# Reallocated Sectors Count - Time for a new HDD?



## Flogger23m (Sep 11, 2020)

Was checking my drives and noticed my HDD has some errors for Reallocated Sectors Count. Backing up all data currently. Is this drive essentially on its way out? Only used for about two years, maybe less, so a bit disappointed it lasted so short.







What is the best 7200 RPM drive these days? Have an X300 6TB but it is horrifically loud, which I use for backup. Are the WD Black 6TBs very loud as well? Any Seagate model worth looking into? This will be a storage drive for data. OS/programs/games go on the SSDs.

Looking at these drives:

Seagate Ironwolf 6TB
WD Black 6TB

Seagate is a good bit cheaper, $10 more for 6TB over a 4TB WD Black, or $40 cheaper than a 6TB WD Black. Have had great luck with WD Black drives, used one for 6+ years before without issue. I'm not just too keen on spending a lot on HDDs these days as I was hoping to switch to SSDs 2-3 years down the road completely (except for backup). Didn't think this Toishiba drive would start getting issues this soon.


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## biffzinker (Sep 11, 2020)

Flogger23m said:


> Is this drive essentially on its way out?


I wouldn’t be relying on the drive for storing any critical data when it starts reallocating sectors.

You might want to look at a two drive mirroring setup.

Edit: I recently moved from a 3TB Toshiba external too a Western Digital Mybook 8TB that might have a enterprise grade drive in the case.


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## R-T-B (Sep 11, 2020)

I'd say drive is on it's way out, but you could still use it for nonessential storage if the number does not rise.  Never use it for essential again though.


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## Komshija (Sep 11, 2020)

It doesn't have to be. My WD Black on my other PC has two reallocated sectors with close to 15 000 power on hours. It has been running for two years without problems.

If your HDD starts reallocating more sectors, it could become a problem. On the other hand my Toshiba X300 4TB, same as yours, has 0 problems and close to 18 000 power on hours.


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## Flogger23m (Sep 11, 2020)

Komshija said:


> It doesn't have to be. My WD Black on my other PC has two reallocated sectors with close to 15 000 power on hours. It has been running for two years without problems.
> 
> If your HDD starts reallocating more sectors, it could become a problem. On the other hand my Toshiba X300 4TB, same as yours, has 0 problems and close to 18 000 power on hours.



Yeah I'm going to monitor it. Bit disappointed in show short this one lasted. Just don't really have the desire to spend $150 for another 4TB at the moment, or around $200 for a 6TB. Will be looking for deals because I do want to get one sooner rather than later. Any good deals on 7200 RPM internal HDDs?

I'm sure Toshiba drives are mostly okay, but around the same time I bought an X300 6TB that made a thunking sound every 6 or so seconds, sent that one back for a replacement which I use for back ups. Works fine so far but I don't keep it plugged in all the time. But in my very limited experience, I just haven't had much luck with Toshiba drives it seems.


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## biffzinker (Sep 11, 2020)

Flogger23m said:


> I'm sure Toshiba drives are mostly okay, but around the same time I bought an X300 6TB that made a thunking sound every 6 or so seconds, sent that one back for a replacement which I use for back ups.


The 3 TB Toshiba I replaced I noticed would do background maintenance on the drive after any writes comitted to the drive. After 20-30 minutes a low volume head seeking chatter from the drive would stop.


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## karakarga (Sep 11, 2020)

Try using Hard Disk Sentinel. If it says around %60, you can use for many years. If says health is zero, replace it immediately. It will warn you with  "failure predicted" message momentarily. But, those health zero messages sometimes result of bad cooling and irreversible, smart records it and marks. After providing enough cooling, many drives still works for many more years at that situation. Trial version is enough by the way....


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## hellrazor (Sep 11, 2020)

Depends on whether this is the first time you looked at the SMART attributes or not, I would never consider 8 reallocated sectors to be interesting unless they happened all at once.


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## Assimilator (Sep 11, 2020)

Flogger23m said:


> This will be a storage drive for data. OS/programs/games go on the SSDs.
> 
> Looking at these drives:
> 
> ...



If it's a storage drive i.e. speed isn't critical, why are you looking at expensive NAS drives to replace it? A WD Blue 4TB is currently $85 from the Egg.


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## Tomgang (Sep 11, 2020)

When it's sector's there are warning about. I will not use it any more. Continue use can in worst case lead to corrupt data/lost data. Only use it for data you can lose with out crying about or replace it. Also take backup as soon as possible.


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## Flogger23m (Sep 12, 2020)

hellrazor said:


> Depends on whether this is the first time you looked at the SMART attributes or not, I would never consider 8 reallocated sectors to be interesting unless they happened all at once.



I'm not sure the last time I checked it, but it certainly didn't have 8 the last time I did.

