My EX495 has been sporadically hanging, requiring a reboot. I recently heard some loud hard drive "clicking" coming from one of the drives in the server. My assumption is that one of the drives is about to die. However, I am having trouble determining which one, especially based on the SMART status. I have two Hitachi drives in the pool with normal SMART status, but I also have two other drives that came with the server (WD I think) that seem to have some crazy SMART numbers. Can anyone help me determine if these numbers might indicate drive failure? Check out the numbers below, especially the raw read error rate and seek error rate for both:

Drive 0:
SMART ATTRIBUTES:
ID Description Status Value Worst Threshold Raw Value TEC
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Raw Read Error Rate OK 117 99 6 137401979 N.A.
3 Spin Up Time OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
4 Start/Stop Count OK 100 100 20 31 N.A.
5 Reallocated Sector Count OK 100 100 36 4 N.A.
7 Seek Error Rate OK 87 60 30 669389247 N.A.
9 Power On Time OK 88 88 0 10825 N.A.
10 Spin Retry Count OK 100 100 97 0 N.A.
12 Power Cycle Count OK 100 100 20 31 N.A.
184 End-to-End error OK 100 100 97 0 N.A.
187 Reported Uncorrectable Errors OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
188 Command Timeout OK 100 99 0 30065229837 N.A.
189 High Fly Writes OK 95 95 0 5 N.A.
190 Temperature Difference from 100 OK 50 48 45 841941042 N.A.
194 Temperature OK 50 52 0 50 C N.A.
195 Hardware ECC Recovered OK 63 40 0 137401979 N.A.
196 Reallocation Event Count OK 100 100 36 4 N.A.
197 Current Pending Sector Count OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
198 Uncorrectable Sector Count OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
199 UltraDMA CRC Error Count OK 200 200 0 0 N.A.
240 Head flying hours OK 100 253 0 138194867726919 N.A.
241 Total LBAs Written OK 100 253 0 3434972304 N.A.
242 Total LBAs Read OK 100 253 0 2071929655 N.A.

Drive 1:
SMART ATTRIBUTES:
ID Description Status Value Worst Threshold Raw Value TEC
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Raw Read Error Rate OK 119 99 6 207233078 N.A.
3 Spin Up Time OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
4 Start/Stop Count OK 100 100 20 64 N.A.
5 Reallocated Sector Count OK 100 100 36 2 N.A.
7 Seek Error Rate OK 81 60 30 137643247 N.A.
9 Power On Time OK 72 72 0 25284 N.A.
10 Spin Retry Count OK 100 100 97 0 N.A.
12 Power Cycle Count OK 100 100 20 65 N.A.
184 End-to-End error OK 100 100 99 0 N.A.
187 Reported Uncorrectable Errors OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
188 Command Timeout OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
189 High Fly Writes OK 1 1 0 117 N.A.
190 Temperature Difference from 100 OK 50 44 45 5136908338 N.A.
194 Temperature OK 50 56 0 50 C N.A.
195 Hardware ECC Recovered OK 44 17 0 207233078 N.A.
197 Current Pending Sector Count OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
198 Uncorrectable Sector Count OK 100 100 0 0 N.A.
199 UltraDMA CRC Error Count OK 200 200 0 0 N.A.
240 Head flying hours OK 100 253 0 124798864741662 N.A.
241 Total LBAs Written OK 100 253 0 843979536 N.A.
242 Total LBAs Read OK 100 253 0 1560605509 N.A.

It looks like the biggest difference between the two is the "command timeout". Apparently, this is in Hex format and for my drive 0, it equates to 0x70007000D, which according to the Seagate forums, means 7000. The clicking and timeouts seems to point to my drive 0 as being bad (ughh....it's my OS drive).

Personally, I would shut off the server, and place the drives (one at a time) into another system for immediate image clone (if you need to backup the data), then proceed with testing. Forcing chkdsk should help to determine which one is bad. I use "smart" as well but it is only a tool and as such I do not rely on it solely, I use it fore more of a heads up. The system freezes and hangs would surely catch my attention and at times you can locate issues recorded in the Event Viewer that can lead you to the faulty drive.

The main thing I want to stress is that the more time you spend tinkering around in search of the problem, the more apt the drive is to fail on you. You probably are aware of that, but that is why I suggest to backup the drives before you investigate further. Best of luck!

TAdams

_________________
Have you backed up your data lately?

Try installing the Home Server SMART add-in, available @ http://www.dojonorthsoftware.net/Freebi ... SMART.aspx. This will give a visual analysis of your disks.

However, my "off the cuff" impression is that you've got problems on both. Both disks have bad sectors, which are regarded as one of the most common "early indicators" of hard drive death. As a general rule, the presence of bad sectors should not be taken lightly, especially if they continue to increase in number.

Another item to consider is the ratio of bad sectors to reallocation events (only your system disk supports the latter attribute, #196). I've seen cases where there's a fairly significant number of bad sectors (i.e. 15, 20 or more) but only one reallocation event. Sometimes this can be the result of a manufacturing defect, and the drive reallocated (aka remapped) all of the bad sectors in a single operation. In other words, the bad sectors form a contiguous area. When the ratio is closer to 1:1, however, as is your case (4 bad sectors, 4 reallocation events), this means the disk has detected bad sectors on multiple separate occasions--they're likely NOT contiguous and definitely more likely that early warning that the end is nigh for the disk.

I will admit--I have a disk that has shown 9 bad sectors for over a year, and the count hasn't gone up, and the disk hasn't shown any other signs of trouble. Mind you, this is a minor disk that is used for temporary storage of ripped DVDs before they're transferred to the EX490. If I had a disk with bad sectors attached to either home server, it would be coming out in a mighty hurry.

But if your disk has taken to clicking, you are best off trying to get it (or them) replaced ASAP.

_________________
Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups

Thanks. I'm not exactly what was wrong, but it has turned into an IT nightmare for me. I removed the OS drive and replaced it with another drive, then tried to recover and then a system restore (with the the data drives removed). While I was able to connect and apparently load the WHS from my mediasmart disks, the initial "console" connection that sets up the server name and password would always fail during it's final "update". This would leave the server in a state where I could not connect via a connector, but could RDP in. However, None of the HP software was installed, the drive extender service wasn't running and the backup service also wasn't running.

I also tried cloning my hard drive. I was able to initially boot up, but after modifying the proper registry settings, the server failed to boot up.

After trying all that, I gave up (I literally spent the entire weekend, up most of the night too). I'm still trying to figure out what to do next, but will probably buy a NAS unless I can figure out a good solution. Of course, suggestions are always welcome.