be two drives on the cable when you use
that selection.

The second from the bottom is "Slave". Since a Slave
would never be used by itself, it'll always have another
drive with it. Still, I prefer to just call that one Slave.
To be consistent with other manufacturers who have Slave
as a choice.

The bottom one is Cable Select. The position on the cable,
then determines the role of the drive. That's done, by a special
modification to the 80 wire cable, so one connector position
applies a different electrical condition, than the other connector
position. That's how the drive knows which connector it's on.
One drive automatically becomes Master, the other drive
becomes Slave. Dell would use this option on a new computer,
so that their staff don't even have to think :-) Cable
Select is for rapid computer assembly, whapping in as many
drives as you want without even looking at the jumper block.
When Dell buys their drives, they'll want the drive factory to
put that jumper in the Cable Select position. Then the assemblers
can turn off their brain and turn on their screwdrivers.

Now, lets draw them graphically, as economically as possible.
I won't show the jumper storage position this time.

9 7 5 3 1
.. . . . .
(none) Master Only
.. . . . .

---------------------------

.. . X . .
| Master with Slave
.. . X . .

----------------------------

.. . . X .
| Slave
.. . . X .

----------------------------

.. . . . X
| Cable Select (to be used on both drives)
.. . . . X

----------------------------

An IDE cable has two drive positions. You fill the end
position first. The middle position is only filled, if
the end position has a hard drive in it.

Other brands of drives, do not have the notion
of "Master with Slave". Other brands only have
Master, leaving it to the user to have one or
two drives on the cable as they see fit.
Western Digital is unique in having a separate
pattern for "Master with Slave".

HTH,
Paul

On 1/18/2014 9:25 PM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:
My PC has both SATA and IDE (EIDE?) drives. One IDE drive is
removable. I decided to beef up the capacity of my PC, so bought a new
WD2500JB IDE(?) for the removable drive slot. Something is not working
right.

I have a SATA WD3200AAJS-01 HD set up for my C: drive, NTFS, master,
~300GB. Further, there's an IDE WD800BB-75 HD set as a master,
NTFS/FAT32. The FAT32 partition is ~280MB for the F: drive, and ~75GB
for the NTFS E: drive. Apparently, the D: drive is for a removable HD.
For that I'd like to use the 250GB WD2500JB HD.

Here's my problem. It appears I have the jumper set up is incorrect on
the WD2500JB. When I use it, I do not see the E: and F: drives. The
jumper instructions on the top of the HD provide some guidance. To
start, I used the 7-8 pins as a jumper. That's where the jumper was
when I opened the box. What is correct in my case?

1-2 Select
3-4 Slave
5-6 Master or Slave
7-8 Single or Master
9-10 None

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/...el-wd2500jb%2C


It sounds like you have a ten pin drive.

In the jumper block picture, the top two on the
upper left, do the same thing. The top one, shows how
to *store* two jumpers, without triggering anything.
Drives come with a variable number of jumpers - there
is no guarantee you get a jumper. It's the luck of
the draw at the factory.

http://support.wdc.com/images/drives...rs/jumpers.gif

The second from the top, is for a *single* drive. We
would also call that "Master only", as another method
of labeling the option.

The third one down, is "Master with Slave". It's for
a situation, where the Slave is already connected to
the cable, you're adding your new drive as a Master.
So there will be two drives on the cable when you use
that selection.

The second from the bottom is "Slave". Since a Slave
would never be used by itself, it'll always have another
drive with it. Still, I prefer to just call that one Slave.
To be consistent with other manufacturers who have Slave
as a choice.

The bottom one is Cable Select. The position on the cable,
then determines the role of the drive. That's done, by a special
modification to the 80 wire cable, so one connector position
applies a different electrical condition, than the other connector
position. That's how the drive knows which connector it's on.
One drive automatically becomes Master, the other drive
becomes Slave. Dell would use this option on a new computer,
so that their staff don't even have to think :-) Cable
Select is for rapid computer assembly, whapping in as many
drives as you want without even looking at the jumper block.
When Dell buys their drives, they'll want the drive factory to
put that jumper in the Cable Select position. Then the assemblers
can turn off their brain and turn on their screwdrivers.

