Hard drives

[waregim]

I've been finding that P2P downloads play hell with my SATA drives, causing weakened sectors and CRC errors. I do not use SSDs. On imy Win7 systems.

I have adjusted cache settings, disabled write cacing, and followed most of the other available advice.

My current solutioon is to use one of my XP systems with an ancient WD EIDE drive. Works without any problems or adjustments. The problem of course is that XP is being deprecated in nearly every manner, and I cant even get any browser to update itself, especially as the machine lacks sse2 capability.

Question #1: Is anyone aware of a 'modern' browser that will work with a 2002 era machine? I believe its AMD Athlon chip.

Now I can DL with Win7 using a USB pen drive, with good results so far.

Question #2: Can thse devices be damaged by the throughputs involved? Any particular precautions with these devices?

Using Qbittorret 4.1 (neat because it has binding to TAP)

[RodneyYouPlonker]

Can you not try scanning your hard drives for errors using a latest cracked version of HDTune?

I wouldn't recommend XP at all, it's well out of date, even 7 is nearly out of date there's about a year left to go...

You'll probably find that it's impossible to try and be into computers without a very modern system, you need the latest kit, can you not try and change all this idea and just get yourself a new computer if you save some money?

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I'm not sure what you're doing really, you never even mentioned if you're using it as RAID.  If I were you and I was having problems with a hard drive or hard drives then I would remove them from my computer and plug them into a dock and then try and run HDTune and spend several hours scanning the entire drive to see if there's any bad sectors.  If any of them go red it means your drive is knackered and it's ready for the bin.  If that's the case then put a drill through it and get rid of it.  Buy some new hard drives or maybe just get something that has a better level of cache.

Really you should be thinking at this point now about moving onto Windows 10.  That is what I'm doing myself at the moment, saving up for a new machine come the end of next year.  I'm going to build something eventually to replace an old Windows 7 machine that I've had for a few years.  It's time I scrapped it come the end of 2019.  I just hope it lasts long enough, Windows 10 really is what you want now, all this Windows XP is dead, all this Windows 7 is nearly dead.  The future is almost here so get ready and prepare yourself...  Get ready to scrap all your old equipment and send it to the scrapping yard.

[dueda]

Never had any problem with my hard-disks running torrents 7/24. After years of intense use I expect something to break, but not due torrents; more probably a software fault, like malware or Windows creep.

I agree with Rodney no more patches mean more vulnerabilities and poor performance. And it's old, that means it can break any time. While I suggest you don't run any browser on such a roach, it can still be dedicated to torrents and maybe media server, but should have external backup (at least for your most important files) and a UPS capable of shutting off the PC is good too.

[waregim]

Can you not try scanning your hard drives for errors using a latest cracked version of HDTune?

I wouldn't recommend XP at all, it's well out of date, even 7 is nearly out of date there's about a year left to go...

You'll probably find that it's impossible to try and be into computers without a very modern system, you need the latest kit, can you not try and change all this idea and just get yourself a new computer if you save some money?

---

I'm not sure what you're doing really, you never even mentioned if you're using it as RAID.  If I were you and I was having problems with a hard drive or hard drives then I would remove them from my computer and plug them into a dock and then try and run HDTune and spend several hours scanning the entire drive to see if there's any bad sectors.  If any of them go red it means your drive is knackered and it's ready for the bin.  If that's the case then put a drill through it and get rid of it.  Buy some new hard drives or maybe just get something that has a better level of cache.

No RAID - use HDSentinel, which can fix soft and hard errors, only apparently caused by torrents. On two Win7 SATA machines. Sturdiest is ancient 80G WD, most delicate are 1T Hitachis.

Hard errors from physical damage can often be partitioned off.

