Question Thinking of buying a used HDD. Are these S.M.A.R.T. values within reason?

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EvilHamster

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Jun 9, 2012
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Hi all,
I am thinking about buying a used HDD. It is at a great price (20 quids for 2TB). The values are in this image
s-l1600.jpg

are they all right?
I realise the whole "used HDD - bad" idea. I do kinda agree. But the point is, I plan on buying 2 x 2TB HDD's, one new, one used. This would be for less sensitive files, that even if lost, would not be the end of the world.

What is your guyses thoughts?
 
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Btw. how many hours are within reason?
Also, will it display directly when a cyrstaldiskinfo is run? The seller agreed to do it again, and I would feel very bad, if it was done "wrong" and I did not get the necessary info.

Cheers.
 
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EvilHamster said:
Btw. how many hours are within reason?
Also, will it display directly when a cyrstaldiskinfo is run? The seller agreed to do it again, and I would feel very bad, if it was done "wrong" and I did not get the necessary info.

Cheers.
Click to expand...
CDI is free and easy to run. You can check your drives right now, to see what it displays.

This is my 500GB 850 EVO C drive:
e5Hky7e.png
 
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As the moderator said cyrstaldiskinfo is what you want not SMART settings. It will tell you if the hard drive is Good with a blue or Red with a Caution also tell you percentage. Use that and if it says Good and percentage is 90 percent or higher, hopefully higher then you can purchase it. However a internal HD IMO is a big mistake. Only use external HDD for backup. Drop a SSD in there my gosh its 10 years old now. HDDs are a thing of the past and slow as f&ck and can die at any moment and lost your sensitive data.
 
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k1114 said:
Smart is rather useless for this. I'd at least get cyrstaldiskinfo or other software that shows total power on hours and count. That would get an age/usage estimate and get a better idea of when it would die.
Click to expand...
CrystalDiskInfo reports the SMART attribute values, so without SMART there is no CrystalDiskInfo. The only thing that CDI adds is an attempt to interpret the SMART data. Such interpretations are often wrong, and that's because there is no standard which governs the meaning of the SMART attributes. That's why some tools identify the Power-On Hours attribute as Power-On Time, to give just one example.
 
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I'm not understanding "22k is a decent rate." But the mtbf is different for different hdd models and you'd want to go off that as life expectancy not a random 44k/5year rating which seems more like a warranty number. I also mentioned power on count to help with the age estimate as you'd see if the pc was on constantly. Most people don't run their pc 24/7 so I'd think the drive maybe 2 years old. It's still a decent price for the estimated age and usage.

fzabkar said:
The seller's SMART report is showing a Power-On Time Count of 46471. If the units are hours, then that's about 5 years. But in that case the normalised value of 94 would look suspiciously low, so it may be that the unit of time is tenths of hours rather than hours???
Click to expand...
That's why you ignore the raw value and ask for the actual.
Turtle Rig said:
As the moderator said cyrstaldiskinfo is what you want not SMART settings. It will tell you if the hard drive is Good with a blue or Red with a Caution also tell you percentage. Use that and if it says Good and percentage is 90 percent or higher, hopefully higher then you can purchase it. However a internal HD IMO is a big mistake. Only use external HDD for backup. Drop a SSD in there my gosh its 10 years old now. HDDs are a thing of the past and slow and can die at any moment and lost your sensitive data.
Click to expand...
The blue, yellow or red from crystaldiskinfo is smart. The % life is also smart and it's an ssd only smart. I find that useless as well as it goes off of writes and ssds tend to die much earlier due to other reasons and why no one knowledgeable cares about excessive writes on ssds anymore. Ssds can also die at any time like hdds. A backup is a must on all systems. I doubt anyone could find a 2tb ssd for 20 quid and why he's getting a used hdd was already explained.
fzabkar said:
CrystalDiskInfo reports the SMART attribute values, so without SMART there is no CrystalDiskInfo. The only thing that CDI adds is an attempt to interpret the SMART data. Such interpretations are often wrong, and that's because there is no standard which governs the meaning of the SMART attributes. That's why some tools identify the Power-On Hours attribute as Power-On Time, to give just one example.
Click to expand...
That comment was aimed at the smart given for the purpose the op wanted as the power on is there but the raw values don't help. Manufacturers typically stick to the same standards even if it's their own standard. Although it's not governed like other standards, most stick to the same as other manufacturers so most interpretations are correct. Power on hours and time is the same thing and a label doesn't change the data.
 
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k1114 said:
Power on hours and time is the same thing and a label doesn't change the data.
Click to expand...
No, it isn't. Some drives (eg some Fujitsus) report the time in minutes rather than hours. Some Maxtors use obscure units, like half minutes or half hours, IIRC.

If you want to see the data that the drive actually reports, then consult the ATA standard, or examine CrystalDiskInfo's text dumps. There you will see 512 bytes of raw attribute data, no text, just hex.

If you take the OP's Hitachi drive, it has lost 6 points (= 100 - 94) from the Power-On Time attribute. If we interpret this to mean hours, then that works out to about 1 point per year. So if the drive is to lose all 100 points, it would need to be powered on for 100 years. Clearly that doesn't make sense. If you do similar calculations for Seagate and WD drives, you will find that the lifetime is more like 10 years.
 
