Daniel Rock wrote:
> "Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk> wrote:
>
>>I bought a supposedly new SCSI disk on eBay (Seagate ST3146854LC, 147 GB
>>15k rpm). According to the format command on Solaris 10, this has 633
>>primary defects and 18 grown defects. Does the fact there are grown
>>defects indicate it has been used? I'm very suspicious it is not new at
>>all.
>
>
> Any number larger than zero in the grown defect list would me make
> suspicious.
>
Yes, it is making me suspicious too. I think I'll send the disk back.
> Most of the SCSI drives I work with have an empty grown defect list (or
> maybe up to 5 entries on just a few drives). If the number is not zero I
> monitor the defect list for some time to see if it is still growing.
> Sometimes I also run a surface analysis (format -> analyze -> read).
I've done a verify on the disk, which did not need to add any more. But
there are still 18 grown errors, which is worrying.
> A steadily growing defect list is a good sign for the drive to fail
> in the near future.
I guess 18 is too many. I've just checked all my other disks, and none
have any grown defects, although one or two keep giving errors, which is
why I was going to replace them.
> In the SCSI inquiry the build date is also encoded (four digits WWYY -
> (W)eek (Y)ear). So run "format -e" -> scsi -> inquiry to see when the
> disk was built. A "new" disk should be no older than 6 months.
I'll look at that.
> Other things to try: get the number of power-on-hours from the drive.
> You could try the smartmontools
> http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
> they will also work on SCSI drives on Solaris/SPARC. Maybe you can get
> this information from this tool.
>
Cheers, I'll do that. Any idea what might be normal for a new disk?
Clearly 6360 hours (1 year) would not be reasonable for a new disk, but
would 100, or 1000? I'm not sure how much testing they might get at
Seagate after the counter is set to 0.
--
Dave (from the UK)
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