Directories becoming files

[stevin]

Hi, forum and raspberry noob here, but quite comfortable in linux systems generally
Searched but couldnt see similar issues anywhere (forum and google) and never seen it before. apologies if i missed something:

Apparently randomly between mounting usb filesystems (ext3 and xfs both) a couple of media directories become files the size of a single file in the directory contents (i.e TV episodes at 180odd meg)

Its occurred on 2 different usb HDDs in 2 different caddies - both cheap though.

It looks like inode corruption but i dont understand why it is happening in such a strange manner.
Has anyone seen it and can anyone help?
FS repair utilities can recover the folder into lost and found but its a regular occurrence and a massive pain in the ass..

[elatllat]

This seems ... scary, but I think without details of exact reproduction steps on a fresh install, there is a high probability of user error.

[fredjam]

Yes this happened on my usb hdd when it was formatted as fat32 or ext2 or ext3.
Since I have upgraded to the latest version of Raspian and reformatted the drive
as ext4 it has not happened. My drive is connected through a usb hub which has a
2.5 amp power supply.