On Monday 31 July 2006 09:41, you wrote: >The SMART thing isn't that smart at all. Even after the server crashed >twice due faulty harddrive, SMART keeps teeling me everything is OK.
I think (someone with more knowledge may correct me if i'm wrontg) SMART communicates with the drive and asks the drive's electronics if anything is wrong. So SMART can only report problems that the drive detects. >This is a SEAGATE SATA, only 1 year old. I'd expect a longer life of > those drives. Am I wrong? Drives are rated with a "mean time before failure". Though the number given is quite high on modern drives, it is still an average. Some percentage of the drives will die in a few months, some will last for 2 years, some for 5 years, etc. Most of the drives produced should last longer than people care to use them. I have a drive at home that has been running for over 8 years continuously (except for moving the computer or power outages). I have had other drives fail a couple months after purchase. >[lengthy error messages removed] I've had many problems with hard drives. The types of errors that you are seeing correspond with errors i have received when i had a bad data cable. I haven't had cable problems with SATA, only parallel ATA. But i also have not used SATA drives very much yet (most of my equipment is old). My experience has been that data cables in PCs are made very cheaply and can spontaneously go bad. More often they go bad after being disturbed; have you had the computer open recently? Occasionally cables are even bad when new. I'd suggest replacing the data cable with a new one or one that is known good and see if you still get the errors. When i've had hard drive problems (especially if they are intermittent) i've usually been able to solve them by getting the highest quality cable i could find and using it instead of whatever i had been using. Replacing a cable (even with a relatively expensive new cable) is also much cheaper than getting a new drive, or paying shipping on a bad drive that is still under warranty. Good luck with your drive! I know that dealing with bad drives and cables can be quite frustrating. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Ramaley Dial Center 118, Drake University Network Programmer/Analyst 2407 Carpenter Ave +1 515 271-4540 Des Moines IA 50311 USA