Now, lets draw them graphically, as economically as possible.
I won't show the jumper storage position this time.

9 7 5 3 1
. . . . .
(none) Master Only
. . . . .

---------------------------

. . X . .
| Master with Slave
. . X . .

----------------------------

. . . X .
| Slave
. . . X .

----------------------------

. . . . X
| Cable Select (to be used on both drives)
. . . . X

----------------------------

An IDE cable has two drive positions. You fill the end
position first. The middle position is only filled, if
the end position has a hard drive in it.

Other brands of drives, do not have the notion
of "Master with Slave". Other brands only have
Master, leaving it to the user to have one or
two drives on the cable as they see fit.
Western Digital is unique in having a separate
pattern for "Master with Slave".

HTH,
Paul

I would think then that I have an IDE slave, so I should use 3-4?

W. eWatson wrote:


I would think then that I have an IDE slave, so I should use 3-4?

If they're both WD branded, one of them would be "Master with Slave"
and the other one would be "Slave". That's when the two drives
are present on the cable.

If initially you had one WD drive, it would have been "Master only".
As it was by itself on the end of the cable. In other words, you have
to change the jumper setting on the first (existing) drive. It
needs to be changed from "Master Only" (no jumpers) to "Master with Slave".

Paul

On 1/19/2014 10:28 AM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:


I would think then that I have an IDE slave, so I should use 3-4?

If they're both WD branded, one of them would be "Master with Slave"
and the other one would be "Slave". That's when the two drives
are present on the cable.

If initially you had one WD drive, it would have been "Master only".
As it was by itself on the end of the cable. In other words, you have
to change the jumper setting on the first (existing) drive. It
needs to be changed from "Master Only" (no jumpers) to "Master with Slave".

Paul

Let's try this. The WD800BB-75 IDE drive is in the middle of the cable.
At the other end is the tray with the new WD2500JB drive in it. The
jumper on the former is set to select. Which placement is the master and
the other the slave? Where do the jumpers go on each HD?

W. eWatson wrote:
On 1/19/2014 10:28 AM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:


I would think then that I have an IDE slave, so I should use 3-4?

If they're both WD branded, one of them would be "Master with Slave"
and the other one would be "Slave". That's when the two drives
are present on the cable.

If initially you had one WD drive, it would have been "Master only".
As it was by itself on the end of the cable. In other words, you have
to change the jumper setting on the first (existing) drive. It
needs to be changed from "Master Only" (no jumpers) to "Master with
Slave".

Paul

Let's try this. The WD800BB-75 IDE drive is in the middle of the cable.
At the other end is the tray with the new WD2500JB drive in it. The
jumper on the former is set to select. Which placement is the master and
the other the slave? Where do the jumpers go on each HD?

If one drive is jumpered Cable Select, the logical thing to do
is set the other one to Cable Select. That takes less brain power :-)
Use an 80 wire cable, which both supports Cable Select, and supports
the higher UDMA modes. You really shouldn't even keep any 40 wire
cables in the house. The 80 wire cables can be used for everything.
They present a better electrical environment for the signals.

If you want to do Master/Slave stuff, and dispense with Cable Select,
then again, both drives will have to be jumpered in a consistent manner.
With two WD drives, one is Master with Slave, the other is Slave.
Just jumper them, and plug them in.

(This link is only for background info, if you're curious. You
don't need to read this, to get your stuff running.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_select#Cable_select

Paul

On 1/19/2014 5:04 PM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:
On 1/19/2014 10:28 AM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:


I would think then that I have an IDE slave, so I should use 3-4?

If they're both WD branded, one of them would be "Master with Slave"
and the other one would be "Slave". That's when the two drives
are present on the cable.

If initially you had one WD drive, it would have been "Master only".
As it was by itself on the end of the cable. In other words, you have
to change the jumper setting on the first (existing) drive. It
needs to be changed from "Master Only" (no jumpers) to "Master with
Slave".

