SMART reliability

[don_svetlio]

http://www.wikihow.com/Tell-if-a-Hard-Drive-Is-Bad

According to this if the issue doesn't repeat within 12 hours of usage it's likely fine. Just did a Chkdsk and nothing is wrong. Think I am in the clear!

[kameshss]

http://www.wikihow.com/Tell-if-a-Hard-Drive-Is-Bad

According to this if the issue doesn't repeat within 12 hours of usage it's likely fine. Just did a Chkdsk and nothing is wrong. Think I am in the clear!

That's nice!

 

Have fun!

[don_svetlio]

That's nice!

 

Have fun!

I assume I'm good then?

[kameshss]

I assume I'm good then?

Yea yea sure.

 

WD Lifeguard diagnostics would tell if there is anything wrong. You did the Extended test and it says good. Then you're good !

 

Also you ran chkdsk. Now this tool can't lie. I'm pretty sure!

[don_svetlio]

Yea yea sure.

 

WD Lifeguard diagnostics would tell if there is anything wrong. You did the Extended test and it says good. Then you're good !

 

Also you ran chkdsk. Now this tool can't lie. I'm pretty sure!

Yep. Ran Extended test for 3:20 hours and it said PASS. Chkdsk was reporting windows file issues before i added /f to fix them. That was when the thing first happened. The win files breaking was either the issue caused by some odd "unexpected shutdown" which occured when I was asleep (no idea how) or it was a result of a force restart when I made the mistake of starting Chkdsk with /r and it was taking ages.

[Blake]

Quick question. In you guys'experience, how reliable is that chart for predicting drive health?

It is very good. The only times I have seen it fail to accurately predict a failure where times when either the drive was dropped or miss-handled in some way. 90% when it is 'wrong' it isn't, and the issue people are reporting as a HW issue with the disk is actually a HW issue with the SATA cable/chipset/drivers or some other SW issue.

[don_svetlio]

It is very good. The only times I have seen it fail to accurately predict a failure where times when either the drive was dropped or miss-handled in some way. 90% when it is 'wrong' it isn't, and the issue people are reporting as a HW issue with the disk is actually a HW issue with the SATA cable/chipset/drivers or some other SW issue.

It's a laptop so the only possible is a driver issue (could be a fluke with intel rapid storage)

[scottyseng]

@Captain_WD

I ran the 3 and a half hour test that is included in WD Lifeguard - it passed successfully. Does that mean the driver is in immaculate condition?

 

Yep, if the drive survives that, you're good. You're mostly looking for a driver / software issue. I hope your laptop is fine though. I'm tracing down a driver issue with my NAS myself...Windows Server keeps black screening randomly.

[don_svetlio]

Yep, if the drive survives that, you're good. You're mostly looking for a driver / software issue. I hope your laptop is fine though. I'm tracing down a driver issue with my NAS myself...Windows Server keeps black screening randomly.

Wd tools are rorture tests? ;O

[scottyseng]

Wd tools are rorture tests? ;O

 

Kind of, they scan the drive from end to end and make sure there's no corrupt sectors / other issues. Drives that are a part damaged will fail eventually during the test.

[don_svetlio]

Kind of, they scan the drive from end to end and make sure there's no corrupt sectors / other issues. Drives that are a part damaged will fail eventually during the test.

I see. So it being able to go from 0% to 100% means there are 0 issues to be had, be it write/read errors or bad sectors meaning SMART is telling the truth

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

You should be fine. The S.M.A.R.T. status is an attribute of the drive's firmware and shouldn't depend on drivers. If the drive passed the extended test and the chkdsk command you should be safe.  

 

Captain_WD.

[don_svetlio]

 

You should be fine. The S.M.A.R.T. status is an attribute of the drive's firmware and shouldn't depend on drivers. If the drive passed the extended test and the chkdsk command you should be safe.

 

Captain_WD.

 

Thanks. I guess it was an OS fail afterall and not the drives. This eliminates chances of any issues currently right? bad heads/sectors and such?

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

It should. If a WD drive passes both the quick and the extended tests of the WD DLG tool it should be considered safe.  

Major issues such as bad/blocked/stuck actuator or a read/write head, bad or unreadable sectors or other major problems should be easily detected by any software including your OS. You should be able to notice them quite easily as they will have a big effect on your performance. 

It's always a good idea to have a backup of your data, though.

 

Captain_WD.

[don_svetlio]

It should. If a WD drive passes both the quick and the extended tests of the WD DLG tool it should be considered safe.

