SMART is not smart.

[AtlantaBob]

I've got a Compaq Presario 700.

The hard disk is slow, and it seems that it's getting slower (of course, it could be because I've gotten used to 7200 RPM disks). However, Everest Home says that SMART is reporting the Load/Unload Cycle Count to be 2248486295, and the status to be "Advisory: Usage or age limit exceeded."

Given the mystery that is SMART, can anyone tell me if this is cause for concern? (The hard disk really hasn't been turned on and off very much in the last three years.)

Also, if anyone could explain the Threshold, Value and Worst variables, that would be great (indeed, I have googled for them.... I just can't find anything).

Also, anyone have a suggestion for using this thing? The only thing I can come up with is to have it be a remote desktop connection for a desktop that's mainly used for RayTracing work, and then dedicate two screens to my primary computer....)

Thanks in advance.

[Edited to change the title to something interesting to garner clicks....]

 

[AtlantaBob]

Bump for the morning folks....

 

[numark]

What I could find about the load/unload thing is that it just counts the number of times the drive has spun down. However, that number seems unusually high to me, and it may just be a reading error.

 

[AtlantaBob]

Please, please help?

Numark: That's my take on it too. This is from the "raw data" column, so I'm not exactly sure what it would translate to if actually put into a "real" number. (e.g. the temperature reading is something like 032000232002, so I don't think that its the actual number of spinups)

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: AtlantaBob
I've got a Compaq Presario 700.

The hard disk is slow, and it seems that it's getting slower (of course, it could be because I've gotten used to 7200 RPM disks). However, Everest Home says that SMART is reporting the Load/Unload Cycle Count to be 2248486295, and the status to be "Advisory: Usage or age limit exceeded."

Given the mystery that is SMART, can anyone tell me if this is cause for concern? (The hard disk really hasn't been turned on and off very much in the last three years.)

Also, if anyone could explain the Threshold, Value and Worst variables, that would be great (indeed, I have googled for them.... I just can't find anything).

Also, anyone have a suggestion for using this thing? The only thing I can come up with is to have it be a remote desktop connection for a desktop that's mainly used for RayTracing work, and then dedicate two screens to my primary computer....)

Thanks in advance.

[Edited to change the title to something interesting to garner clicks....]

Definitely a weird number, unless your sole task on the PC is resetting it every second. If that were right, it would mean that the hard drive has been power cycled 2,248,486,295 times. Even once per second, that'd take something like 71.3 years to accomplish.
I also vote program error of some sort. Since it's a Compaq, it might have some proprietary technology on the motherboard, which could give Everest a hard time.


Your temperature reading is also weird. The data column in Everest should be the actual number - example, my Seagate drives are reading 27 and 28 for the temperature, and 103 and 96 for the Start/Stop count. So those are the actual numbers for those - 27C, and 103 power cycles for the first drive.
What kind of hard drive is it?
I still think it's something with the motherboard using proprietary components though.


Best bet to get real numbers from it - try hooking the drive up to a standard PCI IDE controller, or else to another computer that has a standard motherboard, and then check it with Everest.

 

[LTC8K6]

Is the drive running in PIO mode instead of UDMA?

 

[AtlantaBob]

Sorry folks, I've been away most of the day. Thanks for your advice.

First things first: it's a Hitachi DK23CA-20 (I believe that the 20 there refers to the size).
Second: I may have been mistaken about the raw data--I was getting that confused with Speedfan's readings on my desktop PC (which does output things in hexadecimal. Now that I have the laptop in front of me, I see that the data for temperature in Everest reads 62, 36. (I'm guessing highest ever recorded, current?)

Other data points are Start/Stop count 2254; Seek Error Rate 793; Realocated Sector Count 1 (never a good sign, right?) and power on time count 296683. Also, power cycle count is 2034; Read error retry rate 319; Hardware ECC Recovered 25. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see.

Finally, Windows reports that the drive's running UDMA Mode 5. (Took me a while to find that one).

Thanks again for your help!

 

[AtlantaBob]

By the way, while I have you folks here, could anyone explain the Threshold, Value and Worst headings that show up in SMART data? (I promise I've Googled....) Threshold seems fairly self explainitory, but Value doesn't ever seem to correlate with the data, and Worst... is not exactly clear.... the worst value ever recorded on the computer?

 

[AtlantaBob]

Anyone?

 

[AtlantaBob]

Bump.... please note the time between bumps here I really am being reasonable.