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5400 rpm vs 7200 rpm hard drive. Which one and why? - Page 2

post #31 of 62
12/5/09 at 12:21pm
My suggestion of badblocks -svw /dev/sdX is very valid for new disks too, in my experience if the disk has a manufacturing defect it will crap out on that test, while if it passes it without errors it will last much more than 3 months!

Although with a 1TB disk the test will take approx. 10-20 hours, your patience will be rewarded with peace of mind afterwards (or an instant RMA )
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post #32 of 62
12/5/09 at 12:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tux99 View Post

My suggestion of badblocks -svw /dev/sdX is very valid for new disks too, in my experience if the disk has a manufacturing defect it will crap out on that test, while if it passes it without errors it will last much more than 3 months!

Although with a 1TB disk the test will take approx. 10-20 hours, your patience will be rewarded with peace of mind afterwards (or an instant RMA )

I was just being facetious- hope I didn't jinx our purchases

Good idea to test/"burn in" the drives with a test like badblocks, though.

Looks like "badblocks" is the equivalent of memtest+ for hard disks. I have never tried badblocks, but I will on my new Samsung when it gets here....


I assume the badblocks test works if you connect the hard disk to an external SATA-USB adapter and test over a USB2 port?
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post #33 of 62
12/5/09 at 1:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rgb View Post

I assume the badblocks test works if you connect the hard disk to an external SATA-USB adapter and test over a USB2 port?

Sure, as long as the disc is a valid block device it will work, the physical interface doesn't matter (although USB2 will probably be slower than straight SATA).
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post #34 of 62
12/11/09 at 6:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tux99 View Post

My suggestion of badblocks -svw /dev/sdX is very valid for new disks too, in my experience if the disk has a manufacturing defect it will crap out on that test, while if it passes it without errors it will last much more than 3 months!

Although with a 1TB disk the test will take approx. 10-20 hours, your patience will be rewarded with peace of mind afterwards (or an instant RMA )

Which small distro do you recommend for using the badblocks test? Parted Magic? Puppy? DSL? System Rescue CD?

I like to boot a small distro in RAM for doing basic RAM/disk/motherboard burnin tests when I receive new parts, to check for DOA or infant mortality.
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post #35 of 62
12/11/09 at 6:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rgb View Post

Which small distro do you recommend for using the badblocks test? Parted Magic? Puppy? DSL? System Rescue CD?

I like to boot a small distro in RAM for doing basic RAM/disk/motherboard burnin tests when I receive new parts, to check for DOA or infant mortality.

I generally use a bootable memtest86 CD for the RAM tests (no need for a Linux distro for that, in fact memtest only works like that) and a Mandriva One Live CD for any other tests, but any bootable live CD should do.
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post #36 of 62
12/11/09 at 6:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tux99 View Post

I generally use a bootable memtest86 CD for the RAM tests (no need for a Linux distro for that, in fact memtest only works like that) and a Mandriva One Live CD for any other tests, but any bootable live CD should do.

Thanks- I was referring only to the badblocks command. Yes, I've always used the memtest+ boot ISO for RAM testing.
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post #37 of 62
12/11/09 at 11:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rgb View Post

Thanks- I was referring only to the badblocks command. Yes, I've always used the memtest+ boot ISO for RAM testing.

Give DFT a try, Rgb. The CD boot iso is only 2720 KB, and the full scan checks for bad blocks WITHOUT WRITING TO THE DRIVE. Additionally, you can use it to wipe the MBR and/or low-level format. Its only drawback is that it doesn't work with USB/firewire attached drives.

For a live CD I use Gentoo because it boots straight to a console which is obviously faster. The minimal install CD is around 105 MB.
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post #38 of 62
12/11/09 at 1:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mythmaster View Post

Give DFT a try, Rgb. The CD boot iso is only 2720 KB, and the full scan checks for bad blocks WITHOUT WRITING TO THE DRIVE. Additionally, you can use it to wipe the MBR and/or low-level format. Its only drawback is that it doesn't work with USB/firewire attached drives.

For a live CD I use Gentoo because it boots straight to a console which is obviously faster. The minimal install CD is around 105 MB.

Thanks for the heads up on DFT- excellent addition to any DIY'ers boot CD toolbox, one I was unaware of.

