Harddrive rant...

[ownaginatious]

Got I hate designers that don't do any research first...

Anyway, my dad has several external harddrives for work (like around 20) ranging from early 2004 to pretty much now. All the earlier ones are LaCie (when buying your own hard drive case was uncommon) and all the newer ones are Vantec. Vantec is the most popular do-it-yourself external hard drive case now I think (at least in Canada).

Anyway, the other day my dad was complaining to me that he tried plugging in some of his drives, and that they just aren't working anymore (like not powering up at all). So I opened them up, and found that the controller in the case had fried, and that the controller on the hard drive had fried. I couldn't figure out why.

Eventually I found that Vantec and LaCie use the exact same 4 pin connector. The difference is, the 5 and 12 volt pins are swapped. So basically, the people working for my dad mixed the adapters and burned all the drives out. Of course, the guys that designed these drives probably didn't think at all about circuit protection, and that's why the controllers on the hard drives went too.

I think Vantec is to blame on this one since their drives came out second. It amazes me how some products can go to market with next to no research of what else is out there. It's not like LaCie is some tiny brand - they're huge! (especially with Apple users). You think someone would have noticed the remarkable similarity in the power connectors during the design process...

So basically I got stuck with the fun job of mixing and matching hard-drive control boards to recover all the data on the dead drives.

Moral of the story: Stick to the ****ing standard.

/rant

[x88x]

Doh! Sucks when stuff like that happens... This is why I prefer external enclosures that only have a 12V line in, then split it to 5V inside if they need it. That way, even if you do plug in the wrong PSU, as long as it's not over 12V you're fine..plus, the connectors are sturdier and simpler.

[Luke122]

Agreed on the rant.

An easy solution was presented to me by a family with 5 kids, and each had a laptop.

They put a strip of colored tape on each of the power adaptors on the brick and around the plug at the end, and a matching one on each laptop around the power jack. Blue to blue, etc.

Seemed so simple that I was amazed I hadnt thought of it before. Color coding cables seems obvious!

[Oneslowz28]

This is not a manufacturer mistake. This is the mistake of incompetent employees and a system that should have long been changed to a simple file server. I have 2 Vantec external drives, a Lacie 2 Thermaktake, and a off brand ebay model. They all use the standard power plug with a center pin and outside ground. Some use a 5V wall wart, some use a 12v wall wart. The ebay one even uses a 9v wall wart. It's up to the end user to make sure nothing gets switched.

I understand your frustrations but you can not blame any one manufacturer for a standard not being set. Back in the day the Carburetor was the set standard for fuel delivery. If people had not deviated from the standard or what others before them had done then we would not be on the more fuel efficient Fuel Injection systems of today.

What if the internet would have stuck to its set standard as an academic information sharing source? None of us would be here posting on TBCS today. Or if every game designer / chip maker would have stuck with Direct X 8? Games like Crysis, GTA IV, BF BC2, etc would not look the way they do today.

[x88x]

I understand your frustrations but you can not blame any one manufacturer for a standard not being set.

What he's complaining about is that they used the same physical standard (ie, the same multi-pin plug), but different electrical standards (ie, different voltages on different pins). It would be like if some PSU manufacturer suddenly decided that they were going to swap the 5V and 12V leads in Molex plugs. The problem is that nobody has really set any industry standards for external power supplies...several OEMs have standardized within their own product lines, but if their plugs happen to fit in the socket for another company's product but send the wrong voltage into that plug, the magic smoke gets out. :(

[Spawn-Inc]

What he's complaining about is that they used the same physical standard (ie, the same multi-pin plug), but different electrical standards (ie, different voltages on different pins). It would be like if some PSU manufacturer suddenly decided that they were going to swap the 5V and 12V leads in Molex plugs. The problem is that nobody has really set any industry standards for external power supplies...several OEMs have standardized within their own product lines, but if their plugs happen to fit in the socket for another company's product but send the wrong voltage into that plug, the magic smoke gets out. :(

still comes down to user error. it would be nice if they had built in a fuse of sorts or something to that effect, but that means higher costs.

i do understand it's annoying to have happen, i've lost 3-4 hdd's, not fun.

[knowledgegranted]

What he's complaining about is that they used the same physical standard (ie, the same multi-pin plug), but different electrical standards (ie, different voltages on different pins). It would be like if some PSU manufacturer suddenly decided that they were going to swap the 5V and 12V leads in Molex plugs. The problem is that nobody has really set any industry standards for external power supplies...several OEMs have standardized within their own product lines, but if their plugs happen to fit in the socket for another company's product but send the wrong voltage into that plug, the magic smoke gets out. :(


still comes down to user error. it would be nice if they had built in a fuse of sorts or something to that effect, but that means higher costs.

i do understand it's annoying to have happen, i've lost 3-4 hdd's, not fun.

Agreed with Spawn-Inc and CJ, it's all the end user. That same physical format plug has been in use for a long time and has been used by many manufactures.

This is like trying to put diesel fuel in a gasoline car and trying to blame the car maker, why would they put accident diesel fuel system in it? It's up to the user to use it right.

[ownaginatious]

This is not a manufacturer mistake. This is the mistake of incompetent employees and a system that should have long been changed to a simple file server.

How is it the employees fault that both these manufacturers happened to make almost the same adaptor? You have no idea what the drives are being used for. The drives are frequently taken on location for storing images while shooting. It would make zero sense to use a fileserver for that purpose.

Clearly they know now that the adaptors cannot be swapped, but they had to lose drives in the process. Neither company made any effort to indicate that "this adapter ONLY works with this device".


This is like trying to put diesel fuel in a gasoline car and trying to blame the car maker, why would they put accident diesel fuel system in it? It's up to the user to use it right.
No it's not. A gasoline car has several labels that clearly say "PUT GASOLINE HERE! NOT DIESEL" and vice-versa. And on top of that, it's common sense.

Anyway, I can live with the fact that there is no standard set for the external power connector of an external hard drive - but really, the designers should at least take some effort to make sure they aren't using an already existing design (or should at least adhere to it) - especially with a brand as big as LaCie. Considering both devices serve the exact same purpose, it should be assumed that it's quite possible that they would end up together. The whole point of an interface is that it doesn't change...

One of the big things you learn in engineering (at least at my university) is that you can't just blame the end user for using whatever you designed wrong if it keeps happening over and over again.