Trying to make sense of these results

[borisattva]

home build TrueNas suddenly reported a "Reallocated Sectors count > 5" / imminent failure on this drive.

as soon as i connected it to a pc with sentinel installed, it lit up red with the same warning and health rating of 0%

I decided to run a "repair" on it just in case and received this result:

TOSHIBA_DT01ACA200_941EDE7TS_MX4OABB0-surface.jpg (277.04 KiB) Viewed 1725 times

upon completion of what seems like a nearly perfectly healthy result, the drive remains as red in sentinel with the same "imminent failure" warning.

Untitled.png (27.41 KiB) Viewed 1725 times

i say nearly perfect because i have a couple of other drives on a desktop for about 6 years that had more red and yellow dots and still claim to be 87+% healthy.

does anyone have insight they could offer to reconcile these seemingly contradictory results?



also, can this drive be still salvaged? even if not for mission critical uses?
or if it is indeed healthy and is this just some sort of a reporting glitch, to be thrown back into a nas that has double redundancy until i can buy a brand new drive to replace it?

thank you


contents of Information if it helps:

Code: Select all

Hard Disk Summary
Hard Disk Number,1
Interface,JMicron USB/ATA (4K)
Vendor Information,"VID: 152D, PID: 2338"
Disk Controller,"Intel(R) USB 3.1 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.10 (Microsoft) (USB 3.0) [VEN: 8086, DEV: A36D] Version: 10.0.19041.1266, 9-27-2021"
Hard Disk Model ID,TOSHIBA DT01ACA200
Firmware Revision,MX4OABB0
Hard Disk Serial Number,941EDE7TS
Total Size,1907718 MB
Power State,Active

ATA Information
Hard Disk Cylinders,3876021
Hard Disk Heads,16
Hard Disk Sectors,63
ATA Revision,ATA8-ACS version 4
Transport Version,SATA Rev 3.0
Total Sectors,488378646
Bytes Per Sector,4096 [Advanced Format] (4K)
Multiple Sectors,16
Error Correction Bytes,56
Unformatted Capacity,1907729 MB
Maximum PIO Mode,4
Maximum Multiword DMA Mode,2
Highest Possible Transfer Rate,S-ATA Gen3 Signaling Speed (6 Gps)
Negotiated Transfer Rate,S-ATA I Signaling Speed (1.5 Gps)
Minimum multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Recommended Multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time Without IORDY,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time With IORDY,120 ns
ATA Control Byte,Valid
ATA Checksum Value,Valid

Acoustic Management Configuration
Acoustic Management,Not supported
Acoustic Management,Disabled
Current Acoustic Level,Default (00h)
Recommended Acoustic Level,Default (00h)

ATA Features
Read Ahead Buffer,"Supported, Enabled"
DMA,Supported
Ultra DMA,Supported
S.M.A.R.T.,Supported
Power Management,Supported
Write Cache,Supported
Host Protected Area,Supported
HPA Security Extensions,Supported
Advanced Power Management,"Supported, Disabled"
Extended Power Management,"Supported, Enabled"
Power Up In Standby,Supported
48-bit LBA Addressing,Supported
Device Configuration Overlay,Supported
IORDY Support,Supported
Read/Write DMA Queue,Not supported
NOP Command,Supported
Trusted Computing,Not supported
64-bit World Wide ID,5000039FFAD42EFA
Streaming,Supported
Media Card Pass Through,Not supported
General Purpose Logging,Supported
Error Logging,Supported
CFA Feature Set,Not supported
CFast Device,Not supported
Long Physical Sectors (8),Supported
Long Logical Sectors,Not supported
Write-Read-Verify,Not supported
NV Cache Feature,Not supported
NV Cache Power Mode,Not supported
NV Cache Size,Not supported
Free-fall Control,Not supported
Free-fall Control Sensitivity,Not supported
Service Interrupt,Not supported
IDLE IMMEDIATE command with UNLOAD feature,Not supported
Zoned Capabilities,Not supported
SCT Command Transport,Supported
SCT Error Recovery Control,Supported
Nominal Media Rotation Rate,7200 RPM
Nominal Form Factor,3.5 inch