Paul

Let's try this. The WD800BB-75 IDE drive is in the middle of the
cable. At the other end is the tray with the new WD2500JB drive in it.
The jumper on the former is set to select. Which placement is the
master and the other the slave? Where do the jumpers go on each HD?

If one drive is jumpered Cable Select, the logical thing to do
is set the other one to Cable Select. That takes less brain power :-)
So this might work even though I have 40 wire (grey) cables? 80 are blue?
I thought I'd try it, and it did nothing.
Use an 80 wire cable, which both supports Cable Select, and supports
the higher UDMA modes. You really shouldn't even keep any 40 wire
cables in the house. The 80 wire cables can be used for everything.
They present a better electrical environment for the signals.
If I have to go to 80, I have a problem. The tray that holds the drive
look like it uses 40. If I can't find a way to change that, then I might
need a tray that does. The probably went out of style years ago.

If you want to do Master/Slave stuff, and dispense with Cable Select,
then again, both drives will have to be jumpered in a consistent manner.
With two WD drives, one is Master with Slave, the other is Slave.
Just jumper them, and plug them in.


(This link is only for background info, if you're curious. You
don't need to read this, to get your stuff running.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_select#Cable_select

Paul

W. eWatson wrote:
On 1/19/2014 5:04 PM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:
On 1/19/2014 10:28 AM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:


I would think then that I have an IDE slave, so I should use 3-4?

If they're both WD branded, one of them would be "Master with Slave"
and the other one would be "Slave". That's when the two drives
are present on the cable.

If initially you had one WD drive, it would have been "Master only".
As it was by itself on the end of the cable. In other words, you have
to change the jumper setting on the first (existing) drive. It
needs to be changed from "Master Only" (no jumpers) to "Master with
Slave".

Paul

Let's try this. The WD800BB-75 IDE drive is in the middle of the
cable. At the other end is the tray with the new WD2500JB drive in it.
The jumper on the former is set to select. Which placement is the
master and the other the slave? Where do the jumpers go on each HD?

If one drive is jumpered Cable Select, the logical thing to do
is set the other one to Cable Select. That takes less brain power :-)
So this might work even though I have 40 wire (grey) cables? 80 are blue?
I thought I'd try it, and it did nothing.
Use an 80 wire cable, which both supports Cable Select, and supports
the higher UDMA modes. You really shouldn't even keep any 40 wire
cables in the house. The 80 wire cables can be used for everything.
They present a better electrical environment for the signals.
If I have to go to 80, I have a problem. The tray that holds the drive
look like it uses 40. If I can't find a way to change that, then I might
need a tray that does. The probably went out of style years ago.

If you want to do Master/Slave stuff, and dispense with Cable Select,
then again, both drives will have to be jumpered in a consistent manner.
With two WD drives, one is Master with Slave, the other is Slave.
Just jumper them, and plug them in.


(This link is only for background info, if you're curious. You
don't need to read this, to get your stuff running.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_select#Cable_select

Paul


It's OK to have 80 wire cables with 40 pin connectors. Half of
the 80 wires are "ground" wires, to improve the signal transmission
environment. In addition, virtually all the 80 wire cables will be
wired for Cable Select. With the 40 wire ones, we can't be sure.
(An ohmmeter can tell you the cable type, in terms of distinguishing
whether Cable Select wiring is present.)

If you're dealing with a ribbon cable, where you don't know if
it supports cable select, you can always use "Master with Slave"
for one of your WD disks, and "Slave" for the other. That'll work
fine. For the most part, the ATA/ATAPI standard says that software
can detect the cable type, and will restrict the data rate
automatically if the 40 wire cable is detected. So it will never
try to run too fast for the cable. That's what the standard claims.

80 wire = faster transfer rate, cable select supported
40 wire = slower transfers, unknown cable select support

With both those cables, they have 40 pin connectors. The
same kind of connector is visible on both of the cable types.

Paul

On 1/19/2014 9:24 PM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:
On 1/19/2014 5:04 PM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:
On 1/19/2014 10:28 AM, Paul wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:


I would think then that I have an IDE slave, so I should use 3-4?

