Slow External Hard Drive

Hi, I have a 1TB WD My Passport Ultra USB Portable Hard Drive that I've used to store old video files. Today when I was plugging in the drive I didn't plug it in very smoothly. The drive started to power up before the usb cable was properly situated. I had to wiggle the cable to get it to lock in and I'm worried the drive could've lost power as it was in the process of turning on. However, I can't say for certain whether this happened or not.

When it the cable was finally connected properly I attempted to run verify in disk utility and it was really slow. When verify completed, it stated that drive appeared to be ok, but when I attempted to transfer files to the drive that was very slow as well.

I cancelled the file transfer, ejected the drive, disconnected the drive, and reconnected the drive.

When it booted up I ran verify again. Verify finished in the usual time and still appeared to be ok.

I transferred files to the drive and they transferred at the usual speed as well.

After transferring files to the drive I copied one of those files, as well as files from previous transfers, back to my computer and attempted to play them. They all seemed to be ok, but obviously I can't check every second of 900GB of video files.

1. What do you think caused the drive to run so slowly?
2. Do you think I did damage to the drive?
3. What else can I do to check this?
4. If it continues to function properly should I still be worried?

Thanks

sjfootballer01 said:

When it booted up I ran verify again. Verify finished in the usual time and still appeared to be ok.

Click to expand...

I'm betting everything is ok now. Two things to keep in mind:

1. If the computer hasn't been rebooted in a while...sometimes a reboot can help.
2. Always make sure the external drive is properly "ejected" before unplugging it. Sounds like you did this...but always good to remember.

- Nick

I gather the OP is quite concerned about his video files and as such, I would suggest they make another back up using Carbon Copy Cloner.app just in case any files are corrupt.

Carbon Copy Cloner will flag any corrupted file(s) during the backup.

Just a suggestion… even though it sounds like the computer and external drive just had a burp or two.




- Patrick
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