(Not) Worried about my Seagate Cuda V

DonP · Post by **DonP** » Mon Nov 10, 2003 6:33 pm

So with all of this talk about 7200.7 problems I remembered issues I'm having with my Cuda V..

When using SpeedFan or Sandra to check SMART values on my drives I found that my Cuda V is producing loads of errors..
Basically the following values keep rollingt over: "Raw Read Error Rate", "Seek Error Rate" and "ECC Corrected Count".

I thought this was my fault.. the drive used to be connected in an external USB2 box but since it's such a high drain device it didn't always successfully start so maybe it incorrectly wrote data to the disk. But I don't think that's the problem.. a friend who bought a Cuda V (a few months before me, therefore different batch) also has these fast changing values but his HDD was always inside his PC.

So, is this normal? I haven't had corrupt data so I don't really care.. actually I suspect it's normal behaviour. My WD80SE doesn't behave like this.

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Mon Nov 10, 2003 7:17 pm

Same deal here with ST3120024A (120g Cuda V.) SpeedFan reports that my drive's "Fitness" is 43%. Sounds encouraging, eh? Got the same errors except that I don't have the "ECC Corrected Count."

Ran the online Seagate drive test it it reports that drive is ok. 'Course, this doesn't give much comfort as it could very well be within the last hours of its life and just hasn't reached the "Drive No Good" parameters yet.

This drive's about 2 weeks old.

Maybe this weekend I'll install XP on another drive and see what SpeedFan says about it.

Have any idea what the values given by SpeedFan mean? Did a quick check at Seagate's site and found zip. (tried to copy/paste the #'s but couldn't do it)

DonP · Post by **DonP** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 1:06 pm

SpeedFan (v4.06) reckons my ST3120023A (120GB Cuda V fw3.31) also has a fitness of 43%.. me thinks that's a load of crap. I've heard in a few places that SpeedFan produces some really weird results WRT to fitness level. In fact I think I had a fitness level like that ever since I got the Cuda (about a year ago).

Basically you're the third person to get errors like mine and I honestly think that it's normal behaviour.

As to what each value in SpeedFan means.. dunno.. sorry.. Sandra has slightly different names for them, but no additional info.

Metaluna · Post by **Metaluna** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 2:54 pm

I forget the exact percentage, but I also get about the same readings in Speedfan with my 120GB 'cuda V. I think it's safe to say the 43% rating is rubbish. The way the author calculates that metric is not an exact science so I'd take it with a grain of salt.

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 3:00 pm

Guess we can talk amongst ourselves. Don't have SpeedFan running on another computer at the ofc. Have it on another at me casa, however, it's a sata drive and SpeedFan doesn't pick it up. I'll get it running on one of the file servers here (2 Cuda V drives <1 yr old) and let you know what it says.

Thanks for the tip about others with 43% fitness. Maybe no big deal.

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 3:41 pm

Meta - thanks for the info. Will repsond when I've got more info.

Had to run outside as there's a B-17 making a pretty low-level pass over town. No bombs dropped.

BarCodeBlack · Post by **BarCodeBlack** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 4:08 pm

I wonder how common this fault is.

I too, have taken delivery of quite a few Seagate drives in the last few months, including:

2x Barracuda IV 40Gig
1x Barracuda 7200.7 40Gig
2x Barracuda 7200.7 80Gig

It would appear that any S.M.A.R.T utility including SpeedFan, DTemp and PassMarks Diskcheckup report the same errors (except ECC Corrected Count, which does't seem to be an S.M.A.R.T attribute on my drives) on all of the above drives. I certainly hope this is nothing to worry about, and judging by the fact we are all having same symptoms I can only assume this to be a lesser known 'characteristic" of the barracuda line.

I'm surprised this hasn't surfaced earlier, judging from the popularity of the Barracuda drives in the past. Does no-one check their S.M.A.R.T attributes from time to time?

