Is my hdd dying?

[rabidrodent]

I have a little problem with my wd hdd reporting smart data error on the "reallocted sector count" for a couple of days the current data tab was 62 and now it has gone down to 49 is this god or bad?

Edited May 13, 2011 by rabidrodent

[G8YMW]

Looks like it to me. I think that this thread shows what is happening.

[rabidrodent]

Just my luck owell wounder how long my drive can keep up months days? for the moment i dont experinces boot problems or slowdowns or lost files just a warning from windows and the hdd tool that the realocted sector count is somthing prolematic

[jaclaz]

Just my luck owell wounder how long my drive can keep up months days? for the moment i dont experinces boot problems or slowdowns or lost files just a warning from windows and the hdd tool that the realocted sector count is somthing prolematic

Wrong question.

Hard disks know nothing about time passing.

SMART know even less.

To a hard disk 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, 1 hour, 1 minute or 1 second are just the same thing: 1 unit.

SMART is trying to tell you that probably (but NOT definitely) and judging from what happened lately inside the HD, it is possible that in 1 (or very few) units your hard drive will die on you.

Historically SMART has a correct prection ratio (accuracy of actual consequences derived from SMART warnings) very, and I mean VERY near 0% (zero), meaning that I have seen disks with SMART nagging about above thresholds error whirling away for years without ANY problem and disks 100% OK that failed less than 1 hour later.

BUT sector reallocation is the single SMART parameter that apparently can be trusted to a certain extent.

See the known google study:

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

And anyway, why risking?

Get another hard disk, NOW, image the old disk to it, re-initialize the old disk with it's manufacturer utility, use the old one ONLY for "tertiary" (i.e. third item or second copy ) in your backup setup.

It is possible that for this it will work allright for a few more years, but don't trust it (actually NEVER trust a disk drive).

jaclaz

[rabidrodent]

Thx for the info then i know my hdd is dead soon, hdds for the moment are rather cheap gona get me perhabs a 1 gb drive next month hope the disk dont die until then.

[allen2]

(actually NEVER trust a disk drive).

A side question then, what kind of backup do you trust ? Tape, removable media ?

[jaclaz]

(actually NEVER trust a disk drive).

A side question then, what kind of backup do you trust ? Tape, removable media ?

Also NEVER trust a tape.

Also NEVER trust a CD/DVD.

The only real solution is REDUNDANCY:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_(engineering)

Let's say that you have in a given timeframe, say three years, the same probability of a failure for *any* magnetical or optical backup media.

Let's assume that every 100 media (CD/DVD, tapes or hard disks) you have an average of 5 "total" failures in the given timeframe, a 5% probability.

The consequence of one failure if only one "original" exists, is obviously (partial or total) data loss in 100% of cases, i.e. you have 5% probabilty of losing data.

1 original + 1 backup probabilities are not 50% of 5% i.e. 2.5%, but rather around 0.05x0.05=0,0025 or 0,25%

1 original + 1 backup + 1 copy of backup probabilities are not 33% of 5% i.e. around 1.65%, but rather around 0.05x0.05x0.05=0,000125 or 0,025%

See last example here:

http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue25/hottopics25.htm

In my experience Optical media like CD/DVD have shown (if properly stored, i.e. not overheated/exposed to sun, and possibly held vertically in their case) a relatively high level of reliability, definitely higher than tapes (which in my personal experience have always been a most frightful nightmare, in practice NEVER actually working when needed ).

But again, you should use some burning app with redundancy/error correction, examples:

Commercial:

http://www.infinadyne.com/accuburn-r.html

Freeware/Open Source:

http://dvdisaster.net/en/

Hard disks are pretty fine too (besides being more handy).

BE AWARE of the "false" security a RAID 5 may provide:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2003-December/msg01731.html

Of course it depends on the actual value you give to your data, as a RAID 10 solution is costly, and actually more aimed to "no downtime" than to "data integrity", but having two copies (besides the "original") of all meaningful data is doable by almost everyone, point is that most people are on the extremes of the line:

• some simply do not backup "anything" (until it is too late )
  
• some backup "everything" (with an unneeded amount of time for the process and money for the media that is very high)
  

Very few do the "right thing" (IMHO):

1. have meaningful data backed up with redundancy (example: work data, family pictures and movies, etc.)
   
2. simply ignore "expendable" items, (example: programs, commercial movies, songs, anything that can be replaced or procured anew IF needed)
   

If some common sense is used, you will find out that the actual UNreplaceble things amount to a fraction of the contents of your hard disk, so everyone can afford to have this relatively small amount of data properly saved (TWICE).

jaclaz