Drive may be failing

Hardware Hub Storage
1

Yesterday when browsing a bunch of folders explorer started hanging. After restarting everything just in case and getting similar results I decided to check the drive health. Whaddya know… SMART had recorded a bunch of worrying statistics. You can see below.

SMART details

CrystalDiskInfo 8.17.14 Shizuku Edition x64 (C) 2008-2022 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World: https://crystalmark.info/ 

OS : Windows 10 Professional N [10.0 Build 19045] (x64)

Date : 2023/09/13 10:46:51

– Controller Map ----------------------------------------------------------

  • Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller [SCSI]
  • Standard NVM Express Controller [SCSI]
    • KINGSTON SKC3000D2048G
  • Asmedia 106x SATA Controller [SCSI]
    • ASUS DRW-24B3LT
    • WDC WD20EARX-00PASB0
  • Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller [SCSI]
    • Samsung SSD 850 PRO 512GB
    • WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0
    • Intel Raid 0 Volume

– Disk List ---------------------------------------------------------------
(01) WDC WD7502ABYS-01A6B0 : 750.1 GB [X/0/2, cs]
(02) WDC WD7502ABYS-01A6B0 : 750.1 GB [X/0/3, cs]

(01) WDC WD7502ABYS-01A6B0

       Model : WDC WD7502ABYS-01A6B0
    Firmware : 03.00C05

Serial Number : WD-WMAU00002176
Disk Size : 750.1 GB (8.4/137.4/750.1/----)
Buffer Size : 32767 KB
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 1465147055
Rotation Rate : 7200 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ----
Transfer Mode : ---- | SATA/300
Power On Hours : 861 hours
Power On Count : 3353 count
Temperature : 46 C (114 F)
Health Status : Good
Features : S.M.A.R.T., AAM, NCQ, GPL
APM Level : ----
AAM Level : 80FEh [ON]
Drive Letter :

– S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 200 200 _51 000000000000 Read Error Rate
03 253 253 _21 000000000486 Spin-Up Time
04 _97 _97 __0 000000000EDB Start/Stop Count
05 200 200 140 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 200 200 __0 000000000000 Seek Error Rate
09 _99 _98 __0 00000000035D Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 __0 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0B 100 100 __0 000000000000 Recalibration Retries
0C _97 _97 __0 000000000D19 Power Cycle Count
C0 198 198 __0 00000000063A Power-off Retract Count
C1 199 199 __0 000000000EDB Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 104 _86 __0 00000000002E Temperature
C4 200 200 __0 000000000000 Reallocation Event Count
C5 200 200 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 200 200 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
C8 200 200 __0 000000000000 Write Error Rate

– IDENTIFY_DEVICE ---------------------------------------------------------
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
000: 427A 3FFF C837 0010 0000 0000 003F 0000 0000 0000
010: 2020 2020 2057 442D 574D 4155 3030 3030 3231 3736
020: 0000 FFFF 0032 3033 2E30 3043 3035 5744 4320 5744
030: 3735 3032 4142 5953 2D30 3141 3642 3020 2020 2020
040: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 8010 0000 2F00
050: 4001 0000 0000 0007 3FFF 0010 003F FC10 00FB 0110
060: FFFF 0FFF 0000 0007 0003 0078 0078 0078 0078 0000
070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 001F 0506 0000 0044 0044
080: 01FE 0000 746B 7F61 4163 7469 BE41 4163 407F 004F
090: 004F 0000 FFFE 0000 80FE 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100: 5EAF 5754 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 5001 4EE0
110: 5635 AFAF 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 401C
120: 401C 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0029 0400
130: 0001 0000 0000 16AC 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
140: 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
150: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
160: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
170: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
180: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
200: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 303F 0000 0000 0000
210: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1C20 0000 0000
220: 0000 0000 100E 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
230: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000
240: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
250: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 F7A5

– SMART_READ_DATA ---------------------------------------------------------
+0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 10 00 01 2F 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 27
010: 00 FD FD 86 04 00 00 00 00 00 04 32 00 61 61 DB
020: 0E 00 00 00 00 00 05 33 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00
030: 00 00 07 2E 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 32
040: 00 63 62 5D 03 00 00 00 00 00 0A 32 00 64 64 00
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0B 32 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00
060: 00 00 0C 32 00 61 61 19 0D 00 00 00 00 00 C0 32
070: 00 C6 C6 3A 06 00 00 00 00 00 C1 32 00 C7 C7 DB
080: 0E 00 00 00 00 00 C2 22 00 68 56 2E 00 00 00 00
090: 00 00 C4 32 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C5 32
0A0: 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 30 00 C8 C8 00
0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 32 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00
0C0: 00 00 C8 08 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 82 00 78 3C 01 7B
170: 03 00 01 00 02 B4 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
180: 00 00 01 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 9A

