[Discuss] New SMART disk errors reported

[tmetro-blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

Chuck Anderson wrote:
> ...I always replace the drive after even a single
> reallocation event.

Wow, you must send back a lot of drives.

Modern drives really push the limits of the technology, and are
constantly performing error correction. Occasionally that results in
sector reallocation. As long as the defect rate isn't rapidly growing,
and you aren't close to exceeding the number of spare sectors, you
should be fine.

I've had drives with a handful of reallocated sectors where the count
has remained static for years.


As for the OP's question, an accelerating defect rate and a count that
high seems reason for concern. It is, however, possible that the defect
region will cease growing. If all the failing sectors are physically
clustered together, there's a better chance that it may stabilize, than
if they are scatters across the drive. See the note at the end of:

Testing your hard drive in Linux
http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~thelinuxguy/doc/hdtest.html

If it is part of a RAID set and nothing more then a minor inconvenience
if it fails, then take a wait and see approach. It also would be a good
idea to run a read-write surface scan using the technique mentioned in
the article above, or if you are using Linux RAID, run checkarray (resync).

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/