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About 98% done with the preread of my first of these drives, but I noticed I've slowed down considerably in the read speed since I started it late yesterday afternoon.  I was getting around 150MB/s yesterday afternoon, but I'm at about 86-95MB/s now (at 99% complete reading, 19:54:30 into it so far).  Is this inline with everyone else's tests?  I'm assuming that it's due to it reading the slower parts of the disk near the end..

 

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About 98% done with the preread of my first of these drives, but I noticed I've slowed down considerably in the read speed since I started it late yesterday afternoon.  I was getting around 150MB/s yesterday afternoon, but I'm at about 86-95MB/s now (at 99% complete reading, 19:54:30 into it so far).  Is this inline with everyone else's tests?  I'm assuming that it's due to it reading the slower parts of the disk near the end..

 

This is consistent with that I am seeing. All 3 of mine which are running through their pre read of cycle 1 of 3 at the moment (about 78%) are running at about ~121MB/s.

 

Pre read figures:

UPDATE 1: All three at about 91% of the preclear pre read of cycle 1 of 3 and are running at about ~100MB/s.

UPDATE 2: All three at about 99% of the preclear pre read of cycle 1 of 3 and are running at about ~85MB/s.

UPDATE 3: All three at about 100% of the preclear pre read of cycle 1 of 3 and were running at about ~80MB/s.

All three completed their pre read with a FINAL speed at 100% of ~80MB/s taking 19 Hours 57 Minutes.

 

All 3 of have started running through their zeroing of cycle 1 of 3 at the moment (1%) and are running at about ~200MB/s.

 

Copying Zeros figures:

UPDATE 1: Drive 1 & 3 at EXACTLY 40% and 30% respectively done of the preclear zeroing of cycle 1 of 3 and running at about ~ 185 MB/s. Drive 2 has called behind and at about 28% but still reporting 185 MB/s. **

UPDATE 2:Drive 1 & 3 at EXACTLY 59% and 50% respectively done of the preclear zeroing of cycle 1 of 3 and running at about ~ 175 MB/s. Drive 2 has continued and not fallen further behind at 49% and reporting 175 MB/s. **

UPDATE 3:Managed to catch all drives at 100% done of the preclear zeroing of cycle 1 of 3 and running at about ~ 138 MB/s. Drive 2 had continued and not fallen further behind (as above) and was  reporting 138 MB/s too. **

All three completed their zeroing with a FINAL speed at 100% of ~138 MB/s taking ~16 Hours. Total Time for cycle 1 so far is ~36 Hours.

 

**I suspect - given that Drive 2 has fallen behind (as it should be second) and Drive 3 has taken over - A bad drive :-( **

 

All 3 of have started running through their post read of cycle 1 of 3 at the moment (1%) and started running at about ~200MB/s.

 

Post read figures:

UPDATE 1: All 3 chugging along. Drive 1 at 50% and the other 2 not far behind on the post read of cycle 1 of 3 (Haven't experienced any more lag on disk2) and all running still at ~200MB/s (~44 Hours so far - LOL!)

UPDATE 2: All 3 still chugging along. Drive 1 at 67% and the other 2 not far behind (10% or so) on the post read of cycle 1 of 3 and all running still at ~200MB/s

UPDATE 3: All 3 finished at 100%. All were running at the end still at ~200MB/s.

All three completed their post read with a FINAL speed at 100% of ~200 MB/s taking ~16 Hours.

 

Total Time for cycle 1 was is ~52 Hours.

 

Clearly whatever Brians version of the pre clear script does it makes the post read just as fast as the writes. Still ~52 hours for a pre clear though. Doing 3 cycles is painful - another 2 to go! LOL!

 

Note: Cycle 2 has started. Ill only post anything if the figures look like they are going to differ significantly.

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Thanks for the updates guys ... interesting to watch the progress  :)

 

No worries. Think I have a bad drive in there though. Disk 2 (which incidentally is the one running hotter than the others @ 42 C over disk 1 39C and disk 3 36C) has dropped behind Disk 3 in % complete as reported above.

 

:-( Lets see anyway.

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================================================================== 1.15
=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdl
=               cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1
= Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed                                 DONE
= Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes             DONE
= Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE
= Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward.           DONE
= Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4       DONE
= Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area                         DONE
= Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes                    DONE
= Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state        DONE
= Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning   DONE
= Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries             DONE
= Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared.              DONE
= Post-Read in progress: 8% complete.
(  692,710,195,200  of  8,001,563,222,016  bytes read ) 148 MB/s
Disk Temperature: 27C, Elapsed Time:  39:55:54

 

Only around 20hrs to go, lol.