– SMART_READ_THRESHOLD ----------------------------------------------------
+0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 10 00 01 33 C8 C8 C8 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 03 15
010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00
020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 8C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
030: 00 00 07 00 C8 C8 C8 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 09 00
040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 00
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
060: 00 00 0C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0 00
070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C1 00 00 00 00 00
080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C2 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
090: 00 00 C4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C5 00
0A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 00 00 00 00 00
0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0C0: 00 00 C8 00 C8 C8 C8 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
170: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 05

(02) WDC WD7502ABYS-01A6B0

       Model : WDC WD7502ABYS-01A6B0
    Firmware : 03.00C05

Serial Number : WD-WMAU00002914
Disk Size : 750.1 GB (8.4/137.4/750.1/----)
Buffer Size : 32767 KB
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 1465149168
Rotation Rate : 7200 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ----
Transfer Mode : ---- | SATA/300
Power On Hours : 861 hours
Power On Count : 3351 count
Temperature : 46 C (114 F)
Health Status : Caution
Features : S.M.A.R.T., AAM, NCQ, GPL
APM Level : ----
AAM Level : 80FEh [ON]
Drive Letter :

– S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 200 200 _51 000000000000 Read Error Rate
03 253 253 _21 0000000005DC Spin-Up Time
04 _97 _97 __0 000000000ED0 Start/Stop Count
05 188 188 140 000000000060 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 200 200 __0 000000000000 Seek Error Rate
09 _99 _98 __0 00000000035D Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 __0 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0B 100 100 __0 000000000000 Recalibration Retries
0C _97 _97 __0 000000000D17 Power Cycle Count
C0 198 198 __0 000000000625 Power-off Retract Count
C1 199 199 __0 000000000ECF Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 104 _87 __0 00000000002E Temperature
C4 104 104 __0 000000000060 Reallocation Event Count
C5 197 197 __0 000000000177 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 200 200 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
C8 106 __1 __0 000000002C63 Write Error Rate

– IDENTIFY_DEVICE ---------------------------------------------------------
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
000: 427A 3FFF C837 0010 0000 0000 003F 0000 0000 0000
010: 2020 2020 2057 442D 574D 4155 3030 3030 3239 3134
020: 0000 FFFF 0032 3033 2E30 3043 3035 5744 4320 5744
030: 3735 3032 4142 5953 2D30 3141 3642 3020 2020 2020
040: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 8010 0000 2F00
050: 4001 0000 0000 0007 3FFF 0010 003F FC10 00FB 0110
060: FFFF 0FFF 0000 0007 0003 0078 0078 0078 0078 0000
070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 001F 0506 0000 0044 0044
080: 01FE 0000 746B 7F61 4163 7469 BE41 4163 407F 004F
090: 004F 0000 FFFE 0000 80FE 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100: 66F0 5754 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 5001 4EE0
110: 5635 8F68 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 401C
120: 401C 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0029 0400
130: 0001 0000 0000 16AC 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
140: 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
150: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
160: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
170: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
180: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
200: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 303F 0000 0000 0000
210: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1C20 0000 0000
220: 0000 0000 100E 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
230: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000
240: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
250: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 15A5

– SMART_READ_DATA ---------------------------------------------------------
+0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 10 00 01 2F 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 27
010: 00 FD FD DC 05 00 00 00 00 00 04 32 00 61 61 D0
020: 0E 00 00 00 00 00 05 33 00 BC BC 60 00 00 00 00
030: 00 00 07 2E 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 32
040: 00 63 62 5D 03 00 00 00 00 00 0A 32 00 64 64 00
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0B 32 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00
060: 00 00 0C 32 00 61 61 17 0D 00 00 00 00 00 C0 32
070: 00 C6 C6 25 06 00 00 00 00 00 C1 32 00 C7 C7 CF
080: 0E 00 00 00 00 00 C2 22 00 68 57 2E 00 00 00 00
090: 00 00 C4 32 00 68 68 60 00 00 00 00 00 00 C5 32
0A0: 00 C5 C5 77 01 00 00 00 00 00 C6 30 00 C8 C8 00
0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 32 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00
0C0: 00 00 C8 08 00 6A 01 63 2C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 84 00 78 3C 01 7B
170: 03 00 01 00 02 B4 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
180: 00 00 01 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 AA

– SMART_READ_THRESHOLD ----------------------------------------------------
+0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 10 00 01 33 C8 C8 C8 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 03 15
010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00
020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 8C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
030: 00 00 07 00 C8 C8 C8 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 09 00
040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 00
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
060: 00 00 0C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0 00
070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C1 00 00 00 00 00
080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C2 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
090: 00 00 C4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C5 00
0A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 00 00 00 00 00
0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0C0: 00 00 C8 00 C8 6A C8 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
170: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 63

Actually there are stats for 2 similar drives, which can serve as a useful comparison point. But I’m not sure what all the values mean. CrystalDiskInfo just says Health status: Caution on one of them. But I don’t know what all the values mean. I’m sure more experienced people here can shed some light.

