Anyone Tried Using A WD PiDrive?

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Automan
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2017 5:57 am

Anyone Tried Using A WD PiDrive?

Post by Automan » Mon Jun 26, 2017 4:17 pm

After actually getting my standard Pi to work I noted the slow sampling rate and other constraints caused by writing all the data to a Micro-SD card.

Anyway, Western Digital now offer small hard drives with a provided Micro-SD card to boot the drive.

Has anyone tried this with their energy monitor?

http://wdlabs.wd.com/category/wd-pidrive/
Automan
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2017 5:57 am

Re: Anyone Tried Using A WD PiDrive?

Post by Automan » Tue Jun 27, 2017 6:13 am

I have ordered one...

250GB Western Digital PiDrive - Foundation Edition

Hopefully then it should be possible to increases the data sample rate and get accurate daily energy consumption figures.

Time will tell...
ben
Site Admin
Posts: 4254
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:39 am

Re: Anyone Tried Using A WD PiDrive?

Post by ben » Tue Jun 27, 2017 9:29 am

Automan wrote:I have ordered one...

250GB Western Digital PiDrive - Foundation Edition

Hopefully then it should be possible to increases the data sample rate and get accurate daily energy consumption figures.

Time will tell...
We have a Raspberry Pi running a version of our DashBox with a portable HDD. It works pretty well.

If you're using an RPi 3, make sure you use a 3A+ 5V power supply as the Pi is power hungry.

EDIT:
Write:
dd if=/dev/zero of=~/test.tmp bs=500K count=1024
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
524288000 bytes (524 MB) copied, 28.4798 s, 18.4 MB/s

Read:
dd if=~/test.tmp of=/dev/null bs=500K count=1024
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
524288000 bytes (524 MB) copied, 29.741 s, 17.6 MB/s
Ben
Brultech Research Inc.
E: ben(at)brultech.com
Automan
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2017 5:57 am

Re: Anyone Tried Using A WD PiDrive?

Post by Automan » Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:16 am

All my bits finally arrived and not 100% impressed with the WD 6" case which on the rear exposes the PCB's of the Pi and the Hard Drive to damage.

In my btmon.cfg I have set oem_upload_period = 0 which makes the inputs web page say updated typically staying at 1s but sometimes up to 5s

So I guess still not real time :(

System at present says

Memory RAM
Used 19.56%
Total: 923.35 MB Used: 180.64 MB Free: 742.71 MB
Swap
Used 0.00%
Total: 100 MB Used: 0 B Free: 100 MB
Disk Mount Stats
/
Used 0.59%
Total: 228.98 GB Used: 1.35 GB Free: 215.97 GB
/boot
Used 32.19%
Total: 64.97 MB Used: 20.92 MB Free: 44.05 MB

It will be interesting to see if the data is being stored on the hard drive.
Frugal
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:32 pm

Re: Anyone Tried Using A WD PiDrive?

Post by Frugal » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:48 pm

The PiDrives are being discontinued and the prices appear to have dropped.

I bought a 250GB drive with the special USB cable and preloaded micro SD card for $23.19 and later bought a 6x6 case for $8.79.

Both orders were less than the listed $50 minimum for free shipping, but no shipping charge was added.

Yes, there is a cutout in the base of the 6x6 case under the edges of the pi and the drive, but is about 7/8" by 1 1/8" and doesn't bother me. So far, I'm pleased with purchases.
Satisfied Brultech customer since 2008.
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