Disappearing files

[fatespawn]

Last month, DriveDx was reporting my Time Machine (internal on a Mac Pro) was dying. So, I swapped it out with a new Seagate Ironwolf Drive. I only report that because my issues seem to have begun sometime after the installation.

I have a number of internal drives. The two main drives I use are my 500GB NVMe boot drive and my "Media" drive that I use for all of my storage. They are redundantly backed up via both Time Machine and Carbon Copy cloner to other, separate, internal drives. I've used this method for 10 years.

My issue is that files seem to have gone missing. I noticed it first in my "Documents" folder I keep on my "Media" drive. Obviously, that was concerning, so I went into Time Machine, and restored all the files. Then, days later, the files disappeared again! When I went into Time Machine this morning, none of the backups were available. I wish I took a screen shot. So, I rebooted. The backups became available but here's screenshot of what an unavailable backup looks like. This morning, NONE of the backups were accessible.

Has anyone had experiences with random entire folders of files disappearing? It seems somehow related to Time Machine. In that regard I turned time machine off for a while.... but it happened again anyway. However, this time I had already copied all the Document files to a "DocumentsBak" folder just in case. Nothing disappeared from that folder.

The Smart status reports no issues nor does DriveDx.

Thoughts?
TIA.

 

[Howard2k]

Can you access the SMART counters for the HDD?

With regards to Time Machine, it seems to validate a file is available before it presents it as an option. My primary TM destination is a NAS, and if I'm trying to find a file from several months ago and stepping backwards through "time" it sometimes takes a little while for the files to appear as they NAS finds them.

I wonder if the new drive is failing and the TM issue is the effect of that?

If you can get the SMART counters, you need to check items 5, 187, 188, 197, 198.

 

[fatespawn]

Yeah, the counters are all good. DriveDx reports all is well. My bet is some software it causing this - like a backup only in reverse. More like an archive. I can't put my finger on it, but it's very strange that is happens only with this folder. Like an index is jacked up somewhere.

 

[Brian33]

If I read correctly, the disappearing files are always in your Documents folder. Wondering if you sync your Documents folder with iCloud Drive?

I'm just speculating that maybe the problem has something to do with that...

 

[fatespawn]

No, not that folder. I just turned Time Machine back on after 3 weeks. We'll see if the files survive I also use Carbon Copy Cloner to keep a cloned backup. I have that turned off for now... I'll give it a few weeks and turn it back on if Time machine is not the culprit.