SSD Features
Data Set Management,Not supported
TRIM Command,Not supported
Deterministic Read After TRIM,Not supported
Read Zeroes After TRIM,Not supported

S.M.A.R.T. Details
Off-line Data Collection Status,Suspended By Interrupting Command From Host
Self Test Execution Status,Successfully Completed
Total Time To Complete Off-line Data Collection,14631 seconds
Execute Off-line Immediate,Supported
Abort/restart Off-line By Host,Not supported
Off-line Read Scanning,Supported
Short Self-test,Supported
Extended Self-test,Supported
Conveyance Self-test,Not supported
Selective Self-Test,Supported
Save Data Before/After Power Saving Mode,Supported
Enable/Disable Attribute Autosave,Supported
Error Logging Capability,Supported
Short Self-test Estimated Time,1 minutes
Extended Self-test Estimated Time,244 minutes
Last Short Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Short Self-test Date,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Date,Never Started

Security Mode
Security Mode,Supported
Security Erase,Supported
Security Erase Time,320 minutes
Security Enhanced Erase Feature,Not supported
Security Enhanced Erase Time,Not supported
Security Enabled,No
Security Locked,No
Security Frozen,No
Security Counter Expired,No
Security Level,High
Device Encrypts All User Data,No
Sanitize,Not supported
Overwrite,Not supported
Crypto Scramble,Not supported
Block Erase,Not supported
Sanitize Antifreeze Lock,Not supported
ACS-3 Commands Allowed By Sanitize,No

Serial ATA Features
S-ATA Compliance,Yes
S-ATA I Signaling Speed (1.5 Gps),Supported
S-ATA II Signaling Speed (3 Gps),Supported
S-ATA Gen3 Signaling Speed (6 Gps),Supported
Receipt Of Power Management Requests From Host,Supported
PHY Event Counters,Supported
Non-Zero Buffer Offsets In DMA Setup FIS,"Supported, Disabled"
DMA Setup Auto-Activate Optimization,"Supported, Disabled"
Device Initiating Interface Power Management,"Supported, Disabled"
In-Order Data Delivery,"Supported, Disabled"
Asynchronous Notification,Not supported
Software Settings Preservation,"Supported, Enabled"
Native Command Queuing (NCQ),Supported
Queue Length,32
NCQ Streaming,Not supported
NCQ Autosense,Not supported
Automatic Partial to Slumber Translations,Not supported
Rebuild Assist,Not supported
Hybrid Information,Not supported
Device Sleep (DevSleep),Not supported
DevSleep to ReducedPwrState,Not supported

Disk Information
Disk Family,DT01ACA
Form Factor,"3.5"" "
Capacity,"2 TB (2 x 1,000,000,000,000 bytes)"
Number Of Disks,2
Number Of Heads,4
Rotational Speed,7200 RPM
Rotation Time,8.33 ms
Average Rotational Latency,4.17 ms
Disk Interface,Serial-ATA/600
Buffer-Host Max. Rate,600 MB/seconds
Buffer Size,65536 KB
Drive Ready Time (typical),? seconds
Average Seek Time,? ms
Track To Track Seek Time,0.5 ms
Full Stroke Seek Time,? ms
Width,101.6 mm (4.0 inch)
Depth,147.0 mm (5.8 inch)
Height,26.1 mm (1.0 inch)
Weight,680 grams (1.5 pounds)
Required power for spinup,? mA
Power required (seek),? W
Power required (idle),? W
Power required (standby),? W
Manufacturer,"Toshiba Corp., Storage Device Division"
Manufacturer Website,https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/eu/product/storage-products.html

contents of SMART:

