I keep getting 

Unraid Disk 1 SMART health [5] reallocated sector ct is 23, started off at when I installed the drive and creeping up, I did google it and think I read somewhere this can be safely ignored and happen on modern drives?server-smart-20250129-1627.zip

 

Should I look to be replacing this drive even though its new?

18 minutes ago, bally12345 said:

I did google it and think I read somewhere this can be safely ignored and happen on modern drives?

Not if it keeps going up, that's usually a bad sign.

5 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

Not if it keeps going up, that's usually a bad sign.

Its at 23... Is there a number I need to look at for?

 

 

Looks like will need to purchase another drive and get ready for swap out... 

23 is not bad, though it's also not great for a new disk, but you mentioned, 

36 minutes ago, bally12345 said:

started off at when I installed the drive and creeping up

If it keeps going up you definitely want to replace it, and even if it doesn't, and you can get it replaced with a new drive, do it.

14 minutes ago, bally12345 said:

Its at 23... Is there a number I need to look at for?

 

Anything greater than 0 is cause for return.

6 minutes ago, Michael_P said:

 

Anything greater than 0 is cause for return.

Reallocated sector count - General Support - Unraid

1 minute ago, bally12345 said:

Reallocated sector count - General Support - Unraid

Not sure if you're trying to convince yourself or what, but if a new drive has a reallocated sector it's defective and should be returned to the retailer.

 

Even on a used drive, it's not to be trusted - and if still under warranty should be returned to the manufacturer as it's an indicator for drive failure (and why it's tracked by SMART). Roll the dice if you like, but have good backups.

34 minutes ago, bally12345 said:

Looks like will need to purchase another drive and get ready for swap out... 

 

If you can't get a replacement for a new drive (most vendors give 30day for a DOA drive) or replacement by the manufacturer under warranty, I would replace the drive.

 

If the return is not possible for reasons you have not indicated, I would then use "Unassigned Devices Plus" plugin and run three full cycles on this drive to test it.  If the count increases beyond what it started out at, I would trash it.  If it doesn't increase, then your personal tolerance risk for failure will decide if you still want to use it at a later date.  (Remember that general PC recommendations of disk sectors that can't be read do not apply for server disks.  Failure to read a single sector of a disk during the rebuild of another disk will cause that rebuild to fail!)

47 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

 

If you can't get a replacement for a new drive (most vendors give 30day for a DOA drive) or replacement by the manufacturer under warranty, I would replace the drive.

 

If the return is not possible for reasons you have not indicated, I would then use "Unassigned Devices Plus" plugin and run three full cycles on this drive to test it.  If the count increases beyond what it started out at, I would trash it.  If it doesn't increase, then your personal tolerance risk for failure will decide if you still want to use it at a later date.  (Remember that general PC recommendations of disk sectors that can't be read do not apply for server disks.  Failure to read a single sector of a disk during the rebuild of another disk will cause that rebuild to fail!)

 

Cant return, bought as new drive from ebay, back in october. Only got around to installing. Was sealed and packaged correctly. Will reach out to seller and see if I can get any details on the warranty side.

 

22 minutes ago, bally12345 said:

ill reach out to seller and see if I can get any details on the warranty side.

 

WD says that drive's warranty expired 6 years ago, so it's pretty old

4 minutes ago, Michael_P said:

 

WD says that drive's warranty expired 6 years ago, so it's pretty old

Yeh just checked myself, last time I buy a "new" drive from ebay in that case.

Not had any more increases since I moved my LSI card back to PCI_e3 8x slot

2 hours ago, bally12345 said:

Not had any more increases since I moved my LSI card back to PCI_e3 8x slot

 

Reallocated sectors are internal drive errors, changing slots wouldn't matter. if you use that drive in the array, prepare for hurt feelings.  WD drives are really good at telling you when they should be replaced - listen to them.

6 hours ago, Michael_P said:

 

Reallocated sectors are internal drive errors, changing slots wouldn't matter. if you use that drive in the array, prepare for hurt feelings.  WD drives are really good at telling you when they should be replaced - listen to them.

 

I am listening but just not seen it increase at all. I have WD Reds with over 10+ years of power on so bit suspicious why it was increasing whilst I was testing x16 pci slot and has stopped now.

Drives have spare sectors, that is what reallocation is all about. If it isn't increasing or very large it's probably OK for now.

 

You should see a SMART warning ( 👎 ) for that disk on the DASHBOARD page. Click on it to acknowledge and it will warn again if it increases.

 

Do you have Notifications setup to alert you immediately by email or other agent as soon as a problem is detected?

14 hours ago, bally12345 said:

so bit suspicious why it was increasing whilst I was testing

 

When a sector can't be written to for whatever reason, it's marked as pending, if it fails again on the next attempt then it will reallocate it to one of the spares. It has nothing to do with the slot, unless you were shaking the drive while in the slot while it was being written to...

 

The drive is bad, but it's your data so go nuts. Keep good backups, because if you need that drive to restore another one, cross your fingers, if another sector goes bad your parity is lost.

20 hours ago, trurl said:

Drives have spare sectors, that is what reallocation is all about. If it isn't increasing or very large it's probably OK for now.

 

You should see a SMART warning ( 👎 ) for that disk on the DASHBOARD page. Click on it to acknowledge and it will warn again if it increases.

 

Do you have Notifications setup to alert you immediately by email or other agent as soon as a problem is detected?

Yes I have alerts set up so as soon as it will happen will get email and telgram message.

 

I was having issues with my LSI card in another slot and it only increased whilst in there and the whole card went offline. Since moving it back it had no errors. Either way I am looking to replace the drive and upgrade my dual parity 12TB drives with 16TB. Which will replace this and have a spare.

