Reallocated sector count caution , should I worry?

[TyH]

Should I worry about this 8 years old ancient ruin?

 

[Guest Generallee]

Yes, yes you should

[TheMcSame]

Back up the data that's on the drive if you can, if drag and drop doesn't work then try and make a zip or rar, I found that I could recover a little extra data doing that. You may have lost some data though, I had a drive that had the same warning and I lost some data, not to say that you have lost any though.

 

I recommend getting a replacement asap.

[ictdude1]

its only got 2 reallocated sectors which is noting, only worry if that values starts to go up, either way even if the drive is healthy you should keep a backup

[Mighty_Miro_WD]

Hi there @TyH!

 

Reallocated Sector Count in SMART test is quite important as an indicator of bad sectors and a dying drive. It basically means that your hard drive found a bad sector, and swapped it with a 'reserve pool' of sectors. After this swap, the medium should be free of bad sectors to the operating system. It's a technology designed to make failing sectors on the HDD cause no trouble for the operating system because it'll just swap a new one whenever it finds that a particular sector is becoming weak (because it takes more time to read that sector than normal). 

 

It's not fatal, but there are a number potential problems.

 

1. The number of sectors available for replacement is limited. Once that number is reached no more sectors can be "fixed". A small number of reallocated sectors in not a serious but the situation should be monitored.

 

2. The number of reallocated sectors can become large, as is the case here. The real problem is that there is usually some underlying reason for bad sectors developing and that problem is still there. Such problems are usually progressive and become more serious as time progresses. As the cause is usually unknowable so too is the time frame. The numbers could become very large in a very short period of time and essentially making the drive unusable. If you have waited until now to make backups it may be too late. Backups should be made before trouble develops.

 

With these two in mind I would suggest to backup any important data you have on the drive, and look for a replace one.

 

Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions you may have.

 

Cheers!