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I recently did a SMART scan for an external 2TB Toshiba HDD (using HDD Sentinel):

enter image description here

As you can see the value of Reallocated Sector Count is currently 4856 (raw 0x000012F8 in hex), so the drive is diagnosed as failing.

What strikes me as odd is that the normalized current value for the attribute is still 100, and the worst is also 100. As I understand it, when a value is normalized 100 is the highest (best state) and it gets worse as the normalized value gets lower.

So why is this attribute (Reallocated Sector Count)'s normalized value still 100, even though the raw number indicates a huge number of reallocated sectors?

This drive is also quite new and not frequently used as well, so I'm also a bit skeptical that the number of Reallocated Sector Count can be that high.

Could it be that for this manufacturer, 0x000012F8 is not to be interpreted as a simple hex -> decimal conversion, but should be interpreted in some other ways?

Here is another report using SpeedFan:

enter image description here

It also warns about the high reallocated sector count, but it still puts the attribute in the green zone (perhaps because it only takes the normalized value into consideration).

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  • If there is a manufactures software try it instead. remember there is a "curve" for average hard drive failure rates, any failed manufactuing would show up as problems right away, then things flatten out and the next curve comes after much age. I prefer to only observe the data (therefore threshold data means nothing to me). There are very rare incidents were a multiconnection could be a problem, so How is this connected? USB, direct off a sata, in a cart or seperate box? One thing for sure, you could use it or zero format it and if the quantity changes up a lot, your trust in it goes down.
    – Psycogeek
    Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 3:06
  • Most manufacturers use an upward count starting with 0 for reallocated sectors (I can witness for WD and Seagate), but it is quite possible Toshiba is using the raw value differently, and either of the tools (or both) are interpreting it incorrectly. Its also possible that Toshiba is not playing fairly. My recommendation is to test with a Toshiba utility if possible, and otherwise test with many utilities to see how they all respond. Reallocated sectors are a big deal, in that they destroy data, and that they increase over time at an approximately exponential rate.
    – Frank Thomas
    Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 4:07
  • Sadly Toshiba itself doesn't provide any HDD diagnostic tool. I have used several software to read the SMART data and they all read the Reallocated Sector Count literally. I am willing to believe that the value is correct, even if it seems high. What I don't get is the normalized value still at 100. It should be at somewhere near 0 by now if there's that much reallocated sectors.
    – Chin
    Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 5:40

1 Answer 1

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To directly speak to your question, the RAW and Normalized values are stored separately, not calculated on the fly, which is why it comes out as 100 on every SMART analysis utility (200 is also a common initial Normalized value). My supposition is that Toshiba is failing to update the Normalized value when the raw value changes.

S.M.A.R.T analysis utilities are aware that they may not be able to interpret every disks raw values, so most of them do accept what the Normal/threshold/worst elements say about the stat, even if they may believe that the RAW value says something different, which is why Speedfan is reporting healthy.

As for Toshiba diagnostics, first check here to see if your drive is included: http://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/design-support/partnumber/storage-products.html#diagnostic

Note that Toshiba often ships Fujitsu disks.

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