Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
I'm trying to make sense of the SMART reports for my 13GB and 120GB
Seagate hard drives. Both have very high numbers for the Raw Read
Error Rate and Seek Error Rate. At the moment the Raw Read Error Rate
for the 13GB seems to be unchanging, but the Seek Error Rate increases
every time I look at it. Also, if I compare today's Raw Read Error
Rate with the result from two years ago, the number is actually much
lower today. Does anyone know how these figures are calculated, or
even if they mean what they appear to mean?
The first report was done in Sept 2005, the second in the last couple
of days. The last report is the result after running Scandisk.
BTW, the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 reflects a sector that has
been marked as bad by the OS. I suspect that the drive's controller is
aware that it is bad, but it cannot relocate it until such time as the
OS writes to it, thereby signalling that the data in that sector is no
longer of any consequence.
FWIW, SeaTools Desktop v3.00 says the 13GB drive is OK, apart from one
bad sector.
- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
> I'm trying to make sense of the SMART reports for my 13GB and 120GB
> Seagate hard drives. Both have very high numbers for the Raw Read
> Error Rate and Seek Error Rate.
Raw read error is very hard to interpret and usually not
important anyways. Seek errors are usually a poer problem
or a vibration problem. They may also indicate a problem
with the disk.
> At the moment the Raw Read Error Rate
> for the 13GB seems to be unchanging, but the Seek Error Rate increases
> every time I look at it. Also, if I compare today's Raw Read Error
> Rate with the result from two years ago, the number is actually much
> lower today. Does anyone know how these figures are calculated, or
> even if they mean what they appear to mean?
> The first report was done in Sept 2005, the second in the last couple
> of days. The last report is the result after running Scandisk.
> BTW, the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 reflects a sector that has
> been marked as bad by the OS.
Not quite. It represents a sector that the drive has given up on, but
not yet been able to replace, because it was not written to it.
The OS does not factor into this.
A bad sector marked by the disk (and invisible to the OS) can
be counter as "reallocation event" or "reallocated sector
count". If these numbers start growing, something is seriously
wrong.
> I suspect that the drive's controller is
> aware that it is bad, but it cannot relocate it until such time as the
> OS writes to it, thereby signalling that the data in that sector is no
> longer of any consequence.
Yes.
> FWIW, SeaTools Desktop v3.00 says the 13GB drive is OK, apart from one
> bad sector.
One bad sector is no reason for concern. If they start to get more,
that would be.
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
On 1 Sep 2007 07:29:59 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> put finger to
keyboard and composed:
>Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
>> I'm trying to make sense of the SMART reports for my 13GB and 120GB
>> Seagate hard drives. Both have very high numbers for the Raw Read
>> Error Rate and Seek Error Rate.
>
>Raw read error is very hard to interpret and usually not
>important anyways. Seek errors are usually a poer problem
>or a vibration problem. They may also indicate a problem
>with the disk.
>
>> At the moment the Raw Read Error Rate
>> for the 13GB seems to be unchanging, but the Seek Error Rate increases
>> every time I look at it. Also, if I compare today's Raw Read Error
>> Rate with the result from two years ago, the number is actually much
>> lower today. Does anyone know how these figures are calculated, or
>> even if they mean what they appear to mean?
>
>> These are recent reports produced by SmartUDM:
>> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/13GB.RPT
>> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/120GB.RPT
>
>> These reports were produced by Everest:
>> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/SMART_05.txt (2005)
>> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/SMART_07.txt (2007)
>> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/Sma...T_scandisk.txt
>
>> The first report was done in Sept 2005, the second in the last couple
>> of days. The last report is the result after running Scandisk.
>
>> BTW, the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 reflects a sector that has
>> been marked as bad by the OS.
>
>Not quite. It represents a sector that the drive has given up on, but
>not yet been able to replace, because it was not written to it.
>The OS does not factor into this.
Sorry, my statement was ambiguous. Maybe I should have written that
"the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 coincides with a sector that
has been marked as bad by the OS".
>A bad sector marked by the disk (and invisible to the OS) can
>be counter as "reallocation event" or "reallocated sector
>count". If these numbers start growing, something is seriously
>wrong.
The numbers *are* growing. In fact they've grown from 34 to 119 in two
years. I've been preparing to replace the drive for quite some time
now. However, it's only in the last month or so that the drive has
been making occasional noises, ie a very soft clink, probably from the
voice coil positioner.
