I'm feeling a bit anxious because I once had a hard drive die on me and it took a lot of my music files with it before I even realized it. Recently, one of my trusty Western Digital Gold drives had a strange hiccup while I was watching a video. Out of curiosity, I checked the SMART data and found that it recorded CRC errors: [C7] UltraDMA/SATA CRC Error Rate at 199, with a Worst stat of 199 (Data = 2915,0). Most of the diagnostics I know how to run indicate the drive is fine, and I haven't noticed any corrupted files so far. I'm worried though—should I be concerned about these CRC errors? It's frustrating because I'd normally just swap the drive, but doing so is tricky right now. The drive has been powered on for about 1.25 years. But now, after moving some files to my backup, that data has shot up to 4014.0.
3 Answers
You should definitely run 'chkdsk' to check for issues on the drive. It's a good first step to see if there’s anything wrong.
Just looking at that number isn't enough. You need to understand how the manufacturer splits the data in hex. The raw number might be something like 000000004A19, where the first few hex digits represent errors, and the rest indicate total reads over time. Honestly, if you don’t fully understand this stuff, stop stressing yourself out by interpreting it incorrectly!
So, how should I read this data? Also, since none of the ECC metrics have changed, could it point to a failing SATA cable? I mean, the cable was new when I installed it, and it’s been there for five years, but I've never had a cable fail before. Planning to swap it out just in case.
Just make sure you’ve got backups for any important data, now or in the future. It’s better to be safe than sorry. I’d have a backup ready for good measure—never know when it might fail unexpectedly!
I'm actually backing up that drive right now. Good thing it's mostly for non-critical storage, but it does hold some work files. In a normal year, I’d just replace it without a thought.
I did that, and thankfully, there were no errors.