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robman50
join:2010-12-14

robman50

Member

[hard drive] Does anyone know how to read the SMART data?

I was wondering what all this info means. Does it mean my drive is still good? or is it time to go shoppong?
The 3rd one is the spin up time. Should it be a better value?

Computer name: localHost. IP: 127.0.0.1
Device Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 SMART Info (ID/Value/Raw Value/Worst/Treshold)
1 100 0 100 16
2 100 0 100 54
3 124 38684197339 124 24
4 100 1145 100 0
5 100 0 100 5
7 100 0 100 67
8 100 0 100 20
9 100 3051 100 0
10 100 0 100 60
12 100 1119 100 0
192 100 1159 100 0
193 100 1159 100 0
194 130 46 127 0
196 100 0 100 0
197 100 0 100 0
198 100 0 100 0
199 200 0 200 0
------------------------

Veloslave
Geek For God
Premium Member
join:2003-07-11
Martinez, CA

Veloslave

Premium Member

Just download a copy of Hiren's boot disk and run Maxtor powermax from it and use the advanced test (powermax works w all brands of HD's) and go by what it says... passed or failed. It does not, like some HD manufactures diagnostic apps find and "repair" a bad sector which is pretty much pure BS... they are fixing a bad HD.

You just need to know if it is good or bad.
robman50
join:2010-12-14

robman50

Member

Hatachi DFT says the drive is good, GWSCAN says errors have been repaired. But GWSCAN looks like the WD DLG.

JimE
Premium Member
join:2003-06-11
Belleville, IL

JimE to robman50

Premium Member

to robman50
HD test tools determine if the drive hardware is good or bad. So if they pass, the drive should be good to use.

After knowing whether or not the drive is good, there can still be bad sectors or other file corruption. A normal format (ie: not a quick format) or zeroing the drive, will get the bad sectors remapped and they will no longer be used.

SMART data is just informative and is not always indicative of any problems. Test the HDD, if it passes, then troubleshoot any other issues you are seeing based on the symptoms.
robman50
join:2010-12-14

robman50

Member

said by JimE:

After knowing whether or not the drive is good, there can still be bad sectors or other file corruption. A normal format (ie: not a quick format) or zeroing the drive, will get the bad sectors remapped and they will no longer be used.

I am running the Hitachi DFT now, I had to set the BIOS from AHCI mode to IDE mode so the program can see the drive.
It is erasing the disk now, would that correct the errors?
Could the file access in windows be slow due to SATA/AHCI/Chipset driver?

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu to robman50

MVM

to robman50
What SMART utility output data in that format? It looks like the syntax is "Attribute# Current RAW_DATA Worst Threshold", but I'm not sure.

I'm probably the most proficient around here when it comes to reading and properly interpreting the data, but I'm not sure what gave you the output in question.
robman50
join:2010-12-14

1 edit

robman50

Member

It was Active@ Disk Monitor
»www.disk-monitor.com/

I really don't know of any others.
supergeeky
join:2003-05-09
United State

supergeeky to robman50

Member

to robman50
This may provide you slightly more human-readable information: »www.ariolic.com/activesm ··· dex.html

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu to robman50

MVM

to robman50
There are a multitude of other SMART monitoring and attribute gathering softwares out there.

Chances are Hitachi disks encode the RAW_VALUE field, so a very large value is completely legitimate. You have to understand that SMART attributes are not standardised per ACS/ATA standard -- they can be encoded in any way, and vendors do take advantage of this fact. Some software, such as smartmontools (only works on 2K/XP), know how to decode some of the raw values, but most others do not. Seagate tends to encode their attributes as well, such as their Hardware_ECC_Recovered attribute.

TL;DR -- if you see a very large RAW_VALUE field, chances are it could be encoded in said fashion. In this situation all you can do is look at the adjusted value (often labelled "Current" or "VALUE") and go off of that.