Running the Toshiba Storage Diagnostic Tool, will see if it displays any useful information.



Assimilator said:


> If it's a storage drive i.e. speed isn't critical, why are you looking at expensive NAS drives to replace it? A WD Blue 4TB is currently $85 from the Egg.



Seems like aside from WD Blacks, there are no more 7200 RPM drives that aren't NAS unless I am missing something. Would prefer not to go with another X300 personally.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 12, 2020)

Flogger23m said:


> Was checking my drives and noticed my HDD has some errors for Reallocated Sectors Count. Backing up all data currently. Is this drive essentially on its way out? Only used for about two years, maybe less, so a bit disappointed it lasted so short.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You might want to download and run the Toshiba drive utility as a way of a second opinion. CrystalDisk Is a great utility but does get things wrong from time to time.





						Downloads & Product Archive - EMEA Region – Toshiba Storage Solutions
					

EMEA Region Toshiba Storage Solutions. Here you can download technical Datasheets, product manuals, images, certain software and further product related documents.




					www.toshiba-storage.com
				



Select your drive model from the drop down menu and grab the "Toshiba Storage Diagnostic Tool".



biffzinker said:


> Western Digital Mybook 8TB that might have a enterprise grade drive in the case.


These are great drives. Should you need a replacement, this is a great option for mass storage.


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## djisas (Sep 12, 2020)

Had a seagate 500Gb drive run for years on relocated sectors and it was an active hdd mainly for downloads, sold it out cheap and haven't heard back from it...

I dont trust seagate for my data now, WD sems to be having a lot of bad coverage lately, Toshiba and HSGT always seemed to be the better drives...

Personally, im sticking with WD right now, have a 4TB red for storage and im thinking on adding another 1TB blue nvme and replace another HDD, quality\price looks unbeatable right now...


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## Flogger23m (Sep 12, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> You might want to download and run the Toshiba drive utility as a way of a second opinion. CrystalDisk Is a great utility but does get things wrong from time to time.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ran both the full scan and the quick scan, both came back as a Pass.





Doesn't give anymore details than "PASS" though.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 12, 2020)

Flogger23m said:


> Ran both the full scan and the quick scan, both came back as a Pass.
> 
> View attachment 168426
> 
> Doesn't give anymore details than "PASS" though.


That simply means that the drive has passed Toshiba's requirements for proper operation, which are a tad on the stringent side. I'd say the drive is fine. Reallocated sectors is something that happens on mechanical hard drives as time goes on and is automatically handled by the drive controller. All HDDs come from the factory that way because no disk platter is ever completely perfect. Carry on using the drive as you were. Keep checking it every 6 months though.


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## Aquinus (Sep 12, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> These are great drives. Should you need a replacement, this is a great option for mass storage.


+1 on this. I have two of these still in the enclosures. These drives have excellent performance for 5.4k RPM drives. Their sequential read/write speeds are definitely better than the 1TB blacks that I have. The only down side to buying the MyBook then shucking the enclosure is the warranty.


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## kiriakost (Sep 12, 2020)

Reallocated Sectors Count this is not critical so to be considered as damage.
Every hard drive it can produce an new Reallocated Sectors Count, because few sectors on a platter they failed performing according to highest standards.
After of first or second year of operation, then there is no more a new Reallocated Sectors Count.
All sectors over a platter they have been tested at write and delete at several occasions, and the recorded as good ones, they will stay that way for many more years.

Example:  The recorded  Reallocated Sectors Count this is now *fifteen years old.*


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 12, 2020)

I would not use a hard drive with any reallocated sectors... however it could still be useful for say installing Windows 10 on a Windows 7 machine just to activate a digital license.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 12, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I would not use a hard drive with any reallocated sectors...


Then don't use ANY hard drive from ANY manufacturer because they ALL have reallocated sectors fresh from the factory. The rest of us who understand the technology and how it works will continue to to happily enjoy the hard drives we buy for years to come.


Anwar.Shiekh said:


> however it could still be useful for say installing Windows 10 on a Windows 7 machine just to activate a digital license.


That's just silly and a waste.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 12, 2020)

I am aware that there are hidden reallocations from new, but if one sees further degradation it may be foolish to risk using the drive if it is mission critical. When I purchase a second hand drive if there are any reallocated sectors reported, I will not use that drive; when one of my car headlamp bulbs fails, I change both as the remaining one is likely near to failure.

Concerning 'that's just silly and a waste'
I have a colleague that wants to upgrade to Windows 10 (from 7) and don't want to leave him in a mess, so I would use the old drive to make sure his machine had a valid Windows 10 digital license; if that failed I could just reinstall his original drive and he would not be left in a bind.


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## Aquinus (Sep 12, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I am aware that there are hidden reallocations from new, but if one sees further degradation it may be foolish to risk using the drive if it is mission critical.


