The hard drive, HDD or SSD, it the most important part of our PC, containing irreplaceable data. Unfortunately, it is not a matter of "If" a hard drive fails, but of "When". Using CrystalDiskInfo we can predict if hard disk failure is imminent, and backup our files in time.
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The S.M.A.R.T. way to predict hard disk failure
The worst thing about hard disk failure - apart from losing any file we didn't have a backup of - is that it will often come out of the blue.
Sometimes we might hear clicking sounds from the drive, or get file/folder related error messages. Most of the time, though, the drive will seem to work just fine, and we get a BSOD on the next reboot or a message like that...
It's good then that there is a system that can statistically predict hard drive failure. Its name is Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T) and it is part of any hard drive that has been manufactured the past decade.
The S.M.A.R.T protocol was developed by IBM, Seagate, Quantum, Conner, and Western Digital in 1995, based on an earlier system by IBM. It measures key characteristics of the HDD, such as the read error rate, reallocated sectors, seek error rate, etc. which can be used to predict hard disk failure.
Unfortunately, even though there have been more than half a dozen of Windows versions since 1995, not one of them can read the S.M.A.R.T data, probably for licensing reasons.
So, we need to use external software to monitor S.M.A.R.T and our hard drive's health. And CrystalDiskInfo is one of the best such programs.
Download and Install CrystalDiskInfo
We will find the latest version of CrystalDiskInfo at
http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html
It's best to download the portable version because it can run without an installation, and it also doesn't feature third-party apps, like the full CrystalDiskInfo installer.
After we download the .zip file, we "Extract all" of its content...
...and run the DiskInfo application. DiskInfoX64 is for 64-bit Windows, and DiskInfo is for 32-bit Windows.
How CrystalDiskInfo predicts Hard Disk Failure
The first time we run the application, it will immediately show us the S.M.A.R.T. status for all of our hard drives.
If the "Health Status" is "Good", the disk is probably OK.
On the bottom half of the main application Window, we will see all the fifteen different metrics CrystalDiskInfo takes into consideration, to predict hard drive failure.
Some of them are simple statistics, such as the Start/Stop Count, the Power-On Hours, or the Power Cycle Count. Others are more serious metrics, like the Reallocated Sectors Count...
...or the Read Error Rate.
As you understand, having a "Caution" or a "Bad" health status can predict imminent hard drive failure.
How to read and interpret CrystalDiskInfo data
While the Health Status is loud and clear, and pretty easy to understand, the rest of the data can be daunting for a beginner.
This, however, is easy to fix. First we go to Function -> Advanced Feature -> Raw Values and select 10[DEC].
After that, we completely disregard the "Current", "Worst" and "Threshold" columns, and only look at the raw values.
In the above example, the Reallocated Sectors Count is 0, not 100 or 10.
Reallocated sectors are one of the most severe conditions for a hard drive. A single sector isn't the messenger of a complete hard disk failure by itself. But if the sectors are multiplying, it's a sure sign that something is wrong.
From the rest of the metrics, if one deserves our attention, CrystalDiskInfo will change its color to yellow for caution or red if it is bad.
If we have a couple of "cautions" but not enough to affect the disk's health status, we should just keep an eye on them. In such a case, it's a good idea to run CrystalDiskInfo once or twice a week to see if there is any change.
Should I panic if I get a Caution or Bad health status?
We must always keep in mind that CrystalDiskInfo cannot read the future. The best it does is statistical predictions, based on the S.M.A.R.T. data.
In other words, there have been hard drives with "Caution" that continued working flawlessly for years, and "Good" hard drives that failed the next day.
So, we must not rush to replace a hard drive with a "Caution" health status. Instead, we should take a full backup of any essential files, which is something we should be doing on every hard drive, even the "Good" ones.
If however we get a "Caution" or a "Bad" health status, we should follow-up with a full disk scan, that could potentially discover deeper problems with the hard drive. On a future guide, we will cover the best disk checking software.
