MHDD do i need to zeroing ?

[bailif]

Hi

I tested yesterday my 120GB barracuda 7200.7 drive, which is a router
hdd working 24h, this test let me know that i have a few dozen blocks
under 500ms (those browns, not the "hardcore" red ones), so im
curious..what will be better; to zeroing and remap this drive to be
sure nothing gonna happend in next few months or leave it as it is ? i
have no experience with such "color typed" block, so i dont know what
can i expecting on my drive
Thank You, and sorry for my broken english

Regards

 

[Floyd]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

Hi

I tested yesterday my 120GB barracuda 7200.7 drive, which is a router
hdd working 24h,

this test

This test huh? You sure it wasn't the other one? Strange, man.

 

[Rod Speed]

I tested yesterday my 120GB barracuda 7200.7 drive,

Using what to test it ?

which is a router hdd working 24h, this test let me know that i have a few
dozen blocks under 500ms (those browns, not the "hardcore" red ones),
so im curious..what will be better; to zeroing and remap this drive to be
sure nothing gonna happend in next few months or leave it as it is ?

Its likely better to replace it before it dies depending on how you tested it.

And you should backup what matters immediately too.

i have no experience with such "color typed" block,
so i dont know what can i expecting on my drive

And we dont know what you used to see that.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi

I tested yesterday my 120GB barracuda 7200.7 drive, which is a router
hdd working 24h, this test let me know that i have a few dozen blocks
under 500ms (those browns, not the "hardcore" red ones), so im

What are you talking about??? Time is not a way to describe
HDD sector characteristics.

Arno

 

[Floyd]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

What are you talking about???

Time is not a way to describe HDD sector characteristics.

Clueless, as always.

 

[Guest]

What are you talking about??? Time is not a way to describe
HDD sector characteristics.

The diagnostic he's using, MHDD, can be made to scan a hard drive
sequentially and report in graph form the number of milliseconds
needed to read a block of 256 sectors. For blocks that took less than
3 ms to read, a white square is drawn, but a brown square is drawn for
blocks that needed > 150 m but < 500 mto read, while anything that
took over 500 ms is represented by a red square.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Previously (e-mail address removed) wrote:

The diagnostic he's using, MHDD, can be made to scan a hard drive
sequentially and report in graph form the number of milliseconds
needed to read a block of 256 sectors. For blocks that took less than
3 ms to read, a white square is drawn, but a brown square is drawn for
blocks that needed > 150 m but < 500 mto read, while anything that
took over 500 ms is represented by a red square.

I see. I expect this is supposed to display areas where retries
caused slowdowns.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi

I tested yesterday my 120GB barracuda 7200.7 drive, which is a router
hdd working 24h, this test let me know that i have a few dozen blocks
under 500ms (those browns, not the "hardcore" red ones), so im
curious..what will be better; to zeroing and remap this drive to be
sure nothing gonna happend in next few months or leave it as it is ? i
have no experience with such "color typed" block, so i dont know what
can i expecting on my drive
Thank You, and sorry for my broken english

Zeroing does nothing for HDD health. If the drive has a
problem, it needs to be replaced.

Side note: Remapping can be done today by running a full
surface scan (or long SMART selftest, which does the same
and some more tests), and, incidentially, in no other way,
unless there are pending sectors in the SMART attributes.
Then you need to zero these (or the complete drive).

Arno

 

[123]

Zeroing does nothing for HDD health.

You say the exact opposite at the bottom and got it right at the bottom.

If the drive has a problem, it needs to be replaced.

Not necessarily.

 

[Arno Wagner]

You say the exact opposite at the bottom and got it right at the bottom.

Zeroing does nothing for HDD healt. It can help reallocating a sector
(ehrn ECC and retirs fail to read it), but that will not correct any
mechanical or electronic problems and reallocation does not improve
health. It just hides the symproms. For many problems that is enough,
but for some it is not.

Not necessarily.

Well, let's say that if the drive has electronic or mechanical
problems, then it needs to be replaced. A reallocated sector is
not necessarily a problem, the occasional reallocation is notmal
in modern HDDs. I should probably have been more specific in my
statement.

A second way to phrase it would be to call the occasional
reallocation a transient problem and other things persintent
problems. Then zeroing would do nothing to correct persistent
problems, but can help with transient problems.

Arno

 

[123]

Zeroing does nothing for HDD healt.

You said the exact opposite at the bottom and got it right at the bottom.

It can help reallocating a sector

It can force the relocation of a marginal sector, and
that does a lot for the HDD health when it happens.

(ehrn ECC and retirs fail to read it), but that will
not correct any mechanical or electronic problems

The health of a hard drive involves more than just those two.

and reallocation does not improve health.

Corse it does when that marginal sector isnt used anymore.

It just hides the symproms.

Wrong again. ALL hard drives have some sectors that arent used,
because they dont have good enough magnetic material at that location.

Using zeroing to force a new marginal sector into the bad sector list does
indeed improve the health of a hard drive when that sector isnt used for data.

And some drives are deliberately shipped with not all the marginal
sectors included in the bad sector list, with the controller adding
those to the bad sector list when they prove to be marginal in the field.

For many problems that is enough, but for some it is not.

All that shows is that zeroing doesnt always improve the HDD health.

You initially claimed that it never improves the HDD health and that is just plain
wrong with marginal sectors that are added to the bad sector list by the zeroing.

Well, let's say that if the drive has electronic or mechanical
problems, then it needs to be replaced.

