![](/static/253f0d9b/assets/icons/icon-96x96.png)
![](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8286e071-7449-4413-a084-1eb5242e2cf4.png)
Should be fine, just don’t cheap out on the external drive / cable you will be using. And when you’re using something like smartctl you’ll know right away if SMART info is passing through your USB for proper testing.
I’ve done a lot of these type of scans via USB drives, honestly the more annoying part is that some USB drives do wonky things like go into sleep mode within 1-5 minutes which will disrupt any sort of scanning you had going. So with USB drive scanning I usually implement something to keep the drive alive and awake e.g. a simple infinite loop script to write a file every x seconds, or if you’re on windows you can also use KeepAliveHD.
Interesting, any you recommend or are currently using?