If I use a crap HD to copy audio files, would it cause any problems?

[Rockman413]

Hi there,
Just wondering if I use a crap/old/ may have hit/ may have bad clusters/may have bad blocks hard drive to copy pro tools session/ audio files to another computer, will the receiver got affected/damaged audio files?

Is it as long as we can read/copy out from the crapped hard drive, then it's fine?
I have used an USB stick to copy audio files and I occasionally found 1 audio file got affected/damaged, half of that audio file turns into white noise... Not sure if it's the same with hard drive

[Horns-Up]

If the disk is old but fully functional, then go for it...
BUT
If you know that the disk may have bad sectors, do yourself a favor and throw it away. Disks are so cheap these days that it's not worth it to have your data (any data) corrupted.
You can get a 2 TB disk for about $60 on Amazon... put it in some USB enclosure and there you have your disk to transfer your sessions from one location to another.

[Rockman413]

Originally Posted by Horns-Up

If the disk is old but fully functional, then go for it...
BUT
If you know that the disk may have bad sectors, do yourself a favor and throw it away. Disks are so cheap these days that it's not worth it to have your data (any data) corrupted.
You can get a 2 TB disk for about $60 on Amazon... put it in some USB enclosure and there you have your disk to transfer your sessions from one location to another.

How about SSD? Would a old/may have hit SSD cause any corruption?

[Horns-Up]

Originally Posted by Rockman413

How about SSD? Would a old/may have hit SSD cause any corruption?

I got my first SSD back in 2008-2009 and it is still working perfectly fine.
I've been using it for different purpose over the years and it's quite possible that is has some bad sectors...(never checked it)

SSDs work a bit different than regular HDDs...
SSD can totally tolerate bad sectors because the firmware of the SSD keeps track of all bad sectors and will never write any data to those sectors.

If you are on windows you can use chkdsk or Disk Utility on Mac.

[Rockman413]

Originally Posted by Horns-Up

I got my first SSD back in 2008-2009 and it is still working perfectly fine.
I've been using it for different purpose over the years and it's quite possible that is has some bad sectors...(never checked it)

SSDs work a bit different than regular HDDs...
SSD can totally tolerate bad sectors because the firmware of the SSD keeps track of all bad sectors and will never write any data to those sectors.

If you are on windows you can use chkdsk or Disk Utility on Mac.

meaning, if it has been written already, then a already-written sector turns bad, it will not be readable? Or it will still be readable, but you're going to get incomplete info/ corrupted audio?

[JoelG]

Short answer, do yourself a favour and don't use a drive that has known bad sectors.

You can use a program to check the SMART attributes of a drive: https://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm or run a full scandisk.

Joel

[Rockman413]

Originally Posted by Horns-Up

If the disk is old but fully functional, then go for it...
BUT
If you know that the disk may have bad sectors, do yourself a favor and throw it away. Disks are so cheap these days that it's not worth it to have your data (any data) corrupted.
You can get a 2 TB disk for about $60 on Amazon... put it in some USB enclosure and there you have your disk to transfer your sessions from one location to another.

What's the best HD check soft? So maybe we can check if we suspect a HD

[Darryl Ramm]

Oh God, why is this thread still going on. Just copy the files. If you had experiences where things did not seem to work then try to work out what happened. The most likely problems are mistakes like copying files not fully written to disk (e.g. Pro Tools session not closed before you copy), the disk not being properly unmoubted, or an application bug in Pro Tools.... silent filesystem or disk block level corruption are not worth worrying about. Deep corruption you expect copies to fail. But if you don’t have confidence in a drive trash it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rockman413]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Oh God, why is this thread still going on. Just copy the files. If you had experiences where things did not seem to work then try to work out what happened. The most likely problems are mistakes like copying files not fully written to disk (e.g. Pro Tools session not closed before you copy), the disk not being properly unmoubted, or an application bug in Pro Tools.... silent filesystem or disk block level corruption are not worth worrying about. Deep corruption you expect copies to fail. But if you don’t have confidence in a drive trash it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The thing is, I just bought a new drive about 2 months ago , but it hit the floor , not a big deal thought but still some concerns. That's why I wonder if I continue use this one and if the copy process if complete without any errors, am I getting exactly the same audio files. That's why I start this topic to really understand how it works and if we can trust a complete copy process means we are getting the identical files.

[Rockman413]

Furthur more, I have had an experience of copying audio files to a very very cheap USB stick , and to another computer, and I got half of the audio turns into white noise... It may be damaged due to unmount...

So wondering if a super cheap USB stick, which may easily have bad blocks, once the copy is finished without any errors, can we really trust all the audio files are the same as original.