Are there any special maintenance issues for a hdd for media players (wdtv)

[yoda313]

Ok I've finally started using my wdtv gen 1 more frequently. IE youtube downloads

My question is are there any special maintenance routines I should do for the harddrive I use for the wdtv? Its an older ide drive in a usb enclosure (powered of course). I'm currently running a defrag with the freeware smart defrag program I found on cnet.

Is there anything else besides a defrag now and then that I should do with a usb drive for media playback?

Sometimes I might watch two or three hours in a row with it. Other times it just might be a half hour or forty five minutes.

I really wasn't using it for a long time but since I've been downloading a lot more videos it is very useful. I am not making as many dvds because of it. I still do on occasion.

Please note this is a full size gen 1 model that doesn't have a youtube app or any other kind of internet streaming abilities (at least not without heavy modding which I am not going to do to it).

Thanks for any tips. If occasional defragging is all that is needed that is what i'll keep doing.

[TBoneit]

I'm not sure why you are putting the extra wear and tear on the drive by defragging it. I've never defragged any of my drives. If you are only adding files and not deleting them it won't even fragment. The only maintenance I do is power them off when not in use. Many of my drives can not be defragged. For example the 1T b in the WD Live hub, the drive in my DVD recorder, The drives in my DVRs. When I plug the USB drives used with the Live hub into the computer I do let it run chkdsk and that is it for maintenance.

[edDV]

Its an older ide drive in a usb enclosure (powered of course).

As such, it is subject to catastrophic failure. Any drive over 4 yrs old increases in failure by x%/yr. See Google research on hard drive life. The drive should be backed up to a second newer drive. Then use it until it dies.

My question is are there any special maintenance routines I should do for the harddrive I use for the wdtv?

I'd run disk check periodically, especially when you add files. Fragmentation isn't an issue with small low bit rate files. You worry about fragmentation with large high bit rate situations like Huffyuv or large low compression HD files. In those cases you want to avoid disk seeks during playback.

[yoda313]

If you are only adding files and not deleting them it won't even fragment.

I am deleting a few here and there. Some relatively large videos that are intended to be a one time watch. Most will be left on the drive.

As such, it is subject to catastrophic failure. Any drive over 4 yrs old increases in failure by x%/yr. See Google research on hard drive life.

Hmm... I don't know its exact age. I'm 99% certain its an older western digital that I'm using in it. I haven't taken it out of the enclosure in quite some time.

The drive should be backed up to a second newer drive. Then use it until it dies.

I have another external that is designed as an external not an enclosure unit (fixed in other words). Its got an esata port so its much newer also a western digital. Not sure on the age of that either. However that drive is a bit smaller than the one I have in my enclosure, not much bit it is - storage space wise that is.

Fragmentation isn't an issue with small low bit rate files. You worry about fragmentation with large high bit rate situations like Huffyuv or large low compression HD files.

Most of them tend to be sd downloads off youtube. Some are 720p files. Most if not all of the files I've been using are h264.

I'd run disk check periodically, especially when you add files

Will do.

Regarding backups these are actually being stored on a secondary internal sata drive I have in my vista pc. I've been meaning to burn a few to dvdr to preserve them. I think maybe now I'll get to that to save some room on my extra internal and as a more "permanent" backup.

None of these are life and death must haves so if this drive I'm using does kick it its not the end of the world. It would be a bit of a hassle to recopy everything but not impossible.

Thanks for some of the advice. Keep it coming if I'm missing anything.

Oh and Tboneit I'm not defragging all the time. In fact this is only second or third defrag on it at all so I don't think thats excessive.

[edDV]

If this is an IDE drive it is probably more than 4 years old. So long as all files are copied to another drive, you can use this drive until it dies.

H.264 files, even 720p are small. Defrag isn't an issue until the disc nears full. A near full drive will fragment segments and may cause playback issues.

[yoda313]

If this is an IDE drive it is probably more than 4 years old. So long as all files are copied to another drive, you can use this drive until it dies.

