On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 10:03 PM, Rick Stevens <ricks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> To me, it is a bit surprising how the failure of the hard disk can be >>>> predicted (and with a time projection)! >>> >>> >>> One of the lines you listed was the "reallocated sector count". >>> Basically, when you buy a 500G drive, it really has more space than >>> that. Some of the sectors are reserved and not reported to the system. >>> When the drive detects a bad sector, it relocates it to one of the >>> reserved sectors. Once it has relocated a certain number, it reports >>> the drive as failing (possibly because it is out of reserved sectors to >>> use). >>> >>>> I have already done a full backup. Should I wait for some days to >>>> check out whether the alarm is true or not? >>> >>> >>> Given there were a bunch of reallocated sectors, I'd replace it as soon >>> as possible and then destroy it. >> >> >> >> Thanks, Chris, for your very useful clarification -- I now understand >> better the things at issue. > > > The warnings from smartctl aren't guarantees the drive is dying, but > that there's a high probability that it will at some point in the very > near future. If you get an alert, the standard recommendation is to > back up your data and get a new drive ASAP. > > Think of the warning as the "check engine" light on a car. If it goes > on, it could mean something as innocuous as you're out of windscreen > washer fluid to "your gearbox fell out on the tarmac two miles back." > Either way, you need to look at the output from the ODB2 scanner to see > what's really wrong. The Linux equivalent of the OBD2 scanner is the > "smartctl -a -H /dev/sdX" command. > > Based on that info, you can decide if you must replace the drive > immediately or if you can wait a bit. Given the relatively low cost of > new drives, I'd replace it sooner rather than later. In fact, when I > see a "deal" on drives, I'll buy a couple so I can have spares for just > this sort of situation. I believe in a belt and suspenders as far as my > data is concerned. Thanks, Rick. I am going to follow your advice. Paul -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
