I am getting this cryptic message "DISK IS LIKELY TO FAIL SOON" from the Ubuntu Disks SMART Data & Self-Tests. However, when I inspect the self-test Results Window, I find that there are only 8 sectors that have been relocated (8*512 bytes from a 120GB SSD Drive), and no value is listed in red.
Also, when I run HDSentinel for Ubuntu, it reports disk health of a reasonable 85%:
HDD Device 0: /dev/sda
HDD Model ID : Hypertec SSD
HDD Serial No: HY22021100011
HDD Revision : U0202A0
HDD Size : 114473 MB
Interface : S-ATA Gen3, 6 Gbps
Temperature : 40 °C
Highest Temp.: 40 °C
Health : 85 %
Performance : 100 %
Power on time: 95 days, 18 hours
Est. lifetime: more than 1000 days
Total written: 1.13 TB
There are 8 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.
No actions needed.
I installed smartmontools and then typed (from the reference for checking SSD's):
root@stephen-All-Series:~# sudo smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sda
Then I get the following output:
root@stephen-All-Series:~# sudo smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sda
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.19.0-46-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: Hypertec SSD
Serial Number: HY22021100011
Firmware Version: U0202A0
User Capacity: 120,034,123,776 bytes [120 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
TRIM Command: Available
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 4
SATA Version is: SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Mon Jul 17 11:56:01 2023 IDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: FAILED!
Drive failure expected in less than 24 hours. SAVE ALL DATA.
No failed Attributes found.
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x02) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 120) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x11) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
No Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
No Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0002) Does not save SMART data before
entering power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 10) minutes.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 8
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 2298
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 134
160 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 4
161 Unknown_Attribute 0x0033 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 82
163 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 13
164 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 12768
165 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 70
166 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 1
167 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 20
168 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 5050
169 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 100
175 Program_Fail_Count_Chip 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
176 Erase_Fail_Count_Chip 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
177 Wear_Leveling_Count 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
178 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Chip 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 8
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 6
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 40
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 4
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 8
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 4
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 82
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0030 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 37018
242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0030 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 54166
245 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 24414
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]
Selective Self-tests/Logging not supported
It seems like the following line is being flagged:
161 Unknown_Attribute 0x0033 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always
What is this 161 Unknown_Attribute that is being flagged? I am not seeing the attribute 161 listed on the Hypertec site, but there is another link which on page 31 has some specifics of an Attribute 161. Is this the same attribute here, or something different?
Attribute 161 - Valid Spare Block Count
Contains the remaining spare block percentage
available on a solid state device. The percentage
starts at 100% and will typically decrease to 0% dur-
ing use. If this attribute reaches 0%, the solid state
device becomes read-only. The raw value of this
attribute may contain the actual number of spare
blocks.
This SSD is a Hypertec SSD2S120FS-L. This drive is very new, within its warranty period - I am fairly certain. (Ubuntu Disks shows this disks is just 3 months and 4 days old.)
Does this 161 attribute being flagged meaning that the disks can be returned to the supplier for warranty support now? Or what exactly is its meaning?
My question is a little bit different than the other questions and responses that I have seen, in that I need to find out specifics about the error report so that the SSD drive might be returned (and exchanged) if the problem is serious enough to qualify for warranty support.
I have not seen any related web-searches that go into the specifics yet that I am looking for.
Update to the Question
I checked out the Gnome site for a better description of the test being run. It seems to me that the gnome-disks software might be running some additional tests beyond what the SSD or Hard Drive may report with its statistics with the disk BIOS.
That is because SMART Tools also comes to the same result. How can it be? What tests are being run with the extended option? Are the tests just from the BIOS on the Hard Drives or SSD's:
SMART TOOLS reports:
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.19.0-46-generic] (local build)
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: FAILED!
On the other hand, Ubuntu gnome-disks comes to the same answer!
I attempted (with Ubuntu Disks) to format the drive, but the drive was not responsive. After going to the Format Disk menu and selecting to Format the Disks, the disk is still left with the original partitions:
In superuser root I issue the following commands to zero the disk sda manually:
root@stephen-All-Series:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=64K count=100000 status=progress
6088359936 bytes (6.1 GB, 5.7 GiB) copied, 10 s, 609 MB/s
100000+0 records in
100000+0 records out
6553600000 bytes (6.6 GB, 6.1 GiB) copied, 13.4162 s, 488 MB/s
root@stephen-All-Series:~#
However, this has absolutely no effect on the drive partitions which remain exactly the same as before the drive wipe attempt with the dd command above.
I am still not sure if the disk qualifies for warranty support because of the HDSentinel text
Total written: 1.14 TB
There are 8 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.
No actions needed.
However, I am fairly convinced that this disk is useless for the regular end-customer.
If anyone has more information about what information is needed for warranty support (Hypertec Support Included), I would appreciate comments or answers. I did not find links on the Hypertec website to check the warranty status of the drive or to file a ticket. In all fairness, it seems that Hypertec has a contact form.
However, I think it would be most beneficial for the customer if there were a simple page field to fill out to determine warranty status like with Dell support.
That would be probably more friendly to the end-user.
Right now - even though the disk does not seem functional - I do not understand if there is warranty support. That is because Hard Disk Sentinel reports that there is no warranty coverage currently, even though the disk is broken, and it is impossible to write to the device with the Ubuntu shell dd command:
Health : 85 %
Performance : 100 %
Power on time: 95 days, 18 hours
Est. lifetime: more than 1000 days
Total written: 1.13 TB
There are 8 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.
No actions needed.
As for the S.M.A.R.T. status, this one reference states "Pre-fail and Old_age are the category of error, it’s not indicating either are imminent."
It also references a [Wikipedia article "Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology"][14] that states:
Count of reallocated sectors.
The raw value represents a count of the
bad sectors that have been found and remapped.[32]
Thus, the higher the attribute value, the more sectors
the drive has had to reallocate.
This value is primarily used as a metric
of the life expectancy of the drive;
a drive which has had any reallocations at all
is significantly more likely to fail
in the immediate months.
Thus, according to these references, this attribute may indicate that the drive might fail in the coming months. But I agree that the failure is not just the attribute value, which is "pre-fail". The disk has already failed since the dd command is unable to write data to it! The question is around warranty coverage since HDSentinel seems to indicate that the disk is still within its warranty period even though I am unable to write data to it now.
[14]: Wikipedia contributors. Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. June 30, 2023, 17:24 UTC. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Self-Monitoring,_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology&oldid=1162701953. Accessed July 19, 2023.
