Spinrite 6.1 on a WDRED 6TB showing over 20,000 hours time remaining

[techdaddy]

I am running Spinrite 6.1 in maintenance mode on a WD RED 6TB SATA drive. I received a SMART error when this drive was installed in a RAID5 array on a Windows Server. I immediately replaced it and the server is fine. I hate just throwing something in the trash as soon as it shows signs of wear. I've also heard the many stories of drives that people saved by using Spinrite. I decided to try Spinrite and see if I could fix whatever SMART errors it has. Then maybe I could still use the drive as an external for misc non-critical storage. I started off by installing the drive in a Dell Optiplex that I wasn't using. I booted from a Windows 10 setup disk and selected Command Prompt. I ran diskpart and cleaned the disk then formatted as NTFS. I received no errors at all during that procedure. This gave me some hope that maybe the drive isn't dead.

Next, I booted into Spinrite and selected the maintenance mode. That may have been a poor choice on my part but my thought was I don't want to recover any data, I just want to fix the errors. My screen is showing the Graphic Status Display and in the bottom left corner I see the time remaining. That number has been increasing every second and is currently at 27873:28:49 which if that is correct would be over 3 years! It's been running for about an hour and the % completed is only 0.003%. Should I just abandon any hope that this drive can be fixed? Is there any point in letting it continue to run?

 

[DanR]

@techdaddy Out of curiosity, what transfer block size is shown in the LL corner of the Real Time Activities (RTA) screen ?

A maintenance run (level 3 and up) will start out with a transfer size of 32768 which is aggressive. SpinRite can throttle down if necessary for a smaller less aggressive transfer rate.

I would suggest aborting that maintenance run and starting a level 2 run with dynastat 0: Either spinrite dynastat 0 -or- spinrite level 2 dynastat 0

Level 2 uses a transfer size of 1024 - much gentler. And DynaStat 0 forces reallocation of bad sectors with data loss (which you do not care about).

This might make the drive usable for non-critical data use.

 

[techdaddy]

It appears to be changing very quickly. Right now it shows transfer block size is: 256 but then it will change to 1, 64, 160, 96, and occasionally I'll see 32768 too.
Here is a screenshot:

 

[PHolder]

Is there any point in letting it continue to run?

Very, very little. I can assume it's one of two problems. There is something wrong with the hardware in the system you put it it, but that doesn't make a lot of sense it you were able to use it to format it to NTFS and it didn't seem slow then. (Check cabling, reseat what you can just to be sure.)

Assuming it's the drive being slow for some reason, it may be related to heat. Try restarting SpinRite and using the option to specify a different location (you can do it in the UI (read carefully) or you can do it from the command line (ask SpinRite for help or see the FAQ https://www.grc.com/sr/faq.htm .) Jump around a bit on the drive and see if location matters. Check your logs and send anything interesting here if you want a 2nd opinion.

 

[techdaddy]

@techdaddy Out of curiosity, what transfer block size is shown in the LL corner of the Real Time Activities (RTA) screen ?

A maintenance run (level 3 and up) will start out with a transfer size of 32768 which is aggressive. SpinRite can throttle down if necessary for a smaller less aggressive transfer rate.

I would suggest aborting that maintenance run and starting a level 2 run with dynastat 0: Either spinrite dynastat 0 -or- spinrite level 2 dynastat 0

Level 2 uses a transfer size of 1024 - much gentler. And DynaStat 0 forces reallocation of bad sectors with data loss (which you do not care about).

This might make the drive usable for non-critical data use.

Can you tell me exactly how to run a Level 2 with Dynastat 0? I see the option to run a level 2 but I can't find any option to choose Dynastat 0.

 

[techdaddy]

Very, very little. I can assume it's one of two problems. There is something wrong with the hardware in the system you put it it, but that doesn't make a lot of sense it you were able to use it to format it to NTFS and it didn't seem slow then. (Check cabling, reseat what you can just to be sure.)

Assuming it's the drive being slow for some reason, it may be related to heat. Try restarting SpinRite and using the option to specify a different location (you can do it in the UI (read carefully) or you can do it from the command line (ask SpinRite for help or see the FAQ https://www.grc.com/sr/faq.htm .) Jump around a bit on the drive and see if location matters. Check your logs and send anything interesting here if you want a 2nd opinion.

I just saw on the screen saver it says the drive temp is 41C/106F is that considered too hot?

 

[DanR]

It appears to be changing very quickly. Right now it shows transfer block size is: 256 but then it will change to 1, 64, 160, 96, and occasionally I'll see 32768 too.

I concur with what PHolder said.

What is happening here is that data recovery is being attempted by SpinRite. Hence the variable transfer sizes and the excessive time spent doing multiple reads.

A DynaStat 0 run will make NO attempt at data recovery. Just one normal read. When that fails, write all zeros to the sector. This Write typically triggers the drive's firmware to re-allocate the sector.

DynaStat 0 is a command line token. Add it after spinrite at the C: prompt before pressing Return. Level 2 may also be added to the command line or selected within the SpinRite app.

The drive temp is warm (from the excessive read activity) but NOT hot.

 

[techdaddy]

I concur with what PHolder said.

What is happening here is that data recovery is being attempted by SpinRite. Hence the variable transfer sizes and the excessive time spent doing multiple reads.

A DynaStat 0 run will make NO attempt at data recovery. Just one normal read. When that fails, write all zeros to the sector. This Write typically triggers the drive's firmware to re-allocate the sector.

DynaStat 0 is a command line token. Add it after spinrite at the C: prompt before pressing Return. Level 2 may also be added to the command line or selected within the SpinRite app.

The drive temp is warm (from the excessive read activity) but NOT hot.

I attempted to run Spinrite using the Dynastat 0; however, the drive's transfer verification failed. I think I'll chuck it and move on. Thank you for the help!

 

[ColbyBouma]

Is it still under warranty? If so, you could probably get a replacement.

 

[techdaddy]

Is it still under warranty? If so, you could probably get a replacement.

I checked and it’s past the warranty. Good thought though!

 

[ColbyBouma]

Would you be willing to share your logs? I'm curious what kind of errors that drive is throwing. You can find them in the SRLOGS folder of your SpinRite boot drive. I recommend putting them in a ZIP file before uploading here.

 

[Tazz]

What model was it? Was it a SMR drive by any chance?