CrystalDiskInfo showing 'Caution' - Reallocated Sectors Count 208

[Ben_107]

I recently ran CrystalDiskInfo on my 'server' computer. It shows my backup hard drive as 'caution'. When I hover over the 'caution', it shows: 'Reallocated Sectors Count: 208'. This is quite an old hard drive as you can see from the 'Power On Hours'.

What really puzzles me is that the drive with the 'caution' label has would appear to have less reallocated sectors than my primary drive, which has the health status 'Good'.

The screenshots I have attached should explain what I mean!

Should I be concerned about either hard drive?

Many thanks.

Screenshots::http://imgur.com/a/XCGMF
http://imgur.com/a/A50dN

 

[Emerald]

You should be concerned. I would back up the drive and replace it ASAP.

You need to look at the RAW Value (Right Column).

The Toshiba drive is at D0 which is 208 bad sectors.
The WD drive is at 00 which means no bad sectors.

 

[Paperdoc]

Here's my guess, without knowing something important: what is the capacity of each of those drives? I am guessing that the older one with a SATA 3.0 Gb/s interface is smaller than the newer unit.

Anyway, the point is that any HDD as new has a semi-hidden set of good but unused Sectors available as spares. These are used when needed to replace Sectors that become weak or fail outright so that the unit keeps on working. This is a background action that even the host computer's OS does not know about. However, there is a limit to how many a HDD has, and that is linked to the overall size of the unit. Over the life of the drive as these spares are used as replacements, the stock of unused spares still available is depleted. At some point the HDD's SMART system sends out a warning that the remaining stock is small and thus it will not be able to do the automatic replacements at some time in the future. NOW is the time to replace the unit while it is still working just fine, and transferring its data to a new one will be trouble-free.

 

[little_me]

Nope, on your main disk, the treshold is higher, AKA point where it becomes an issue. The raw value in main disk is at 0 though, so no bad sectors.

On backup drive, treshold to is at 50, and raw value (actual number of bad sectors) is at D0 in hex, meaning that 208.

It is not an issue in itself, if the number stays same and doesn't increase. Problem with it increasing is that each bad sector will most likely result in loss of data and/or corruption of data in case of big files.
Due to this, preparing to replace disk before it gets worse is usually a good idea.

Or as Emerald said since I took too long to type this.

 

[Ben_107]

Wow, thanks far all the responses! I will replace the drive very soon then.

Thanks again, Tom's Hardware is a great forum.

 

[Paperdoc]

Good luck, and thanks for Best solution.

Hint: when you get a new HDD, check that drive's maker's website for a free download of a utility to CLONE your old HDD to the new one. Often the new one will be larger than the old one, and that MAY mean you need to make some manual adjustments to how the cloning operation is done. If you need help with that, post again.

 

[Beeeater]

This is an interesting question - I have a 1000Gb Seagate drive manufactured in 2011 that shows a reallocated sector count of 77, by Crystal Disk Info. The disk was replaced in the working environment and fully reformatted. However when Auslogics SMART checks it, the Reallocated Sector Count is reported as OK: Value is normal. CHKDSK likewise reports 'no problems' and 0Kb in bad sectors. HDDSCAN for Windows V 3.3 also reports the reallocated sectors with a yellow warning triangle. HD Tune 2.55 shows not only the Reallocated Sectors Count, but ALSO a Spin Retry Count error, which is NOT reported by the other testers (as well as an 'Unknown Attribute' error.) My guess would be that the disk is not 100% reliable, but could be used for less important storage where perhaps there is redundancy elsewhere.

 

[Paperdoc]

I can contribute two points, but not a complete response. First, the "alarm limit" for too many reallocated sectors is different from different drives. I don;t know exactly what it is for your HDD, but you might get that from Seagate's Tech Support group. Anyway, that probably accounts for why different utilities flag it in different ways.

Secondly, CHKDSK knows nothing about reallocated sectors, so it's not surprising that it reports no trouble.Sector reallocation to replace faulty sectors with spare good ones is done by the HDD itself, especially when it was wiped and re-formatted. When that process works properly, the resulting HDD look absolutely perfect to CHKDSK, which knows nothing about this internal process the HDD carries out.

 

[ditokalv]

My windows 10 Seems to run in bad performance sometimes freeze, and get error data redundancy cycle when extract large file, I downloaded CrystalDiskInfo and get caution with bad sector in "Reallocated Sector Count" with 2658 Raw values and "Current pending sector count" in 58 Raw values, whenever i boot up, always check my CrystalDiskInfo and the raw values not increase at all, i just have performance issue and "Data Cycle Redundancy" sometimes my file cannot be open, like one of my photoshop file show disk error cannot open

 

[USAFRet]

My windows 10 Seems to.....

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