I've recently come across a pair of HDDs that have started displaying SMART warnings, indicating that they're experiencing sector failures. While I understand this usually means the drives are nearing the end of their life and I've already replaced them with new ones, I'm curious if there's a way to repurpose these old drives for less critical data storage. Specifically, if I perform a full secure erase, is there software that can help me map the current bad sectors so I can try to write to only the reliable parts? I'm also interested in whether the rate of degradation continues even if the drives are not actively used. I'm trying to avoid e-wasting them if they can still hold some media backups, just in case my active drives fail in some extreme situation. Any insights would be appreciated!
4 Answers
Using these failing drives seems risky; once SMART starts throwing errors, it’s a clear warning. You'd be better off investing in new drives for reliable backups; they're fairly inexpensive these days.
Generally, it’s not a good idea to rely on drives that are already showing SMART errors. Once you see those warnings, it’s a sign of potential failure. Engineers often recommend against using those drives for anything important. Even if you manage to map the bad sectors and only use the good ones, there's still a chance that the drive could fail completely at any time.
I’ve already switched out the failing drives for new ones. I just wanted to explore if there were any new techniques to salvage them for non-essential backups.
You can use chkdsk on NTFS drives or a badblocks test on ext4 systems to try and avoid bad sectors. Just keep an eye on those SMART values before and after you write data—if they start climbing higher, it could lead to a data loss. If you go this route, treat the backups as temporary storage only.
That makes sense! I’ll definitely be keeping a close watch on the SMART stats while using them.
While it's technically possible to use tools to remap bad sectors, remember that SMART failures indicate something is already wrong. If the number of bad sectors is increasing, that’s a bad sign. If you choose to use the drives, make sure you verify the data afterward. Just don’t trust them with anything you can’t lose.
Exactly, I'm thinking of using them just for media files that I can replace easily if needed.
I just replaced them, but I thought it would be a waste to toss them immediately! If any new solutions have come out for this situation, I’d like to know.