Question: For some reason, my pending sector count to be remapped is unbelievably high (2163 currently). I’ve seen it go up 20 in one week. But no sectors have been remapped. Dell’s computer diagnostics utility reported no problems, smartctl -H returned PASSED, and I have yet to notice any problems with the hard drive.
So do I need to worry about such a high pending count?
Here are the results of smartctl -A:
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME ?FLAG ?VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE ?UPDATED ?WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE ?1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate ?0x000f ?100 ?100 ?051 ?Pre-fail ?Always ?- ?0 ?3 Spin_Up_Time ?0x0007 ?252 ?252 ?025 ?Pre-fail ?Always ?- ?2062 ?4 Start_Stop_Count ?0x0032 ?097 ?097 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?36147 ?5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct ?0x0033 ?252 ?252 ?010 ?Pre-fail ?Always ?- ?0 ?9 Power_On_Hours ?0x0032 ?095 ?095 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?3261 12 Power_Cycle_Count ?0x0032 ?098 ?098 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?2087191 G-Sense_Error_Rate ?0x0032 ?002 ?002 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?999999192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 ?100 ?100 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?47194 Temperature_Celsius ?0x0022 ?127 ?094 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?37 (Lifetime Min/Max 13/48)196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 ?100 ?100 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?191990197 Current_Pending_Sector ?0x0012 ?100 ?100 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?2163198 Offline_Uncorrectable ?0x0030 ?100 ?100 ?000 ?Old_age ?Offline ?- ?19080199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count ?0x0036 ?252 ?252 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?0200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate ?0x000a ?252 ?252 ?000 ?Old_age ?Always ?- ?0
Edit:
The disk is about 1 1/2 years old. Pending Sector Count was about 2000 when I started keeping an eye on it 2 weeks ago. I have never noticed any problems with the disk. If it makes any difference, I have a Dell M1530 dual boot Vista-Ubuntu. The hard drive is a Samsung HM160HI.
Edit:
Apparently half the problem was that I didn’t (still somewhat don’t) know how to interpret the data.
Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback.
Answer: Your Current Pending Sector Count (2163) is higher than the Reallocation Sector Count (252).This means that failing sectors can no longer be replaced by the disk firmware.The disk is failing – make sure you’ve backups, and get a replacement..