Disk failure...

af123

af123

Administrator
Staff member
Well, there goes my 1TB disk after 20 months! What do people recommend as a replacement these days?

Code: 
ATA Error Count: 4764 (device log contains only the most recent five errors)
    CR = Command Register [HEX]
    FR = Features Register [HEX]
    SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
    SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
    CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
    CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
    DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
    DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
    ER = Error register [HEX]
    ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 4764 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 4624 hours (192 days + 16 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
  -- -- -- -- -- -- --
  40 51 00 ff ff ff 0f  Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0fffffff = 268435455

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC   Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ----------------  --------------------
  25 00 08 ff ff ff ef 00      00:20:19.721  READ DMA EXT
  ec 00 00 d4 2c 9c a0 00      00:20:19.655  IDENTIFY DEVICE
  25 00 08 ff ff ff ef 00      00:20:18.338  READ DMA EXT
  ec 00 00 d4 2c 9c a0 00      00:20:18.272  IDENTIFY DEVICE
  25 00 08 ff ff ff ef 00      00:20:16.945  READ DMA EXT
 
I would personally get a HDD that doesn't spin at 7000+ revs, I recon the existing one has probably rotated 1500 Million times in it's life
 
There is a disk platter in the Bletchley Park* museum you might be able to use... it is about a metre across and holds (wait for it) 4MB per side.

* Thoroughly recommend, by the way - but get on a guided tour.
 
Ezra Pound said:
I would personally get a HDD that doesn't spin at 7000+ revs, I recon the existing one has probably rotated 1500 Million times in it's life
Click to expand...
That's ok, the existing one is 5900rpm!
(Or did you mean SSD?)
 
As per my signature, I have a 1TB Western Digital 10EVDS HDD installed in my native 500GB HDR. I also have the same HDD in my Topfield 5810 PVR. Both are working without fault since installation. They are 7200 drives though, but are designed for PVR use.
 
Interestingly, the built-in HDD Test says:

HDD Test Fail
You may recover the HDD through Format Storage. (Error code: 8)
Click to expand...

The symptoms are that anything I play back frequently pauses for a few seconds. It does resume playing though and I am able to read content off the disk - currently hiving off recordings to a server.

I think I'll probably get the 2TB Seagate Pipeline HD - but most people seem to have plumped for the WD20EURS.
Mind you, the WD30EURS would give me even more space to fill up!
 
A thought has occured, I wonder if the SMART info. could be used to create a 'Hard disk failure prediction' utility for the HDR. A sort of ' HAL's prediction of 100% failure of the A-E-35 unit within the next 72 hours'
 
Ezra Pound said:
A thought has occured, I wonder if the SMART info. could be used to create a 'Hard disk failure prediction' utility for the HDR. A sort of ' HAL's prediction of 100% failure of the A-E-35 unit within the next 72 hours'
Click to expand...
That's an intersting one. It would involve a number of design conciderations, including when and how to report and also a tuning aspect possibly based on changes to the general pattern and nature of the errors.
(No I'm not volunteering.)
 
Ezra Pound said:
A thought has occured, I wonder if the SMART info. could be used to create a 'Hard disk failure prediction' utility for the HDR. A sort of ' HAL's prediction of 100% failure of the A-E-35 unit within the next 72 hours'
Click to expand...
Yes, something could be done. At the simplest end the sysmon package could graph the error rate. You can ask SMART about the overall drive health, but that says my drive is fine!

I'm copying recordings off now but I suspect they will have errors in the middle of them. The CE drive doesn't report the error so you end up with just a blip/pause/breakup in the recording. Good enough to watch a few episodes I need to catch up on, but ruinous for my Octonauts and Big Bang collections!
 
I've gone for the Pipeline, arrives Monday. I'll have to document how to do the installation using nothing but the Humax and custom firmware as it won't format a 2TB drive itself..
 
195 & 197 may also be useful. Syslogging would help to target the SMART tests at a particular range of disk sectors.
 
£102 or thereabouts (ebuyer). The WD would have been about £10 cheaper but I chose to replace with the same vendor and type. I also found the idea of a compromise 5900rpm spin speed interesting. I've seen some reports of the WD being noisy at spin up/down too.

My box actually still has a few months warranty left but I'd rather keep the same one and I'd have to put the orange display filter back in!
 
af123 said:
...I'd have to put the orange display filter back in!
Click to expand...

I've just "gone green" myself - but I dont think SWMBO likes it - "...has the display on your geeky box thingy alway been like that? Its distracting."
I do have to admit that the scroling message during playback does keep catching my eye now its brighter.

I was thinking of going for a little extra storage myself. I've only got the 500gb and even with moving all my recorded movies over to my NAS my HDD always tinkers around 80% full.
 
Kev_w said:
I do have to admit that the scroling message during playback does keep catching my eye now its brighter.
Click to expand...

You can disable that as well as adjust the brightness with redring - but that has a known bug relating to wake-ups that I haven't resolved yet.. soon though!
 
af123 said:
Interestingly, the built-in HDD Test says:



The symptoms are that anything I play back frequently pauses for a few seconds. It does resume playing though and I am able to read content off the disk - currently hiving off recordings to a server.

I think I'll probably get the 2TB Seagate Pipeline HD - but most people seem to have plumped for the WD20EURS.
Mind you, the WD30EURS would give me even more space to fill up!
Click to expand...

Did you try a reformat?
 
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