Good to know

H.264 files, even 720p are small. Defrag isn't an issue until the disc nears full. A near full drive will fragment segments and may cause playback issues.

Sounds good. I appreciate the insight.

[cal_tony]

From an engineering standpoint...I always make sure that everything I have that has a motor or electronic components that generate heat is always running cool. I always listen an heed anything that edDV says but some of my hard disks are older than 4 years. But since they've never been exposed to running without a fan, I'm hoping they'll last a lot longer.

Re: Hard disks.. I always run them with a fan.. and especially in summertime it makes a big difference. I have a ThermalTake duo dock. I thought it would run cool since the 2 hard disks would be standing up and exposed to the atmosphere. Not so, after an hour or 2 of movie watching some of the features..like FF just didn't work right until the player and the hard disks cooled down. An internal computer fan mounted to the side of the Thermaltake cured the problem and now both disks are cool to the touch even after hours of movie play.

I even fabricated a 1" fan so it would mount to the front of my Fannon external hard disks. It's a press fit device so I can change it from one external hard disk to another.

The WD unit has lots of air vents and my WD unit runs much cooler if standing up. My Seagate players have no venting whatsoever and during the summer they would sometimes just freeze up after a few hours of HD mkv use. I drilled a 1 1/4" hole in each of them right over the video chip and no more problems with them either.

Tony

[_Al_]

I think it is going to be WDTV 1st generation who will give you troubles rather than HDD. Perhaps you did not use it extensively yet but problems will come, all kinds of annoying issues.

[Bjs]

To know the health of the drive take it out of the enclosure and physically connect it to a computer and install Active@ Hard Disk Monitor

It'll give you some idea as to how health the drive actually is and if its due to be replaced ... low raw value below 75% indicates trouble not far away.

[yoda313]

I think it is going to be WDTV 1st generation who will give you troubles rather than HDD. Perhaps you did not use it extensively yet but problems will come, all kinds of annoying issues.

Such as?

I haven't used it extensively that is true. I do however physically unplug the power jack from it (the wdtv unit) so it is completely off when not in use.

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Thanks for the input cal_tony. Next time I use my wdtv I'll check my harddrive enclosure for temperature by touch. It's some kind of metal case, might be aluminum. I'm pretty sure its a rocketfish enclosure.

The only things I've noticed is sometimes after fastforwarding a video there will be some stuttering in the video after pressing play. But it comes back to normal pretty quickly and doesn't seem to happen all the time. I haven't nailed down a pattern yet so I'm not sure if its after a long viewing session or viewing an hd clip versus sd or something similar. If it keeps happening that might be something to look into.

edit - bjs:

To know the health of the drive take it out of the enclosure and physically connect it to a computer and install Active@ Hard Disk Monitor

It'll give you some idea as to how health the drive actually is and if its due to be replaced ... low raw value below 75% indicates trouble not far away.

Great! Thanks.

I have two aging drives in my xp celeron single core pc that I should look into. It is a daily use pc and has a lot of use and is quite old (over 5 years I think). Neither drive is original but they are ide.

I have started using smart defrag on them. Also I have norton 360 and have run some optimization stuff on them and I always have the virus updates.

[jagabo]

To know the health of the drive take it out of the enclosure and physically connect it to a computer and install Active@ Hard Disk Monitor

It's better than nothing but according to Google's drive study SMART only predicts about 1/3 of drive failures.

[yoda313]

To know the health of the drive take it out of the enclosure and physically connect it to a computer and install Active@ Hard Disk Monitor

It's better than nothing but according to Google's drive study SMART only predicts about 1/3 of drive failures.

So should I be worried if my two drives on my xp machine have a rating of 69% and 56% (c drive)?

Those are my internal drives. I haven't connected the external yet. Probably tomorrow sometime.

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I haven't started looking and don't know if I will if this is still kind of voodoo science but can you still buy a new ide harddrive? Or do sata to ide adapters work for an os drive?

