[SOLVED] Why is Power-on Hours raw values so high on my new Seagate HDD?

[alistersi]

Hi!

I just bought this Seagate ST1000LM048 and installed it on a caddy to accompany my also new SSD. And these are the SMART values:

I cannot make much sense from these values, but the Power-on Hours, Airflow Temperature, and Read/Seek Error Rate are driving me crazy. Especially because on startup, and every now and then, the HDD makes a clicking noise. I had my WD Red for 7 years and witnessed such high values and clicking noises only during its last 6 months. What is wrong with this? Is there a chance that it's not a new HDD and it has been refurbished?

p.s. and is it okay that my BX500 SSD shows a temp of 42 C degrees after doing literally nothing other than surfing the web for 30 mins?

Thank you in advance!

 

[RealBeast]

I would run Seagate Seatools for Windows and check the SMART values with that program -- you can also do a short drive fitness test (DFT). That link is direct to the file and will allow direct download.

I would not necessarily believe Crystal Disk temps and the drive would be fine at 42C but very likely is not that warm unless your room is very hot.

Drives can make a fair amount of noise and still be fine.

 

[fzabkar]

Seagate's SMART attributes are counterintuitive. They are best displayed in hexadecimal. CrystalDiskInfo can be configured to do this. I can show you what the numbers mean if you can repost the SMART data in hex. BTW CrystalDiskInfo can save the SMART data to a text file.

SeaTools is useless. It only tells you if a drive qualifies for a warranty replacement. A drive will pass SeaTools' SMART test even if it has 10,000 bad sectors.

 

[alistersi]

Seagate's SMART attributes are counterintuitive. They are best displayed in hexadecimal. CrystalDiskInfo can be configured to do this. I can show you what the numbers mean if you can repost the SMART data in hex. BTW CrystalDiskInfo can save the SMART data to a text file.

SeaTools is useless. It only tells you if a drive qualifies for a warranty replacement. A drive will pass SeaTools' SMART test even if it has 10,000 bad sectors.

I couldn't believe that someone would be able to make sense of hex values. Anyway, here are the SMART data in hex:

-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 100 100 __6 000000025580 Read Error Rate
03 100 100 __0 000000000000 Spin-Up Time
04 100 100 _20 000000000018 Start/Stop Count
05 100 100 _36 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 100 253 _45 0000000007AB Seek Error Rate
09 100 100 __0 C6CF00000020 Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _97 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0C 100 100 _20 00000000000C Power Cycle Count
B8 100 100 _99 000000000000 End-to-End Error
BB 100 100 __0 000000000000 Reported Uncorrectable Errors
BC 100 100 __0 000000000000 Command Timeout
BD 100 100 __0 000000000000 High Fly Writes
BE _78 _71 _40 000016150016 Airflow Temperature
BF 100 100 __0 000000000000 G-Sense Error Rate
C0 100 100 __0 000000000000 Power-off Retract Count
C1 100 100 __0 00000000006C Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 _22 _40 __0 001500000016 Temperature
C5 100 100 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 100 100 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
F0 100 253 __0 2E0700000000 Head Flying Hours
F1 100 253 __0 000000018ADC Total Host Writes
F2 100 253 __0 00000000CAA4 Total Host Reads
FE 100 100 __0 000000000000 Free Fall Protection

 

[fzabkar]

The raw values in many cases are not single values. They can consist of two or more values.

For example, Power On Hours appears to consist of two numbers:

• 0xC6CF00000020 -> 0xC6CF 0x00000020

The lower number is 0x20 which is 32 in decimal. That's the actual number of hours. I suspect that the upper 16 bits (or 20 bits) might be the fractional part of an hour, say milliseconds.

Now look at the Airflow Temperature:

• 0x000016150016 -> 0x0000 0x16 0x15 0x0016

Those look like 3 temperature values, namely 22C, 21C and 22C. These correspond to the max, min and current temperature values for the current power cycle.

The Read Error Rate and Seek Error Rate raw values are sector counts, not error counts. In fact the actual number of seek errors is 0.

Seek Error Rate, Read Error Rate and Hardware ECC Recovered SMART attributes:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=89

Seagate SMART Attribute Specification:
http://t1.daumcdn.net/brunch/service/user/axm/file/zRYOdwPu3OMoKYmBOby1fEEQEbU.pdf

Normal SATA SMART Attribute Behavior (Seagate):
http://t1.daumcdn.net/brunch/service/user/axm/file/Vw3RJSZllYbDc86ssL6bofiL4r0.pdf

You can use Bing or Google's calculator for hex/decimal conversion:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=0x16+in+decimal

 

[alistersi]

The raw values in many cases are not single values. They can consist of two or more values.