If they're both WD branded, one of them would be "Master with Slave"
and the other one would be "Slave". That's when the two drives
are present on the cable.

If initially you had one WD drive, it would have been "Master only".
As it was by itself on the end of the cable. In other words, you have
to change the jumper setting on the first (existing) drive. It
needs to be changed from "Master Only" (no jumpers) to "Master with
Slave".

Paul

Let's try this. The WD800BB-75 IDE drive is in the middle of the
cable. At the other end is the tray with the new WD2500JB drive in it.
The jumper on the former is set to select. Which placement is the
master and the other the slave? Where do the jumpers go on each HD?

If one drive is jumpered Cable Select, the logical thing to do
is set the other one to Cable Select. That takes less brain power :-)
So this might work even though I have 40 wire (grey) cables? 80 are blue?
I thought I'd try it, and it did nothing.
Use an 80 wire cable, which both supports Cable Select, and supports
the higher UDMA modes. You really shouldn't even keep any 40 wire
cables in the house. The 80 wire cables can be used for everything.
They present a better electrical environment for the signals.
If I have to go to 80, I have a problem. The tray that holds the drive
look like it uses 40. If I can't find a way to change that, then I
might need a tray that does. The probably went out of style years ago.

If you want to do Master/Slave stuff, and dispense with Cable Select,
then again, both drives will have to be jumpered in a consistent manner.
With two WD drives, one is Master with Slave, the other is Slave.
Just jumper them, and plug them in.


(This link is only for background info, if you're curious. You
don't need to read this, to get your stuff running.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_select#Cable_select

Paul


It's OK to have 80 wire cables with 40 pin connectors. Half of
the 80 wires are "ground" wires, to improve the signal transmission
environment. In addition, virtually all the 80 wire cables will be
wired for Cable Select. With the 40 wire ones, we can't be sure.
(An ohmmeter can tell you the cable type, in terms of distinguishing
whether Cable Select wiring is present.)

If you're dealing with a ribbon cable, where you don't know if
it supports cable select, you can always use "Master with Slave"
for one of your WD disks, and "Slave" for the other. That'll work
fine. For the most part, the ATA/ATAPI standard says that software
can detect the cable type, and will restrict the data rate
automatically if the 40 wire cable is detected. So it will never
try to run too fast for the cable. That's what the standard claims.

80 wire = faster transfer rate, cable select supported
40 wire = slower transfers, unknown cable select support

With both those cables, they have 40 pin connectors. The
same kind of connector is visible on both of the cable types.

Paul

I made a mistake earlier. I said the D: drive was empty. It contains my
CD player.

As an experiment, I fired up the PC with the WD2500JB and waited 20
minutes to feel the three HDs for heat. Only the WD2500JB IDE was quite
warm. The others were cool. It's about 55F in that room.

I was tempted to put a WD5000AAK8-00H8A0, a C-drive from another XP PC,
from another XP in the tray, but the heat anomaly caused me to pause for
the time being. I have a 120GB D: drive there I might try. BTW, after
5-10 minutes on that PC both drives were cool.

I have a 8.4 G WD28400 EIDE and placed it in the tray. When I booted, I
found it on my G: drive, as a slave. At least something works!

W. eWatson wrote:


I made a mistake earlier. I said the D: drive was empty. It contains my
CD player.

As an experiment, I fired up the PC with the WD2500JB and waited 20
minutes to feel the three HDs for heat. Only the WD2500JB IDE was quite
warm. The others were cool. It's about 55F in that room.

I was tempted to put a WD5000AAK8-00H8A0, a C-drive from another XP PC,
from another XP in the tray, but the heat anomaly caused me to pause for
the time being. I have a 120GB D: drive there I might try. BTW, after
5-10 minutes on that PC both drives were cool.

I have a 8.4 G WD28400 EIDE and placed it in the tray. When I booted, I
found it on my G: drive, as a slave. At least something works!

Do you have some air movement over the drive ?

