[Tfug] Removable carrier in USB case?

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Zack,

> >> Sits on a shelf in my garage, I can throw drives at it and
> >> wipe in a few hours for reasonably sized ones.
> >
> > Don't you have problems with heat in the garage?  I am always
> > leary of leaving anything out there (especially anything with
> > electrolytics inside -- *everything*!) for fear of it prematurely
> > dying -- even though the garage door is insulated!
> 
> If it dies, it get rid of  it, knowing that I'll get another one
> fairly soon - the first one hasn't died yet after 2+ years
> of service.  Older P4's with SATA are a dime a dozen from a lot
> of customers I have who are upgrading to new Macs.

Yes.  "PCs" aren't "precious".  My hesitation to storing
things in the garage is rooted in my fear of losing something
irreplacable (e.g., patent proofs, slot machine, reading
machine, etc.).  It just carries over to cover *everything*
electronic (regardless of how disposable they might be)

> It's only on for a few hours, mostly at night, and I tend
> not to run it on 100+ degree days in the summer.

The components get just as upset being *stored* in a hot
place as they do operating.  Things like electrolytics actually
do *worse* stored at a given (elevated) temperature than
operated.

> >> Much easier/faster than comparable solutions with
> adapters.
> >
> > I'm not worried about the time it takes to wipe.  I can
> > always be doing something else while the disk is getting
> > brainwashed.
> 
> I find that about 1 in 10 drives has some sort of error
> that results in DBAN not completing all the way.

Really?  "old drives"?

> I'm pretty sure this occurred
> during the multi-thousand hour lifespan of the drive, not
> the 2-3 hours of wiping.

No doubt!  I just rarely see drive errors (but, I tend not to
leave machines running 24/7)