Crashed external HDD with all my photos

[Eric]

To answer the first question, no I did not have a backup, shame on me.

Moving on, this is a Seagate backup plus portable external hard and it's simply not powering up, seemed to die right after an import this morning. It doesn't seem to attempt and the light won't come on. I've tried a different cable and a different computer so I've ruled out the basics, it seems like it simply won't take any power.

So I stripped it down to where I can pull the usb adapter piece to expose the SATA and have ordered a SATA to USB-C adapter (coming tomorrow) and attempt that way. If that doesn't work I'll be reaching out to a data recovery specialist (which I know won't be cheap) as it's pretty much that last few years of my life and tens of thousands of photos that will need to be recovered.

Going forward, I will have a backup solution in place.

 

[mollyc]

oh i’m so sorry!!

 

[Cmaier]

To answer the first question, no I did not have a backup, shame on me.

Moving on, this is a Seagate backup plus portable external hard and it's simply not powering up, seemed to die right after an import this morning. It doesn't seem to attempt and the light won't come on. I've tried a different cable and a different computer so I've ruled out the basics, it seems like it simply won't take any power.

So I stripped it down to where I can pull the usb adapter piece to expose the SATA and have ordered a SATA to USB-C adapter (coming tomorrow) and attempt that way. If that doesn't work I'll be reaching out to a data recovery specialist (which I know won't be cheap) as it's pretty much that last few years of my life and tens of thousands of photos that will need to be recovered.

Going forward, I will have a backup solution in place.

Sounds like the issue isn’t the drive itself, so that’s good news. A problem with the drive wouldn’t likely prevent powering up. Any chance the problem could just be the power adapter? Those things are the most likely point of failure.

I shuck those things all the time to save money on disks for my NAS, so putting it in another enclosure or using an adapter should work fine.

 

[Eric]

Sounds like the issue isn’t the drive itself, so that’s good news. A problem with the drive wouldn’t likely prevent powering up. Any chance the problem could just be the power adapter? Those things are the most likely point of failure.

I shuck those things all the time to save money on disks for my NAS, so putting it in another enclosure or using an adapter should work fine.

It only has a single adapter and appears to be powered by USB, hoping it is just power as that would be really lucky, it does appear that way but we'll have to see. I don't have any spare parts to test/replace so I figure I'll try the SATA adapter as a first step, there's no telling where the power failure could be, at least to me who knows basically nothing about the architecture of these drives.

 

[Cmaier]

It only has a single adapter and appears to be powered by USB, hoping it is just power as that would be really lucky, it does appear that way but we'll have to see. I don't have any spare parts to test/replace so I figure I'll try the SATA adapter as a first step, there's no telling where the power failure could be, at least to me who knows basically nothing about the architecture of these drives.

There’s a small possibility that the problem is the interface electronics on the drive itself - that board can also be replaced. The data on the drive itself should be fine.

In the most likely scenario the board in the enclosure, not the drive, has a problem. Very rarely, there is a minor issue when taking a drive out of one of those things and trying to use it in another enclosure or with an adapter, caused by a voltage mismatch. If so, there’s an easy fix for that, too - you essentially tape over a pin. I haven’t run into that myself because the box I put these things in is tolerant to the issue.

This sums that up:

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives: If you find this instructable useful, please consider subscribing to my Youtube channel for upcoming DIY tutorials concerning technology. Thank you!

www.instructables.com

 

[Eric]

There’s a small possibility that the problem is the interface electronics on the drive itself - that board can also be replaced. The data on the drive itself should be fine.

In the most likely scenario the board in the enclosure, not the drive, has a problem. Very rarely, there is a minor issue when taking a drive out of one of those things and trying to use it in another enclosure or with an adapter, caused by a voltage mismatch. If so, there’s an easy fix for that, too - you essentially tape over a pin. I haven’t run into that myself because the box I put these things in is tolerant to the issue.

This sums that up:

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives: If you find this instructable useful, please consider subscribing to my Youtube channel for upcoming DIY tutorials concerning technology. Thank you!

www.instructables.com

Great info, I'll keep that in mind if I can't retrieve via the SATA adapter.

 

[Roller]

As @Cmaier says, you'll almost certainly get your data back. I've had some issues with Seagate spinning drives over the years and now back up to SSDs that I rotate, keeping one offsite, plus cloud services. Let us know how it goes.

 

[Herdfan]

To answer the first question, no I did not have a backup, shame on me.

Moving on, this is a Seagate backup plus portable external hard and it's simply not powering up, seemed to die right after an import this morning. It doesn't seem to attempt and the light won't come on. I've tried a different cable and a different computer so I've ruled out the basics, it seems like it simply won't take any power.

