SATA Power Port partially broken, hard drive still works. Cause for concern ?

[Yaxir]

So to start off with, i am feeling absolutely idiotic for doing this

 

bought a brand new 1 TB hard-drive and cloned all my data from my old HDD to it as i was worried the old one was going to fail any moment now.

 

Must have been something that happened when i was trying to fit or adjust the power connector, but i noticed that the SATA power port on the hard drive was giving off some shine.

 

When i checked it with a flash light, i was horrified to see a part of the SATA power connector was broken ... like it was chipped off !

 

To describe in more detail, the 'elbow' of the SATA port, which stands upright, is gone along with a small part of the horizontal portion as well . I have circled the broken part with green color in the following image;

 

 

Please note that this is not my hard drive, this is taken from the internet. However, it perfectly describes what i am facing right now

 

should i be worried about the drive ? is there any danger, especially of something shorting out ? any possible electrical/electronic damage the the HDD ? I freak out when there's danger of any device failure or loss of data, so please educate me on what i should do in this situation, as all my data is on the drive right now.

 

P.S : i realized that i feel so idiotic for not taking a picture of the broken port. Now i am too scared to fiddle with the port again, so as not to break anything further.

 

 

[PineyCreek]

That bit of plastic is to make sure you put on the connector the right way and in the right alignment.  Since it is just a piece of plastic, it won't impede the function as long as you actually connect the power connector the right way and in the right place.

[Yaxir]

11 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

That bit of plastic is to make sure you put on the connector the right way and in the right alignment.  Since it is just a piece of plastic, it won't impede the function as long as you actually connect the power connector the right way and in the right place.

I see...

 

any possible danger to my Data on the HDD ?

 

or any risk of electrical or electronica damage to the HDD or any other part of my PC ?

 

lastly, would the absence of the plastic pose any risk of the Power Cable coming loose from HDD, while PC is on ?

 

P.S : nice profile pic !

[PineyCreek]

2 minutes ago, Yaxir said:

I see...

 

any possible danger to my Data on the HDD ?

 

or any risk of electrical or electronica damage to the HDD or any other part of my PC ?

 

lastly, would the absence of the plastic pose any risk of the Power Cable coming loose from HDD, while PC is on ?

 

P.S : nice profile pic !

It's plastic on plastic on that elbow.  The tension is at the contact points, so probably not an extra chance of slippage.  Again, since there's no electrical contacts involved at the elbow, there's not really any power danger unless you connect the cable wrong in the first place.

[Yaxir]

1 hour ago, PineyCreek said:

It's plastic on plastic on that elbow.  The tension is at the contact points, so probably not an extra chance of slippage.  Again, since there's no electrical contacts involved at the elbow, there's not really any power danger unless you connect the cable wrong in the first place.

Thanks, i am at ease now 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

If you really want to put your mind at ease, make and maintain a couple of backups of that drive (one onsite and one offsite). That way, if something should go sideways, you will still have your data.

[Yaxir]

30 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

If you really want to put your mind at ease, make and maintain a couple of backups of that drive (one onsite and one offsite). That way, if something should go sideways, you will still have your data.

being an absolute noob at data backups, i would appreciate some good suggestions on how to perform onsite and offsite data backup.