OT: Western Digital 500GB My Book Failure

I know that failures of these drives came up once on this group, and
at the time I reported that the three I have were working great.

I logged in to my Linksys NSLU2 last night and found it reporting that
drive 2 (the 500GB one) was "not formatted". So I rebooted it from the
web interface. It came up within a minute or two and reported that
drive 2 was now "not connected". Uh-oh.

So I wandered into the networking closet, pulled the drive down and
had a look at it. Sure enough, it was clicking repeatedly. I cracked
open the cabinet to find a blazing hot drive...so hot in fact that I
almost dropped it on the floor. This in a room that's no hotter than
maybe 60 degrees F right now.

I think the other two drives are about to be "transplanted" into cases
with better cooling.

The good news is that I had nothing at all on this drive.

William

<> wrote in message
news:8ca30743-363d-48b6-b0ec-...
>I know that failures of these drives came up once on this group, and
> at the time I reported that the three I have were working great.
>
> I logged in to my Linksys NSLU2 last night and found it reporting that
> drive 2 (the 500GB one) was "not formatted". So I rebooted it from the
> web interface. It came up within a minute or two and reported that
> drive 2 was now "not connected". Uh-oh.
>
> So I wandered into the networking closet, pulled the drive down and
> had a look at it. Sure enough, it was clicking repeatedly. I cracked
> open the cabinet to find a blazing hot drive...so hot in fact that I
> almost dropped it on the floor. This in a room that's no hotter than
> maybe 60 degrees F right now.
>
> I think the other two drives are about to be "transplanted" into cases
> with better cooling.
>
> The good news is that I had nothing at all on this drive.
>
> William


Thanks for the heads up. Sadly, the Seagate FreeAgent externals don't
appear to be any better ventilated and I've witnessed the premature death of
one of those (250gb) - though I cannot specifically tie the failure to heat.

Short of a active fan in these cases, I'd be surprised if any provide a good
passive ventilation solution.

On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:27:40 -0500, "S.Lewis"
<> wrote:

><> wrote in message
>news:8ca30743-363d-48b6-b0ec-...
>>I know that failures of these drives came up once on this group, and
>> at the time I reported that the three I have were working great.
>>
>> I logged in to my Linksys NSLU2 last night and found it reporting that
>> drive 2 (the 500GB one) was "not formatted". So I rebooted it from the
>> web interface. It came up within a minute or two and reported that
>> drive 2 was now "not connected". Uh-oh.
>>
>> So I wandered into the networking closet, pulled the drive down and
>> had a look at it. Sure enough, it was clicking repeatedly. I cracked
>> open the cabinet to find a blazing hot drive...so hot in fact that I
>> almost dropped it on the floor. This in a room that's no hotter than
>> maybe 60 degrees F right now.
>>
>> I think the other two drives are about to be "transplanted" into cases
>> with better cooling.
>>
>> The good news is that I had nothing at all on this drive.
>>
>> William
>
>
>Thanks for the heads up. Sadly, the Seagate FreeAgent externals don't
>appear to be any better ventilated and I've witnessed the premature death of
>one of those (250gb) - though I cannot specifically tie the failure to heat.
>
>Short of a active fan in these cases, I'd be surprised if any provide a good
>passive ventilation solution.

What's sad is that the prior generation of Seagate Externals (at least
I don't think they make them anymore) had a great enclosure with good
ventialtion and with a design that made them easily stackable.

The Free Agents don't seem to have much ventilation at all.