Stay tuned!
Do you suspect an imminent Disk Failure for one of your hard drives?
If you have a caution or bad health status, and want a second opinion, you can leave us a comment with a screenshot of your CrystalDiskInfo results.
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axe says
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskInfo 6.3.0 (C) 2008-2015 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
Date : 2016/03/21 21:28:37
-- Controller Map ----------------------------------------------------------
- ATA Channel 1 (1) [ATA]
+ ATA Channel 2 (2) [ATA]
- HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH20NS10 ATA Device
- ATA Channel 3 (3) [ATA]
+ ATA Channel 0 (0) [ATA]
- ST500DM002-1BC142 ATA Device
- ATA Channel 1 (1) [ATA]
+ Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller [ATA]
- ATA Channel 0 (0)
- ATA Channel 1 (1)
- ATA Channel 2 (2)
- ATA Channel 3 (3)
+ Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller [ATA]
- ATA Channel 0 (0)
- ATA Channel 1 (1)
+ AC1916K8 IDE Controller [SCSI]
- DUD ZWDAZKDAZ0D SCSI CdRom Device
-- Disk List ---------------------------------------------------------------
(1) ST500DM002-1BC142 : 500.1 GB [0/4/0, pd1] - st
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) ST500DM002-1BC142
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model : ST500DM002-1BC142
Firmware : JC4B
Serial Number : W2A0NQVY
Disk Size : 500.1 GB (8.4/137.4/500.1/500.1)
Buffer Size : 16384 KB
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 976773168
Rotation Rate : 7200 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4
Transfer Mode : SATA/300 | SATA/600
Power On Hours : 5264 hours
Power On Count : 52480 count
Temperature : 44 C (111 F)
Health Status : Good
Features : S.M.A.R.T., AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : ----
AAM Level : D0D0h [ON]
-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 117 _99 __6 000008341C15 Read Error Rate
03 100 100 __0 000000000000 Spin-Up Time
04 _37 _37 _20 00000000FFFF Start/Stop Count
05 100 100 _36 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 _78 _60 _30 00000397A1BB Seek Error Rate
09 _94 _94 __0 000000001490 Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _97 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0C _49 _37 _20 00000000CD00 Power Cycle Count
B7 100 100 __0 000000000000 Vendor Specific
B8 _28 _28 _99 000000000048 End-to-End Error
BB 100 100 __0 000000000000 Reported Uncorrectable Errors
BC 100 _94 __0 000100010077 Command Timeout
BD 100 100 __0 000000000000 High Fly Writes
BE _56 _42 _45 03482C20002C Airflow Temperature
C2 _44 _58 __0 00150000002C Temperature
C3 _40 _25 __0 000008341C15 Hardware ECC recovered
C5 100 100 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 100 100 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 159 __0 0000000000AE UltraDMA CRC Error Count
F0 100 253 __0 70C10003BE6C Head Flying Hours
F1 100 253 __0 0000FD7ABB8E Total Host Writes
F2 100 253 __0 0000A801ED36 Total Host Reads
Does this look bad?
Ørjan Lønningen says
It's such a shame that some quite some Seagate disks uses a 32bit (or something) value system for some of the values, making the readout in the billions for many of the important/interesting values (also temperature reads as 81604378652
so I'd guess the developer has to make some function to detect and display other bit values properly.
Roxane says
Thank you so much! I just downloaded crystaldiskinfo and I was a bit lost. So your article was a big help!
Praneeth Pardhu says
These are my crystaldiskinfo results and I've read many forums but can't find solution.
Main problem is that my disk writing speed became very low(like 1-2 mbps). I've defragmented my disk two times(when it showed 9% and 10% fragmented) and now it is not even fragmented. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/91931939a09a6d1ba15eb7fd89d9dd20e1c56cbfdca52e40c6ac0916c911ab78.png
Angelos Kyritsis says
The 2a0 at the reallocated sectors count means that you have 672 reallocated sectors on your disk. This number is worryingly large, and it is a clear indication that your drive is failing.
