8 Reallocated Sectors, Bad?

Today my SMART reader gave me a readout of 8 reallocated sectors. Is this cause to worry about?

Nope none of those; I'm just worried because a) as I take it, any reallocated sectors means higher likelihood of failure in the near future b) I lost a previous HDD to bad sectors a year into its life, and I remain pretty unsure about what causes them.

In addition to checking the current status of your HDD you should keep an eye on how the reallocated sector count changes over time. If it stays the same over many months then maybe you don't have a serious problem.
You can use your current tool or try
CrystalDisk Info which I find useful
You can set your current sector count levels to their present level then set a warning alert say 2 sectors more for reallocated sectors.
(go. Function>Health Status settings).

I actually already use CrystalDisk Info. I'll do that, though; I suppose there'd be cause for warning if it does go up?

kosokuadam said:

I actually already use CrystalDisk Info. I'll do that, though; I suppose there'd be cause for warning if it does go up?

If it was my HDD and it was giving me one reallocated sector per month (subjective figure!) I'd retire the disk and keep the control board as a spare.

Keep an eye on it and make sure you make regular backups.

If the drive was still under warranty, I'd RMA it. If not, I would tend to agree with mjf. If you wait until it fails, or corrupts your system too extensively, you might regret it.