Thanks! I really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

I read all the links and checked almost all the values based on them, and there seems to be no problem with the disk on the basis of SMART values. (I just didn't get the Head Flying)

Anyway, the thing is that the disk keeps making noises whenever I run a new task or turn on/off the laptop. It's a lot more often than my mind can take! None of my previous HDDs made such noises (at least not when just reading/writing data).
Should I send it back, or is it normal for Seagates? (I actually don't know if they would accept returning it for such noises)

 

[Zerk2012]

When you cut the PC on the drive powers up, click, when it goes to sleep, click, if from sleep you ask for information from the drive, click.

 

[fzabkar]

The drive's heads park on a ramp. Perhaps that is the clicking you are hearing?

Seagate drives also perform background surface scanning during idle periods. This is intended to preemptively detect bad sectors.

The raw value of the Load/Unload Cycle Count attribute is 0x6C, ie 108 (decimal). That's about 3 cycles per hour, ie one every 20 minutes.

 

[alistersi]

The drive's heads park on a ramp. Perhaps that is the clicking you are hearing?

Seagate drives also perform background surface scanning during idle periods. This is intended to preemptively detect bad sectors.

The raw value of the Load/Unload Cycle Count attribute is 0x6C, ie 108 (decimal). That's about 3 cycles per hour, ie one every 20 minutes.

[Before anything, I recorded the kind of sound it makes (just by opening CrystalDisk) and uploaded it here: gofile.io/d/0hg5xr. it can be heard around 0:04, other noises are from keyboard.]

It cannot be a regular thing, 'cause it happens on specific occasions. And actually, something really weird happened right now.

I must say that I have not even partitioned the HDD yet and I'm only using the SSD to write/read data (sth I didn't have in mind until now).

Anyway, I was installing Adobe Photoshop on the SSD and after 15% of the progress, the HDD started to make noises (about 10 times!) which is weird considering that I was working with SSD. Isn't it?
I know for sure that the noises come from the HDD. Because the sounds are on the right side of the laptop where I have the caddy installed.

What the hell is going on?! This drive isn't even in use and reacts to what the other drive is doing?

p.s. They had packed the drives in a very loose package and the hdd (although protected by bubble wraps) could easily move in the outer packaging. Maybe damaged while being delivered?

 

[fzabkar]

When the HDD is supposed to be idle, do the Seek Error Rate and Read Error Rate raw values increase substantially?

Do the Total Host Reads/Writes remain static? Host activity refers to reads and writes commanded by Windows.

 

[alistersi]

When the HDD is supposed to be idle, do the Seek Error Rate and Read Error Rate raw values increase substantially?

Do the Total Host Reads/Writes remain static? Host activity refers to reads and writes commanded by Windows.

The laptop has been idle for about 2-3 hours and these are the changes in the raw hex values:

Read Error Rate: 000000026745 -> 000000026786
(Edit: Now, the normalized value has fallen to 67, and the raw value is: 0000004760C5)
Seek Error Rate: 0000000018FF -> 00000000192D

Total Host Writes: 000000018F2E -> 000000018F6E
Total Host Reads: 00000000D817 -> 00000000D818

 

[fzabkar]

The data would suggest that the OS (host) performed 64 writes and 1 read between each SMART report. The drive read 65 sectors and performed 46 seeks. I suppose this activity could be related to CrystalDiskInfo itself.

I'm assuming that the new raw value of 0x4760C5 was still recorded during idle mode (no host read/write activity). If so, then this reflects the drive's own internal background surface scanning.

• 0x4760C5 - 0x26786 = 0x44F93F = 4,520,255 sectors = 2.3GB

Note that the sector count rolls over to 0 when it reaches several million, so the actual number of sectors scanned could be far greater. That said, I would have thought that the seek count would have increased also, unless it is not recorded during internal processes.

 

[alistersi]

The data would suggest that the OS (host) performed 64 writes and 1 read between each SMART report. The drive read 65 sectors and performed 46 seeks. I suppose this activity could be related to CrystalDiskInfo itself.

I'm assuming that the new raw value of 0x4760C5 was still recorded during idle mode (no host read/write activity). If so, then this reflects the drive's own internal background surface scanning.

• 0x4760C5 - 0x26786 = 0x44F93F = 4,520,255 sectors = 2.3GB

Note that the sector count rolls over to 0 when it reaches several million, so the actual number of sectors scanned could be far greater. That said, I would have thought that the seek count would have increased also, unless it is not recorded during internal processes.

I don't wanna sound stupid, but after all, does any of these mean that I may have to send the HDD back to the seller, or is the disk just fine? ('Cause as I said, it's supposed to be brand new and healthy)

 

[fzabkar]

I don't see anything in the SMART data that would concern me.