Seagate 5TB Backup Plus Portable Dying?

[guest_999]

I got a seagate 5TB backup plus portable a few months back.It contains a 2.5" ST5000LM000 5TB drive inside as per crystaldisk info.Initially everything was fine & after about 1.5 months I started backing up my 2TB internal drives to it using usb 2.0 port & it took a few days but finally everything was done.However only sometime after that I noticed that Seek Error Rate of drive has changed from:
100(current) 253(worst) 30(threshold) power on 31 hours------------>61(current) 60(worst) 30(threshold) power on 70 hours

I thought maybe it is just some stabilized value as some of my internal seagate drives have similar values but they are in operation for much longer duration.Anyway I started keeping an eye on this value & after some time I realized that this value is again dropping.After some further observations I noticed that as long as I don't use drive for any large/intensive write operation this value remains stable but as soon as I start copying/writing something in range of 30GB+ this value shows a drop of 1-2 in both current as well as worst value.I further notice that if I stop doing any writing operations on drive & just leave it connected to the system only doing read operations then current value of seek error rate starts increasing by 1-2.

So my question is,is this hdd dying or has it developed some complicated head issue which makes any write operations on this drive a big no or seagate has made some mistake with seek error rate smart attribute with this 2.5" 5TB backup plus portable drive series.

As of now I am running long generic test using seagate's own sea tools for windows & time left for finishing the test is around 12 hours after running already for around 3 hours(during which seek error rate current value increased from 45 to 46).

[fzabkar]

Could we see the SMART report?

[fzabkar]

See ...

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

[guest_999]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(2) ST5000LM000-2AN170
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model : ST5000LM000-2AN170
Firmware : 0001
Serial Number :
Disk Size : 5000.9 GB (8.4/137.4/5000.9/5000.9)
Buffer Size : Unknown
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 9767541168
Rotation Rate : 5526 RPM
Interface : UASP (Serial ATA)
Major Version : ACS-3
Minor Version : ---- [006Dh]
Transfer Mode : SATA/300 | SATA/600
Power On Hours : 562 hours
Power On Count : 34 count
Temperature : 47 C (116 F)
Health Status : Good
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : 80FEh [ON]
AAM Level : ----
Drive Letter : F:

-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 _74 _64 __6 0000015B6AF8 Read Error Rate
03 _97 _96 __0 000000000000 Spin-Up Time
04 100 100 _20 000000000072 Start/Stop Count
05 100 100 _10 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 _43 _43 _30 024200C3002F Seek Error Rate
09 100 100 __0 3EFE00000232 Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _97 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0C 100 100 _20 000000000022 Power Cycle Count
B7 100 100 __0 000000000000 Vendor Specific
B8 100 100 _99 000000000000 End-to-End Error
BB 100 100 __0 000000000000 Reported Uncorrectable Errors
BC 100 _97 __0 00000000001B Command Timeout
BD 100 100 __0 000000000000 High Fly Writes
BE _53 _46 _40 0000361F002F Airflow Temperature
BF 100 100 __0 000000000000 G-Sense Error Rate
C0 100 100 __0 000000000044 Power-off Retract Count
C1 100 100 __0 000000000146 Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 _47 _54 __0 00160000002F Temperature
C3 _74 _64 __0 0000015B6AF8 Hardware ECC recovered
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 4EF40000022B Head Flying Hours
F1 100 253 __0 00031EE5F518 Total Host Writes
F2 100 253 __0 00029815F34D Total Host Reads
FE 100 100 __0 000000000000 Free Fall Protection

The drive passed the seagate's seatools long generic test after running for around 16 hours during which seek error rate current value first increased from 45 to 46 & then finally decreased to 43.

It is not the huge raw value of seek error rate that worries me but the steady drop in current & worst values.Surely there must be a reason why seek error rate has a threshold value & this drive's current seek error rate value is close to that.

[fzabkar]

I'd be concerned about any Seagate drive that is starting to report Command Timeout errors (0x1B = 27).

As for the Seek Error Rate, I'd be worried about that, too.

The raw value is reporting 578 (= 0x242) seek errors in 12,779,567 seeks (= 0xC3002F). That might not seem like much, but it is unusual.

Here are two comparative SMART reports:

https://www.smartmontools.org/raw-attachment/ticket/796/smartctl-Seagate-ST5000LM000_20161222_082837.txt
https://www.smartmontools.org/raw-attachment/ticket/796/smartctl-Seagate-ST5000LM000_20170120_173825.txt

The above reports would suggest that the Read Error Rate and Hardware ECC Recovered attributes are within their expected ranges.

[guest_999]

I have one old seagate 2TB internal drive with command timeout raw value as 00700070007 & it is working fine for around 30000 hours.What I am concerned about is the drop in seek error rate current value whenever I start some writing operation on this drive with data in range of 30GB+.

