How can you tell your hard drive is failing, other than running an Etre check.

To check the health of the hard drive you can run the Apple Diagnostics, but it will not detect most drive failures. @Barney-15E's suggestion to check the SMART status in Disk Utility is unlikely to show a failure unless your drive is basically dead. I've only seen the "SMART status failed" twice in 20 years, but I've replaced hundreds if not thousands of failing or worn out drives in that time.

A better way of checking the health of the hard drive is to run DriveDx. Post the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.

An example, from first run DriveDX just downloaded & run:

So would the list of 'Health Indicators' in DriveDX show preference or hardware failure

should one 'Load Cycle Count' (life span indicator) say the drive has 4,071,744 ~ with

Current: 1 / Worst: 1 / Threshold: 0 / levels. Gauge, right side, shows 1% w/ ! circled..?

Maybe proof a failure could happen soon. Or not.

This seems to indicate an unusual difference in just one category.

[While Etrecheck and Console showed much activity with an

attempt to re-install adobeARMDC, the Log files showed 'Crash

Reports' from both adobe.ARMDC.JobBlessHelper and adobe.

ARMDC.Communicator; for some unknown reason, once these

get re-installed, they run rampant. ~ When removed, seem well.]

..My answer has been to make sure any update Adobe installer doesn't run..

A months-long study of these factors; & startup drive status, inconclusive.

So the OP may have some research to perform and study the

actual problem(s) within hardware -and/or- software issues.

And have suitable backups to external drives, devices + clones.

FYI, any SMART attribute that is considered a "life-span" attribute means that the drive may be able to continue functioning normally once the "Value" or "Worst" reaches the "Threshold" (the "Value" and "Worst" will never go below "001" while "Threshold" is "000"). A "life-span" indicator means the manufacturer only expects the drive to function normally as long as the "Value" or "Worst" never reaches "001" or the "Threshold". DriveDx indicates when one of the drive's "life-span" attributes reaches the "Threshold" by showing a "Warning". Personally I find a hard drive begins to get much slower and act oddly once the Load Cycle Count reaches the "Threshold" and shows a "Warning" status in DriveDx.

When DriveDx reports an attribute is "Failing", then that means the drive is most likely having physical issues or will soon fail. A failing attribute will have its "Worst" at "001" which is also the "Threshold".

Usually you want to replace your hard drive whenever DriveDx reports any "Warnings" or "Failures". If you have an SSD, then things are a bit different since apps like DriveDx do not always properly interpret the heath of an SSD. DriveDx and similar apps are still good so that those SMART attributes can be manually monitored and manually interpreted.

Always good advice to make sure apps are always fully up to date.

FYI, in addition to the "Current Pending Sectors" indicating a hardware issue of bad blocks, the "Load Cycle Count" is way beyond the manufacturer's lifetime expectations for the drive (at least 5x - 10x since most drives only have a lifetime value of 500K to 800K for the RAW value of this attribute) so the drive would likely have been getting really slow and possibly having odd issues as well.

If it is the Startup drive, you can look at the S.M.A.R.T. status in Disk Utility. However, I have had drives that show verified while acting wonky just prior to complete failure.