aim60 Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 I have a 4 month old 2TB EARS drive that’s been running in the array without problems (4.5 Final, jumper installed). After a parity check, it showed 19 pending sectors. After a second parity check the count increased to 49. I swapped the drive out, moved it to a test server (4.7 Final), and ran 5 Preclear passes. Ever since the end of the first pass, Smartctl has shown 0 pending sectors and 0 reallocated sectors. The syslog from the test server shows several hardware errors on the drive, probably during the first preclear pass. I’ve also run WD’s DataLifeGuard long diagnostics and Smartctl long tests. Neither has shown any errors. Should I RMA the drive or put back into the array? syslog.txt Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 I have a 4 month old 2TB EARS drive that’s been running in the array without problems (4.5 Final, jumper installed). After a parity check, it showed 19 pending sectors. After a second parity check the count increased to 49. I swapped the drive out, moved it to a test server (4.7 Final), and ran 5 Preclear passes. Ever since the end of the first pass, Smartctl has shown 0 pending sectors and 0 reallocated sectors. The syslog from the test server shows several hardware errors on the drive, probably during the first preclear pass. I’ve also run WD’s DataLifeGuard long diagnostics and Smartctl long tests. Neither has shown any errors. Should I RMA the drive or put back into the array? This line in your output smart report is disconcerting ... Warning: ATA error count 39 inconsistent with error log pointer 2 What it tells me is that the smart data has gotten corrupted. I would not trust this disk, and would RMA it. Quote Link to comment
aim60 Posted February 5, 2011 Author Share Posted February 5, 2011 From: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/FAQ#Warning:ATAerrorcount9inconsistentwitherrorlogpointer5Whatsthemeaningofthissmartctlmessage 'Warning: ATA error count 9 inconsistent with error log pointer 5' What's the meaning of this smartctl message? The ATA error log is stored in a circular buffer, and the ATA specifications are unambiguous about how the entries should be ordered. This warning message means that the disk's firmware does not strictly obey the ATA specification regarding the ordering of the error log entries in the circular buffer. Smartmontools will correct for this oversight, so this warning message can be safely ignored by users. (On the other hand, firmware engineers: please read the ATA specs more closely then fix your code!). Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Interesting. I have never seen this message before. Your drive had logged errors (usually indicative of a cabling problem to the drive), and now smartctl can't find them. This is not a good thing. If it is a bug on the firmware, WD would need to fix it. But if it is a HW problem with this drive, I would not want it in my array. In general, pending sectors don't just disappear. It does happen sometimes, though, especially with brand new drives. Can't explain it. But most I've seen is 10-15. 46 is a lot to disappear, and this is not a brand new drive. That in combination with the SMART system error above would lead me to believe that the smart system is flaking out. I'd find it hard to trust this drive with my data. If you keep it, run a parity check every few days and closely monitor. If you can run 3 parity checks in a row and not get more reallocated sectors or other weird behavior from the drive, you're probably okay. Quote Link to comment
aim60 Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 Already spent a week testing the drive. Better to follow your recommendation and RMA it. Thanks Quote Link to comment
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