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Background

I recently had a new WD Red Pro connected via USB external dock fail a running SMART long test with Completed: read failure (lacking a LBA at the point of failure). The drive successfully went through a badblocks run, SMART short test, and population of encrypted data across the disk (NB: aware of shortcomings of badblocks, Google’s 2015 HDD prefail paper, limited usefulness of prepopulated random data, etc….but a creature of habit).

Notably, a badblocks run had earlier failed (OS disconnected the device per dmesg and badblocks spewed false positives), but subsequent test was error free upon polling reads of a 4K sector every 45s during that test.

Question

Does the HDD firmware fully control the application of SMART self-tests such that the OS/ controller/ driver/ USB do not impact the test completion/ results of the test?

Certainly, the links between smartctl application and the HDD may impact the ability to report upon SMART results and access attributes, but (to my limited knowledge) they do not impact the actual test.

While not part of the posted question, I’m trying to figure out if a failure in the USB link (or other intermediary components) would create a false positive result (in the form of a SMART self-test failure).

Other

  • The drive shows no reallocated_sector_ctor offline_uncorrectable counts
  • Just after one of the failed long self-tests, SMART reported a few instances of raw_read_error_rate…but those disappeared after a power cycle of the drive and the WORST value did not move from a value of 100 (THRESH is 016) — not sure how WD uses this attribute, but assume this means normal operation
  • Speculate that conventional wisdom is “just RMA and get another HDD that doesn’t exhibit any failure”…but more interested in knowing the SMART self-test dependencies, if any, and potential sources of error not connected with HDD operation.

Edit I’m uncertain as to why the question was downvoted, but happy to update if anyone can share constructive thoughts.

Thx

  • I have read your question multiple times and did not understand what you are asking for. A firmware does not "control" any application (how should it?), USB connection errors are not the same as SMART errors (SMART is "*Self*-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Tech", a standard of monitoring *drive* internals. – bjoster Aug 08 '22 at 11:46
  • If certain SMART attributes are suspiciously missing, the USB enclosure/dock probably interferes with SMART communication. – Daniel B Aug 23 '22 at 18:22

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