16TB WD Elements USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive (Certified Refurbished) Expired

These external drives aren't really designed for continuous use. The enclosures are not well ventilated, leading to the drives getting hotter than ideal, when running for extended periods. For extended use, it would be better to "shuck" the drive and use it without the enclosure but you run the risk of making warranty service an issue.

While you technically could run Linux from one of these, modern operating systems perform poorly when installed on a hard drive. Running an installed OS from an external drive also increases the likelihood of various issues. Things like sleep could cause issues. Also, any flakiness with the USB bridge could cause serious corruption. Overall, it's just not a great idea.

Encrypting the data, in case the drive has to be returned but can't be wiped, is a good idea. Installing Linux on the drive and using it to encrypt the drive and transfer files between it and the host OS (Windows?) may work but it would be convoluted. Unless you're well versed in Linux, and understand the potential pitfalls, I would not recommend this method. It would be much simpler to use a method of encryption that is compatible with Windows, such as Bitlocker or Veracrypt.

As for WD recommending against partitioning external drives, I'm inclined to agree with the people from that link who say it's likely WD trying to protect themselves from support being inundated with complaints from people who don't know what they're doing. Technically, there's no reason you can't partition an external drive. However, some operating systems can get a little grumpy about partitioning external drives. That may have something to do with the specific issue being discussed in that thread. I'm not familiar enough with Mac OS to help.



NO NO NO!!!

This would be of no diagnostic value, but moving a running hard drive can potentially damage it. Abnormal noises (regardless of orientation) can be a sign of issues but most people aren't going to know what are normal vs abnormal for these drives. Modern drives often make unexpected noises that most people would assume are abnormal.



I'm not a fan of that list. It includes a number of outdated and proprietary programs. Samsung and Fujitsu haven't even made hard drives in like a decade.

I would not bother using chkdsk to scan for bad sectors (the /r switch). It will only check the specified volume. I'd suggest using something like HDDScan or Victoria, which will scan the entire drive, while also reporting slow/weak sectors. chkdsk /f would be useful for finding and repairing filesystem issues but isn't directly related to hardware.



Aside from the fact Avast is trying to sell you generally unnecessary programs, most of those links contain at least some incorrect information.

This may be a silly question but would this be good for the storage of my Steam library?

Mine came today, and according to HD Sential, it has 0 day and 0 hours of runtime according to the SMART on the drive.

I couldn't be happier. Even got to peel the film from it.

Looks new, tests new, and shows up in the SMART as new.

Heck of a deal.

SMART doesn't mean anything. They reset it. Scan the drive and check to see if it has any errors or bad sectors.

Here's the list of software you can check disk health with: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoar...ve_health/ [reddit.com]

Yes, I have Hard Disk Sentinal pro.. I was in the middle of a scan (it's going to take 40 hours, btw) when the power went out for 1 minute because a guy hit an electric pole down my street.

ARGH. So now I have to start over.