You do realize that unless it's increasing or really large, it's not bad or unexpected. I'm not going to care if my drive has reallocated 8 sectors out of 2147483648 on a 1TB disk. I'm going to care if it's going up by 8 an hour or day.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 12, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> but if one sees further degradation it may be foolish to risk using the drive if it is mission critical.


Except that *ALL* storage drives "degrade". HDDs and SSDs alike. In fact SSDs degrade *faster* than HDDs. Sectors on a HDD platter will fail as a drive ages but that does NOT mean the drive will suddenly implode. The oldest drive I own is from 2004 and it still runs perfectly. It does have a bunch of bad sectors but that's it's only problem.



Anwar.Shiekh said:


> When one of my car headlamp bulbs fails, I change both as the remaining one is likely near to failure.


That is like comparing Apples to Oranges and is an invalid comparison.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 12, 2020)

As I understand it a reallocated sector is information lost; I consider that serious and would not consider that 'runs perfectly'.

The SSD argument interests me greatly.

Invalid? One failure is an indication of other impending failures.



Aquinus said:


> I'm not going to care if my drive has reallocated 8 sectors out of 2147483648 on a 1TB disk.



For me just one bit lost is reason for concern, even if it is out of 1 TB


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 12, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> As I understand it a reallocated sector is information lost


That is incorrect. Sectors are marked bad, remarked out of the TOC and replaced with a "Z-sector" from a section of the platter reserved for reallocation purposes. The data in the detected suspect sector is then copied, intact most of the time, to the newly reallocated sector. When a drive runs out of Z-sectors the drive controller will then simply mark a sector as bad and copy the data to an empty already allocated sector.



Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I consider that serious and would not consider that 'runs perfectly'.


If you're talking about a massive amount of sectors going defective in a short period of time, then yes that is a problem. For a few here and there over time, it's not serious and such a drive would still be considered working perfectly.


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## Aquinus (Sep 12, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> As I understand it a reallocated sector is information lost; I consider that serious and would not consider that 'runs perfectly'.


*Reallocated sectors does not mean lost data*. Only pending sectors to be reallocated that aren't results in lost data. No pending sector reallocation and no uncorrectable sector counts means no data was lost. Data from these unreliable sectors is moved to the new sector and only when it can't be moved or recovered, does it mark it as unrecoverable, but reallocated sectors means that it was moved without issue.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 12, 2020)

Aquinus said:


> and only when it can't be moved or recovered, does it mark it as unrecoverable, but reallocated sectors means that it was moved without issue.


That is only partly true. When a drive controller detects a defect or a failing sector that has not yet failed, it will attempt to copy the data in said sector to an nearby sector that is marked as "free" or "unused" and will then mark the failing or defective sector as bad.



Anwar.Shiekh said:


> The SSD argument interests me greatly.


That one is simple. NAND cells have a limited number of Program/Erase cycles. When the cell wears out, it becomes non-functional. SLC, is the most durable as well manufactured SLC can easily last 200,000 P/E cycles. MLC can last up to 30,000 cycles(depending on how it's made and used). TLC can last up to 8,000 cycles. QLC is literal garbage as it will last only upto 1,100(at best). QLC should NEVER be used for mission critical or OS storage.

This was off topic but I wanted to address your comment...


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## djisas (Sep 12, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> That is only partly true. When a drive controller detects a defect or a failing sector that has not yet failed, it will attempt to copy the data in said sector to an nearby sector that is marked as "free" or "unused" and will then mark the failing or defective sector as bad.
> 
> 
> That one is simple. NAND cells have a limited number of Program/Erase cycles. When the cell wears out, it become non-functional. SLC, is the most durable as well manufacture SLC can easily last 200,000 P/E cycles. MLC can last up to 30,000 cycles(depending on how it's made and used). TLC can last up to 8,000 cycles. QLC is literal garbage as it will last only upto 1,100. QLC should NEVER be used for mission critical or OS storage.
> ...



Deviating a little from the main topic, how does 3D NAND from WD\ Toshiba compare to QLC?


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 12, 2020)

djisas said:


> Deviating a little from the main topic, how does 3D NAND from WD\ Toshiba compare to QLC?


Simple comparison? 3D-TLC is vastly superior to QLC(all QLC is 3D AFAIK). 3D-TLC is good if you replace your drives every 3 or 4 years. QLC should only be used for incidental storage, IE, storage you don't write to very often like external USB drives or a drive in your system that acts as a secondary/backup/mass storage drive. *Don't* use QLC as a primary boot drive or working drive for frequent use scratch/temp storage.

3D-MLC is vastly superior to 3D-TLC. Simple advice, pay more and get MLC based drives if you want your drive to last you a long time. Full stop.


