Computer freeze during backup

[ashleykaryl]

Earlier on I was working as usual and SuperDuper started on a scheduled backup, but after about 20 minutes I think it was still preparing and the computer basically froze.

I tried force quitting apps one by one, but the problem persisted. Eventually I decided to quit SuperDuper and try a restart, but the computer wouldn't restart and after a while I noticed a soft sound coming from the external drive that was being used by SuperDuper. I pulled the power and the computer immediately restarted normally.

After restarting I tried running disk utility on the external drive, which brought up a problem about input/outputs, so I tried wiping the drive and then repairing it again, but now it's showing different errors as seen in the attachment.

My suspicion is that the drive is dying if it's still giving errors during disk repair after being secure erased, but I wondered if this might be a gremlin with APFS on that drive or something else? I've never come across drive errors like this before. Every time I run the test, it seems to deliver more warnings.

https://sunnymede.net/screenshots/screenshot_117.jpg.jpg

[dnanian]

Those are read errors on the drive. So yes, the drive is probably failing. It's not an APFS gremlin - it's a physical drive failure.

[ashleykaryl]

Those are read errors on the drive. So yes, the drive is probably failing. It's not an APFS gremlin - it's a physical drive failure.

Thanks Dave. It's a very old drive, so this would not be surprising by any means and it's making a soft clicking noise fairly regularly now, so looks like it's time to get a replacement.