Hard Drive Stalls

[Anteaus]

I've got a hard drive that, while copying files, will occasionally stall the transfer for 5-20 seconds at a time and then continue. My first thought was that the drive was going bad but checked the SMART data and did a thorough scan for bad sectors. After all of my checking, I have a drive with zero bad sectors and virtually no evidence of impending failure. Do you think a bad cable can cause these types of stalls?

I checked the drive against my backups and no CRC mismatches so whatever it is isn't affecting data quality. I guess the drive could still be failing, but I would like to rule out non-drive related causes first.

 

[RU482]

could it be that the software that is giving signs of the stall is lying to you?

 

[Anteaus]

could it be that the software that is giving signs of the stall is lying to you?

I guess anything is possible. I'm going to swap SATA cables tomorrow just to rule it out.

 

[Hugo Drax]

I wonder if lubricating the bearings would stop the platter from stalling?

 

[Ketchup]

What chip is the drive plugged into? I seem to remember Asmedia controllers doing this. But it's probably just a bad spot in the cable

 

[Elixer]

I wonder if lubricating the bearings would stop the platter from stalling?

Eh? The platter wouldn't "stall" like that if the bearings were failing.
This does sound like the HD is repeatedly reading the same sectors over and over, so, OP should look in event viewer, and see what it is saying if anything.
Other options are, try a new cable, try a different SATA port.

It really is a shame that SMART is so unreliable as far as getting data about a failing HD. I have had many HDs that dropped dead with no SMART tripping at all.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

SMART like the elevator door close button. Doesn't really work, but it is there to make some feel better in thinking that it works.