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 4:33 pm

Ok, update. Just installed Speedfan on ofc file server - ST360021A and ST380021A - both Cuda IV's not 5's like I said earilier.

BOTH drives show "Fitness 43%." So, looks like some kind of snafu on SpeedFan's part - at least it's consistent.

I'm gonna offically quit worrying about this now.

Thanks for the info, Barcelona.

DonP · Post by **DonP** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 4:45 pm

Ok.. some more observations..
I got the attribute names from SANDRA, not SpeedFan.. and for completeness they also have some hex labels to them:
"Raw Read Error Rate" => 01
"Seek Error Rate" => 07
"ECC Corrected Count"=> C3

There is another major difference between SpeedFan and Sandra..
When re-reading the attributes Sandra reports huge increases in the values while SpeedFan only reports small increases. Not sure which one to trust.. I suspect that either Sandra isn't doing its byte-ordering correctly or SpeedFan is incorrectly type casting its variables. Dunno.

As to cause.. I think these errors do exist, and not just in our seagates, but most drives.. the difference however is that non-Seagate (ok, my WDC) drives don't report it as it is normal. I think it's similar to FEC on CDs.

PS Actually, I'm sure that SpeedFan does something wrong in its variable conversion because when I re-read I get changes in the "Raw" value but not in the "Value" value.

EDIT: Just saw mas92264's post.. I think it's a good idea not to worry about the 43% fitness.. it is false.. I'm trying to dig up some URLs where people said this.. I'm sure I read it somewhere.

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 8:07 pm

Ok, here's my info frm Sandra. Sorry if it's a little tough to read. Hey look! My TCA is zero! 'Course the joke's on me as most of this means absolutely nothing to me. (ST3120024A about 2 weeks old) Most of the data seems to correlate to SpeedFan excepting the 5 digit # to the left of of some of the values, like "26699" which seem to be mis-reported? Maybe this will give you some xtra info and maybe we'll all learn something.

SMART Data
Raw Read Error Rate (01) :26699 (Threshold 6; Worst 59; Maximum 58)
Spin-up Time (03) : 0 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 100)
Start/Stop Count (04) : 2 (Threshold 20; Worst 100; Maximum 100)
Re-Allocated Sector Count (05) : 0 (Threshold 36; Worst 100; Maximum 100)
Seek Error Rate (07) :28024 (Threshold 30; Worst 63; Maximum 60)
Power-On Time Count (09) :346 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 100)
Spin Retry Count (0A) : 0(Threshold 97; Worst 100; Maximum 100)
Power Cycle Count (0C) :17 (Threshold 20; Worst 100; Maximum 100)
Drive Temperature (C2) : 42(Threshold 0; Worst 42; Maximum 54)
ECC Corrected Count (C3) :26699 (Threshold 0; Worst 59; Maximum 58)
Pending Sector Count (C5) :0 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 100)
Un-Correctable Sector Count (C6) :0 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 100)
CRC Error Count (C7) :0 (Threshold 0; Worst 200; Maximum 200)
Write Error Rate (C8) : 0 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 253)
TCA :0 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 253)

EDIT: the smilies are 8 followed by )

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:04 am

mas92264 wrote:Had to run outside as there's a B-17 making a pretty low-level pass over town. No bombs dropped.

Don't suppose you could elucidate on that, could you?

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:45 am

Veteran's day, ofc close to airport, vintage military aircraft at airport.

I gonna guess that it was at 1,500 feet or less. It's pretty impressive with what, 4 piston engines, each with 2 rows of 7 or 9 cylinders? 3 rows? Don't know. Was moving pretty slow - 125 - 150 knots or so, just guessing. Stall speed must be pretty low, unladen.

Edit: Cruise is 130 knots, only 15 airworthy left per quickie 'net search.

Dingus · Post by **Dingus** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 6:17 am

my seagate cuda 4 has 43% too but my WD noiseriffic caviar 120g has 85%. But i don't know what that means. I've had the cuda for over a year, and the wd for a month or 2.