Also would I have any problems putting an oem version of xp on a future replacement drive? Its the restore disc emachines sends out with the computer. I'm pretty sure I have been able to do it but its been awhile.

Edit - ok a brief search of bestbuy.com did show some ide-pata drives. Some were sold out but there was a western digital pata drive that was in stock. My nearest bestbuy would have to be ship to store but there were some others close enough to drive to.

So in the end if they were to fail I could get a replacement without buying online.

I should check my external harddrive that I use for backups. But I leave it unpowered most of the time so it has barely been used and should be in good shape.

Again if I should be concerned about this.

[_Al_]

I think it is going to be WDTV 1st generation who will give you troubles rather than HDD. Perhaps you did not use it extensively yet but problems will come, all kinds of annoying issues.

Such as?

I haven't used it extensively that is true. I do however physically unplug the power jack from it (the wdtv unit) so it is completely off when not in use.

If you use it only for those youtube mp4 maybe you are ok, it has lower bitrates nothing crazy, simple audio ....

[jagabo]

To know the health of the drive take it out of the enclosure and physically connect it to a computer and install Active@ Hard Disk Monitor

It's better than nothing but according to Google's drive study SMART only predicts about 1/3 of drive failures.

So should I be worried if my two drives on my xp machine have a rating of 69% and 56% (c drive)?

The most important statistics are the reallocated sector count, and read/write error rates.

[yoda313]

@_al_ yep thats about all I'm using it for right now. (edit - note most tend to be half hour shows or at most an hour and half documentary so its not on constantly too much - I rarely have a file larger than 800 or 900mb on it).

@jagabo - My c drive on this xp emachine has the following: (the first one hdt is my boot drive)

Computer name:
Device HDT722516DLAT80 SMART Info (ID/Value/Raw Value/Worst/Treshold)
1 100 0 100 16
2 100 0 100 50
3 114 25789727027 114 24
4 100 3699 100 0
5 100 0 100 5
7 100 0 100 67
8 100 0 100 20
9 99 8262 99 0
10 100 0 100 60
12 100 3681 100 0
192 97 3916 97 50
193 97 3916 97 50
194 183 30 161 0
196 100 0 100 0
197 100 0 100 0
198 100 0 100 0
199 200 0 200 0
------------------------
Device WDC WD1600AAJB-00J3A0 SMART Info (ID/Value/Raw Value/Worst/Treshold)
1 200 0 200 51
3 138 4058 137 21
4 98 2042 98 0
5 200 0 200 140
7 100 0 253 0
9 98 1845 98 0
10 100 0 100 0
11 100 0 100 0
12 98 2040 98 0
192 200 35 200 0
193 200 2042 200 0
194 114 29 95 0
196 200 0 200 0
197 200 0 200 0
198 200 0 200 0
199 200 0 200 0
200 200 0 200 0
------------------------

The reallocation count is id number 196. The reallocated sector count is id number 5. The read/write error rates is id number is I believe id number one - they call number one raw read error rate, is that the same thing?

Actually for the hdt c drive the only thing that isn't a 100% is the spinup time. THat is rated at 56%. Everything else is listed green at 100%. Same thing for the wdc e drive. That has all 100% except for 69% for the spinup time.

Should that mean these drives are really ok?

Thanks for all the input.

[edDV]

So in the end if they were to fail I could get a replacement without buying online.

I should check my external harddrive that I use for backups. But I leave it unpowered most of the time so it has barely been used and should be in good shape.

Again if I should be concerned about this.

The main point is to backup your data to another newer drive because in time, all drives fail.

Summary of the Google disk failure experience.
http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-experience/

If your old machine has IDE/EIDE only disk controllers, you can easily add a Promise SATA disk controller PCI/PCIe that does two things; it adds 2 or more SATA ports with separate controllers and replaces CMOS settings allowing full use of the latest large drives. Boot order can also be set so you can retire your EIDE drives.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102065R

[yoda313]

Thanks eddv. I'll keep it in mind.