eSATA dock more likely to kill a hard drive?

[the flurv]

Good day,

My computer holds 3 hard drives, one is the OS with all the programs and music, etc. and the other two store pretty much only photographs. In the past when I run out of space on the photography hard drives I would pull out the older one and put it in an external USB case and hook it up only when needed which has worked fine. More recently I decided to use eSATA in hopes to make things move a little quicker in Photoshop and Lightroom when I needed to access that drive.

A drive got full (WD Black 2TB) so I put it into a Thermaltake BLACX eSATA & USB docking station. Over the course of about 9 months I used it maybe 15-20 times and then the hard drive couldn't be read by the computer. I put the hard drive into an external USB case and back into the computer with and it still could not be read. Tried using disk drill to recover files but got nothing.

I'm hesitant to continue using the eSATA dock. What are the odds that the eSATA dock is what took out my hard drive vs just typical drive failure?

The drive sounds like a normal drive with no funny noises coming from it and it was 95% backed up. Any other recommended ways to try and recover the data on it besides disk drill? I'd like the other 5% of data but its not worth spending hundreds of dollars on.

 

[Ubrales]

Constant plugging and unplugging a SATA port is never a good idea. Some of these docks are not built very well and the HDD is like a loose tooth. Personally, I rely on external enclosures.

 

[the flurv]

The drive was primarily docked in the dock, just being turned on and off as needed.

 

[Ubrales]

The drive was primarily docked in the dock, just being turned on and off as needed.

On;ly a portion of the drive is engaged in the dock; the rest overhangs. This is what I don't like about docks.

 

[the flurv]

Ah yes, I see what you mean.
I just meant that I wasn't plugging and unplugging it often, though I agree the design of the dock is not at all secure, not like an enclosure.

 

[Ubrales]

Ah yes, I see what you mean.
I just meant that I wasn't plugging and unplugging it often, though I agree the design of the dock is not at all secure, not like an enclosure.

The HDD spins at 7200 RPM and this creates vibrations. Inside a PC the HDDs are fastened with screws; not so in a dock; too much unsupported overhang.

 

[the flurv]

So say the dock is what caused the problem, would a poor connection just make the file structure unreadable or could it cause physical damage as well?

In other words, is this hard drive garbage or would you feel comfortable reformatting it and trying to use it again?

 

[Ubrales]

So say the dock is what caused the problem, would a poor connection just make the file structure unreadable or could it cause physical damage as well?

In other words, is this hard drive garbage or would you feel comfortable reformatting it and trying to use it again?

Connect it to the PC using a SATA cable, or convert it into an external drive. Then download and run "HDTune", and/or "CrystalDiskInfo", and check the health. Pay particular attention to "Re-allocated sectors count" raw value. This must be zero. If not, replace the HDD.

 

[the flurv]

Cool, thank you for the info. I will do that and see what happens.

 

[Ubrales]

Cool, thank you for the info. I will do that and see what happens.

If the health is good and the re-allocated sectors count, raw value is zero, the drive is good. However, if this is an older drive then it is probably SATA II and not SATA III (faster). This is one of the drawbacks of using older HDDs.

 

[Ubrales]

To find out the details of the HDD and other components, download and run "SPECCY" (free version) - https://www.piriform.com/speccy/download