[SOLVED] Is empty folder a sign of dying hard drive ?

[hw_user]

I used external USB hard drives for data back up. Once filled, it will be placed on the shelf until I have a need to look at some data. This may be once or twice every year. I was looking for some back up data on a 5 year old back up drives (a Seagate expansion drive), I noticed some folders ( 3 or 4 level down from root) were empty (no I/O error, explorer just show no file under the folder). I cannot tell if they were actually empty when they were backed up (by simple copy) several years ago or some data disappear on me because of the age of the hard drive (i.e. the hard drive has reached the end of life).
BTW, what is the sign of a dying hard drive beside a real obvious physical issue (like not power up, not recognized by OS, or sound from hardware spinning or I/O errors).

 

[USAFRet]

Only you know what you copied to it.
It was likely empty from the start.

Again, though...this speaks to the "on the shelf" backup.
You don't know if there was data there before and it is now gone due to a faulty drive, or if there was never data there to start with.

 

[Oasis Curator]

BTW, what is the sign of a dying hard drive beside a real obvious physical issue (like not power up, not recognized by OS, or sound from hardware spinning or I/O errors).

I don't think there are any other signs apart from data not being written properly.
You'll notice something physical before that though.

And there's no "end of life" for hard drives - each one is different depending on usage.
I have some hard drives that were created in 2010-2011. They've been used to store films for the last 10 years and now they're my primary backup drives. They're both still "perfect" in SMART and will continue their life being powered for a few hours every few months.
This is quite different to some hard drives that are powered constantly and being written to every night.

Unless the drive is telling you it's dying, you can only presume it's fine.

 

[USAFRet]

Unless the drive is telling you it's dying, you can only presume it's fine.

And the reverse:
Always assume that the drive is going to die in the next 0.25 sec. Act accordingly.

 

[Oasis Curator]

And the reverse:
Always assume that the drive is going to die in the next 0.25 sec. Act accordingly.

May also assume that you could drop down and die in the next 0.25 seconds too!
There has to be a line somewhere. Fully get and see yours is more stringient than many, many other people but it's all about probability and judgement 😛
I like to live without thinking my data will be inaccessible every 5 minutes / every other week / whatever 😀
But good for balance I guess.

 

[Bob.B]

May also assume that you could drop down and die in the next 0.25 seconds too!
There has to be a line somewhere. Fully get and see yours is more stringient than many, many other people but it's all about probability and judgement 😛
I like to live without thinking my data will be inaccessible every 5 minutes / every other week / whatever 😀
But good for balance I guess.

Folks can run their machines any way they want.
My thoughts are Stuff Happens.
I have a tested backup/restore routine that I run on a schedule.
Does it cover every possible thing that could happen?.......No.

 

[USAFRet]

May also assume that you could drop down and die in the next 0.25 seconds too!
There has to be a line somewhere. Fully get and see yours is more stringient than many, many other people but it's all about probability and judgement 😛
I like to live without thinking my data will be inaccessible every 5 minutes / every other week / whatever 😀
But good for balance I guess.

Having had a drive do exactly that, I prepare for that possibility.
And it takes exactly zero seconds out of my day for my backup routine.

All automated.