My HDD has been really slow lately,both in Linux and Windows.

Speed tests show that the burst speed is nearly 30 Mb/s,which seems to be ok for this model as far as I know,but the sustained speed barely reaches 2 Mb/s.

The HDD is way slower when I turn off the laptop for a while,not even reaching 500 kb/s,getting faster as time passes,until it reaches those 2 Mb/s.

I've run the Fujitsu diagnostic tool,which doesn't show any errors.

Excuse me if my english isn't correct,it isn't my native language.

I attach all the info I could think of as of now:

smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Fujitsu MHV series
Device Model: FUJITSU MHV2100AT PL
Serial Number: NSA3T6329H54
Firmware Version: 000000A0
User Capacity: 100,030,242,816 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 4a
Local Time is: Fri Mar 11 19:25:41 2011 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 694) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 88) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 083 046 Pre-fail Always - 38654822926
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 100 100 030 Pre-fail Offline - 36044800
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 100 100 025 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 072 072 000 Old_age Always - 137276
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 024 Pre-fail Always - 8589934592000
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 047 Pre-fail Always - 251
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 100 100 019 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Seconds 0x0032 042 042 000 Old_age Always - 29166h+19m+26s
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 020 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 4578
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 095 095 000 Old_age Always - 1276
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 088 088 000 Old_age Always - 247214
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 040 000 Old_age Always - 54 (Lifetime Min/Max 17/72)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 44333
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 439484416
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 065 065 000 Old_age Offline - 71
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 060 Pre-fail Always - 28698
203 Run_Out_Cancel 0x0002 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2628532829653

SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 1
CR = Command Register [HEX]
FR = Features Register [HEX]
SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
ER = Error register [HEX]
ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 1 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 16305 hours (679 days + 9 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 59 07 9a f5 99 e7 Error: UNC 7 sectors at LBA = 0x0799f59a = 127530394

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
c8 00 08 99 f5 99 e7 00 01:48:08.375 READ DMA
c8 00 08 c1 07 8a e8 00 01:48:08.375 READ DMA
c8 00 08 b9 07 8a e8 00 01:48:08.374 READ DMA
c8 00 08 71 f4 99 e7 00 01:48:08.354 READ DMA
c8 00 80 01 08 8a e8 00 01:48:08.350 READ DMA

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 29033 -
# 2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 29030 -
# 3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 28983 -
# 4 Extended offline Aborted by host 80% 28982 -
# 5 Short offline Completed without error 00% 28982 -
# 6 Short offline Aborted by host 20% 28982 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.



My external USB HDD seems to work fine on both Linux and Windows.
Smartctl open device: /dev/sda failed: Permission denied
jose@jose-laptop:~$ sudo smartctl --all /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Fujitsu MHV series
Device Model: FUJITSU MHV2100AT PL
Serial Number: NSA3T6329H54
Firmware Version: 000000A0
User Capacity: 100,030,242,816 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 4a
Local Time is: Fri Mar 11 19:25:41 2011 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 694) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 88) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 083 046 Pre-fail Always - 38654822926
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 100 100 030 Pre-fail Offline - 36044800
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 100 100 025 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 072 072 000 Old_age Always - 137276
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 024 Pre-fail Always - 8589934592000
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 047 Pre-fail Always - 251
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 100 100 019 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Seconds 0x0032 042 042 000 Old_age Always - 29166h+19m+26s
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 020 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 4578
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 095 095 000 Old_age Always - 1276
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 088 088 000 Old_age Always - 247214
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 040 000 Old_age Always - 54 (Lifetime Min/Max 17/72)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 44333
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 439484416
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 065 065 000 Old_age Offline - 71
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 060 Pre-fail Always - 28698
203 Run_Out_Cancel 0x0002 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2628532829653

SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 1
CR = Command Register [HEX]
FR = Features Register [HEX]
SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
ER = Error register [HEX]
ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 1 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 16305 hours (679 days + 9 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 59 07 9a f5 99 e7 Error: UNC 7 sectors at LBA = 0x0799f59a = 127530394

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
c8 00 08 99 f5 99 e7 00 01:48:08.375 READ DMA
c8 00 08 c1 07 8a e8 00 01:48:08.375 READ DMA
c8 00 08 b9 07 8a e8 00 01:48:08.374 READ DMA
c8 00 08 71 f4 99 e7 00 01:48:08.354 READ DMA
c8 00 80 01 08 8a e8 00 01:48:08.350 READ DMA

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 29033 -
# 2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 29030 -
# 3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 28983 -
# 4 Extended offline Aborted by host 80% 28982 -
# 5 Short offline Completed without error 00% 28982 -
# 6 Short offline Aborted by host 20% 28982 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.








/dev/sda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: FUJITSU MHV2100AT PL
Serial Number: NSA3T6329H54
Firmware Revision: 000000A0
Standards:
Used: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 4a
Supported: 7 6 5 4 & some of 8
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 195371568
Logical/Physical Sector size: 512 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 95396 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 100030 MBytes (100 GB)
cache/buffer size = 8192 KBytes (type=DualPortCache)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(cannot be disabled)
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 16
Advanced power management level: disabled
Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 254
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=240ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
Advanced Power Management feature set
Power-Up In Standby feature set
SET_MAX security extension
* Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
not supported: enhanced erase
100min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
HW reset results:
CBLID- above Vih
Device num = 0 determined by the jumper
Checksum: correct

Some of the SMART attribute values would need further investigation to interpret their raw values, which I'm not going to do now. However in general, the symptoms which you describe, slow performance (likely due to internal read retries), the value of SMART attribute 198, and the SMART error log all suggest that the disk drive does have a marginal internal problem.

Also, I don't know if you were trying to collect the SMART data for the external USB disk, but you didn't supply that (you included the same SMART data for the Fujitsu disk twice). Although I'm not sure what you were trying to include, I don't think more SMART data will help this analysis.

The fact that the Fujitsu diagnostic tool reports no errors, means nothing without you knowing exactly what testing that software does, and exactly how it defines an "error". For example, if it only does a short SMART test, then that is designed to only read a small percentage of the drive. Also, such software tends not to report problems, even if the performance is very slow due to internal retries, unless there are actual unreadable sectors, or other unrecoverable errors, or specific SMART attributes below their thresholds.

You can do more investigation if you want additional evidence of the disk having problems (for example, a graphical disk read benchmark output would be interesting e.g. HD Tune Pro in Windows, or via System - Administration - Disk Utility in some Linux distros, or via booting a CD with MHDD), but the answer for you is very likely to be: Simply replace that disk drive. Make sure to take regular backups, if you decide not to follow that suggestion to replace the disk drive.

Depending on how many "slow" sectors there are, you might get some more life out of the disk by doing a zero-fill (obviously after taking and verifying a backup first), but IMHO your description of the behaviour, and that SMART data, strongly suggests that the disk has a problem.

Ah,yes,I was in Linux at the time,so,I couldnt upload anything else.
About the SMART data,uh,my mistake,seems I pressed paste twice,external HDD controller

I've also ran SpinRite this night,and no errors have shown up,however,after the restart,hdparm benchmark returned 17 Mb/s.

For some reason,it seems the more I use the HDD,the faster it gets,until I turn the laptop off,then,it slows down again.

About the HD Tach picture I've attached,I must say that older benchmarks also showed those spikes after the 25 Gb mark,but the 0-25 Gb area wasn't like that before.

I've already done a full backup of the HDD,as I already planned to do a zero-fill,but I wanted to know if there was any other choice,although,what should I use for the zero-fill? Fujitsu doesn't have any utility for that.

Thanks

Hardware behaviour that is related to temperature (e.g. bearings), is quite common - again, this just shows the drive has a problem.

