Can Power Supplies Get Tired?

That’s the question I’m wondering as I’m dealing yet again with wonkiness with an external hard drive. I’ve had a history of bad experiences with Western Digital drives, so after my last mishap, I went with a Maxtor (now under Seagate). This One Touch 4 had been doing good until recently.

A simple unplug and replug fixed the drive the first time. This time it lost the entire partition (and data). Failed drive? Not so fast. Using another Maxtor power supply, the drive started working normally again. Good thing for a drawer of old parts!

So what’s the deal? Do power supplies get tired after awhile and stop providing enough juice?

And if you’re wondering the APD WA-24C12U is compatible with the Sunny SYS1308-2412-W2, both outputting 12V, 2A.