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I just salvaged this very old Toshiba HDD (from 2014). I installed it in my PC, formatted and ran a CrystalDiskInfo. It shows very little usage and is marked as healthy, but all the parameters seem through the roof. I don't really understand what that means, since I don't really know anything about this kind of stuff. Here's a screen capture of the CrystalDiskInfo results:

screen capture of the CrystalDiskInfo results.

Please help read into those numbers to figure out if this old drive is worth using or I'm better off just recycling it.

Thanks!

Joep van Steen
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A Name You Can't Remember
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  • What do you mean 'through the roof'? – Kalamalka Kid Jun 06 '23 at 07:39
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    You should read the values as lower is worse. For example read error rate is currently 100%. So 100% of what it read is without error. The drive will be marked as failed if only 16% of it read is considered without errors (to ensure that if it runs into a few bad blocks, it is not falsely marked as bad drive. See also https://www.digitalcitizen.life/simple-questions-what-smart-what-does-it-do/ – LPChip Jun 06 '23 at 09:16
  • Thank you very much @LPChip, and Destroy666. Those links actually answered my questions. – A Name You Can't Remember Jun 07 '23 at 17:16

2 Answers2

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Please do look at the raw values instead of the misleading "normalized values". If you check a brand new disk you will notice that nearly all the raw values start with a figure of zero. Temperature is an exception for instance.

Then only raw value that might disturb you is Spin-Up Time but this figure is most likely a combined attribute like temperature.

I would continue using this drive but as your drive is running at an elevated 7200 rpm instead of a low 5400 rpm it needs more power and therefore generates more heat. It seems that you already reached a temperature maximum of 50° Celsius which diminishes life expectancy. Install a fan - especially when operating in high ambient temperatures above 23° Celsius.

r2d3
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  • The formats of SMART raw values vary between manufacturers and even disk models and are often undocumented, so understanding them may be hard. In this particular case, the Toshiba DT01ACA050 is rated up to 60 °C operating temperature. The remaining lifetime of a 9-years old disk may not warrant the expense of installing a fan (even if physically possible). – harrymc Jun 06 '23 at 11:59
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    Ah, 60 °C is OK because it is rated for it? You should be made liable for your detrimental advice. – r2d3 Jun 06 '23 at 15:25
  • I have an HDD that was running for 6 years at 57°C and has yet to show a single bad sector. I do take my own advice. – harrymc Jun 06 '23 at 15:44
  • You are free to act on your own anecdotical experiences but should take mass test results into account. – r2d3 Jun 06 '23 at 16:56
  • 00b400b4 is a dead giveaway that it (spin-up time) is not a single value. – Joep van Steen Jun 06 '23 at 17:21
  • @r2d3: Using raw values is misleading if you don't know their internal bit-fields. You should also take into advice not only statistics but also the facts of this case, and especially that this is a 9-years old disk so your statistics don't apply here at all. Actually, by the statistics this disk is dead. – harrymc Jun 06 '23 at 18:39
  • Statistics take into account operating hours as well, not just age. This drive is a young timer. – Joep van Steen Jun 06 '23 at 19:19
  • Even with CrystalDiskInfo that does not seem to separate combined fields you can read out all significant fields. Smartmontools are able to decode more and show decimal figures. The papers that you never read analyze used drives not drives that are like NOS (new old stock). This one is hardly used. Please elaborate more on the matter so that your level of knowledge becomes obvious for all readers. It is suprising that you ignore the facts that lay in plain sight in front of you, you capacitor cooker. – r2d3 Jun 06 '23 at 23:31
  • Thank you all for your input. It was a very interesting exchange for me though. I didn't mean to start a war, but it was entertaining nonetheless. I decided to use the drive for non-vital storage, so if it dies, no harm done, and I help reduce usage of my other drives. Cheers! – A Name You Can't Remember Jun 07 '23 at 17:19
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Your SMART attributes are not "through the roof", they are actually quite perfect and show that the disk has no problem.

This is a common misunderstanding of how these normalized values are calculated.

I quote From NTFS.com S.M.A.R.T. Attributes:

Attribute values can range from 1 to 253 (1 representing the worst case and 253 representing the best). Depending on the manufacturer, a value of 100 or 200 will often be chosen as the "normal" value.

These values go down as errors are found, and the firmware will disable writing to the disk when they approach zero.

This disk looks to be in an excellent condition, in spite of its age.

As magnetic values may degrade over time, even if the disk was not powered on, I would suggest to format it using slow (not quick) format. This would also be a good test, so afterward better check again the SMART values, to see if there was any degradation.

harrymc
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  • @JoepvanSteen: Every case should be analyzed separately. Raw values are useful, but normalized values also have a place, especially when documentation is lacking. The 100/200/253 values are universally taken to mean "Excellent", and one should remember that the normalization algorithm was designed by the engineers and firmware coders that created the disk, so some respect is due. – harrymc Jun 07 '23 at 14:17
  • It's not very helpful when a group of 3 persons here attack on principle every answer that dares say that the 100/200/253 values mean very good, downvoting every such answer plus adding very forceful comments. This falsifies the answers. – harrymc Jun 07 '23 at 14:21
  • I have not downvoted anything. Yes, normalized values and algo's to somehow communicate the drive's state of health have value, but limitations too is all I'm saying. – Joep van Steen Jun 07 '23 at 14:29
  • @JoepvanSteen: No argument with that. – harrymc Jun 07 '23 at 14:37
  • It's not very helpful when one individual with a history of bad SMART evaluations refuses to learn working with primary information which comes in raw values and instead looks at normalized values which already carry a subjective judgment in form of an individual normalization formula by the manufacturer. Traffic light software such as Crystaldiskinfo that simplifies a bunch of important figures into just one triple state value diverts people from looking at each raw attribute one by one to find anomalies. Attributes are no rocket science with the exception of combined ones as described – r2d3 Jun 07 '23 at 20:59
  • by Joep in his blog. Unfortunately the common SMART attribute base with SSDs seems to be very small, result of my comparison of SMART attributes coming from Adata, Crucial and Western Digital even though at least two manufacturers used the same controller. Compared to HDDs, SMART information delivered by SSDs is more annoying. – r2d3 Jun 07 '23 at 21:07