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Disk has read errors but SMART says PASSED (swg-empire.de)

submitted 4 days ago by bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de to c/datahoarder@lemmy.ml

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cross-posted from: https://swg-empire.de/post/4845931

I've had multiple reads fail on a fairly new drive.

I did a smartctl -t long /dev/sdb but after checking back a few minutes later smartctl -a /dev/sdb showed that no tests were running and that the previous test had "the read element of the test failed".

I did smartctl -t offline /dev/sdb next and after that was done smartctl -x /dev/sdb showed about 1500 errors but it also reported SMART as PASSED.

Here is the output of smartctl -x /dev/sdb: https://pastebin.com/09rNZZfD

How should I interpret these results? Was my assumption that the long test was done wrong? Should I replace the drive? Or might something else be wrong, like the SATA connection?

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[–] rpollost@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

A friend of mine was in a similar-ish circumstance.
He was using a 18TB Helium HDD with an external SATA to USB converter (with a power brick)
While writing data to it, it would randomly freeze mid-transfer.
It wouldn't properly disconnect from the operating system either, it would just randomly freeze mid-transfer, and resume automatically. And the same freeze would happen while reading as well.
This issue disappeared when I told him to use a real PC with a proper PSU.

Before you replace the drive,

try changing the SATA cable.
If that doesn't fix it, if you're using a daisy chained SATA power cable, make sure to connect your HDD to the first hop(from the PSU) of that cable, and disconnect any devices being powered by the rest of the chain. The first hop is electrically most stable.
And if that doesn't fix it, try changing the SATA power cable.
And if that doesn't fix it, and if you're using a modular PSU, try connecting your SATA power cable to a different SATA power port on your PSU.
And if that doesn't fix it, try connecting it to a different "known working" PC, and redo steps 1-4 as needed.

If all of these fail, then yeah, replace the drive.

[–] digdilem@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

try changing the SATA cable.

This is actually a good point. I had this exact issue quite recently and overlooked it at first, even throwing away a drive and replacing it for the exact same error to re-appear with a second one.

Quick and easy to do, good suggestion.

[–] tomten@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Yeah that drive is dying, replace it.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago

That pass/fail is based on the attributes, not the test results.