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## Aquinus (Sep 12, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> That is only partly true. When a drive controller detects a defect or a failing sector that has not yet failed, it will attempt to copy the data in said sector to an nearby sector that is marked as "free" or "unused" and will then mark the failing or defective sector as bad.


Sure, but there is a different SMART attribute that describes the cases when copying from the bad sector fails and that's not the reallocated sector count, which was my point. Basically just having reallocated sectors alone is not a bad thing unless it's constantly growing or one of the other more critical attributes starts growing.


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## R-T-B (Sep 12, 2020)

I tend to be on the paranoid side.

If a drive has reallocated sectors, it is backed up.  Immediately.

I may still use it.  The drive may be fine.  But if nothing else, it's an excuse to backup, and that's never a bad thing.


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## Flogger23m (Sep 13, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> That simply means that the drive has passed Toshiba's requirements for proper operation, which are a tad on the stringent side. I'd say the drive is fine. Reallocated sectors is something that happens on mechanical hard drives as time goes on and is automatically handled by the drive controller. All HDDs come from the factory that way because no disk platter is ever completely perfect. Carry on using the drive as you were. Keep checking it every 6 months though.



Thanks. I backed up everything. Will probably replace it but won't rush out to buy one tonight. Will hope for a sale in the coming weeks and replace when a good deal comes along.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 13, 2020)

Flogger23m said:


> Thanks. I backed up everything. Will probably replace it but won't rush out to buy one tonight. Will hope for a sale in the coming weeks and replace when a good deal comes along.


Seriously, if Toshiba's own utility tells you you're fine, you're fine. No need to worry at all.


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## Aquinus (Sep 13, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> If a drive has reallocated sectors, it is backed up. Immediately.


It shouldn't matter if you're already backing your stuff up regularly.


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## R-T-B (Sep 13, 2020)

Aquinus said:


> It shouldn't matter if you're already backing your stuff up regularly.



Some stuff is.  But some isn't.  Some doesn't even need to be.  Priorities.  Odds of failure factor in too, which drive health is part of.


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## Rei (Sep 13, 2020)

djisas said:


> Deviating a little from the main topic, how does 3D NAND from WD\ Toshiba compare to QLC?


3D NAND is a stacking technology & is not a direct comparison to MLCs. Basically, it is a complementary technology to support longevity of MLCs.


lexluthermiester said:


> QLC should only be used for incidental storage, IE, storage you don't write to very often like external USB drives or a drive in your system that acts as a secondary/backup/mass storage drive. *Don't* use QLC as a primary boot drive or working drive for frequent use scratch/temp storage.


Obviously, I don't have QLC drives, but if I did have one, I would still use it as an OS drive as for my use case scenario even with only 1000 PE cycle it most likely still last me 5+ years. I'm not much of a gamer nor do I install/uninstall alotta software & for the non drive-intensive software, I usually install on a separate mechanical HDD anyway, nor do I shuffle files around in SSD, basically, I'm more of a casual user. I'm also keeping in mind to TRIM regularly to not shorten expected lifespan. Other than that, If a user does the opposite of my use case scenario, then yeah, don't use QLC drive. Of course, this is all basic figures. We will see how well each companies can leverage QLC with "lifespan lengthening" technology.
While using it as secondary drive is fine but using it as backup drive is prolly a bad call. Not only will mechanical HDD last longer, it is also cheaper.


Anwar.Shiekh said:


> As I understand it a reallocated sector is information lost; I consider that serious and would not consider that 'runs perfectly'.
> One failure is an indication of other impending failures.
> For me just one bit lost is reason for concern, even if it is out of 1 TB


Reallocated sector count may be an indication of impending failure but it not an indication that the drive itself is failing. As long as the number doesn't just sporadically rise, then it should be fine for years to come. One of my laptop & it's IDE drive is manufactured in 2002 but it still is running WinXP just fine even with a few reallocated sectors.


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## Aquinus (Sep 13, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> Some stuff is.  But some isn't.  Some doesn't even need to be.  Priorities.  Odds of failure factor in too, which drive health is part of.


Nah. With a good backup strategy it shouldn't matter and you should always maintain a backup even if your drives are fine because tomorrow they might not be.


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## ExcuseMeWtf (Sep 13, 2020)

Flogger23m said:


> Thanks. I backed up everything. Will probably replace it but won't rush out to buy one tonight. Will hope for a sale in the coming weeks and replace when a good deal comes along.



Keep watching regularly if reallocated/unrecoverable/pending count isn't increasing. If it is, then yeah, it's high time for a new drive.


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## djisas (Sep 13, 2020)

I've lost two laptop drives with unrecoverable data, not mine but died while attempting diagnosing and backing up, the symptoms where major slowness of the system, inability to even run explorer reliably without crashing, I don't remember if managed to run any smart test on them and connecting one of them to my own pc caused a major crash and required windows to be reinstalled on the desktop.

