Question chkdsk running at Startup on 2 external HDDs

[cool09]

I have an Orico Docking Station with two 3.5" SATA HDD slots which I've been using about 5 yrs and it has worked great w/no problems.
Yesterday 1 External HDD didn't show up in Windows 10 File Explorer so I booted Windows in Safe Mode and chkdsk ran automatically on the HDD and repaired errors on the HDD then the HDD worked in File Explorer.
Then 5 minutes later the same thing happened to a different external HDD and chkdsk ran and then the HDD showed up in File Explorer.
These 2 external SATA HDDs are Western Digital Blue SATA 1TB and 2TB drives 6Gb/s and are 2-3 yrs old.
My PC is an ASUS IntelCore 4.10 GHz and is about 5 yrs old w/Windows 10 (64-bit and is up-to-date), Samsung SSD 870 EVO 500GB Internal Drive and 32GB RAM. Recently been having occassional trouble with File Explorer being slow on internal HDD. And 7 mths ago chkdsk was running at Startup on my internal C: Drive and Stage 4 was not completing. Since then chkdsk hasn't run at Startup on C: Drive and the drive has worked good except for File Explorer being slow recently.
What is going on with my External Drives?
What are the odds that 2 External disks are corrupt within 5 minutes of each other?
Where is the problem in my system?

 

[NedSmelly]

My suspicion is the Orico dock. I’ve used various Orico docks and enclosures over last 7 years and have found them very flaky. They generally have the cheapest nastiest JMicron controllers available.

My 2-slot Orico HDD dock used to randomly corrupt my backup drives every few months, making them unreadable. Transplanted the drives to a QNAP DAS and had no issues with daily use for >2 years.