HD Performance Dropping, Red

[flmc]

Hello, I'm currently running Linux Mint 20.1 (Cinnamon 64-bit) and recently I've noticed performance issues with an additional hard drive I use for storage (no OS-specific data on it). Specifically, reads and writes seem dramatically slower. I've also had some issues with copying files from this drive to another, but I'm afraid I didn't capture the specific error message. This is a Toshiba HDWR160, 6TB.

Running smartctl -t short yields no issues:

Code: Select all

sudo smartctl -H /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [x86_64-linux-5.4.0-117-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Please note the following marginal Attributes:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   098   014   050    Pre-fail  Always   In_the_past 0

I was in the Disks window today and I noticed that this particular drive is red in the left-hand pane listing all the drives, while all the others in standard black. I ran Check Filesystem on this drive and the results came back good ("undamaged").

Can anyone tell me what this red coloring signifies, and perhaps provide some guidance on how I can more thoroughly investigate what might be happening?

Thank you for any help.

[antikythera]

I wouldn't count on being able to access data from that drive, back it up regularly and find a replacement asap. where's the rest of the smartctl output? run a full test, not a short one.

[flmc]

I ran smartctl -t long; took quite a bit of time, but the results seem to be the same:

Code: Select all

$ sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [x86_64-linux-5.4.0-117-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 632 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Thu Jun 30 17:13:34 2022 EDT
Use smartctl -X to abort test.
$ sudo smartctl -H /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [x86_64-linux-5.4.0-117-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Please note the following marginal Attributes:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   014   050    Pre-fail  Always   In_the_past 0

Are there any different/more thorough tests I can run? Certainly seems odd that nothing is found. Can you tell me what the red highlighting means? Are there certain tests performed that yield this result?

Thanks.

[antikythera]

The red is based on that one warning being that the drive has already failed. BUT it's debatable how seriously you should take it. The reason being that apparently it's a specific value only Seagate drives can work with properly according to one site which is a wiki about raid with a disclaimer about accuracy of information being down to the author's personal experience at the top of it.

https://wiki.unraid.net/Understanding_S ... Error_Rate

Either way, keep regular backups because it could still pack up at any moment even if that threshold value means nothing for the drive you have. If S.M.A.R.T. cannot read the values for the drive properly it may be missing something else equally important as the false positive (not sure how clear that is as I think in Welsh first and have to translate but hopefully you get the point).