Samsung HD203WI Raw Read Error Rate

[watercooled]

I'm not sure if it's related but the system just failed to boot with the following on screen:

...
Decompressing Linux... Parsing ELF... done.
Booting the kernel.

And I had my head next to the system and I could hear a series of high-pitched beeps, there is no PC speaker connected but maybe the speaker circuit was still emitting noise? I pressed the reset button and it booted fine, nothing changed on SMART either.

I was in the PC to check voltages which all seemed good (excellent in fact) and while I was only checking to 2 DP on a multimeter there were no digits going up-down which would indicate big ripple, 120mv is the 12v spec so that should show up in 2 DP. No, it's no PSU bench test but it's about the best I can do with what I have. I'll try to get round to running a full scan in that system and take the drive out and see if I can get the error count to rise with fsck on another system.

[CaptainCrash]

Probably the best way to determine the drive's health is to use Samsungs drive utility.

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...ort_HUTIL.html

Big Fat Warning

HUTIL is obsolete and has been known to give false readings with recent generations of Samsung drives (F1 and later). Use ESTool instead.

Samsung should really make this clearer, particularly as the F1 is still listed as a target model for HUTIL.

[watercooled]

Thanks, yeah I did use estool.

[jim]

Right. I'm afraid I can only test on 1 of my HD203WI drives because the others are considered SCSI devices and don't pass on SMART data.

320GB F1: 6
1TB F1: 0
2TB F3: 361

WD Lifeguard passes basic test, sees nothing wrong with the SMART data. I'm running an extended test now to see what happens.

[watercooled]

Thanks very much, an extended test takes about 6 hours you know but I think you can still use the drive while it's running.

Edit: sorry I misread that post, so your F3 has a raw value of 361? That's a HUGE relief!!! Thanks again mate! Morale of the story - don't let raw SMART values worry you!

[jim]

It must be calculated in a different way on the new F3 drives.

I've only owned that 2TB for maybe a month, whilst the 1TB and 320GB are well over a year old. Just wish I could check all of my 2TB drives, would be interesting to compare. Ah well

[watercooled]

I thought SMART was meant to be standardised? Or MFRs should at least release details on how attributes are actually measured. I think Seagate drives have the raw value for that attribute numbering in the thousands but I was concerned mainly because it was a small number and climbing.

[jim]

To quote Wikipedia:

As manufacturers do not necessarily agree on precise attribute definitions and measurement units, the following list of attributes should be regarded as a general guide only.

So I guess whilst the categories are standardised, the scores aren't. Somehow, I suspect this value will keep climbing forever - whether that's because it's more sensitively tuned in some way, or because it's completely borked, I have no idea

[andrewuk]

My Samsungs SMART readings as reported by Everest Ultimate:

SAMSUNG HD103UJ (F1 1000GB - media storage)

ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
01 Raw Read Error Rate 51 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
03 Spinup Time 11 82 82 6150 OK: Value is normal
04 Start/Stop Count 0 99 99 1038 OK: Always passes
05 Reallocated Sector Count 10 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
07 Seek Error Rate 51 253 253 0 OK: Value is normal
08 Seek Time Performance 15 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
09 Power-On Time Count 0 100 100 1878 OK: Always passes
0A Spinup Retry Count 51 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
0B Calibration Retry Count 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
0C Power Cycle Count 0 99 99 722 OK: Always passes
0D Soft Read Error Rate 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
B7 <vendor-specific> 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
B8 End-to-End Error 99 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
BB Reported Uncorrectable Errors 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
BC Command Timeout 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
BE Airflow Temperature 0 68 56 538837024 OK: Always passes
C2 Temperature 0 62 54 639500326 OK: Always passes
C3 Hardware ECC Recovered 0 100 100 28456 OK: Always passes
C4 Reallocation Event Count 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
C6 Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
C7 Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
C8 Write Error Rate 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
C9 Soft Read Error Rate 0 253 253 0 OK: Always passes

SAMSUNG HD502HJ (F3, 500GB - OS, games and apps)

ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
01 Raw Read Error Rate 51 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
02 Throughput Performance 0 252 252 0 OK: Always passes
03 Spinup Time 25 84 82 5099 OK: Value is normal
04 Start/Stop Count 0 100 100 368 OK: Always passes
05 Reallocated Sector Count 10 252 252 0 OK: Value is normal
07 Seek Error Rate 51 252 252 0 OK: Value is normal
08 Seek Time Performance 15 252 252 0 OK: Value is normal
09 Power-On Time Count 0 100 100 1054 OK: Always passes
0A Spinup Retry Count 51 252 252 0 OK: Value is normal
0B Calibration Retry Count 0 252 252 0 OK: Always passes
0C Power Cycle Count 0 100 100 369 OK: Always passes
BF Mechanical Shock 0 100 100 1 OK: Always passes
C0 Power-Off Retract Count 0 252 252 0 OK: Always passes
C2 Temperature 0 59 52 7, 41 OK: Always passes
C3 Hardware ECC Recovered 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passes
C4 Reallocation Event Count 0 252 252 0 OK: Always passes
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 252 252 0 OK: Always passes
C6 Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 252 252 0 OK: Always passes
C7 Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate 0 200 200 0 OK: Always passes
C8 Write Error Rate 0 100 100 2 OK: Always passes
DF Load/Unload Retry Count 0 252 252 0 OK: Always passes
E1 Load/Unload Cycle Count 0 100 100 369 OK: Always passes

[peterb]

I'm not sure if it's related but the system just failed to boot with the following on screen:


And I had my head next to the system and I could hear a series of high-pitched beeps, there is no PC speaker connected but maybe the speaker circuit was still emitting noise? I pressed the reset button and it booted fine, nothing changed on SMART either.

I was in the PC to check voltages which all seemed good (excellent in fact) and while I was only checking to 2 DP on a multimeter there were no digits going up-down which would indicate big ripple, 120mv is the 12v spec so that should show up in 2 DP. No, it's no PSU bench test but it's about the best I can do with what I have. I'll try to get round to running a full scan in that system and take the drive out and see if I can get the error count to rise with fsck on another system.

Be wary of the limitations of a digital multimenter. It is unlikely that it would register ripple on the PSU lines - you need a 'scope to see that - and just because it measures to a precision of 2dp - doesn't mean that it is accurate to 2dp - you need to read the specs of the multimeter carefully.

As for the boot problem - if the speaker is disconnected, it is unlikely that the speaker ccts are generating the beeps - but it could have been noise from the PSU or the drive.

There is some information on the parsing ELF status message here

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=200456

and here

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1060

and an introduction to ELF here

http://cs.mipt.ru/docs/comp/eng/os/l...f-howto-1.html

Again, I can't explain why it might of hung at that point.

Why did you run fsck?

[watercooled]

I understand you can't rely on a multimeter to detect ripple but I've observed digits changing when substantial ripple is present, and since all digits were static I'd say ripple is likely to be low.

I haven't heard those beeps before or since, not that pattern at least which sounded to rhythmic for average electronics whine.

I originally ran fsck after messing with partitions, specifically removing the 5% reserved root space from the data partition, after which I noticed an increase in the value. Trying it again raised the value again so I gathered the value increase came from reading data from the disk.

That message always appears on boot but on that occasion it was where the boot hung for whatever reason.

[jim]

Full test successfully completed after 6 hours, no issues found

/me breathes sigh of relief

[peterb]

I think the problem now is that you have lost confidence in the drive - and even if it was RMAd and returned with no fault found - you'd still be suspicious.

So, either take a chance and RMA it with the evidence you have so far, and hope that the retailer agrees with you and replaces it - but be prepared to buy a new one anyway if that one does come back with No fault found, and then just put it in a caddy for non-critical stuff.

I had a new drive fail recently - part of a sof raid - and that drive kept on throwing errors (WD). I assume that it was damaged in transit (very badly packed) so that will be RMA'd shortly - but that is the only instance in quite a long time that I have had a brand new drive fail.

(And before you ask - no, I don't have the SMART data to hand - but IIRC it showed high sector remapping - and indication of platter damage on a new drive) But the errors showed up in mdadm and in the kernel message log.

[sadbuttrue]

Weird. Drive is a Samsung F3 500gb (HD502HJ).

1. 3 days ago Raw Read Error Rate = 0
2. Yesterday bad sectors found when scanning with chkdsk. Raw Read Error Rate = 19
3. Running estool found a bad sector (marked by chkdsk) and it recommended a low level format
4. After formatting, estool itself declared the drive to be error free
5. Scanning with chkdsk now finds no bad sectors. Raw Read Error Rate = 20

I'm guessing that if it passes estool after a low level format, there is no grounds for warranty replacement.

Could the error simply be generated by data stored in a corrupt manner as a result of crash/reboot etc? It would explain why a low level format finds nothing wrong.

[watercooled]

I'm not too suspicious of the drive now after other replies indicating positive read error rate values, but I believe Scan charge you if they don't find a fault so I'd be hesitant to send it off if I wasn't sure it was faulty. I may ask around to see if others with F3s also have this issue for more reassurance though.

[sadbuttrue]

Following the low level format and having filled the drive up again, my Raw Read Error Rate has not increased and all tests report healthy.
Scan issued an RMA, but as this is a download/backup drive I'm going to keep it for now.