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This is the Crystaldiskinfo

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/D1oAAOSwx4JfJmj4/s-l1600.jpg

Would you guys suggest it?
"Betriebsstunden = power on hours = 46471"
According to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-on_hours 43.000 hours is about the lifespan of an HDD. Seems like it is pretty old.
But it is 2 TB for 20 quids....



Also, @Turtle Rig , what do you mean by
It will tell you if the hard drive is Good with a blue or Red with a Caution also tell you percentage
Click to expand...
?
Where is the percentage? Is it the 94? (Again, Betriebsstunden = Power on hours) Or is it something else?
Cheers
 
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the number of hours is 46471
I have drives with more running hours and they run perfect like new
the only thing I don't like is the spin up time...
but it's probable that Hitachi displays this in a different manner in comparison to other manufacturers.
 
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fzabkar said:
No, it isn't. Some drives (eg some Fujitsus) report the time in minutes rather than hours. Some Maxtors use obscure units, like half minutes or half hours, IIRC.

If you want to see the data that the drive actually reports, then consult the ATA standard, or examine CrystalDiskInfo's text dumps. There you will see 512 bytes of raw attribute data, no text, just hex.

If you take the OP's Hitachi drive, it has lost 6 points (= 100 - 94) from the Power-On Time attribute. If we interpret this to mean hours, then that works out to about 1 point per year. So if the drive is to lose all 100 points, it would need to be powered on for 100 years. Clearly that doesn't make sense. If you do similar calculations for Seagate and WD drives, you will find that the lifetime is more like 10 years.
Click to expand...
Semantics. I never said the raw data was reporting the same and already pointed out "typically" and "most." When it's shown by software, it's changed into non obscure measurements and doesn't change the data, ie 60 minutes is the same as 1 hour. It was already pointed out it's not standardized but most companies stick to a general industry standard or at least stick to their own to be interpreted correctly. This is common in the tech world when it's not standardized. There's no point in going into an obscure 100 point value just like trying to interpret the other raw values.
 
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EvilHamster said:
I guess I will buy it than today. If anyone sees a red flag, I would appreciate. But otherwise, super nice of you all to help with this anyway, so let me say a thanks to all the user who contributed to this thread.

Cheers.
Click to expand...
Oh wait SMART says 46k hours. A usual hard drive lives about 40k to 60k hours and don't quote me on that. I don't think you should buy this my friend. Just IMHO.
 
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20quid... I'd hit it but not for anything mission critical. . If it failed it wouldn't be an issue for me since I have good backups. I suggest you keep a close eye on the drive. Those came out in 2009 so it's very likely this drive actually had 5 yrs of power on time. Those are also when Hitachi made great drives imo. it's too bad we don't have a total writes for it. 29Mb total reads is really low.
 
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CrystalDiskInfo gets its information via the ATA Identify Device command (ECh), SMART READ DATA (B0h/D0h ), SMART READ THRESHOLDS (B0h/D1h) and possibly SMART READ LOG (B0h/D5h).

There is nothing to tell CDI how to interpret the data other than some loose conventions. The figure of 94 for the Power-On Time Count could be a bug, or it could be that Hitachi calculates it in an unconventional way. In any case CDI approaches this particular attribute in a clever way. On its first read, CDI interprets the time as hours and displays the corresponding count in decimal. It then watches this attribute for the next hour. If the raw value increases by 1, then CDI knows that the unit of time is indeed hours. However, if the count increases by 60, then CDI knows that the unit of time is minutes. It then recalculates the power-on time and displays it accordingly.

Code: 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskInfo 8.6.0 (C) 2008-2020 hiyohiyo
                                Crystal Dew World: https://crystalmark.info/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 18363] (x86)
  Date : 2020/06/19 9:24:17

-- Controller Map ----------------------------------------------------------
 + ATA Channel 0 (0) [ATA]
   - WDC WD1600AAJS-22WAA0 ATA Device
 + ATA Channel 1 (1) [ATA]
   - Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB ATA Device
 + Intel(R) 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller - 27C0 [ATA]
   - ATA Channel 0 (0)
   - ATA Channel 1 (1)
 - Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller [SCSI]

-- Disk List ---------------------------------------------------------------
 (1) WDC WD1600AAJS-22WAA0 : 160.0 GB [0/0/0, pd1] - wd

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (1) WDC WD1600AAJS-22WAA0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Model : WDC WD1600AAJS-22WAA0
        Firmware : 58.01D58
   Serial Number : WD-WCAS20972390
       Disk Size : 160.0 GB (8.4/137.4/160.0/160.0)
     Buffer Size : 8192 KB
     Queue Depth : 32
    # of Sectors : 312579695
   Rotation Rate : Unknown
       Interface : Serial ATA
   Major Version : ATA8-ACS
   Minor Version : ----
   Transfer Mode : ---- | SATA/300
  Power On Hours : 16264 hours
  Power On Count : 3733 count
     Temperature : 32 C (89 F)
   Health Status : Good
        Features : S.M.A.R.T., AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
       APM Level : ----
       AAM Level : 80FEh [OFF]
    Drive Letter : D:

