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  • Trans OS X-Post: What do people do about obtaining non-shingled laptop

    From Java Jive@21:1/5 to All on Thu Apr 6 16:02:47 2023
    XPost: alt.os.linux, alt.windows7.general

    Please excuse the Linux/Windows crosspost, this is a question about HD
    hardware relevant to both OSs!

    I have a Dell Precision M6300 that is slowing down really badly, and I
    suspect, but have yet to prove, that the HD is failing.

    It seems to be getting increasingly difficult to obtain non-shingled replacement laptop drives. Samsung have sold out to Seagate, and
    seemingly now most or all Seagate and Western Digital laptop drives are
    SMR ...

    Apparently the only non-shingled laptop drives currently made by Seagate
    are Exos E, and v. expensive:

    https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/products/cmr-smr-list/ https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/cat/Hard-Drive---Internal?a00489=2.5%22&q=exos

    Up-to-date information on WD drives seems irresponsibly hard to come by.
    After the public backlash around 2020, lists were published then of
    which WD drives were SMR ...

    https://blog.westerndigital.com/wd-red-nas-drives/

    ... but that was 3 years ago and I've not found anything more up to date
    and official from the WD site. Also, most independent lists are quite
    old, dating from the time the scandal first broke, and/or are compiled
    by NAS sites for desktop drives.

    Of course, one could buy an older model drive very cheaply, but, even
    when they have good ratings, at least some of the stock, even when new
    - as in genuinely unused - have been on the shelf for so long that
    they are already beyond manufacturer warranty, but, far too frequently,
    are suspected items previously returned as faulty being resold, or just
    plain second-hand/used and 'refurbished', whatever that may mean for an
    item that has 'no user serviceable parts inside':

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-AV-GP-Intellipower-Internal-disk-disc-storage-gigabyte/product-reviews/B002P3KO7O/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewpnt_rgt?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&filterByStar=critical&pageNumber=1

    Of course, that is a deliberately biased sample by looking at the
    critical reviews, but I find them a useful measure of "What's the worst
    that can happen?!"

    Can anyone point to a UK source of reliable, genuinely new, moderately
    priced non-shingled laptop drives from about 500GB to 1.5TB?

    Of course, I could skip the shingles problem by going for an SSD, but
    have not really explored this up til now. Experience and thoughts on
    that would be welcome too.

    TIA.

    --

    Fake news kills!

    I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
    www.macfh.co.uk

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  • From Vincent Coen@21:1/5 to Java Jive on Fri Apr 7 15:47:43 2023
    Hello Java!

    Friday April 07 2023 12:07, Java Jive wrote to All:


    Yes, yet the difference in time between P1 & P2 to reach the GRUB
    menu, and the difference in speed with which it is drawn when it is
    reached - P1 is almost instantaneous, while P2 painfully draws first
    the border from the bottom up and then fills in the menu - is very,
    very noticeable, and, as that is the moment when the HD is first
    accessed, I felt sure that it must be the problem, but apparently not.

    It is no point really in looking at the Smart stats to see why boot time is slow however, your drive is a 5400 RPM unit and I suspect the interface is equally slow so that your real problem.

    Replace it with say a WD Black running from 7200, 10,000 or even a 15k RPM
    and you will see speed seriously improved BUT if you connection is below a
    Sata 3 them improvement will not be that great but will be better.

    A better solution assuming you again have a sata3 link is to use a SSD from
    a good brand such as Samsung using the EVO range but check the performance
    for Read and write (and this is slower than Reading).

    Expected boot up time say on a Linux box is under 10 seconds, Windows
    slower but that's Windows for you.
    Note that for many Linux Distro's the system performs a check for
    differences of hardware during the boot up sequence and some times this can
    be a wee bit slow for which a solution is to turn off this test (unless you have made a change to the hardware in the system).



    Vincent

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  • From Java Jive@21:1/5 to Java Jive on Fri Apr 14 14:09:57 2023
    XPost: alt.os.linux, alt.windows7.general

    On 10/04/2023 13:07, Java Jive wrote:

    On 08/04/2023 23:53, David W. Hodgins wrote:

    On Sat, 08 Apr 2023 18:14:23 -0400, Java Jive <[email protected]d>
    wrote:

    Well now, the plot ever thickens ...

    Booting from a W98 DOS Mode USB-stick, it gets to the config.sys menu in >>> just 9 secs, just the same as the others!

    WTF is going on here???!!!

    Different controllers. Perhaps there is a problem with the sata
    controller or one of the devices connected to it (in terms of the
    device being slow to initialize), or a barely working sata
    cable/connector.

    Start by re-seating all of the sata connectors.

    I'd already removed the HD to try the P3 one, but nevertheless I took it
    out again and examined the connectors, and there's nothing visibly wrong
    with them.  I can't examine the mobo connectors or the controller chip without a major dismantling of the laptop, and I'm too busy to do that ATM.

    After a test re-imaging of the slow PC, a Dell Precision of M6300
    laptop, with an old XP SysPrep image, I noticed that the DVD-Writer
    wasn't showing in Device Manager. I swapped it with one of the others,
    and now both DVD-Writers are showing up on both PCs, and on the problem
    PC the long delay between the POST screen and beginning to load the OS
    has been removed, so it seems that delay was being caused by the CD-DVD
    unit being second in the boot search order, between USB (1st) and HD
    (3rd), but no actual device being found at boot time.

    However, in normal use, it's still behaving erratically and is unstable,
    even after the re-imaging; usual symptom is the first explorer process
    - the one that runs the Desktop as opposed to subsequent ones that run
    the File Manager - crashing. However, that wasn't happening, at least
    not that I can definitely remember, previously, so that may be related
    to reverting to quite an old image. Having concluded my testing with
    this image, I shall put the original image back on to see what happens.

    However, whether or not extra problems have been introduced by the old
    image, it still seems treacle-like slow, so there's still some problem
    with it.

    --

    Fake news kills!

    I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
    www.macfh.co.uk

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