[SOLVED] Dropped external harddrive

[Sebastianderpy]

Hello there!

I'm studying animation at University and it's important that I back up my files onto an external hard-drive.

I bought a Western Digital 4TB Desktop External Hard-drive. Not a solid-state drive, one of the big external hard-drives.

Recently I was transporting my external hard-drive in my bag and I dropped the bag onto the floor with the hard-drive in it. I heard what sounded like the hard-drive hitting the floor.

So now the hard-drive appears to still be working, but I was wondering if there a way I could test the drive to see if it's functioning properly? Is it likely that the hard-drive will fail on me after the damage?

When I plug in the hard-drive, there is a slight pulsating vibration that comes every few seconds, is this anything?

I would appreciate any help as I need to be able to back-up my work onto this hard-drive with confidence.
Thank you!

 

[fzabkar]

A hard fall can damage a spindle bearing. I suppose there is also the possibility of disk shift which would cause a rotational wobble.

I would keep an eye on the SMART data and backup regularly onto a second medium.

 

[Sebastianderpy]

A hard fall can damage a spindle bearing. I suppose there is also the possibility of disk shift which would cause a rotational wobble.

I would keep an eye on the SMART data and backup regularly onto a second medium.

Great, thank you very much

I'll keep an eye on it

 

[Digital 987]

If it still copies files and you can access all the files on the drive then it's probably fine.

 

[Ketchup79]

A hard drive is a million times more likely to fail when it is powered on than when it is not, since nothing is moving and the arm is in a parked location. So if it works fine after the fall, there is a very good chance there is a nice long life in store for that drive.

 

[Alabalcho]

All things said - don't keep anything on that drive which you can not afford to lose! That is = don't keep your archives there, and only there!

 

[Digital 987]

Combined with a good backup strategy (which should be in place anyway) that drive sounds perfectly usable.

 

[hang-the-9]

Hello there!

I'm studying animation at University and it's important that I back up my files onto an external hard-drive.

I bought a Western Digital 4TB Desktop External Hard-drive. Not a solid-state drive, one of the big external hard-drives.

Recently I was transporting my external hard-drive in my bag and I dropped the bag onto the floor with the hard-drive in it. I heard what sounded like the hard-drive hitting the floor.

So now the hard-drive appears to still be working, but I was wondering if there a way I could test the drive to see if it's functioning properly? Is it likely that the hard-drive will fail on me after the damage?

When I plug in the hard-drive, there is a slight pulsating vibration that comes every few seconds, is this anything?

I would appreciate any help as I need to be able to back-up my work onto this hard-drive with confidence.
Thank you!

When you say you "back up" your files to that drive, you mean you have the originals on the main drive and just copy a back up copy to this external, or are you moving the files to that drive?