Reallocation event count

[street_lethal]

Hi, I didn't know where else to ask this but here it goes.

I bought a new Western Digital 250gb Sata 3.0 drive(WDC WD2500AAKS) and have no issues.

One thing I noticed when I ran Disk Checkup and checked the S.M.A.R.T. attributes is the reallocation event count has a raw value of 1 and a value of 199, Get Smart shows the raw value as 1 and a value of 199 also. So I ran the Western Digital diagnostic from a boot disk and let it run a full test and it came up with no errors. I then downloaded and ran HDD Health and Speed Fan 4.35 and checked the S.M.A.R.T. attributes and they both showed reallocation event count raw value as 0 and a value of 200. Which one do I believe? And is this something I should RMA the drive for? I think yes if it really is 1, but I don't know if disk checkup or Get Smart are reading it incorrectly. So WD diag gives the drive a pass, two programs show the reallocation event count as 1 and two others show it as 0.

By the way my motherboard is Asrock 4CoreDual Sata(VT8237S southbridge) and i'm running XP Pro.

I also ran SmartUDM from a boot disk, it shows the value as 199.

Edit: I tried ActiveSmart and it showed the reallocation event count raw value as 0.

Thanks

[David (PassMark)]

All newer hard drives have spare sectors on them (the "spare sectors pool", or "spare area").

So when a sector goes bad, which is not that unusual, the hard drive swaps the bad one for a good one (remapping).

In the case of a physical problem this is permanent. But (my understanding) is that in the case of a software corruption type of problem, these 'bad' sectors might be put back into use at a later date. This is more hearsay than actual factual information however.

I wouldn't worry about 1 relocation. But if the number starts to significantly increase I would think about returning the drive.

[street_lethal]

Thanks for the response.



Actually I was reading the other SMART logs incorrectly with the other programs, they show the RAW number in a long string of numbers, i.e. 0000000000001. The thing is this drive is still under warranty through Newegg so I could RMA it no questions asked. Just annoys me that a new drive has this going on already. I have a 4 year old WD drive that has none of these issues and a another WD drive that is over a year old that has none of these issues. This 250gig is a little over two weeks old. I'm just wondering if I RMA this one if the new one will have the same issue and I will run in circles.



The one thing i'm not clear on after reading this: * Reallocation Event Count The raw value contains the total number of the remapping attempts (including not only successful but also abortive attempts).



Since my Reallocated Sector Count raw value is 0 does this mean that SMART is showing me 1 aborted attempt? If it is what are some of the reasons it cold have been aborted? I know questions questions... Thanks again.

[David (PassMark)]

The exact meaning of all these parameters varies from drive to drive. You would need to ask Western Digital for exact details of the values their drives produce (it is their hardware after all).

But based on past experience, Western Digital will totally ignore any request for information about their products.

[street_lethal]

Yeah, i'm not even going to bother asking them. I asked the question here about the Disk Checkup S.M.A.R.T. reading because I figured you designed the program and knew S.M.A.R.T. inside out.



I'll keep the drive and if it starts to act funky I will RMA it...it has a three year warranty. I RMA'd a drive back to WD several years ago and they were actually pretty fast with the whole thing. I have too much stuff to do during the week to bother with a RMA with Newegg right now. I do weekly Ghost backups anyway. I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks.