SMART and data integrity
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:17 pm
Ok, I recently decided to check the hard drives on all my PCs, and interesting enough, my new (less than 1 month old) laptop has 443 relocated sectors, and the old laptop (around 5 years) has 197000 relocated sectors. While both Seagate drives on my desktop PC are at 0.
I'm currently thinking about backing up the old laptop, and scrubbing the drive. The problem is, I don't know if the data is intact, and can I rely on latest backup, or should I retain the backups that are older. Does the relocation happens once the data is toast, or is it caught at write time, and hardware retains the data integrity for the write? If the data can be corrupted, is there a way to know which?
And second, is it possible to RMA a drive with 443 relocated sectors if the HDD up-time is measured in less than 100hours?
I'm currently thinking about backing up the old laptop, and scrubbing the drive. The problem is, I don't know if the data is intact, and can I rely on latest backup, or should I retain the backups that are older. Does the relocation happens once the data is toast, or is it caught at write time, and hardware retains the data integrity for the write? If the data can be corrupted, is there a way to know which?
And second, is it possible to RMA a drive with 443 relocated sectors if the HDD up-time is measured in less than 100hours?