constantly disconnecting & reconnecting external hard drive

[Agent Bauer]

Hi everyone,

I have a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro that has worked flawlessly for years. I installed an Intel SSD in 2011. Everything still runs great.

Problem is: I only have 160GB of total storage, so about 1 month ago I bought an external USB enclosure for a 320GB drive I had lying around.

Since I take my laptop with me to work every day, I have to disconnect the external drive every morning and reconnect it every evening. Now I'm having problems with the drive, not getting all my files and not being able to repair the volume. I did some research and found that repeatedly disconnecting and reconnecting a hard drive is bad for it.

My question is this: what should I do about external storage for this computer? Should I buy an external drive with AC adapter so it never stops spinning? Or is the problem the constant un-mounting from the computer and not the actual loss of power?

 

[pigoo3]

Since I take my laptop with me to work every day, I have to disconnect the external drive every morning and reconnect it every evening.

When you disconnect the external HD every morning...are you properly disconnecting it? To properly disconnect...you need to "eject" the external HD from the computer. Such as first dragging the external HD's icon to the trash.

File corruption can occur if this is not done first (just yanking the external HD's data cable out of the computers USB port). And the more times this is done...the more likely data/file corruption can happen.

- Nick

 

[Agent Bauer]

No I have not been properly disconnecting it. Yes, I am feeling quite embarrassed right now. I can't tell you for how long I've been just yanking my USB flash drive out of the port with no issues. Sometimes OS X is just so **** slow about it and I have places to go and people to see, so I just yank it and then, when the warning comes up I mutter "yeah, shut the f*** up" under my breath.

Anyway, I won't be doing this anymore (yanking it out, not swearing at OS X). Thanks for your help.

 

[pigoo3]

No I have not been properly disconnecting it. Yes, I am feeling quite embarrassed right now. I can't tell you for how long I've been just yanking my USB flash drive out of the port with no issues.

Hey...we're all in a hurry...and this "yanking out" is done by lots of folks.

The data/file issues don't always happen everytime...so if folks don't always experience issues...it probably makes the habit of yanking-out not a concern. But I think that if this is done enough...statistically...things catch up with us.

If I'm understanding your situation correctly (plug the external HD in at night, unplug in the morning). Maybe if you disconnect the HD at night (after dragging the icon to the trash)...then sleep or shutdown the computer for the night. Then you can just "grab & go" in the morning.

Hopefully this solves the problem.

- Nick

 

[Rod]

I'm concerned about the missing files and obvious corruption that you have said you cannot repair. I assume you have run Disc Utility > Verify Disc and found it unrepairable.
That does not mean it is unusable but it does mean you will have to erase and reformat it.
Assuming you can get your data off it temporarily you can try doing that. If all is well after verifying the HD again you can resume using it.