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External Hard Drives - What to avoid?

@ Fishrrman: and good advice it is. :cool:

I don't think I'll ever buy another pre-boxed external. Manufacturers are just loading in more and more nonsense with them and charging a premium for it.

That Seagate idea with the NTFS adapters is just waaaaaay too stupid.
 
You guys might find this interesting.

If you remember I had one of those WD MyBook HDs, except with mine the cable was shot. The store I went to had all kinds of those things in various flavors at the time.

I checked a fews days ago - all pulled. None. Nada. They still sell WD stuff, but none of the MyBook type of drives.

There return rate must have been sky high.
 
ZVH said:
Apple modified the EFI from 32 to 64 bit in ML and (of course) it's still this way.
Click to expand...

Different OS versions don't change the EFI bit count. If the EFI is 32-bits when it left the factory, it'll be 32-bits when it gets it's last OS version. Same goes for 64-bit EFI Macs. The first 64-bit EFI Macs came out in 2007. They were the MacBook Pro and iMac. Those machines never came with a 32-bit EFI implementation. What the OS can and does change is the kernel and process bit count. A 64-bit EFI can load a 32-bit kernel, but not the other way around.
 
Unfortunately, I have to use my hard drives across platforms. All of my Macs have Windows 8 on them as well as OS-X Mavericks. To me it is important that my hard drive be able to work with either. One of my WD MyBook Essentials is actually used on a Wii, so it is partitioned for Windows and WBFS.
 
Intell said:
Different OS versions don't change the EFI bit count. If the EFI is 32-bits when it left the factory, it'll be 32-bits when it gets it's last OS version. Same goes for 64-bit EFI Macs. The first 64-bit EFI Macs came out in 2007. They were the MacBook Pro and iMac. Those machines never came with a 32-bit EFI implementation. What the OS can and does change is the kernel and process bit count. A 64-bit EFI can load a 32-bit kernel, but not the other way around.
Click to expand...

You're 100% correct. I used poor wording. I have always, however, correlated the switch to 64 bit as a good, possible cause because it seems to be about the time people started having what seem to be excessive problems with hard drives.
 
If you go with a pre-created external do a web search about compatibility of the drive and/or drivers used with it. As you know the WD won't work 100% unless their stupid drivers are installed. A fair number of people are reporting compatibility problems with certain Macs, and it sounds like its MacBook Pro's, and Mavericks.
 
There's a lot of errors here for such a short thread.

Western Digital (or Seagate, or Toshiba, or La Cie, or...) pre-packaged single-drive mechanisms do not require any additional software to work on Macs. They just don't. You can stamp and scream and claim that to be the case, but since they all pretty much use the exact same chipsets, and are all standards-compliant USB mass storage devices which by their definition do not require driver bootstrapping, you'd be wrong. "But..." nothing. You're wrong. Stop saying that.

Many drives come with additional software or a software suite as a value-add that may provide backup functions, backup to the cloud functions, etc. That software may or may not be useful to you, but it is not required for the drive to be a fully-functional external storage device. Use it with Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, or just as plug-and-play storage to your heart's content without ever installing the manufacturer's software.

The software that came with certain models of Western Digital external drives had a problem with OS X Mavericks 10.9.0. This was due to an interaction between a Mavericks bug and a bug in the software (double whammy) which could, during the initial install of Mavericks, cause data loss. Clearly a critical bug, but only affected people who were actively using the software on certain WD drives during Mavericks install while the drive was connected and turned on on certain Mac models. Yet going by the internet, you'd think all of civilization had collapsed.

Buy what provides the storage you need at the price you want to pay. There are plenty of valid reasons to choose one brand or configuration over another, or to match a mechanism with an empty case. But at the very least, understand what those reasons are and don't make decisions based on mindless misinformation.
 
catanalogy said:
There's a lot of errors here for such a short thread.

Western Digital (or Seagate, or Toshiba, or La Cie, or...) pre-packaged single-drive mechanisms do not require any additional software to work on Macs.
Click to expand...

That statement is WRONG!

I have one of the WD's that keeps getting mentioned and if the drivers are not installed the power switch and the LED space indicators won't work. The only way to power it down is to unmount the drive an physically disconnect the power from the drive. It's a Catch-22 situation: either you install their drivers and become at the mercy of WD to keep them updated or you use a semi-functional drive. You also cannot manage some of the features the drive is capable of without the software.

