I just started using unraid and I have an old(er) 4TB WD Red drive and a new 4TB WD Red Plus drive. I was planning on just using the old drive for parity when but I ran preclear I got some SMART errors. I am attaching a few images of my results and I am curious on peoples opinion. If I buy another WD Red 4TB would it be a bad idea to use this (failing?) drive along with another for parity? Thanks for any help.

Edited October 29, 20214 yr by Bottlecap
Attached SMART results.

Since you are asking the question, you are not completely paranoid about using questionable drives.  What I would do in your case is to run two more preclear cycles and see if you can get rid of those two pending sectors.  (This should boasted the 'Reallocated sector count" by two.)  If any more errors were to occur in the next cycles (in #5, #197, and  #198 attributes) , I (personally) would not be using the drive in an Unraid array under any circumstances. 

 

You can usually ignore low numbers of "UDMA CRC error count" as it is data corruption between the output of the drive and the MB SATA port.  (It is usually caused by a bad SATA cable or connection.  It is also cumulative and is never reset when the condition is corrected.) 

Edited October 29, 20214 yr by Frank1940

Thank you for a clear and concise opinion. I will run a few more tests and if needed, buy a new drive.

You should also consider SMART attribute #1, on a WD drive, anything above 0 is an issue.

9 minutes ago, ChatNoir said:

You should also consider SMART attribute #1, on a WD drive, anything above 0 is an issue.

I appreciate your response and I will keep that in mind for future drives as well. It is really unfortunate that this drive didn't last as long as I had hoped it would, before showing problems.