But on the other hand, had 2 seagate 7200.12 500GB showing reallocated sectors run for years without slowing down, sold them for cheap and never had any complain.

On the other hand, I'm slowly replacing my sata drivers with nvme and im looking to add a second 1TB WD SN550, I guess it will be mostly a storage unit, and will use an EVO860 as a download drive...
There are some interesting units from pny and Team with 1600TBW for a 1TB unit...


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## Rei (Sep 13, 2020)

djisas said:


> I've lost two laptop drivers with unrecoverable data, not mine but died while attempting diagnosing and backing up, the symptoms where major slowness of the system, inability to even run explorer reliably without crashing, I don't remember if managed to run any smart test on them and connecting one of them to my own pc caused a major crash and required windows to be reinstalled on the desktop.
> 
> But on the other hand, had 2 seagate 7200.12 500GB showing reallocated sectors run for years without slowing down, sold them for cheap and never had any complain.


I assume you meant two laptop "drives", not "drivers"? There could be a number of reason why those drives crashed without a proper diagnostic. Should've done a thorough check for future reference.
There shouldn't be any cause for concern if he count for sectors that have been reallocated is minor & doesn't show much signs of rising count.


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## djisas (Sep 13, 2020)

Rei said:


> I assume you meant two laptop "drives", not "drivers"? There could be a number of reason why those drives crashed without a proper diagnostic. Should've done a thorough check for future reference.
> There shouldn't be any cause for concern if he count for sectors that have been reallocated is minor & doesn't show much signs of rising count.



Fixed, ty...
When I got my hand on the laptops, I could not run them properly so tried to plug them to the desktop directly but they died before anything could be done with normal hardware\software, if the drives don't show on bios, nothing can be done anymore on my part...


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## Rei (Sep 13, 2020)

djisas said:


> Fixed, ty...
> When I got my hand on the laptops, I could not run them properly so tried to plug them to the desktop directly but they died before anything could be done with normal hardware\software, if the drives don't show on bios, nothing can be done anymore on my part...


Then it's unlikely to be sector reallocation problem. It's likely that they are just straight-up dead. It could also be connection issue but I'd guess that the drive's board is the cause of death in most cases like that symptom.


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## R-T-B (Sep 13, 2020)

Aquinus said:


> Nah. With a good backup strategy it shouldn't matter and you should always maintain a backup even if your drives are fine because tomorrow they might not be.



When 90% of your data is steam games, that becomes quite excessive.


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## djisas (Sep 13, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> When 90% of your data is steam games, that becomes quite excessive.



Only backup I do is saves and I like to backup some program setting too, the roaming folder usually is the only backup I need from C: and w\e left on the desktop...


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## Aquinus (Sep 13, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> When 90% of your data is steam games, that becomes quite excessive.


Then don't backup steam. That doesn't stop you from maintaining a backup for the stuff you care about on that drive. My point is that there is absolutely no reason to avoid maintaining a backup. It doesn't have to be for the entire drive, but you should maintain one if there is anything on that drive you care about, regardless of the state of the drive, because a failure can occur even without warning signs.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 13, 2020)

Aquinus said:


> because a failure can occur even without warning signs.


TRUTH!!


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## kiriakost (Sep 13, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I would not use a hard drive with any reallocated sectors...



You seem reacting here as you do also at the other forum that you are member at, in which you talk too much with out cost for your wallet.
You may confirm what ever information seems strange to you, by reading Hard-drive related technical white papers.

From the other hand, to me it is in my benefit the public opinion to be mislead when I am thinking as buyer, how else I can explain that I got this May 2020, two perfect hard-drives for 10 Euro its one from eBay as buy-now when as new, they were sold 181 Euro its one.

Does it mater that both HDD  (origin Spain) they have over 60000 hours of operation as they have the ones at my system?
Does it matter that one has Reallocated Sectors Count ?
*No it does not.* ( Total cost 30 EUR shipped )

Personally I am from the idiots keeping proofs from all my purchases over the years.
I am keeping track of how much is my loss as computer parts shopper.


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## R-T-B (Sep 13, 2020)

Aquinus said:


> Then don't backup steam. That doesn't stop you from maintaining a backup for the stuff you care about on that drive. My point is that there is absolutely no reason to avoid maintaining a backup. It doesn't have to be for the entire drive, but you should maintain one if there is anything on that drive you care about, regardless of the state of the drive, because a failure can occur even without warning signs.



I practice this, but I also do complete system images to save time.  Reallocated sectors generally mean "update the image."

