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I've been looking for a USB drive to use to run BIAB, with the intent of copying PG's BIAB files onto the new USB drive and tucking the PG-supplied drive safely away. The problem is, I've tried several USB drives, and I've got an issue with how much power they suck out of a USB port. Currently I'm using a WD passport, which is a little flakey -- sometimes it mounts, sometimes it doesn't, depending on which USB port I use and whether I have other USB devices connected at the time. I've tried some other USB drives and enclosures as well, some supplied with cables to connect to two USB ports, but I'd prefer not to sacrifice two USB ports to a single drive if I can avoid it. So what I want is the most reliable USB drive (or enclosure) I can find, that draws the least amount of power. It does seem to me that some drives draw less power than others from a USB port, but I seldom see a mention of this issue in reviews online, or in a drive's specs. Can anyone recommend a particular portable drive, based on these concerns and their experience?
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That's a very good question. You can't see the power draw of a USB device until you hook it up. Things depend not only on the maximum current for that one USB port, but also the total current the PC can supply over all the USB ports.
PG Music supplies drives made by Toshiba and Hitachi, according to a post by Peter Gannon.
Of course, if you are willing, you can use a drive that has its own power supply. The audiophile drive I just received from PG Music has a 12 volt external power wall wart.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Hi, Everyone I know of who had a WD passport has had issues. I would recommend Lacie, or Seagate. About power vs buss power for Hard drives. If you need a USB hard drive for Digital Recording, or using softsynths, you will need a fast drive (7,200 rpm). These drives need external power, your buss will not support it. If on the other hand you are using it for storage, or loading RT/RD on BIAB, then a 5,400rpm drive should be fine, and most will work with buss power from your laptop. I don't recommend the slow 4,200rpm drives, these are really old,big,heavy and do not have a lot of storage anyway. Another direction you might want to look at is the new Solid State Hard Drives. These don't use a platter, they are much faster than even the fast USB 2 drives, they don't get hot, and from what I've been reading, they are very safe for your data, although I do recall Mac posting that he had heard about some drives failing. The bad side of this is the Price! These drives are VERY expensive ($2-600) for a 160 or 250GB drive. Here are a couple of places to look> www.tigerdirect.comwww.newegg.comHope that helps you, Ed
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I copied my BIAB HD to a Seagate 750GB external HD and BIAB runs perfectly through it. I have no problems running the external HD on my laptop. Later, Ray
Asus Q500A i7 Win 10 64 bit 8GB ram 750 HD 15.5" touch screen, BIAB 2017, Casio PX 5s, Xw P1, Center Point Stereo SS V3 and EWI 4000s.
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Some have complained about Iomega, but I have a 500gb with no problems. I'm just keeping my real tracks on it for biab/rb. I also use it for my photo backups. It has it's own built in power supply. Another option is to us a powered usb hub.
Stan
Cornet Curmudgeon
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If you have an eSATA port on your machine (which will permit uploads and downloads that are about 6x faster than that of a USB 2.0) then you can find eSATA external hard drives out on the Web for between about $100 to $150 that are 1 TB, 7200 rpm, and with a 32 Mb cache. I'm in the process of narrowing down to a choice of one of these myself at the moment. These DO require an ac plug so that eliminates the problem of a lack of power but it's not as portable as the USB powered drives.
cchallum
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Quote:
Everyone I know of who had a WD passport has had issues. I would recommend Lacie, or Seagate.
I'm not that keen on Lacie units - they don't make their own drives and from what I can find out, it's a bit of the luck of the draw as to what brand drive goes into the enclosure. OTOH Lacie enclosures usually look pretty good... Seagate have been my supplier of choice for HDD's for many, many years. The higher spec WD's are good, and Hitachi drives seem have recovered from the doldrums that IBM HDDs had decended to before Hitachi acquired them. I do not like Fujitsu's at all, and Toshiba's seem to be a little unpredictable.
Quote:
Another direction you might want to look at is the new Solid State Hard Drives. These don't use a platter, they are much faster than even the fast USB 2 drives, they don't get hot, and from what I've been reading, they are very safe for your data, although I do recall Mac posting that he had heard about some drives failing.
The bad side of this is the Price! These drives are VERY expensive ($2-600) for a 160 or 250GB drive.
Another bad side is limited write cycles - while they are getting better and better, and with SSD aware OS like Win7 things can improve even more - they do not have a write cycle life time that comes even close to a conventional HDD. But they are FAST
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya  --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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USB 3.0 is in the offing ...
