I need some help determining if this drive is ok. I've built many computers but the last 4 drives have died on me relatively early so I decided to follow advice stickied on another forum saying you should check smart values, zero out the drive twice, preform an extended test and see if any smart values changed. Optionally you can run a Victoria for Windows scan. So I did with v4.3 set with settings from an unofficial manual from [url="http://forum.hddguru.com/victoria-for-windows-detailed-english-manual-release-t6902.html"]a threat at this forum[/url]. The first time I didn't follow the settings right and had them at default under tests (ignore with 1000ms timeout). I then changed it to remap with 250 ms and checked "to log" for the green value which in 4.3 is 200ms rather than 120ms.. so its values are slightly higher. The manual further states: " If, for any reason at all, the “Err” count goes higher than 0, 
the drive is failing. If the “600” count goes higher than 10, the drive is failing. If the “120” count goes 
higher than 50, the drive is on the verge of failure. (information gathered from hddguru.com) ". The 120 in this case is 200 on this version of Victoria, which isn't the latest due to the latest, v4.46 giving me an error pop up of "privileged instruction" when trying to start the test.

Results of the tests:
I didn't record the values for the 1st scan via screen shot but the second scan had 2751 values under 20ms and 9 values at under 200ms. Except for the 3 under 600, rest were under 5. Smart values didn't change and there is no bad values on the smart data. I then re-zeroed the drive, before the second test, and zeroed it out again before the third test. Its been zeroed out 4 times now.

Scan2:


Scan3:


All sectors that are coming up weak are just barely reaching the threshold on this version, which is 200ms.. most of them are 200ms +/-15ms. They however are all above 120ms on the newer version which gives me more than what the screenshots really indicate. Nearly all values in 200ms would be under 600ms in the newer version. This means I'm consistently getting above 10 sectors in the less than 600ms but greater than 120ms range which according to the guide is a "failing drive" however I'm not sure if this is accurate and I was hoping for some input. Is this acceptable for a brand new enterprise drive? What would you do?

I can still return the drive for replacement or request RMA. Thanks ahead of time to those who respond.

I also did two extended smart tests without any bad results. Smart values are uncharged.

Any advice?

You could try writing to the slow spots to see if they get better or worse

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Hi, I think the manual was written about 4 years ago when the standard desktop would have only used an 80gb or 160gb drive. Laptops were typically using even smaller drives. So I think you might have to factor this in to your calculations and multiply the permisible number of slow reads accordingly.
I wouldn't expect you to feel better applying this as I woudn't!