>> I suspect that the drive's controller is
>> aware that it is bad, but it cannot relocate it until such time as the
>> OS writes to it, thereby signalling that the data in that sector is no
>> longer of any consequence.
>
>Yes.
>
>> FWIW, SeaTools Desktop v3.00 says the 13GB drive is OK, apart from one
>> bad sector.
>
>One bad sector is no reason for concern. If they start to get more,
>that would be.
>
>Arno
I now have a batch file that runs just prior to shutdown. Among other
things, it captures SMART data and appends it to a log file. It'll be
interesting to monitor the drive as it progresses toward total
failure. :-)
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
> On 1 Sep 2007 07:29:59 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> put finger to
> keyboard and composed:
>>Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
[...]
>>> BTW, the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 reflects a sector that has
>>> been marked as bad by the OS.
>>
>>Not quite. It represents a sector that the drive has given up on, but
>>not yet been able to replace, because it was not written to it.
>>The OS does not factor into this.
> Sorry, my statement was ambiguous. Maybe I should have written that
> "the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 coincides with a sector that
> has been marked as bad by the OS".
Ok.
>>A bad sector marked by the disk (and invisible to the OS) can
>>be counter as "reallocation event" or "reallocated sector
>>count". If these numbers start growing, something is seriously
>>wrong.
> The numbers *are* growing. In fact they've grown from 34 to 119 in two
> years. I've been preparing to replace the drive for quite some time
> now. However, it's only in the last month or so that the drive has
> been making occasional noises, ie a very soft clink, probably from the
> voice coil positioner.
Well. Personally I stop trustinf a disk around 10 or so, unless
they all happened in one burst. I have had one Maxtor disk with
something like 200 reallocated sectors in one event, which
did run fine without any additional ones for three years afterwards.
So, it could be a problem with power (spikes, I would suspect),
mechanical shock/vibration or the like. Or the disk could have
a problem. I would replace that one. Also, at some time the disk will
run out of spare sectors.
>>> I suspect that the drive's controller is
>>> aware that it is bad, but it cannot relocate it until such time as the
>>> OS writes to it, thereby signalling that the data in that sector is no
>>> longer of any consequence.
>>
>>Yes.
>>
>>> FWIW, SeaTools Desktop v3.00 says the 13GB drive is OK, apart from one
>>> bad sector.
>>
>>One bad sector is no reason for concern. If they start to get more,
>>that would be.
>>
>>Arno
> I now have a batch file that runs just prior to shutdown. Among other
> things, it captures SMART data and appends it to a log file. It'll be
> interesting to monitor the drive as it progresses toward total
> failure. :-)
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
On 2 Sep 2007 05:29:04 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> put finger to
keyboard and composed:
>Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
>> BTW, these are the SMART data for my Fujitsu 6GB drive:
>> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/6GB.RPT
>
>> Notice the raw value for "Power On Hours Count".
>
>> 0000008EF98Ah = 9369994 dec
>> = 1069 years
>
>> In fact the figure appears to represent Power On Seconds.
>
>This is a non-standardized field, AFAIK. Bogus readings are
>no surprise here.
>
>Arno
I suspect that the figures aren't necessarily bogus, they may just
need to be interpreted differently between manufacturers. That said, I
haven't been able to find any detailed SMART documentation at any of
the manufacturers' web sites.
- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
On 1 Sep 2007 07:29:59 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> put finger to
keyboard and composed:
>Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
>> I'm trying to make sense of the SMART reports for my 13GB and 120GB
>> Seagate hard drives. Both have very high numbers for the Raw Read
>> Error Rate and Seek Error Rate.
>
>Raw read error is very hard to interpret and usually not
>important anyways. Seek errors are usually a poer problem
>or a vibration problem. They may also indicate a problem
>with the disk.
I'm running Win98SE. While monitoring file accesses with Filemon (from
SysInternals), I used Everest Home Edition (ver 2.20.405) to monitor
the drive's SMART data. Every time I refreshed the SMART report (using
F5), the Seek Error Rate figure increased by 10 points. However the
Filemon capture window remained empty. How can a drive incur seek
errors if there are no file accesses? I would think that the SMART
data would be retrieved from the drive's RAM or flash EEPROM, so no
actual seeks would be required.
- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
Franc Zabkar wrote in message news:b3mkd3t5rsfskeujhqmej21cu4igqs5lhm@4ax.com
> On 1 Sep 2007 07:29:59 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> put finger to
> keyboard and composed:
>
> > Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
> > > I'm trying to make sense of the SMART reports for my 13GB and 120GB
> > > Seagate hard drives. Both have very high numbers for the Raw Read
> > > Error Rate and Seek Error Rate.
> >
> > Raw read error is very hard to interpret and usually not
> > important anyways. Seek errors are usually a poer problem
> > or a vibration problem. They may also indicate a problem
> > with the disk.
> I'm running Win98SE. While monitoring file accesses with Filemon (from
> SysInternals), I used Everest Home Edition (ver 2.20.405) to monitor
> the drive's SMART data. Every time I refreshed the SMART report (using
> F5), the Seek Error Rate figure increased by 10 points. However the
> Filemon capture window remained empty. How can a drive incur seek
> errors if there are no file accesses?
What file access.
> I would think that the SMART data would be retrieved from the
> drive's RAM or flash EEPROM, so no actual seeks would be required.
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
Franc Zabkar wrote in message news:d6kkd3hkcvi6glfp9bghe5k0bdudciqhld@4ax.com
> On 2 Sep 2007 05:29:04 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> put finger to
> keyboard and composed:
>
> > Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
>
> > > BTW, these are the SMART data for my Fujitsu 6GB drive:
> > > http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/6GB.RPT
> >
> > > Notice the raw value for "Power On Hours Count".
> >
> > > 0000008EF98Ah = 9369994 dec
> > > = 1069 years
> >
> > > In fact the figure appears to represent Power On Seconds.
> > This is a non-standardized field, AFAIK.
They all are, you babblebot moron.
> Bogus readings are no surprise here.
As is your babbling, babblebot.
> >
> > Arno
> I suspect that the figures aren't necessarily bogus,
It's the babblebot, it just babbles.
> they may just need to be interpreted differently between manufacturers.
Which is what 'Vendor specific' means.
> That said, I haven't been able to find any detailed SMART
> documentation at any of the manufacturers' web sites.
>
> - Franc Zabkar
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
Franc Zabkar wrote in message newseqjd395h03laql0g2m7jcid0n76gdqqdt@4ax.com
> On 1 Sep 2007 07:29:59 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> put finger to
> keyboard and composed:
>
> > Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
> > > I'm trying to make sense of the SMART reports for my 13GB and 120GB
> > > Seagate hard drives. Both have very high numbers for the Raw Read
> > > Error Rate and Seek Error Rate.
> >
> > Raw read error is very hard to interpret and usually not important any
> > ways. Seek errors are usually a poer problem or a vibration problem.
> > They may also indicate a problem with the disk.
> >
> > > At the moment the Raw Read Error Rate
> > > for the 13GB seems to be unchanging, but the Seek Error Rate increases
> > > every time I look at it. Also, if I compare today's Raw Read Error
> > > Rate with the result from two years ago, the number is actually much
> > > lower today. Does anyone know how these figures are calculated, or
> > > even if they mean what they appear to mean?
> >
> > > These are recent reports produced by SmartUDM:
> > > http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/13GB.RPT
> > > http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/120GB.RPT
> >
> > > These reports were produced by Everest:
> > > http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/SMART_05.txt (2005)
> > > http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/SMART_07.txt (2007)
> > > http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/Sma...T_scandisk.txt
> >
> > > The first report was done in Sept 2005, the second in the last couple
> > > of days. The last report is the result after running Scandisk.
> >
> > > BTW, the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 reflects a sector that has
> > > been marked as bad by the OS.
> >
> > Not quite. It represents a sector that the drive has given up on,
> > but not yet been able to replace, because it was not written to it.
> > The OS does not factor into this.
> Sorry, my statement was ambiguous.
No it wasn't. Everybody else but the babblebot got it.
> Maybe I should have written that "the Current Pending Sector Count
> of 1 coincides with a sector that has been marked as bad by the OS".
Which would have gotten the same response from the babblebot.
>
> > A bad sector marked by the disk (and invisible to the OS) can
> > be counter as "reallocation event" or "reallocated sector count".