Another version of these drives also uses a form of hardware encryption on the interface card. If you were to open the unit up, take out the drive, and then try it in another system like it was a normal drive, it won't work. The controller on the drive itself is mated to the interface card. For all I know, mine might be this way as well but I'm not pulling the unit apart and voiding the warranty to find out.
 
Well, in that case, it would seem that WD external drives are to be avoided... which given they have the WD Caviar Green drives in them for capacities up to 3TB (I believe the 4TB externals have HGST drives in them), is double the reason to avoid.

Personally, I prefer building my own drives from bare drives/enclosures, that way I know what I'm getting.

I think a lot of people here do the same thing.
 
Personally, I prefer building my own drives from bare drives/enclosures, that way I know what I'm getting.
Click to expand...

...which seems to be the gist of this thread.

If you go over to the Apple site you see report after report after report of Mavericks being incompatible with some externals. Apples own tech support people are telling users to connect USB hubs between their computers and the offending drives, making the USB hub act like a "Mavericks Adapter." The same drives worked fine on other MacOS versions but now they don't, and Apple won't admit anything is wrong and the fan boyz on that site refuse to acknowledge there's a bug.

Personally Mavericks and Mountain Lion are probably two of the buggiest operating systems I've ever used. I have yet to see a home brew unit fail, but give Apple a chance, maybe they can make that happen too.
 
There's another thread on this site about a Toshiba Canvio drive with abysmal performance. A quick Google showed this to be a somewhat rampant problem for some of the drives in that line. It has nothing to do with the actual drive or the formatting, it has to do with the way they're controlling the drive. I'm afraid a lot of manufacturers are gearing drives towards low power/low performance with the assumption that they'll only be used as backup drives. It just further builds the case for a DIY solution.
 
As an FYI I'd steer clear of refurbished drives. A friend of mine bought one with a 3 month warranty and after 4 months the drive totally locked up.
 
On the other hand, I've had good experience with refurbished drives and refurbished computers. Most times these are refurbished by the manufacturer, and have manufacturer warranties.

Now, it's another story if the reseller actually does the refurbishing/reboxing. They typically don't have the resources to properly check things out.

Bottom line, check the warranty...
 
@g4cube:

Do you really have G4 cube? I've heard some people are cannibalizing Mac Mini's and other small Mac's and putting that hardware in them just because they're cool looking.

About refurbs:

It depends on whether it's a real refurb, as in repaired, or an overstock drive that's never seen any use. I've bought some refurbs that were overstocks from discontinued drive lines. As I understand it, manufacturers keep a percentage of brand new drives around for returns, and when the line gets cancelled they start selling them off. They're effectively unused and in most cases, just a little dated.

....then there are the "other" refurbs. Those that went in for real repairs. I got one of them from WD and you could tell by the markings on the drive that it had been repaired. Probably a drive controller failure because I can't see how it would be cost effective to actually open up a drive and service it. The bad part about these is you have no idea how much they were used. Mine had a 3 month warranty and I swear, it was about 5 days after it went out of warranty, the thing crashed like I never heard a drive crash before.
 
ZVH said:
@g4cube:

Do you really have G4 cube?
Click to expand...

Yes, really.

I've purchased refurbs from Apple, LaCie, WD, Seagate, Amazon, Best Buy, etc. I do stay away from any repackaged goods from Frys, though, as it seems that some of its customers use its liberal return privileges to "rent" products. Frys factory refurbs are a good deal, though.

First thing to do is to inspect upon receipt and run some diagnostic tests to make sure all is OK.

Have I ever received a suspect refurb? Absolutely, and back it goes; this is rare, though. Just be sure to check return policy BEFORE making the purchase.

Perhaps I've been lucky, or my due diligence keeps me out of trouble.

Oh, and if I interpret quoted comment above, yes, I do have an original G4 Cube, puchased new.
 
I know it's a bit off topic, but is the G4 Cube still working? There's sort of a G4 Cube "fan club" on the web. I visited it once and they were doing things like taking Mac Mini's and putting their guts into them. I have a 1.33GHz Aluminum PowerBook that's still got no signs of dying.
 
My G4 Cube is mint condition with original box, Studio Display, and spare CD/DVD. Almost never used. Still works fine.

A work of art that replaced my 20th Anniversary Mac that could not be repaired by Apple.
 
@Original Poster:

I have a WD MyBook and I assume it's similar if not identical to yours. I have none of the problems with it you have, in fact I'd say it works well. I use Scannerz too and have tested it several times, all without any problems or the timeouts you mention.

