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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/12/22 10:03, Stefan Monnier wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:jwv8rq2aqda.fsf-monnier+gmane.linux.hardware.thinkpad@gnu.org">
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I have a Verbatim external USB 3.0 hard drive.
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">[...]
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">The ports are USB 2.0.
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
If this is really a "hard drive" (with actual rotating disks inside
rather than, say, flash memory), then a common problem is that those
disks can occasionally (often during spin-up) require an amount of power
that's beyond the max power delivered by USB-2.0 (~2.5W).
For this reason, many USB-2.0 enclosures provided 2 USB connectors (one
for data and one for extra power) or some other way to provide
additional power.
USB-3.0 pushed that limit to 4.5W which largely solved the problem, so
your enclosure probably expects all the power to come from the one port.
Of course, a USB-2.0 port is allowed to provide more than 2.5W, and
disks don't always eat up more than that, so in practice a single
USB-2.0 port often works fine, tho it might depend on luck (and it
might work unreliably, and depend on factors such as the current
machine load, ambient temperature, the age of the captain, ...).
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">This is a USB only hard drive. Not an SATA in an enclosure. I will try
cleaning the contacts.
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
I've never heard of any USB-only HDDs. AFAIK they are always some kind
of SATA drive inside some SATA<->USB enclosure. Some of those
enclosures are not designed to be easily opened, admittedly, but I've
never heard of ones where you can't get the underlying SATA drive out
with a bit of determination.
Stefan
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<p>Yes this is a spinning rust drive. Should have mentioned the
hard drive has its own power supply. Yes, I suppose I could
dismantle it and pull the drive and put it in a enclosure I don't
have. Replacement while it is still working, even if not all the
time, seems the best solution. This is my on-site backup drive
with a couple years of rsnapshot history. The off-site backup to
Amazon Web Services S3 has only current files, no history.</p>
<p>Jeffrey<br>
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