Help with S.M.A.R.T values

Leonardo12 · March 2, 2018, 9:37pm

This is what smartctl gave me for my HDD is it failing?:


smartctl -a /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.5 2016-05-07 r4318 [x86_64-linux-4.4.114-42-default] (SUSE RPM)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, [www.smartmontools.org](http://www.smartmontools.org)

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar Black
Device Model:     WDC WD2002FAEX-007BA0
Serial Number:    WD-WCAY00018273
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 159db14eb
Firmware Version: 05.01D05
User Capacity:    2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Fri Mar  2 22:28:37 2018 EET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x84) Offline data collection activity
                                        was suspended by an interrupting command from host.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      ( 121) The previous self-test completed having
                                        the read element of the test failed.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:                (30960) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.                                                                                                             
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering                                                                                                           
                                        power-saving mode.                                                                                                                         
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.                                                                                                            
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.                                                                                                                   
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.                                                                                                         
Short self-test routine                                                                                                                                                            
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.                                                                                                                                   
Extended self-test routine                                                                                                                                                         
recommended polling time:        ( 315) minutes.                                                                                                                                   
Conveyance self-test routine                                                                                                                                                       
recommended polling time:        (   5) minutes.                                                                                                                                   
SCT capabilities:              (0x3037) SCT Status supported.                                                                                                                      
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.                                                                                                             
                                        SCT Data Table supported.                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                                                                                   
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     0x002f   199   199   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       12261                                                                                       
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   253   253   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       7775                                                                                        
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   093   093   000    Old_age   Always       -       7116                                                                                        
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0                                                                                           
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0                                                                                           
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   079   079   000    Old_age   Always       -       15671                                                                                       
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0                                                                                           
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0                                                                                           
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   095   095   000    Old_age   Always       -       5287                                                                                        
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       98
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   198   198   000    Old_age   Always       -       7017
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   104   080   000    Old_age   Always       -       48
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       35
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       9
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%     15671         1844056

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

dcurtisfra · March 3, 2018, 5:17pm

Not yet but:

Reallocated_Sector_Ct (Reallocated Sector Count); Seek Error Rate; Spin Retry Count; Calibration Retry Count; Reallocated_Event_Count; Offline_Uncorrectable; Multi_Zone_Error_Rate: are all zero == no issues.
The error log has no errors logged.
The short offline test is reporting at least one block read error.
The Raw Read Error Rate is reporting a raw value of 12261. My newish 1 TB Western Digital Blue is reporting a rate of ‘0’; an older 500 GB Seagate Barracuda is reporting a rate of ‘189651360’ and a Seek Error Rate of ‘111622026’ (Power On Hours = 19713).

But, both of my HDDs are not reporting any extended offline test errors.

The health status is OK.

Is the drive dying?

IMHO, no – at least, not within the next year or so …
It’s been powered on for “only” about 1.8 years – which isn’t so much …
Perform regular backups? – Definitely!!!
Plan to purchase a new HDD within the next 3 years?

There’s been a suspicion that, the newer HDDs with 2 TB and more probably won’t last as long as the smaller capacity drives – you may be on the way to either confirm or refute this suspicion …

Lord_Emsworth · March 3, 2018, 6:02pm

I would consider any drive that has just one or more sectors pending or reallocated to be failing. Yours has 35 pending.

Is this device still under warranty?

mrmazda · March 4, 2018, 7:31am

Every WD drive I’ve had showing non-zero pending sectors was bad and needed to be replaced, at least half of all the WD HDs I’ve ever purchased, somewhere around 4 or 5 of 8 or 9, one of 2TB, the others of 320MB and 500MB.

dcurtisfra · March 5, 2018, 10:51am

I suggest the following Wikipedia article: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.>.
Current Pending Sector Count:

Count of “unstable” sectors (waiting to be remapped, because of unrecoverable read errors). If an unstable sector is subsequently read successfully, the sector is remapped and this value is decreased. Read errors on a sector will not remap the sector immediately (since the correct value cannot be read and so the value to remap is not known, and also it might become readable later); instead, the drive firmware remembers that the sector needs to be remapped, and will remap it the next time it’s written.

However, some drives will not immediately remap such sectors when written; instead the drive will first attempt to write to the problem sector and if the write operation is successful then the sector will be marked good (in this case, the “Reallocation Event Count” (0xC4) will not be increased). This is a serious shortcoming, for if such a drive contains marginal sectors that consistently fail only after some time has passed following a successful write operation, then the drive will never remap these problem sectors.

The problem as I see it is, S.M.A.R.T. “Health” is not indicating any grave/major/serious issues but, Acronis for example state:

[QUOTE]
This is a critical parameter. Degradation of this parameter may indicate imminent drive failure. Urgent data backup and hardware replacement is recommended.

[QUOTE]
There’s also this analysis: <https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-smart-stats-indicate-hard-drive-failures/>.
[HR][/HR]IMHO, bottom line:

Yes, there are some sectors on that drive which are beginning to fail but, the drive’s firmware (you may consider updating the firmware on that drive) seems to be able to work around the “bad sectors”.
Yes, it is an indicator that, the drive may become unreliable in the sense that, some of the files may be corrupted – you’ll need to verify the disk’s content against a reliable backup copy.
Purchase a replacement drive to be brought into service when the concerned drive finally reaches “end-of-life”: yes!
Incrementally backup the drive’s content regularly and, ensure that a historically reliable backup of the drive’s contents exists: yes!

dcurtisfra · March 5, 2018, 11:04am

Two more issues:

“UDMA_CRC_Error_Count”: the UltraDMA drive data cable is not properly connected – check that the connectors are clean and properly seated.
“Reallocated_Event_Count” and “Reallocated_Sector_Ct”: are both zero (‘0’) – the drive’s firmware hasn’t yet reallocated any of the bad sectors.