One of my external hard drives (14tb WD) started making weird “purring/scratching” noises lately. Luckily, I have it cloned on another larger 18tb drive. How does hard drive warranty work, should this guy fail? I suppose you send it back to them for replacement, but how can you trust them with whatever data is on your failed drive, if somehow they can still access it? I’m sure techs have better to do than just copy everyone’s stuff, but even out of principle, I’m concerned.
You’re right to be concerned, so many stories out there of techs discovering data on phones, laptops, hard drives, etc.
If the drive is still working, fully wipe the data, there’s a variety of shredders and secure delete options out there, depending on what platform you’re running it with.