External Drive

Question

External Drive

I have an external Lacie Harddrive (1TB) that responds slowly. I also have other external HDS (2) and they are no problem; there is no lag between command and function. The HD in question really lags with the spinning icon wheel almost all the time; even when I simply click on a file icon.

I have about 250 GB left on the drive;

Does it need reformatting? Is it going out?

Any help would be appreciated; and the best answer will win over $1,000,000 dollars; a free 4-wheeler and 1 year supply of sticky glue. (not)

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 7, 2013 7:38 PM

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Answer 1

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Feb 7, 2013 8:47 PM in response to apple id number 11

How old's the drive?

There's basically three likely causes:

1. faulty cable - test with another cable from one of the other drives

2. faulty interface bus in the drives case - swap the drive into another enclosure and test

3. physical wear on the drive platters - time to buy a new disk.

Regardless, any data on this disk should be backed up immediately.

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Answer 2

Feb 8, 2013 6:41 PM in response to softwater

thanks, but its realtively NEW....

and I have started to copy its contents onto another drive; THANKS!

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Answer 3

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Feb 9, 2013 2:14 AM in response to apple id number 11

So that possibly (but not definitevly) rules out 3. What about 1 and 2.?

Have you tried either of these tests yet?

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Answer 4

Feb 9, 2013 4:23 PM in response to softwater

I've tried test #1

but I dont think I can accomplish #2, tech wise.

I do appreciated your help. I plan to copy everything onto another drive and try and reformat it to see if that helps.

while I still can.

I did run disk utility and first aid, but it came up OK.

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Answer 5

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Feb 9, 2013 6:53 PM in response to apple id number 11

I'm not sure if yours is the same model, but there's a world of painful stories from people having similar problems with Lacie drives in this thread.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=740670

There are also a variety of solutions offered, some worked for some and not for others. Might give you some ideas for how to more forward (p.s., if its a double drive RAID unit it doesn't look like you can swap the enclosure anyway, so forget my no.2).

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Answer 6

Feb 13, 2013 8:49 PM in response to softwater

I reformatted the first one and so far so good. After 1 week of copying files to another disk. I hope it holds out.

All of a sudden..... egads.... Another one just went out. I have 3 Lacie 1TB drives.

This last one will not even come on. Any suggestions? I have (had) tons of family videos on it. But I know I had at least 300 GB left on it.

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