Loren M. Lang wrote: > I currently am doing nightly backups of my server onto two USB hard > drives that are rotated weekly. A nightly backup only takes 30-45 > minutes on average, but the USB drives are left plugged in and running > for a full week. The USB enclosures are usually quiet warm during the > entire time they are plugged in and I am concerned that this is causing > a high rate of failure. I have lost 4 hard drives in 2 years while they > are still under warranty, at least. It appears that USB does not offer > any mechanisms to power down the drives when they are not in use. I > only have the drives mounted during the 30-45 minutes they are running, > but this hasn't helped. I am curious on what ideas you might have for > external hard drives that only need to run for a short time at night. > Either a cooler enclosure or alternatives like Firewire or E-SATA if > they can power down drives.
I have a bunch of external drives which I keep separated with little wire racks instead of stacking them directly on top of each other (generally sold, if I recall correctly, for increasing usable storage in one's pantry) and then use a 9 inch fan to blow air across the whole row of equipment (there are some cable modems and the like in there as well). I have to replace the fan about once a year, but meanwhile the equipment stays *much* cooler. Of course, figuring out how to power down the drives and skipping the fan would be much greener. --Jon Radel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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