[Fwd: F7: Howto monitoring a Hardware sata raid controller]

[Les Mikesell]

Tim wrote:
> 
>> Having sectors go bad is normal for modern hard drives, both because of
>> their high density and their large number of sectors.  If sectors go bad at
>> a low rate, it is simply a waste to replace the drive with one that will
>> hopefully perform the same way and not just fail early.
> 
> That's my way of thinking, too.  They have some in-built level of error
> handling, for that reason.  So long as the faults are insignificant,
> you're okay.  I'm certainly not keen on coughing up $150 for a new
> drive, *just* because two sectors stopped working, for instance.

Modern drives have spare sectors that are mapped into use internally if 
bad ones are detected.  However this is normally transparent.  If SMART 
says you've had a few errors that were recovered I wouldn't worry about 
it.  On the other hand if you are seeing errors at the OS level it 
probably means you are out of usable spares and the drive is about to 
go.  Most manufacturers have an on-line warranty check - if it is still 
covered, get a replacement.  If it isn't, you can probably get twice the 
space for the same price now.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com