I think you just got a lemmon. The moral of the story here is don't open up the unit if you think it's bad because that voids the warranty. You may not have been able to take it back to your store but WD likely would have done an exchange for you.
 
It's been gone over before. If not in this thread then another (somewhere:eek:) It seems WD had a bad production lot with bad PROM software that somehow or another snuck out the door. It sounds to me like the OP got stuck with one of those units.
 
OldGuyTom said:
If you go with a pre-created external do a web search about compatibility of the drive and/or drivers used with it. As you know the WD won't work 100% unless their stupid drivers are installed. A fair number of people are reporting compatibility problems with certain Macs, and it sounds like its MacBook Pro's, and Mavericks.
Click to expand...

Interesting enough, the only drives I use are WD and I've never loaded any drivers. They all come formatted in FAT32.
I connect them to my computer, immediately go to Disk Utility, format the drive how I wish and then use the drive.

Out of the 8+ WD drives I've purchased in the last 7 years only 1 had a problem which was a USB3 MyBook 2TB and it was the case. I removed the drive and placed it into another enclosure and never had a problem out of that drive again.
The problem was, the drive would just randomly eject itself, no rhyme or reason.
 
WD seems to have multiple versions of the same class of drives, and they may vary considerably from unit to unit, but as far as the housing goes they all look nearly alike. They sold some type of external HD with hardware encryption embedded on the drive/interface combo some time ago, and if you pulled the drive it wouldn't work in another unit. You couldn't treat is as a regular drive. From a security standpoint its not a bad idea at all. How many people have something like the cable or interface card go bad and then toss the entire drive not realizing all their data can be recovered?

If you go over and visit the fanboyz over on the Apple site you will promptly get clubbed by their self appointed experts for even mentioning WD. I have a WD in one of my laptops that's running great after 6 years. Still no signs of problems. It replaced a Hitachi that went bad after 2 years.

Western Digital may make a mistake here and their but I don't think they really deserve some of the harsh criticism they often get.
 
B-Eugen said:
Western Digital may make a mistake here and their but I don't think they really deserve some of the harsh criticism they often get.
Click to expand...

I think WD largely got a bad rep with their Caviar Green drives, which performed poorly in RAID arrays and NAS units, thus spawning the Caviar Red series, which in turn have spawned the new Red Pro drives for heavier workloads.

The best move WD made was acquiring HGST, their drives are brilliant.
 
Out of the 8+ WD drives I've purchased in the last 7 years only 1 had a problem which was a USB3 MyBook 2TB and it was the case. I removed the drive and placed it into another enclosure and never had a problem out of that drive again.
The problem was, the drive would just randomly eject itself, no rhyme or reason.
Click to expand...

That's probably the cable or maybe a bug in the OS if it's Mavericks. The cable that came with my MyBook was bad from day one. Aside from ejecting periodically it would also just sort of lock up once in a while when doing a read or write operation. Someone mentioned Scannerz ability to do cable tests in addition to drive tests so I bought it since I wasn't sure what the problem was. All I needed to do was start a scan and then move the cable slightly and Scannerz would go ballistic when it's normally a very boring program.

The cables and cases on the WDs, at least for the MyBook I have are just unbelievably cheap. A few years ago external HDs often had fairly rugged metal housings with heavy cables now they seem to have flimsy plastic cases with cables that look like they're built by elves. It isn't just WD, either. I've seen some Seagate externals that appear as bad.

It's almost like they're having a race to the bottom quality wise.
 
About a month ago I started a thread on what externals do work with newer Mac's. The last time I looked, there was one response and that was a usb2 response.

My experience is the entire usb3 standard is a mess as well as Apple's implementation of sleep mode. I've been through 4 different usb3 enclosures, installed a variety of Hitachi's and Samsung's I know work just fine in 3 of them, and all were problematic. Improper ejects with sleep, spontaneous ejects, can't be mounted without a reboot, don't show up in DU, wifi issues. On the same MacBook Air, FireWire drives operate just fine.

This is another thread where there's a conspicuous absence of people with late model Mac's and no problems with external usb3 drives.

For now, I've decided to go with large ssd internals and keep using my old FireWire drives. Cheaper and I have speed where I want it.

I'm more than welcome to hear some specific success stories with specific current gen Mac's and specific usb3 externals. Stories that don't require crippling sleep mode or installing software to eject drives as OSX appears unable to.
 
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