I have a G-RAID Thunderbolt 3 drive that’s, it’s been NOTHING but trouble. I use it as archival storage for project CAD and client files, photographs and music files.
2 drives have failed at different times. The second time, I lost as bunch of data.
It goes through periods where it randomly unmounts, or where it absolutely REFUSES to mount.
I’ll sitting working and notice that it’s suddenly gone.
I’ll be forced to shut it off, turn it on… 3, 4, 5 maybe TEN times to get the thing to mount. I’ve not been able to find a solution… new cables, tried every port Thunderbolt on my MacBook Pro, actually TWO MBPs.
I’ve Reset Mac Firmware… NVRAM and SMC controller.
Running (buggy) Monterey… in the Battery Control Panel, I have hard drives set to stay awake.
Have you tried this old trick? In System Preferences… > Energy Saver
Uncheck Put hard disks to sleep when possible
(This might not work if your “2 drives have failed at different times” refers to hardware failure.)
Have you tried this old trick? In System Preferences… > Energy Saver
Uncheck Put hard disks to sleep when possible
Of course. It’s been setup like that forever.
(This might not work if your “2 drives have failed at different times” refers to hardware failure.)
Drive failure, indeed!
Western Digital drives are used in G-Tech boxes. I didn’t do thorough enough research. WD drive tend to be unreliable. I can certainly attest to that!
How long are the cables that you’ve been using? (I don’t know about Thunderbolt, but I had intermittent disconnects with a 2 metre USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps cable, until I realised that the USB spec apparently specifies a maximum of 1 metre here.)
WD, like all manufacturers, makes a wide variety of different products, with a wide variety of reliabilities, and not all are appropriate for all use-cases.
I don’t now what model is in your G-RAID enclosure, but if you want to populate a RAID chassis with HDDs, you should look for:
7200 RPM
Designed for 24/7 operation. If it’s not documented, assume it’s not.
Designed for NAS operation. NAS enclosures often cause drives to experience more vibration than drives in standalone enclosures. NAS drives are designed to be able to run more reliably with this vibration.
CMR recording. SMR’s poor write performance can create all kinds of random failures when used with RAID, especially the RAID controller incorrectly detecting premature failure when the drive’s cache fills up and the SMR mechanism causes long delays while writing data.
High MTBF. Preferably 1,000,000 hours or more. If the drive doesn’t have a published MTBF, then the manufacturer either didn’t run the necessary tests or they aren’t good (or they want to be able to change the design without changing the model number - meaning you can’t rely on what you’re getting).
I would suggest using the above criteria for evaluating any HDD from any manufacturer, not just Western Digital’s models.
Additionally, when evaluating any external drive enclosure (especially a multi-drive enclosure like a RAID chassis), make sure it provides adequate cooling for the drives. At minimum, there should be a fan. Maybe something more robust if it supports a lot of drives.
Looking at various models available from WD’s web site, I would recommend these models:
Ultrastar DC HC550, HC530, HC520, HC300 and HA210 (aka Ultrastar 7K2). These are data-center drives.
And I would recommend avoiding these models:
Black and Black 2.5". Although Black is marketed as a high performance drive, it is not documented for 24/7 operation and has no published MTBF. Some models use SMR.
Blue and Blue 2.5" PC. Most models have a low RPM. Not documented for 24/7 operation. No published MTBF. Some models use SMR.
Purple and Purple Pro. Not designed for general-purpose use. Designed for security cameras, DVRs and related devices (write-intensive, many simultaneous low bit-rate data streams)
Red NAS. This version of Red is SMR and slow (“5400 RPM class”).
And FWIW, my external drives are currently housing Toshiba N300 drives.