On 2/6/2025 at 4:19 AM, Michael_P said:

The drive is bad...

Sounds like someone who works in a data center or manages these things for an enterprise - where the cost of pulling and replacing isn't even on the level of a rounding error.

Not to mention, that's not accurate. The drive has bad sectors. If there are no additional indicators that point to problems or unless the count continues to increase, there is no reason to assume the drive is bad. My oldest (current) drive is sitting at 17 reallocated sectors - like it has been for the last 4 years.

If the drive is under warranty, I'm sending it back. If the drive is not under warranty, I'm not going to automatically assume the drive is now bad. The reason I have 2 parity drives and I always keep a spare drive that has already been precleared - so that I don't have to assume the worst about something that could simply be a 1 time issue. I will pull it out of my array and run a full preclear/dd against it to see if anything else pops up on the smart report. If nothing else comes up, it's going back into use.

Edited February 11, 20251 yr by whipdancer

40 minutes ago, whipdancer said:

Sounds like someone who works in a data center or manages these things for an enterprise - where the cost of pulling and replacing isn't even on the level of a rounding error.

Not to mention, that's not accurate. The drive has bad sectors. If there are no additional indicators that point to problems or unless the count continues to increase, there is no reason to assume the drive is bad. My oldest (current) drive is sitting at 17 reallocated sectors - like it has been for the last 4 years.

If the drive is under warranty, I'm sending it back. If the drive is not under warranty, I'm not going to automatically assume the drive is now bad. The reason I have 2 parity drives and I always keep a spare drive that has already been precleared - so that I don't have to assume the worst about something that could simply be a 1 time issue. I will pull it out of my array and run a full preclear/dd against it to see if anything else pops up on the smart report. If nothing else comes up, it's going back into use.

 

This type of thing depends on your personal tolerance to risk.  If you are willing to accept situations where the risk is medium-to-high, this is a perfectly acceptable choice.  If you have a low tolerance for risk, you will pull the drive and replace it.

2 hours ago, Frank1940 said:

 

This type of thing depends on your personal tolerance to risk.  If you are willing to accept situations where the risk is medium-to-high, this is a perfectly acceptable choice.  If you have a low tolerance for risk, you will pull the drive and replace it.

I disagree that it is, by definition, medium to high risk. That's only true if you leave it in active use.

You pull the drive out of the live environment. Next steps would largely depend on whether you view it as a black & white/binary situation or if you have other constraints to consider. Most of the hardware folks I know would say it gets replaced. Period. But most of them live in corporate environments where that's been SOP their entire careers - and that carried over to how they view their personal projects.

Some of the hardware folks I know are far more circumspect about it. Everything I read about bad sectors indicates that they are a normal and expected occurrence in the lifetime of a hard drive. It is an increasing bad sector count over a couple of weeks or a month that is the best indicator a drive needs to be replaced. You can accelerate that test period by pulling it out of service and running something like a preclear on it.

13 hours ago, whipdancer said:

The drive has bad sectors

Ya, like I said - it's bad. Your drive has reallocated sectors? Guess what, it's bad too - just hasn't bit you (pun!). It failed SMART, it's bad. Are there shades of bad, sure but like @Frank1940 said, what's your tolerance for risk.

 

2 parity drives are nice, but you'll be holding your breath if you need that bad drive to restore.

 

BTW, I'm not some rich dude and don't do any of this for a living, but I have been doing this long enough (my first HDD was 200MB) to know that for 200 bux it's not worth the hassle. Reallocated sectors are a critical parameter in SMART for a reason.

 

 

Edited February 12, 20251 yr by Michael_P

On 2/12/2025 at 6:00 AM, Michael_P said:

Ya, like I said - it's bad. Your drive has reallocated sectors? Guess what, it's bad too - just hasn't bit you (pun!). It failed SMART, it's bad. Are there shades of bad, sure but like @Frank1940 said, what's your tolerance for risk.

 

2 parity drives are nice, but you'll be holding your breath if you need that bad drive to restore.

 

BTW, I'm not some rich dude and don't do any of this for a living, but I have been doing this long enough (my first HDD was 200MB) to know that for 200 bux it's not worth the hassle. Reallocated sectors are a critical parameter in SMART for a reason.

The data says otherwise. Statistically speaking, your drives all came from the factory with bad sectors. So, I won't be holding my breath because I'm prepared for drives to cause problems. But you do you. I'll continue to take a less binary approach to dealing with it. I'll happily take any of those bad drives off your hands (if they're not SMR and at least 8TB).

BTW, my first HD was a 10MB 5.25" MFM drive - but I don't think that the fact that I'm old means anything here.

On 2/6/2025 at 5:19 AM, Michael_P said:

Keep good backups, because

You should always have good backups regardless. You must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable. Parity is not a substitute for backups. Plenty of ways to lose data that don't involve disk failure. User error is one and is probably more likely than disk failure.

1 hour ago, whipdancer said:

The data says otherwise. Statistically speaking, your drives all came from the factory with bad sectors. So, I won't be holding my breath because I'm prepared for drives to cause problems. But you do you. I'll continue to take a less binary approach to dealing with it. I'll happily take any of those bad drives off your hands (if they're not SMR and at least 8TB).

BTW, my first HD was a 10MB 5.25" MFM drive - but I don't think that the fact that I'm old means anything here.

 

Whatever cope blanket helps you sleep at night, you do you.

On 2/13/2025 at 10:25 AM, Michael_P said:

 

Whatever cope blanket helps you sleep at night, you do you

 

That’s right snowflake, data is how I cope. Obviously, not something you’re comfortable with.

Edited February 15, 20251 yr by whipdancer