Martin
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I use two both 500 gigs, a Seagate and a Toshiba and have had no issues with either.
Good Luck,
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Tchairdjian give good advice. Shoulda mentioned it myself. For information, eSATA is EXACTLY as fast as your internal SATA drives - the eSATA port IS an ordinary SATA port electrically and simply has a more robust connector.
For me, this is a no-brainer.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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Quote:
The problem is, I've tried several USB drives, and I've got an issue with how much power they suck out of a USB port.
Sounds very much like the problem does not lie in the disk drives, but in the amount of power that your computer can deliver to the USB port.
That is a function of what the designers of your motherboard did.
The USB spec is simple enough, it is supposed to deliver 5VDC at 2Amperes of current. Or 10 Watts of power.
But a lot of designers opt for simple current dropping resistors between the connector and the computer's power supply 5V rail, and that can be very problematic for it makes the amount of current available at the connection dependant upon the DC resistance of the device that is under power at the time. This works for low current devices like mice, keyboards, digital cameras with built in batteries, etc. -- but does not work so well when the device has motors inside to spin disks and move heads.
Unfortunately, the solve for this one would be an external power supply rather than trying to find a disk that will run on the lower current, which you may not even be able to find. Even if you found one that ran, I wouldn't guarantee operation every time. And the lower power could also result in a trashed hard drive at some point.
You've tried enough drives already for me to make that assessment.
Some other options:
Powered USB hub. This is a hub that also has a connection to the AC power to provide its own power source to the USB connectors on it.
Wallwart supply for the hard drive. You can buy certain USB hard drives that have their own AC power supply built in. High Reliability.
Check your pgmusic supplied drive, all the ones they have sent me over the years but one have had a DC connection on them for connecting a separate Wallwart type supply. Pay attention to the POLARITY etched next to the jack. Then go to a Radio Shack or other electronics supply house and pick up a "universal" wallwart supply that has plug or adaptors to fit your drive. In experimentation, I tried different regulated voltages and empirically derived the voltage we need = 9VDC, regulated.
--Mac
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Quote:
Hi,
Everyone I know of who had a WD passport has had issues. I would recommend Lacie, or Seagate.
Well, how do you do?
Now that we've met, you can say that you know someone who has several WD's and no issues.
Heck, due to my day job, I've got such an assortment of brand name USB drives here for testing its almost unbelievable. And many of the problems our customers report to us I am unable to duplicate at my end. Of course, they always blame the newest addition to their system, never is something they might have done or not done. Such is the way in Customer Service.
<g>
--Mac
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My WD Passport is also completely problem-free.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Me too. Mine is an 80g which was the biggest they had at the time so that says how old it is, 4 years maybe. Not a hiccup.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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I appreciate the information. I've got to believe, though, that some USB drives are drawing more current than others -- and that finding one that draws on the low side would help me out here. I've got a couple of USB drives, for example, that will (almost) never mount without being connected to two USB ports. On the other hand, the little drive PG supplied when it shipped Windows BIAB 2009 (not 2009.5) on USB (almost) always mounts. I'd just ahead go ahead and copy BIAB 2010 onto it and use it (that was my original plan) but I discovered it's a bit too small for BIAB 2010 with all its additional RealTracks.
It might be a bit off, off-topic, but I'm starting to think there's some kind of voodoo to whether a USB drive mounts, and I've occasionally seen the same flakiness with Firewire drives -- both the portables that are powered by a FW or USB port, and the larger drives that are connected to AC. I don't think it's my computer -- in fact, I routinely use several of the same USB (and FW) drives with three different computers, both PCS and Macs -- and with a couple of different USB and FW hubs, and connected directly. Sometimes a drive just won't mount, but it will when I reconnect it in the same way a minute later, and won't the next time. I don't know why, and quite clearly, neither does anybody at the manufacturer's tech support numbers.
I had a couple of bad Seagate drives a few years ago, but I've had better luck lately (with respect to the mounting issue) with Seagate's FreeAgent desktop drives than with WD's comparable MyBook externals. And since a couple of people have suggested Seagate here, I think I'll pick up a Seagate FreeAgent portable and give it a try. And cross my fingers...
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Mac's in the business and he recommended giving a powered usb hub a try. They are pretty cheap and available. You could buy one and try it. If it didn't solve your problem, you could take it back. I have a little Archos multimedia player that used to work from my laptop's usb drive but starting having problems. I tried it on the powered hub and now no problems. I think that we all wish that since we never had any hardware problems in the past, that we won't have any in the future. Oh, sure......
