SMART High fly Writes

[Mark R]

What are 'high fly writes'?

One of the drives in my 4 drive RAID array (Seagte Barracuda LP 1.5 TB) has started clocking up 'high fly writes' in the SMART statistics. It's clocking up about 1 every 2-3 days.

At the moment it's at 4, but they were at zero a week or so ago. At this rate, the 'health' score will drop to 0 in a couple of months.

The drives are approx 7 weeks old. (As an aside, one of the other drives has already been replaced due to failure). However, all other SMART scores are within normal limits.

The SMART values aren't enough to trigger any warning, but the count seems to have been progressively increasing, suggesting that something a bit dodgy is going on.

How much do I need to worry about this?

ID	Description	Value	Worst Value	Threshold	Raw value	Status
1	Raw_Read_Error_Rate 	117	099	006	12072762	OK
3	Spin_Up_Time 		100	100	000	0	OK
4	Start_Stop_Count 	100	100	020	137	OK
5	Reallocated_Sector_Ct 	100	100	036	0	OK
7	Seek_Error_Rate 	050	041	030	48105068	OK
9	Power_On_Hours 		099	099	000	1153	OK
10	Spin_Retry_Count 	100	100	097	0	OK
12	Power_Cycle_Count 	100	100	020	12	OK
183	Unknown_Attribute 	100	100	000	0	OK
184	Unknown_Attribute 	100	100	099	0	OK
187	Unknown_Attribute 	100	100	000	0	OK
188	Unknown_Attribute 	100	100	000	0	OK
189	High_Fly_Writes 	096	096	000	4	OK
190	Temperature_Celsius 	066	061	045	63891049	OK
194	Temperature_Celsius 	034	040	000	34	OK
195	Hardware_ECC_Recovered 	057	046	000	12072762	OK
197	Current_Pending_Sector 	100	100	000	0	OK
198	Offline_Uncorrectable 	100	100	000	0	OK
199	UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 	200	200	000	0	OK
240	Head_Flying_Hours 	100	253	000	79821967	OK
241	Unknown_Attribute 	100	253	000	57590104	OK
242	Unknown_Attribute 	100	253	000	21415614	OK

 

[RebateMonger]

Here's what Hgih Fly Writes are:
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/2579-850123.pdf

The recording head monitor found that the head was flying an abnormal height above the platter, so a write was halted. "External shock, vibration, media defect or contamination may cause this."

It looks like you have a ways to go before SMART will call it bad, though. Synchronized RAID arrays are known for experiencing vibration as the drives operate in phase. Might be that, or a disk surface problem?