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1,Raw Read Error Rate,16,95,95,OK,00000000000A,0,Enabled
2,Throughput Performance,54,90,90,OK,0000000002D2,0,Enabled
3,Spin Up Time,24,138,138,OK,0005012700FF,0,Enabled
4,Start/Stop Count,0,100,100,OK (Always passing),000000000080,0,Enabled
5,Reallocated Sectors Count,5,1,1,Pre-Failure: Data loss predicted,0000000007CE,0,Enabled
7,Seek Error Rate,67,100,100,OK,000000000000,0,Enabled
8,Seek Time Performance,20,124,124,OK,000000000021,0,Enabled
9,Power On Time Count,0,94,94,OK (Always passing),00000000BE7A,0,Enabled
10,Spin Retry Count,60,100,100,OK,000000000000,0,Enabled
12,Drive Power Cycle Count,0,100,100,OK (Always passing),00000000007F,0,Enabled
192,Power off Retract Cycle Count,0,100,100,OK (Always passing),0000000003B2,0,Enabled
193,Load/Unload Cycle Count,0,100,100,OK (Always passing),0000000003B2,0,Enabled
194,Disk Temperature,0,193,193,OK (Always passing),00300013001F,0,Enabled
196,Reallocation Event Count,0,1,1,OK (Always passing),0000000007F8,0,Enabled
197,Current Pending Sector Count,0,100,100,OK (Always passing),000000000000,0,Enabled
198,Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector Count,0,100,100,OK (Always passing),000000000000,0,Enabled
199,Ultra ATA CRC Error Count,0,200,200,OK (Always passing),000000000001,0,Enabled

[hdsentinel]

Yes, I see. It is a lucky situation, let me explain.

As you can see, Hard Disk Sentinel shows the problems with the hard disk drive causing the very low health. Yes, in such cases, disk testing is always a good idea, exactly to reveal further problems and repair the issues in all possible ways - or confirm if the status seems stable.

Generally when "bad sectors" found, it means that the disk drive replaced the original sector with a spare sector, so following reads/writes (targeting the original bad sectors) will be redirected to this spare area.
This described at (for example): https://www.hdsentinel.com/help/en/57_desc.html (see the "Bad sectors" section) and https://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health

So the "bad sectors" detected by the hard disk and thus reported in the text description are no longer used by the hard disk: they already reallocated.
It means that a spare area is used for all reads and writes targeting those bad sectors, instead of the original sectors. This spare area is originally reserved, so the bad sectors (and the health decrease in general) does not affect the usable capacity.

As you can see, the disk test in Hard Disk Sentinel verified and confirmed that the status is now stable and good: all possible bad sectors already reallocated and yes, in ideal world, the disk drive can be considered "perfect": all problems stabilized so following surface tests (even the surface test in Hard Disk Sentinel) show no problems.
This is good and (ideally expected), as this way you can be sure that the original (bad) area does not contain important data and can't risk data loss.

Ideally in this situation we can say the drive is "perfect" (as all sectors seem working with no problems). Generally manufacturers allow more or less such bad sectors and may offer replacement only if the amount of such bad sectors reach a threshold (when hard disk health is 0% in Hard Disk Sentinel). When this threshold reached, it means that the amount of bad sectors are high enough (the spare area is nearly full) so further problems may not be corrected this way.

Please note that most hard disks fail completely long before reaching this error-level threshold or "just" serious data corruption/data loss happens. If your drive seems working correctly even with 0% health, then you're lucky, this is rare. Generally when the amount of bad sectors is high - then we can expect more and more with time.

As this error-level already reached, the drive is considered as "bad". The 0% health and the information in the text description confirms that:

> Replace hard disk immediately.
> It is recommended to backup immediately to prevent data loss.

In this situation, you may ask for warranty replacement (if the hard disk still has warranty) because the hard disk is considered "bad".

If you'd connect the disk drive to an internal SATA port, a new operating system installation may not be possible at all and the computer would likely display a warning notification before boot, indicating that hard disk drive failure may occur soon. The NAS may also show warning (and may refuse to accept the drive) because of the error level threshold reached.

So even if the disk drive seems "perfect", I'd not recommend to use it for storage of important data. Maybe only for non-critical data as there is good chance that new and new issues will be detected with time. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but likely in the future - and these can cause data corruption / data loss.