Faulty Force?

[Whoop]

I recently purchase a Corsair Force F120 (Tuesday) from Scan and have just installed it into my PC.
Upon running S.M.A.R.T. it reports that it has 830 reallocated bad sectors.

I've been asking around and it appears that most people who have SSDs have no reallocated sectors showing in SMART, although couldn't find anyone with the same drive as me (most had Intel X-25's). Is this to be expected, does SMART not support the Corsair Force yet or should I RMA this immediately?

Thanks

[Yellowbeard]

What utility are you using to check the SMART status? Are you seeing any issues with the drive?

[Whoop]

Utility isn't really relevant as SMART is generic but I've tried both "Disk Utility" and smartmontools, both report the same thing.

Not seeing any problems currently, but then again I haven't used it much due to fear of this issue and I'd be unlikely to notice bad sectors anyhow, it'd just result in a smaller drive.

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 114 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 82372026
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 095 095 003 Pre-fail Always - 832
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 164376988352707
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 48

[Yellowbeard]

Actually, utility is relevant as most disk utilities in general are not specifically updated for SSDs yet which is why I ask. Have you tried locating and repairing the bad sectors? If you want to replace the drive, we certainly don't mind but I'd be skeptical until more current SSD specific utilities are available.

[Whoop]

Have you any advise on a specific SMART utility that might do a better job?

Unsure on the best application to use to attempt to repair the sectors, with a mechanical drive I'd use SpinRite - but not sure its technology would work on an SSD.
Could you advise?

Thanks

[Yellowbeard]

Have you any advise on a specific SMART utility that might do a better job?

Not at this time but I'll post when I do.

Unsure on the best application to use to attempt to repair the sectors, with a mechanical drive I'd use SpinRite - but not sure its technology would work on an SSD.
Could you advise?

Thanks

Try the OS, Checkdisk.

[Whoop]

I don't run Windows and thats not the sort of thing you can run in wine :-(

I'm not sure chkdsk is capable of fixing hardware problems anyhow, isn't that file system problems? I've reformatted the drive multiple times to no affect.

Whats the stance with RMA's? If I keep the disk for say a year and then discover it has problems caused by these bad sectors - can I then return it? Or am I best returning it now in case this does turnout to cause problems?

[Yellowbeard]

You may want to use something like Parted Magic to do a secure erase then check it againafter a reinstallation or reimaging. The warranty is good for 3 years so you are covered.

[Whoop]

Good to know, thanks. I might give the secure erase a go sometime soon (I presume by secure erase you mean zeroing out all sectors?), would rather not currently due to it being my primary drive on my primary PC - thus has my OS on etc.

Thanks for your help Yellowbeard, much appreciated.