HDD 'Error' Report Advice

[WalksInSilence]

My main storage drive on a particular PC is a 1TB HDD Seagate now about 6 years old. It still has 350+GB unused free space.

Recently I'm pretty sure I made a mistake and permanently deleted a folder on it accidentally. I have backup so that's not the problem.

What might be is that initially I thought it wasn't my boo-boo and so I investigated with the thought there might be a HDD issue.

All the HDD info tools I used including SeaTools Seagate's own and all S.M.A.R.T reports the HDD as functioning 100% with no issues.

But I decided to run a recommended alternative tool: HDDScan v4.1 which, like CrystalDiskInfo which I also used, includes a simple error indicator colour coding: green for good, yellow! for possible problem and of course red for something more serious.

This reports all green except for the "SATA Downshift Error Count" marked as yellow!.

That worried me so I did a bit of research which seems to indicate it is not unusual with old, well used HDDs and nothing to be overly worried about but should be watched.

As said, no other S.M.A.R.T tools flag this as an issue. But none of the other HDDs/volumes or SDD I use with that PC report anything similar when using HDDScan; they're all green.

Opinions about this. Does the 1TB Seagate have a problem I should be concerned about?

Edited June 23, 2021 by WalksInSilence
typo

[jaclaz]

It is interesting, as - according to Acronis - only Samsung and WD use that S.M.A.R.T.[1] parameter:

https://kb.acronis.com/content/9118

Personally, I would change the SATA cable with a new one (it costs next to nothing) and leave the disk alone.

In theory (but not necessarily on Seagate drives where it may well mean "number of stars in the sky as seen from the air hole of this disk in full moon nights, if they happen on wednesday") that should count the number of times the connection has shifted down from full speed (like 6 Gb/s) to a lower one (like 3 Gb/s  or 1.5 Gb/s) and this can happen for a whole number of reasons, the only one you can attempt to fix (and as said costs next to nothing) is replacing the SATA cable (and if needed clean contacts on motherboard and disk).

jaclaz

 

 

[1] which I personally call D.U.M.B. 

[WalksInSilence]

Thanks.

That Acronis link is exactly the same page I found when researching this and actually what both allayed my worries, a bit, but also confused me for the same reason. Parameter 183 is usually stated as being vendor specific and that's what the other tools I used all reported. The old but still useful Speccy reports the same parameter as B7 and CrystalDiskInfo uses B7 too without specifying the parameter.

Speccy and CrystalDiskInfo S.M.A.R.T Information

Replacing the SATA cable I'll bet won't change those reports but I have plenty of spares so its no problem at least testing that. All my SATA cables are good quality ones I custom sheathed myself and tied in very securely so shouldn't have worked themselves loose let alone deteriorated. But I suppose after six years use there could be a problem.  

Edited June 23, 2021 by WalksInSilence

[Tripredacus]

Sata cables are weird. I've solved disk errors by not only replacing Sata cables but also just reversing them.

For these "non-errors" I would consider them to be warnings. Make a backup and never take the disk for granted. The last time I had a non-critical warning was for a disk with the Reallocated Sector Count flag in 2015, The disk was "fine" for 4 more years until something on the PCB melted.

[jaclaz]

Well, in the good ol' times whenever you had a problem with a (SCSI) disk you could look everywhere but it was the cable (or more rarely a terminator or connector).

With IDE the only issues were when (newer) devices required 80 wires cables but the old cable was 40 wires OR if you used the CS (Cable Select) option (that rarely worked properly, unlike the manual master/slave jumper setting)

Now, with SATA we are back to whenever you have a problem with a disk you can look everywhere, but it is the cable (actually almost always a connector).

History repeats itself.

jaclaz

 

 

 

 

[JudytPCnerd]

SATA Downshift Error Count S.M.A.R.T. parameter is a Western Digital and Samsung attribute. This parameter can be an indicator of drive aging and/or potential electromechanical problems, it does not directly indicate imminent drive failure.