how likely is it that an external hard drive suddenly fail on you?

Question

ive developed a phobia of plugging in my main external drive into my desktop windows 7 computer, because im thinking ' what if it fails on me when i plug it in'? the drive has most of my media files on it, pictures and music.

ive took good care of the hard drive, its just sitting on my desktop, every time ive plugged it in there has been no problems yet.

so how can i get over this fear and plug it in? and how likely or common is it for an external hard drive to just fail on you without any warning?

Answer 1

Hard drives, external or internal, don't generally fail without warning. I'm sure it has happened in the past, but it isn't common. Usually when a hard drive will fail soon or has failed, you'll hear sounds like ticking, scraping, or other unusual sounds and/or loud sounds.



The most prudent thing would be to have at least 2 backups of your most important data, preferbly one of them being off-site.



Hard drives have something called S.M.A.R.T; Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Tests. It basically is a built-in system on most hard drives that can give you some information about a hard drive's reliability. It won't tell you exactly when the drive will fail, but it can tell you (via special software) if and when the drive is having errors or having to retry something.



As long as you don't drop the hard drive or subject it to shock, vibrations, etc, it should be good.

Answer 2

If its a Seagate drive, it is very likely. Just read that article today. Seagates have the worst failure rate.

Answer 3

Every external hard drive I've ever owned has failed, most of them quite soon after the warranty expired.



If yours contains important files, you need to store those files in two places, one of them not in your home. Dropbox, email it to yourself, store in the cloud in some other way, burn to CDs and DVDs you keep somewhere else.



Because even if your fear isn't truly justified, one day that thing will fail, guaranteed.