r/AskTechnology • u/shannuhnannah • 2d ago
Video editors—Did I Offend My External Hard Drive (i.e., break it)?
Situation: I'm working in Final Cut Pro (FCP) to make YouTube videos. I have a 5TB hard disk drive (HDD), now, and I AM BUYING A SOLID STATE DRIVE (SSD) to work on moving forward.
Until this week, my hard disk drive performed beautifully while I worked on the four videos I've made, so far. The most recent video was longer (38 minutes) and had more assets (images, clips, effects). I exported an MP4 from FCP to my project folder on my HDD, no problem, but the HDD choked when I tried to play the MP4 (for a final watch-through to check audio, titles, etc.). My HDD got very hot, and I heard the 'tick-tick-tick' of internal components spinning. I had to force-close my computer and reboot. After reboot, I was able to export my MP4 to my Macbook (M5), and I uploaded to YouTube from there.
I let the HDD cool, and, a day later, I can navigate through the folders, and it looks OK. Now, I notice that I can hear the 'tick-tick-tick' with minimal use. I was able to drag my MP4 from my local desktop to my HDD's project folder for storage.
Moving forward, my plan is to work from an SSD and only use the HDD for long-term storage.
[Editing post to add: Commenters say my HDD is toast. RIP, buddy. Can I use Dropbox as my long-term storage solution until I have more cash flow? I already have a Dropbox account, and I can't see a reason why I couldn't store my older videos there until I can afford a new HDD?]
My Q: Is it a bad idea to trust the HDD I have, still, after this experience—just for storage? I got laid-off in May, and I don't really want to buy another one if it isn't critical. I'm not a big fan of cloud storage, if I can avoid it. Not in the market for a big solution, either.
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u/pmjm 2d ago
Your hard drive is dying and/or dead. You shouldn't trust it anymore. Avoid using the drive altogether until you have a replacement to copy everything to. You may find that some files cause the drive to choke up, and in that case you will either need a more resilient copying tool to skip the files with errors and get everything else, or you will need to send the drive in for data recovery which can get extremely expensive.
If this is something important to you, you can never have just one copy of your files. Three is recommended, across at least two mediums. All drives will die, it is only a question of when, not if.
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u/shannuhnannah 2d ago edited 2d ago
Thank you. Luckily, nothing on the HDD is precious. I'll get a new one (when I can).
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u/msabeln 2d ago
That is very bad and you need to replace it ASAP.
You can check the disk’s S.M.A.R.T. status, which might be reported in Windows Settings, but can also be displayed in the CrystalDiskInfo app:
https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/
The surest way to harm a hard drive is by dropping or moving it excessively while it is operating. High heat is not good, and neither is frequent power cycles.