Disagreement in S.M.A.R.T info from different tools

Question

I checked my old(purchased in 2009) SAMSUNG HDD with two tools. One is CrystalDiskInfo(CDI) and the other one is HD Tune(HT).

At first, with CDI, no problem was detected and it just said 'Good'. However, with HT, it shows some problems:

HD Tune Pro: SAMSUNG HD252HJ Health

ID                               Current  Worst    ThresholdData       Status     
(01) Raw Read Error Rate         99       4        51       1891       failed     
(03) Spin Up Time                94       94       11       2790       ok         
(04) Start/Stop Count            98       98       0        1993       ok         
(05) Reallocated Sector Count    100      100      10       0          ok         
(07) Seek Error Rate             100      100      51       0          ok         
(08) Seek Time Performance       100      100      15       0          ok         
(09) Power On Hours Count        99       99       0        3065       ok         
(0A) Spin Retry Count            100      100      51       0          ok         
(0B) Calibration Retry Count     100      100      0        0          ok         
(0C) Power Cycle Count           98       98       0        1975       ok         
(0D) Soft Read Error Rate        99       4        0        1891       ok         
(B7) SATA Downshift Count        100      100      0        0          ok         
(B8) End To End Error Detection  100      100      0        0          ok         
(BB) Uncorrectable Error Count   100      100      0        18977      ok         
(BC) Command Timeout             100      100      0        0          ok         
(BE) Airflow Temperature         68       1        0        538181664  ok         
(C2) Temperature                 66       62       0        638844962  ok         
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered      100      100      0        487463     ok         
(C4) Reallocated Event Count     100      100      0        2          warning    
(C5) Current Pending Sector      100      100      0        0          ok         
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable       100      100      0        0          ok         
(C7) Interface CRC Error Count   100      100      0        1          attention  
(C8) Write Error Rate            100      100      0        0          ok         
(C9) Soft Read Error Rate        100      100      0        0          ok         

Health Status         : warning

As you can see, HT reports 01, C4, and C7 as non-ok status. Of course, the other columns such as Current, Worst, Threshold and Data are coincident with those of CDI although CDI does not report any error.

Which result should I trust? Does this HDD have problems and should I abandon it? Or Can I just ignore reports in HT? FYI, the benchmark in HD Tune under just-formatted state shows extremely clean steps(see http://postimg.org/image/l1d2t23k5/).

Answer 1

Problem is caused by a dodgy SATA cable. C7 points to the cable, and would result in an increased 01 and C4. So the drive is probably good, change to a new cable.

Answer 2

@xylosper

(C4) Reallocated Event Count     100      100      0        2          warning

In Crystal Disk Info there is a workaround that (I believe) is enabled by default.

If you open CDI and choose Function -> Workaround

You will see an option for [ignore] (C4) Reallocation Event Count.

If you uncheck that option -- it might report he same stats as HD Tune.

As far as the following data is concerned:

(C7) Interface CRC Error Count   100      100      0        1          attention 

I don't believe CDI reports Interface CRC Error Count

At least I don't see it listed (but there is one for UltraDMA CRC Error Count)

I'm not sure if they this is a seprate metric or just another name for it.

Answer 3

01) Raw Read Error Rate

As long as this does not increae rapidly you can ignore this.

Problem happen. A long used disk may very well have those. Only worry of that numers increases rapuidly in a short span of time.

(C4) Reallocated Event Count 100 100 0 2 warning

Same here. Some disks may ship from factory with reallocated sectors. This is not an issue. But if this number increases rapidy rather than stay more or lessstable then you have reason to worry.

(C7) Interface CRC Error Count 100 100 0 1 attention

Only once. May. Smae as before.

Modern disk are sensitive. Problems are expected and are compensated for. When these compensation fail and the number of actual failure increases rapidly then worry. Else all is as it should be.