[SOLVED] CrystalDiskInfo - Why one drive is Caution while another shows Good with similar results?

[serihon]

I recently felt my computer was running slow when accessing data on the hard drives and the data on the hard drives was getting slower to populate so I decided to run some health checks and ran CrystalDiskInfo to check my hard drives out. My primary data drive and secondary backup drive are showing Caution, but I am having trouble understanding the results as the results appear to be the same between my primary data drive and my primary backup drive but one shows caution and the other shows good.

Looking at the data from the program it looks like the Current and Worst for Reallocated Sectors Count, Current Pending Sector Count, and Uncorrectable Sector Count are the same from the Primary Data drive (D) to the Primary Backup drive (E) but D is flagged as Caution. Am I reading this incorrectly? The raw values show a difference though.

Primary Data Drive

Primary Backup Drive

Secondary Backup Drive

SeaTools for Windows - Short DST Failure

 

[popatim]

D: drive has failed sectors, about 26 of them with 8 more sectors needing retesting.
You're confusion stems from not knowing what these things are.

Inside your HDD is a small platter much like a record. Data is arranged in rings around the center and are called Tracks. These tracks are broken down into data segments called sectors.
Sectors are typically 4k in size and your OS keeps track of where every piece of your data is on the drive. App1 may be in track 217 sectors 40-76 for example. (a fragmented file would be spread out across several tracks & sectors which slow performance because the heads have to move and that takes time)

Reallocated sectors are failed sectors where data was able to be rescued and moved to spare sectors.
Pending sectors are ones that the drive feels need further testing on to see if there really is an issue with them or not. (it will test these itself)
Uncorrectable sectors are failed sectors where the data could not be rescued.

This is why the D is under caution and E is not. E does not have any failed sectors which is the #1 symptom of a dying drive.

On F: you have 6B4 reallocated sectors. Converting that to decimal (so it makes sense) is 1716

Time to go drive shopping. Rescuing data from Seagates isn't fun so please make sure you have at least the important stuff backed up.

 

[fzabkar]

ISTM that the OP is having difficulty understanding the normalised values of each attribute (Current / Worst / Threshold). These are health scores. These particular attributes begin life with a health score of 100%. When the drive begins to develop bad sectors, the health score declines. When this score drops below the threshold, the drive is considered to have failed.

If we take drive F: as an example, we see that it has developed 1716 (= 0x6B4) reallocated sectors. Its health is now at 59. This means that it has lost 41 points (= 100 - 59). So that means that the drive loses 1 point for every 41 sectors (= 1716 / 41 ).

Drive D: has recorded 16 (= 0x10) reallocated sectors. This is less than 41, so its health score remains at 100.

 

[serihon]

fzabkar, thank you for the response.

Should I be worried about Drive D since its health score remains at 100?

 

[fzabkar]

Yes, I would be concerned with any drive that starts to grow defects.