Is my WD Passport dying..?

Hello,

My drive fell or anything so i'm surprised this happens now. It's only one year old. I noticed the speed (USB 3.0) is only about ~40MB/s while normally it's double at least AND MOSTLY the drive literrally stops during copies (or else) dropping from ~40MB/s to some KB/s... I tried different USB ports but seems same... SMART status is fine, no strange values apparently... What do you think?

Thanks!

It's possible for a brand new drive right out of the box to have problems. Likewise, it's possible for a reliable drive that has worked flawlessly for a year or two to suddenly fail. First thing I'd do is backup the data on the Passport and then run Check Disk to see if there are any errors.

Check a drive for errors

You could also visit the Western Digital support site and look for their hard drive diagnostic tool. I believe it's still Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows.

WD Support / Downloads / SATA & SAS / WD VelociRaptor (scroll down about 1/3 - on left)

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/other/2779-701022.pdf

Yes i started copying the file yesterday and will try finishing soon. The HD diagnostic tool? Already have that, what it does? SMART scan (already checked & ok as said) and short/long sector scan :

Can do that but originally takes ~4hours or more and since disk is stopping often it could be day or more... With the risk of it ending dying... There's nothing else i can do to identify the breakdown & try fixing it? Could it be the cable..?

It wouldn't hurt to try a different cable if you have one.

Inverted cable with my new Passport, didn't change. However i then started deleting folder, thinking i needed RMA, had to unplug/replug for some reason and now it's fine..?! There was about 40mb left before i erase things. I know low space CAN make disk slower BUT IN NO CASE cause the drive stop/restart or act so weirdly..!

So once you started deleting data the drive started working properly? Maybe the read/write heads were stuck and then broke free. Or the spindle that rotates was stuck and broke free. Whatever happened, I wouldn't trust the drive for important data storage. It might work fine for several more years. Or it could go belly up tomorrow.

Was wrong, next times in plugged it, it was same shit just like before. Going to RMA.