I already used DFT on my new 1TB Samsung last night- passed with flying colors (colours for our UK/Canada friends )
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post #39 of 62
12/11/09 at 3:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mythmaster View Post

Give DFT a try, Rgb. The CD boot iso is only 2720 KB, and the full scan checks for bad blocks WITHOUT WRITING TO THE DRIVE.

I haven't tried DFT so can't comment on how it is, but a read-only disk scan cannot be trusted as an accurate check, it's only useful if the disk contains data and you therefore can't use a write check, but in any case badblocks can do a read-only check too.

On a brand new disk or a disk that you want to redeploy, a proper write/read-back test like 'badblocks -svw' does (and with the 4 specific patterns it writes which have been chosen specifically as they are the ones that will most likely expose errors), is the best choice to find any flaws.
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post #40 of 62
12/11/09 at 4:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tux99 View Post

On a brand new disk or a disk that you want to redeploy, a proper write/read-back test like 'badblocks -svw' does (and with the 4 specific patterns it writes which have been chosen specifically as they are the ones that will most likely expose errors), is the best choice to find any flaws.

I'm running badblocks -svw /dev/sda on the new Samsung 1TB 5400rpm drive right now

I'm using the Parted Magic 4.6 boot CD

http://partedmagic.com/

Outstanding small distro/diagnostics/disk utilities toolset.
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post #41 of 62
12/11/09 at 5:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tux99 View Post

On a brand new disk or a disk that you want to redeploy, a proper write/read-back test like 'badblocks -svw' does (and with the 4 specific patterns it writes which have been chosen specifically as they are the ones that will most likely expose errors), is the best choice to find any flaws.

That's when you use "Exerciser Mode" in DFT:
Quote:


In Exerciser mode, DFT performs random reads and writes for a user-specified length of time. This mode is designed to simulate normal drive use and is intended to find the small class of intermittent problems that appear and disappear.
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post #42 of 62
12/11/09 at 5:43pm
You need to keep in mind that a 7200RPM drive is only faster at transferring data once you have located it. The amount of time required to locate it (seek time) depends on how fast the actuator arms can move, which is totally independent of rotational speed.

Many/most of the performance stress cases that people have mentioned above (e.g., recording and transcoding at the same time) cause repetitive seeking between different areas of the disk. 7200RPM will make little difference in performance for such stress cases.

And for playback of HD material (about 2.5 MB/sec.) even 5400RPM is capable of transfer rates far in excess of what is required.
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post #43 of 62
12/12/09 at 1:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mythmaster View Post

That's when you use "Exerciser Mode" in DFT:

That sounds like a useful test mode, but in a different way than the 'badblocks -svw' test, it seems more targeted at stressing the mechanics (head arm movement, seeking speed and accuracy) rather than check every byte of the whole disk for surface defects.
I wouldn't suggest it instead of 'badblocks -svw', but it could be helpful in addition to the badblocks test, especially on older disks to see if the mechanics are still accurate.

In any case thanks for the pointer, I'm going to download DFT to add to my collection of diag tools.
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post #44 of 62
12/12/09 at 5:27am
12:h 53 minutes and counting on the Samsung 1TB 5400rpm badbocks test, 96% done...

root@PartedMagic:~# badblocks -svw /dev/sda
Checking for bad blocks in read-write mode
From block 0 to 976762583
Testing with pattern 0xaa: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x55: done
Reading and comparing: 96.54% done, 12:53:35 elapsed

EDIT: that was 96% done with the 0x55 pattern- two patterns to go, so the complete test should be around 25-26 hours total. Should be done around 9p-10p tonight.

BTW, typing this from within Parted Magic 4.6 via the included Firefox 3.5.5. PM used to be a bare minimum GUI, analogous to those funky DOS GUI's used by the old Partition Magic and other DOS mode commercial tools. Now Parted Magic is a fully functioning desktop distro more like Puppy, but optimized and geared for disk tests, diagnostics and tools.
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post #45 of 62
12/12/09 at 5:52am
Anyone try StressLinux yet?

http://www.stresslinux.org/

I think it's more for motherboard and CPU burn-in testing, but includes some hard disk monitoring and benchmarking tools-

http://www.stresslinux.org/software.php
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post #46 of 62
12/12/09 at 5:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rgb View Post

EDIT: that was 96% done with the 0x55 pattern- two patterns to go, so the complete test should be around 25-26 hours total. Should be done around 9p-10p tonight.