Cornet Curmudgeon
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I think even less expensive solution would be to buy an AC/DC Adapter for the Hard Drive... I mean a HUB would need to be plugged in anyway and if one is worried about portability, there's less pieces to carry (HD, HUB + AC Chord vs HD + AC Chord) . You just plug in the HD and off you GO!
2008 Gibson ES-339 Custom & 2010 Les Paul Traditional. Fender SCXD Amp
BIAB/RB 2015 UltraPAK + Ketron SD2
Windows 7/64 Intel i5 3550 PC, Tascam USB144MKII
Behringer X1204 Mixer
Bose Companion 3 and/or L1 II w/T1 + SM58 MIC
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Quote:
I appreciate the information. I've got to believe, though, that some USB drives are drawing more current than others -- and that finding one that draws on the low side would help me out here. I've got a couple of USB drives, for example, that will (almost) never mount without being connected to two USB ports. On the other hand, the little drive PG supplied when it shipped Windows BIAB 2009 (not 2009.5) on USB (almost) always mounts. I'd just ahead go ahead and copy BIAB 2010 onto it and use it (that was my original plan) but I discovered it's a bit too small for BIAB 2010 with all its additional RealTracks.
The reason the smaller drive draws less current should be obvious.
Less platter count means less mass to turn which means less motor torque which means less current.
But you've already discovered the hitch to that one. The drive's too small for the program to fit.
Quote:
It might be a bit off, off-topic, but I'm starting to think there's some kind of voodoo to whether a USB drive mounts, and I've occasionally seen the same flakiness with Firewire drives -- both the portables that are powered by a FW or USB port, and the larger drives that are connected to AC. I don't think it's my computer -- in fact, I routinely use several of the same USB (and FW) drives with three different computers, both PCS and Macs -- and with a couple of different USB and FW hubs, and connected directly. Sometimes a drive just won't mount, but it will when I reconnect it in the same way a minute later, and won't the next time. I don't know why, and quite clearly, neither does anybody at the manufacturer's tech support numbers.
I'm an Electrical Engineer, not a Witch Doctor, so there isn't any Voodoo in my world.
There are other reasons for a drive not mounting besides the amount of current available. The OS and the associated drivers on the computer side may have a problem that is intermittant in nature, or the drive itself could be a bit flakey, exhibiting intermittant problems. The intermittant electrical hardware fault is impossible to diagnose from outside the box and without proper schematics, knowledge of the circuits and test equipments suitable for the purpose. I really doubt it is an electrical/electronic fault, though, from experience. More than likely it is a software glitch when your drives don't mount. On the other hand, the many USB and FireWire drives I use both here in the studio and at work on the day job do not exhibit these problems with any sort of regularity. I have one USB drive out of many that sometimes fails to mount. I don't trust that specific drive, either. All the rest mount when they are called upon to do so. I trust that you are performing proper DISmounts of these drives, just yanking the plug may be the reason for your intermittant problems, sometimes that can leave the drive in a rather confused state and you would be asking for the luck of the draw for a second try to get it to mount again every time. Could end in disk disaster someday if that is the case.
Quote:
I had a couple of bad Seagate drives a few years ago, but I've had better luck lately (with respect to the mounting issue) with Seagate's FreeAgent desktop drives than with WD's comparable MyBook externals. And since a couple of people have suggested Seagate here, I think I'll pick up a Seagate FreeAgent portable and give it a try. And cross my fingers...
I've seen examples of both brands last forever and some die on the first day. Or later. Not voodod, not luck, just the nature of the beast. Shipping can sometimes do a drive in before it even gets to you, although much has been learned about handling G forces over the years, it still can happen. Then there are the G forces that can happen to external drives when they should just be sitting in the aberage home. If you have kids like mine were, now its my grandkids, you have a house full of animated inanimate objects, too. "it fell" -- Which could indeed make an otherwise sane adult start thinking that maybe there really is such power as voodoo to contend with <G>.
We had field problem reports of manpack stuff where the external hard drives were failing. Forensic testing showed every one of them to have sustained high G force from likely falling and hitting something hard, like the concrete floor or the like...
OF course, the soldiers were, to a man, exactly like my kids used to be in their responses. They didn't do it. Those drives just leaped out of their packs and onto the floor when they weren't looking, you see. 
--Mac
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I have a Dell Laptop Vostro 1510. Which USB HDD should I purchase for BB/RB 2010 backup storage? Please send a website link, thanks. Does PG Music sell HDD's?
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