[SOLVED] sony external harddrive fell from 2 feet on tiled floor

[Yash21]

Lights were off and unrealised i lifted the laptop to which the hdd was connected and then i realised it was. By that point it was almost in the air and then i tried to not let it fall and also i partially held it for a fraction of a second and the it disconnected from the usb cable and fell. I plugged it in and it worked normally, my question is has there been some damage or will it start to get damaged as i use it or it will stop suddenly after sometime and if it has taken damage is there a way to know it? And it has a lot of very important data.

 

[USAFRet]

It may be 100% perfect.
It may have shortened the lifespan by X%.
It might die tomorrow.

All three of those possibilities apply to ALL drives, whether they have been dropped or not.
Brand new, 15 years old, whatever.

Institute a good backup plan, use that drive until its eventual demise.

 

[Yash21]

It may be 100% perfect.
It may have shortened the lifespan by X%.
It might die tomorrow.

All three of those possibilities apply to ALL drives, whether they have been dropped or not.
Brand new, 15 years old, whatever.

Institute a good backup plan, use that drive until its eventual demise.

But then as you said the same possibilities apply to a new hdd as well.

 

[USAFRet]

But then as you said the same possibilities apply to a new hdd as well.

Exactly.
ALL storage devices are subject to fail. Even brand new out of the box.

A few years ago, I had a brand new drive, 5 weeks out of the box. Went from apparently great to dead in about 36 hours.

If there is any data involved that you care about...backup.
All drives die eventually.

 

[Yash21]

Exactly.
ALL storage devices are subject to fail. Even brand new out of the box.

A few years ago, I had a brand new drive, 5 weeks out of the box. Went from apparently great to dead in about 36 hours.

If there is any data involved that you care about...backup.
All drives die eventually.

But i dont understand ecause we are supposed to backup on a different drive and if it can be dead a day later then how can the data be secure and whats the point in backing up

 

[USAFRet]

But i dont understand ecause we are supposed to backup on a different drive and if it can be dead a day later then how can the data be secure and whats the point in backing up

A backup is a second, or third, or fourth copy.
Unlikely that ALL of them would die on the same day.

So if one dies, you have the data on some other physical device.

The only thing that is important is the data. The physical drive? If it dies...either it is covered under manufacturer warranty. Free replace.
Or, it has outlived its warranty, and you replace anyway.

 

[mdd1963]

As the data is important, I'd get another copy of it elsewhere just in case....

There should be no single source data repositories...unless it's just goofy things that anyone can redownload with minimal effort.

As you used the term 'very important' I'd get it stored elsewhere just in case....; if no problem occurs, awesome, you have an additional spot to store data...

The free cloud storage locations are useful for storing data to, but if security worries you, 7-Zip encrypt it first. (P-Cloud, One Drive, Google Drive, IceDrive, DropBox, etc)

 

[USAFRet]

Data that exists on one drive can be said to not exist at all.
Drives die. All of them, eventually.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[Yash21]

A backup is a second, or third, or fourth copy.
Unlikely that ALL of them would die on the same day.

So if one dies, you have the data on some other physical device.

The only thing that is important is the data. The physical drive? If it dies...either it is covered under manufacturer warranty. Free replace.
Or, it has outlived its warranty, and you replace anyway.

and then the same thing applies to a internal hard drive as well right but then why do they last for such a long time like 10 years easily without anything and arent they physically similar to an external one

 

[USAFRet]

and then the same thing applies to a internal hard drive as well right but then why do they last for such a long time like 10 years easily without anything and arent they physically similar to an external one

This applies to any storage device.

I had an HDD die at 5 weeks out of the box.
I had an SSD die at 3 years, just past the 3 year warranty
I have other HDDs that are near 20 years old and still work.
I have other SSDs that are 8 years old and working just great.

For the single instance in your PC or external enclosure...there is no "prediction". It may last, it may die.
Having a good backup routine is the only way to protect your data. The physical drive is trivially replaceable.

 

[hang-the-9]

and then the same thing applies to a internal hard drive as well right but then why do they last for such a long time like 10 years easily without anything and arent they physically similar to an external one

They don't all last 10 years, you may not be reading the replies fully. Yes they can last 10 years, but they can last a month. Since we can't know, only protection for your data is to have several copies to minimize chance of losing it. Nothing will 100% guarantee you won't lose your data. You can have backups on 3 drives and your house burns up with all the drives inside them. You can have backups in 3 separate buildings and something can happen to all 3 of those. But if you have 3 backups you have a much larger chance of one of them being good when you need it.

 

[Freeshivacado]

Hard drives. It might be damaged. And youd better hope you didnt chip/break part of the hard drive platter. Otherwise you made a baddd mistake my man.
I recommend getting another hard drive and copying your data over from that hard drive to the other hard drive. And dont worry if it dies. They are designed to power down as soon as possible to prevent corrupting data on the drive. If that happens. Do not plug it back in. Ship the drive off to a data recovery place. And then they will send your data back. If you dont wanna do that then you can try to restore the hard drive from a previous state.

 

[Yash21]

Hard drives. It might be damaged. And youd better hope you didnt chip/break part of the hard drive platter. Otherwise you made a baddd mistake my man.
I recommend getting another hard drive and copying your data over from that hard drive to the other hard drive. And dont worry if it dies. They are designed to power down as soon as possible to prevent corrupting data on the drive. If that happens. Do not plug it back in. Ship the drive off to a data recovery place. And then they will send your data back. If you dont wanna do that then you can try to restore the hard drive from a previous state.

Did exactly that, copied all the data on to new one successfully. Older one still works, ran chkdsk on it, it showed to be completely ok, though during copying the data sometimes it got really slow for like 20 percent data even on a 3.0 port.

 

[ggrego]

If you have information that is that important to you, you should save a copy of it on DVD's and carefully store them. I have had business HD fail and it took three employee's 1.5 years to reconstruct about 75% of the data and I thought I was backing up to a SCSI tape drive to find out the data wasn't there. I would keep more that 1 backup on a solid stated outboard drive and carefully store it along with DVD's, then you should be safe. I wouldn't trust the dropped drive again with important information.

 

[Yash21]

They don't all last 10 years, you may not be reading the replies fully. Yes they can last 10 years, but they can last a month. Since we can't know, only protection for your data is to have several copies to minimize chance of losing it. Nothing will 100% guarantee you won't lose your data. You can have backups on 3 drives and your house burns up with all the drives inside them. You can have backups in 3 separate buildings and something can happen to all 3 of those. But if you have 3 backups you have a much larger chance of one of them being good when you need it.

but i think there can be a slight advantage to a drive in a computer since it is always safe physically and especially if you bar the unexpected crash or corruption; and atleast if its handled with care?

 

[mdd1963]

One quick way up the odds in having your spinning drive last 10 years is to be fully prepared for it's failure, having invested money into backups, spare drives, etc....thus almost ensuring they will never be needed!