I mean, you're sorta preaching to the choir here man.



kiriakost said:


> Does it mater that both HDD (origin Spain) they have over 60000 hours of operation as they have the ones at my system?
> Does it matter that one has Reallocated Sectors Count ?
> *No it does not.* ( Total cost 30 EUR shipped )



Good luck.  I hope your data is worth less than 30 EUR and/or well backed up.


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## kiriakost (Sep 13, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> Good luck.  I hope your data is worth less than 30 EUR and/or well backed up.


Thanks, feel free to check again the images library (updated), not all products has specification of 1.200.000 hours of operation.
in the past our industries was making more reliable products.
I would expect that modern SSD they would be a huge jump to perfection regarding robustness and life cycle, which unfortunately they are not.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 13, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> not all products has specification of 1.200.000 hours of operation.


SSD's don't have such a classification. Really sad and desperately needed.


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## djisas (Sep 13, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> SSD's don't have such a classification. Really sad and desperately needed.



But they tell you how much data they can handle, I read reports of testing done on ssd drives going well beyond their estimated life...


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 14, 2020)

djisas said:


> But they tell you how much data they can handle, I read reports of testing done on ssd drives going well beyond their estimated life...


And there have been just as many that did not last as long as they should have. It also depends on the type and quality of the manufacturing process.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 14, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> Does it matter that one has Reallocated Sectors Count ?



I expect all drives I get from ebay to have no reallocated sectors


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 14, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I expect all drives I get from ebay to have no reallocated sectors


Then, again, *never* buy *ANY* hard drives. Ever. They *ALL* have reallocated sectors. *Every single one of them*. It is an unavoidable fact of hard drive ownership and it always has been.


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## Rei (Sep 14, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> SSD's don't have such a classification. Really sad and desperately needed.


Not yet anyway... Just wait 10+ years until someone comes up with a miraculous elixir-level cell... Or buy the best, longest lasting SSD ever reviewed, then live like I do: make minuscule write-cycle changes to SSD & just let those operational hours rise.


Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I expect all drives I get from ebay to have no reallocated sectors


Think of HDD as the average humans. They were born without hair but as they get older, they will eventually grow hair in all sorts of unnecessarily unwelcomed places (not that it'd happened to me, mind you). But they do very little, if at all, to hinder you.
Just in case no one got the analogy, the human is the HDD while the hair is the reallocated sectors.
Isn't Ebay an auctions site for second hand products? Do you really expect used HDD to be reallocated sectors-free? They might, but the chances are slim.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 14, 2020)

I have a lot of drives from eBay, most have no reallocated sectors.


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## Rei (Sep 14, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I have a lot of drives from eBay, most have no reallocated sectors.


Then either you got really lucky which your next step is trying your hand at lottery tickets or those are brand new second-hand drives or the previous owner wasn't that intensive with the drive's usage.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 14, 2020)

Rei said:


> Just wait 10+ years until someone comes up with a miraculous elixir-level cell...


The industry will need a miracle much sooner than that...


Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I have a lot of drives from eBay, most have no reallocated sectors.


Incorrect. *ALL* of them have reallocated sectors. You just don't know about it because the drive controller is not announcing it to you.


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## Rei (Sep 14, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Incorrect. *ALL* of them have reallocated sectors. You just don't know about it because the drive controller is not announcing it to you.


That is certainly what I meant when I mentioned reallocated sector count. It doesn't show, then eventually it does.

@Anwar.Shiekh You also need to keep in mind that regardless if you got a HDD brand new or used, they are most always gonna be empty storage.  So even if there are visible reallocated sectors, it just means that sector of the drive can't be used but it doesn't matter anyway since that sector is empty & since that spot is dead, your data won't be put there. If reallocated sectors counts sporadically rises then that means the platter is failing but if it doesn't rise or it rises very, very slowly then your drive is fine. But in most cases, other parts of the drive will die out faster than the platter.


lexluthermiester said:


> The industry will need a miracle much sooner than that...


Amen, bruh... I really feel like I wanna get a SSD for general storage drive since I shuffle files around a lot between drives & I need the speed to do that. But of course I am not dumb enough to do such write intensive task & expect SSD longevity. As it is now though, I am fine with my current speed limitation. But I do wish that changes soon.


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## SomeOne99h (Sep 14, 2020)

The HDD I am using now: *36578 hours used *8506 Start/Stop Count
And zero errors in everything!


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## xBruce88x (Sep 14, 2020)

@op, download and install Hard disk sentinel. It'll be able to report how many sectors may be bad. It can also tell you exactly how many times data has been remapped due to weak sectors


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## R-T-B (Sep 14, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Then, again, *never* buy *ANY* hard drives. Ever. They *ALL* have reallocated sectors. *Every single one of them*. It is an unavoidable fact of hard drive ownership and it always has been.



