I recently bought a 20TB Seagate external hard drive and was running some tests with Seatools when it almost fell off the stack of drives I had it on. Fortunately, I caught it just before it hit the ground. Before I caught it, it made a noise that sounded like knives touching each other, likely due to completing the test. After catching it, the drive showed a perfect test result (100%). I'm really concerned about the chances of it failing now. Can anyone suggest what tests I should run to check for damage and what signs of failure to look out for?
3 Answers
Never again should you stack hard drives like that! It's way too risky. Always keep them on stable surfaces to prevent accidents like this.
You should definitely run some thorough tests to check the drive's health. I usually recommend using HD Sentinel for monitoring, alongside a full surface scan with tools like badblocks or HDDScan. These tests will help identify any potential issues, especially after a fall. Just keep an eye on the drive's SMART status as well!
Thanks for the tips! I'll make sure to do the full surface scans and monitor the SMART attributes.
Yeah, a surface scan and monitoring the SMART status are essential. Regular checks can help catch any problems early on!
The noise you heard could be your drive's freefall sensor activating, which is good as it might save the heads from crashing onto the platters. First and foremost, back up any important data. After that, check the SMART attributes—if they look fine, run an extended self-test. If that’s all clear, you can proceed with a badblocks test to further ensure everything's okay.
If the heads did touch the platters, would I notice any weird noise soon? I’ll definitely run the tests when I can. SMART was good earlier, so fingers crossed!
Right? I feel dumb for doing that. It always worked before, but now I’ll be extra cautious!