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Questions tagged [external-hard-drive]

A hard drive designed to be connected to a computer via an external interface such as USB, eSATA, Thunderbolt, or IEEE 1394.

External hard drives are removable or portable hard disks designed to be connected to a computer via an external interface such as USB, eSATA, Thunderbolt, or IEEE 1394 (FireWire). They have low cost per gigabyte and are commonly used for backups and transferring files between computers.

Hard drives in enclosures with network ports are considered network-attached storage devices; questions about these devices should be tagged .

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How much time until an unused hard drive loses its data?

Do you guys know how much time needs to pass until the data stored on a hard drive starts to degrade? To keep the data intact for long periods of time, I heard you need to periodically rewrite it on the hard drive, like every 5 years or so. Is it…
Alex
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Unplugging USB hard drive can damage computer? Seriously?

I’m reading through the manual for a Samsung portable USB hard drive, and I’ve come across this warning: Detaching the USB cable while file transfer is in progress can damage your computer and/or [hard drive]. Here’s the original…
misha256
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Automatically mount external drives to /media/LABEL on boot without a user logged in?

This question is similar, but kind of the opposite of what I want. I want external USB drives to be mounted automatically at boot, without anyone logged in, to locations like /media/
endolith
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Is it safe to unplug a blinking USB drive after 'safely' ejecting it?

There is a lot of information about how to safely unplug USB hard drives. However, the articles tend to stop at the part where the operating system says it is safe to unplug, or where you're sure nothing is writing to the drive, etc. Relevant set…
Lawrence
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Cross-platform usable filesystem with large file support

What is the best filesystem to use cross-platform (Linux, Windows, OS X) which supports disk sizes of at least 2TB and file sizes >4GB? I'm planning to use it on a USB drive on different computers. Are there any filesystems that can be used on all…
Zulakis
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How to detect if a USB port is 3.0 or 2.0?

I have a Toshiba Canvio 3.0 external HDD. It has USB 3.0. It flashes blue if you connect it to a USB 3.0 port. If it is a 2.0 port, the light becomes white. Yesterday, I plugged it in and the light was blue. Now, I plugged it in the same port and…
padawan
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Permissionless external drive with NTFS

I have an external hard disk which has 1 partition, formatted in NTFS. I use this drive on multiple computers with a different logins on different machines, Windows XP and Windows 7. All files are plain old files, not OS encrypted or…
user12889
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How do I remove a MyBook's "WD SmartWare" virtual CD from my desktop?

I recently got a Western Digital MyBook external hard drive to enable Time Machine. It has its software installed on a "virtual CD" called "WD SmartWare" which shows up on the desktop any time the drive is plugged in. Since I will use this virtual…
Justin Love
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How can I check whether USB3.0 UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) mode is enabled in Linux?

I have a laptop running Ubuntu 15.04 (3.19.0-21-generic) and an external USB3.0 2.5" SATA HDD enclosure which claims that it supports UASP mode (the S2510BPU33 model by StarTech). I have no problems mounting the drive or reading/writing to it. I'd…
ali_m
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How to mount and unmount hard drives under Windows (the unix way)

On my work computer I have two USB hard drives that I use rarely. They have a power save mode that sends them into sleep after a couple of minutes of them being idle. Whenever I open a context menu on a file, the drives are woken up (most likely…
Oliver Salzburg
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Access to a disk drive using volume ID instead of a drive letter in Windows

Can I access to a disk drive using volume ID instead of a drive letter in Windows? It could be very useful for external drives.
olvin
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External HDD is always in use when trying to safely remove

I have a WD 1TB Elements external hard drive, and every time I use the Windows 7 "safely remove" feature, it gives me a dialog telling that a process is using the disk. Using Sysinternals Process Explorer and the answer on this Can Windows tell me…
MarioDS
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Is it possible to check an external USB Drive health (SMART)?

Is it possible to check an external USB Drive health (SMART)?
user3109
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Formatting : The volume is too big for FAT32

Formatting an external 500GB HDD took almost >6 hours that I started like: D:\>format /FS:fat32 F: The type of the file system is EXFAT. The new file system is FAT32. Enter current volume label for drive F: musix WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE…
Caspar Kleijne
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Is time a substitute for Safely Remove Hardware?

In Windows 7, before unplugging an external hard disk or flash drive, you are ideally supposed to use the Safely Remove Hardware option to make sure there aren't any writes still pending. Suppose it has been several minutes since the last write…
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