Drill? By the time I'm done wih hardware, its dead and bricked.
https://pirates-forum.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

Really you should be thinking at this point now about moving onto Windows 10.  That is what I'm doing myself at the moment, saving up for a new machine come the end of next year.  I'm going to build something eventually to replace an old Windows 7 machine that I've had for a few years.  It's time I scrapped it come the end of 2019.  I just hope it lasts long enough, Windows 10 really is what you want now, all this Windows XP is dead, all this Windows 7 is nearly dead.  The future is almost here so get ready and prepare yourself...  Get ready to scrap all your old equipment and send it to the scrapping yard.

I spend alot of time customizing a Win install, most of which is stripping M$ crap out. Including updates, firewall, RDT, etc. Replacing with Posix, Open Source and 3rd Party. I will run Win7 until the lil lady cant do her class work anymore and then put her on a VM running Win8.

Want no part of Win10. Have it on laptop and only use it for media, and refuse it access to network. Will only update hardware on real machines with disable option for XD. Preferably a chinese chip with open suorce mobo when they become available. Trust CCP more than NSA.

Have Linux also, sans SystemD. but dont like direction the platform is headed.

---

Never had any problem with my hard-disks running torrents 7/24. After years of intense use I expect something to break, but not due torrents; more probably a software fault, like malware or Windows creep.

I agree with Rodney no more patches mean more vulnerabilities and poor performance. And it's old, that means it can break any time. While I suggest you don't run any browser on such a roach, it can still be dedicated to torrents and maybe media server, but should have external backup (at least for your most important files) and a UPS capable of shutting off the PC is good too.

It is a bit odd that two different mobos with updated bios\drivers(intel) present similar problems with SATA2 drivesWhich are not reproducible on flash drives, or on EIDE/XP. Cables/connectors have been changed.

The Win7 installs (Ent &Pro) are since April when the two primary Seagates died after a power outage in the middle of replacing UPS batteries.

I wuold just as soon stick with the XP machine for p2p but when cloudflare acts up OpenVPN and the old version of Torbrowser sometimes get a bit wonky. With a USB stick on Win7 the 'move' upon completion can be tediously slow.

[dueda]

I spend alot of time customizing a Win install, most of which is stripping M$ crap out.
...Seagates died after a power outage in the middle of replacing UPS batteries.

First, turn off your system before touching the UPS's, you just saw that Murphy's Law isn't a myth.

Some old/cheap mobos may have a troublesome SATA implementation; I'd one old Asus P4 board with HyperThread CPU and SATA/RAID controller; those good on paper specs are just sales pitch for consumers.

Sounds like you know your stuff, so instead of a USB stick go with a SSD on external enclosure, I got a workhorse 60GB SATA on USB3 interface that is great for temporary files. Of course, it will take some time to transfer to the also external HDD. You can use an hybrid drive but I never tried one.

If you're into modding the system, give TinyXP or Tiny7 a look - and watch out for Trojans and exploits, it's hard to find a good release.

[waregim]

First, turn off your system before touching the UPS's, you just saw that Murphy's Law isn't a myth.

Some old/cheap mobos may have a troublesome SATA implementation; I'd one old Asus P4 board with HyperThread CPU and SATA/RAID controller; those good on paper specs are just sales pitch for consumers.

Sounds like you know your stuff, so instead of a USB stick go with a SSD on external enclosure, I got a workhorse 60GB SATA on USB3 interface that is great for temporary files. Of course, it will take some time to transfer to the also external HDD. You can use an hybrid drive but I never tried one.

If you're into modding the system, give TinyXP or Tiny7 a look - and watch out for Trojans and exploits, it's hard to find a good release.

Actually, it was disconnected at the time.

I had purchased a RAID card, assuming it would be aconfigurable as a simple SATA controller, but I was wrong. It wanted drive reformatted to its configuration specs.

I am leaning towards the idea of the hardware controllers, even tough the machine have their latest IHC8\10 controllers drivers. They are pure SATA (no IDE ports) and somewhat vintage C2D and C2Q processor systems. Are there reliable non-raid controller boards out there? Also considering trying a SATA drive with torrents on a USB dock. The C2D is AHCI, while the C2Q seems to prefer IDE mode.

