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I have an offer to buy a used HGST HUS724020ALA640. The seller sent a screenshot of SMART parameters that are made using CrystalDiskInfo. I have checked these parameters and they are in the reference state (or close to it), except for the raw value of spin-up time:

ID Attribute Name Current Worst Threshold Raw-value
03 spin-up time 126 126 24 00A011EE01F0

Additional information

This hard drive was manufactured in 2016, the operating time is 45,321 hours and the number of power-ups is 29 times (Server usage).

Question

According to S.M.A.R.T. Attribute: Spin-Up Time is defined as:

Spin-Up Time S.M.A.R.T. parameter indicates an average time (in milliseconds or seconds) of spindle spinup (from zero RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) to fully operational).

However, the value 00A011EE01F0 (687495578096 in dec) is too large to be the number of seconds or milliseconds.

What does the raw value of the spin-up time actually mean?

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  • Is there a particular reason you're buying a used HDD? Unless you're very hard up (understandable), HDDs are too cheap to risk buying one that's had some use and could go anyday.
    – Hashim Aziz
    Commented Jul 13, 2022 at 16:58
  • @HashimAziz We can really say that a given disk with such parameters (operating time and spin-up time) can it fail at any time? The seller asked for a price of $ 37, it seemed to me that this was a good offer
    – PavelDev
    Commented Jul 13, 2022 at 17:22
  • Raw values mean whatever the manufacturer wants them to mean.
    – Mark
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 2:40

1 Answer 1

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Spin-up time is a weird parameter with weird values. Most manufacturers treat it as optional and its values vary between them. Usually, the values go backwards, as described below.

S.M.A.R.T. Attribute: Spin-Up Time says this:

Spin-Up Time S.M.A.R.T. parameter indicates an average time (in milliseconds or seconds) of spindle spinup (from zero RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) to fully operational).

The low value means it takes too long for the hard disk to a fully operational state.

Thus a small value means a long spin-up time, but a large value means a short spin-up time.

The nonsense enormous value that you see may mean either :

  • That you have an ultra-ultra-fast disk
  • That the manufacturer uses this parameter in a non-standard way that CrystalDiskInfo does not understand
  • That the manufacturer used this parameter for some other purpose of its own, so it has nothing to do with spin-up time.

You may take your pick of the above. But in all cases, you may just safely ignore this parameter,

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  • "The low value means it takes too long for the hard disk to a fully operational state." In wikipedia(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…) it is indicated that a low value for the Spin-Up Time time is preferable
    – PavelDev
    Commented Jul 13, 2022 at 17:32
  • Yes, the question here is what constitutes a low value. I think you should rather examine the value of Spin Retry Count which indicates timeouts on spin-up.
    – harrymc
    Commented Jul 13, 2022 at 17:36
  • I am concerned that this disk has been working for about 45321 hours. Therefore, additional friction could occur between the parts. Maybe such a huge parameter of spin-up time indicates this? Also, I checked the parameter of Spin Retry Count, it has an ideal value
    – PavelDev
    Commented Jul 13, 2022 at 23:39
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    "low value means it takes too long" most likely refers to the cooked value (where 100 or 200 is normal and lower is always worse). If it was meant to refer to the raw value, then that paragraph flat-out contradicts the previous paragraph, and so nothing on that page can be trusted.
    – benrg
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 4:01
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    @PavelDev: 45321 hours at 10 hours a day means more than 12 years, so that's impossible. Even at 24 hours a day this means more than 5 years. You could cross-check with other parameters, for example Start/Stop Count, for perhaps more reliable data. You could also try another program, such as Speccy.
    – harrymc
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 8:45

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