Yes, but 'not necessarily' means that it doesnt always need to
be replaced, most obviously when a new marginal sector has
appeared and more of those dont keep showing up over time.

A reallocated sector is not necessarily a problem, the
occasional reallocation is notmal in modern HDDs.

So if the drive has that problem, it does NOT need to be replaced.

I should probably have been more specific in my statement.

Yes, your initial unqualified claims were just plain wrong.

And your most recent claim above is STILL wrong.

A second way to phrase it would be to call
the occasional reallocation a transient problem

That isnt accurate either. The sector remains marginal, it just
isnt used anymore once its been added to the bad sector list.

and other things persintent problems. Then zeroing would do nothing
to correct persistent problems, but can help with transient problems.

It does help with a persistently marginal sector because that sector
isnt used anymore once its been added to the bad sector list.

 

[Jonathan Q. Arbuckle]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

Zeroing does nothing for HDD health.

Clueless, as always.

If the drive has a problem, it needs to be replaced.

*If* the drive has a problem.

Side note: Remapping can be done today by running a full surface scan
(or long SMART selftest, which does the same and some more tests),
Nonsense.

and, incidentially, in no other way,

Clueless, as always.

 

[Jonathan Q. Arbuckle]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

The diagnostic he's using, MHDD, can be made to scan a hard drive
sequentially and report in graph form the number of milliseconds
needed to read a block of 256 sectors.

For blocks that took less than 3 ms to read, a white square is drawn,

128kB/.003s = 128MB/3sec = 43MB/s
I wonder how useful that test is on older drives.
Or on the back end of even current ones.

but a brown square is drawn for blocks that needed > 150 ms but < 500
ms to read, while anything that took over 500 ms is represented by a red
square.

So what's with inbetween 3ms and 150ms?

 

[Jonathan Q. Arbuckle]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

I see.

Oh really?

I expect this is supposed to display areas where retries caused slowdowns.

What?
Time *is* a way to describe HDD sector characteristics now, is it?

 

[Jonathan Q. Arbuckle]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

Zeroing does nothing for HDD healt. It can help reallocating a sector

(ehrn ECC and retirs fail to read it),

Having brainfarts again, babblebot? You should do something about that.

but that will not correct any mechanical or electronic problems and
reallocation does not improve health.

It just hides the symproms.

Pity that's how they come from the factory already.

For many problems that is enough, but for some it is not.

Well, let's say that if the drive has electronic or mechanical
problems, then it needs to be replaced.

Like it's so easy to identify that.

A reallocated sector is not necessarily a problem, the occasional
reallocation is notmal in modern HDDs.

I should probably have been more specific in my statement.

Argh, who cares, you were just being yourself, babblebot.
Stumbling over your keyboard for sheer excitement, as always.

[usual bullshit snipped]

Arno

[more bullshit snipped]

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Zeroing does nothing for HDD health. If the drive has a
problem, it needs to be replaced.

I recently jarred a Seagate 80G ST380012A while it was running, and a
surface scan revealed a 16K defect that hadn't appeared in the
previous scan. The defect disappeared after I zeroed the drive, and
it hasn't come back.

Side note: Remapping can be done today by running a full
surface scan (or long SMART selftest, which does the same
and some more tests), and, incidentially, in no other way,
unless there are pending sectors in the SMART attributes.
Then you need to zero these (or the complete drive).

Before I zeroed the 80G Seagate, I ran the long SMART self test with
both MHDD and the DOS version of Seagate's SeaTools, but it didn't
affect the 16K defect.

 

[Eric Gisin]

I recently jarred a Seagate 80G ST380012A while it was running, and a
surface scan revealed a 16K defect that hadn't appeared in the
previous scan. The defect disappeared after I zeroed the drive, and
it hasn't come back.

That's a write error caused by the head going off track.

 

[Stretch]

Eric Gisin wrote

That's a write error caused by the head going off track.

Unless he runs scans continuously when he isn't *writing* to the drive
that's not at all the only possibility.

 

[Stretch]

larry moe 'n curly wrote

I recently jarred a Seagate 80G ST380012A while it was running, and a
surface scan revealed a 16K defect that hadn't appeared in the previous
scan.

The defect disappeared after I zeroed the drive, and it hasn't come back.

Really?
Wow, it worked as it was supposed too. Who could have ever thought that.

Oh uh, which proves what exactly?

Before I zeroed the 80G Seagate, I ran the long SMART self test with
both MHDD and the DOS version of Seagate's SeaTools, but it didn't
affect the 16K defect.

Of course it didn't. The SMART internal self test is a read only test.
It does nothing (more) that normal use won't do.
You only come to see bad sectors when they are in the pending list which
means that they can't be read and only a re-write can take care of it.
User intervention is needed since the drive itself can't decide whether
the data in the bad sector is in someone's file or not.
The SMART internal self test doesn't allow user intervention.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

I recently jarred a Seagate 80G ST380012A while it was running, and a
surface scan revealed a 16K defect that hadn't appeared in the
previous scan. The defect disappeared after I zeroed the drive, and
it hasn't come back.

And still, your surface is not any healthier than before.
Just a different part of it is used now.

Before I zeroed the 80G Seagate, I ran the long SMART self test with
both MHDD and the DOS version of Seagate's SeaTools, but it didn't
affect the 16K defect.

That would be because you likely had an unreadable secor,
which also shows up as a pending sector afer a read attempt.

Arno