So I stripped it down to where I can pull the usb adapter piece to expose the SATA and have ordered a SATA to USB-C adapter (coming tomorrow) and attempt that way. If that doesn't work I'll be reaching out to a data recovery specialist (which I know won't be cheap) as it's pretty much that last few years of my life and tens of thousands of photos that will need to be recovered.

Going forward, I will have a backup solution in place.

In the past couple of years I have had a Seagate and G-Drive fail. Both times I was able to pull the actual drive out and put it in an enclosure and it worked fine.

Good luck.

 

[Eric]

There’s a small possibility that the problem is the interface electronics on the drive itself - that board can also be replaced. The data on the drive itself should be fine.

In the most likely scenario the board in the enclosure, not the drive, has a problem. Very rarely, there is a minor issue when taking a drive out of one of those things and trying to use it in another enclosure or with an adapter, caused by a voltage mismatch. If so, there’s an easy fix for that, too - you essentially tape over a pin. I haven’t run into that myself because the box I put these things in is tolerant to the issue.

This sums that up:

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives: If you find this instructable useful, please consider subscribing to my Youtube channel for upcoming DIY tutorials concerning technology. Thank you!

www.instructables.com

You know, I like this solution and may end up going with it, just gotta price it out but 2 drives on top of your system drive, right?

From my NAS.

My workflow is that I shoot with RAW/JPG, upload it all to the NAS with time-stamped and named folders, then launch LR Classic, go to the Import screen and look through the photos, importing the ones that I want to work with (RAW, obviously) and then editing them. I sometimes use photoshop on them first. I do this even with A1 files, which are pretty huge, and performance is acceptable. (I mean, look, LR has a terribly inefficient import browser. But doing the editing on local files would make little difference in the overall speed of my workflow).

My NAS has 2-disk redundancy, so as long as three drives don’t fail simultaneously, it would be difficult to lose data. (I also back up nightly from 1 NAS to a second, in case the whole NAS crashes). It gives me great comfort.

(I also upload the jpgs to flickr pro, in case my house burns down).

I need to be more responsible about properly storing and backing up my data, outside of work it's basically my life.

 

[Cmaier]

You know, I like this solution and may end up going with it, just gotta price it out but 2 drives on top of your system drive, right?


I need to be more responsible about properly storing and backing up my data, outside of work it's basically my life.

Yeah, if you want two drive redundancy you need two more drives than the number you want to store data on. In my case each box has 12 drives. The volume size is equivalent to 9 drives, with two being used to provide redundancy, and 1 “spare” drive that takes over when another drive fails. (It takes about 4 or 5 days for that process to complete in my case - having double redundancy is critical for me because another drive could fail when that’s going on).

Synology and qnap have a number of 4-drive boxes. Or you could use two 2-drive setups and backup one to the other and get similar resilience.

Of course that’s also not foolproof - the whole system could theoretically crash (happened once to me - UPS failed and shut off power to the NAS at exactly the wrong time), your box could blow a power supply, etc. Or you could have a fire, flood, etc.

Hence off-site backup is a great idea as well.

 

[Runs For Fun]

Did it by chance use a Micro USB 3 B connector?

 

[Eric]

Yeah, if you want two drive redundancy you need two more drives than the number you want to store data on. In my case each box has 12 drives. The volume size is equivalent to 9 drives, with two being used to provide redundancy, and 1 “spare” drive that takes over when another drive fails. (It takes about 4 or 5 days for that process to complete in my case - having double redundancy is critical for me because another drive could fail when that’s going on).

Synology and qnap have a number of 4-drive boxes. Or you could use two 2-drive setups and backup one to the other and get similar resilience.

Of course that’s also not foolproof - the whole system could theoretically crash (happened once to me - UPS failed and shut off power to the NAS at exactly the wrong time), your box could blow a power supply, etc. Or you could have a fire, flood, etc.

Hence off-site backup is a great idea as well.

Okay, good to know. I don't think I'll go as far as off-site backup but definitely need to add redundancy, I can't be preaching this to my clients all the time and not practicing some of my own lol.

Did it by chance use a Micro USB 3 B connector?

Yes it is, have two of them as well so I was able to rule the cable out.

 

[Runs For Fun]

Yes it is, have two of them as well so I was able to rule the cable out.

Ah I see. I had two of these drives and they were both touchy AF. If you moved it or breathed on it the wrong way it would disconnect. I thought it was the drive but it was the damn micro USB 3 B connector. That is like the shittiest connector to ever exist. I popped them out of the case and tested them in a drive dock and the disks themselves were absolutely fine. There's a fair chance it's the same for you I'm hoping.

