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).
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).