what not to do with your backup disks

Thunder give this a whirl.

https://softarchive.is/blogs/killdo...rd_technician_build_multilingual.4630921.html

I have a friend in the middle east that swears by it.

 

My main external hard drive is 99% full. Are you saying it's at risk of corrupting. Or are you only talking about backup drives?

 

do your best to lower the contents on the drive. All disks need some space for indexing.
If in doubt google it.
My background is IT mainly in Unix n Linux with good exposure to Windows.

 

Thank you so much mate. I've downloaded the file n will try it later.
It's not expected to rain in the ACT today. So will try a new gadget I purchased recently. Electric weed killer, thermal weeding to 650 degrees Celsius. Check it at Amazon...

 

I think buffer space is already built into the drive. For example my Drive, which is rated 18TB, only gives me 16.3TB of available storage. The remainder must be the required indexing space. Is my guess.

 

Not necessarily implying that this is what occurred with your drives - but it's important to make sure your drives (especially if not on the internal side of the computer) are getting enough power from the power supply or has a dedicated USB hub that's powered independently for drives powered by the USB cable (many are these days). Most peeps fail to factor in the need for an adequately steady source and when prone to multitask (as many of us aptly do) power easily fluctuates significantly - and this can easily result in corrupting an 'external' drive. I'm sure many know this but there may be a fair amount that don't and this "tidbit" may save those a future major headache . . .

There's a myriad of recommendations as to any "best" method of back-up and particular size of drive to use. Anecdotally, I've had greatest longevity with those in the 2-3 TB size - - - and I guess the loss (even if you've maintained a back-up) stings a bit less on a smaller-sized drive.

For me personally - I'd probably only use a drive bigger than 5TB as a tertiary back-up (I've old dumb habits that are hard to bid adieu. . .)

I hope your restoration goes well and perhaps provides a limited amount of time for outing the older material . . . is anything really old . . .

 

I am not sure that a disk drive which is almost full would become corrupted because of that. For me it was usually age/quality even when they were sitting in the bookshelf only being used from time to time.
Yes with SSDs you should keep 10-20% free at least with the first SSDs when they came out, but recently (I think it was Corsair) Support told me no longer needed it is build in. For backups I no longer use single drives. I have two Synology boxes that support BTRFS filesystem with checksums enabled and I let data scrubbing run each month.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/Btrfs
https://kb.synology.com/en-id/DSM/help/DSM/StorageManager/storage_pool_data_scrubbing?version=7
From what I remember is when disks are not rewritten info might slowly fizzle away, as it is with any magnetic medium so from time to time a rewrite/refresh might be good. A super quick google gave me this:
https://io.bikegremlin.com/13914/disk-data-refresh/
Learning by the hard way I try to do multiple backups for the stuff that it is important to me.

 

I don't think this is a problem with the remaining storage space on the hard drive. All storage media will weaken their magnetism over time, and data may be damaged. In addition to these, the lifespan of the magnetic head and the stability of the power supply may also affect the reading of data on the disk, so usually I will backup and store it again at intervals, and also save a copy on the network hard drive. Multiple backups to different storage media can effectively prevent data loss

 

I know this is a late addition to the topic - but for those who may need it - I've used this described process found several years ago on corrupt external drives where chkdsk has miserably failed - and I was ready to re-format the drive in question ::

DIRTY VOLUME - CHKDSK REPAIR - WHEN FORMATTED AS exFAT - WILL NOT WORK - HERE IS THE REAL FIX

You got the - dirty volume - for your exFAT drive and cannot get it fixed no matter what you try and it is beginning to look like the only thing you are going to be able to do is reformat, and lose everything, and start all over.

Don't worry. I know how to fix it and it is guaranteed to work or double your money back.

The cure, that has always worked in the past is the CHKDSK Repair, but this time it will not work. And you have looked everywhere on the internet and tried everything possible but it still will not work or even run.

If you are here then your drive is formatted as exFAT and not NTSC. And you are trying to repair it on your Windows system.

Here is the only way you can fix this problem and it only take a few seconds once you have the drive plugged into your MAC instead of your WINDOWS. Right. MAC...exFAT, while will run on Windows as well as MAC is primarily made for MAC's and so to repair it you can't use a NTSC program, CHKDSK, but need to use the disc utility, First Aid, solution. I am taking for granted that you know what I mean. If you don't just google it.

Works like a charm every time.

On a Mac, "Disk Utility" is a built-in application where you can use the "First Aid" feature to check and repair errors on your hard drive, essentially acting as a solution to potential disk issues by scanning for problems and attempting to fix them within the system itself; you can access it by going to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Key points about Disk Utility and First Aid:

Function:
"First Aid" analyzes your disk for errors related to the directory structure and formatting, and if possible, repairs them.

Accessing it:
Open the "Disk Utility" application, select the disk you want to check in the sidebar, and then click "First Aid".
When to use it:
If you are experiencing issues like slow performance, unexpected crashes, or error messages related to your hard drive, running First Aid can be a good troubleshooting step.

How to run First Aid:

Open Disk Utility: Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Select the disk: In the sidebar, choose the disk you want to check (usually your Macintosh HD).
Click First Aid: Select "First Aid" from the top menu.
Run the scan: Click "Run" to start the disk scan and repair process.

Important considerations:

Backup your data:
Before running First Aid on your startup disk, always back up your important data as a precaution.

Severe issues:
If First Aid cannot repair significant errors, you may need to consider professional data recovery services or even a hard drive replacement.