Home » Questions » Computers [ Ask a new question ]

Can I trust a hard drive that has had to reallocate sectors?

Can I trust a hard drive that has had to reallocate sectors?

I ran this HD utility called CrystalDiskInfo that displays some of the S.M.A.R.T. information on my drives. It is displaying a "Caution" warning on one of my drives because its "Reallocated Sectors Count" value is 263 (ideally it should be 0 as it is on all of the other drives I have tested).

Asked by: Guest | Views: 175
Total answers/comments: 2
Guest [Entry]

"In my experience it's a toss-up. I've had one drive that had some reallocated sectors and a nasty whine that ended up outlasting some drives that gave no warnings before dying a miserable death. I actually chucked it because it was so noisy, rather than data loss.

However, for me, personally, at the first sign of problems in a drive, I backup then swap it off. Drives are cheap, online backups are cheap and if you're anything like me, your time is better spent elsewhere than trying to recover a drive."
Guest [Entry]

I have drive that has 165 of them for a long time now. They all happened at one time and never increased since (two years ago). I would just closely monitor that figure. If it is just one time increase, do not worry.