How close is it to failure (it only says caution for now)? What are typical values before a drive goes poof? What do the different stats mean anyway? What trends should I be looking out for? Is it okay if I just torture the drive to death (i.e. keep using it till it fails entirely)?

P.S. Before you jump in with alarm! There’s only games on these drives (they’re actually in RAID0). No data of value will be lost due to failure (actually I already went in and backed up my save games too).

2

The drive listed as “caution” has 60 reallocated sectors and 177 pending sector reallocations. This suggests that the drive is unable to correctly read the platters in some areas, or that the platters may be damaged. It’s also possible something physical has caused this to happen, as can happen with mechanical drives. They are meant to be securely attached to a heavy steel case and remain stationary while in use, so any movement can cause the drive mechanism to fail to correctly read and write to a sector, making it report that sector as failed, but given the write error rate and number of sectors…
Well, see if the numbers are higher tomorrow. If it grows, that drive is ready to be retired. If not, make sure the drive is securely mounted and that the computer isn’t able to move while the drive is active.

The other one looks fine to me.

1 Like
3

May I suggest a $70 solution to your problem, with 33% more capacity?

1 Like
4

Technically the values are in hexadecimal. But yea. Case has not been moved in months and I don’t remember any recent earthquakes :sweat_smile:.

But when do the numbers update? On power cycle(aka restart)? I haven’t seen them change in several of hours and explorer is still sluggish on that drive.

Well, considering that these drives are nearly 15 years old by now, I am not exactly surprised. They are the oldest drives by far that I still have running. Guess I’ll keep checking the drive for changes.

@wertigon That solution has 2 critical shortcomings: 1. It costs $70. 2. I don’t have anywhere to plug it in.

5

Fair enough, a $60 SSD 2.5" drive then? The write speeds will be atrocious in comparison, but it is plug and play. I am assuming you run RAID0 for performance now, nothing else makes sense.

Cheapest 2TB HDD is $33 and cheapest 4TB HDD is $65, that I can find, so not really worth it, but those are your options when the RAID0 kicks the bucket :slight_smile:

6

Smart values should update in realtime afaik. Certainly, temperature and some other values do. I’ve seen reallocated sectors go up as well, but you may need to restart the program to pull the new values.

7

They’re not moving for now then. I hope that’s a good sign.
But then again, I have a folder with some random pictures there and it’s taking like a minute to read images off it, so I’m not sure what’s going on behind the scenes. Shouldn’t it only be sluggish on the bad sectors of the drive? Wondering if maybe something is wrong with the head.

@wertigon I don’t actually have a problem. Well, not one that can be solved by a shiny new drive. The biggest headache will be dissolving the raid so I can still use the good drive (which I think will require trips to the bios) and copying like 600 gigs of data.

TBH I’m glad I have 2 of them, because I would miss that really old HDD screeching sound when they both inevitably die. (I have 5 other drives in that computer but they’re all SSDs or quiet HDDs.)

8

How are you going to do that if one of the drives are clearly showing signs of failing?

Remember, RAID0 has three failure points (drive1, drive2, controller) instead of just the one, and if one of those three fails… That is it. No data to copy, it’s all gone.

Better to spend the $60 now for the peace of mind IMO, but it’s your hardware, your data, your money and and your life.

And, I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am with my new 4TB m.2 boot drive… I no longer need to care whether I put my shit on the boot drive or not, it’s just so awesome :slight_smile: Should have done this years ago, and I really do pity anyone rocking more than two (logical) drives on the desktop in 2023. Is that 4TB worth it to you? I dunno, all I know is that for me, it was a big quality-of-life improvement.

2 Likes
9

What piece of mind are you even talking about? :thinking::thinking::thinking:

I know, right? I got a new nvme a couple months back that’s super speedy and it’s great at running IDEs with thousands of small files and newer games off it. Tho TBH it’s less of a noticeable improvement then when I switched the OS drive from spinning rust to SATA SSD like… 10 years ago or so. In comparison the move to 7 gig throughput and million IOPS drives hasn’t seemed that impactful.

10

Basic gist of it, you have clear signs of a failing drive in a RAID0 setup, it’s not dead yet but damaged enough to start planning for a migration path off the damaged RAID0 cluster. Perhaps to a new 2TB+2TB cluster, perhaps just go straight to a 4TB or even 8TB ($350 for the cheap SATA SSD option)… Doing the migration now, while there is time, lets you move the potential problem completely off your plate.