Yes, but the SMART indicator is precisely for reallocated sectors that occur after the factory format process.  I too would not accept a used drive with reallocated sectors in SMART that was claimed to be "like new."

Then again I'd never honestly buy a used drive, so I may not be the best example.



lexluthermiester said:


> SSD's don't have such a classification. Really sad and desperately needed.



The few that did rated at 2M hours MTBF or equally crazy statistics, just FYI.  Most of them were sandforce garbage too, lol.



kiriakost said:


> I would expect that modern SSD they would be a huge jump to perfection regarding robustness and life cycle, which unfortunately they are not.



I can almost promise you my SSD will outlive your drive (especially the one with reallocated sectors already), but meh.


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## kiriakost (Sep 14, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> I can almost promise you my SSD will outlive your drive (especially the one with reallocated sectors already), but meh.



Either way all incoming content among knowledge and proofs they were deposed as assistance to OP who started this topic.
The unbelievers they can follow their own plan what ever this is.
What counts to me this is that the promise of* Western Digital *to all of us which we invested getting hard drives for small servers, this is solid and true.
Major problem at our era this is that you do not know of whom to believe these days.



SomeOne99h said:


> The HDD I am using now: *36578 hours used *8506 Start/Stop Count
> And zero errors in everything!


This is a proof that when the platters received their final coating at the factory, the room air was better filtered from foreign objects.
And because air filtration stability at HDD manufacturing plans this is a constant factor under surveillance, the HDD they have their own (added-in) in hardware ability to deal with up to 3%  of HDD sectors that they might show as unreliable in the first year of operation.

Some they have forgotten of the why after format, they do not see the entire named capacity as usable for storage even with NTFS.
Here ends the delivery of facts from my end.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 14, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> And there have been just as many that did not last as long as they should have. It also depends on the type and quality of the manufacturing process.



Its NOT the number of reallocated sectors, it is the CHANGE that counts and is indicating reason for concern.


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## Rei (Sep 14, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> Its NOT the number of reallocated sectors, it is the CHANGE that counts and is indicating reason for concern.


We're on repeat here... If the reallocated counts changes sporadically, then yeah, you should be concerned that the drive is failing. But if the changes is few & far in between, then there is no need to be alarmed. Your drive will still last a good number of years. Other parts of the drive will likely fail faster than the platter section.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 14, 2020)

You are right; and I respect people who want to risk the warning signs of failing sectors, for that is exactly what it is, a warning sign. But for me I will replace the drive at the first warning.


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## Rei (Sep 14, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> You are right; and I respect people who want to risk the warning signs of failing sectors, for that is exactly what it is, a warning sign. But for me I will replace the drive at the first warning.


That is a costly dick move for expecting the drive to die out soon when it most likely gonna be 2+ years later.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 14, 2020)

Let's say it lasts 4 years, then crudely speaking one might say the chance of failing per month is around 2%.

If it's a gaming machine, that might be acceptable, but if its a work machine...


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## Rei (Sep 14, 2020)

Not really how failure works but whatever floats your boat. That also means that you would change your HDD every year or less.


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## TheUn4seen (Sep 14, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> I have a lot of drives from eBay, most have no reallocated sectors.


If they are WD, the seller probably just reset some counters in S.M.A.R.T. It's actually fairly easy, used WD drives are not trustworthy at all. The new ones also aren't, this damn company lies even about the rotation speed.
But the main issue here is: Why would you even put the word "trust" anywhere near "hard drive"? Never trust a device, always have no less than one up to date backup. Drives often fail immediately, with no preceding signs of problems, and with no backup you're left with fairly expensive recovery as the only option.

Also, drives are binned just as the silicon is. Every platter has imperfections, you might actually figure out where some of them are by running tools like MHDD and looking for slow sectors. Every drive you buy already has damage which is hidden by the controller, and if you see reallocations in smart, there is a high probability of failure. Or it might work for ten more years. I had the infamous Barracuda 7200.10 which started having reallocated sectors around the 500h mark. I used it in several low-priority devices, usually running 24/7 and it was at 147 reallocated with over 35 000 hours when I finally trashed it. This is a game of probability and the only way to win is to have a good backup.


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## Aquinus (Sep 14, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> but if its a work machine...


If it's a work machine and you can't tolerate downtime, then you should be running a RAID array because even a single drive failure, with warnings or not, is going to result in downtime. All we're saying is that you're putting too much emphasis on this one value when you could have a drive failure even without warning signs. I've lost more drives that didn't have any reallocated sectors before failure than ones that do. In fact most of the drives I own that have any reallocated sectors are still working to this day.


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## xrror (Sep 14, 2020)

You all realize that pretty much since the integration of drive controllers to the physical disk packs that the vast vast majority of hard drives already have a hidden "spare area" where they will silently re-locate bad/weak sectors w/o reporting anything to the host, right?

