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My laptop hard drive shows a growing number of bad sectors every time I use it for browsing. It goes really high when I use it for anything other than browsing. The 1 TB hard drive already has about 8960 bad sectors. Should I replace it now or should I wait?

Please excuse me if this sounds basic, but I cannot find other answers here yet. This is the first time I am facing a hardware failure and I am using linux only for the past 2 months or so.

Arn
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    Presumably, the hard disk is more than 2 months old? If you value your data, you shouldn't wait as you'll probably lose more and more data. If your money is more important than your data (i.e., this might be a computer that you use for "playing around"), then you can wait...but expect one day for all of it to be gone. While it's working, you can recover data... – Ray Apr 15 '21 at 14:15
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    Edit your question and show me `grep -i FPDMA /var/log/syslog*`, and screenshots of the `Disks` app **SMART Data & Tests** data window. This is a scrollable window, so it may take two screenshots. Start comments to me with @heynnema or I'll miss them. – heynnema Apr 15 '21 at 20:57

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I do not know what you read but that is nuts bad is bad. Replace the hard drive as soon as you can it is failing.

Here is a description of what a bad sector is.

A bad sector in computing refers to a disk sector on a disk storage unit that is permanently damaged. Upon taking damage, all information stored on that sector is lost. When a bad sector is found and marked, the operating system skips it in the future.

This is the reference of the description.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_sector#:~:text=Bad%20sector%20in%20computing%20refers,skips%20it%20in%20the%20future.

David
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If the bad sectors are increasing fast then it needs to be replaced. Back up your data your HDD is failing. Also, 8960 bad sectors is a big number I would replace it. If under warranty give it in they replace it for you. Hope this helps anyone with the same issue. :)

Jon
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