Should I take chance with drive or should I just leave it as a read only drive for copying back data because it seems that merely reading data off this drive cause no drop in seek error rate current value?

P.S.Do the latest WD My Passport & Elements models show full list of SMART attributes because I can confirm that My Passport 4TB only show 4 SMART attributes while using 3rd party softwares like crystaldisk & doesn't even show power on hours value?

[fzabkar]

P.S.Do the latest WD My Passport & Elements models show full list of SMART attributes because I can confirm that My Passport 4TB only show 4 SMART attributes while using 3rd party softwares like crystaldisk & doesn't even show power on hours value?

Once again, can you show us what you are talking about? WD have several hidden SMART attributes which can be accessed with firmware tools but this latest development seems bizarre.

As for your Seek Error Rate question, I don't have an answer. FWIW, I do recall a thread at Seagate's old forum where a user reported seek errors when he mounted his drives (older models) vertically but not when they were horizontally mounted.

[guest_999]

https://community.wd.com/t/my-passport- ... ing/201711

[fzabkar]

Wow, that's dirty business.

Here is a full firmware dump for a similar drive (WD40NMZW-11GX6S1):

http://files.hddguru.com/download/PC-3000-UDMA%20Support/WDC%20Marvell%20family%20utility/PebbleB/WDC%20WD40NMZW-11GX6S1-01-01A01-WD-WX91EC5D907K-0001004M-800041-003REVP1-0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.zip

Firmware module 21.rpm contains the following SMART data:

Code:

wd_smart 21.rpm

ROYL header found

ID  Flg   Cur  Wor  Thr  Raw             Description
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1   2F   100  253   51  00000000000000  Raw Read Error Rate
  2  *A4   100  253    0  00000000000000  Throughput Performance
  3   27   253  253   21  00000000001345  Spin Up Time
  4  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000013  Start/Stop Count
  5   33   200  200  140  00000000000000  Re-allocated Sector Count
  7  *AE   100  253    0  00000000000000  Seek Error Rate
  8  *A4   100  253    0  00000000000000  Seek Time Performance
  9  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000000  Power-On Hours Count
10  *B2   100  253    0  00000000000000  Spin Retry Count
11  *B2   100  253    0  00000000000000  Drive Calibration Retry Count
12  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000013  Drive Power Cycle Count
16  *A2   100  253    0  00000000000000  Unknown Attribute
180  *AF   100  253  100  00000000000000  Unknown Attribute
183  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000000  SATA Downshift Error Count
184  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000000  End to End Error Det/Corr Count
187  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000000  Reported Uncorrectable Errors
188  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000000  Command Time Out
189  *BA   100  253    0  00000000000000  High Fly Writes
190  *A2    71   70    0  0000000000001D  Airflow Temperature
191  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000000  Shock Sense
192  *B2   200  200    0  0000000000000F  Emergency Retract Cycle Count
193  *B2   200  200    0  00000000000003  Load/Unload Cycle Count
194   22   123  122    0  0000000000001D  HDA Temperature
195  *B6   100  253    0  00000000000000  ECC on the Fly Count
196  *B2   200  200    0  00000000000000  Re-allocated Sector Event
197  *B2   200  200    0  00000000000000  Current Pending Sector Count
198  *B0   100  253    0  00000000000000  Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count
199  *B2   200  200    0  00000000000000  UltraDMA CRC Error Rate
200  *88   100  253    0  00000000000000  Multi Zone Error Rate
240  *B2   100  100    0  00000000000000  Head Flying Hours
241  *B2   200  200    0  000000000A3A2A  Total LBAs written
242  *B2   200  200    0  000000000B92D2  Total LBAs read
243  *B2   100  253    0  00000000000000  Unknown Attribute
253  *B2   100  253    0  00000000000000  Unknown Attribute
254  *B2   100  253    0  00000000000000  Free Fall Sensor

     * = hidden attribute

Note all the hidden attributes. :twisted:

[guest_999]

Now that's something,why in the world WD needs to hide these attributes.It's not like anybody can claim warranty unless drive fails WD's own diagnostic utility that doesn't show raw values for smart attributes anyway.

Can you please tell me the procedure for dumping the firmware to get the values as show above & whether it is safe to do it on a daily basis(say 1-2 times a day)?

[fzabkar]

You may be able to read firmware module 0x21 using the demo versions of SeDiv or WDMarvel. WDMarvel claims to be able to access USB-connected drives, but I don't know about SeDiv. HDDSuperTool should be able to do it as well, albeit from within Linux.

My utility parses the SMART module and extracts the attribute data.

Extracting SMART data from WD MODs 20 - 26:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=968