Device Specific Information
By using Disk menu Device Specific Information function it possible to detect and report additional information about the actual hard disk drive / solid state drive / hybrid drive. (Note: requires registered version of Hard Disk Sentinel Professional to fully utilise this function). This information can be useful for advanced users to verify possible previous errors and general lifetime of a disk drive if used in a different system without active hard disk monitoring by Hard Disk Sentinel.
The Device Specific Information window generally displays
- last error timestamp and error free hours (see below)
- the internal error log of the hard disk drive / SSD
- the status/result of previous internal hardware self test(s)
- device statistics collected during the operation (total amount of read/written data, start/stop cycles)
- functionality/features and current operating conditions, cache (buffer) size
- utilization type (read/write) and limit (for example 550 terabytes/year)
- temperature statistics, absolute maximum/minimum temperature limits, average temperatures
- current list of pending (weak) sectors
- time-limited error recovery (TLER) values
- additional, status, statistics depending on the device connection/type (see below)
The amount of information (and the level of detail) depends on the hard disk drive / SSD: some disk drives can record and provide much more details than others. The disk controller/connection can also affect the operation: RAID configuration and some USB adapters/enclosures may cause that only limited information can be detected and reported. Generally SATA/IDE devices report more details than NVMe/SCSI/SAS drives.
Care must be taken to interpret the results as the displayed errors may cause false assumptions: sometimes perfect hard disk drives can log errors. This is generally normal and does not automatically indicate serious problems: in many cases compatibility issues, cable/connection problems or simply a bad chipset driver can cause that the disk drive may record problems in the internal error log. However, if the error may points on an actual sector of the disk drive, then the appropriate sector is (at least) suspicious - and listed at the end of the Device Specific Information page. These sectors are first examined and verified by the Quick Fix function too.
Error free hours
As some disk drives record a timestamp about when an error happened/recorded (in terms of power on time of the disk drive, not by recording the actual date/time) Hard Disk Sentinel uses these information to determine when the last error recorded - and also show how long time passed since the last error recorded as "error-free". This information may be not always possible (as some disk drives do not count/record such timestamp), but for most SATA/IDE hard disks and SSDs this can indicate how long the drive worked without any, even minor glitches.
Changes, possible degradations
Hard Disk Sentinel automatically records the information detected and reported when the Device Specific Information function used. When the window later re-opened, the changes since last check showed, for example [+5] in the appropriate line means +5 in the reported value (for example the amount of errors). It is also possible to re-load any previous log of the drive to examine possible changes, degradations, new issues.
Information reported by Device Specific Information
- Power on time when last error detected/logged by the hard disk/SSD (registered version only)
- Time since last error detected/logged by the hard disk/SSD (registered version only)
- Sector(s) where errors happened previously and their location by block number on the disk surface map (registered version only)
- ATA error log: last known errors, their description, registers, error details, last commands before error
- ATA self test log: last disk self tests, self test results and details (registered version only)
- ATA drive statistics: lifetime details, errors, temperature statistics
- ATA drive statistics: rotating media statistics (hard disk drives) or solid state device statistics (SSDs)
- ATA drive disk utilization and absolute limits for amount of reads/writes and temperature limits (if defined by the manufacturer)
- ATA drive temperature statistics, last known recorded temperature values
- ATA drive additional features and functionality supported by the hard disk drive/SSD
- NVMe error log
- NVMe self test log: last disk self tests, test results and possible error details (registered version only)
- SCSI/SAS defect list information
- SCSI/SAS background scan status information, protocol specific port information
Examples of Disk menu -> Device Specific Information
Uncorrectable read errors detected and logged on SATA hard disk drive
Internal self test (short self test, extended self test) log on SATA hard disk drive
Device statistics, temperature statistics on SATA hard disk drive
Device functionality and features, utilization type and limit on SATA hard disk drive
Current pending defects log (weak sector list) on SATA hard disk drive
Uncorrectable read errors detected and logged on NVMe SSD
Internal self test log (short/extended self tests) on NVMe SSD
Grown defect list and SAS details on a SAS hard disk drive