External USB drive disconnecting itself.

[Chris Ruprecht]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Chris Ruprecht wrote:
>   
>> Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>>     
>>> If you are trying to use both drives at once, you are more likely to
>>> run into power problems. Are you using any other USB devices at the
>>> same time?
>>>
>>> One other thing - check the specs on your USB card, and on the
>>> devices that you are plugging in to make sure you have enough power.
>>> There is usually a port limit and a total limit. If you have devices
>>> that under report their power needs, or have any power-only devices
>>> plugged in, you may be at or over the total limit.
>>>
>>> Mikkel
>>>   
>>>       
>> No, they are externally powered 3.5" Maxtor 320 GB drives. The case is
>> an Adaptec USB 2.0 enclosure. They are connected to the 2-port card
>> (same card for both drives).
>>
>>     
> I wonder if the electronics for the interface are powered from the
> USB bus? That should not be a problem, unless your card skimped on
> the USB power. Do you have the problem if only one drive is plugged in?
>
> Mikkel
>   
Mikkel,

This seems to be the answer ... one drive per (crummy) USB 2.0 
controller. I copied an 8 GB file - worked, it's busy gzipping it, 
that's where it broke previously.
I have not tried to put 2 controller cards into one machine, have to go 
and get another controller tomorrow, I suppose. Well, let's see if the 
drive makes it through the night.

BTW: on my way home I picked up what i thought is a pretty nifty NAS 
device: Netgear SC101. The nice thing is, it takes 2 IDE (P-ATA) drives 
and makes them available through a TCP/IP interface. I found out after I 
tried for an hour, that the only OS supported is Windoze, as it uses a 
proprietary protocol. It's going back to the store tomorrow, 
unfortunately a completely useless device in a Linux/Mac environment.


Best regards,
Chris