Question Is HDD dying?

[Shervan360]

Hello,

Could you please see these results? Should I buy a new HDD now? I feel that the speed of the hard drive has decreased.

Thank you

 

[mikeymikec]

The uncorrectable/pending sectors are a bad sign. If avoiding unexpected downtime is important to you, I would recommend replacing the drive as soon as convenient. If unexpected downtime isn't that big a deal, you could continue to run the drive until you hit a sufficient obstacle to reconsider your decision.

I'd suggest backing up your data but you should already be doing that regardless of this situation

Drive performance may have decreased if the drive is either encountering more problematic sectors or it's attempting to recover from the 'pending' sectors.

 

[Tech Junky]

Well, considering the power on time is 2 years this doesn't look good. I have drives powered on for 5+ years that don't have these counts. I'm using WD Red's though and IIRC the ST drives are Seagate? Seagate's are prone to failure though unless you step up to the Exos lineup.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   016    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0004   129   129   054    Old_age   Offline      -       112
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   213   213   024    Pre-fail  Always       -       359 (Average 258)
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       371
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   005    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000a   100   100   067    Old_age   Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0004   128   128   020    Old_age   Offline      -       18
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   094   094   000    Old_age   Always       -       43208
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   100   060    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       359
 22 Helium_Level            0x0023   100   100   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       100
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       5213
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       5213
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   203   203   000    Old_age   Always       -       32 (Min/Max 15/41)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

 

[Shervan360]

Well, considering the power on time is 2 years this doesn't look good. I have drives powered on for 5+ years that don't have these counts. I'm using WD Red's though and IIRC the ST drives are Seagate? Seagate's are prone to failure though unless you step up to the Exos lineup.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   016    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0004   129   129   054    Old_age   Offline      -       112
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   213   213   024    Pre-fail  Always       -       359 (Average 258)
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       371
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   005    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000a   100   100   067    Old_age   Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0004   128   128   020    Old_age   Offline      -       18
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   094   094   000    Old_age   Always       -       43208
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   100   060    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       359
 22 Helium_Level            0x0023   100   100   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       100
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       5213
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       5213
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   203   203   000    Old_age   Always       -       32 (Min/Max 15/41)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

Yes, this is Seagate.

 

[Tech Junky]

Yes, this is Seagate.

I would be wary then and have a backup plan aka a different drive on standby. 2 years isn't hardly anything with other brands. Switching to a 2tb SSD wouldn't be a bad idea. More speed, less heat, less noise.

 

[mxnerd]

It looks bad. Look at Windows Event Viewer you should see a lot of errors.

I have a seagate laptop drive that's running almost 6 years and still good, another drive with the same model died almost 2 years earlier though,

 

[igor_kavinski]

Shut down the system with this HDD ASAP. The longer you run it, the more you increase the risk of it dying spectacularly. As others here have advised, backup important data, shut down the system unless you absolutely need it and buy a new HDD. Once everything is up and running, do a full surface scan of the old HDD, letting it fix any bad sectors. Then you can use it for storing data you don't care about losing, like ISOs or movies.

 

[aigomorla]

The uncorrectable/pending sectors are a bad sign.

This ^

I would replace it asap.
It means your HDD is starting its downhill decent to a recycle center, and will get worse and worse.
If you haven't lost any data or corruption, i would start backing up ASAP and trying to pull what i can pull from that dying drive immediately.

 

[mindless1]

I'd replace it immediately, though I have several Seagates (mostly the externals, Expansion and Backup Plus Hubs) and don't find them short lived for my consumer bulk storage needs.

I don't run an OS from them, don't hammer them with database or video editing, game loading, etc, tasks, just the bulk storage and files get transferred to SSDs for most purposes.

At the same time, if you have lesser bulk storage needs, and it's just this ONE 2TB HDD that can handle all the storage you need, then today it does make sense to switch to an SSD... except that data storage needs keep growing with each passing year, unless you're not a file hoarder like I am, but I'm getting better at deleting and/or in the case of video, re-encoding to save space.

 

[tcsenter]

Unbelievable that manufacturers and OEMs (e.g. the industry) have still not implemented SMART monitoring that will actually notify users of clearly concerning indicators of drive health like this. e.g. something built into Windows. You have to find the manufacturer utilities and even then some will just report "OEM drive, contact computer manufacturer" if you are using a bulk or OEM channel product.

 

[aigomorla]

Unbelievable that manufacturers and OEMs (e.g. the industry) have still not implemented SMART monitoring that will actually notify users of clearly concerning indicators of drive health like this. e.g. something built into Windows.

:T

There are software that does that.
Well on my FreeNAS it runs a weekly smart short test, and a monthly long.
It will then email me if an alert needs to be addressed.

On my Raid Controller, i believe the same applies.
It will blink Red on the hotswap bay letting me know something is wrong.
Depending on what software you are running and what version, it will and can also let you know via email again.

But yeah, i think something like samsung magician could do all that for you.
Im sure there are third party software out there.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Cove-Cube/Stablebit offers a Scanner utility that will scan your disks in the background, report all SMART data and real-time throughput, and notify you if something indicates potential failure ahead.

 

[aigomorla]

yep.. the thing is i dont think i could run spinners on any of my main systems unless its a server / NAS.

And my servers run dedicated Raid controllers because i like hardware raid 10 with lots and lots of cache as well as a dedicated battery on the write controller.

