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Cake day: October 27th, 2023

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  • What are you asking about? Are you looking to use SAS drives through eSATA? While SAS drives support connection though SATA, your controller needs to be SAS compatible. You can’t just use any SATA enclosure with eSATA or USB.

    Standalone external SAS enclosures are expensive is because of lack of supply and demand. A klunge may be to use an internal multi-drive 5.25" bay dock and use it outside your PC case, running the SAS/SATA and power cables out the back of your PC. I tried this with a 4 bay dock that happens to support SAS drives and has SATA only connectors on the back. I’m not sure if it was the dock or the cables, but it only worked intermittently. If the drives were connected directly with SAS cables, they were fine.












  • IMO, no pre-built externals are worth shucking unless they’re significantly cheaper than bare retail drives.

    About externals and why I recommend not buying them anymore.

    This is from a Q&A with an anonymous industry insider who confirmed what others and I have speculated for years.

    Q: Is it true that the drives in externals can be: overstock, overruns, binned (out of spec drives), from cancelled orders.

    A: Yes to all of it. Externals are the lowest bins above the [redated] (Edit: binned rives} we sell to third parties. It’s whatever is leftover. They have less warranty because they aren’t expected to last as long.

    My notes: The first part is supported by what I posted in this thread, https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/11jmot5/to\_those\_asking\_what\_drive\_is\_inside\_my\_wd/ which has a link to WD’s disclosure about this.

    It’s been confirmed by another source that the binned drives, are drives that are Out Of Spec, flashed with special firmware that can’t be updated and is no longer supported by the manufacturer. This is source of SOME of the unbranded drives from certain resellers.

    [New edit not in the original thread] The above paragraph is referring to another thread where the OP bought a refurbed internal drive, not an external and it was incorrectly flashed.

    Q: Is it true that in a given generation of HDD, when reduced capacities are released at the same time, you can sometimes tell from the model number that it’s the same hardware inside as a full capacity drive” To be used in externals or sold to resellers?

    A: Yes, see above. The [redated] (My edit: XX drive size) were reconfigured for 12 and 14TB. The [redacted] went all the way down to 10TB to my knowledge. We just disable specific bad heads in the factory and rewrite the tracks. It’s an automated process obviously, but we can internally look up all that history on any serial number.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/146hb9k/information\_about\_cmr\_to\_smr\_manufacturer/

    This is from the link about WD externals referred to above

    To those asking “What drive is inside my WD external?”. From WD…

    Drive Type Inside of a WD External Drive Enclosure

    The drive inside of a Western Digital enclosure may vary depending on application.

    • Depending on model, the internal drive included an external enclosure could have a SATA or native USB interface.

    • We can only guarantee drive capacity.

    We cannot guarantee a particular internal drive model, data interface, rotational speed, power consumption, transfer speed or cache size included in the external hard drive enclosure.

    • We can only guarantee a Western Digital Drive.

    We cannot guarantee a particular enclosure will have a WD colored drive inside.

    • Dismantling any single-drive external enclosure to obtain this information will void the warranty of the hard drive.

    Please refer to the Western Digital Warranty Policy.

    • Interface and cache of the drives inside the external enclosure does not affect the performance or the data transfer rate of the external drive unit.

    https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a\_id/13652

    https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/11jmot5/to\_those\_asking\_what\_drive\_is\_inside\_my\_wd/




  • Max UHD disc speed is 128Mb/s / 16MB/s. Hard drives read at up to ~150-200MB/s, so far from being a limiting factor. Even the slowest 5400 RPM hard drive is still fast enough to play any 4K video.

    Even SMR hard drives which do slow down as you full up the drive and/or rewrite files, are fine as the the read speed is the same as CMR drives.

    Your issues with crashes and stutters is caused by something else other than the hard drive.

    Note that this is for video playback. If you’re writing or editing video, then an SSD makes a difference.




  • To those complaining about Verbatim discs, understand that for decades, disc manufacturers have been selling discs from other makers under their brand name and virtually all first tier disc manufacturers around the world, notably Japan, Singapore, India, UAE have closed. CMC Magnetics used only manufacture 2nd & 3rd tier discs until they completely bought out Verbatim and Taiyo-Yuden, including their proprietary formulas.

    What’s always been the measure of quality is the media code https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmediaform.php?dvdinfo=1#dvdinfo which you can then cross reference in this list: https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia

    lordsmurf at digitalfaq.com gave a list of 1st tier blank DVDs that’s still relevant today since only Verbatim (Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation) and Taiyo-Yuden are the only brands/formulas in use today. https://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm

    Name brands like Sony, TDK and Maxell are still on the market today, but the media code will show the discs are 2nd or 3rd tier inferior products.

    The reason for the quality decline in blank DVDs is that like CDs, the price bottomed out and 1st tier media could no longer be sold at as premium. The good news is you can still get Verbatim AZO discs if you shop carefully and read the package label, lookin for the AZO name and logo. Taiyo-Yuden discs are also still available at a premium.

    Note that the media code can be faked, so be sure to buy from a known, reputable seller where you can return your unused discs if they’re bad.