 

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Looks like I'm a bit over the reported time it's been taking:

 

================================================================== 1.15
=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdl
=               cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1
= Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed                                 DONE
= Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes             DONE
= Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE
= Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward.           DONE
= Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4       DONE
= Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area                         DONE
= Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes                    DONE
= Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state        DONE
= Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning   DONE
= Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries             DONE
= Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared.              DONE
= Post-Read in progress: 79% complete.
(  6,333,436,108,800  of  8,001,563,222,016  bytes read ) 108 MB/s
Disk Temperature: 27C, Elapsed Time:  67:26:47

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Looks like I'm a bit over the reported time it's been taking:

 

================================================================== 1.15
=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdl
=               cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1
= Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed                                 DONE
= Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes             DONE
= Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE
= Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward.           DONE
= Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4       DONE
= Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area                         DONE
= Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes                    DONE
= Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state        DONE
= Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning   DONE
= Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries             DONE
= Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared.              DONE
= Post-Read in progress: 79% complete.
(  6,333,436,108,800  of  8,001,563,222,016  bytes read ) 108 MB/s
Disk Temperature: 27C, Elapsed Time:  67:26:47

 

Which version of the pre clear script did you use? I updated my post with figures for Bjp's script.

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I CANT believe it!

 

Going through cycle 2 and I have a Power Cut!!!!!!!! I don't even know what to do now! Start all over again with 3 cycles. Just do 2. Jeez. First of all - walk away from computer before I throw it though the window of the 10th floor!

 

EDIT: Nothing for it. Started again. This time only 1 cycle. For kicks I did a S.M.A.R.T report of the three drives after 1.5 preclears. Sigh.

20150405_SG8TB_ERR_Disk1.txt

20150405_SG8TB_ERR_Disk2.txt

20150405_SG8TB_ERR_Disk3.txt

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I understand -- power outages can definitely be frustrating.    My uptime was 362 days last year when we had an extended outage that resulted in the system being shut down by the UPS software.    So I missed having a full year of uptime !!

 

I'd just start over and do 2 cycles.

 

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I CANT believe it!

 

Going through cycle 2 and I have a Power Cut!!!!!!!!

 

I don't even know what to do now! Start all over again with 3 cycles. Just do 2. Jeez. First of all - walk away from computer before I throw it though the window of the 10th floor!

 

This is when I would see pending sectors show up.

Monitor the smart reports on any drives you were actively writing to at the time of the power cut.

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The power cut can't have damaged the drive though right?

 

It could leave sectors in a poor state, thus leading to pending sectors.

Also if it was in a band write, who knows what was lost.

 

For a preclear it may not matter as you are always writing zeros.

For real data, this could cause quite an issue.

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The power cut can't have damaged the drive though right?

 

It could leave sectors in a poor state, thus leading to pending sectors.

Also if it was in a band write, who knows what was lost.

 

For a preclear it may not matter as you are always writing zeros.

For real data, this could cause quite an issue.

 

It was just going through cycle 2 of a pre clear.

 

I am sorry I need to dig further into your response as I don't understand.

 

Normally after a pre clear if I got ANY pending sectors i'd return the drive DOA. Are you saying that now there was a power cut mid preclear that I could reasonably expect them?

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Are you saying that now there was a power cut mid preclear that I could reasonably expect them?

 

The potential exists. If data was in the buffer and/or being written as the drive failed, there could be sectors that were damaged.

I don't know if seagate drives are prone to this, the older WD EACS and EADS with 512 byte sectors were prone to this.

 

The SMR drives are new territory, so pay attention to the pending sectors at the end of the preclear.

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The potential exists. If data was in the buffer and/or being written as the drive failed, there could be sectors that were damaged.

I don't know if seagate drives are prone to this, the older WD EACS and EADS with 512 byte sectors were prone to this.

 

The SMR drives are new territory, so pay attention to the pending sectors at the end of the preclear.

 

Unless there is something wrong with preclear, there should be no pending sectors. Preclear writes zero to all locations. That write would remove any pending sectors. A write to a pending sector is reallocated.

 

Any pending after that write would be a red flag.

 

It could leave sectors in a poor state, thus leading to pending sectors.

Also if it was in a band write, who knows what was lost.

 

For a preclear it may not matter as you are always writing zeros.

For real data, this could cause quite an issue.

 

The potential for data loss exists with power cuts on any drives with write cache enabled. The contents of the cache could be lost prior to the write to media. This is true for both PMR and SMR drives. As WeeboTech mentions, the data during preclear is zero, thus not a concern.

 

Even with the power cut, normal rules for returning the drive should apply. If there are pending or reallocates during a preclear, best to deal with RMA now.

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The potential exists. If data was in the buffer and/or being written as the drive failed, there could be sectors that were damaged.

I don't know if seagate drives are prone to this, the older WD EACS and EADS with 512 byte sectors were prone to this.

 

The SMR drives are new territory, so pay attention to the pending sectors at the end of the preclear.

