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Are there any data integrity issues with external large hard drives? I had an orignal (USB1 era) hard drive enclosure, and I found I could not trust it from problems with the filesystem. I have also heard random reports of data problems, bad files, etc. Can external USB class devices be trusted for long term archiving?


I have never looked closely at the protocols, but the Linux USB mass storage driver claims that "data integrity" is NOT guaranteed -- implying that there is no CRC feedback to verify error-free transfers to/from the enclosure. Firewire apparently does not have this issue.

Cheers