This is really disappointing. My hardly used Western Digital Elements 500MB external USB hard drive is showing signs of failing. It can still be detected by Windows XP and Ubuntu but this takes ages, something like 5 minutes or more. It was working fine when I had in plugged into Ubuntu, but Ubuntu, after stuttering for some 5 to 10 minutes, suddenly says that it will take 4 hours to copy 3 GB of files onto the drive. And the sluggishness began from then on.
Copying a 20 MB file off this drive now takes at least 10 to 20 minutes - I have done this. A typical 200MB Youtube video of mine should take about 100 to 200 minutes I suppose - I haven't tried this. My 9 GB Aomei Backupper files by my estimates will now take a day or two to copy them out I guess! This is just utterly impractical.
What I have on this USB drive are mostly backup dumps of my personal computers and videos that I have recorded via VirtualDub and downloaded off Youtube. Good thing I could still do a fresh Aomei Backupper dump of my PCs. Good thing I could still download my videos off Youtube, if I wanted to. My VirtualDub recorded videos though, sad to say there's nothing much I could do about them.
So I have decided from now on, no more external Western Digital USB drives for me. In the interim, my backups will go into USB flash drives. Good thing that flash drives are quite affordable these days. And for added peace of mind, I will also have 2 backups on two separate medium storage. I have learnt my lesson.
A quick check via Google shows that some people have had this problem since 2012. And, the worse part, Western Digital does not offer any solution. You can't blame me for not buying these drives anymore, can you?
0 comments:
Post a Comment