[PLUG] How many bad sectors is too many?

King Beowulf kingbeowulf at gmail.com
Fri Jun 21 05:54:18 UTC 2013


All depends on sector size, sectors/track, etc. I wouldn't worry.
Under Ubuntu you can check the SMART data with 'disk utility' to see
if the drive is reporting impending doom.

 Try something like

# fdisk -l /dev/sdx

(sudo if you must...) to list the sector size and number of sectors.
If your fdisk defaults to "cylinders" use

# fdisk -lu=sectors

Also, check out

# smartctl -a /dev/sda

To view SMART capabilties and status (see man page).

Hard drives lose a few sectors all the time as they age. No worries
unless the rate goes way up.  For example, my 160GB laptop drive has
312581808 sectors of 512 bytes (ext4). 100 sectors would be a very
small % error.  As long as there is enough room to reallocate and the
bad sector count does not keep increasing, I wouldn't worry.  That
said, "never put all your eggs in one basket" - multiple backups are
important.

Ed


Ed

On 6/20/13, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:
> I have a 1TB drive that is a couple years old. Palimpsest says "103 bad
> sectors, disk is OK." That seems like a lot of bad sectors. Is that
> really OK?
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG mailing list
> PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>

-- 
Sent from my mobile device

You! What PLANET is this!
	-- McCoy, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0



More information about the PLUG mailing list