Major issues such as bad/blocked/stuck actuator or a read/write head, bad or unreadable sectors or other major problems should be easily detected by any software including your OS. You should be able to notice them quite easily as they will have a big effect on your performance.

It's always a good idea to have a backup of your data, though.

Captain_WD.

Thanks a ton! I am relieved

[don_svetlio]

Sorry to be reviving this but I have 2 questions for @Captain_WD

Can I check the status of the SSD cache and
Can defragging the SSHD cause issues? Since some data is mirrored from the HDD part to the SSD part

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey again

 

I'm not sure if this can be done with any mainstream applications. If you want to makes sure your drive is OK simply use the provided tool from the manufacturer and you should get the results. There should be a way to access the SSD portion of a hybrid drive through a Linux/UNIX based OS or applications but I can't really recommend that. 

Defragging a hybrid drive should be safe to defragment since the OS will perform this only on the HDD part. The SSD is used solely for caching and the OS shouldn't have access to it to defrag it.

 

Captain_WD.

[don_svetlio]

 

Hey again

 

I'm not sure if this can be done with any mainstream applications. If you want to makes sure your drive is OK simply use the provided tool from the manufacturer and you should get the results. There should be a way to access the SSD portion of a hybrid drive through a Linux/UNIX based OS or applications but I can't really recommend that. 

Defragging a hybrid drive should be safe to defragment since the OS will perform this only on the HDD part. The SSD is used solely for caching and the OS shouldn't have access to it to defrag it.

 

Captain_WD.

 

I see. I guess I should really let go of my paranoia

I know how annoying I am and I am extremely grateful that you take the time to answer each and every question. I even did a CrystalDiskMark and I believe 90 Read/Write is about what I can expect from a 2.5' 5400RPM SSHD?

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

It is very understandable to worry about your data so no need to apologize for that.

 

The benchmark results really depend on how the program tests the drive. SSHD drives usually work pretty fast with the things that are cached on the SSD portion and rather slower (especially if the HDD part is a slower 5,400rpm drive) when reading or writing purely on the HDD. I'd look for other benchmarks on this drive on the Internet and compare your results with them. this should give you a decent idea about how well your drive is performing.

 

Post back if you have other concerns. 

 

Captain_WD.

[don_svetlio]

 

It is very understandable to worry about your data so no need to apologize for that.

 

The benchmark results really depend on how the program tests the drive. SSHD drives usually work pretty fast with the things that are cached on the SSD portion and rather slower (especially if the HDD part is a slower 5,400rpm drive) when reading or writing purely on the HDD. I'd look for other benchmarks on this drive on the Internet and compare your results with them. this should give you a decent idea about how well your drive is performing.

 

Post back if you have other concerns. 

 

Captain_WD.

 

Well, this evening I got a CLFS.SYS BSOD - I guess this probably means a driver issue as this time it was when I was shutting down. Probably going to run a Scanreg.exe after the Symantec Scan

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

This should be of help when troubleshooting the problem: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/clfssys-blue-screen-errors/5a3ed75e-4ed3-4643-9b4d-75808089e42f?db=5

If you post a screenshot or a photo of the error I or someone else might provide you with some more info and help.

 

Captain_WD.

[don_svetlio]

 

This should be of help when troubleshooting the problem: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/clfssys-blue-screen-errors/5a3ed75e-4ed3-4643-9b4d-75808089e42f?db=5

If you post a screenshot or a photo of the error I or someone else might provide you with some more info and help.

 

Captain_WD.

 

I'm on 8.1 so not sure if that applies. Anyway, I just reinstalled the OS. Hopefully it's fixed now. Fingres crossed.

[don_svetlio]

@Captain_WD - This is a dumb question but what are the odds of the SSD nanFlash cache being faulty?

[Captain_WD]

@Captain_WD - This is a dumb question but what are the odds of the SSD nanFlash cache being faulty?

 

I highly doubt that if the SSD portion of the drive is faulty that you will have the ability to properly operate with the drive. If you want to be on the safe side I'd contact our support and see what the guys there can say about this Here's a link: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=37ejGH

 

Captain_WD.

[don_svetlio]

 

I highly doubt that if the SSD portion of the drive is faulty that you will have the ability to properly operate with the drive. If you want to be on the safe side I'd contact our support and see what the guys there can say about this Here's a link: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=37ejGH

 

Captain_WD.

 

Makes sense. Same for RAM issues I imagine. The PC would probably be far too unstable for me to spend 2 hours on YT and 2 hours in CS:GO.