I'm feeling a bit anxious after experiencing a silent drive failure in the past that damaged half of my music files without any warning. Recently, my trusted Western Digital Gold drive acted up while playing a video, and I checked the SMART data. It showed CRC errors: [C7] UltraDMA/SATA CRC Error Rate: 199/Always OK, Worst: 199 (Data = 2915,0). Other diagnostic tests indicate that the drive is fine, but I haven't noticed any data corruption. I'm frustrated because, under normal circumstances, I would just replace the drive, but that's tough to do right now. The drive has been powered on for about 1.25 years. Just now, while backing up some files, the data has gone up to 4014.0. How concerned should I be about this?
3 Answers
It might be time to run a chkdsk on that drive just to be safe. It helps identify any potential file system issues. Better to check now than have a surprise later!
Stay vigilant. Make sure you back up any important files now, and look to replace the drive when you can. It's better to be safe than lose anything important during a time when replacements are tough to find!
I’m backing up everything right now. Luckily, it’s mostly non-critical stuff, but I do store some work files on it.
Just keep in mind that CRC errors are a warning sign but not necessarily catastrophic. Those numbers can be tricky; you have to understand how the manufacturer parses the data. If you don’t know what they are, stop checking and stressing yourself over it!
How can I interpret these codes better? Also, none of my other ECC metrics have changed. Could this be a failing SATA cable? I mean, it was new when it was installed 5 years ago.
I ran chkdsk and it reported no errors, which is good to know!