DriveDx - How Useful & When to Heed Warnings and Problems?

[RadDave]

For a number of years, I've been using DriveDx to periodically check the 'health' of my internal and external drives - I've replaced a number of HDs & one SSD when multiple or 'serious sounding' warnings appeared. Recently, I checked 15 backup drives (combo of HDs and SSDs) for my 3 Mac computers and found a single problem w/ just one (see pic) - so, sent an email to their support (first quote) and received a response (second quote), implying (to me) that I can continue to use the HD (of course, checking its status on occasion).

Mainly an informational post, but curious about comments from those using this drive app - what warnings are the more important, how many can be 'tolerated' while still using the device, and when should the drive be replaced? And a final thought, is the macOS 'disk utility' helpful in possibly correcting some of these issues? Thanks all for your thoughts. Dave

Hello - I’ve been using your app for a while on my 3 Mac computers - each is backed up biweekly using 5 external drives (mixture of HDDs & SSDs; do Time Machine & CCC duplicates + a personal disk backup) - today I checked all 15 drives and amazingly had just one issue appeared, as shown below, i.e. on a Buffalo 1TB HDD; although in ‘good overall health’, the issue is a pre-failure warning. This HD is at least 3 years old, was attached via a TB cable to our old iMac and now used intermittently on a new iMac via a USB cable. My question is whether I can use this device until more warnings appear or whether I should replace it now? Thanks for your comments. Dave

Hello David - Thanks for contacting us and sorry for the delay in response.

My question is whether I can use this device until more warnings appear or whether I should replace it now?

This is a FYI warning. Load Cycle Count exceeded the number guaranteed by the drive vendor, but as practice shows usually drives can live months or even years *after* that event. So, in case if the user doesn't experience any strange side effects (freezes, kernel panics, performance drops, drive strange clicking sounds) - the user should not worry.

Best regards, Lara Knarska

 

[chscag]

I too wondered about warnings that DriveDX indicates.

My previous iMac (2013 27") was equipped with a 1TB spinner hard drive. DriveDX indicated errors each time I checked the drive. That went on for a year.

I gave that particular iMac to my son when I purchased my 2017 model. My son is still using the machine with the same hard drive.

Having said the above, I can understand the response you received from DriveDX support.

 

[RadDave]

I too wondered about warnings that DriveDX indicates.

My previous iMac (2013 27") was equipped with a 1TB spinner hard drive. DriveDX indicated errors each time I checked the drive. That went on for a year.

I gave that particular iMac to my son when I purchased my 2017 model. My son is still using the machine with the same hard drive.

Having said the above, I can understand the response you received from DriveDX support.

Thanks Charlie for your comments - my old iMac showed a number of issues but still was working fine - may have also gone on for a 'while'? From my understanding the 'Load Cycle Count' is the number of times the head(s) return to their parked positions, and my Buffalo HD has exceeded that recommended by the manufacturer.

Now I did have that HD attached to a TB2 input on the old iMac for likely 2 years or so to do TM backups and assume that requires a LOT of read/writes (and parks)? Now used intermittently, i.e. about every 2 weeks or so when I do backups of all of my computers - will simply run DriveDx before committing to using the device. Dave