Drive failure expected in less than 24 hours. SAVE ALL DATA.

And so I’ve spent days and days, prolly weeks, to get rid some of the problems I faced in my FreeBSD. Currently running on version 8.0-RELEASE, I’ve upgraded almost all of my installed ports, and get my usb stick to work with the new usb stack. Everything works wonderful, stable and I’m a happy user.

Happy eh?

At least I thought so.

Today it crossed my mind to check how my hard disks are doing and to my surprise, one of the report came back with a failure alert:

# smartctl -d ata -A /dev/ad4
smartctl version 5.38 [amd64-portbld-freebsd8.0] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
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     0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       –       0
3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   165   164   021    Pre-fail  Always       –       4741
4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       –       211
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   065   065   140    Pre-fail  Always   FAILING_NOW 1080
7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000e   200   197   051    Old_age   Always       –       0
9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   085   085   000    Old_age   Always       –       11344
10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   100   051    Old_age   Always       –       0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   100   051    Old_age   Always       –       0
12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       –       209
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   193   193   000    Old_age   Always       –       5447
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       –       1227719
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   097   092   000    Old_age   Always       –       50
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   101   101   000    Old_age   Always       –       99
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       –       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      –       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       –       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   051    Old_age   Offline      –       0

And this makes my heart races even faster:

# smartctl -H /dev/ad4
smartctl version 5.38 [amd64-portbld-freebsd8.0] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: FAILED!
Drive failure expected in less than 24 hours. SAVE ALL DATA.
Failed Attributes:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   065   065   140    Pre-fail  Always   FAILING_NOW 1080

Less than 24 hours? And I happened to be damn lucky to check on my disks today? Since day one I bought the hard disks, I’ve never really checked on it. Today I did, and I got this. Am seriously hoping that it’s just a false alarm (still am gonna do my backups).

And that is my around-2yo WD hard disk. My second WD hard disk. My first WD hard disk failed on me after running for less than a year. Jinx? Lol. Wait. This is not funny! Hmmmpphhhhhhhh..

Anyway, am too frustrated now. My hands are cold, my feet are cold, and all I could think of right now is doing a backup so that I could port my old system to a new hard disk. Which I have to buy..

Speaking of which.. another WD? Seriously I don’t know. Everyone is saying WD is the best, yet 2 of them died (well this one hasn’t died yet but already complaining) fast enough. Maxtor served me for a good 5 years or more, but the reputation isn’t that great either compared to other brands. Suggestion?