HGST 4TB SMART error - RMA or not?

[poto2]

Drive generated SMART failure from HDD Sentinel while attached to workstation "spin retry count failure".  Drive has minimal hours, used as offsite backup for critical data, and was attached via esata cable, mounted in HDD cage w/fan.

 

Passed 5x preclear and extended SMART test, under warranty until Nov, 2018.

 

I suspect power cable issue, but have used drive with same setup almost 2yr without incident.

 

Reluctant to RMA and trade for refurb if not a drive problem.

 

Anyone seen this SMART error before?

HGST_HDN724040ALE640_PK1334PCJXXXXX-20171204-1318.txt

preclear hgst 4tb.txt

[pwm]

I think the raw value 262148 (0x40004) means a total of four failures, and all in a row. But different manufacturers tends to play around a bit with how they encode the raw values.

 

This could potentially be caused by power supply issues, since the drive draws quite a lot when it spins up. But not so easy to prove that it isn't the drive itself that is to blame.

[Frank1940]

You might want to read here:

 

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.#Known_ATA_S.M.A.R.T._attributes

 

and read what the parameter is reporting.  I would be checking to see if the power (or power supply) to that cage that you are using for this drive is capable of supplying the current required to get the drive to spin up.  (be looking for under size wiring which could cause excessive IR loss of voltage at the drive.  Most drives require between two and three amperes of inrush current to spin the drive up to speed.)  Otherwise, I would consider RMA it.

Edited December 4, 2017 by Frank1940

[poto2]

Thanks for the SMART references, I'm a bit more educated on that after reading up.

 

The power supply is 650W Seasonic Platinum, not showing any other symptoms, but the power cabling may be the culprit.

{pwr supply>ESATA bracket>4-pin molex extension>adapter>HDD}

 

I invested in an IcyDock hot-swap bay to shorten the power lead, and ran the HDD through another 2 preclear cycles without error.

 

Will burn-in drive again when warranty runs down to 90 days, otherwise attribute this one to design error on my part!