I received a Western Digital Blue hard drive from an old desktop that apparently had not been powered on for more than seven years. The drive has always shown a SMART "Caution" status, although it currently works normally and I was able to copy about 351 GB of data to and from it. I also performed a quick zero-write pass using dd on Linux. Is it reasonably safe to keep using this drive, or should I assume it could fail soon?
3 Answers
It can probably be used for temporary or replaceable data, but I would not trust it for backups, personal files, or anything that cannot be restored. Hard drives can keep operating while their health is deteriorating, and an old drive that already reports a warning is not worth taking a risk on. Keep at least one additional copy of every important file, regardless of whether a drive reports a warning.
A SMART “Caution” warning means the drive has reported a condition that deserves attention. It may continue working for a long time, or it could fail without much notice, so don’t use it as the only place for anything important. Copy anything valuable elsewhere and treat this disk as disposable. A zero-write pass only shows that it completed that particular operation; it does not clear or disprove the SMART warning. Check the complete SMART attributes and error log with a diagnostic tool, then look specifically at the overall health status and values such as reallocated, pending, or uncorrectable sectors.
The warning does not necessarily mean the disk will fail immediately, but it does mean the drive’s recorded health is outside its ideal condition. Use a live Linux environment or another SMART-monitoring tool to inspect the actual attributes and error history. If the warning is related to bad, pending, or uncorrectable sectors, retire the drive rather than relying on it.
I already checked it with a basic disk-health utility. Would a more detailed diagnostic tool provide additional SMART information, or should I replace the drive regardless?