Calibration retry count?

[bogdanb]

Hi all,

I have a Samsung HM120IC 120GB notebook hard drive that is giving me some cause of concern lately. I bought the disk around May of this year and unfortunately as soon as I got it I had to give it some forced shutdowns (a game was hanging windows). I really don't like to do forced shutdowns - maybe someone can enlighten me whether that is really bad for a hard disk or not... So anyway, I checked its smart attributes quite often when I did that and I still keep checking them (will post them below). Everything seemed fine - only calibration retry count kept increasing.

Lately, like once a day for last two days - I heard a noise from the hdd and when checking SMART it showed calibration retry count increase by 1 immediately after the clicking noise. Currently it has reached 6... I have still almost two year warranty on this drive, I was curious whether someone can tell me how critical this attribute is, and what action if any on my part.

Also, worth mentioning I think is that I was using Almico speedfan in depth analysis of my hard drive - till before yesterday it was showing performance and fitness as 100% - after the clicking noise - it now shows 90% for both attributes.

Below are the SMART details of this drive as listed by HDTune 2.52:

HD Tune: SAMSUNG HM120IC Health

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 100 51 0 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 253 253 25 3136 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 480 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 253 253 10 0 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 253 253 0 0 Ok
(08) Seek Time Performance 253 253 0 0 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 100 100 0 143751 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 253 253 0 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 0 6 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 248 Ok
(BB) (unknown attribute) 253 253 0 0 Ok
(BC) (unknown attribute) 253 253 0 0 Ok
(BE) (unknown attribute) 57 44 40 940638251 Ok
(BF) (unknown attribute) 100 100 0 8271 Ok
(C0) Power Off Retract Count 100 100 0 29 Ok
(C1) Load Cycle Count 94 94 0 61099 Ok
(C2) Temperature 57 44 0 940638251 Ok
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 100 100 0 14104 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 253 253 0 0 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 253 253 0 0 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 253 253 0 0 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 100 100 0 0 Ok
(C9) (unknown attribute) 253 253 0 0 Ok
(DF) (unknown attribute) 100 100 0 6 Ok
(E1) (unknown attribute) 94 94 0 61099 Ok
(FF) (unknown attribute) 253 100 0 0 Ok

Power On Time : 143751
Health Status : Ok

Any help or suggestions are highly appreciated.

 

[KurrentEweser]

I would backup your data to another drive and then send the laptop in for in warranty repair.

 

[bogdanb]

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I hate hard disks . It's probably my 5th failing...

 

[KurrentEweser]

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I hate hard disks . It's probably my 5th failing...

From the same laptop?

 

[bogdanb]

would be third replacement for this laptop (Inspiron 100 ). I already replaced with a WD and now this Samsung. Probably a new one will follow as you suggest . Calibration thing that bad huh?

P.S. Could something on my MB be faulty - power supply maybe or something else? I am not very tech oriented - you may know more about it and shed some light?

 

[KurrentEweser]

It says the health status is ok. What's there to worry about?

 

[bogdanb]

Hmm - I thought you said I should back up data and... take it to repair? I don't think I follow you?

 

[KurrentEweser]

Hmm - I thought you said I should back up data and... take it to repair? I don't think I follow you?

If you feel the drive is going south then replace it. The tests shows it's ok, but the clicking noises that just started all of a sudden isn't a good sign. What is the max temperature the drive gets to?

Hopefully this will better explain your concerns.

Recalibration Retries S.M.A.R.T. attribute

 

[bogdanb]

Thank you for your answers.

I had already checked that link, but I would need something more in depth to really understand that description. On another note, it is not even clicking noise - it makes like a louder noise and then if I check SMART I see calibration increase by 1. After that all seems ok... I was hoping someone would have some idea about this behavior.

Also, while in games it quite frequently makes a noise (different from the one above) but still audible with hdd led switch on - that noise has been present probably since I got the drive... I'm starting to think maybe those are normal noises... anyway I keep it under watch and should it fail I will take it to be replaced - it's only 3 months old with 2 year warranty - so it's probably too early to go have it replaced - why not wait a bit more and with a new one later extend the overall lifetime of 2 hdds together .

P.S. I forgot - the maximum ever attained for the drive was 56 , but this summer it was around 50C, in a close to 30C environment temperature. Now it has dropped to around 44-46 . I did indeed have some overheating, but I cleaned the cooling vent outlet which was quite clogged with dust - computer runs much cooler now - my fan never went on high speed since cleaning it (set to go at 60C CPU temperature) - so CPU never goes over 60C even in gaming.

 

[bogdanb]

Dudes,

I think I am starting to see a pattern with the HDD usage. While in games the Load Cycle count increases extremely fast - associated with the noise (probably caused by the load/unload of HDD). I read that Load Cycle Count is indication of HDD wear and tear and is guaranteed around 600K by most vendors. In my first post this attribute was reading around 61K now it has reached around 73K in 19 days. I post new SMART data below:

HD Tune: SAMSUNG HM120IC Health

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 100 51 0 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 253 253 25 3072 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 579 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 253 253 10 0 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 253 253 0 0 Ok
(08) Seek Time Performance 253 253 0 0 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 100 100 0 175248 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 253 253 0 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 0 8 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 297 Ok
(BB) (unknown attribute) 253 253 0 0 Ok
(BC) (unknown attribute) 253 253 0 0 Ok
(BE) (unknown attribute) 56 44 40 940638252 Ok
(BF) (unknown attribute) 100 100 0 9191 Ok
(C0) Power Off Retract Count 100 100 0 33 Ok
(C1) Load Cycle Count 93 93 0 72965 Ok
(C2) Temperature 56 44 0 940638252 Ok
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 100 100 0 39297 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 253 253 0 0 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 253 253 0 0 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 253 253 0 0 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 100 100 0 0 Ok
(C9) (unknown attribute) 253 253 0 0 Ok
(DF) (unknown attribute) 100 100 0 8 Ok
(E1) (unknown attribute) 93 93 0 72965 Ok
(FF) (unknown attribute) 253 100 0 0 Ok

Power On Time : 175248
Health Status : Ok

Also Load Cycle Count went down from 94 to 93 and Calibration Retry Count increased to 8. Seems these attributes are related. I did try btw hdparm utility to set power management to disable in order to try and decrease the Load Count, but it doesn't seem to have an effect - especially not in games.

Any thoughts or suggestions on this?

Thank you.

actually now that i try hdparm with -B 254 - i see quite a decrease in load cycle count. i hope it solves the prob w/o too high increases in temperature.