HDDScan SMART Data Questions

Phoruman · 14 Apr 2012

Hi All,

I have never used HDDScan before, and I haven't a clue what the SMART data for the hard drives represent. I just used it when recommended by an ADATA support representative when asking him about my SSD HDD. Out of curiosity, I also checked my other HDDs while I was at it. From HDDScan, I can see that there are warning icons next to several entries. I have copy/pasted the entire data below for two of my regular HDD (non-SSD) and starred (*) the ones that show up as warnings in HDDScan. Does anyone know if anything here is critical? The first drive is for data, and the second is for backup images (Acronis). Both drives have been working fine...I wouldn't even have known there were problems had I not used this program.

Disk 1:
Num Attribute Name Value Worst Raw(hex) Threshold
001 Raw Read Error Rate 100 100 0000000000-0000 016
002 Throughput performance 132 132 0000000000-0072 054
003 Spin Up Time 122 122 00000901D2-01D5 024
004 Start/Stop Count 100 100 0000000000-0E60 000
*005 Reallocation Sector Count 100 100 0000000000-0001 005
007 Seek Error Rate 100 100 0000000000-0000 067
008 Seek time Perfomance 125 125 0000000000-0021 020
009 Power-On Hours Count 099 099 0000000000-2764 000
010 Spin Retry Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 060
012 Device Power Cycle Count 100 100 0000000000-0CB8 000
192 Emergency Retract Count 097 097 0000000000-0F34 000
193 Load/unload Cycle Count 097 097 0000000000-0F34 000
194 HDA Temperature 230 230 26 C 000
194 HDA Temperature Maximum 230 230 48 C 000
194 HDA Temperature Minimum 230 230 14 C 000
*196 Reallocation Event Count 100 100 0000000000-0001 000
197 Current Pending Errors Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 000
198 Uncorrectable Errors Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 000
*199 UltraDMA CRC Errors 200 200 0000000000-0179 000

Disk 2:
Num Attribute Name Value Worst Raw(hex) Threshold
001 Raw Read Error Rate 100 100 0000000000-0000 016
002 Throughput performance 131 131 0000000000-0074 054
003 Spin Up Time 121 121 00000901DA-01DA 024
004 Start/Stop Count 100 100 0000000000-0E5C 000
005 Reallocation Sector Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 005
007 Seek Error Rate 100 100 0000000000-0000 067
008 Seek time Perfomance 125 125 0000000000-0021 020
009 Power-On Hours Count 099 099 0000000000-2594 000
010 Spin Retry Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 060
012 Device Power Cycle Count 100 100 0000000000-0C7F 000
192 Emergency Retract Count 097 097 0000000000-0EF8 000
193 Load/unload Cycle Count 097 097 0000000000-0EF8 000
194 HDA Temperature 230 230 26 C 000
194 HDA Temperature Maximum230 230 52 C 000
194 HDA Temperature Minimum230 230 14 C 000
196 Reallocation Event Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 000
197 Current Pending Errors Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 000
198 Uncorrectable Errors Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 000
*199 UltraDMA CRC Errors 200 200 0000000000-0002 000

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out with this! I appreicate it! :)

ignatzatsonic · 14 Apr 2012

Unfortunately, SMART reports are cryptic and not easily understood. You can google to try to better understand things, but I'm not sure you will have much luck.

This might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

I would certainly download the disk tools available from the hard drive manufacturer's web site and run them to see what they say. Again unfortunately, those tools may not tell you more than HDDScan.

You should at a minimum make note of the raw reading for each of those starred items and see if it changes significantly over time. Maybe re-run the tool every month to see what trends are developing.

And I would of course keep all data backed up.

The entries regarding reallocated sectors can be important. Reallocated sectors are those that have been moved due to inability to read them. Your drives ship with a certain number of "spare" sectors that are used to replace those that go bad. The warnings you are getting indicate that the number of spare sectors available has fallen to the warning level.

Are these drives fairly old?

I just checked my own drives for kicks. One is about a year old, the other near 3 years old. The reallocation sector count and reallocation event count raw value is shown as 0 for both drives. Likewise, the CRC error count on both drives is shown as 0.

If I were you, I would make sure I had backups and I would run the drive tools monthly to check the trend in the raw counts on those starred items. There isn't any way of knowing how soon your data will actually be affected or how soon the drives might outright fail. Many would tell you to replace them now and if money is no particular object, you might consider that.

Phoruman · 14 Apr 2012

Hi ignatzatsonic,

Thanks for your reply!

I have actually already looked it up on Wikipedia and Google, but still don't have much of an understanding of these terms other than what they do--I don't know what amount is considered good or bad.

Both drives are Hitachi Deskstar 1TB drives that came in external cases, which I took out and then put into my computer as internal drives. They are about 2-3 years old, but are rarely used other than to act as my storage for all my music, pictures, videos, etc. Disk 1 is used to save that data, and Disk 2 is used to backup Disk 1. I also have another external drive with which Disk 1's data is also backed up on, so hopefully my data is safe!

They have caused no problems so far, and I haven't encountered any data loss, slow read/write rates, or any other problems. In fact, they are quite fast. The only noticeable thing is the sound that Disk 1 is making. Not that it's loud, but it is louder than Disk 2, but much more quiet than my older IDEE HDD drives (these are SATA II drives), which are about 10 years old and still running very well. They don't make 'em like they used to...

So you would suggest replacing these drives? They seem alright for the time being...I wouldn't have noticed anything wrong with them if I hadn't run HDDScan in the first place. As I said, the ADATA technical support rep told me to use this tool, so there isn't an "official" tool for ADATA as far as that's concerned. I will look up Hitachi.

ignatzatsonic · 14 Apr 2012

Phoruman said:

So you would suggest replacing these drives?

No. I can't say that.

I have no more idea than the man in the moon if those drives will last another 20 seconds or 20 years.

Do what makes you comfortable.

They are closer to dying now than they were yesterday, but how is that useful to you? The only worthwhile question is "yeah, but how close" and who knows or could possibly know?

Phoruman · 14 Apr 2012

ignatzatsonic said:

Phoruman said:

So you would suggest replacing these drives?

No. I can't say that.

I have no more idea than the man in the moon if those drives will last another 20 seconds or 20 years.

Do what makes you comfortable.

They are closer to dying now than they were yesterday, but how is that useful to you? The only worthwhile question is "yeah, but how close" and who knows or could possibly know?

Alright, thanks for your input! I guess I'll just continue to use them as I normally do then. I don't have anything to worry about at the moment because they work just fine. I'll keep an eye out to see if Disk 1's reallocation sector count increases over time.

Does anyone else have any input to this issue? Any additional information would be great! :)

bbearren · 14 Apr 2012

Sounds like you are already doing what you need to do, and that is keeping your data backed up. As for the interpretation of your readings, Hitachi is your best bet. All HDD manufacturers have some "insurance" sectors on their drives for use when sectors fail for whatever reason.
As long as you stay up-to-date with your backups, there's no need to replace a drive until it fails, or starts getting very noticably noisy.

Phoruman · 14 Apr 2012

bbearren said:

Sounds like you are already doing what you need to do, and that is keeping your data backed up. As for the interpretation of your readings, Hitachi is your best bet. All HDD manufacturers have some "insurance" sectors on their drives for use when sectors fail for whatever reason.
As long as you stay up-to-date with your backups, there's no need to replace a drive until it fails, or starts getting very noticably noisy.

Alright, thank you bbearren for your input! I'll continue computing with confidence then! :)