Computer Hope

Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: PredragJasic on November 23, 2014, 07:37:18 PM

Title: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: PredragJasic on November 23, 2014, 07:37:18 PM
I will enclose here my complaint which I send to motherboard maker Gigabyte, regarding USB external hard disk problem. Please read it and if anybody knows how to solve this, thanks.My computer has 500GB external hard drive connected to USB 2.0 port(s), which is extremely slow. Drive is Transcend StoreJet. No drivers exist for it. It works perfectly for other I/O operations like copy, paste, delete,etc. When I try to make hard disk image with any program, and store it on Transcend Store Jet, speed starts with 50MB/s but drops to nearly zero in few minutes. It is the same with any program. Disk image would take more than one day to complete, if it completes at all. Actually, I never managed to finish image with any disk imaging software. I tried all usual software for that: Paragon, Aomei, Acronis, EaseusToDo, Drive XML, etc. Are there any USB or other drivers which are responsible for this issue? Can Gigabyte be serious regarding its costumers and provide them solution in order to use USB ports for most important thing (backup)? In this case, making disk image is totally impossible. USB 2.0 ports have theoretical speed of 480 Mbit/s. This is far cry from situation here. So, USB ports on this Gigabyte configuration is totally useless for backup on external USB hard disk. Clearly, there is serious bug which can cause loss of data - worst outcome in computer use for your customers. NOTE: all disks, internal HDD and external USB are checked multiple times and they do not have any errors. Hard disk has 500GB, only 137GB is occupied. BIOS and Windows can see USB disks. BIOS is upgraded to version 5-maximum. It is on Safe Default Setting. Computer was in service few days ago and they did't diagnose any faulty component. Please feel free to ask me for further questions if needed.
Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: DaveLembke on November 23, 2014, 07:42:15 PM
I'd try a different external HDD.... its probably driver related. Either a driver for the external or the USB BUS controller.

I use to run into this issue with Ghost 2003 over USB with specific no-name external enclosures I was using. When I used my 320GB Seagate it worked flawless. I also had where it would start and show a speed and then the speed would drop to next to nothing.

I also had a HP G-Series server that didnt work with the USB with Ghost 2003 and this was because Ghost didnt have the necessary drivers to get the USB BUS to function. You could be looking at a USB driver issue where the software you are using doesnt have the proper USB driver support to function properly and so its trying to use a generic driver.
Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: PredragJasic on November 23, 2014, 09:20:33 PM
Thank's. I'll try to obtain first different external USB HDD first. But about software, I simply run out of ideas. I tried every one in existence I think. Are you trying to say that software needs to have proper USB drivers? Do you have any recommendations please.
Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: Geek-9pm on November 23, 2014, 10:26:03 PM
I think you need to try another motherboard. If another mobo still has trouble, it is not fault of the mobo. Over the years I have had a number of motherboards, some rather poor. Most of the time most of the USB devices work. But I have found that more often the failure is in the external USB device, not the motherboard.

As of OS, Windows 8.1 seems to recognize almost everything USB with not need for special drives.  But I had had 8.1 only for a few weeks, so I am not an expert.
Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: DaveLembke on November 24, 2014, 07:56:32 AM
Quote
But I have found that more often the failure is in the external USB device, not the motherboard.

This is why I suggested trying a different external drive, because its usually a driver with the drive itself.

As far as swapping out motherboard I would hold off on going to this extreme as for this system runs perfectly fine when Windows is running with the correct drivers.

Back when I had the issue with my G-series server, the director would have had a heart attack if I said well its not working, lets spend $5000 on another server of the same model. Which would have lead to the same problems because the image software itself did not have the proper drivers to initialize the USB for functional trouble free use.

One work around I probably could have done with the server would have been to buy like a StarTech PCI USB board to install and try using that for my USB communications which might work ok with the drivers that are embedded in the imaging software.

Also the software that backs up to an image generally run Linux, DOS, or FreeDOS type of environment and so it doesnt matter what Windows drivers your system has as for its using its own OS and Drivers and totally independent of the OS that is being imaged.

Lastly... If you have the same issue with a different make/model USB external HDD you could try installing a PCI or PCIE USB adapter which might have driver support from one of the image utilities you are trying to use.