It's important that users know how to read SMART data before worrying about their hard disks. So many people just look at RAW_VALUE and go "OMG!!!!! IT'S 982348942393849283942893248932498324!@!$!%@!" and think it means something bad. That isn't the case.
robman50
join:2010-12-14

robman50

Member

My drive does sound loud but I forgot I disabled AAM/APM.
Access can be slow but that can be the O/S.
As for the SMART data, that one program gave my drive a 62% because of the spindle spinup. But maybe the 62% is still called a pass?

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu

MVM

said by robman50:

My drive does sound loud but I forgot I disabled AAM/APM.
Access can be slow but that can be the O/S.
As for the SMART data, that one program gave my drive a 62% because of the spindle spinup. But maybe the 62% is still called a pass?

No. The software that you used is simply broken and makes the incorrect assumption that RAW_VALUE is equal to a literal value/number. As I described, this is not always the case, as SMART attributes can be encoded in any form (they are not standardised). My recommendation is to avoid the software in question and use something that doesn't try to "warn" you based on silly/bad assumptions of a developer who obviously doesn't understand SMART or read ACS/ATA specifications.
robman50
join:2010-12-14

robman50

Member

The manufacture diagnostics gave the drive a pass and so did the OEM diagnostics.
So I guess thats good enough?

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu to robman50

MVM

to robman50
I'm not sure why we're still discussing this *laugh*.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the RAW_VALUE field containing a very high number for Attribute 3. It does not indicate there is something wrong with your drive, and any software which tells you otherwise is wrong/broken/designed incorrectly. Again, it's because raw attribute data (RAW_VALUE) can be encoded in any format the vendor chooses; there is no standard. Manufacturer utilities probably know how to decode RAW_VALUE into something sane, but it certainly varies per vendor.

In the above scenario, the only data you can rely on is what's labelled VALUE in said software, and compare it to THRESH. VALUE, WORST, and THRESH are what's known as "adjusted values", based on vendor-specific formulas that are undocumented.

VALUE represents the "current adjusted value" of the attribute, WORST represents the worst VALUE ever seen, and THRESH indicates the point when, if VALUE exceeds it, the overall SMART health status for the disk will trip/fail. Some attributes increment as they get worse, others decrement (see screen shot, example Attribute 3; VALUE=186, THRESH=21) -- again, it varies per vendor and even per drive model. I cannot stress this last point enough.

WORST is often set to something generally absurd; meaning the chance of it being reached (tripping) is extremely low. Vendors appear to do this solely to diminish the number of RMAs they get / gain the highest financial yield on drives in the field. For example, I've seen some disks where Attribute 5's RAW_VALUE is an excessively high number (and isn't encoded), yet VALUE was still far, far away from reaching THRESH, and the disk was seeing more and more blocks go bad.

There's literally nothing you can do about this other than learn how to read attributes correctly; with SMART, a human being familiar with attribute data will almost certainly be more reliable than software trying to achieve the same. I do not use SMART software to "monitor my disk for problems" -- I use smartmontools to show me the SMART data associated with my disks and *I* interpret the results. I advocate strongly that everyone else do the same.

And to reiterate: each SMART attribute is different. To read SMART reliably, you have to become familiar with each manufacturer/vendor and many models of hard disks. WD, Seagate, Maxtor (pre and post-Seagate buyout) Hitachi, IBM (pre and post-Hitachi buyout), Fujitsu, Samsung, Intel SSDs, OCZ SSDs, Crucial SSDs, etc. all differ -- then on top of that, each drive model can differ. So, you just have to get familiar with your disks and know what's what. The lack of ACS/ATA standard for SMART data, formulas, etc. is the core reason for this.

Here's a perfect example, with a Seagate disk, of a user "freaking out" and reading RAW_VALUE literally. Attributes 7, 0xBE, and 0xC3 are all vendor-encoded. None of their VALUEs have exceeded THRESH. Does that mean the drive is healthy? Most likely, but it depends on the attribute. In the users' case, there is nothing wrong with the disk at all (it looks perfect).
robman50
join:2010-12-14

robman50

Member

ok thanks.
i'm sure there is nothing wrong with it.