Bought New Seagate 4TB external portable drive. Online S.M.A.R.T. test results are awful for a new drive. Should I exchange?

[Moribund]

Bought a new Seagate external storage drive. I always test drives I buy with Speedfan's S.M.A.R.T. utility. This one tested miserably for a new drive. Here's the online test result https://imgur.com/a/gOZfvqu

I do realize there are no manufacturers parameters for this model yet. But based on this - should I exchange the drive? I have a 2 year direct replacement warranty with Canada Computers. Should I get a different model? I have a 4 year old portable Seagate drive and it tests 100% fitness 100% performance. Yet here I buy a new drive and get this... Is this normal? A bit disappointing, because I never had issues with Seagate before unlike WD...

Any advice on how to proceed is appreciated. Thanks in advance

 

[RealBeast]

I would download and run SeaTools for Windows on the drive to see if it finds any problematic SMART values.

 

[Moribund]

I would download and run SeaTools for Windows on the drive to see if it finds any problematic SMART values.

Thank you. I know that program. But it generally just gives pass or fail. And mine is a pass. But there is no detailed information such as any error rate, hardware ECC, etc. the way Speedfan's test does. Do you know any similar progs which could do this or is it generally accepted that if it's a pass - the drive is a keep?

 

[seagate_surfer]

Moribund, with the SeaTools test, make sure to run the extended one (yes, it takes along time) and it will let you know the health of the drive. If need be, you may also contact support here.

 

[ElectrO_90]

Please read this thread - http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3792181/hard-disk-health-status-caution.html

That should give you some answers you may want to know. It really is quite important to your case

 

[Moribund]

Please read this thread - http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3792181/hard-disk-health-status-caution.html

That should give you some answers you may want to know. It really is quite important to your case

Thank you for the link. I read it. However I am not quite sure what you're trying to suggest. That I should trust Drive Sentinel (not a freeware unfortunately) over Seagate's long test? (Yeah I have done ithe long test and it's a pass). Or that I should trust Speedfan's 85% fitness and performance results over the Seagate's long test? Do you think I should exchange drive even though it's not giving me any grievances right now? Could it be that Speedfan is giving it 85% because the manufacturer's parameters for this model are not available yet? Could it be the reason?

My grievance with Seagate Long test is this in general: It gives 95% of all drives a pass even ones which have 0% fitness and 0% performance with Speedfan. I honestly don't know just how bad a drive needs to be for it to fail the long test!! I bet Windows will start giving warnings or the reading head will fail before long test ever calls it a "fail". LMAO And don't take me wrong. I like Seagate drives, I prefer them over WD as I had far fewer issues with Seagate and Toshiba drives in the past than with WD which in my experience had pretty abysmal rates of failure. It's just Seagate's drive testing software that I consider next to useless. At least, in the past, Speedfan was practically always on the money. This time I don't know what to think (because the model is too new for exact S.M.A.R.T. parameters).

What would you do if you were me? Keep it? Return it? I will call Seagate but last time I called they weren't too helpful, basically saying "we're not sure but if in doubt - return it." I could have gotten this advice from myself without lifting a finger.

So, without beating around the bush - you're the Seagate guy around here, what do you suggest? Thy will be done LOL

 

[ElectrO_90]

Hard Disk Sentinel is free for 30 days, so worth trying.

Yes, I would say the Seagate Software isn't as good as it's made out to be, I think it needs some serious updating. Sadly this is not the first time the software says a HD is good when it clearly isn't. Since if other softwares are warning you, then it shows that the seagate software is flawed.

I would return it saying its showing errors and provide screen grabs/logs of the errors.

 

[Moribund]

Hard Disk Sentinel is free for 30 days, so worth trying.

Yes, I would say the Seagate Software isn't as good as it's made out to be, I think it needs some serious updating. Sadly this is not the first time the software says a HD is good when it clearly isn't. Since if other softwares are warning you, then it shows that the seagate software is flawed.

I would return it saying its showing errors and provide screen grabs/logs of the errors.

The odd thing that happened is this. Yesterday i ran the Speedfan test again. This time the online test showed 91% of fitness and performance instead of 85% earlier. So it could be just due to S.M.A.R.T. standards not finalized yet and continually updated based on models that came out mere months back. It's entirely possible that if I try it again in a month or 2 it will show 100% as this actual model's S.M.A.R.T. will be available. Since I have 2 years to exchange it directly at the store, and since it's not causing any issues and runs just fine, I will just back up my data on my older drives and unplug them. Then I will wait and see if the S.M.A.R.T. numbers improve over the next 2 months. If they don't I will exchange it for a different model entirely. By then it may also be a tiny bit cheaper and I might even get $15-20 store credit.

In any case, thankful for all your help. Great job.

 

[Peter Martin]

your new drive is Moribund (at the point of death, or so it seems) lol

 

[Moribund]

There are no serious warnings, actually. Says everything is above manufacturer's standards. The reason I was worried, is because it is highly unusual for a new drive to show anything less than 100% performance with quick test, or less than 90-100% fitness/performance with an online test, and I tested hundreds of drives for my clients over decades of doing IT work. I thought, what if something is not yet seriously wrong, but will quickly become a serious issue because of such low estimates and I might lose my data...

 

[Peter Martin]

well then, sounds like you sorted it. good one.

 

[Moribund]

your new drive is Moribund (at the point of death, or so it seems) lol

Means Deathbound in Latin. So are all of us and all drives though ;-) Entropy and oblivion. It's a philosophical name. I took Latin and Greek besides my degrees in school, in a desperate attempt to give myself a Classical Education LOL

(And yes, correct, in medical literature the term denotes a stage of dying or more precisely: a severely debilitated state that precedes imminent death. Straight from my Psychology of Death and Dying textbook).

 

[Peter Martin]

yes, terminal. good on you for learning Latin.