I’ve got a 1Tb USB disc that appears to be dying – eg it took about 10 days
(!) to run ‘badblocks -nsv /dev/sdc’ and it only did less than 2% in that time. Read access became _really_ slow.

So there’s definitely something amiss and I’ve got it offline.

There’s no drama about the content as I have other backups and I’m resigned to junking the thing, but I’m curious about the fact that smartctl doesn’t seem to report any errors. I tried a short and a long test but nothing in there seems to be alarming – in fact it says PASSED!! – but the output is pretty opaque and maybe I’ve been foxed by ambiguity. Anyone care to comment on it?

Here it is:

[root@nina bhepple]# smartctl /dev/sdc -a smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-linux-2.6.32-358.23.2.el6.i686] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ==Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Green Device Model: WDC WD10EAVS-00M4B0
Serial Number: WD-WCAV5A574187
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2aef3c352
Firmware Version: 01.00A01
User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated Local Time is: Mon Jan 27 17:43:33 2014 EST
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: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x84) Offline data collection activity
was suspended by an interrupting command from host.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled. 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: (18780) seconds. Offline data collection capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported. SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves 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: ( 217) minutes. Conveyance self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes. SCT capabilities: (0x3037) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED
WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always
– 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 114 107 021 Pre-fail Always
– 7283
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 091 091 000 Old_age Always
– 9764
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always
– 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always
– 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 080 080 000 Old_age Always
– 14907
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
– 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
– 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
– 181
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always
– 82
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 186 186 000 Old_age Always
– 44531
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 098 083 000 Old_age Always
– 49
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always
– 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 192 192 000 Old_age Always
– 1423
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 196 196 000 Old_age Offline
– 700
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always
– 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 001 001 000 Old_age Offline
– 793265

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours)
LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 14545
1141581559
# 2 Short offline Completed: read failure 90% 14545
1141577005

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk. If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.