I need to kill my 2tb samsung hd right now to get it rma, it's super slow when it is connected to computer via any of my sata port, but if I plug it in via usb as external drive it works fine...

It also seems to have accumulate a few bad sectors too. I think the main cause of this breakdown is due to my HD fan breakage while it was my main irc drive.

anyway it came with 3 yrs warranty so I want a simpler way to prove it is broken instead of spending 2 hours+ on phone since it is 2TB hd that runs super slow.

anyone have any suggestion to stress test program?

 

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SeaTools will work on any brand drive. Do the long read/write tests which'll at the very least tell you if anything is wrong but are a pretty good stress test too since they hit the entire drive.

 

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The HDD may not be perfect but until you sort out other issues, getting a replacement through the RMA process seems to be putting the cart before the horse.

Bad SATA cables can cause weird & inconsistent issues or your SATA controller on your motherboard may be faulty. I get it that you are not happy that you have a large drive with bad spots but I think that until you have the full story, you are taking it out on possibly wrong culprits.

Have you used any third party tools to read the SMART data?

I am always amazed at how the sata cable ends up being the culprit. Be sure to replace the sata cable with one that you KNOW works. I always grab one that has never been used when I think an old one is suspect. I don't have any technical explanation as to why these cables go "bad"...but I've seen it myself. I can't count how many times people have ignored the cable for days or weeks...then found the drive to work perfectly with a new one.

I can think of several threads specifically where the cable was the cause of the exact problem you are experiencing. Food for thought...Aerlinthian's advice is exactly what I was thinking.

 

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used WD tools and perfect disk

1st defrag the HD... with perfect disk, that also test SMART. It would not move a % for about 12 hours after certain point, so I stop

2nd back up/move files. While I did move files out of this hd in past, it was moving them very slow. I thought it was because HD was very fragmented since it is main drive for irc. However it is moving defragmented files at really slow speed too.

Time to open up the computer

I have 3 identical 2tb samsung HD. 2 of them are working perfectly even when I move them around to different SATA ports, including the one that bad HD was on. I tested a few times while I only not changing SATA 0 320GB hd

Of the 3 drives, this drive was only one that was running a lot hotter than other 2, than I realized the fan in front of the HD was spinning 1/8 (w/e) the speed it was suppose to.

Move the HD to better ventilated part of the computer, HD was running cooler, but copy speed was still horrible

I have external usb adapter, but didn't have a spare SATA cable, so I took the one that was being used to connect the faulty HD to the usb adapter as external HD.

The computer boot up 3 times faster...

copying files via usb (this should be slower than sata to sata) was running at normal usb speed (400mb/s I think)

While backing up, I encounters files that can't be read... thus I now know I possibly have a bad sector.

Go look up warranty information and date of purchase from newegg, than dance with joy that I got hd with 3 yrs warranty instead of crappy 1 year they now offer. did happy dance again when I calculated that I have enough HD space between two computers to backup/move everything that was in the HD

Than I realize that this hd will pass any simple test they probably will ask me to perform.....

I place the HD on top of stack of papers... than procrastinated about looking for a stress test program


Should I perform some other tests before I to the Stress Test?

 

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it sounds like you're trying to "break" the drive further, in order for it to fail the mfg tests. if that's the case, we can't morally help you.

i will tell you though that the mfg will have vastly superior ways of testing the drive than are available to any one of us, and you should not distrust them (imo). describe the symptoms in your best broken english, and they will understand enough (as they aren't english as a first language either) to put the drive through rigorous testing and see that it really is broken.

also what the above poster said, a LOT of the time it's the cable itself. i have never seen so many issues with cables EVER in decades of doing this, except with SATA cables. design flaw imho, but what can we do about that. so first, try a new cable, and a new port (with old/new cable) to narrow it down.

also, if you're seeing full speeds with USB connection, that tells me you don't have a bad hdd. from my experience, if the hdd is bad, it will give you slow speeds whether you connect via usb or sata or whatever.

best of luck!

 

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Many people forget that SATA cables are not supposed to be bent too much, I have seen people install new hard drives and use zip ties to pinch the cables together for better air flow, and pinching their SATA cables at almost 180degrees, which of course breaks the cable.
As for Plavati trying to break the hard drive - if stress testing breaks it, then it was faulty. A healthy hard drive should survive a stress test.

Like the few previous posters said though - I have a feeling something else is wrong, if the drive runs at normal speed when connected differently. If the drive was the culprit, then no matter how you connect it, it should run the same.

Palvati, I know you said you moved the drives to different SATA ports, but did you switch the SATA cables the drives used as well?

What I mean is if your default setup is:

HDD1 --cable 1----SATA port 1
HDD2 --cable 2----SATA port 2
HDD3 --cable 3----SATA port 3 ("bad drive"

Did you try connecting HDD 3 to SATA1 connector using HDD 1's cable and HDD1 to SATA3 connector using HDD3's cable?

HDD3 --cable 1----SATA port 1
HDD2 --cable 2----SATA port 2
HDD1 --cable 3----SATA port 3

Another thing to try would be to remove all HDDs you don't need to boot, and keep only the boot HDD and the 2TB drive you think is bad. Then connect the 2TB HDD with each of the 3 cables to each of the SATA ports.

 

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I did this, just didn't explain fully. The reason why I connected to USB was to back up to my 2nd computer, and I was using same SATA cables that weren't working well internally. I really don't understand wtf is wrong with it. I already had to RMA one of the 3 drive (I don't remember which one) a few month ago. The experience with Samsung's outsource team was horrible. (I wish I was in Korea for their excellent CS)

I just purchase a few SATA cables so I can try one more time before writing it completely off, but I don't suspect it.

I had problem with cheap sata connector (the tips) that would bend the wrong way so I know how bad they are..

 

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Boot using an Ubuntu LiveCD. Open a shell.


sudo su -

apt-get install smartmontools


sfdisk -l <--- this will show a listing of all drives the computer has detected. Make a note of the drive you want to test. It'll be /dev/sda or something like that.


smartctl --test=offline /dev/sda (Use the 'offline' test since the drive is presumably not mounted)


You'll have to wait for it to complete.


smartctl -a /dev/sda to get the test results.


The results of the SMART test will definitively tell you what, if anything, is wrong with that drive. Better, there's not a manufacturer on the planet that will argue with your test results. Even Google uses smartctl for its drive diagnostics (and they burn through thousands of commodity drives every year)

 

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I just sent off 4 hard drives of similar age and usage. All 4 are WD RE2 HD's. Only 1 failed SMART.

I promise you that WD will replace all 4.

Good luck.

 

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