Feb 4 2008, 02:41 PM
QUOTE(Dannyl @ Aug 30 2007, 04:06 PM)
Ok problem solved. The issue was with the cheap casing/cable. The shop exchanged cable and casing with me, but the problem still occurred. At their PC, it works. At my PCs, it sometimes works, sometimes not. Experimented around with other cables (fatter ones) and my colleague's casing (Zynet), works. So went ahead and bought a decent Zynet casing from another shop, works great now.
Conclusion: cheap casing may or may not work. The price difference is more than for looks: it's for connectivity options, protection and chipset. Avoid Digiboy brand.
EDIT: Zynet casing link. Satisfied with it.
Just want to help a bit with this scenario. Some USB enclosure requires the USB2.0 standard to be followed strictly. The standard calls for USB5V at a maximum current load draw of 100mA during USB detection/enumeration and up to 500mA post detection/enumeration or normal operation for bus-powered (no external adapter) devices. Some enclosure uses some unknown brand PATA/SATA to USB2.0 bridge hub IC which does not conform to these specifications during enumeration so detection is always a hit and miss thing. Also the PCB board design implementation is not optimized and could have draw a higher load current during start up. This answers why a good quality enclosure is essential. I had a cheapo enclosure damage my 2.5" HDD because of this. The filtering caps implementation was not good enough and caused power issues.Conclusion: cheap casing may or may not work. The price difference is more than for looks: it's for connectivity options, protection and chipset. Avoid Digiboy brand.
EDIT: Zynet casing link. Satisfied with it.
Another reason why a good quality enclosure is required is because of data integrity. Some IC's data handling may not be as good as the others. For example, when you click the 'safely remove hardware' icon, the IC might not flush the HDD buffer in time and park the head to its parking bay before you detach the USB cable. This could result in data lost the next time you plug it in again.
Then there's the issue of power. Although it is a 2.5" notebook drive which relies only USB 5V as power source. Some enclosure requires a Y-USB cable to utilized. Make use of this and plug both into the PC, preferably to the rear of the casing. This is because not all PC desktop or notebook's front or hub ports are independently powered and may not supply enough current. Most only conform to the minimum spec of 100mA per port for bus-powered devices.
Also, some of us might accidentally select an option in the device manager to 'optimize for performance' rather than the default of 'optimize for quick removal'. Selecting anything other than the latter will result the buffer to be used and when power is lost or when the HDD is unplugged from the PC, the buffer's content may not be flushed into the HDD in time and causing data lost again.
Quote
0.0180sec
1.11
7 queries
GZIP Disabled