Reallocated Sector Count Query

TimK2015

Member
Hi Folks

When I log into my Fox T2 the web interface has started warning me that the 'reallocated sector count' has changed. Currently the count is 72 this morning which has jumped from 48 yesterday afternoon. Should I be concerned about the HDD with this count? I ran the fix disk from maintenance mode (option 1) yesterday and the only significant thing seemed to be 4% of non-contiguous files on SDA2. I have the full report if that would help with any advice.
 
I wouldn't be too concerned yet unless the number keeps growing.

From http://wiki.hummy.tv/wiki/Disk_Problem

A small number of reallocated sectors are to be expected during the life of a disk, may occur at any time and do not necessarily indicate an impending failure. The thing that can indicate a problem is if the number of reallocated sectors suddenly increases significantly or increases steadily over the course of a few days.

When reallocated sectors are detected, you can acknowledge that by clicking on the button at the bottom of the disk diagnostics page and the disk warning message will stop appearing until the number of reallocated sectors increases again.
 
A jump of 24 sectors in a day is quite high but the total of 72 is quite low. What make and model of hard drive is fitted?

Yes, but it could be doing it as blocks of 8 if in 4k mode - which I assume is why you are asking for disk make and model, to verify this as a possibility.
 
The HDD is a Seagate Pipeline 1TB (ST1000VM002 I think). As of yesterday evening it had reached 104 reallocated sectors but seems to have stopped.
 
The HDD is a Seagate Pipeline 1TB (ST1000VM002 I think). As of yesterday evening it had reached 104 reallocated sectors but seems to have stopped.
So probably thirteen actual bad sectors which isn't a concern. I think we probably need to recalibrate our thoughts on acceptable number of bad sectors and acceptable rate of increase of sectors by multiplying by a factor of eight. Just keep an eye on it; if no other problems start worrying when the count reached four thousand and replace the drive when it reaches eight thousand.
 
How old is the drive? Power on hours and stop/start count from the disk diagnostics page would be useful.
 
I bought the drive in March this year from Amazon.

I'll post the drive diagnostics when I get home tonight.
 
I am probably way over cautious and I fully accept that other people here are far more knowledgeable than I am - but if I had a drive that had a steadily increasing number of reallocated sectors I would firstly make sure I had a backup of the contents, then I would replace the HDD. It is all about how one balances peace of mind and the cost of a HDD.

By the way, once again I am probably over cautious but I always buy my HDDs from an established computer specialist retailer (not from Amazon), e.g. ebuyer, Misco, etc, etc.
 
I am probably way over cautious and I fully accept that other people here are far more knowledgeable than I am - but if I had a drive that had a steadily increasing number of reallocated sectors I would firstly make sure I had a backup of the contents, then I would replace the HDD. It is all about how one balances peace of mind and the cost of a HDD.
Clearly we all have different attitudes to risk. I deliberately kept my failing hard drive in the Humax longer than normal to see what happened and basically for me nothing bad just a steadily increasing rate of sector allocation. Providing the user is aware of the problem and monitors what is happening then I think there is a reasonable chance of the drive carrying on for some time yet.
 
Disk Attributes:

ID Name Flags Raw Value Value Worst Threshold Life Left Notes
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate POSR-- 106868912 116 099 006 -
3 Spin_Up_Time PO---- 0 097 097 000 -
4 Start_Stop_Count -O--CK 640 100 100 020 100% -
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 120 100 100 010 100% -
7 Seek_Error_Rate POSR-- 12262081 070 060 030 -
9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 596 100 100 000 100% -
10 Spin_Retry_Count PO--C- 0 100 100 097 100% -
12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 640 100 100 020 100% -
184 End-to-End_Error -O--CK 0 100 100 099 -
187 Reported_Uncorrect -O--CK 0 100 100 000 -
188 Command_Timeout -O--CK 0 100 100 000 -
189 High_Fly_Writes -O-RCK 2 098 098 000 -
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel -O---K 30 070 (30°C) 044 (56°C) 045 (55°C) In_the_past
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate -O--CK 0 100 100 000 -
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK 639 100 100 000 100% -
193 Load_Cycle_Count -O--CK 640 100 100 000 100% -
194 Temperature_Celsius -O---K 30 030 056 000 -
197 Current_Pending_Sector -O--C- 0 100 100 000 -
198 Offline_Uncorrectable ----C- 0 100 100 000 -
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count -OSRCK 0 200 200 000 -
 
Hi Folks

The reallocated sector count is slowly creeping up with every recording. No detrimental effects at the moment although I use this machine to record and then copy onto PC/network drives. If it fails I have a spare HDD I can use but it might be difficult to do that immediately as I now have a frozen shoulder which means I can't reach up to the shelf that the machine is on to change it!
 
The reallocated sector count is slowly creeping up with every recording. No detrimental effects at the moment although I use this machine to record and then copy onto PC/network drives.
What is the count of reallocated sectors? What is the rate at which it is increasing? Is this an original drive with 512B sectors or a replacement drive with 4kB sectors?
 
The last jump was from 168 to 192 with a couple of hours of recording. This is a replacement 1TB Seagate Pipeline drive which I think is 4k sectors.
 
The last jump was from 168 to 192 with a couple of hours of recording. This is a replacement 1TB Seagate Pipeline drive which I think is 4k sectors.
Yes the fact the reallocated sector counts are divisible by 8 strongly suggest a 4K drive. Hence there are probably 24 bad sectors. I would just keep an eye on it for now. My experience (but each failure may well be different) is that the disk slowly increased the rate of sector allocation over a period of many months. My drive was a 512B sector and I kept it going until the rate was starting to increase rapidly (70 sectors a day at the end equivalent to 560 sectors a day on a 4K drive) with a total of 1743 reallocated sectors. The only problem was the minor glitches in playback as a sector was reallocated began to get irritating. I suggest you start worrying when the count reaches 4000 and replace at 8000.
 
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