Is my USB3 drive about to fail?

[martinlest]

How would you recommend I best test my external drive (Lacie Porsche 5TB), which seems to me to be on the verge of failing? Problems include the following (though not sure whether they are all due to the drive):

Read/write usually starts OK (not blazingly fast, but an OK-ish 48MB/s max) when copying but all too soon the speed drops to virtually nothing.. can almost freeze up and is often at under 200kb/s after some minutes

Disc can take several minutes to 'eject' via the 'Safely Remove Hardware....' icon

Disc can cause Windows Explorer to hang when trying to access it

Disc can prevent Windows from shutting down at all.. the LED flashes continuously and will do so for an hour if left. I have to press the PC reset button. (This never happens if the drive is not connected)

I ran some of the basic tests in the SeaTools for Windows utility (all 'Passed') and ChkDsk finds no problems (though I haven't run the 'bad sectors' scan as yet).

The drive is enabled for 'Better Performance' and I have write caches enabled.

As the two-year warranty runs out in a couple of months, I have opened an RMA - I am not sure if the disc will be replaced or repaired. But if Seagate simply run the tests I have run, they are likely to return it as it is... They do not ask for any information about the reasons for return and specifically say that no such information (as an inserted not, or whatever) should be included with the drive when returned. Seems very odd.

Are there other more stringent tests I can do before I send it back (at my considerable cost: it's pretty heavy!), to ascertain what is happening in the above scenarios for instance? Does any hardware expert know what the above symptoms would specifically suggest (over and above that the disc has a problem!)?

I have several other external drives, 2-5 TBs, BTW, none of which shows the same problems.

Many thanks.

Martin

 

[Megahertz07]

Did you run Check disk on the Lacie Porsche external disk?
On a CMD windows as Admin, type:
chkdsk X: /f (replace X with the Lacie Porsche external disk letter)
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors as they indicate a surface damage.

 

[martinlest]

Hi, and thanks for the reply.

As I said above, I ran Check Disk, and it found no errors with the drive, but I did not tick the 'bad sectors' option. I am currently copying 2TBs of the data off it onto a new 4TB drive I bought today (can't afford to lose this data, it represents thousands of hours of 'work'). When it's complete (estimate varying anywhere between 18 hours and 5 days!) I'll run Check Disk with the parameters you mention (which I assume checks the disc condition itself as well as data/security), and report back.

 

[Megahertz07]

If you had run SeaTools and chkdsk and they found no errors, your disk is fine. Don't need to run chkdsk X: /f (f is to fix errors).
What antivirus you have?
When you copy, the antivirus scans the files one by one, and it makes the copy process much slower.
Try to set Enable real time protection of your antivirus to off while you copy.

 

[martinlest]

No A/V active on this PC (for various reasons), just Windows Defender & Malwarebytes

But do I not need to rerun Check disk with the bad sectors search enabled this time?

I've been copying from the drive for several hours now (2TBs to copy) and although the speeds vary wildly, I have had no issues. I wonder why the drive kept locking up Windows. Maybe the USB port??

 

[Megahertz07]

"No A/V active on this PC (for various reasons), just Windows Defender & Malwarebytes!!!!"

What you think they are?

They are Anti-virus anti-malware etc etc.

Is Malwarebytes the free or paid version?

 

[martinlest]

What you think they are?

Yes, they are of course A/V in essence. I meant to say no external programmes like AVG/MS Security Essentials... I need to set both Windows Defender & Malwarebyte to 'off' then when copying, you say.. (MWB is not set to run at startup - I run it manually every week or so). I will certainly try that now, as copying files to the drive slows down within 15 minutes or less - I have left the files copying overnight twice now and woken up both times to find that there is 'only' 3000 days (plus) left to complete the task!

I'll run Check disk again when I close this - and post back...

Malwarebytes is the freeware version BTW.

 

[martinlest]

Hmmm, the disc seems to be clean, as below. But it still seems to be causing explorer to hang every so often. Windows will not then shut down.. I cannot remove the drive through the 'safely remove device' icon... that hangs too. The only way to get things back is to turn off the power to the drive.

It's not the USB port as I have tried more than one...

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk U: /f
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is LaCie.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
  1180416 file records processed.
File verification completed.
  78077 large file records processed.
  0 bad file records processed.
  0 EA records processed.
  0 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
  1196080 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
  0 unindexed files scanned.
  0 unindexed files recovered.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
  1180416 file SDs/SIDs processed.
Security descriptor verification completed.
  7832 data files processed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

   4769177 MB total disk space.
   2520370 MB in 620037 files.
    297472 KB in 7834 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
   1396099 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
   2247153 MB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
1220909567 total allocation units on disk.
 575271221 allocation units available on disk.

 

[Megahertz07]

Your LaCie (target) disk is fine. Did you also did check disk on the C: drive and on the source disk?

MWB (pro or free) is loaded when you start the computer. The Pro version will stay active and work like a anti-virus. The free one doesn't, and only acts when you call, but both are in memory.

Lets try another approach.
Start the computer in Safe Mode (it won't load any program into memory) and try to do a the copy.

 

[martinlest]

Did you also did check disk on the C: drive and on the source disk?

Both fine, zero errors

Your LaCie (target) disk is fine

'Fine' how though? When I right click the icon for the drive in My Computer, often nothing happens until explorer crashes, (this, usually after some copying to the drive has been done). I don't get that with any of my other external HDDs. As I say, trying to eject the disc from the system tray also hangs, and after that Windows doesn't close down when I choose 'Shut Down', it just hangs on the Closing Down screen.

I'll try in Safe Mode a bit later today..

Thank you.

 

[Megahertz07]

You ran SeaTools and check disk. It found no errors on the disk.
Your LaCie also has USB to SATA electronics that may not be working well. You also may have a software that is interfering on the copy.

As you have a desktop, you may also try to take the disk out off the LaCie case and attach to a SATA port of the MB.

 

[martinlest]

Your LaCie also has USB to SATA electronics that may not be working well

Could be. I am sure taking the drive out of the enclosure would void the warranty...

I ran the copy in Safe Mode and it looked good. For 20 minutes it ran steadily (though hardly quickly!) between 11 & 16 MB/s. Then it suddenly increased and for 10 minutes it ran up to 50MB/s, so I left it to start making dinner...

Came back 10 minutes ago to see the copying running at 1-2MB/s and it hasn't got any faster meanwhile. 800kb/s as I look right now. No doubt if I reboot again into Safe Mode it will run OK for a while.

This is so frustrating! Thanks (whatever) for the input, of course!

 

[Megahertz07]

Very strange.

If it's warranty why don't you call LaCie?

 

[martinlest]

Left it copying, after a reboot into Safe Mode again: came back an hour later and the copying had almost stopped - one 11MB file copied every 30 seconds or so. In the Start Menu chose 'Restart' - but the PC doesn't, I just get the 'Shutting Down' window - until I eventually pull the LaCie drive USB connector out of the PC.. then it restarts immediately.

I do have an RMA for the drive from Seagate (who run Lacie now it seems) and will return it once I am sure it is indeed the drive that is faulty (seems so by now). But oddly (ominously even) they don't ask for any reasons for the return and specifically state that no covering note should be included with the return. What kind of nonsense is that? I am afraid they will just return the disc unrepaired as their tests show no problems.

 

[Megahertz07]

I have seen that LaCie can have AES 256-Bit Encryption. Is it an software option or is a hardware Encryption?

Edit: If you bought it online you have, on the seller site, an account. Post a bad evaluation on the product and wait LaCie to call you back.