New HDD - Spin Up Time low, problematic?

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Flogger23m

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Hello,

Recently bought a new Western Digital WD2002FAEX 2TB Black HDD. I have placed it inside of my PC and formatted it through Windows 7 (quick format). So far I have powered it on twice. Doing a quick error scan with HD Tune brings up no issues.

Though I noticed the Spin Up Time is rated rather low in Crystal Disk and HD tune (I assumed low is bad).I then ran a check with Speed Fan and it gave me some worrying results:

faex2tbspeedfan.jpg

wdfaex2tbcrysthdtune.jpg

wdfaex2tbbench.jpg


Does it look like my drive might fail early? I plan on using it as an OS/everything drive and would like it to last 4 or more years like my current WD Black. If this looks like a problematic drive I can exchange it with Amazon.

Is there anything else I should test before sending it back or cloning my OS onto it?
 
Well I have a hitachi 750gb that I've been using for about 5 years now, and it takes a solid 5 seconds to spin up, but it is still running solid *fingers crossed*. I would wait a few days and see if the spin up time improves, and if not you may want to exchange it to gain some peace of mind. I personally wouldn't replace it, but if you don't have a backup drive then it might be a smart move to get a new one.


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Does the drive seem to take long to spinup? A raw value of 0 seems like the drive is not recording spinup time since that would be impossible for a physical disk to take 0 time to spinup.
 
I've seen "New" disks show caution or "BAD" in crystaldisk with spin-up-time errors.

If you reboot or use them for a while it seems to go away..

I think its crystaldiskinfo being decieving. If thats the only issue I dont' think there is a problem with your disk.

I don't think its anything to be worried about. If you want to be really cautious do a full format, then write a full 2TB of writes to it. If crystaldisk doesn't show any issues after that I'd feel confident using it.
 
I think its crystaldiskinfo being decieving
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I believe its the SMART data not being filled in by the firmware yet. Maybe because the drive did not spin up enough times.. Although I do not believe CDI should warn about a 0 spinup time.
 
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drescherjm said:
I believe its the SMART data not being filled in by the firmware yet. Maybe because the drive did not spin up enough times.. Although I do not believe CDI should warn about a 0 spinup time.
Click to expand...

That correlates with what I've experienced.
 
drescherjm said:
Does the drive seem to take long to spinup? A raw value of 0 seems like the drive is not recording spinup time since that would be impossible for a physical disk to take 0 time to spinup.
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It isn't the boot/OS drive at the moment, but otherwise my PC seems to start up at a normal pace. I am wondering about the low Write Error Rate as well. Is that also a factor of the drive not being used much?

For a full format would I do that from within Windows?
 
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Probably or the drive is just performing unusually well. I mean a low error rate and a low spinup time are both features you want to have on all drives although you do not expect to see 0 (flawless operation / infinite rotation speed) in either of these..

For a full format would I do that from within Windows?
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Or whatever other OS you are using. Although on non windows OSs I would do a 4 pass badblocks rw test.
 
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drescherjm said:
Probably or the drive is just performing unusually well. I mean a low error rate and a low spinup time are both features you want to have on all drives although you do not expect to see 0 (flawless operation / infinite rotation speed) in either of these..
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I must be misinterpreting how the SMART values work. What I was worried about was the following:

Spin Up Time
Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count
Write Error Rate

All of which are rated at 100 under "current" where as they are 253/200/200 under "worst" in Crystal Disk/HD Tune.

Can someone explain how these number values are supposed to work and what current and worst are supposed to mean? Current seems self explanatory, though I am wondering why my current attributes are lower than my worst attributes/numbers?

All of the other HDDs I've ever used typically have the current/worst attributes at the same values, with a few being slightly different. Though never with such differences as big as 100-153.

If someone can better clarify that, I would appreciate it.
 
I'm not familiar with these programs, but when using SMART Mon Tools such results are possible if the drive is not in the database. Basically ever vendor and even different series of drives will use these fields in subtly different ways.

Two things:

1) the drive itself appears to be reporting an OK/PASS status. It will also show this if there are some reallocated or pending sectors, at which point I personally would cease to trust the drive and begin to replace it.
2) A drive can fail at any time without any indication of issues
 
Flogger23m said:
If someone can better clarify that, I would appreciate it.
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As noted by another above, all that really counts when you look at the values are the raw data numbers. Called "raw", "data" or similar. Shows what the actual values are right now.

