shoring up the backup

For at least the second time, I've reformatted the external USB drive that I use for backups so that it will, you know, work. MacOS's disk utility, a.k.a. fsck, couldn't get the job done.

So what's going on here, Internet brain trust? OS stupidity, or too many bad sectors after years of use? My money's on the latter. If I'm going to upgrade machines soon, as I hope to do, I'm going to need a dependable backup during and after the data transfer.

Which reminds me, I'm going to need at least two USB-C-to-USB-2 dongles. Le sigh.