That used to be part of the optimization for near-line / RAID drives was to limit the amount of time that re-alloc would take before the RAID controller kicked the drive out (TLER). Surveillance drives used for recording video are the next step - basically they just don't even try - who cares about a glitch in the vid vs. having the drive drop and losing the feed.

Anyway in the modern day, at least since SMART was implemented, it's been my understanding that you only will see Reallocated Sectors Count increase _after_ that hidden area is exhausted.

So basically yea, that means your drive is still "growing" bad sectors - enough even that the spare area has been exhausted. Now... I have seen a very few drives that did stop growing bad sectors, and actually might still be in service today... but that was the era of 2GB drives. Nothing modern...

I'd replace it, unless it's just a data dump drive with stuff you can easily replace (Steam Library maybe?).


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 14, 2020)

Rei said:


> Amen, bruh... I really feel like I wanna get a SSD for general storage drive since I shuffle files around a lot between drives & I need the speed to do that. But of course I am not dumb enough to do such write intensive task & expect SSD longevity. As it is now though, I am fine with my current speed limitation. But I do wish that changes soon.


That kind of use is what is considered "incidental data storage". That kind of read/write activity will not cause a great deal of wear because you are just not writing to the drive very often, relatively speaking. The kind of read/write operations that will affect an SSD's P/E cycle longevity is an OS writing and erasing temp data to a pagefile every few moments, browsers writing and erasing temp web page storage data and drive arrays that write and erase data on a moment by moment basis.



R-T-B said:


> I too would not accept a used drive with reallocated sectors in SMART that was claimed to be "like new."


That is still not an absolute indicator for the quality of a hard drive.


R-T-B said:


> Then again I'd never honestly buy a used drive, so I may not be the best example.


Fair enough. I'd say you are losing out on some quality storage bargains.



R-T-B said:


> The few that did rated at 2M hours MTBF or equally crazy statistics, just FYI.


Really?! I never saw that. Interesting. They should all still be doing it.



Anwar.Shiekh said:


> Let's say it lasts 4 years, then crudely speaking one might say the chance of failing per month is around 2%.
> 
> If it's a gaming machine, that might be acceptable, but if its a work machine...


Hard drives in a professional environment are often replaced on a 2 to 3 year cycle so that example does really bare out a problem for most companies.


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## kiriakost (Sep 14, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> Its NOT the number of reallocated sectors, it is the CHANGE that counts and is indicating reason for concern.


*The best joke in the entire topic.*
When there is a technical report, the one appropriate so to evaluate it,* this is the one with the necessary training *.

I have upload screenshots indicating Reallocated Sectors Count and then the specific serial number HDD was tested with Western Digital  utility and got a *PASS.
I do believe and trust the Western Digital software.
Everything else this is gossip. *


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 14, 2020)

What really worries me with hard drives is the Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read, Max of 1 per 10^14; that is just 12.5 TB


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## kiriakost (Sep 15, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> What really worries me with hard drives is the Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read, Max of 1 per 10^14; that is just 12.5 TB



Send email at Google data-center and ask from their top engineer to offer to you answers, I am just a electrician playing with bulbs.


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## Aquinus (Sep 15, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> What really worries me with hard drives is the Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read, Max of 1 per 10^14; that is just 12.5 TB


Most errors are correctable and if you're really worried about it because it's a mission critical situation, then run a RAID.


Aquinus said:


> If it's a work machine and you can't tolerate downtime, then you should be running a RAID array because even a single drive failure, with warnings or not, is going to result in downtime.





kiriakost said:


> Send email at Google data-center and ask from their top engineer to offer to you answers, I am just a electrician playing with bulbs.


It's easy. Run a RAID and maintain a backup. It isn't rocket science.


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## kiriakost (Sep 15, 2020)

Aquinus said:


> It's easy. Run a RAID and maintain a backup. It isn't rocket science.



I bet that this recommendation was not aiming my self, but I will use it as opportunity to prove that neither a RAID controller has any issue with my WD Raptors.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 17, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> Send email at Google data-center and ask from their top engineer to offer to you answers, I am just a electrician playing with bulbs.



I think this is more a question for hard drive manufacturers.


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## the54thvoid (Sep 17, 2020)

Stick to specifics of the OP. If the issue is resolved, or answered sufficiently, we can close the thread?


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## Deleted member 191766 (Sep 17, 2020)

I guess we agree to disagree?

Some feel new reallocated sectors are a warning, others that it might be worth the risk if they are not growing (changing) too quickly.


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## kiriakost (Sep 18, 2020)

the54thvoid said:


> Stick to specifics of the OP. If the issue is resolved, or answered sufficiently, we can close the thread?


There is overload of answers, problem solved, close the thread.


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