I didn't say it was quick , but you can be sure that if your disk survives a 24+ hour stress test error-free, where each single byte has been written and read back 4 times with 4 different patterns, that you have a flawless disk that should last many years.
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post #47 of 62
12/12/09 at 5:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by oxothuk View Post

You need to keep in mind that a 7200RPM drive is only faster at transferring data once you have located it. The amount of time required to locate it (seek time) depends on how fast the actuator arms can move, which is totally independent of rotational speed.

Many/most of the performance stress cases that people have mentioned above (e.g., recording and transcoding at the same time) cause repetitive seeking between different areas of the disk. 7200RPM will make little difference in performance for such stress cases.

And for playback of HD material (about 2.5 MB/sec.) even 5400RPM is capable of transfer rates far in excess of what is required.

Exactly why I prefer 5400rpm drives, or even lower in the case of notebook 2.5" drives. If someone made 4200rpm 3.5" drives, I'd be all over them.

Some 4200rpm notebook drives are still around but getting scarce-

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...0AC-DT&cat=HDD

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...-NDW-R&cat=HDD

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...2500BT&cat=HDD

You get longer bearing life, lower noise, lower heat, and lower power consumption, depending on model.
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post #48 of 62
12/12/09 at 6:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tux99 View Post

I didn't say it was quick , but you can be sure that if your disk survives a 24+ hour stress test error-free, where each single byte has been written and read back 4 times with 4 different patterns, that you have a flawless disk that should last many years.

Hey, I wasn't complainin', just sayin'

I 100% agree re: the value of the badblocks test. To reiterate, it appears to be the equivalent of memtest+ for hard disks.

I don't mind the length- a 72 hour burn-in is a bare minimum anyways.

I've been "burned" enough times with bad hard drives to learn my lesson and be cautious...
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post #49 of 62
12/12/09 at 11:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rgb View Post

Exactly why I prefer 5400rpm drives, or even lower in the case of notebook 2.5" drives. If someone made 4200rpm 3.5" drives, I'd be all over them.

Some 4200rpm notebook drives are still around but getting scarce-

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...0AC-DT&cat=HDD

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...-NDW-R&cat=HDD

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...2500BT&cat=HDD

You get longer bearing life, lower noise, lower heat, and lower power consumption, depending on model.

There's a command line app that let's you force "quiet mode" for drives that support it (and thus slow the drive down). Unfortunately, I can't recall the name of the command off the top of my head.
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post #50 of 62
12/12/09 at 1:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac The Knife View Post

There's a command line app that let's you force "quiet mode" for drives that support it (and thus slow the drive down). Unfortunately, I can't recall the name of the command off the top of my head.

Would "hdparm -M" do the trick?
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post #51 of 62
12/12/09 at 4:52pm
References for the badblocks command-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badblocks

http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/b..._badblocks.htm

http://www.linuxguide.it/command_lin...file=badblocks

http://linux.die.net/man/8/badblocks
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post #52 of 62
12/12/09 at 6:43pm
The Sammy 1TB passed with flying colors after 26h 8min

root@PartedMagic:~# badblocks -svw /dev/sda
Checking for bad blocks in read-write mode
From block 0 to 976762583
Testing with pattern 0xaa: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x55: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0xff: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x00: done
Reading and comparing: done
Pass completed, 0 bad blocks found.
root@PartedMagic:~#
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post #53 of 62
12/13/09 at 1:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by k_ross View Post

Would "hdparm -M" do the trick?

That's what I as thinking of. In my poor memory, I thought it also slowed the spindle speed, but reading the man page it seems it only slows the head movements.
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post #54 of 62
12/13/09 at 2:12pm
I agree that modern drives abstract the badblock process and obscure problems from tests like these. These tests are useful for exercising a new drive to give it a shakedown, but the only useful info will be from the smartctl tool.
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post #55 of 62
12/13/09 at 7:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by quantumstate View Post

I agree that modern drives abstract the badblock process and obscure problems from tests like these. These tests are useful for exercising a new drive to give it a shakedown, but the only useful info will be from the smartctl tool.