 

[mollyc]

i have a four bay synology with two working drives and the others as backup. i use seagate ironwolf drives now. i’ve had two wd red drives fail on me in my old nas.

 

[Cmaier]

i have a four bay synology with two working drives and the others as backup. i use seagate ironwolf drives now. i’ve had two wd red drives fail on me in my old nas.

It’s a crap shoot. I’ve found 8 GB barracudas to be the crashiest, but have had good luck with WD 8’s. Hitachi have worked pretty well , as well. I’ve got some WD Red 6TB drives that have been running for years. I’ve moved on to 12’s (a mixture of seagate and WD) and so far none of those have crashed. With 30 drives across three NAS’s, I usually lose 1 or 2 a year. (The third NAS is just for Time Machine backups - when I take old drives out of the other NAS’s to replace them with 10’s or 12’s, I stick them in the third NAS, since it was sitting around doing nothing. It’s a 2012 model)

 

[Eric]

Yeah, if you want two drive redundancy you need two more drives than the number you want to store data on. In my case each box has 12 drives. The volume size is equivalent to 9 drives, with two being used to provide redundancy, and 1 “spare” drive that takes over when another drive fails. (It takes about 4 or 5 days for that process to complete in my case - having double redundancy is critical for me because another drive could fail when that’s going on).

Synology and qnap have a number of 4-drive boxes. Or you could use two 2-drive setups and backup one to the other and get similar resilience.

Of course that’s also not foolproof - the whole system could theoretically crash (happened once to me - UPS failed and shut off power to the NAS at exactly the wrong time), your box could blow a power supply, etc. Or you could have a fire, flood, etc.

Hence off-site backup is a great idea as well.

Can I ask which NAS you have exactly? Looking like a minimum of $550+ from what I can see on Amazon.

Also, you'll have to forgive my ignorance as a home user I've never done this, but you can just hook up any type of drive you have to multiple bays? So I can have different makes and sizes, etc.

 

[Cmaier]

Can I ask which NAS you have exactly? Looking like a minimum of $550+ from what I can see on Amazon.

Also, you'll have to forgive my ignorance as a home user I've never done this, but you can just hook up any type of drive you have to multiple bays? So I can have different makes and sizes, etc.

You don’t want mine, as it would be overkill, but fwiw I have 2 Synology DS3612’s and a Synology 2419+. You’d be looking at something more like a ds418+ if you want four drives. They also have 2-drive varieties, if you are okay with single-disk redundancy (and there are many other manufacturers who offer those as well). Qnap also makes very good ones. But if you are sticking to 4 drives or less, there are many other good brands.

As for drives, it depends. You can certainly mix and match brands and model numbers. As far as sizes, that gets more complicated. If we are talking about Synology, you can set up the box with different RAID levels. In a 4 drive setup you’d want either SHR or RAID 6, probably. SHR would let you mix and match drive sizes, with some caveats (you can only replace a drive with a new drive that matches the biggest drive you already have, and depending on your mixture you may not be able to use all the disk space). I am not sure whether all Synology boxes support SHR at this point, but I *think* they do?

This link explains the options:

Choose a RAID Type | DSM - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center provides you with answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

kb.synology.com

And this page lets you play around with different options to see how much space you’d have:

RAID Calculator | Synology Inc.

Use this interactive tool to estimate the storage space of your Synology NAS when paired with different size hard drives and RAID levels.

www.synology.com

There is no doubt that this is much more expensive than just plugging in an external disk. You also want to make sure you have a good UPS if you are using a NAS, which adds even more cost if you don’t have one.

It’s a huge convenience, but many people can get along with just rotating a couple of external drives if they don’t need the capacity or fault tolerance of a NAS (or its other features, like acting as a Time Capsule for Time Machine backups, a Plex server, etc.)

 

[Eric]

Okay, I'm thinking 4 bays may be a better option so I can plan for growth, something like this

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-DS920-Diskless-4-bay/dp/B087Z34F3R/ref=sr_1_3?crid=9I4QEO2GPZB3&keywords=synology&qid=1658151372&sprefix=synologoy%2Caps%2C356&sr=8-3

As for drives, I checked out the Seagate Ironwolf that @mollyc shared but it looks like these are SATA, is that preferred over SD (not sure what is or isn't supported in the NAS).

Thanks for all the help here you two, if I can recover this drive it'll be the last time I use a non-redundant system.

 

[mollyc]

the nice thing about a nas is that it offers in house cloud storage. i can access all my files on the road.

 

[mollyc]

i had a two bay for a number of years but then had to back one drive up to an external for redundancy (the other nad drive was for time machine). i have a four bay now. i’ll check the model when i get home; i’ve only had it since march