If you've been following my unRAID build, I had a bad Samsung 1.5TB which was a pull from an external "Story" drive, Model HX-DU015EB practically brand new.  So I swapped it out with another, exactly the same drive, and I'm having troubles with this one.  I ran a preclear on it and it came up with a few problems that Joe L. pointed out in my previous thread:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6601.0

 

I finally installed a 2TB parity drive and let it build overnight, SUCCESS!  However, it's reporting 101 errors all from this new Samsung drive.  I'm attaching the syslog and a smart report I ran this morning on the drive in question.  I'm also attaching the smart report for the previous Samsung drive.

 

The previous Samsung drive had a number of problems including:

 

197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   035   035   000    Old_age   Always       -       2718

 

but there only seems to be 1 on the current drive.

 

Anyway, I could use some advice.  Are there any similarities between the reports on these drives?  Could there be a problem with Samsung drives and unRAID?

 

THANKS!!!!

smart-current_Samsung-2010-6-3.txt

smart-Old_Samsung-2010-5-27.txt

Syslog-2010-6-3.rtf.zip

I have 2 of the Samsung EcoGreen 1.5tb's in my unraid for a while (and same for a friend) and no issues.

 

Maybe bad luck?

Same as above.  I have 7 Samsung drives in my system and haven't had any problems.

Likely bad luck or a bad batch of drives.  I also have several Samsung drives that work well in unRAID.  However, I did discover early on that many Samsung drives require a jumper to work properly (I had one that showed up as 32 mb until I installed a jumper, when it finally showed it's true size of 1 TB).  If you have some jumpers laying around, you could try installing one (pins 1-2, I think) to see if it helps.  If not, then just RMA the drives I suppose.

Looks like I'll need to RMA these things.  The problem is, I put one back in it's external case and I'm having trouble finding a program that does a SMART report on USB drives in Windows.  I did find one that checks for errors and indeed some sectors are coming up bad, so I guess it was just wishful thinking that unRAID and Samsung might not get along.

 

I might be screwed with the RMA though, because I broke a seal on the external case that nullifies the warranty.  Maybe I can return them as bare drives?  Anyone with any experience in this?

 

Adam

Usually the manufacturer will release a program that is able to run SMART tests on USB drives.  SeaTools for Seagate drives, for example.  I believe Samsung's version is called ESTools or something like that.  You can find through Samsung's support website.

 

I think it is doubtful that Samsung will accept an RMA on an external drive with a broken seal, but you could always call and ask them.

I have 2 1TB Samsung 7200 rpm drives that I just put into a Synology disk station.  I ran preclear on them for 3 cycles each.  One of them completely aborted preclear after 3 hours, no matter what I tried, so I rma'd it.  The replacement passed with flying colors.  My point is that lemons happen, but I don't think there are any systemic issues with Samsung drives in particular.  Certainly nothing like the Deathstars of 2000.