external hd health?

[SadCuzNotTcklsh]

So I keep all my tickling content on an external hard drive. is there a program I can use to check if drive is about to fail. it is pretty old, and I'm nervous one day it will stop working. I'm on Mac.

 

[FootTickleManiac]

Unfortunately I don't think there is such a thing, wish there was. Hard drives are unpredictable.

A major lesson I learned a little over a decade ago after losing some valuable stuff (non-wack off related) is to keep double or even triple back ups on either multiple externals or even hard copy DVD data the old way. I would do one of those 2 things. It's time consuming, but well worth it.

But, 2 signs to look for if your drive is about to blow is if you hear a clicking noise when you plug it in or if it starts freezing up on you at random times.

 

[milagros317]

You can get a USB Flash Drive with 2TB = 2,000GB capacity. USB flash drives don't crash as often as hard drives.

 

[FootTickleManiac]

I had a USB flash drive die/crash on me just last year, the same as an external would.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

If you have access to a Linux (or Max presumably) machine, doing a full badblocks scan would pick up any failing sectors. If that was gobbledygook then skip to the next idea.

A simpler answer is to use SMART data. Your drive will track attributes which can, in a limited sense, assess health. Unfortunately, often by the time these show warnings you are in trouble already. Programs like CrystalDiskInfo (see https://www.howtogeek.com/134735/check-ssd-or-hdd-health-with-smart/) or Speedfan (https://www.almico.com/speedfan.php - unfortunately now a few years not updated) can pull these attributes for you.

If you have an SSD, you can use the manufacturer's tools which often do this. Samsung Magician, for example.