-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 200 200 _51 000000000004 Read Error Rate
03 153 152 _21 000000000D0D Spin-Up Time
04 _96 _96 __0 000000000FB7 Start/Stop Count
05 200 200 140 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 200 200 _51 000000000000 Seek Error Rate
09 _78 _78 __0 000000003F88 Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _51 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0B 100 100 _51 000000000000 Recalibration Retries
0C _97 _97 __0 000000000E95 Power Cycle Count
C0 200 200 __0 000000000152 Power-off Retract Count
C1 199 199 __0 000000000FB7 Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 111 _93 __0 000000000020 Temperature
C4 200 200 __0 000000000000 Reallocation Event Count
C5 200 200 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 200 200 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000001 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
C8 200 200 _51 000000000000 Write Error Rate

-- IDENTIFY_DEVICE ---------------------------------------------------------
        0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9
000: 427A 3FFF C837 0010 0000 0000 003F 0000 0000 0000  Bz?..7.......?......
010: 2020 2020 2057 442D 5743 4153 3230 3937 3233 3930       WD-WCAS20972390
020: 0000 4000 0032 3538 2E30 3144 3538 5744 4320 5744  ..@..258.01D58WDC WD
030: 3136 3030 4141 4A53 2D32 3257 4141 3020 2020 2020  1600AAJS-22WAA0     
040: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 8010 0000 2F00                ..../.
050: 4001 0000 0000 0007 3FFF 0010 003F FC10 00FB 0110  @.......?....?......
060: FFFF 0FFF 0000 0007 0003 0078 0078 0078 0078 0000  ...........x.x.x.x..
070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 001F 0706 0000 0044 0040  .................D.@
080: 01FE 0000 746B 7F61 4123 7469 BC41 4123 207F 0015  ....tk.aA#ti.AA# ...
090: 0015 0000 FFFE 0000 80FE 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
100: 966F 12A1 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 5001 4EE1  .o..............P.N.
110: 562B 3837 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 4010  V+87..............@.
120: 4010 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0029 0000  @................)..
130: 0000 0000 0000 1691 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
140: 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
150: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
160: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
170: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
180: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
200: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 303F 0000 0000 0000  ............0?......
210: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
220: 0000 0000 100E 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
230: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
240: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
250: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 15A5                      ............

-- SMART_READ_DATA ---------------------------------------------------------
     +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 10 00 01 0F 00 C8 C8 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 03  ................
010: 00 99 98 0D 0D 00 00 00 00 00 04 32 00 60 60 B7  ...........2.``.
020: 0F 00 00 00 00 00 05 33 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00  .......3........
030: 00 00 07 0E 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 32  ...............2
040: 00 4E 4E 88 3F 00 00 00 00 00 0A 12 00 64 64 00  .NN.?........dd.
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0B 12 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00  .........dd.....
060: 00 00 0C 32 00 61 61 95 0E 00 00 00 00 00 C0 32  ...2.aa........2
070: 00 C8 C8 52 01 00 00 00 00 00 C1 32 00 C7 C7 B7  ...R.......2....
080: 0F 00 00 00 00 00 C2 22 00 6F 5D 20 00 00 00 00  .......".o] ....
090: 00 00 C4 32 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C5 12  ...2............
0A0: 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 10 00 C8 C8 00  ................
0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 3E 00 C8 C8 01 00 00 00 00  .......>........
0C0: 00 00 C8 08 00 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 82 00 68 10 01 7B  ............h..{
170: 03 00 01 00 02 34 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  .....4..........
180: 00 00 01 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 DB  ................

-- SMART_READ_THRESHOLD ----------------------------------------------------
     +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 10 00 01 33 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 15  ...3............
010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00  ................
020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 8C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
030: 00 00 07 33 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 00  ...3............
040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 33 00 00 00 00  ...........3....
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0B 33 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  .......3........
060: 00 00 0C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0 00  ................
070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C1 00 00 00 00 00  ................
080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C2 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
090: 00 00 C4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C5 00  ................
0A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0C0: 00 00 C8 33 C8 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ...3............
0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
170: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 41  ...............A
 
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fzabkar said:
It would appear that the units of Power-On Time are indeed hours.

See ...

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...disk-speedfan-does-not.3611510/#post-21898563

This would suggest that Hitachi reckons their drives will last 100 years. :-?
Click to expand...

The electronics may, the platters may even in a perfect environment at a perfect temperature with limited reads and writes.

Smart data doesn't show if a drive has had a knock or been dropped though, an instant way to fubar a platter drive.
 
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By way of comparison, my WD1600AAJS has racked up 17411 hours, and the attribute value has dropped from 100 to 77.

  • 17 411 / (100 - 77) x 100 hours = 8.6 years
    17 411 / (100 - 76) x 100 hours = 8.3 years

This would suggest that WD rates its drive for 8 years, or maybe 75000 hours? That's assuming that this attribute declines linearly over the drive's lifetime.
 
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