The issue with Ghost2003 and my server was likely that the G- Series server was a chipset that was far newer than the drivers as part of the Ghost 2003 package and the chipset for the USB controller did not allow for legacy generic driver support.
Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: patio on November 24, 2014, 08:07:51 AM
A PCI-e USB card would be the cheapest solution...
USB 3...
Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: Geek-9pm on November 24, 2014, 09:03:28 AM
Quote
Also the software that backs up to an image generally run Linux, DOS, or FreeDOS type of environment and so it doesnt matter what Windows drivers your system has as for its using its own OS and Drivers and totally independent of the OS that is being imaged.
Let me enlarge on that point.
If you boot from a Linux CD and start the backup from the CD, the Linux generic drives do the job. Only a few backup programs use Windows drivers when started from a CD. (Applies also to USB.)
When you do a backup in Windows, the software may use the installed drivers. Or maybe not. A few backup methods can not restore to a system that does not have a running OS. In which case one has to install a bare OS just to do a full restore.
What about the slow down at the end of the process? A driver does not 'slow down from overwork. Only hardware does that.
So that slow down problem is a symptom of a hardware issue.  Specifically the hard drive. On some hard drives the inner tracks are very weak due to the higher density recording. (Lower linear speed.) Therefore more retires are needed to write and verify the inner tracks.
Yes, it is the hard drive. So try another hard drive. But he will need another motherboard to convince himself it is not the motherboard. Standard procedure.


Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: DaveLembke on November 24, 2014, 03:48:22 PM
Quote
What about the slow down at the end of the process? A driver does not 'slow down from overwork. Only hardware does that.

I have seen this before with Ghost 2003... its due to how the software calculates the speed. It will start off showing strong numbers and then dive in speed reported as calculated on the fly with data transferred over time, as the software readjusts to the average speed calculated as sensed the speed will show that it slows continually until its a trickle or next to nothing.

One thing that I also forgot to mention in my other post today is that for a laptop once with Ghost 2003 sending image to external HDD, the Laptop was a Toshiba and it was new enough to be USB 2.0, however USB 2.0 selection for speed with a radio button would fail, BUT if you selected to use USB 1.1 instead it would perform the image backup of the laptop successfully although much slower than 2.0 could have performed if Ghost 2003 had the proper USB 2.0 driver to support the USB controller chip. So the 1.1 driver for USB for Ghost 2003 worked with this laptop that had a USB 2.0 BUS controller chip, but the 2.0 driver would fail to operate correctly.

I am not aware of any of those other image utilities having a speed option like Ghost 2003 has, but if they do, if its just a matter of getting a successful image created you can make the selection for USB 1.1, however I have doubts that newer image software would have this option, and if there is an option at all it would be 2.0 or 3.0 these days vs 1.1. Ghost 2003 being 11 or so years old created back when 1.1 was more common on a Pentium II or Pentium III system etc and USB 2.0 was what USB 3.0 is now  is probably the reason for the option for 1.1 or 2.0 for USB external drive support.

Lastly another option I didnt mention yet is to install a second hard drive internally for making a clone system ready to roll within itself. Then have this other drive connected through SATA and perform a drive to drive clone. Then when done to verify that the clone was successful, disconnect the power and SATA comm cable from the primary drive and run off the newly cloned drive instead. This way if the image is bad you know before you need it, but if the image is good you know that the other initial drive inside is still known good healthy and so if you mess things up badly you can always reimage either drive from the other. The only risk here though is if you lose track of which drive is the master to clone from, in which if you mess up the order you can delete data from the good data drive making 2 corrupted data drives.

I use this method for imaging on my Windows 7 systems and it works well. I have had where I installed something and found out that it had nasty stuff embedded in its installer and getting rid of the problem was simply switching to the other drive and when I have spare time sooner than later to image the healthy drive back to the problem data one.

Given that this is a desktop computer this is the best option for a fast image creation and disaster recovery plan to be back up and running quickly.

Using such a plan you would want any personal data stored elsewhere where its protected from infection or on another drive either internal or external + a backup solution that can recover if this data drive was ever infected or crashed etc.
Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: patio on November 24, 2014, 04:37:53 PM
Give up the Ghost...plenty of other good tools out there...
Title: Re: Impossible to make HDD image on external USB 2.0 HDD - to slow and stops
Post by: Lisa_maree on November 28, 2014, 01:54:02 PM
Hi

Those transend drives have a sleep mode that starts after 10 minutes. I have found with some  software it doesn't keep the drive a wake and the drive goes to sleep and the data transfer goes to 0 . Wake the drive up and away it goes again for another 10 minutes. How to fix it when using the drive for backup I don't know. Perhaps just  keep the drive for data storage not for backup.