If I were you, I would back up all my files to other disks, and buy a new one. Unfortunately this is a hardware failure, and there is nothing else you could do.
my relocated sectors count number says: 589920 and it says caution in yellow
(Says current 100/ worst 100/ threshold 5 )
what does that mean? will it fail soon?
If the raw value is 589920, indeed your disk is failing. You should backup your files ASAP.
i downloaded Defraggler and Auslogics Disk Defrag just to see what they said and both programs say that the disk health is good
does that mean anything?are they falsely telling me it is in good health?
I am not sure if either of those programs uses the SMART data for the hard drive.
The sectors that are reallocated are actually bad sectors that are invisible to the operating system and programs such as defraggler.
This forum post explains it quite nicely:
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=22062211&sid=239cbc0da70cfaa2986e825720a92cec#p22062211
thank you!
Hello,
My disk was behaving oddly, so i figured to check if i had a failing HDD.
I do have a question, one of the 2 drives show "read error rate" (the ssd one isn;t showing this value, my HDD is) the end number is still 0, but i am curious to why it shows on one drive and not on the other.
Here are 2 screenshots
SSD: http://imgur.com/oo0Lsof
HDD: http://imgur.com/oU8nU7J
And it is the HDD that is behaving oddly (it takes a while before i can play a video of 800~mb for example) Are both my drives OK?
Thanks for reading.
It's normal for SSD and HDD drives to provide different SMART values since they have a different architecture.
This kind of delay on your HDD could be attributed to other issues, such as disk fragmentation, the drive being too full, a random OS malfunction etc.
Of course, it is something you should try and diagnose. A "good" health status on CrystalDiskInfo is not a guarantee that the disk won't fail, SMART is useful but it isn't perfect.
First, make sure the drive has at least 20% free space, then run a disk defragmenter. If neither of those actions help, you can try to reinstall Windows, or connect the HDD on a different PC to see if the problem persists.
Thanks for the reply.
The HDD is in a laptop, so putting it into another PC is not an option, since i only have this laptop. The drive has plenty of space left (300GB~ out of 960) so space is not an issue.
Could you recommend me a good disk fragment program? (is the build-in windows version any good?)
The Windows version is good enough, for all intents and purposes.
If you are looking for a fast defragmenter, Iobit Smart Defrag 5 is the fastest we have tried http://www.iobit.com/en/iobitsmartdefrag.php
hey there so i have a lenovo laptop y5070 about 3 years old and a month ago my win 10 started freezing and i was hearing grinding noises so i took it and they said its a windows issue and they reinstalled a windows but a week ago the grinding noise came back and i thought windows is broken again after 3 restarts it came back fine and same thing happend yesterday and i think its hdd failure so i installed the program and it says caution the relocated sectors and pending sectors are yellow and i think all are above threshold any advise ?
Hey Hannan,
Well, the grinding noise is a dead givaway that there is a serious mechanical problem with your drive. You should replace it ASAP.
Hello
I would like your opinion on this hard drive.
Hey! ,
Kindly have a look at this,Should I worry about this problem ?
its showing 68 Raw value of Re allocated Sectors count! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d79f033278890b00a3d174834ea286ebf0ad71a16416f7b706789c9cae7d2b74.png
If you're still analyzing images, please have a look and tell me what you think. Thank you! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e3cee94c064961556cddd9491f12471aeee40dd394ae5121a381ca2ad4062cb.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/071c69d38d3570c216bb19a14baf4c6bcb52319b09e8d9dca316c776269d4049.png Hello Guys here's a screen shot maybe you can give me some info as i know some drive may last forever like you state ! ( This was a new 3TB Drive got it on E-bay ? As you can see from theRunTime in the image)