 

Unless there is something wrong with preclear, there should be no pending sectors. Preclear writes zero to all locations. That write would remove any pending sectors. A write to a pending sector is reallocated.

 

Any pending after that write would be a red flag.

 

It could leave sectors in a poor state, thus leading to pending sectors.

Also if it was in a band write, who knows what was lost.

 

For a preclear it may not matter as you are always writing zeros.

For real data, this could cause quite an issue.

 

The potential for data loss exists with power cuts on any drives with write cache enabled. The contents of the cache could be lost prior to the write to media. This is true for both PMR and SMR drives. As WeeboTech mentions, the data during preclear is zero, thus not a concern.

 

Even with the power cut, normal rules for returning the drive should apply. If there are pending or reallocates during a preclear, best to deal with RMA now.

 

Thank you for your explanation of the explanation!! I needed it! LOL! :)

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Finally done, lol.

================================================================== 1.15
=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdl
=               cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1
= Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed                                 DONE
= Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes             DONE
= Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE
= Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward.           DONE
= Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4       DONE
= Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area                         DONE
= Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes                    DONE
= Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state        DONE
= Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning   DONE
= Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries             DONE
= Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared.              DONE
= Disk Post-Clear-Read completed                                DONE
Disk Temperature: 26C, Elapsed Time:  77:31:41
========================================================================1.15
== ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z   Z8402DA1
== Disk /dev/sdl has been successfully precleared
== with a starting sector of 1
============================================================================
** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sdl  /tmp/smart_finish_sdl
                ATTRIBUTE   NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VA                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                LUE
      Raw_Read_Error_Rate =   116     100            6        ok          104894                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                064
          Seek_Error_Rate =    73     100           30        ok          212962                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                22
         Spin_Retry_Count =   100     100           97        near_thresh 0
         End-to-End_Error =   100     100           99        near_thresh 0
  Airflow_Temperature_Cel =    74      75           45        ok          26
      Temperature_Celsius =    26      25            0        ok          26
   Hardware_ECC_Recovered =   116     100            0        ok          104894                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                064
No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.
0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,
    the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change.
0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.
0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,
    the number of sectors re-allocated did not change.

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Unless there is something wrong with preclear, there should be no pending sectors. Preclear writes zero to all locations. That write would remove any pending sectors. A write to a pending sector is reallocated.

 

Any pending after that write would be a red flag.

 

Here's a potential issue,

The write could reallocate a pending sector or just re-write it and test it, thus putting the weak sector back in service.

 

This was a behavior I saw played out with a 3TB seagate drive during the end of it's life.

There were no power failure events for that particular drive.

Writes would clear them and a full read at the end would cause more to show up.

 

For the record, I've also seen archival drives that had no writes to them, but a power event caused them to develop pending sectors on next boot up. Who knows if a power glitch caused damage to a few sectors on those drives.

 

Even with the power cut, normal rules for returning the drive should apply. If there are pending or reallocates during a preclear, best to deal with RMA now.

 

This is why I suggested paying close attention to pending sectors. I should have added 'large numbers of reallocated sectors' as well.

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Agree with WeeboTech => I've seen drives with pending sectors simply change from pending sectors to no pending sectors without any reallocations in the process.    When the S.M.A.R.T. system recognizes a write to a pending sector, it apparently tries the write before reallocating the sector ... and if it's good, it doesn't bother to reallocate it.

 

As a result, I've seen drives that "toggle" back and forth between having pending sectors and not => when I see this I always replace the drive.    I don't mind having a few reallocated sectors; but I definitely don't want "iffy" sectors that sometimes seem good and sometimes don't !!  :)

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... as for what that has to do with your power failure => depending on exactly what was happening when the power failed, there could be some sectors in an uncertain state, that may show as "pendings".    These would likely disappear on another pre-clear pass (without any reallocations), assuming they're really okay.

 

The behavior on a shingled unit shouldn't be appreciably different => if an "iffy" sector is in a band, rewriting it is going to require a full band rewrite anyway, so if others are also impacted, they'll be resolved at the same time.

 

Which brings an interesting thought to mind -- I'd think shingled drives can't reallocate individual sectors, so they must have entire spare bands.  This likely means they have far fewer spares than traditional drives, unless they're actually reallocating sectors from within bands to special non-shingled areas.

 

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I once had a drive develop a bad sector after an intentional hard power down. The server was writing binary zeroes at full speed and I just killed the power. I needed spinrite to mark the sector bad to be able to recover data from the drive.

 

I cannot remember anyone commenting they had a power outage during a preclear. But seems the potential exists for it affecting the drive negatively if it's in the middle of a write.

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Cycle 2 has just finished (glad I executed it separately so I can interpret the reports before starting Cycle 3 - given I don't have reports for Cycle 1 due to the Power cut :-() and I have some data. No power cut this time!!!