Yes, the ability of modern hard drives to remap bad sectors means the bad sectors are masked from write tests like this.

I used the Smart Control GUI in Parted Magic 4.6 to run several tests included, and check the SMART Attributes.

The best data I have ever seen on drive reliability is the paper Google published not too long ago-

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

Given the size and scope of their server farms with 10's of thousands of hard drives (Maybe 100's of thousands?), I don't think there is a better "real world' test of hard drives out there.

I believe Google still uses off the shelf consumer grade drives like the ones we use and discuss in this this thread.
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post #56 of 62
12/14/09 at 4:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rgb View Post

Yes, the ability of modern hard drives to remap bad sectors means the bad sectors are masked from write tests like this.

Based on my experience I don't agree and refer to the reasons I mentioned earlier (post #28).

But I do agree that checking the Smart attributes ideally before and after running the badblocks test can be useful to see if any error counters have increased (this would catch any hidden remaps as they normally show up in the Smart attributes).
In Linux you can use the following command for that (needs the smartmontools package installed):

smartctl -A /dev/sdX
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post #57 of 62
12/15/09 at 5:51am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rgb View Post

The Sammy 1TB passed with flying colors after 26h 8min

root@PartedMagic:~# badblocks -svw /dev/sda
Checking for bad blocks in read-write mode
From block 0 to 976762583
Testing with pattern 0xaa: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x55: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0xff: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x00: done
Reading and comparing: done
Pass completed, 0 bad blocks found.
root@PartedMagic:~#

Mine passed just the same in the about the same time
Next is up for this weekend is DFT and maybe a few others if I have the time.
Nothing says you can't do all these tests Except for how long they can take!
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post #58 of 62
12/15/09 at 11:13am
If you want to run every possible drive test, run the drive's built-in self test also:

smartctl -t long /dev/sdX

It takes about 4 hours on a 1 TB drive. It's a non-destructive, read-only test that can be run during normal system operation.
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post #59 of 62
12/23/09 at 12:52pm
Thread Starter 
Ran DFT with no problems.


Quote:
Originally Posted by k_ross View Post

If you want to run every possible drive test, run the drive's built-in self test also:

smartctl -t long /dev/sdX

It takes about 4 hours on a 1 TB drive. It's a non-destructive, read-only test that can be run during normal system operation.

Not sure I want to run **EVERY** test

My testing has been put on hold for the time being as I needed to RMA my Corsair memory and have not yet received a replacement and had to return the ram I was "borrowing" back to Best Buy within the 14 day return policy
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post #60 of 62
1/13/10 at 11:27am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac The Knife View Post

If you're running Karmic and the drive is a SMART drive then the easiest way to get all the disk health info is to go into the Palimpsest Disk Utility (System->Administration->Disk Utility) and click on "More Information" for the drive.

Quote:
Originally Posted by k_ross View Post

If you want to run every possible drive test, run the drive's built-in self test also:

smartctl -t long /dev/sdX

It takes about 4 hours on a 1 TB drive. It's a non-destructive, read-only test that can be run during normal system operation.

Well I got 9.10 installed and looked at the Palimpsest Disk Utility and there was a warning in the "Reallocated Sector Count" section (see attachment) for my old 60 GB IDE drive

So I thought I would run a
Code:
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sdb
Checking the results with
Code:
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdb
gave
Code:
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar family
Device Model:     WDC WD600BB-00CAA1
Serial Number:    WD-WCADS1038943
Firmware Version: 17.07W17
User Capacity:    60,022,480,896 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   5
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Wed Jan 13 13:13:25 2010 CST
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:  (0x85) Offline data collection activity
                                        was aborted 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:                 (2340) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x3b) 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.
                                        No 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.
                                        No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  43) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   5) minutes.

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     0x000b   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   090   088   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       4583
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   098   098   040    Old_age   Always       -       2463
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   199   199   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       1
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   060   060   000    Old_age   Always       -       29335
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       2421
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   199   199   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0009   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0

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 without error       00%       936         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       932         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       901         -
# 4  Conveyance offline  Completed without error       00%       642         -
# 5  Conveyance offline  Completed without error       00%         0         -
Could anyone help me interpret this information? Last thing I want to do is setup a new HTPC with a questionable hard drive running the OS!!
LL
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