You know, at one time, the power footprint of drives was in
the 30W to 40W range. Some hard drive carriers back then,
had three small fans on one side, blowing air across the surfaces
of the drive. To remove that ridiculous amount of heat. Some drives
had extreme operating temperatures, but it didn't matter because they
were designed that way.

The drives today are much lower power. But you still can't
run the drive in an insulating blanket. There should still be
some air movement.

Modern drives, have S.M.A.R.T . And the drive has a thermistor
located somewhere in the unit, to measure the drive temperature.
You no longer have to "feel" the drive to detect overheating,
as you can read out the drive temperature via SMART. If you're
reading 60C, that would spell serious trouble. My drives
right now are at 31C (below body temperature).

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

That utility will allow you to read the temperature. There are only
a couple models of drive, where the drive parameter includes
something claiming to be temperature, but the drive just reads out
a fixed (bogus) number. Most modern drives have a working thermistor,
and you can watch the temperature rise after system startup. As well
as see a slight increase when doing sustained reading or writing.

If one drive jumpered as Slave works, and another drive jumpered
as Slave does not, you might suspect the non-working drive is
defective. I'm not really all that crazy about the design intent,
but IDE drives will not respond if they're sick. As an engineer,
I'd rather see the controller board *always* respond to a software
probe, even if only to say "I cannot read my firmware off the platter
and bring the drive up to full functionality". The unfortunate design
choice is, to instead leave users guessing as to whether they
made a jumpering mistake, a pin is broken, or the drive in fact
is just plain defective.

Since the flooding event which cause production problems, some
IDE drives "magically appeared" in retail sales. We can interpret
this a couple of ways. The plant in Hungary was making drives
again (new production). Or, the manufacturer pulled all the spare
drives of unknown quality, out of reserves and put them up for
sale. Those would be the drives used for warranty returns.
As long as you have a warranty on that drive, and test
it promptly after purchase, you have two parties you can go
after. With a 30 day return period at a retailer, you may be
able to do a regular return to the store that sold you the drive.
If you have to go through an actual warranty claim with
Seagate or WD, that's less likely to leave you completely
satisfied.

Paul

....
Do you have some air movement over the drive ?

You know, at one time, the power footprint of drives was in
the 30W to 40W range. Some hard drive carriers back then,
had three small fans on one side, blowing air across the surfaces
of the drive. To remove that ridiculous amount of heat. Some drives
had extreme operating temperatures, but it didn't matter because they
were designed that way.

The drives today are much lower power. But you still can't
run the drive in an insulating blanket. There should still be
some air movement.

Modern drives, have S.M.A.R.T . And the drive has a thermistor
located somewhere in the unit, to measure the drive temperature.
You no longer have to "feel" the drive to detect overheating,
as you can read out the drive temperature via SMART. If you're
reading 60C, that would spell serious trouble. My drives
right now are at 31C (below body temperature).

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

That utility will allow you to read the temperature. There are only
a couple models of drive, where the drive parameter includes
something claiming to be temperature, but the drive just reads out
a fixed (bogus) number. Most modern drives have a working thermistor,
and you can watch the temperature rise after system startup. As well
as see a slight increase when doing sustained reading or writing.

If one drive jumpered as Slave works, and another drive jumpered
as Slave does not, you might suspect the non-working drive is
defective. I'm not really all that crazy about the design intent,
but IDE drives will not respond if they're sick. As an engineer,
I'd rather see the controller board *always* respond to a software
probe, even if only to say "I cannot read my firmware off the platter
and bring the drive up to full functionality". The unfortunate design
choice is, to instead leave users guessing as to whether they
made a jumpering mistake, a pin is broken, or the drive in fact
is just plain defective.

Since the flooding event which cause production problems, some
IDE drives "magically appeared" in retail sales. We can interpret
this a couple of ways. The plant in Hungary was making drives
again (new production). Or, the manufacturer pulled all the spare
drives of unknown quality, out of reserves and put them up for
sale. Those would be the drives used for warranty returns.
As long as you have a warranty on that drive, and test
it promptly after purchase, you have two parties you can go
after. With a 30 day return period at a retailer, you may be
able to do a regular return to the store that sold you the drive.
If you have to go through an actual warranty claim with
Seagate or WD, that's less likely to leave you completely
satisfied.

