If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
I have stated previously that I have an older drive that seems to get a
lot of Spin Retry Counts in SMART, but other than that it's rock solid: it has outlasted a whole bunch of newer drives that were previously giving no error messages whatsoever in SMART. Well, it looks like I've now also solved its Spin Retries too. Here's the older thread for reference: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage | Google Groups http://groups.google.com/group/comp....n+spin+retr y Well anyway, what I did recently was that I converted two of those old IDE drives into SATA drives using an IDE-to-SATA converter board that fits right onto the back of the drives themselves. I started noticing that the Spin Retries were gone about two weeks ago, but that was only a week after I installed them, so I didn't want to say anything until I saw a bit more time pass. Well, it's now the three week mark, and I haven't seen any additional spin retries! I've also rebooted the system quite a bit more often than I usually do in that time. HD Sentinel is also now starting to upgrade its Health rating automatically, it had gone down to 40% at its lowest and today it's at 52%. I had previously suspected the IDE cables to be the culprits, so I did change them, but that didn't help any at that time. So at that point I began suspecting the drive itself was getting old (which it is). Looks like now that it's going through SATA cables instead of IDE ones, that the cables were the culprit, even with the newer IDE cables. I'm not sure if this is endemic to IDE cables in general, or if it was just two bad IDE cables in a row. Yousuf Khan |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
Yousuf Khan wrote:
I had previously suspected the IDE cables to be the culprits, so I did change them, but that didn't help any at that time. So at that point I began suspecting the drive itself was getting old (which it is). Looks like now that it's going through SATA cables instead of IDE ones, that the cables were the culprit, even with the newer IDE cables. I'm not sure if this is endemic to IDE cables in general, or if it was just two bad IDE cables in a row. How long were your IDE cables? Were they flat or round? -- I don't understand why they make gourmet cat foods. I have known many cats in my life and none of them were gourmets. They were all gourmands! |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
Daniel Prince wrote:
How long were your IDE cables? Were they flat or round? They were around 20 inches long, from the furthest ends. Now, they were rounded cables in both cases. I had thought of using flat cables, but in the crowded conditions in my case it was pretty difficult to use them without moving a lot of stuff around. Plus the rounded cables gave better cooling. Yousuf Khan |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:01:40 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote: Daniel Prince wrote: How long were your IDE cables? Were they flat or round? They were around 20 inches long, from the furthest ends. Now, they were rounded cables in both cases. I had thought of using flat cables, but in the crowded conditions in my case it was pretty difficult to use them without moving a lot of stuff around. Plus the rounded cables gave better cooling. Yousuf Khan I thought of using certified life vests, but the cardboard ones were much cheaper. Plus the cardboard ones were easier to store. -- Michael Cecil http://home.roadrunner.com/~macecil/ http://home.roadrunner.com/~safehex/ http://home.roadrunner.com/~macecil/hackingw7/ |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
Yousuf Khan wrote:
Daniel Prince wrote: How long were your IDE cables? Were they flat or round? They were around 20 inches long, from the furthest ends. Now, they were rounded cables in both cases. I had thought of using flat cables, but in the crowded conditions in my case it was pretty difficult to use them without moving a lot of stuff around. Plus the rounded cables gave better cooling. Just an update on this old issue. I finally got a chance to try the same drives with the flat IDE cables, and the results were the same as when using the rounded ones. Still no spin retry problem when using the SATA converters and cables, but the problem always crops up when using any sort of IDE cable. Yousuf Khan |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
Yousuf Khan wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote: Daniel Prince wrote: How long were your IDE cables? Were they flat or round? They were around 20 inches long, from the furthest ends. Now, they were rounded cables in both cases. I had thought of using flat cables, but in the crowded conditions in my case it was pretty difficult to use them without moving a lot of stuff around. Plus the rounded cables gave better cooling. Just an update on this old issue. I finally got a chance to try the same drives with the flat IDE cables, and the results were the same as when using the rounded ones. Still no spin retry problem when using the SATA converters and cables, but the problem always crops up when using any sort of IDE cable. Something very strange going on there. Most dont get spin retrys with IDE cables. |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
Yousuf Khan wrote
I have stated previously that I have an older drive that seems to get a lot of Spin Retry Counts in SMART, but other than that it's rock solid: it has outlasted a whole bunch of newer drives that were previously giving no error messages whatsoever in SMART. Well, it looks like I've now also solved its Spin Retries too. Here's the older thread for reference: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage | Google Groups http://groups.google.com/group/comp....n+spin+retr y Well anyway, what I did recently was that I converted two of those old IDE drives into SATA drives using an IDE-to-SATA converter board that fits right onto the back of the drives themselves. I started noticing that the Spin Retries were gone about two weeks ago, Gone from what report ? They shouldnt go from the Everest SMART report, the raw value is a total and should just stop increasing. but that was only a week after I installed them, so I didn't want to say anything until I saw a bit more time pass. Well, it's now the three week mark, and I haven't seen any additional spin retries! Presumably thats what you meant and the previous is just poorly worded. I've also rebooted the system quite a bit more often than I usually do in that time. HD Sentinel is also now starting to upgrade its Health rating automatically, it had gone down to 40% at its lowest and today it's at 52%. I've never considered those numbers are very useful, what matters is the raw value. I had previously suspected the IDE cables to be the culprits, so I did change them, but that didn't help any at that time. So at that point I began suspecting the drive itself was getting old (which it is). Looks like now that it's going through SATA cables instead of IDE ones, that the cables were the culprit, even with the newer IDE cables. I'm not sure if this is endemic to IDE cables in general, or if it was just two bad IDE cables in a row. Its much more likely to be a lot more complicated than that. What else did you change when you moved from IDE to SATA ? Did you change the motherboard or power supply ? The old thread did say you upgraded the power supply. Did you see the spin retry count keep increasing after that ? The only raw value you did post wasnt that high, just 20. |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