Note that this drive appears to have been very hot at some point in the past - 72 deg C - and at the time the SMART data was collected, it was at 54 deg C, which is also not good IMHO. Are you sure that the fan(s) / heatsinks / etc. in your laptop are working correctly?


If that graph shape is consistent when the test is repeated (i.e. not due to influence from elsewhere in that system), then again, that just confirms the drive has a problem reading large parts of the media.


From the shape of that graph, I think you're wasting your time - it looks very sick. It doesn't have to be a zero-fill, if that is difficult for you. The idea in this case is just to rewrite all sectors (and also forcing any pending reallocation sectors to be tested, but in your case there are none). You could just use something like this: "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/--- bs=1m" (where --- is the device node for that disk, which depends on your system configuration)

I would never use Spinrite, but from what I understand, that can do a re-write of all the blocks - therefore it might have already done what would be achieved by writing to all sectors. You will have to check what you did exactly with Spinrite to answer that question.


You're welcome - good luck

Although some of the raw attribute values are very large, the actual number of errors is low.

The Reallocated Sector Count, when viewed in hexadecimal, is 0x07D000000000. The actual number of reallocations is zero, and the total number of spare sectors remains at 2000 (= 0x07D0).

The Reallocated_Event_Count is 0x00001A320000. I believe this indicates that the count of reallocation events is zero, but I don't recall what the middle bytes mean.

In my previous investigation of the Raw_Read_Error_Rate and Seek Error Rate, I found that, for my 20GB MPF3024AT HDD, Fujitsu counts reads and seeks in the lower bytes of the raw attribute value. After examining more than a year of daily Fujitsu SMART reports, it appears that the maximum raw values for the RRER and SER attributes are 0x3FFFF (=256K) and 0xFFF (=4K), respectively, after which the count rolls over to 0.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys ... 5959145d44

However, in the OP's case, the raw RRER value is 0x00090001CA0E, which suggests to me that the uppermost 16 bits hold an error count, in this case 9.

Other than the temperature attribute, the only really worrisome attribute, IMHO, appears to be the Offline Uncorrectable errors.

198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 065 065 000 Old_age Offline - 71

I believe these are errors recorded by the drive during its SMART tests, and/or during background scanning.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you both for your replies.

Now that it seems the HDD will die soon,no matter what I do (Attribute 198 is now 74,so,it's getting worse,I guess),I wanted to ask you about the temperature.

I've got 3 laptops,and the HDD temperature is always between 50-60 degrees in all of them,yet,you and the HDD monitoring tools say it's too high.
The 72 degrees reading was an isolate event,if I remember correctly,my laptop abandoned sleep mode for some reason while it was inside my travel bag.

Also,seeing I've got to buy a new HDD,what would be a good choice? Seems most 2.5" HDDs are SATA now,which my laptop doesn't support,unless there's some SATA to IDE adapter that's small enough to fit on the HDD bay.

Unfortunately, as I said before, considering the large area of slow sectors (shown in the shape of the benchmark graph), this is not a surprise.


I don't have time to write lots now - just one suggestion; there are steps you can take to reduce the temperature, even just raising the bottom of the laptop away from any surface below. Currently, the drive in the laptop where I'm writing this, is at 40 deg C, after 3 hours use.


For IDE drives, IMHO there is no point in me making suggestions until you know what is available - your choice will likely be (very?) limited by what is available in your local market. You might have only 1 possibility! Remember that your BIOS and/or OS might have the "137GB limitation".


Only you know how large the HDD bay is on your laptop - however on laptops I have seen, there is very very little unused space. I haven't seen any SATA-to-IDE adapter that could fit in the relevant area (between the interface connector and drive), while also allowing the drive to still fit within the available space - but of course, I haven't seen every SATA-to-IDE adapter in the whole world.

I hope you can find a suitable replacement drive. Good luck