How to know your external hdd is dying?

Anyway of knowing or determine if your external HDD is dying at all, I have one 500GB External HDD from Maxtor that I still use, which I bought in July of 2007. What are some notable factors that the external drive is dying?

 

The typical click of death, problems reading and writing data to the drive. Loud vibrating noise is also one. Those were the symptoms that occurred when i knocked down my external HDD and i ended up having to replace the drive.

 

Try HDTune with the SMART health scan?

 

If the drive is old(er), consider it dying. Even if it is 'older' by one day since you bought it. Since this has been in service since 2007 - this is definitely one of the 'older' ones.

If the data it contains is the only copy you have available, then consider it dying.

If the data it contains is irreplaceable and you only have two (HDD based) copies, consider them both dying if they are circa 2007 vintage.

Clicking, grinding, vibrating and other physical issues doesn't mean it's dying - consider it dead.

Remove the power - get a new HDD (preferrably two...) format the new drives to NTFS using a Windows 7 SP1 system (the newest version of NTFS...) and then;

Copy the data to the first HDD - run a verify of the copy (SyncToy is useful here).

Move the data to the second HDD - do a compare between the new drives (there should be no differences).

With the data successfully copied/moved to the new HDD - take the old HDD behind the barn with a hammer to 'say goodbye forever to' a good friend that lasted almost 5 yrs and you don't want that friend to be able to turn on you if coerced to against his will. Smash that sucker to pieces with 'loving' blows. I think you got your money's worth out of it.

 

Yeah, but don't you have to pay for that?

Ahh okay, gotcha. Well, it's really not doing any of that, I just thought about it the age of my drive and how long it has been. It's actually about 5 or 6 months older than my laptop.

Understood, does this apply even if I haven't used the HDD as much? I mean, I think I've probably powered it on maybe 15-20 times ever since I got it. Of that, as of recent (last few months) did I ever start using it a bit more frequently. But in all I haven't really powered on, unless I really needed to move stuff from current hard drive to it.

I was planning getting 2 Western Digital Caviar Green drives (3 TB each) and using them via dual-bay enclosure. But with the effective price increase, that plan really didn't come into fruition as I had hoped. But my alternative is 2TB/2TB of the same drive.

And just out of curiosity, the drives don't come pre-formatted? As they did with my Maxtor External HDD (500GB from 2007)?

 

Infrequently used external drives have very long life expectancies if they aren't handled roughly. It is always a good idea to back up your data, and you should do so at your earliest convenience, but I wouldn't have any worries of your current external drive going bad anytime soon. If you back everything up, replacing your drive is completely unnecessary until it actually does die or is no longer useful. I would get a new drive as your primary external and relegate the old one to the backup drive.

I don't even remember anymore. Quick formatting takes literally 5 seconds in Windows.

 

No. There is a trial version. And there are many other programs that can show you the SMART status. I'd start with that. It is usually a good indication for a problem, although even if you find a warning or failure there - not necessarily a prediction for malfunction in the next days/weeks/months or even years.

 

Sorry, maybe I didn't make it clear: if you have your data in at least two or more different places - then it doesn't matter how old your HDD's are - but that doesn't mean they are safe either. Time is not the factor here. HDD's will and do fail - my advice is 'be prepared' for when it does happen.

With a single drive used as backup infrequently (used ~20 times in 5 yrs is roughly turned on every 3 months) I would be more worried that the drive could suddenly become inaccessible, not less.

The controller board could be flaky, the power supply could give out the HDD itself could simply stop spinning (how are you storing it between use...).

(My most important data is stored in at least 4-6 HDD's and those are stored in containers with silica gel packs to make sure that moisture doesn't destroy them - almost as if I was ready to ship them).

There are too many reasons for it to go and if it is the only copy of your data - it will either be expensive to recover (if it the data is worth the $$$$) and keep in mind that it will also not be recoverable in a short/reasonable time frame (even if money is not an issue and you thing that a week to get to your data is 'okay').

With a dual drive bay unit - I would be considering them as a single point of backup because of the possible issues with the controller, the power supply and the single unit which could be lost/stolen/damaged and thereby losing all your data (even if the drives inside were mirroring each other).

A dual drive setup is best when used with a second dual drive setup that is mirrored and rotated with the first one (using SyncToy, of course). Then you get all the benenfits of true 'back up to the back up...'.

As for drives being preformatted or not - yeah - I'm sure they are delivered like that (most of them...). However, that doesn't mean that they were formatted with the latest version of NTFS.

As stated, for compatibility and reliability reasons: I would format them with the newest version of Windows (SP1 of Win7 today) to ensure that the drive is 'current' with respect to the file system and my current systems.

When Win8 comes out (if I upgrade...) I will be taking my backup drives and methodically re-formatting them with that O/S's version of NTFS and then copying the data back onto them.

This not only tests the mechanical fitness of the HDD, but it also has ensured me of knowing that the version of NTFS on the HDD is not the cause of any issues I might be facing when recovering any files or simply backing up to these drives.

Note that I also do this with USB Keys too (flash drives...). Especially ones that have the useless, in 2011, FAT32 file system on them (useless because many of my files are over 4GB in size).

Hope this helps.

 

K gotcha, yeah, I mean the HDD is at it's maximum, I think I'm about short 20gb of having it completely full. Most of the drive is just graphic design, web development and video editing work that I have saved on it through the years. Every couple of months my drive gets full and I have to go ahead and move things over again.

Oh okay, I'll have to check that out then.

That's like taking 10 tablets when you are only supposed to have 2. I was planning on using (1) 3TB drive while it mirrored stuff onto the other. But the way you put it, I might have to buy 4-bay raid-capable drive housing chamber. Even so, I think it'd be not only cheaper but space-saving if I just got (2) Dual-Drive Bays.

 

Having backups to the backups is not like over medicating yourself. When the value of the data warrants it.

Anyway, thanks for the chuckle.

As I mentioned before (possibly elsewhere): backups and 'cheaper' do not mix. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but usually, if done 'on the cheap' it is as if no backup (and money) was done/spent at all.

In other words: if you need a backup you need to do it right. Or the reality is that you are throwing money at a solution without really addressing the core issue.

Make of the info, what you will. If I'm not clear, or you have any questions, I'll gladly try to continue to help.

 

I think it would be easier to query the version of NTFS with

fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c:

as to format all disks(partitions).

Windows 7 SP1 NTFS is version 3.1, the same as NTFS of XP.
And Windows 8 probably also.

 

Nah,

It's easier to simply format it rather than bring up an administrator DOS prompt, type or copy/paste the proper fsutil command and then possibly have to Format it anyways.

Hoping that Win8 extends NTFS in some significant way (with regards to SSD's, etc.) and doesn't simply use the same ole NTFS of XP SP3.

Besides, with the older/existing drives - it does a nice refresh of the data and further ensures that the drives are still reliable for a while.