You may take excellent care of your Mac system, but your data will suffer if the internal hard drive crashes. When it comes to failing hard drives, Mac and PC users must think about the data stored, and you must develop a habit of backing up your crucial files and documents. Data backups ensure future recovery of data. Moreover, it would be better to identify the signs of hard drive failure before it crashes.
Users can check and monitor the hard drive’s health on Mac systems to prevent catastrophic failures. To Mac hard drive test, you can use a few apps like iStatMenus. It’ll intimate you of potential hard drive problems and give you time to take proper steps.
Before diving into the signs of hard drive failures, take a look at some of the causes a hard might fail:
- Electrical damage – The discharge of electricity or power surges can result in hard drive failures.
- Mechanical failure – SSDs and HDDs fail due to issues experienced by their internal components. HDDs give more warning when they’re facing mechanical difficulties, such as strange sounds coming out of the disk. The SSDs may crash suddenly when the electrical blocks wear out.
- Humidity or moisture – If you expose the SSD or HDD to extreme moisture or humidity, it can destroy the drive.
- Physical impacts and shocks – If you drop the hard drive, it may fail. These devices are not designed to endure such impact.
- Excessive heat – Your hard drive might fail due to excessive heat, and this might occur because you’re using your laptop without proper cooling.
Now, it’s time to unveil the most common signs of hard drive failures so that you can take appropriate steps.
Partitions, folders, or files are suddenly inaccessible
Drive partitions, folders, or files suddenly becoming inaccessible isn’t a foolproof sign of hard drive failure because you may have made a mistake. For example, if you accidentally deleted a few system files, it might have rendered them inaccessible. However, if that’s not the case, your hard drive might be suffering, and you need to check what’s wrong.
Errors showing in Disk Utilities
Mac systems come with an in-built disk repair tool, known as Disk Utility. The tool can scan the hard drive and resolve most drive errors. So, you can use the tool to scan the hard drive and check if there are any issues to be fixed. If you receive the message ‘Error: This disk needs to be repaired’ after the tool has scanned the drive, it means your hard drive is failing. You need to act quickly to prevent the drive from crashing.
Programs on your system are running abnormally
When a hard drive fails, several problems may occur to the different aspects of your Mac system, including applications and programs. For example, if the programs and apps on your Mac are running abnormally, such as working slowly, frequently crashing, or showing random error messages, the culprit may be the hard drive.
Strange sounds emanating from the hard drive
Hard drives headed for a crash make a lot of whining or grinding noises. So, if you hear such noises coming from your Mac’s hard drive, you need to take immediate steps. First, you must stop all operations and contact a hard drive recovery specialist immediately.
The hard drive is unrecognizable on your Mac system
If a hard drive is malfunctioning, your system won’t recognize it. So, if your Mac doesn’t recognize the hard drive when it is booting and fails to boot, you can affirm that the hard drive is failing.
Mac system becomes extremely hot
If you’re using your Mac for a long time and running resource-intensive applications, the system is bound to become hot. However, if your system becomes abnormally hot and becomes a regular affair, you need to check the hard drive. The failing drive might be causing your system to become extremely hot.
Partitions, folders, or files mysteriously disappear
Unless you have accidentally deleted the files or folders, the chances are that the hard drive is at fault.
The macOS is getting unstable
If the hard drive fails, the operating system will become unstable. For example, macOS may stop responding or frequently crash. In addition, the screen might get frozen. If you’ve been experiencing such things, you need to consider the hard drive’s health.
Summing up
The health of the hard drive is important for your Mac system to function smoothly and without any glitch. So if you notice any of the signs mentioned above, don’t wait to take action.