The Win10 iSeries quad laptop has an SSD, and is even set up to run torrents, but it is a PITA as it air gapped, as I wont permit Win10 or a modern processor system near my network. Not until I figure how to really shut down its telemetry, or how to turn off its biult in VPN that it uses to bypass HOSTS.

Should the time come for me to engage in cryptocurrency ecommerce, I want something with no built in back doors or secret cores. Dont care about the laptop as it has no personal info on it.

As to my last question I do see there are SATA 3+ cards avaialble such as:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Syba-SI-PEX4006...B00AZ9T3OU
Would these be comaptible with SATA2? Would this permit 4 MORE drives, or simply replace the on board controller?

Now i know that flash drives are unreliable and usually die without warning. I sanyone aware of any kind of SMART like testing for them? I know there are controller testers for finding fakes.

A potential problem for controllers is thrashing from out of order file sectors being written. Is there a client or a way with Qbittorrent to force it to cache and write data sequentially? Or a software way of lowering DMA/PIO (or whatever SATA equivalent ) . I dont seem to have these options in control panel.

[dueda]

I don't live in a Amazon serviced country and don't know much about brands, but a plain SATA (no RAID) controller is very unlikely; the ones on sale are probably cheapos, as it makes more sense (or profit) to put the cache controller and all to also run the RAID.

If a NAS is not an option, a USB dock may work; but using the port's power may be a problem on peaks, so external power models are recommended. Downside: Just plugging drives that way will not create a single volume, you'll have to organize your folders; and plugging many cords to the UPS may be a no-go. I know because I did it in the past.

[waregim]

I usually use my XP systems for storage, turned off most of the time. At any time most of my storage is offline. And even unplugged. I archive to DVD.

The dock is fortunately self powered.

The UPS is 700w. It has a voltage/watt meter which shows no strain with three systems on it, but its good to keep in mind the potential for problems with heavy loads. No gamer GPUs here, and these are older and leaner systems, with the Xp machine side by side with wife's Win7, and thats only on when torrenting or doing 32 bit stuff. What i really should do is get the scope from out of the ton of junk atop it in the shop, and check the noise glitches before and after the PSUs.

I see there are some cheap SATA3 cards available, but there is, of course, no telling the quality, especially of their drivers. The problem with the cheapo stuff these days are the capacitors. Fortunately I do have boxes of vintage tantalums, but its a PITA to replace them!!!

I believe Ebay does not have a problem with international buyer accounts, and from my experience ebay is usually cheaper, albeit riskier. Plus the Chinese items have miniscule shipping charges. Here what I do: Since most electronic items are mass produced, and sold under many different 'brand' names find something that looks of interest there, and check the reviews for it on the American site. Assuming you have a VPN with an American server in case they filter by geolocation. If it passes muster, buy from ebay. or elsewhere. All my major purchases lately have been done using Amazon as a Consumer Review.

As a former Amazon vendor I hate the place - but it does have its uses.

[dueda]

Some eBay products and/or vendors are great, others are trash, but you won't know until the parcel arrives. I found out that some Chinese guys sell trash (rebuilt or refurbished stuff) and those are so cheap it isn't worth shipping it back. That and they'll say you broke it, not them. So it's lottery, but the stuff you'd buy from Amazon is probably the exact same from eBay China sellers.

[waregim]

Thats what makes the Amazon Review system so useful.

If you are looking for a cheap chinese vidcam, chances are there will be one main 'model' sold by a dozen different vendors under a half dozen different 'brands' - on ebay. Look for similar items on Amazon, and chances are that the identical version will be on Amazon. Read the reviews. If mostly good, chances are the item is OK. If NOT on Amazon I would be dubious. They have zero tolerance for scammers, and with their A-to-Z policies do not even require junk to be returned, if you can show it was non-functional or not matching the Product Description Page. Though you may not be able to purchase from them they are a rating service!