 

S.M.A.R.T reports at the beginning of cycle 2 are clean. No logged S.M.A.R.T errors and no Current Pending Sectors or Reallocated Sectors.

 

Seems disk 1 is doing ok - but I have S.M.A.R.T errors and sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read on disks 2 and 3.

 

The Question I am asking myself is - are these errors and pending sectors due to the power cut and the disks are ok (I note that there are no reallocated sectors), OR are they showing signs of a DOA drive?

 

I have started another cycle (cycle 3) on them anyway as a matter of course but can someone help me interpret these cycle 2 reports please? FULL S.M.A.R.T reports attached.

 

Disk 1

========================================================================1.15b
== invoked as: ./preclear_bjp.sh -f -A /dev/sdc
== ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z   Z8402JP1
== Disk /dev/sdc has been successfully precleared
== with a starting sector of 1 
== Ran 1 cycle
==
== Using :Read block size = 1000448 Bytes
== Last Cycle's Pre Read Time  : 20:23:45 (108 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Zeroing time   : 16:30:53 (134 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Post Read Time : 21:13:02 (104 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Total Time     : 58:08:45
==
== Total Elapsed Time 58:08:45
==
== Disk Start Temperature: 42C
==
== Current Disk Temperature: -->41<--C, 
==
============================================================================
** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sdc  /tmp/smart_finish_sdc
                ATTRIBUTE   NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE
          Seek_Error_Rate =    75      72           30        ok          35112648
         Spin_Retry_Count =   100     100           97        near_thresh 0
         End-to-End_Error =   100     100           99        near_thresh 0
  Airflow_Temperature_Cel =    59      58           45        near_thresh 41
      Temperature_Celsius =    41      42            0        ok          41
No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.
0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,
    the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change.
0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.
0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,
    the number of sectors re-allocated did not change. 
============================================================================

 

Disk 2

========================================================================1.15b
== invoked as: ./preclear_bjp.sh -f -A /dev/sdd
== ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z   Z8402L5T
== Disk /dev/sdd has been successfully precleared
== with a starting sector of 1 
== Ran 1 cycle
==
== Using :Read block size = 1000448 Bytes
== Last Cycle's Pre Read Time  : 20:06:40 (110 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Zeroing time   : 16:16:33 (136 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Post Read Time : 21:00:20 (105 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Total Time     : 57:24:39
==
== Total Elapsed Time 57:24:40
==
== Disk Start Temperature: 39C
==
== Current Disk Temperature: 39C, 
==
============================================================================
** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sdd  /tmp/smart_finish_sdd
                ATTRIBUTE   NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE
      Raw_Read_Error_Rate =   117     118            6        ok          145184472
          Seek_Error_Rate =    75      72           30        ok          35250500
         Spin_Retry_Count =   100     100           97        near_thresh 0
         End-to-End_Error =   100     100           99        near_thresh 0
       Reported_Uncorrect =    92     100            0        ok          8
  Airflow_Temperature_Cel =    61      61           45        near_thresh 39
   Hardware_ECC_Recovered =   117     118            0        ok          145184472
No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.
32 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.
0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,
    the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change.
0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.
0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,
    the number of sectors re-allocated did not change. 
============================================================================

 

Disk 3

========================================================================1.15b
== invoked as: ./preclear_bjp.sh -f -A /dev/sde
== ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z   Z8402RLJ
== Disk /dev/sde has been successfully precleared
== with a starting sector of 1 
== Ran 1 cycle
==
== Using :Read block size = 1000448 Bytes
== Last Cycle's Pre Read Time  : 20:01:57 (110 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Zeroing time   : 16:38:54 (133 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Post Read Time : 21:05:45 (105 MB/s)
== Last Cycle's Total Time     : 57:47:41
==
== Total Elapsed Time 57:47:41
==
== Disk Start Temperature: 37C
==
== Current Disk Temperature: 36C, 
==
============================================================================
** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sde  /tmp/smart_finish_sde
                ATTRIBUTE   NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE
          Seek_Error_Rate =    75      72           30        ok          34958375
         Spin_Retry_Count =   100     100           97        near_thresh 0
         End-to-End_Error =   100     100           99        near_thresh 0
       Reported_Uncorrect =    97     100            0        ok          3
  Airflow_Temperature_Cel =    64      63           45        near_thresh 36
      Temperature_Celsius =    36      37            0        ok          36
No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.
8 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.
0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,
    the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change.
0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.
0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,
    the number of sectors re-allocated did not change. 
============================================================================

 

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

preclear_finish_Z8402JP1_2015-04-07_Disk_1.txt

preclear_finish_Z8402L5T_2015-04-07_Disk_2.txt

preclear_finish_Z8402RLJ_2015-04-07_Disk_3.txt

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