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<blockquote data-quote="MacInWin" data-source="post: 1804453" data-attributes="member: 396914">Well, if that is the original drive, it is now 7-8 years old, which well past the typical time when drives start to fail. (Lion was released in 2011, replaced in 2012, so the drive has to dome from that era.)&nbsp; Her report that it was slow is a symptom of a failing drive. The disk getting full would not make it disappear, just make it very slow as it struggled to find open space. Disk Utility would still see the drive, but working with it would be slow. Not seeing it at all is a symptom of failure. The testing that First Aid does on a drive does not show impending failures very well. All it tests for is &quot;did the read/write work&quot; and not &quot;how many tries did it take?&quot; The &quot;how many&quot; is the cause of slow performance as the drive internals have to do multiple shots at writing/reading the drive before it works. But all Disk Utility cares about is that it did or did not work, not how many tries.&nbsp; So a drive can be near failure and DU will be reporting no problems. And when the drive finally fails, it &quot;disappears&quot; because it is no longer responding to the operating system at all, at any speed. Hence, there is some high probability that that old drive has died. Now, it MIGHT be the cable, as cables can get brittle and break if they get messed with. But frankly, if you haven't taken the drive out that is a low probability. And most of the time cables don't make a drive &quot;slow&quot; as she has reported. They are more of a yes/no component. Either work or not.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="MacInWin, post: 1804453, member: 396914"] Well, if that is the original drive, it is now 7-8 years old, which well past the typical time when drives start to fail. (Lion was released in 2011, replaced in 2012, so the drive has to dome from that era.) Her report that it was slow is a symptom of a failing drive. The disk getting full would not make it disappear, just make it very slow as it struggled to find open space. Disk Utility would still see the drive, but working with it would be slow. Not seeing it at all is a symptom of failure. The testing that First Aid does on a drive does not show impending failures very well. All it tests for is "did the read/write work" and not "how many tries did it take?" The "how many" is the cause of slow performance as the drive internals have to do multiple shots at writing/reading the drive before it works. But all Disk Utility cares about is that it did or did not work, not how many tries. So a drive can be near failure and DU will be reporting no problems. And when the drive finally fails, it "disappears" because it is no longer responding to the operating system at all, at any speed. Hence, there is some high probability that that old drive has died. Now, it MIGHT be the cable, as cables can get brittle and break if they get messed with. But frankly, if you haven't taken the drive out that is a low probability. And most of the time cables don't make a drive "slow" as she has reported. They are more of a yes/no component. Either work or not. [/QUOTE]

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