> > If these numbers start growing, something is seriously wrong.
>
> The numbers *are* growing. In fact they've grown from 34 to 119 in
> two years. I've been preparing to replace the drive for quite some
> time now. However, it's only in the last month or so that the drive has
> been making occasional noises, ie a very soft clink, probably from the
> voice coil positioner.
>
> > > I suspect that the drive's controller is aware that it is bad, but it
> > > cannot relocate it until such time as the OS writes to it, thereby sig-
> > > nalling that the data in that sector is no longer of any consequence.
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > > FWIW, SeaTools Desktop v3.00 says the 13GB drive is OK, apart
> > > from one bad sector.
> > One bad sector is no reason for concern.
> > If they start to get more, that would be.
Utter nonsense as always from the babblebot.
> >
> > Arno
>
> I now have a batch file that runs just prior to shutdown. Among other
> things, it captures SMART data and appends it to a log file. It'll be
> interesting to monitor the drive as it progresses toward total failure. :-)
>
> BTW, these are the SMART data for my Fujitsu 6GB drive:
> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/6GB.RPT
>
> Notice the raw value for "Power On Hours Count".
>
> 0000008EF98Ah = 9369994 dec
> = 1069 years
>
> In fact the figure appears to represent Power On Seconds.
>
> - Franc Zabkar
Re: Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate
Arno Wagner wrote in message news:5jv010F1bpmbU1@mid.individual.net
> Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
> > On 1 Sep 2007 07:29:59 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@privacy.net> put finger to
> > keyboard and composed:
>
> > > Previously Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
> [...]
> > > > BTW, the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 reflects a sector that has
> > > > been marked as bad by the OS.
> > >
> > > Not quite. It represents a sector that the drive has given up on, but
> > > not yet been able to replace, because it was not written to it.
> > > The OS does not factor into this.
>
> > Sorry, my statement was ambiguous. Maybe I should have written that
> > "the Current Pending Sector Count of 1 coincides with a sector that
> > has been marked as bad by the OS".
>
> Ok.
>
> > > A bad sector marked by the disk (and invisible to the OS) can
> > > be counter as "reallocation event" or "reallocated sector
> > > count". If these numbers start growing, something is seriously
> > > wrong.
>
> > The numbers *are* growing. In fact they've grown from 34 to 119 in two
> > years. I've been preparing to replace the drive for quite some time now.
> > However, it's only in the last month or so that the drive has been making
> > occasional noises, ie a very soft clink, probably from the voice coil posi-
> > tioner.
> Well. Personally I stop trustinf a disk around
> 10 or so, unless they all happened in one burst.
Which makes perfect sense if you are babblebot.
> I have had one Maxtor disk with something like 200 reallocated sectors in
> one event, which did run fine without any additional ones for three years
> afterwards.
Which obviously you only know by waiting for 3 years.
>
> So, it could be a problem with power (spikes, I would suspect), mecha-
> nical shock/vibration or the like. Or the disk could have a problem.
> I would replace that one.
And subject the new disk to the same problem causes. Very good, babblebot.
> Also, at some time the disk will run out of spare sectors.
At this rate somewhere in the next century which is very bad, eh babblebot.
>
> > > > I suspect that the drive's controller is
> > > > aware that it is bad, but it cannot relocate it until such time as the
> > > > OS writes to it, thereby signalling that the data in that sector is no
> > > > longer of any consequence.
> > >
> > > Yes.
> > >
> > > > FWIW, SeaTools Desktop v3.00 says the 13GB drive is OK, apart from one
> > > > bad sector.
> > >
> > > One bad sector is no reason for concern. If they start to get more,
> > > that would be.
> > >
> > > Arno
>
> > I now have a batch file that runs just prior to shutdown. Among other
> > things, it captures SMART data and appends it to a log file. It'll be in-
> > teresting to monitor the drive as it progresses toward total failure. :-)
>
> > BTW, these are the SMART data for my Fujitsu 6GB drive:
> > http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/6GB.RPT
>
> > Notice the raw value for "Power On Hours Count".
>
> > 0000008EF98Ah = 9369994 dec
> > = 1069 years
>
> > In fact the figure appears to represent Power On Seconds.
Seagate SMART, Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate 
eqjd395h03laql0g2m7jcid0n76gdqqdt@4ax.com 
Linear Mode