Most NAS's have that feature built in and i already told you about the dedicated controller.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Unbelievable that manufacturers and OEMs (e.g. the industry) have still not implemented SMART monitoring that will actually notify users of clearly concerning indicators of drive health like this. e.g. something built into Windows. You have to find the manufacturer utilities and even then some will just report "OEM drive, contact computer manufacturer" if you are using a bulk or OEM channel product.

I dunno about that. I once "repaired" (swapped out an "old" 320GB factory-spec WD Caviar drive for a brand-new 1TB one), at the behest of Windows 7's built-in SMART support, that was reporting that the HDD was "Old age", essentially, and time to replace.

Win7 definitely does have built-in support.

 

[igor_kavinski]

at the behest of Windows 7's built-in SMART support, that was reporting that the HDD was "Old age", essentially, and time to replace.

Where did you see that message?

In disk management or some notification in the system tray or event log?

 

[VirtualLarry]

some notification in the system tray

It appeared, from my observation, to be coming from Win7 "System", and prompted me, really, kind of walked me through the steps to use Windows System Image Backup to backup the OS Image/drive onto an external HDD that I supplied, and then also made a bootable DVD that I used after installing the new fresh 1TB HDD initially, to boot off of and restore from.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It appeared, from my observation, to be coming from Win7 "System"

Thanks! Learned something I never would have known!



This is disabled by default in Win10. I guess it comes turned on in Win7.

P.S. This task scheduler library is a fun way to torture your system if all the tasks are enabled

 

[tcsenter]

I dunno about that. I once "repaired" (swapped out an "old" 320GB factory-spec WD Caviar drive for a brand-new 1TB one), at the behest of Windows 7's built-in SMART support, that was reporting that the HDD was "Old age", essentially, and time to replace.

Win7 definitely does have built-in support.

I have seen drives that exceeded it's own internal bad sector or block remap limit, was passing them up to the OS amounting to megabytes of bad sectors/blocks, like a thousand disk errors in Event Viewer - no SMART notification. CRC and transfer errors that were totally excessive, or causing downshift in interface transfer mode, no notification. Not from anything that comes with the OS (Windows XP ~ 7).

RAID arrays or modes that rely on vendor specific drivers and utilities, I don't have much experience with because I rarely use them.

 

[mikeymikec]

Of all the failed HDDs I've seen, I've only once encountered Windows actually warning me of impending drive failure; it was a long time ago, OS was Vista, and I believe the SMART status had shifted to 'BAD'.

 

[Shervan360]

Hi again,

The situation is today.
Has the situation worsened?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Has the situation worsened?

No reason to have important data on that anymore. Time to lay it to rest.

 

[mikeymikec]

Hi again,

This situation is hard today
Has the situation worsened?

Whether it's continuing a steady downward trajectory or its descent is increasing in rate is hard to say.

In your OP you mentioned a decrease in performance. The other thing I would expect to have happened is that Windows becomes non-responsive for periods of time when it attempts to access the problematic drive and the drive is trying to handle bad sectors.

Other things that might happen:

1 - Windows crashes during start-up because of the problematic drive being connected (or takes such a long time to boot that you give up waiting).
2 - Your computer can't get past the BIOS POST stage (the on-screen stuff before Windows attempts to start) because it is trying to access the problematic drive and failing.
3 - Windows might boot but mark the drive as offline because it's had enough of it.

 

[igor_kavinski]

In your OP you mentioned a decrease in performance.

He should have bought a new HDD the moment he saw actual bad sectors on the drive. Trying to continue with a known bad drive is just asking for the inevitable data loss to happen. And now he asks if it's gotten worse??? If I didn't know any better, I would say he's trolling. Or just has never had an HDD die before.

To the OP, you will have only yourself to blame if you suffer because of the loss of data on this HDD.

 

[mikeymikec]

He should have bought a new HDD the moment he saw actual bad sectors on the drive. Trying to continue with a known bad drive is just asking for the inevitable data loss to happen. And now he asks if it's gotten worse??? If I didn't know any better, I would say he's trolling. Or just has never had an HDD die before.

To the OP, you will have only yourself to blame if you suffer because of the loss of data on this HDD.

It depends on his circumstances and need for the drive. If that was my main data drive, it would have been replaced as soon as I saw the first sign of descent, but others might say they've got a backup of that drive's data and cashflow isn't great so they'll run the drive as long as possible and then replace it when necessary. Another reason is running kit until it actually dies rather than filling landfills with "not quite dead" hardware; let's assume that a HDD death is eventually inevitable then running each drive until it actually dies means more life for each drive so less drives consumed in a human's lifetime equals less drives in landfills.

Another possible outcome that hasn't been explicitly discussed is sudden death. In my experience HDDs die in one of two ways:

1 - Descent into becoming so slow/unstable that it's unusable
2 - "It was fine the night before and dead the next morning"
Theoretical possibility number 3 - why not both? ie. descent and complete death

If it does actually die then my means of data recovery (software-based data recovery tools) won't help because the electronics don't respond to commands any more and the computer doesn't detect the drive. There are data recovery companies out there who can hook their own electronics up to the platter and read the data off but they're expensive (hundreds of dollars/pounds/eur).

I agree with you insofar as if one is inclined to play chicken with a dying drive then one should be fully prepared for the likely consequences, including lost work because Windows + the drive stopped responding at an inopportune moment workflow-wise.

 

[mindless1]

You are continuing to store data on it, or even give it another moment's thought, 5 months later? Wow.