[SOLVED] Can a bad Sata cable make HDTune show more reallocated sectors?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
D

Doutor

Honorable
Aug 18, 2015
100
3
10,695
Sorry for what might possibly be the dumbest question ever asked about HDDs.

So last week, after buying a new desktop I noticed the HDD was acting funny. Downloads would stop, stay stopped for minutes, then continue, then stop again, and so on when trying to download to the HDD. After posting about said problem on this forum, I was told to try HDTune. After the diagnostic was over it showed that there was 33824 realocated sectors on the HDD and was advised to send it back to the retailer.

Here's a screenshot from the diagnostic:
https://imgur.com/a/Yisgjpd
View: https://imgur.com/a/Yisgjpd


So on Tuesday I sent the HDD back to the retailer and today they gave me their diagnostic. They told me that their diagnostic tools showed zero problems with the drive and that they would send it back. How can a diagnostic show 33824 reallocated sectors on one end and on their tool tell them it's running fine? Not to mention that it didn't load or write anything properly, it was really slow and would even stop writing/reading for ages.

My question is, and I ask this because I know almost nothing about hard drives, would a different sata cable show different results when it comes to speed and reallocated sectors? I think it's very unlikely that it does, since HDTune verifies the hard drive and not the connection, but I'm not completly sure.

Also if it's not the sata cable whatt am I to do with the Hard Drive? Can't send it back again, as they tested it with no problems showing up.
 
Solution
RealBeast
dreamteam said:
. . . .
in theory this technology should be exclusive to the large HDD's over 12 TB to avoid using helium...
. . . . .
Click to expand...
Wrong.
It should be used in archival storage drives that are host managed over drive managed.
WD touts the wonders of SMR with Helioseal and wrote a paper on it for you HERE.
Sort by date Sort by votes
No, a SATA cable does not affect SMART errors, those are an internal product of the drive. Cable errors would appear as interface cyclic redundancy check errors and corrupt your data.

You should be using the vendor specific software to test drive integrity for RMA, for example SeaTools for Windows or WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics. What brand is your drive? Edit, never mind, I see that it is a Seagate so your proper tool is HERE.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
RealBeast said:
No, a SATA cable does not affect SMART errors, those are an internal product of the drive. Cable errors would appear as interface cyclic redundancy check errors and corrupt your data.

You should be using the vendor specific software to test drive integrity for RMA, for example SeaTools for Windows or WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics. What brand is your drive? Edit, never mind, I see that it is a Seagate so your proper tool is HERE.
Click to expand...

I suspected as much, wouldn't really make much sense that a Sata cable would change that. Anyways I'll do another diagnostic once my hard drive arrives. I'll probably end up just buying a new one since if it's broken I don't know if I want to/ or have the patience to send it back. And if it's not broken then it's unusable because of how slow it was.

Thanks for your time.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Doutor said:
I suspected as much, wouldn't really make much sense that a Sata cable would change that. Anyways I'll do another diagnostic once my hard drive arrives. I'll probably end up just buying a new one since if it's broken I don't know if I want to/ or have the patience to send it back. And if it's not broken then it's unusable because of how slow it was.

Thanks for your time.
Click to expand...
Happy to help.

Be careful buying 2-8GB drives from all the vendors at present because they are using SMR (shingled magnetic recording) on many models and not stating it anywhere. Those drives are slower and meant for long term archives and data that is not written over often. PMR or CMR (perpendicular or conventional magnetic recording) are what you want.

Seagate is just starting to come clean with pages like THIS. Tom's looked into WD drives HERE.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
RealBeast said:
Happy to help.

Be careful buying 2-8GB drives from all the vendors at present because they are using SMR (shingled magnetic recording) on many models and not stating it anywhere. Those drives are slower and meant for long term archives and data that is not written over often. PMR or CMR (perpendicular or conventional magnetic recording) are what you want.

Seagate is just starting to come clean with pages like THIS. Tom's looked into WD drives HERE.
Click to expand...

It's a shame I didn't really know about that before I bought the drive. I only learned about it a few days after the purchase.

As for the new drive, I was looking into buying a 2TB FireCuda drive, as most 2Tb drives on the retailer weren't available.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
RealBeast said:
Be careful buying 2-8GB drives from all the vendors at present because they are using SMR (shingled magnetic recording) on many models and not stating it anywhere.
Click to expand...

they are using SMR to make more money $$ so fewer platter and heads but the same capacity
in theory this technology should be exclusive to the large HDD's over 12 TB to avoid using helium...

seagate was the only company that didn't make it clear until now thanks for sharing that link
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
RealBeast said:
Seagate is just starting to come clean with pages like THIS. Tom's looked into WD drives HERE.
Click to expand...

on the other hand this makes me feel bad.... WD is still using the same suffix (EFAX) of the SMR drives on the CMR ones over 6TB. go figure... 😡

wd-red-family.png
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
RealBeast said:
No, a SATA cable does not affect SMART errors, those are an internal product of the drive. Cable errors would appear as interface cyclic redundancy check errors and corrupt your data.

You should be using the vendor specific software to test drive integrity for RMA, for example SeaTools for Windows or WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics. What brand is your drive? Edit, never mind, I see that it is a Seagate so your proper tool is HERE.
Click to expand...


I've made a mega post about everything here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/is-my-brand-new-seagate-barracuda-2tb-working-well.3632755/

Used the Seatools software was used as well. Honestly just trying to understand what the problem with it is.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RealBeast
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom