USB only hard drives

[reaper57]

I have recently found this http://www.legitreviews.com/images/r...2tb-inside.jpg
Do you guys know of any other brand that's doing this? I did find a guide on how to convert a drive to sata, but it stills sucks. Do you think that there are or will be any drives that no longer have a sata controller and are really usb only?

Conversion guide: http://www.datarecoverytools.co.uk/2...-doctor-suite/

[diif]

Re: USB only hard drives

I can see why they do it for the portable drives, to save cost, there's nothing to stop the user buying a cheap USB enclosure and sticking in a SSD or hard drive.
I've seen a few of those WD passport drives that have failed, i've bookmarked that link, thanks, for future reference.

[eccerr0r]

Re: USB only hard drives

All the demand for smaller, cheaper; not surprised stuff like this is happening... Since there's a size penalty for the usb <-> sata conversion, probably can guess by the size of the case though this is not definitive.

Thanks for the heads up, will not be buying USB HDDs as an alternative to internal-SATA.

[reaper57]

Re: USB only hard drives

I know it's because they want to save money, but how much do they really save? Since you can just solder a sata cable on there, then what they've done is just integrated the sata to usb adapter in the main pcb, and left the sata controller like it was before. So many companies have been using "external" sata to usb adapters for such a long time, are they so greedy that they would decide to save 5 cents per hard drive now?

[eccerr0r]

Re: USB only hard drives

The margins on those things are already razor thin, the 5 cents adds up.
Also keep in mind assembly and assembly costs.

[Agent24]

Re: USB only hard drives

The margins on those things are already razor thin, the 5 cents adds up.
Also keep in mind assembly and assembly costs.

exactly.

They don't care if most people don't care there is no SATA port.

[reaper57]

Re: USB only hard drives

I guess they really do save a lot of money by doing this, but I wonder why do such big companies make so much money on a product and then decide to reduce the production cost to make even more. I mean what do they do with all that money, use it instead of firewood?
If something fails on a drive like that, you have so much more to troubleshoot. You have an extra controller soldered to the board, plus some extra circuitry and if one of your internal drives fails, you can't use an external hdd as a replacement.

[Agent24]

Re: USB only hard drives

They don't care about it failing - most people will buy another one.

They just want ever-increasing profits, nothing more.

[diif]

Re: USB only hard drives

I expect drives to fail at some point. If your data is important, back it up.

[Agent24]

Re: USB only hard drives

I expect drives to fail at some point. If your data is important, back it up.

In fact, back it up at least twice, and keep the backups physically separate.

[eccerr0r]

Re: USB only hard drives

I mean what do they do with all that money, use it instead of firewood?

If there was a chance to get an extra dollar and (most) people wouldn't notice, most people would grab that chance... That's exactly what's happening here.

And it is somewhat unfortunate people don't notice (or for that matter, care) they're being fleeced... That's why there's this huge income inequality going on in the USA.

[diif]

Re: USB only hard drives

In fact, back it up at least twice, and keep the backups physically separate.

With one version offline, due to the current trend for crypto malware.

[eccerr0r]

Re: USB only hard drives

A bit offtopic here but I really wonder about that ransomware malware ... how prevalent is it? Have people here actually *gotten* it (ignore news, hearsay, etc.) and lost time/files/money due to it? Maybe this deserves its own thread or perhaps someone already had one...

For now I feel a bit shielded due to running Linux but it has its own problems... running services 24/7 (due to personal/remote needs) has its own worries... Not like Linux could also succumb to similar types of malware, however.

[Agent24]

Re: USB only hard drives

I fixed a neighbor's laptop that was infected with a really shitty ransomware, easily removed. There was no loss of data as far as I know. Lucky it wasn't a crypto malware.

I haven't seen anything else so far, but I don't do a huge amount of virus removal either.

[diif]

Re: USB only hard drives

I should hope most of the users here are smart enough to got get malware, although it's clear from some that they could do more to secure their browsers and get their OS from a verified source.
I have been asked recently to sort out a small business network, i will be ensuring they have an offline backup solution for this reason.

You didn't want a news site, but i shall post this link due to the target, i think it says a lot about this type of malware and where it is going...on the rise.

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/04/1...mputer-system/

Here's a link to a good page from Brian Krebs (i recommend his website) on how to avoid Cryptolocker.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/11/h...er-ransomware/