Paul
The two XP PCs I have are five or more years old.

I put the new HD into my #2 PC in place of the 120GB on it. I couldn't
boot up. I think it can considered to be dead. I bought it two weeks
ago, so should be able to get a replacement.

I have an external 750GB USB HD that I think will be adequate for needs.
The new 250GB HD was $30. I think I'll forget the HD and tray arrangement.

On 1/20/2014 7:22 PM, Paul wrote:
Modern drives, have S.M.A.R.T . And the drive has a thermistor
located somewhere in the unit, to measure the drive temperature.
You no longer have to "feel" the drive to detect overheating,
as you can read out the drive temperature via SMART. If you're
reading 60C, that would spell serious trouble. My drives
right now are at 31C (below body temperature).

Did you ever see that Google study they did about hard drives? They
found higher drive temperature drives tend to be more reliable than
cooler running drives. This is the opposite belief of most experts. And
do you have a lot of experience with portable computers like laptops and
tablets?

This tablet for example, the drive isn't doing much so far and it is
running at 116°F (47°C) already. That is a bit lower than what my
portable machines run at. As running at 124°F (51°C) is usually more the
norm. And I often have temps running like 135°F (57°C) during defrag or
cloning the drive. And I have dozens of these devices and they all run
at these temperatures. Nor am I suffering any problems with any hard
drive failures either.

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - Thunderbird v12
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM - Windows 8 Professional

BillW50 wrote:
On 1/20/2014 7:22 PM, Paul wrote:
Modern drives, have S.M.A.R.T . And the drive has a thermistor
located somewhere in the unit, to measure the drive temperature.
You no longer have to "feel" the drive to detect overheating,
as you can read out the drive temperature via SMART. If you're
reading 60C, that would spell serious trouble. My drives
right now are at 31C (below body temperature).

Did you ever see that Google study they did about hard drives? They
found higher drive temperature drives tend to be more reliable than
cooler running drives. This is the opposite belief of most experts. And
do you have a lot of experience with portable computers like laptops and
tablets?

This tablet for example, the drive isn't doing much so far and it is
running at 116°F (47°C) already. That is a bit lower than what my
portable machines run at. As running at 124°F (51°C) is usually more the
norm. And I often have temps running like 135°F (57°C) during defrag or
cloning the drive. And I have dozens of these devices and they all run
at these temperatures. Nor am I suffering any problems with any hard
drive failures either.


But the Google study is invalid. No humidity measurements.

http://i43.tinypic.com/156eash.gif

Paul

On 1/21/2014 3:46 PM, Paul wrote:
BillW50 wrote:
On 1/20/2014 7:22 PM, Paul wrote:
Modern drives, have S.M.A.R.T . And the drive has a thermistor
located somewhere in the unit, to measure the drive temperature.
You no longer have to "feel" the drive to detect overheating,
as you can read out the drive temperature via SMART. If you're
reading 60C, that would spell serious trouble. My drives
right now are at 31C (below body temperature).

Did you ever see that Google study they did about hard drives? They
found higher drive temperature drives tend to be more reliable than
cooler running drives. This is the opposite belief of most experts.
And do you have a lot of experience with portable computers like
laptops and tablets?

This tablet for example, the drive isn't doing much so far and it is
running at 116°F (47°C) already. That is a bit lower than what my
portable machines run at. As running at 124°F (51°C) is usually more
the norm. And I often have temps running like 135°F (57°C) during
defrag or cloning the drive. And I have dozens of these devices and
they all run at these temperatures. Nor am I suffering any problems
with any hard drive failures either.

But the Google study is invalid. No humidity measurements.

http://i43.tinypic.com/156eash.gif

Hmm... so you believe that humidity affects the reliability of hard
drives? I haven't actually pondered this theory before. So how do you
believe that humidity effects hard drive reliability?

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - Thunderbird v12
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM - Windows 8 Professional