I suggest a 2TB SSD replacement is the most cost effective short term, feel free to disagree. Buying anything lower than 2TB new is IMO just a pointless waste of money at this point, unless you are trying for an ultra $300-$400 grandma budget PC with crapshoot components. This is based on pricing in USA, Canada and Europe though, if you live elsewhere then of course you should adjust to your market and / or income levels.

Yeah, games are not dependant on throughput as much as seek times right now. That said, streaming textures via Resizable BAR will be more important in the future, and I think we will start seeing ReBAR exclusive games pop up within the next two or three years. Because progress. :slight_smile:

11

Oh, pft. I don’t need extra space. I have 4TB free OUTSIDE of my NAS. The most cost effective option (as in literally costs nothing) is to use what I already have.

What I find weird is that for one of the pair the power-on count is 2 higher than the other… they’ve never been apart. Maybe it’s one of those heisenbugs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

12

TEAMGROUP has been putting out some relatively good quality inexpensive SSDs lately and that SLC caching is nothing to be sneezed at. I’ve purchased a few of these for my family and they’re all very happy with them. They may not be the cheapest deal going, but the price is reasonable considering what you get for your investment. When I start seeing consistent SMART errors I’ll reformat the drive and run it again. If it keeps on happening I’ll just pull the drive. One can only compensate by working around bad sectors for so long before worse stuff happens. Sooner or later that drive is gonna start giving our friend headaches. Like a bad tooth it should be pulled. Then he’ll have room took hook up a new one.

2 Likes
13

Ok, so let the RAID0 die then, your hardware, your decisions, your money, I was assuming you wanted to keep the storage space, but if you are fine with just removing the drives, then that works too :slight_smile:

14

It’s so easy to clone an OS from RAID 0 to a stick of NVMe these days. If the user wants to put it back on RAID 0 that can be easily done as well. An important thing to remember is that if the user wants to reuse the raided drives as regular drives afterward they need to restore them back to normal status to avoid nasty things like signature collisions. :sunglasses:

15

I don’t actually know how RAID works on the software side, so I don’t know what you mean by “signature collisions”.

I will say that I was surprised that the RAID array survived through a platform move - when I bought a new mobo/processor, the array showed up just like that, as if plug n play (the both old and new were intel). I was expecting it to break at that time.

But with one of the matched drives dying, I likely will not be using RAID anymore.

16

I have one of those drives and they’re anything but quality. .-.
If it doesn’t have a dram cache, it’s junk.

One thing to consider is that the mechanism might be failing, which could cause both the poor performance and unreadable sectors. There’s a screw on the external part of the drive that can be adjusted, I believe it’s typically a hex or torx bit? It tightens the read head to maintain the correct pressure/friction/resistance. Long shot, but tightening that very very very very slightly might actually give the drive a new lease on life.
Or, it could make things worse. It’s a very narrow range, so much so that you shouldn’t even see it turn if you’re doing it right.

17

RAID is fine if you know how to use it and have a need for it. These days most folks rarely need it; but since you mentioned that the drives are like 15 years old, it’s probably best to move the data onto something fresher and wipe those drives. I wouldn’t keep them in RAID. If I understand what I’ve read correctly you don’t even have your OS on this array so there’s really no reason to be concerned about losing it as long as you have already moved the data someplace else. After this you’ll have two ports to use, one for the functional drive and one for whatever drive you like. :slightly_smiling_face:

18

Teamgroup 33 does not have a DRAM cache. However, the Teamgroup 34 I linked, that does have one. I do agree with you that as a primary / boot drive a DRAM cache is highly recommended, for raw bulk storage though, DRAM-less can be good enough. You will get low read/write speeds when doing a large transfer, but
that is pretty much the only penalty, and if the same capacity drive costs 50% more for DRAM vs no DRAM, well…

1 Like
19

Perfect for making drive images for cold storage. I never make the error of thinking regular backups are enough anymore.

20

If you get drives with HMB, sure. SATA drives don’t support this, and performance is the least of your concerns with SATA.
SLC write cache quickly becomes very limited as you use the drive, and due to the lack of dram on-chip, the drive needs to constantly overwrite the stored block map, on flash, on every transaction. This will, by design, slaughter the nand when the drive is filled and used, because there will be no available workspace.

These drives tend to drop like flies and corrupt data when put under pressure, even for fairly mundane/low DWPD workrates. They’re really only good for warm worm storage. Fine if you store retro games or photos or fill up <80% of the drive with useless junk and then never write to it again, but not so great if you’re overwriting large chunks of data in a mostly full drive on the regular, these just aren’t worth buying, especially when you can get a quality Samsung 860 Pro, classic WD Blue or Red(with dram), or Micron 1100T on ebay for around $50~60 a pop. Better performance, and much, much better longevity.
I would take a 50% used up 1100T 2TB over a brand new Team Elite EX2 any day.