I've stopped recommending CrystalDiskInfo because its raw values are shown in hex. Easy to see "0", but not so easy for most people to read higher numbers.

For easy to read decimal raw values, in addition to the non-free HDTune you posted a screenshot of, GSmartControl is a free/open source one I like (for Windows, Linux, Mac). Here is the Sourceforge page for the downloads. Choose "gsmartcontrol-0.8.7.exe" for a regular Windows install.
 
Flogger23m said:
It isn't the boot/OS drive at the moment, but otherwise my PC seems to start up at a normal pace. I am wondering about the low Write Error Rate as well. Is that also a factor of the drive not being used much?

For a full format would I do that from within Windows?
Click to expand...

You should _always_ do a full format on a new drive (instead of the quick one you have already done). Can uncover potential issues. And yes, can do that within Windows on a non-system drive. Rightclick the drive, "Format" on the context menu, uncheck "Quick Format".

The "0" spin-up time is a bit abnormal; even if not used, it should record a spin-up time from a SMART utility accessing it. Then again, you have had less than 5 such cycles so far; the firmware may need some more time to record, as mentioned by another above.

Full format it and write a few GB of data to it. Turn the computer off, then back on (not just a reboot). If you want to be certain, write some more data to it after the first off/on and do another power cycle. Then see if SMART (either HDTune or GSmartControl) still shows a spin-up time greater than 0. If not, I'd exchange it.

As to Write Error Rate (also known as "Multi Zone Error Rate" on some drives), that should remain at 0 for the life of the drive. So your reading is good.
 
Will running an error check in HD tune (full option) and the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic find/correct any of the errors that a full format does? I've already cloned the drive and have been using it for a day so a full format would take some extra effort (to re-clone it), though if it offers something else the previous two things I listed doesn't I am willing to try it.

I recall Western Digital having an error checking program that I had to burn to a CD/DVD which I had to boot from the CD/DVD drive and ran a check outside of Windows. Do they still offer this program?

And this is what my drive currently reads as:

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/8819/hdd235hours.jpg

Some improvement, though a few of the areas still look a bit off.
 
You just have to read what is written on your first capture. It is there in plain English that the value for spin up time can be low on new drives.

Fritingo said:
I've stopped recommending CrystalDiskInfo because its raw values are shown in hex. Easy to see "0", but not so easy for most people to read higher numbers.
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You just have to change the options to display in decimal.
 
Aesma said:
You just have to change the options to display in decimal.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Last time I installed/recommended CrystalDiskInfo was a couple years ago; didn't notice the option. Might have been added since then. Anyway, good to know.
 
As primarily a C++ programmer (secondary roles as an admin and a manager ... - small department) I prefer hex over decimal. Although I understand that hex would be more difficult for most users..
 
Flogger23m said:
Will running an error check in HD tune (full option) and the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic find/correct any of the errors that a full format does?
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Not unless they write to the drive, which is what a full FORMAT does (WD's program gives an option of "write zeroes"; haven't used HDTune lately). Such writing options means that any data on the drive will be deleted.

So basically, if you are at a point with the drive where doing a full FORMAT after backing up all your data somewhere, then copying it all back is something you dread as much as Britney Spears music, don't worry about it. The latest screen shot, as noted by another above, looks great/fine.

You do have a non-0 (raw) value now from the latest spin-up: "2112" in hex, which translates to 8466 in decimal. In line with values I normally see on both old and new drives. The other values expected to increase over time have done so and you have nothing cautionary showing (reallocated sectors above 0 or anything else).

So its looking good.
 
drescherjm said:
As primarily a C++ programmer (secondary roles as an admin and a manager ... - small department) I prefer hex over decimal. Although I understand that hex would be more difficult for most users..
Click to expand...

Yes yes. Last time I wrote someone a check with hex values on it, the bank sent it back, damn it :D.
 
If you can't format the drive I would still do a full HDTune test, it will read every sector, if it's all green then that's a good sign.
 
Nothing wrong with your drive, Speed Fan is just incorrectly interpreting SMART data. Nothing new; all programs that try to interpret SMART attributes for you usually fail miserably.

Your normalised value is 100, this is the best possible value. Your drive simply provides no actual data on milliseconds of spinup time; otherwise you would see 4418 as raw value for example, which means 4.4 seconds spinup time.
 
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