OT: Using an external USB disk?

Ptero wrote on 4/4/2006, 8:21 AM
I have a 300Gb Maxtor OneTouch II USB external drive specifically for video work. Last night I was editing, stepped away from the machine for a few minutes, came back and started previewing. Suddenly the preview screen went black, although the audio was still there. I stopped the preview and started it again - the video came back up but all screwed up with colour bands and noise.

So I killed VMS, checked "My Computer" - the drive showed up but when I tried to open it, I got an error saying the drive was corrupted. I tried to use the error checking tool (Windows XP, BTW) but it did nothing - not even an error message, like it never even started up properly.

Tried a couple of other things - removing and reconnecting the drive, cycling the power, rebooting the whole system... no difference, it still told me it was corrupt. In the end the only thing that worked was a reformat, so I lost all my media files (I still have them on tape so I'm not worried about that, it's just a pain).

Maxtor tech support basically shrugged shoulders, saying "Well anything could have made the partition become corrupt..."

So, my question for the panel is: Does anyone else here have a similar setup for video work? Any problems like this? Should I use the thing just for backups and keep work-in-progress on my main drive?

Comments

stevec5375 wrote on 4/4/2006, 8:46 AM
I use an externally connected drive but it's firewire not USB. I've never had any problems with it.
Tim L wrote on 4/4/2006, 9:07 AM
I have a USB connected Western Digital 160GB drive (got it last December). I have not experienced any problems with it. I store my projects and media files there, and render to it as well.

(I know that you can improve rendering performance by rendering to a different drive, but I just like to keep everything in the project together, in the same base folder.)

Tim L
cbrillow wrote on 4/4/2006, 9:09 AM
Many of us on the forum use external drives connected via USB-2. I have 4 connected to my system and have not experienced failures such as the one you've described. It's hard to say what's caused your problem, with this appearing to be an isolated incident. If it happens again, you might be able to discern a pattern or commonality. Sounds like you need to hang onto those tapes...
Ptero wrote on 4/4/2006, 9:21 AM
Apparently there's a diagnostic I can run to test the drive. I'll give it a blast when I get home. If it looks "ok", I guess I can recapture the tapes and start the project again...

The main thing though is the answer, "Many of us on the forum use external drives connected via USB-2..." which is really what I wanted to know. I'm not alone :)

--Pete
Ptero wrote on 4/6/2006, 6:12 AM
The Maxtor died on me again last night while rendering mpeg-2, so this unit is going back to Maxtor. There's plainly something very wrong with it.

Are other people here using this same model, and if so, have you had problems like this? It's a Maxtor OneTouch II USB 300Gb.

I'd also like to know what other brands/models people here would recommend (and that includes this Maxtor - maybe I just got a bad one).

--Pete
Spot|DSE wrote on 4/6/2006, 8:29 AM
It's likely not the drive.
USB is CPU/resource dependent, and various bios' and various system configurations are generally responsible for whether it has access to speed or not. This is why USB2 is generally not suited for video work, but if your system is correctly configured, you're gold. If it's not, you're lead. Firewire doesn't use the same system resources, and is more broadly accessible by the system.
Ptero wrote on 4/6/2006, 9:05 AM
You know, I was wondering about that. Maybe I'll see about switching to a FireWire version of the same thing, and see how that goes. I can always just use the USB unit for backups. Thanks, Spot :)
Tim L wrote on 4/6/2006, 2:14 PM
I could see USB maybe being an issue during capture (i.e. capturing from camcorder out to a USB drive), because the DV stream from the camcorder won't stop and wait for a slow drive. But in this case, the problem is during rendering.

Wouldn't rendering be the type of thing that should work with any drive, no matter how slow? A slow drive might bog down rendering (or editing, etc.), but the entire system should wait, as needed for the drive to keep up.

However, rendering is probably one of the most CPU intensive things your computer might do. If you have anything marginal -- bad memory, overclocked this or that, driver issues, etc. -- those types of problems might be most likely to show up during rendering.

TIm L
Ptero wrote on 4/7/2006, 5:49 AM
Yes, you're probably right. Just for more complete info, what happened was that while rendering a 20-minute video, at some point toward the end VMS started acting strange. When I pulled up the "My Computer" screen, the external drive (where my source media is held) didn't show up. I powered everything down and brought it all back up; the drive showed up again but when I tried to open it the system told me the drive was corrupt. Maxtor's own diagnostic told me the drive was ok, but the only way I can get the drive back into usable shape is reformat. So I'm still convinced this drive is actually faulty, and I'm in the process of getting an RMA number so I can ship it back.
fishbelt wrote on 4/9/2006, 9:31 AM
I use a maxtor 200g USB. Have had no problems as far files go. I did get some problems as far as service pack 2 goes. I have a back up on C drive also on it. What i am getting is it seems MS thinks I have a seperate operating system on it. It say no product key found. I think maxtor soft ware is a big part of the problem. Anyone else having this problem?
swegner wrote on 5/4/2006, 8:12 PM
I just had a similar hard drive corruption occur with my external hard drive using a firewire connection.
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=457014

I am thinking of switching all my work-in-process to an internal hard drive and doing regularly scheduled backups of at the very least the project files. Where in the past I had only done the backup after I completed a project.