Rod Speed wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote I've also rebooted the system quite a bit more often than I usually do in that time. HD Sentinel is also now starting to upgrade its Health rating automatically, it had gone down to 40% at its lowest and today it's at 52%. I've never considered those numbers are very useful, what matters is the raw value. Well, they seem to be based on the same criteria that we'd use to judge quality: how many errors are there, and how often do they occur. Recently they've been occurring much less frequently, so it's been upgrading its rating for the drive. Its much more likely to be a lot more complicated than that. What else did you change when you moved from IDE to SATA ? Did you change the motherboard or power supply ? Neither were changed. Power supply was obviously changed in the previous round of troubleshooting, so it didn't need to be changed again. Motherboard and processor remained what they were too; as a matter of fact the reason this change was done was to eventually upgrade the motherboard and processor down the road -- it's extremely difficult to find new motherboards with more than one IDE channel anymore, so I am preparing for the next generation. It was difficult to find a motherboard with two IDE channels (i.e. 4 connectors) the last time too. There were 4 SATA connections, and 4 IDE connections. Two SATAs were previously unused, so I just moved two IDEs over to SATA. The only things left on IDE are the optical drives. The old thread did say you upgraded the power supply. Did you see the spin retry count keep increasing after that ? Yes, it did keep increasing after that. But the PS upgrade fixed many other unrelated problems so I wasn't unhappy about that. The only raw value you did post wasnt that high, just 20. Well, it's gone upto 32 since then -- and holding. Yousuf Khan |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
Yousuf Khan wrote
Rod Speed wrote Yousuf Khan wrote I've also rebooted the system quite a bit more often than I usually do in that time. HD Sentinel is also now starting to upgrade its Health rating automatically, it had gone down to 40% at its lowest and today it's at 52%. I've never considered those numbers are very useful, what matters is the raw value. Well, they seem to be based on the same criteria that we'd use to judge quality: how many errors are there, and how often do they occur. The raw numbers for that particular drive dont support those 40% and 52% claims, particularly with a parameter like spin retry count thats much more likely to be a problem external to the drive than internal to the drive. Recently they've been occurring much less frequently, so it's been upgrading its rating for the drive. It shouldnt have ever given it a 40% with the raw values you posted. Its much more likely to be a lot more complicated than that. What else did you change when you moved from IDE to SATA ? Did you change the motherboard or power supply ? Neither were changed. Power supply was obviously changed in the previous round of troubleshooting, so it didn't need to be changed again. Motherboard and processor remained what they were too; as a matter of fact the reason this change was done was to eventually upgrade the motherboard and processor down the road -- it's extremely difficult to find new motherboards with more than one IDE channel anymore, so I am preparing for the next generation. It was difficult to find a motherboard with two IDE channels (i.e. 4 connectors) the last time too. Sure, I wondered whether you had changed the motherboard already. There were 4 SATA connections, and 4 IDE connections. Two SATAs were previously unused, so I just moved two IDEs over to SATA. The only things left on IDE are the optical drives. The old thread did say you upgraded the power supply. Did you see the spin retry count keep increasing after that ? Yes, it did keep increasing after that. But the PS upgrade fixed many other unrelated problems so I wasn't unhappy about that. The only raw value you did post wasnt that high, just 20. Well, it's gone upto 32 since then -- and holding. I still find it hard to believe its a cable problem before the change to SATA. |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem
Rod Speed wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote Rod Speed wrote Yousuf Khan wrote I've also rebooted the system quite a bit more often than I usually do in that time. HD Sentinel is also now starting to upgrade its Health rating automatically, it had gone down to 40% at its lowest and today it's at 52%. I've never considered those numbers are very useful, what matters is the raw value. Well, they seem to be based on the same criteria that we'd use to judge quality: how many errors are there, and how often do they occur. The raw numbers for that particular drive dont support those 40% and 52% claims, particularly with a parameter like spin retry count thats much more likely to be a problem external to the drive than internal to the drive. Well, HD Sentinel uses some kind of proprietary internal rating equation, which seems to be logarithmic (slows down as it gets closer to zero). I don't concern myself too much with the absolute values they come up with, just with the relative values. In this case the relative values has indicated an improvement in health has been noted. Yousuf Khan |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Should I worry about Spin Retry Count? | Yousuf Khan | Storage (alternative) | 18 | July 7th 09 10:58 PM |
Idle time spin-down-spin-up for disks? How often is too often? | Al Dykes | Storage (alternative) | 3 | March 10th 06 10:05 AM |
Disk won't spin up/Possible voltage problem | Paul | General | 14 | April 28th 04 05:06 AM |
Disk won't spin up/Possible voltage problem | Paul | Homebuilt PC's | 14 | April 28th 04 05:06 AM |
OpenGL failed to initialize -- Problem Solved!!! well kind of solved. | Jose Jiminez | Nvidia Videocards | 5 | January 13th 04 11:51 AM |