SMART errors - are they for real? or, BIOS weirdness?

Paulo Cavalcanti promac at gmail.com
Sun Apr 29 12:34:48 UTC 2007


> The following warning/error was logged by the smartd daemon:

> Device: /dev/hdb, 2 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors

> For details see host's SYSLOG (default: /var/log/messages).

> You can also use the smartctl utility for further investigation.
> No additional email messages about this problem will be sent.


Unfortunately, these errors are for real.

They mean that you have two sectors (512 bytes each) that cannot
be read anymore. In the next attempt to write them, they will be reallocated
to another area on the disk, and the error will disappear.
This is done by the disk hardware, and have nothing to do with the BIOS.

I have one Seagate IDE disk that started to give me these messages. The
first time I checked, there
were 23 reallocated sectors. Today, more than 350. It is a thing that can
stop, after reallocating
a few sectors, or not, as in my case. As a consequence, the disk becomes
considerably slower.

If you use smartctl on a health disk, the number of reallocated sectors must
be ZERO.
If you see more than a few, do not trust the disk anymore. The makers say
that more than
one bad sector per year of use is a bad sign. On the other hand, I also have
other disks with 5 or 6 bad sectors
and they have been working 24/7 for years.

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED
WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   115   094   006    Pre-fail
Always       -       92645708
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   096   096   000    Pre-fail
Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age
Always       -       43
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail
Always       -       0
<---------------------------------------------------
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   070   060   030    Pre-fail
Always       -       10622981
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age
Always       -       472


-- 
Paulo Roma Cavalcanti
LCG - UFRJ
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