iTunes, external HD, missing play counts: dying drive?

[bailorg]

My iTunes library is on an external hard drive and recently I started noticing that play counts on some tracks seem to be getting reset to zero. Also star ratings sometimes don't stick/revert to gray stars rather than black. However, I've never really had any playback issues as far as I can tell.

I also occasionally get drive not properly ejected errors when manually putting the computer into sleep, but those only creeped up after upgrading to El Capitan.

My external hard drive is also 5+ years old and was used for other, non-Mac, things prior to a couple of years ago. The drive is connected through an external USB hub.

Is this more likely to be just a bug in the software/OS or signs of a dying hard drive?

I'm running:
OS X: 10.11.3
iTunes version: 12.3.2.35

 

[Alrescha]

I also occasionally get drive not properly ejected errors when manually putting the computer into sleep, but those only creeped up after upgrading to El Capitan.

You must solve this problem. Having the drive disconnect without unmounting it is going to cause you data loss (if it has not already). It is not something you can ignore.

You can try eliminating the hub. You might try replacing it. You might have to manually eject the drive before you let your computer sleep. You might have to buy a new drive. Regardless, you must make this problem go away soon.

A.

 

[RedOrchestra]

Not looking to start anything BUT what's the big deal about play counts?

 

[bailorg]

Not looking to start anything BUT what's the big deal about play counts?

Primarily it's a music management thing. I literally have a playlist called "Unheard for a while" to occasionally listen to songs that, well isn't that self-explanatory?

Second it's the most obvious example of data loss I've encountered in my present setup.