FWIW, 8TB USB 3 external, $142.50 @ amazon.

[GuyGene]

I was about to think the 640GB OWC drive for $49 I just ordered wasn't such a good deal. Maybe it's not, but if quality is good, I'll take quality over quantity.

[Zoidberg]

GuyGene wrote:
I was about to think the 640GB OWC drive for $49 I just ordered wasn't such a good deal. Maybe it's not, but if quality is good, I'll take quality over quantity.

I've had such stellar luck with OWC over the past dozen plus years, I'll always go to them first when I need a piece of equipment that they sell.

[jdc]

GuyGene wrote:
I was about to think the 640GB OWC drive for $49 I just ordered wasn't such a good deal. Maybe it's not, but if quality is good, I'll take quality over quantity.

IMHO, I don’t think it’s a great deal.

[ka jowct]

Having talked apart a couple of Seagate externals, I cannot recommend them to anyone. They are crap. And as prone to crap out as the actual drives.

[maco]

Hard Drive Stats for Q3 2017
Q3 2017 Hard Drive Failure Rates

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-driv...s-q3-2017/

[Onamuji]

mrlynn wrote:
[quote=Onamuji]
Edit: To clarify, 3 of my 5 originally purchased have had major SMART errors, usually exhibiting DMA (r/w) errors first, which doesn't necessarily point to the drive, but often indicates a defect with the cache on the board. I've been buying replacements in pairs.

I've been in panic mode since SuperDuper! failed to copy new files from my iMac drive (2009 2TB, iMac 1l,1) Thursday night. Dave at SD! says it was Read/Write errors, which he says indicate a failing drive. The drive has SMART 'failing' status anyway, so I figured I better stop using the iMac until I can replace the drive or switch to an external, or something; see my 'Unanswered Question thread here:

http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,2194223

Is it possible the Read errors are not from the drive itself, but the iMac board?
No.

I was referring to the controller-board on the drive.

In the parlance, the spinning platters in the rectangular plastic enclosure are the actual drive, also known as the HDA (Hard Drive Assembly) and the controller-board attached to the top of that box (the part where the SATA port resides) is often treated as a separable piece.

All together, you'd call the whole thing the hard drive and practically it makes little difference whether the spinning platters are exhibiting hardware-defects or the controller board is failing. Either way, the drive is dying.

From your earlier SMART test, it's clear that BOTH the spinning platters and the cache on the controller board had problems. My guess is that these problems have gotten far worse (drives don't magically get better) and you have a very brief period of time remaining to copy your data off before you lose it. The data residing on damaged/bad sectors is probably already unrecoverable.

[mrlynn]

Onamuji wrote:
. . . From your earlier SMART test, it's clear that BOTH the spinning platters and the cache on the controller board had problems. My guess is that these problems have gotten far worse (drives don't magically get better) and you have a very brief period of time remaining to copy your data off before you lose it. The data residing on damaged/bad sectors is probably already unrecoverable.

Thanks for the clarification. I do have my nightly clone through Wednesday, and my TM backup through Friday, plus some files backed up on Dropbox. So should be OK. I have shut down the iMac, and am pondering all the alternatives. I think I'm moving toward a refurb 2014 or 2015 iMac.

/Mr Lynn

[gabester]

What's the power usage on one of these drives like?
g=

[jdc]

gabester wrote:
What's the power usage on one of these drives like?
g=

Prob no difference than any other drive.