S.M.A.R.T. info showing odd results on 1 of 3 drives

checkmate3001 · 08-11-2008, 08:28 AM

Hello everyone,

I've just recently starting using the smartmontools package on my soon-to-be server and have noticed some odd results that I suspect is showing that 1 of my 3 drives is about to fail. I was wondering what some of you might have to say about this.

A little back-story: all three were purchased in ~ March of this year. I have a RAID 1 array (software raid: mdadm) using 1 of the drives as a hot-spare. This drive "failed" once before - but I'm 100% sure it was a true failure because I had just issued a failure to the drive using mdadm to test the array and didn't remember if I had re-added it to the array or not. I have used dd to completely wipe this drive and this drive only (don't know if dd could possibly cause these results or not).

Here is my results of smartctl on /dev/sda:

Code:

intranet:~# smartctl -d ata -A /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.36 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   159   159   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       3050
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       31
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000e   200   200   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1305
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       30
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       28
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       40
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   109   104   000    Old_age   Always       -       34
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   051    Old_age   Offline      -       0

/dev/sdb (the odd one):

Code:

intranet:~# smartctl -d ata -A /dev/sdb
smartctl version 5.36 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       10
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   161   161   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       2925
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       30
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   168   168   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       250
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000e   200   193   051    Old_age   Always       -       6
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1306
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       30
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   197   197   000    Old_age   Always       -       2718
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       2730
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   110   104   000    Old_age   Always       -       33
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   125   125   000    Old_age   Always       -       75
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   051    Old_age   Offline      -       0

and /dev/sdc (hot-spare):

Code:

intranet:~# smartctl -d ata -A /dev/sdc
smartctl version 5.36 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   163   163   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       2808
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       27
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000e   200   200   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1280
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       27
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       15
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       27
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   109   104   000    Old_age   Always       -       34
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   051    Old_age   Offline      -       0

I'm mostly interested in "Power-Off Retract Count" for /dev/sdb. That is extremely high compared to the other 2 drives. I am assuming that the RAW data is the actual count - so I could be reading this incorrectly.

What do you guys think?

farslayer · 08-12-2008, 05:25 PM

I would be more interested in this line..

Code:

Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   168   168   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       250

if the drive is re-allocating sectors, (moving data from bad sectors to good sectors) I would think that is a prime indication that the drive is failing. Review the SMART Attributes

Did you test the drive using SMART ? smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdb

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6983
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/BadBlockHowTo.txt

checkmate3001 · 08-13-2008, 01:33 AM

Yeah... I guess that would one of the more important ones.

I did a short, long and conveyance test for all three of my drives (all the same age, manufacture, etc). Every drive passed with zero errors. I can't see why this one did though.

I tried the command you mentioned... however I just took out the other drive... let me see if I have a record tho........... ah HA!

Code:

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      1324         -
# 2  Conveyance offline  Completed without error       00%      1323         -
# 3  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%      1306         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      1300         -
# 5  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%      1266         -
# 6  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      1265         -

You can see I went a little paranoid there for a day or so...

I just compared the 2000+ attribute to the others because it was such a large difference. I actually did a trouble ticket with W.D. about the drive and gave them the same info. They said that it needs to be RMA'd. Just finished the RMA stuff - I will ship it out tomorrow.

Well, I know my software RAID works!

H_TeXMeX_H · 08-13-2008, 03:57 AM

I don't see anything wrong with any of those drives.

Remember that:

Code:

              Each Attribute also has a Threshold value (whose range is  0  to
              255)  which  is printed under the heading "THRESH".  If the Nor-
              malized value is less than or equal to the Threshold value, then
              the  Attribute  is  said  to have failed.  If the Attribute is a
              pre-failure Attribute, then disk failure is imminent.

I don't see this as the case for any of the attributes, so all disks are fine, besides if anything were really wrong it would say "Failing now" under "WHEN_FAILED".